milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

max guevera,
tool

(no subject)

Apparently, Max's research has branched out to newspaper articles. Or at least that's the most logical explanation for the stack of newspapers strewn about her booth. She's sipping coffee and paging thoughtfully through them, in no visible order.

Feel free to bother her, she won't bite.

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Look, it's like magic! Papers are being cleane dup and straightened, she can't help it as they drift about.

Max looks up sharply, startled.

"Oh. Hello..."

"Greetings, Mistress" she answered quietly, retrieving more of the fluttering papers.

She stacks the papers she'd been reading, and sets them aside. "How are you tonight?"

"Well Mistress. I was sick but it has been healed and cleaned properly"

Someone should tell her notto swallow stones.

Max's eyes narrow slightly in worry. "You were sick? What happened?"

"Lady Lust bid me swallow a small stone."

She sank to her knees beside Max's chair, awaiting punishment for failingto obey a Mistress.

"...What?" Her voice has turned quiet, deadly. At least the anger isn't directed at Tool?

"You didn't, did you?"

"I failed Mistress" Anger is anger, and she is teh onlytarget available. Her gaze dropped to the floor and if she coudl fear she would.

"Did you swallow it?" She's had more than enough training to wrestle her anger under control, though the tension humming through her body makes it clear it's still there.

"Yes, Mistress" it had not even burned as coals had, and yet she could not keep it down!

There is a moment in which Max just stares.

"...Why?"

"Lady Lust bid me do so" she answered.

Was Mistress testing her?

"And you did it?" Max goes deathly pale.

"You...anything anyone tells you to do, you'll do it, won't you?"

She hadn't thought of that.

"Of course Mistress"

She lifted her hand to Max's cheek "Are you unwell Mistress?"

"No...I'm not unwell. Just..."

Terrified of what someone might make you do.

"You'll follow my orders over theirs?"

She still sounds sick.

"Of course Mistress"

Mistress comes first.

"All right..."

She falls silent for a moment. Her first instinct is to order Tool to follow no one's orders, but that would create an unsolveable paradox, wouldn't it?

"You will follow no one's orders but mine, unless I expressly tell you that you may do so. Do you understand?"

"Yes Mistress" she agreed calmly.

"Am I to seek you when ordered by another?"

"If they try to force you to comply, or seem as though they intend to harm you, yes." There's steel in her tone. "Come to me immediately, and I will deal with them."

...It probably won't be pleasant.

"Harmless orders I am not to seek you for?" she asked, a little confused. "How may I know of your consent?"

"I'll tell you if you may take orders from people. If I haven't told you that you can do as they wish, then I don't consent. Do you understand?"

Beat.

"Even if I have told you that you may follow their orders, you must come find me if they seem harmful."

Curses, and so on.

She nodded slowly "Whom may I accept orders from?"

She understood it as there being an apprived list...

She tries to think of a list.

At the moment, she can't think of anyone.

"No one save me. I'll tell you if that changes."

"Yes Mistress"

She will not forget.

"."

She closes her eyes briefly. "If anyone tries to hurt you, I want you to immediately find me, or find someone wearing one of these," she places her badge on the table, "if I'm not immediately available. You will be protected."

She studied the badge for a moment then nodded "yes Mistress"

Then she blinked slowly "What is harm?"

"Injury," she replies quietly. "You understand injury, yes?"

"Yes Mistress"

But she has no survival instinct, she cannot truly comprehend what Max is worrying about.

"If anyone seems as though they are going to injure you, find me, or someone wearing a badge like that."

She doesn't have to understand, this time. Just do as she's told.

This sickens Max, really.

"I don't want you hurt."

"How much damage does Mistress sees as Injury?" she asked softly. after all, se earned punishment often...

"Any damage done deliberately. At all."

So that there isn't trouble if someone accidentally trips over the girl, unlikely as that is.

"Yes Mistress"

That will be a strange thing to contemplate. Deliberate injury, at all.

Max has a talent for doing strange things.

"Have you eaten recently?"

"When Mistress ate in the rooms" she answered. She has to remember such things.

"We'll have dinner, then. And then you should sleep."

She looksthe girl over, cringing a little. "And please, wear the clothing the Bar created? It is far more appropriate..."

"Yes Mistress" she trotted off to Bar for a tray and returned.

She has been wearing the Bar clothing...in order of the hangars in the closet, but she'd emptied the ones before the lace...

"Thank you." Quietly. For the agreement, not the food, but she leaves it open for Tool to interpret as she will.

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