Back at the Housepet’s Guild, Mica leads Liath and Hyacinth into a small entertaining room with floor lounge-seats around a low table, and bids everyone sit.

  “So,” she says. “I’m sure the two of you are eager to fuck, but there are a couple matters I’d like to crify first.”

  “Please, go ahead,” Liath says.

  Hyacinth nods as well. “I want to hear it.”

  “So, I said earlier that Hyacinth will soon be able to deal with intense pain without suffering from it.” Mica taps her fingers on the table. “This is due to a certain housepet ability, ‘Limitless.’ Essentially, it transtes one’s mental arousal more fluidly to the physical body, allowing for sensations - overstimuting pleasure or pain both - that would be unpleasant for anyone else but a housepet to instead be perceived as pleasurable and good. It has limitations — it can’t make you enjoy something you don’t crave in your heart to enjoy, which means that intense enough overstimution or too sharp of shocks of pain can overcome it — and a few other effects as well, but that’s the one that’s important for this conversation.”

  She looks at Hyacinth. “What this means, essentially, is that if you take this ability first, you’ll become a near-ideal Void-tearing subject — able to take incredible amounts of stimution while genuinely enjoying it, as long as you’re keyed up enough beforehand — and also be able to take the kinds of pain you want to experience pleasurably. The downside is that the ability is retively expensive; it’s fifteen charges of euphoria.”

  Hyacinth taps her fingers together. “What else does it do?”

  Mica smiles. “A good question. Firstly, it makes your Sanity much more variable in the upwards direction — it just about doubles your baseline Sanity, but only on average; you’ll still have moments where it fails you completely — and, with enough focus and concentration, it allows you to teleport to anywhere you have previously been before… though that usage requires a significantly higher Sanity score than you presently have, even with the added variability Limitless grants.”

  Hyacinth raises her eyebrows. “That sounds very useful. I’d say it’s worth the investment.”

  “Then you’ll need to gather fifteen euphoria,” Mica says. “Though… I suspect you might find another way, but I’ll not say anything more about that for now so as not to jinx it.”

  Hyacinth frowns. “Uh, okay…”

  “Regardless,” Mica says. “What I know of you two’s fantasies suggests they’re a perfect match. Both of you fantasize about branding, cws, and so on; so it’s really up to you two to decide how far you want to go. I suggest you start small; scratching, perhaps, and then if that goes well you can bring out the cws ter.”

  “Alright,” Liath says. “I… It’s embarrassing to be tossed together with someone new like this, but from what little I’ve seen of Hyacinth… Well, I think we’ll click sexually, at least.”

  Hyacinth nods. “Yeah. Personality is more of a mystery, but so far you seem pretty reasonable?”

  Liath brushes a hand through her hair. “I try.”

  “So,” Mica says. “I think from what I’ve seen so far you’re going to work out fine, but please, take your own time to get to know each other. I could set aside a private room for you two to get better acquainted if that would help you get over the initial hump.”

  “That would be wonderful, thank you,” Liath says. “I think starting with scratching makes good sense, and, well…” She looks over at Hyacinth. “I’m already starting to get a little attached to this cute and fuzzy little creature, so let’s see if it works, yes?”

  Hyacinth beams and waggles her ears. “Alright!”

  “Then I’ll let you two get to it,” Mica says. “This way!”

  ~*~

  A few minutes ter, Hyacinth and Liath settle into a new room, bare of furnishings beyond a rge bed and an empty bookcase. A tense silence has fallen between the two of them on the walk over.

  Mica closes the door behind them, and vanishes down the hallway.

  Liath goes over to the bed and sits in silence, apparently not sure what to say or how to start. She looks over at Hyacinth with a forced smile and runs a hand through her hair. “So, ah…”

  "So," Hyacinth says, sitting down on the overrge bed. "I, um. I wanted to be told that I'm a good girl. For trying, you know."

  Liath reaches out and softly pets Hyacinth's ears. "You're such a good girl. It's... really hard to be honest about this kind of thing, and I thought it was really brave of you to come out and say it. Funny that our interests match so precisely, isn't it?"

  "Perhaps we're some kind of pair of fated lovers," Hyacinth jokes. "Reincarnated together to be together at st."

  "Nah," Liath says. "What would be the chances?"

  "I'm not sure, but..." Hyacinth starts ticking things off on her fingers. "Reincarnated at about the same time. Both sexually liberal. Both sharing almost identical fantasies. Both shy, both unsure if their fantasies are okay to have..."

  "It does seem like a bit of a spooky coincidence," Liath says. "And you do feel a little... familiar. But something tells me we were never in love, before. If there was a before, I mean."

  Hyacinth ughs. "One little proposition and you're talking like you're already converted." She smiles. "Perhaps we were friends, then. Sex friends, maybe even."

  Liath shakes her head. "I don't think I've ever had sex with you before," she says. "I'm pretty sure I would remember that."

  "Well, then," Hyacinth says. "First time for everything, right?"

  "Yeah," Liath replies. "First time for everything."

  She leans in, and very gently presses her lips to Hyacinth's.

  Hyacinth's tail stands up, then droops again as she deepens the kiss, her body warming up, eager to feel more of Liath's touch.

  "So," Hyacinth says. "I may not be Limitless, yet, but... I think I can still enjoy a little pain, if you wanted to experiment."

  In reply, Liath nips Hyacinth's lower lip — and then her hands come in, her bckened nails running hard across Hyacinth's stomach and chest, between her breasts and over her shoulders and colrbones. Hyacinth shivers; it hurts, but in a good way, a way that shuts up a tiny animal part of her brain that's been screaming quietly this whole time about being lost in a strange world and having to make a whole new life for herself. The pain isn't out there, it's right here, in her skin, as Liath rakes her nails over her body again and again, just barely not hard enough to draw blood. The pain centers in the moment, the here and now, not some thing that may or may not be: and it's not so bad as her imaginings, not so bad at all.

  Her breath becomes drawn and fluttery, her body tense and stiff. It hurts. It hurts so beautifully. Her whole body shudders, and she presses into Liath as hard as she can.

  "Harder," she whispers in Liath's ear.

  "You're sure?" Liath asks. "I don't want to force you to spend your ichor on healing what I've done to you."

  "Scratch me," Hyacinth says. "Don't cw me. But I want you to draw blood. I want to see my body hurt because of you. I want to stain your fingers red with me. I want to be yours. I want you to kiss me and taste copper on your lips. I want to be hurt more, Liath. Please, give me more."

  Liath flushes, listening to Hyacinth's impassioned plea, and nods. "Alright," she says. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

  And she draws her nails down in a harsh, deep arc across Hyacinth's right breast, leaving behind angry red lines on her skin.

  Hyacinth tenses from the pain, but presses in harder. It hurts. It hurts, but it feels good. She needs it. She needs it so much.

  "Ah," she moans, her toes curling — then closes her eyes and lets out a harsh sigh. "... no blood."

  "Don't worry about that," Liath says. "It starts with redness. Just a flushing of the skin as dead cells are scraped away. But if you repeat the motion..." She draws her fingers across Hyacinth's right breast again, drawing a sharp hiss from her lips. "Then it scrapes deeper, and deeper, until the tips of my nails leave shallow cuts in your skin..."

  Hyacinth shudders and settles into Liath. "Yes," she half-whimpers. "Hurt me more..."

  "Gdly," Liath replies. "Gdly." Steadily, she repeats the motion, dragging her hardened nails against Hyacinth’s skin again and again, intent on her like a hunter on her prey, raking her with pain again and again and again as she torments her breasts. After a few more passes, she brings in her other hand as well to sharply pinch Hyacinth’s left nipple, then works with both hands together to scratch and scrape at Hyacinth’s skin.

  After what must have been a dozen passes of Liath’s nails, each one harder than the st, a small drop of blood wells up from Hyacinth’s skin and stains Liath’s fingertips red.

  “Ah,” Liath says, a note of surprise in her voice that quickly turns to satisfaction. “There’s the blood you wanted.”

  Hyacinth lets out a little whimper in response, and presses hard into Liath, her body flushed, her head full up with pain and satisfaction. It hurts more than she’d expected: Liath’s hands are willing to be rougher with her than her own would dare to be. But she feels nothing but joy and freedom.

  “Yes,” she sighs. “Good. More. Please.”

  Liath drives her nails onward, smearing blood across Hyacinth’s skin, and gradually cuts more and more shallow scratches all across her breasts.

  Gradually, Hyacinth moves beyond the pain, beyond the simple pure sensation of hurt. She needs more. She craves more. And she can’t help but need to feel this more and more and more and more —

  Something breaks, all at once, and the next drag of Liath’s nails along Hyacinth’s breasts shines sharp and clear and brilliant like a finger suddenly dragged across Hyacinth’s clit.

  “Hhhhaaaa?!” Hyacinth gasps, sudden fatigue washing over her even as her cock rouses to attention from the bright and brilliant sensation, her body flushed and sticky with blood. “What — what was that —“

  [Move Registered: Fantasy Surge], More Bien helpfully informs her.

  [The Masochism effect has been activated, blurring pain into pleasure.]

  Liath chuckles. “A little surprise Mica left for us, I’ll wager. She did seem like she wasn’t telling us everything…”

  “More,” Hyacinth begs. “More, please, scratch me more, harder —“

  Liath grins. “Of course.” She digs in her nails hard and drags them down even harder, on the edge of cwing into Hyacinth’s skin entirely, and Hyacinth lets out a full-throated moan as her body parses the sensation not as pain, nor quite as pleasure, but as some third thing that feels like drowning and tastes like joy and need and desire and craving for more, more, more —

  “Liath,” Hyacinth gasps, “Cw me, please, please please cw me, tear into my skin —“

  Liath leans in, and lightly kisses Hyacinth’s nose. “Not yet.” Then she digs her nails hard into Hyacinth’s right breast, drawing a hard whimper from Hyacinth’s lips.

  “Liath, fuck, Liath, close, close, close —“

  “Come for me,” Liath says. “Come with your blood on my hands. Come from the pain and feel it like it was meant to be felt.” She digs in both hands’ nails hard, pressing sharply into Hyacinth’s sensitive breasts, and Hyacinth lets out a piteous whine, more animal than person.

  “Liath —“ Hyacinth’s cock twitches hard in her p and dribbles a small load out onto the bed between her and Liath, her body overwhelmed completely by the pain and pleasure.

  Liath very gently lets go of Hyacinth’s breasts, and leans in, and kisses her.

  “Beautiful girl,” she says, pulling away.

  Hyacinth lets out a soft moan, and snuggles hard into Liath. “Haaaaaaah…” She giggles into Liath’s shoulder and sighs. “That was… Fucking amazing. Wow. Can we go again?”

  Liath ughs, and kisses Hyacinth’s nose. “Cutie. Um, sure, but let’s talk about it first. We do want to get you some more ichor. And, well…” She ducks her head. “I do want to get off too.”

  Hyacinth ducks her head and smiles. “Yeah. I just… it was so much. So so so so much. All that hurt and only a few little scratches to show for it — bodies are delicate, huh?”

  “Less so here, maybe,” Liath says. “But no, it’s not hard to produce enough pain that it blots out everything else. Even without damaging the body much.”

  Hyacinth cuddles in closer, letting out a small sigh. “Yeah…” She pouts. “So, um…”

  Liath smiles with all her very sharp teeth. “Yes, little pet,” she says. “Soon.”