First Morning

WARNING MATURE CONTENT ALERT!

Melete had given me little choice but to collar her; she had frustrated me at almost every turn with her free-thinking ways. I love the woman but I do not pity her, for she has brought slavery upon herself; and it is said that "one may love, but may not pity."

As a Free woman, in our mating rituals she had danced before my eyes; unashamedly displaying herself in the throes of her madness beneath the glowing fullness of the Hunting Moons, wild and free among the limbs of the forest; nude, lush, and ripe for the taking. After our first coupling, she remained aloof; she was distant in her thoughts and manners in the soft and quiet warmth of our first shared space together. Her mind was not present with me in the time and place of soft glowing fires and hushed words.

Her body brings warmth and beauty to my leisure, while her mind abandons my search to reach her in those moments. Her thoughts of the freedom to run amuk at will, have outpaced her thoughts of trust and harmony in taking her place as my mate. I have little choice but to attend to her mind and manners personally; she cannot simply go free again now, it cannot be allowed to continue. She would become a curse upon men; a wanton floosy in the shadows, displaying herself lewdly for the eyes of passing Strangers; looking down her nose upon us from the sanctity of her trees, while thinking herself to good for any of us. I cannot allow her to become such a disgraceful thing; I have collared her and she will learn to carry the weight of it proudly; publicly and comfortably, with the silent certainty of its meaning.

It is for a fact, that I do love the woman; and this tenderness I do not deny her ears. What I have chosen to deny her instead, is her ability to express her need to keep me forever as a prisoner of her options by means of her charms and cunning. The path of my feet will not be decided by the whimsically emotional nature of a woman, not even one I love; thus her options, have run out. She can no longer dismiss me with a prideful toss of her pretty little nose; that spell holds no power over me now, and her pretty little nose will be pressed by its own weight into submission in the snow at my feet; one way, or another.

If my quiet yet disciplined companionship continues to be so displeasing and objectionable to her that she feels compelled to resist it, then I am comforted in knowing that for a suitable price, I can negotiated her ability to learn the manners of other men by the score and make a tidy profit from my care for her; by leasing her to the garrisons and docks of Lydius and Kassau. It is not beyond my ability to drink a great measure of paga and pass the time with gambling while she taught other lessons in the manners of strangers. If she continued to wish to choose her manners over my own; she would be disciplined as a coin girl to better understand the weight of her choices.

Melete was taken from our first Home, under force; by my hand. She was taken in the manner which a Hunter takes the meat of a successful Hunt; strapped down, over the top of his sled of gear. I had paraded her out proudly; strapped down and securely bound at ankles and wrists upon her stomach across the top of the largest of my pack sleds. I had stripped her bare and whipped her; I watched her prance nimbly for the whip, and then sink into its stinging embrace. I had bent her over the sled and ravaged her, savagely tearing away any remnant of her claim to innocence or misunderstanding. I raped her; and then I collared her. There no tenderness, there was no gentle display of soft emotion or whispered promises of devotion. Such things are hers by virtue of my love alone; not because she is owed them.

While I had her, displayed as I wished her for my convenience upon the sled, I relaxed by using her mouth most pleasurably as I collected my thoughts of other things. My satisfaction with her dripped from her trembling lips as I wiped the glistening remains from my skin with her hair. I placed a smooth shaft of soft wood between her teeth and bound it there by means of a strand of sinew, she would need it to prevent any damage to her teeth. From the last remains of the fire I took the glowing iron with which I marked my pelts, and packs and much of my gear. The metallic shape hissed softly as I pressed it firmly to the right mound of her shapely ass, just behind the hip. I held the branding iron to her flesh, listening as my mark was forever seared upon her tender flesh.

I laid the iron aside among small stones which would leech away its heat slowly to allow it to cool without warping or cracking. I could have chosen to use a healing salve upon her branded flesh, but I did not; I used the very same dark stain of ink with which I had drawn images inside her oilskins with. I knew her skin would absorb it as it sought soothing relief from the burn. I denied her any further treatment of the burn for the remainder of the day. Once I was certain that the ink had cured and the mark would remain raised and highlighted by contrast upon her skin; I would consider allowing more care for the pain of the wound and the deeper burning of the dark stain penetrating her skin.

So it was that Melete was taken from the Forest; desperately writhing and furiously screeching; resisting helplessly, lashed as cargo over the top of a sled, and being taken away as a possession. With her bare form bound at the wrists and ankles, her branded ass turned upward on full display, I lead her away proudly. Thoroughly she had been whipped and eagerly raped; she was freshly collared and had now been branded. My claim was clear; it was entire, and it is final.