There was an oft-used maxim in Northrock, called upon so often that most who did so rarely felt the need to express it in full: give a penitatas a little rope, and they will surely hang themselves with it. Those who served long, harsh sentences in Northrock soon learned to recognise the sound of someone tying a noose, or else they learned to expect suffering and misery.
The infection took hold of Rilka with alarming swiftness. She had stumbled in the wind while walking along the dark, rainswept beach one miserable January morning and speared her palm on the razor edge of a buried shell. The wound was minor, barely drawing blood; simply squeezing the injury in a firm grasp seemed to make things right, and so once the wound was cleaned no more was thought of it. Her palm remained sore for the rest of the day, becoming inflamed by the day’s end, and by the early hours she was shivering and mewling, unable to sleep, her little claw marred by a visibly swollen lump. Despite the taboo against it, the two penitatas ventured to the building’s upper floor. Talek’s urgent knocking on the bedroom door eventually drew their father's attention, but his stern scowl faded when he saw Rilka's clear distress.
Just a few minutes later, they had made their decision. “We’re taking Rilka to the hospital.” Liki’s words snapped Talek into full wakefulness, fear for her burning away his own exhaustion. “We're going to let you stay here. Try to go back to bed and rest, okay? We'll leave you a few chores to do as well, but nothing too strenuous.”
“I'm going to be home alone? Shouldn't I come with you?”
Liki answered with a caring smile. “You'd only be stuck in a waiting room, bored to tears. At least here you can be comfortable. We might not even be that long. Go on back to bed.”
He disobeyed, though not out of malice. He followed them to the front door, pained by Rilka's wan complexion. The pale reptilian had a jaundiced tint to her. “I'll be fine,” she mumbled, cradling her blistering paw and blinking back exhausted tears.
Then the front door closed, and silence rushed to fill the space his absent family left behind. His ears rang with the quiet, straining to hear the soft breathing of another, or the subtle creak of floorboards from upstairs. Nothing.
He sat in the solitude for a few moments more before returning to his bed in search of sleep. He only managed a fitful hour before giving up; lying in bed gave him nothing to do but worry. Instead, he focused on the chores left for him by way of sticky-note applied to his bedroom door: do the laundry and the dishes. He swept the bedroom for any dirty clothes and came away with a pair of Rilka's socks. The rest of their garments were already in the laundry hamper, which he took downstairs and fed into the waiting maw of the washing machine. His parents had left another hamper in the hall outside his bedroom, so that too was loaded in. For good measure, seeing as there was room, he stripped off his pyjamas and threw them in as well. Once the appropriate detergents and fresheners were added and the machine set to run he turned to the dishwasher. Gleaming plates and cutlery were carefully delivered back to their proper places. It was a machine often neglected as cleaning by hand was a common Penny chore, but today it had been full. With everything done, Talek treated himself to a bowl of cereal, which he cleaned by hand after use.
Devoid of a job to do, the intrusive thoughts returned; the fact they hadn't returned must surely be a bad sign! What if Rilka was really, really sick? What if she was dying? What if she was already dead, and by being left home he'd missed the chance to say goodbye?
“Stop it!” He balled his claws into fists as he roared at himself. “Get it together! She'll be fine. Probably be home in an hour or two. Probably.”
He went upstairs and pulled on a fresh pair of pyjamas, hoping to finally catch a little more rest. But as before the inactivity was cancerous, corrupting his thoughts into vile, self destructive forms. Out of sheer desperation not to think he threw himself into additional chores, breaking out the broom and mop to scour the kitchen floor of any spec of dirt. Then he set to the living room floor. Then he polished everything he could reach, scrubbing until his arms ached with the strain, grateful for the dull pain’s ability to drive everything else from his mind. Then he broke out the mop and worked over all the floors once more. Once his self imposed ordeal was over, Talek collapsed on the sofa, too tired to care about his growling stomach. He'd eat when his muscles stopped burning.

Fatigue dragged him into a brief, dreamless nap, broken by the sound of the front door opening. Talek's focus turned immediately to Rilka, whose complexion was much improved. The girl had even found a smile. She waved with her formerly injured paw, now adorned with a band of blue medical wrap. “Heya!”
“Hey! Are you feeling better?”
“Loads better!” The ten year old lizard girl had a bounce to her step as she approached the sofa. “They gave me some medication to break the fever, then they used a medical nano-lathe to get rid of the bump. It itches a bit, but it's fine. Oh, and I have to take some pills for a week. But other than that, all done!”
“Speaking of done,” their father injected himself into the recap, “it seems someone went above and beyond to clean the place.”
Talek blushed. “I wanted a distraction.”
Shon flashed a smirk. “Maybe Rilka needs to get sick more often! But I noticed there's one chore left unfinished: the washing hasn't been put in the dryer.”
“I'll do it now.”
“Too late for that.” The tone of Shon’s voice stopped Talek cold. He knew it all too well.
“You're really going to spank me for that? But I wasn't slacking, just look at how much I've cleaned!”
“We appreciate that, but the fact remains it's not what we told you to do. You had specific chores, and they aren't finished. You are still a penitatas,” he added as a final, firm reminder.
Biting back a whimper, Talek scowled for only a moment before stepping up to the sofa, dropping his pants, and easing into position over the arm. He looked over at Rilka, who offered a sympathetic grimace as their father moved into position. The boy's tail was raised, making Talek tense, and a thin strap whistled down to take advantage of his tightened muscles. A hot line burned across the underside of his tail, searing deep owing to the lack of fat to cushion the strike. Talek clenched and let out a loud hiss of pain, which broke into a pathetic yelp as the second stroke fell. The gap between was just too short to let him settle, ensuring the pain of each strike built up and amplified the one before.
The swift, steady crack of leather on scale was soon joined by harsh, heartfelt sobbing from the Penny boy, who tried his best not to squirm too much under the cruel onslaught. The base of the tail was much like the thigh, all tight muscle with no fat to act as padding; a blow he might have been able to tough out if delivered to his bottom would leave him tearful driven into the tail. Shon was not being so kind, instead giving each belt's swing the full force.
“W-w-why?” Talek blubbed as fat tears streaked down his cheeks. “I- ow! I was tryin' t'be h-helpful! Owowow!”
“Obedience is what matters.” Shon punctuated the words with a fierce slap to Talek's reddening scales. “You've enjoyed a lot of slack lately, Talek. This is to make sure you don't go getting the wrong idea about where and what you are.”
The boy let his head drop low and howled as the belt did its terrible work. The fiery pain of every blow drilled down into the bone, sending spasms through his nerves that made his legs twitch and kick of their own volition. Each stroke made the pain rise further through his body, making back muscles tense and clench, then his shoulders began to shudder and a numb tingling ran down his spine. By the time Shon finally showed mercy he was feeling every swat in his teeth.
“Alright, I think the lesson has been learned. Do you agree?” Talek offered a mute, urgent nod in reply. “Good. Now, go put your snout against the wall, there's a good lad.”
He obeyed, as there was no other choice. His claws were balled into fists to try and fight the agony pulsing from under his tail, which he held as high as he could to stop the thin, tortured scale touching his backside. Even so, every step made the battered flesh stretch, and that sent fresh spikes of pain through him, drawing out yelps and whimpers.
He stared at the wall through tearful eyes, letting every detail burn into his brain in the hope it might push out some of the pain. He fixated on the tiniest imperfections in the seashell-blue paint, letting his eyes flick about in search of other subtle flaws that he could link together with imaginary lines to make shapes with. He dug his fingernails into his palms to spike a little more adrenaline and help endure the long ache of waiting for the bruises to calm down. If the goal was to remind him he was still a penitatas, Shon had certainly succeeded.
After what felt like an eternity, Liki's shadow loomed over him. “Are you hungry?”
Talek's stomach growled before he could answer, drawing a laugh from his mother. “That's a yes! Come on, let's get you fed. Would you prefer to stay home tomorrow, have an easy day?”
“That's be nice,” the boy replied in a tired voice.
“Consider that our thanks for going above and beyond with the extra chores. But don't go making a habit of making up your own duties, alright?”
“I won't!”
“That's my boy. If you're both extra good tomorrow there might even be a little holo time for the pair of you. Go fetch Rilka and bring her to the table.”
Shon and Liki stood side by side and watched the boy head upstairs. Once he was out of earshot, Liki turned to her husband and asked, “are we going to pull him up for not drying the floor properly after mopping?”
“Why do you think I went so hard on his tail?” Shon answered with a smirk.
“Fine. You go get a towel, I'll prepare the scolding when he comes back down.”