The baths at Calin are something else, indeed. The cool tiles soothe Kret’s soles, and the warmth of the steam makes her shudder. Attendant girls stand on either side of the door, and others keep their distance as they prepare the water with oils and salts from exotic shores, causing the steam to waft up with a sublime scent. One of the servants approaches Kret and bows, giving the kobold a closer look at their attire. Their smooth skin is wrapped in cloth that goes around their chests, adorned with golden trim. While their stomachs are uncovered, a cloth wraps around their hips, and drapes not even down to their knees. They are tied by a knot by their thigh, easily removed if requested by their mistress. The servant speaks up, not lifting her head, and asks, “Is there anything we can do for you, miss? Vi-our previous employer hired us to provide anything that he may need, and we can do the same for you.” “Once Vijaya is cleaned up and has his wits about him, you send him to me. Until then, you can leave me alone.” As she says this, she slips into the water, sighing as the warm liquid caresses her body. Now alone, she realizes that this is perhaps the first real bath she has had in complete privacy and with no one rushing her. Back in her harlotry days, she’d be allowed a cold bucket on most occasions and a communal pool when special guests were to be tended to. Perhaps the best bath she ever had was actually that time she got consumed by that cube of gelatin and acid in that dungeon. Nothing beats an acid bath, but this is the next best thing. “Finally,” she hisses. “Time to relax…” She says as she lowers her face into the water, blowing bubbles without a care in the world. “You can’t be serious,” Kret says, shaking her head. She runs her hands along her frills, petting herself. “Relax? You have so much work to do.” Groaning, she turns away, setting off to scrub some of the caked stomach juices from the lamia off of her. The warm waters had loosened them, but stubborn flecks of crust and lining clung beneath her scales. “No, this is great. This is good. I need a break.” “Are you really great, Kret?” Kret asks, her growl tickling her ear with doubts. She shudders, cupping her head reflexively, but she blinks and looks to see no one. She takes a deep breath, and dares to continue. “What else is there to do, then?” “The bard still lives. He still goes unpunished. He was right in your grasp, and you let him get away. The very reason you started this fool’s quest for petty revenge is getting further and further away from you. Probably heading towards a being you can’t possibly overcome and out of your grasp forever. Then you’ll have to admit all the abuse getting here was for nothing but a pathetic dream that you were a thing deserving respect. Can you really be so stupid as to think you need to celebrate this temporary victory? Or should? Or can?” Kret hisses these last words. “I’m not stupid,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut. “I just want to be left alone. I can relax. No one will mess with me now that I’m in power.” Kret opens her eyes some and takes another calming breath. But it comes out shaky, and does little to alleviate her nerves. “Not even some Dark Queen.” “Oh, yes, just like how no one messed with Vijaya? Just like how one overzealous slave didn’t crumble his whole empire by speaking out of turn to one individual?” “He was already planning to go against her! He was already bringing her down on himself.” Kret argues. “I would work with her, certainly! Tell her it was Vijaya’s plan, and that I took care of him.” She slides some into the pool, down to her mouth. “That’s right,” Kret says, “You’d roll onto your back and show your stomach, like the proper little toy you are.” Kret lifts herself up from the water. “Maybe whoever takes over for you will put you back on your knees as a pleasure slave again, just where you want to be.” The contempt drips from her lips into the pool. Kret throws herself forward, fists clenched. “I never asked to be in charge to begin with!” she shouts, her voice echoing throughout the bathing chambers. Kret blinks, glancing around. Her fists unclench. Despite being by herself, she doesn’t feel very much alone. She rises out of the pool, letting the water drip off of her scales and onto the tile. The stains and flecks of all sorts of grime are still on her, but she no longer feels like cleaning them off right now. “And where do you think you’re going?” she asks. “Running away from your problems again?” “No!” she shouts, placing a hand upon her chest. “Of course not! I could get used to being here, but I just want to-” “With that attitude, you won’t keep this place for a week, or catch that bastard bard. But fine, if you want to just step back from everything and relax, let’s relax” she says, her hand moving down along her body, scratching along the underbelly. Kret shudders, looking down as her hand trails down along her form. “I really shouldn’t…” she says, though a smile runs up along her mouth. “After all, I am pretty tired, but…” she tickles down just at the bottom of her torso. “I guess I could take some time to relax more actively with myself,” she whispers. “Why not?” she asks. “You deserve to treat yourself like a queen. After all, you are a powerful sorceress, not some street whore.” her words fill with a sudden harshness as she says these last few. She pauses to breathe, to calm. “Take your time, relax with yourself.” a bit of the harshness of ‘street whore’ creep back into her mouth. “Use your body, just like everyone else has used you.” Kret lets out an aggravated sigh, and leans up against the wall, letting her body slide down along the polished surface. “Just shut up already. You’re ruining everything.” “Am I? When was the last time you enjoyed yourself?” She scratches her knees. She wants to say something flippant, but no defiant wind fills her sails. She turns away, and her teeth clench as she hisses “I don’t… remember…” “You’ve had a hard time, what with all those people using your body. You’ve only ever known what it’s like to hate yourself. I should know. That’s why you hear your own voice telling you to sit down and be nothing more than a good little slut. It’s the only way you know to relax.” Her hands go to her shoulders, giving her a slight massage. Kret hisses out in slight relief, feeling the fingers work over her shoulders and along her neck. As she does so, she taps her knees to silent music, letting out a pleased sigh as she feels the hot breath roll along the back of her neck. That’s when she blinks and opens her eyes, only to see both her hands upon her knees but also resting on her shoulders. Kret leans in, whispering into Kret’s ear. “Don’t worry about this. We don’t need a heart attack. Just relax,” she says, nuzzling against her cheek. “You never have to be in charge. You can finally relax and enjoy yourself like you want, but never could. Let me take control, just like you always do when things get rough…” “W… what?” Kret asks, her eyes fluttering as she feels Kret’s scales press up against her back, arms draping over her shoulders and scratching over her. Her toes widen at that, and she sighs, leaning back into Kret’s touch. “Oh, did you not think about it?” Kret asks. “This body of yours is always just someone’s rag. They find you, they stick something in, they dump their lusts into you, and then they throw you away.” Kret moves around herself to look Kret in the eyes. With her talons on kret’s face, she slowly runs them down, pressing firmly. “Then, I come around to clean up the messes you so desperately love to wallow in. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be in that gutter, turning tricks for pocket change. You wanted more from life, I signed you up for that adventuring party. The bard seduced you and robbed you, leaving you a scared little mess, violated, betrayed.” Kret gasps as the talons are pressed hard into her shoulder, as much from pain as pleasure. “I sucked it up and chased after him. The Mistress of the Mistress wanted to envelope you in a murky pit of sentient slime, and shove your body against glass for a bunch of sick perverts to oggle you like a piece of meat. I brandished your magical power and kicked that bitch into her own trap. Khusk kidnapped you. She made you a slave and shoved that fake cock of hers up into your body, telling you it was to learn some lesson. You rolled over and took it, I listened to her words.” She grips Kret’s wrists, talons digging in, pulling herself close. “I grew stronger through the pain. “And my care for you continued when we entered this damned city. When Vijaya made you a pet, I seized the opportunity to escape. Do you really think you could have shouted to that scary beast of an ambassador? Do you think you would have been able to survive the attacks of that lamia? Could you crawl your way out of a creature’s stomach covered in bile and the poor sods who were there before us, and then do what had to be done?” She jerked Kret’s arms to the side and leaned in close, nipping at Kret’s neck. Kret gasped as the teeth raked her scales. “I save you, I feed you, and you don’t care. You just want to roll back over and relax. I earned my place here in this palace, and you want to take that away from me? “They walk all over you, and you let them. It’s become quite clear to me that you can’t take being on top. You need someone telling you what to do, like some kind of whimpering chick. Well, if that person has to be yourself, then so be it. You can just delude yourself into thinking that you’re still letting someone else be in control, even though the thing you’re taking orders from is just a voice inside your head!” She bit into Kret’s neck, and held it. Kret could feel the teeth digging in, tugging and twisting lightly, just on the edge of drawing blood. “That’s-no, that can’t be right? Can it?” She tugged at Kret’s grip on her wrists, but was held firm. “Mmm, are you having doubts?” she asks, releasing kret’s neck. “This was your idea, you know. You wanted to just step back and relax. This way we both get what we want. Let me have control. Let me give the orders. Let me be the powerful sorceress in charge of a criminal empire. Let me be everything we’re not,” she says, releasing a wrist to grip Kret by a horn, pulling her down to to the floor. “You’ll just have to sit back, curled up in the corner of your mind, no longer a bother to anyone, especially yourself.” She releases the other wrist and straddles kret as she sits against the wall, tail tucked under her rear. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll let you out sometimes, and order a big strong man with rippling muscles and rugged good looks to have his way with you. Have them pretend they like you, or even love you. That is, if I’m feeling generous.” Kret breathes heavily as green taloned hands rake across Kret as she moans and writhes beneath them, pulling her in close, to keep her nice and tucked away in her subconscious. “Yes, that’s it. I think I understand…” “You just want to be left alone.” “Yes.” “You want nothing more than a normal life. Unbothered, unmolested, and just enjoying the things you enjoy.” “Yes.” “You just want someone else to give you the things you want.” she says as she hooks Kret’s shoulder with a talon. “You don’t want to do any of the hard work yourself.” “Yees…?” “You don't want any control, to just give it all up…” She says, pulling Kret tight inside with her hooked claws. Kret grabs her wrist, her eyes fluttering open, as if still in a daze. The other Kret growls, trying to pull away, but she cannot. “W… what the hells?” “No…” Kret whispers, quieter than a wisp. To Kret, the words are deafening, reverberating off every wall. The other Kret’s eyes jolt open wide as she sees the dreamy gaze focus upon her. “What did you just say?” The deafening whisper continues to echo. Kret takes it into herself again, and amplifies it. “I said… NO!” She pushes the other Kret away, throwing her across the decadent tiled floors of the bathhouse.. “Oh, so now you grow a spine. How cute.” Kret stands. “Are you disappointed in me? I thought you wanted me to be a better person.” The other Kret huffs with contempt. “There’s a lot of things we want that we’re never going to get.” She gets to her feet. “Why now? You lay down for everyone but yourself? How pathetic and broken are you, that the only one you ever try to stop is yourself? You know I’m right, and you hate it. You care so little for yourself that the thought of making something of your life is unbearable.” “No-” “Stop saying that!” “No!” Kret presses on as she advanced. “You’re right, I did leave it to you to say it all those times, but I’m saying it now.” Kret stands before the other Kret, eye to eye. “No!” “Why?” she hisses through her teeth, clenched so tight that they threaten to shatter under the pressure. “Once I stepped back, what would you have done? What is it you want with a criminal empire?” “‘I’d have power. I’d be strong. I’d catch that bard, and see where things go from there. Maybe I’d enjoy keeping him around for awhile. Cut out his silver tongue, put him on a leash. Get creative. Or maybe just be quick about it, with no more ceremony than a butcher with swine. We could have that, if you would just fuck off!” Kret frowns. “And then what? More of the same?” the other Kret nods. “I didn’t give enough of a shit about myself before, but I’m not going to become that. I- I’m taking a stand now. I have been fucked, abused, eaten, betrayed, and suffered in so many big ways, and in an unimaginable number of small ways. B-but that was wrong. All those people were wrong! And If I became just like them, then everything they did to me was deserved. I would just be another shit stain in this shit world.” Kret jabs her chest with a talon. “But I deserve better! I deserve better than them, or to be them.” “You deserve nothing!” the other Kret grips Kret by the face, talons pressed just beside her eyes. Kret pulls back in shock. “Deserve? Where did you get the idea that you deserve anything! They used you because they were strong and you were gutter trash. But I will make us be anything else. I took our pain! I pulled us through! I became strong! Now I can do what I want. ‘Deserving’ has nothing to do with it. If it did, you’d best hope the Dark Queen is kind to her pets.” Kret struggles in the other kret’s renewed grip. “Strong? You didn’t get stronger, you just got callous, and cold. You’re just cutting loose everything of worth, everything that is us!” “There is nothing about us that is of any worth. We are dead weight, and are stronger for being anything, everything, that is not us. Strong, decisive, in control, feared. Now we are the ones who can make others suffer.” “You are not strong. Anyone can hurt others. You can hurt someone without meaning to. You can hurt them when all you mean to do is help. But can you make someone happy? Can you make yourself happy?” the other Kret is silent, seething. Kret’s expression softens some. She wraps an arm around the other Kret. “Maybe I can.” Kret slips a talon into her mouth. She waits a moment before pulling out an acid dulled talon, bleached white, smooth, and rounded off. “W- what are you doing.” “What you interrupted. I’m enjoying myself.” Kret reaches down and presses the dull talon against the other Kret’s slit. “I don’t hate myself. But maybe I’ve been too afraid to love myself, to care about something when it seems like it will just keep suffering. So much easier to hate it than to keep suffering along with it. Isn’t that right?” Other Kret’s glare falters. “That’s why you hate us. That’s why you can’t stand being us.” the dull talon slides into the other kret, gliding smoothly along. Kret wiggles it gently. The other Kret sharply breathes in, holding back any further signs of pleasure. “It breaks our heart to see ourselves get abused time after time. So you say I don’t deserve to be treated well. You build up this hate for yourself, but you can’t even enjoy it. You are me, and you’re too disgusted by that to even enjoy the suffering of what you hate.” “Shut up!” “No! You enjoy, NOTHING! You’d be the queen bitch, using your power only to maintain your power. I just want to relax and enjoy what I enjoy.” Kret presses deeper into herself, pushing against her sensitive interior walls. “And I want to enjoy myself.” They moan together. “A-and leave me to clean up your messes?” the other Kret snarls and rakes her talons down Kret’s back. Kret screams, arching her back into the intense feeling. She reflexively twitches her finger inside the other Kret. “I’m the survivor, not you. You lay down, and you die for everyone. That’s what you do. That’s all. You. Do. I make you live, and I hate it. I hate what it is I make live, but I do it you ungrateful bitch!” Kret says nothing. She closes her eyes, and focuses on pleasuring the other Kret. She seeks out and finds all those rarely touched places of hers, the overlooked spots that a callous lover only scrapes out of luck. The other Kret’s sharp grip loosens, as she holds back moans and gasps. Kret leans in, smelling the stale gunk of the last few days mixed with the exotic oils of the bath. “I have neglected myself for too long. I should make up for that. I hope this is a start.” Kret says. The other Kret speaks between hard swallows and poorly suppressed moans. “You’ll just lead us into more misery. We need to be strong, or calloused, or whatever the fuck you call it. We need to be that or we’ll just be the suffering gutter trash we are.” “You find that the world is cruel, and all you can think to do is to be like it. To go along with what we hate? That is what’s pathetic.” “Pathetic? Pathetic!” the other Kret tackles Kret to the ground with a screech. Talons slash at Kret’s chest. Kret gasps, feeling a warmness flow down her body. It burns with exotic oils and grime. Kret throws the other Kret off her, talons scrabbling across tile The other Kret picks herself and looks to Kret, tears rolling down her face. “You would be nothing without me. A corpse. A cum rag. A writhing mass in a vat. Take your pick. Without me, that’s all you’d be!” Kret looks from the crimson trickles running down her chest, to the other Kret. She looks different. She is the same kobold, but the kobold beside her is covered in tattered rags, dirt and detritus from every event that lead her here, and the scars of those many encounters, marring her scales. Kret’s breathing normalizes as she looks at her, shaking her head as she says. “W- what is this?” “This is us,” Kret says, propped up on her shaking arms, her eyes narrowing. “The pathetic little mess that the two of us have made of ourselves. Quite the difference a few weeks can make, don’t you think?” She lets herself drop back to the floor. Kret tries to feel disgust, but she can’t. She tries to feel revolted, ashamed, angry, afraid, frustrated, anything. She tries to deny the kobold is her. She cannot. Both kobolds shed tears. Silence takes hold in the bath house. The other kret speaks first, looking away from Kret, up to the ceiling. “Maybe that’s why you hate me. Without me you would be dead, in one form or another. Then you could relax like you wanted.” thick black lines trace from her eyes down, where tears collected and concentrated all the dirt and grime in their path. “No. I don’t want that. And I don’t hate you. You hate me. You hate that I go through this. That I let it happen. But you’re wrong, I don’t just let it happen to me.” The other Kret scoffs. Kret continues. “Because I have you.” The other Kret looks back at Kret “What?” “I need you. You’re right. But you need me too.” The other Kret tries to scoff again, but falls short, and falls into listening. “You know when we last worked together? It was the bard.” Kret laughs. “Back to that damn bard.” “Together? You got seduced, and robbed. I got you off your ass to follow him.” Kret shakes her head. “You said I deserve nothing. Why would you get me off my ass to follow some bard if all there was to get was a slim chance at some meager coin, and petty revenge? Who was the revenge for? A pathetic kobold who didn’t deserve to be treated well anyway?” Kret slams her fist on the floor with a dull thud. “No! I said I deserved to be respected, to be treated well. That I should be a person of value. I said that. I decided that.” Kret props herself up on her elbows. “And then you got me off my ass to pursue that dream. You don’t just want to survive. You want to make something of worth survive. You need me for that, or else you might as well die, and be rid of me like you said you want. The other Kret had nothing to say Kret continued. “You don’t want that anymore than me.” The other kret weakly nodded. “But I know what we both want.” Kret crawls over to the ragged, worn out kobold. She closes her eyes and focused on a new use for her mgic, one of kindness and care. Acid seeped from her tongue s a thick gel, as she lowers herself down, starting with the neck. Kret licks away the grime, with acids scouring every speck of detritus away. She leaves bright green scales behind, shining in the bath house lights. “W… what are you doing!?” the other Kret gasps, closing her eyes. She weakly tries to push Kret away, but there is no true desire in her shove. The ware of so much suffering is scoured away with care. Kret looks up from her cleaning.“You’re lying to yourself if you don’t think you like this feeling. You want to be loved. You want someone to take care of you. You want to be seen as a beautiful woman in the eyes of the men you love. Because we both do. And I want to survive, and be more than I am. I want to have the power to not be afraid. Because you do. We both do. And we’ll only get what we want together. You want to be a victor. I want that to mean something. You want to be in control. I want to be of value to someone. So, value me.” Kret resumes cleaning the grubby kobold. Rags break apart at the touch of acid. The other Kret closes her eyes and lets herself enjoy the tingling of the acid bath. She feels her tears run anew as Kret’s tongue leaves her feeling brand new. But she cries, as she knows the acid will not remove it all. “Be beautiful? Loved? Look at us. Look at all these scars. We’re too broken for that.” Kret looks back up from her care and shakes her head. She wraps her arms around the other Kret’s head, hands petting over her horns as she whispers. “We both have these scars, Kret, But these scars don’t make us broken, not when we can fix yourself. These scars came from what makes us, us. We are beautiful for surviving. Don’t let them hold us back. They are what we’ve overcome, not what we are. We are Kret.” The other Kret nods. “I think I could love you.” Kret smiles and resumes cleaning the other Kret. The other Kret’s face and chest shine, free of all the build up. “Maybe you are worth keeping alive, and free.” Kret runs her tongue along the other Kret’s slit. “And I would not be here without you.” The other kret writhes as the acids tingle at her most sensitive areas. The tongue begins to delve deeper, cleansing her. “S- so where do we go from here?” Kret withdraws, just long enough to speak. “Let’s find out.” The kobold who so rarely got to choose who she pleasured dives her acid slicked tongue back into the kobold who so rarely was treated with care. They take in each other’s joy, and together find a joy in themself. They know this moment would not be fleeting, for there was so much for them both to discuss...