Chapter 4 - A Lack Of Value
Carolina
A tremor of need ricochets through me, a clarion call that makes my psyche resonate like a gong.
The reflection of my own longing stares back at me in the astral mist. She looks like me, and less than me, and more than me, all at the same time.
The surreptitious biting of my lower lip, as every muscle in my body ripples under the erotic strain of being subjugated and sexually conquered.
The stiff tendons in my neck as I arch my back in toe-curling pleasure.
The way my eyes go glassy and unfocused as my mind leaks out of my cunt. The way they roll back into my skull.
This image is... me. A vessel for an ancient yearning that predates the first cities of humanity.
A surge of desire sweeps through me, raw and potent. It's a revelation, the sensation of the mind yoke that slave girl endures daily--no, not endures. Enjoys.
It's exquisite, erotic, an enigma made flesh. It's a yoke fit for humans. Carefully molded around the concept that power is more sexual than sex itself.
I reel from the pulsating energy of it, the pleasure laced so tightly with servitude that they become indistinguishable. The stories I've heard about the mind yoke pale beside this visceral truth. My body responds, seeking the firm control, the constriction, the corralling. Seeking its true master.
Astonishment grips me, stark and sudden as a lightning strike. There is such contrast between slave girl and I. I've always been so full of resentment, simmering rage, and just moments ago, it exploded into a thirst for power. But slave girl? She loves her chains more than I've ever felt anyone love anything in the world. In this fleeting communion, I glimpse her reality: pure, unadulterated subjugation, a state of defeated prostration so complete that it borders on rapture.
And who could blame her?
To be enveloped in the mind yoke's embrace must be heavenly. Like touching a joy beyond comprehension, an erotic thrill that surpasses anything else human life can offer. That's a low bar to clear - being human is often a miserable experience.
But if you could toss it all away, destroy yourself, and in return, you could just feel? Feel, in the purest sense of the word. Wouldn't you do it?
Wouldn't you unravel?
My breath comes in ragged gasps as the struggle within mirrors the one without. The magnetic pull of yielding to this power is undeniable. A gnawing need claws at my determination, eroding it. The desire to succumb floods every crevice of my mind, leaving no room for resistance, no space for rational thought.
And then, the tide retreats.
I blink, and the vision fades. The mindlink severs as the slave girl recedes, though I can still feel wisps of her psyche clinging to mine. She has left something behind in me, a dark seed planted in my core. I shudder, wrapping my arms around myself.
The surreal, totalising presence of the yoke fades from my perception, and I'm back in the shimmering, luminous fog, catching my breath. The clash between Irmgard and Ragnar is ongoing, reverberating through my ribcage like the ring of steel, of psionic sword meeting psionic sword. I don't think they've even noticed what's happened to me, or if they have, they're too busy fending each other off to process it.
But what I feel is just... emptiness. I stumble back, desperate to regain control of my treacherous thoughts. But the damage is already done.
What have I done? I have gazed into the abyss, and now it gazes back at me. The abyss of forbidden knowledge, of what it is to submit fully, to relinquish all control over your very existence to another's strength, to another's will.
No one does that, and comes back the same. No one can look at their darkest, most destructive fantasies, and see themselves the same way, ever again.
I'm not sure how, or why, but I've been changed. I have a...
Need.
I clench my fists, enraged at my own weakness. This is not who I am. I am a fighter, a survivor. I've spent enough of my life on my knees.
But my limbs feel leaden, too heavy to resist.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, a single thought surfaces through the haze of defeat. I... can no longer win. To defeat Ragnar or Irmgard now would be to challenge the very tide, and I am no moon to command such forces.
Is this how it ends for me, without even a struggle? Everything I believed about myself proved a lie?
And then, I narrow my eyes, clenching my fists one final time.
Maybe I can't win this fight anymore. But I can at least do one thing. One more thing, one final meaningful gesture, before the end.
That's to make sure that bitch Irmgard doesn't get to profit from my downfall.
I push my mind outwards, and reach out to Ragnar.
***
I close my eyes and open my mind, casting out my thoughts to find Ragnar's. Our consciousness brushes and I recoil from the sheer domineering power of his will. So masculine. So inherently confident, capable of claiming, taming, molding its target. It makes me shudder - because it will probably end up taming me - but for the moment, at least, we have a different purpose.
I sense his hesitation, his surprise. He fears a trick. But he is decisive, if nothing else, and a moment later, he acccepts the mind meld.
Our consciousness melds together. Ragnar's mind is like a great bonfire, radiant and overpowering. I am but a single candle flame beside it. Yet as our minds unite, his blazing psionic power fuels my own. Like two strands of dancing flame, our minds twirl and snake around each other, twining more and more tightly, until it's impossible to tell one apart from the other.
