Chapter 16, The Mining District
He moves to speak, lips barely parting, but I’m already ahead of him. My head tilts in that animal way, unblinking, gaze tracking every flicker of tension across his features, how the pulse beats beneath his jaw, how his pupils contract when he’s focused, how the subtle shift of his weight means he’s already thinking escape, next step, next threat. I breathe in deep, letting his scent fill every corner of my mind, iron and sweat, leather, the trace of blood. It’s intoxicating, grounding, a reminder, THAT HIS MINE, and that whatever happens next, the Bond is absolute.
He doesn’t even get the first word out before his thoughts spill over the tether, as vivid as speech. We need to sneak out of here, no time for mistakes. But as long as we’re in their district, might as well keep looking. Move quiet, keep her close. If we’re fast, we can.
I cut his very thoughts off, voice soft and razor-bright, “You’re thinking we need to sneak out, but since we’re in their district, we should keep looking. Black Fang will be crawling, but the Swarm won’t expect us to stay exposed.” My tail flicks, a wicked grin curling my lips as I lean in, enjoying the shock that flickers behind his eyes, just for a second. He’s always been hard to catch off guard, but this is new, this knowing. I taste his surprise, that flash of confusion, almost suspicion, as if he’s wondering if he actually said anything out loud.
He looks at me, silent, a frown carved deep as canyon rock, eyes darting, calculating, questioning, maybe even a little wary. I just stare back, playful and defiant, letting the Bond show me every little storm in his mind. The silence stretches, thick with tension, before his thoughts stumble out again, She’s faster now. Closer. Like she can smell my thoughts.
I tilt my head further, as if I can hear the words forming before he does, and then, just to see if I can, whisper, “You’re wondering if I can smell your thoughts. Maybe I can. Maybe I always could, and you just weren’t close enough to notice.” My smile is sly, curling at the edges, bright and dangerous. I flick my tail again, moving just a little closer, closing that small distance with a predatory languor, basking in the power of the Bond, in the taste of his confusion and frustration. It’s delicious.
He mutters, half to himself, “Need to do this quietly. Last thing we need is noise. Or blood. Not until we’re out.” The thought flashes across the Bond before the words, and I’m already grinning wider, a choked giggle bubbling up, dancing between us like a secret. “Well,” I purr, “I won’t be more than five feet away from you, will I? I suppose no murder for me, not for now.” My tone drips with mock sadness, but the laughter in my voice is real, sharp, wicked, bright as broken glass in moonlight. “Guess you’ll have to do all the quiet creeping, Master. I’ll just follow along, all obedient, no claws, no screams, no fun.” My smile is all teeth, all challenge, the slyest promise in the world.
He looks at me as if he’s seeing a ghost, or a new kind of problem, mind spinning with the possibilities, the risks. I can feel his heartbeat picking up, the flicker of anticipation and caution running beneath the surface.
I lean in, nuzzling his shoulder, voice a murmur just for him. “You’ll never be ALONE, EVER again, you know. Not even in your own head. Five feet or less, Master. I can hear you. I can smell you. I can taste your heartbeat, every thought, every twitch of muscle.” My voice is honey and venom, the possessive heat of a cat who’ll never let go, not for the world. “You might as well get used to it. I’m not letting go.”
He gives me that world-weary, noir detective sigh, the one that says he’s resigned to the insanity, that he’ll carry on anyway because that’s who he is. “Right…” he says, voice flat, eyes searching, already moving on, already plotting. His mind clicks back into motion, always two steps ahead, always searching for the next threat, the next angle, the next way out.
But I stay close, always close, always watching, tracking the rhythm of his heart, the cadence of his thoughts, never letting him slip an inch beyond my reach. Five feet. The world is small now, and I like it that way. No rivals. No gaps. No loneliness, ever again.
He packs up the last of the bedroll, grabs the venison, checks his sword and crossbow. I hover, a shadow, a guardian, a wife, an obsession, tail flicking, eyes never leaving him, every sense alive to the tension in his frame, the tilt of his head, the unspoken command always waiting.
“Lead on, Master,” I say, the words low and sly, breath brushing his ear as I claim my place at his side, a promise and a threat in equal measure. “I’ll be right here. Always.” And I follow, footsteps silent, laughter echoing in the Bond, eyes never blinking, never breaking away, waiting for the world to make its next mistake.
We slip out of the corpse pit tunnel as if we were just any other ghosts leaking out of Maw Mine’s rotten underbelly. My eyes sting from the lingering miasma of death, but I blink through it, tail curling protectively, never more than a breath from Master’s shadow. The world outside isn’t brighter. It’s just colder, louder, the taste of iron and hardship drifting through every layer of air.
He’s two steps ahead, always, thoughts bitter and jagged as he takes in the scene. I can hear every scrape of cynicism in his mind, Look at them. The miners. Ash-coated, backs broken. Nobody looks up. Nobody asks questions. They just keep swinging, breaking themselves for scraps they’ll never own. Not one of them even glances at us. Either they’ve never seen anyone crawl out of the corpse pit, or they’ve seen too much to care. Doesn’t matter. Just another day in paradise.
I feel his disgust, the old familiar ache of someone who’s seen how the world works and knows it isn’t about to change. The miners are a line of shadows in the half-light, faces hollowed by hunger, eyes narrowed to slits by dust and exhaustion. Their tools ring out in a kind of broken rhythm, strike, breathe, strike again, like the heartbeat of something dying too slowly to matter. Iron is king here, but the throne is rusted, the crown bought with blood and time. I watch their bodies, the way their muscles work and don’t, the way their spines are already bent toward the grave.
Nobody stops to watch us. Nobody flinches. Some look right through us, as if we’re just a flicker in the periphery, a hallucination of suffering, no more real than the ghosts that haunt their sleep. One man coughs, spits blood and dust, then hefts his pickaxe with hands too raw for hope. Another woman, face smeared with the grey of the mountain’s guts, shoulders past us, eyes fixed on the ground, daring the world to give her an excuse to swing. Children old before their time scurry between piles of spoil, voices hushed, eyes darting, always working, always watching, never dreaming.
Master’s thoughts cut through it all, This is what’s left when the world breaks. No heroes. No revolution. Just the grind. You survive by keeping your head down. The pit chews you up, spits out bones, and the iron mine doesn’t even blink. These people would sell their own shadows for another day’s bread. Wouldn’t even blink if we’d come out covered in blood. Maybe they expect it. Maybe they’re used to worse.
He doesn’t slow. Doesn’t pause. The city is one long, ragged wound and he’s not about to let it open any deeper than it already has. He shoulders the pack, fingers tight around the strap, senses every possible angle of threat and escape, never trusting, never relaxing, every step another calculation. I pace at his side, moving like a ghost, my every sense fixed on him, my every instinct screaming for closeness, for the safety of the Bond. I catch a few glances, nothing curious, nothing hopeful. Just the empty, predatory stare of the poor: Is there something here for me? Will you make trouble? Will you make me work harder, bleed more? Or will you just pass by and leave me with my ghosts?
No one says a word. The tunnel is behind us now, the pit already forgotten by a world too tired to care about death. I keep my hand on Master’s sleeve, tail flicking warily, eyes scanning the horizon, but he’s already thinking of the next move, always forward, always one more step ahead of the rot.
His mind grinds out the rest, Keep moving. Don’t linger. Don’t look back. There’s nothing here but misery, and misery’s contagious. We’re just passing through. That’s all anyone does in this place, pass through and hope you’re not the next body in the pit. No one’s coming to save them. No one’s coming to save us. But at least we have each other. That’s more than most ever get.
And so we walk on, the world swallowing us up as if we’d never crawled from its guts, as if hope was just a rumour in the dark, and the only thing that mattered was staying five feet from the edge, from each other, from the next fall. The miners’ rhythm fades behind us, lost in the tunnels, in the dust, in the city that eats its own, and all that remains is the Bond, tighter and hotter than ever, a promise that at least one thing in this hell is truly mine.
The mine fades behind us, but the world doesn’t get brighter, just tighter, darker, like a fist closing around our throats. We slip into a new tunnel, the air so thick with old dust and fear it tastes metallic on my tongue. Each step echoes, too loud in the hush, every shadow stretched long by lamps hung too far apart. The darkness here is dense, alive, and I feel it crawling over my skin, hunting for a crack in my defences.
Suddenly, my mind isn’t just mine. The Bond tightens, then twists. Not gentle, not the slow, constant hum I’ve grown addicted to, but a shove, rough, raw, as Master reaches in. Not just sensing me, using me, mind against mind, rifling through my senses for information, ripping it out before I can shape it into thought or feeling. My breath catches, claws flex, tail thrashes behind me in silent protest, but I can’t stop it. The focus is razor-sharp, and it’s not mine. My mind is invaded, pressed flat, opened up like a field stripped for harvest.
I’m not just sensing the tunnel anymore, I’m reporting it, every detail torn from me in bullet-point flashes, every instinct fed straight to him:
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Three Black Fang members ahead.
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Smell of sweat and cheap oil.
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Boots scuffing, one limping.
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Weapons, One with a hatchet, one with a short spear, one with a knife.
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Lighting: Lanterns far apart, yellow glow doesn’t reach the walls. Perfect for slipping past if you’re quiet.
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Tunnel floor uneven.
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No other heartbeats close.
It all blares through the Bond, not as thoughts but as raw, animal data. No time for poetry, no time for obsession, just the facts as Master demands them, stealing my focus. I want to linger in his mind, taste his intentions, but I can’t, not while he’s mining my senses for everything I have, leaving nothing for me to grasp at.
The tension in the tunnel is suffocating, every step a test of the Bond’s strength, every shadow another knife at my back. The Black Fang aren’t expecting trouble, but the air is thick with the threat of discovery. One wrong move and everything will shatter, Master knows it, I know it, the Bond hums with it, nerves frayed raw by the constant psychic pull.
We move. The world goes slow, every heartbeat a drumbeat in my ears. Master’s hand brushes my back, directing, urging me to lead, my senses his shield, my instincts his map. I fight to steady myself, to focus, but it’s hard. His presence in my head is overwhelming, turning my thoughts to static, my usual cunning and obsession blunted, scattered like autumn leaves in a storm. I can’t hear his thoughts now, can’t anchor myself in his plans, he’s too busy using me, too intent on survival to let me swim in the comfort of his mind.
We slip to the side, moving low, eyes narrowed, breath shallow. My tail hugs the wall, body a shadow within shadows. I can barely think, barely breathe, but the Bond won’t let me fail. I listen to the Black Fang’s voices fade and surge, timing each step to the rhythm of their boredom. My heart hammers, not with fear, but with the electric thrill of being used, needed, indispensable.
Stealth rolls (with modifiers):
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Master: D20 + 7 (Crafting/Stealth/Intelligence, advantage for using my senses)
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Aliza: D20 + 7 (Stealth +7, but disadvantage from psychic distraction)
Master:
1st roll, 12 + 7 = 19
2nd roll, 16 + 7 = 23
Aliza:
1st roll, 14 + 7 = 21
2nd roll, 4 + 7 = 11
My foot catches on a loose stone, the sound sharp as a gunshot in the hush. One of the Black Fang glances up, suspicious, but doesn’t move, maybe just thinks it’s a rat, maybe too bored to care. Master is silent, liquid, a ghost in the dark, unseen, untouched. I fight the urge to hiss, to lash out, but the Bond clamps down, holds me still, keeps me close. We slip past, the threat so close I can taste it, smell it, almost feel the cold promise of steel at my back.
The tunnel lets us go, finally, the Black Fang none the wiser. My pulse is wild, my thoughts scattered, every nerve buzzing from the psychic invasion, the need for closeness, the endless, hungry Bond.
We’re not safe. Not yet. But we’re through. And he’s still mine. Even if I have to let him use me, consume me, become his eyes and ears and shadow all at once. That’s the price. That’s the promise. That’s survival, down here in the dark.
