Furaffin City is a social town. There's a swinging hot spot on every corner and a group account for every fetish under the sun (and for several more that never see the light of day). There is one bar, however, where the patrons always drink alone. It is the plainest, most unappealing establishment in this dramatically colorful city. No fur ever comes here by choice, but it is always crowded. Most of them are never even sure how they end up here in the first place. The mood is subdued. No one likes it, but they nevertheless find it hard to leave. It is called Art Block. On this dreary night, a wild ass sits by himself at a table, drinking Mountain Dew just to pass the time. His long brown-tipped ears droop depressed, his tufted tail sways bored. He idly wonders why Pepsi doesn't sell Code Red in six-packs of plastic bottles anymore. He has been here for two months. "Is this seat taken?" a feminine voice inquires. The ass grunts noncommittally. The female sits down across from the ass. She is a voluptuous scarlet vixen with dark ears with small touches of blonde at the tips, wearing a black kimono with a red floral pattern. The ass recognizes her immediately; he created her after all. "What are you doing here, Halo?" "I'm worried about you, Kinto. You haven't posted a new story since before Anthrocon." "I know." "I want to get you out of here before we have a repeat of last time. How long was it?" "Too long," Kinto mumbles. "What seems to be the problem? No inspiration?" "Too much inspiration. Ideas keep buzzing around my head, bullying each other into the back of my mind. I can't concentrate on just one idea properly. I can't complete a story before I get distracted and start on another one. I want my stories to have plot, and backstory. I get bogged down in all that and then I get stuck before I get to the meaty bits. And what I do write feels awkward, stilted, unexciting. I have... at least three stories that I've started and now lack the drive to finish. The words just aren't flowing right." "Have you tried writing a story without any backstory? Just to get something completed?" "It might be worth a try..." Kinto mumbles. "Let me help." "How?" "My artisan finally finished that gallows I commissioned back in 'Problem Solving.' I need to test it out." "Has potential... What did one of your slaves do this time?" "I'm Halo Mason, the ruthless and sadistic owner of the largest slave trading firm in the city. I don't need a reason." "But..." "Kinto, we agreed. No backstory. Do you want me to help you or not?" "But... Doesn't this conversation we're having right now count as backstory?" "No. This bar is non-canon." "Fair enough. Let's go." Kinto downed the last of his allegedly citrus-flavored cocktail of high fructose corn syrup and caffeine in one gulp and stood up. Together, Halo and Kinto walked back through the fourth wall and into the story. -- Halo's Gallows by Kinto Mythostian Vara stood perfectly straight in the darkened room, anxiously twining her hands together in front of her. There was no one else that she could sense, and she could see nothing beyond the small circle of light where she had been told to wait after being ordered to strip to her bare fur. The white vixen didn't even know where she was; she was fairly certain she was still in mistress's penthouse, but it was a room she'd never been in before. She worked in the kitchen, cleaning dishes until they shined. She hardly ever laid eyes on Mistress Halo. Why had she summoned Vara up here? Somewhere she heard a door open. Vara stood up even straighter at the sound of approaching footsteps and bowed her head. Mistress Halo stepped into the light wearing her favorite black silk kimono, the one with the red floral pattern. Her personal young slave vixen Toy trailed close behind, dressed today in an elaborate Lolita confection of pastel blue and white lace. "H-hello, Mistress Halo," Vara spoke. Halo lashed out, slapping the white vixen's cheek hard. Vara let out an involuntary yelp of pain. "How dare you 'Hello, Mistress Halo' me? After what you've done?" Vara was bewildered. What was Mistress Halo talking about? "I am very disappointed in you, Vara. What do you have to say for yourself?" Vara whimpered in indecision, unsure how to respond. "Answer me, slave!" Halo slapped Vara again. Vara yelped. "Please, Mistress Halo, I don't know what you're talking about," she cried. Halo seethed with barely contained rage. "You have the gall to stand before me and lie to my face? You insolent achromatic cur. This is your last chance to tell me the truth." Vara went for broke. She didn't know what she had done, but she could at least try to play along. "I'm sorry! It'll never happen again, I swear! I'm so so sorry." She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Halo looked down in contempt. "You are sorry." "Yes! I am! It was an accident!" "An accident?!" Halo roared. Vara looked up in horror. How could that have been the wrong thing to say? She was sure she would never purposely do something to anger Mistress Halo. "I don't want to hear another filthy lie from your mouth. Toy, muzzle the slave." Vara didn't dare resist as Toy produced a leather muzzle and wrapped it around her snout, securing it uncomfortably tight. The white vixen noticed that Toy deliberately avoided making eye contact. "Stand up, slave." Vara rose so quickly her joints popped. She kept her eyes directed towards her own footpaws as Mistress Halo began to circle her. "Do you think you're special? Do you think you have the right to do what you want? Do you think you have value because I chose you to work in my own home?" Halo punctuated each question with sharp stinging slaps to Vara's ivory posterior. Vara did not resist as her mistress pulled her wrists behind her back and secured them in place with padded leather cuffs. "You are a slave!" This pronouncement was accompanied by the harshest slap yet. "You are not special. You have no rights. You have no value. What little value you may have had has been lost through your own fault. Do you understand?" Vara nodded; it was the only thing she could do. "I have no use for a slave who forgets her place." Tears were leaking from Vara's eyes. Everyone knew what Mistress Halo did to slaves she had no use for. "Turn around, slave." Vara shuffled around in a slow circle and looked up. Even though she had been expecting it, the sight that greeted her still made her knees buckle. Standing in another pool of light not three meters way was a towering wooden gallows. "Follow, slave," Halo commanded and began to walk towards it. Toy prodded Vara in the back and the white vixen reluctantly trod to her own doom, her bushy white tail tucked meekly between her legs. She kept her eyes downcast, not daring to look at the terrible construction as she approached the steps. "Slave! Eyes up here!" Halo barked before adding, "I want you to appreciate the craftsmanship." Vara raised her eyes. This close, she was able to clearly see the construction of the gallows. At first glance it appeared to be oddly misshapen, but as she looked more she saw that the whole construction had in fact been elaborately carved. The platform was supported at each corner by a wooden post that had been carved with crawling flames; small glittering golden devils peered out from within the fire. On the platform the upright of the gallows was fashioned in the shape of a tall gaunt figure wearing a flowing robe. At the very top a carved fox skull peered menacingly out from under the hood; a vulpine grim reaper. Every bared fang was carved in obsessive detail and two tiny pinpricks of reflected light shone from the depths of the bottomless black eye sockets. The figure's left arm was held out straight from its body to form the gibbet; a waiting noose dangled from its clenched skeletal fist. Its right arm was held close to the emaciated body, the hand holding... something; Vara couldn't see it very well from her current vantage point. "My artisan has really outdone himself this time," Halo said, "Don't you agree, slave?" Vara nodded automatically. The overall effect of the statuesque gallows was undeniably impressive and at the same time horrifying. "I thought about using pearls for the eyes, but I think the black diamonds look so much better. Pearls just don't have the glitter, you know what I mean?" Again, Vara nodded. "I told you not to lie to me, you stupid cunt," Halo snapped, "When have you ever seen a pearl?" Vara's eyes widened in nervous terror. Mistress Halo was right; Vara had never seen a pearl. Come to that, she'd never seen a black diamond either. "Get up here, slave." Vara began to climb the gently climbing staircase without even needing a prod from Toy. The steps were smooth and polished, and took her weight soundlessly. Vara racked her brain trying to think what she had done to deserve this, but could think of nothing. Mistress Halo had decided she deserved to die and there was nothing Vara could do to change her mind. Before she even knew it, she had reached the top step and was standing on the platform beside her mistress. The terrible wooden vulpine anatomy loomed over her, grinning malevolently. "Hurry up, onto the door, slave. I don't have all day to waste on your worthless carcass." Halo pointed at a square of wood surrounded by clearly visible seams. Vara took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut and stepped forward. The trapdoor didn't creak under her weight. This was the last solid surface she would ever feel beneath her footpaws; Mistress Halo was going to kill her, and she didn't even know why. Vara whimpered as Mistress Halo deliberately brushed the noose against her slave's cheek and then draped it over her milky-furred shoulders. Vara gasped as Mistress Halo slid the oiled knot tight against the nape of her neck, smoothly cinching her throat in the deadly clutch of the noose. Tears leaked from the corners of her closed eyes and trickled through her fur. Halo stepped up behind her noosed slave and wrapped her arms around the trembling white vixen, pressing their bodies together, eliciting an 'eep' from Vara. This close, she could plainly smell the heady aroma of Halo's arousal. Halo fondled her slave's breasts and whispered in her pointed ear, "Open your eyes, slave." Vara nervously complied, blinking several times to clear away the tears. When she could see clearly, she saw her own pitiful visage staring back at her. The object held in the reaper's right hand was a mirror, angled perfectly for her to see herself. She would get to watch her own death. "Lovely view, isn't it?" Halo purred into Vara's ear. "In my opinion, there are few things prettier than a wayward slave about to get what she deserves. You are going to dance nice and slow for me, and you have no one to blame but yourself, slave." Vara whined. She was used to unfair treatment; it came with being a slave. She had never expected this, though. She liked cleaning dishes; it was a simple job but she was good at it. She didn't want to die. Halo ran her fingers through Vara's velvety fur, making the white vixen shiver. "Such a lovely pelt, too. It should fetch a pretty good price, I hope." A pelt. That's all that would be left of her. Vara suspected her fur would probably end be being treated better than she ever had been. Halo stepped back, leaving Vara alone on the trapdoor. She took a moment to admire the tableau before her: a terrified vixen slave; bound, muzzled, and noosed; held in the clutches of the Death of Foxes; ready to swing at Halo's whim. A throb of arousal pulsed through the dominant vixen's loins and she purred to herself. "Good-bye, Vara," she said aloud. Vara whimpered and again squeezed her eyes shut, her entire body tensed, waiting for death. Halo let her stew in anticipation a moment longer and then abruptly threw the lever. The trapdoor swung open on a perfect arc and slammed to a stop with an echoing bang. Vara stood on air for less than a second before dropping a scant few inches into the terminal grasp of the noose. Her eyes snapped open as brilliant stars of pain burst in front of her vision, the rope around her neck squeezing tighter than she would have ever thought possible. Her legs kicked reflexively to find support and her arms strained against her cuffs, her motions setting her entire body swaying. The rope creaked and pulled taut, but held firm. When the first moments of blinding pain abated, Vara regained some measure of control of her writhing body. The stars receded from her vision and a horrible sight greeted her. A pair of bloodshot eyes, wide and staring as they bulged from their sockets stared back at her from a muzzled tear-soaked face that was as white as a ghost. Vara jerked back from the terrifying sight of her own reflection, the motion sending a violent tremor through her entire dangling body. Her shriek of terror escaped as a shrill whistle through her nostrils. Her jaws strained against the restrictive muzzle, her swollen tongue filling her mouth, pressing uncomfortably against her teeth and palate. The pain was intense, her throat collapsed and her veins crushed. Vara could feel every panicked beat of her heart, pounding incessantly like a hammer on the inside of her skull. Her lungs were heavy with white-hot iron, burning away the last of her precious oxygen, growing heavier by the second. Her limbs writhed in random agony, a macabre marionette made to dance by the hand of Death. Vara kept trying to look away, but her gaze always inevitably drifted back to the morbid view of her own reflection. Before long she lacked the strength to even move her head, her chin drooping down towards her shuddering chest. She stared into the depths of her own defeated eyes, watching every tear form and roll down her snout. She watched as drool oozed out of her mouth from behind the muzzle, joining strings of mucus from her nose that shivered with every increasingly feeble breath. She saw her lips turn pale and then blue, while beneath the downy white fur of her cheeks her skin tinged slowly purple. All of a sudden, the fire in her chest turned to ice in an instant. Vara felt her heart stop beating. She could no longer fight even if she had wanted to. Her bloodshot eyes rolled back and she gazed for a moment into the malicious grin of Death. The diamond eyes twinkled at her, the sparkles growing and multiplying until her vision was occluded. The sparkles turned black and faded and Vara saw no more. Her tail gave a single feeble twitch and was still. Her bowels released, staining her pure white fur with her own urine and feces. Halo climaxed with a howl as death claimed her slave. Viscous juices leaked from her pulsing vulva as Vara's body swayed to a stop, hanging lifeless from the magnificent gallows. "Wasn't that wonderful, Toy?" Halo gushed as she descended from the heights of her climax. Toy gave a single reluctant nod. The sight made the petite vixen sick to her stomach, but disagreeing with Mistress Halo was not conducive to a slave's long-term survival. "The stark white fur makes such a beautiful contrast against the dark wood. Such a wonderfully visceral allegory, too." "Allegory, Mistress Halo?" Toy ventured meekly. "Kind of a metaphor. Observe how the righteously executed corpse is suspended by the hand of Death over the flames of eternal torment that await all guilty slaves." "Oh." Toy was silent for a moment. "Mistress Halo...?" "You have a question, Toy? Out with it, before I lose my patience." "Mistress Halo, what exactly was Vara guilty *of*?" "Everyone is guilty of something." Halo grinned devilishly, baring her fangs. "Even you." -- "'Even you?' Isn't that a bit cliché?" Kinto gripes as the story ends. "You're blaming me because you couldn't think of anything better?" Halo retorts, "This story doesn't have to be amazing. You just need to finish it. To prove that you still can." "But I want it to be good. I want it to be more than fap fodder." "Stop being such a perfectionist and post the damn thing already." "Fine, fine..." ->SUBMIT<- -- First draft begun August 8, 2011. First draft finished August 11, 2011. Editing completed August 12, 2011.