content warnings:
bdsm themes, praise kink, petplay, hair pulling
Five minutes early, as optimal an arrival as I could figure. I sure as hell didn’t want to be late, but I also didn’t want to wait around too long or I’d work myself into a frenzy, and that wouldn’t look good for an interview either. No one else was in the hallway as I punched in the six-digit code I’d been provided and the cipher lock made a subdued mreep at me before unlocking.
Once inside, I looked up to see an absolutely beautiful Jackal frame silently towering over me in the half-darkness of the otherwise empty hangar, and stepped forward as close as I dared, almost to the painted red line around it. A V3 “Queen”, from the look of its jaws and the subtle markings around the optics. Even in its reclining pose, it was overwhelming to see it up close; so much more of a presence than the standard frames the Union used for its show pilots, the false aces. This was no trained pet, but a beast – a monster, built to destroy. All it needed was the slightest spark to wake it up, to spur it into movement, and blood would flow, heads would roll. That was the vibe it gave – and it didn’t even have any weapons mounted on it, from what I could see. Just the natural ones, like any other wild beast.
My ears perked up at the sound of familiar boot-heels on the concrete, a very distinctive and slightly metallic tapping sound to them that only one other person had. And so I immediately froze, trying to remember the warnings I’d been given. Don’t turn around. Don’t change what you’re doing, unless you’re told to. Remember the rules you agreed to. It can always get worse.
“Do you like her?” my new handler asked quietly, her steps coming to a stop right behind me. Her voice was a little rough, but not too much so, like sandpaper with a slightly finer grit. It would still leave you bloody, just… differently.
“Yes ma’am,” the response came from me without thinking. I tried not to stumble over it, to disguise the tension in my own words. I couldn’t help but sense it didn’t work very well. “It- she’s… intimidating.”
“Mm.” Tap, tap, tap went the boots. I saw her in my peripheral vision now, on the far right edge, as she stopped again – no more than a dark silhouette, barely visible in the oddly patchy lighting. Probably chosen for effect, if I had to guess. “And is that what you want for yourself, to intimidate others?”
“No ma’am.” Again, without being able to stop. Yes or no, don’t delay, just spit it out. Whatever your first thought is. “I- I don’t care what they think, I just-” A twitch in my fingers. I couldn’t stop looking up at it- at her, even if I wasn’t trying to remain perfectly still. “Just want to pilot. Just want to be in the seat. As long as I can do that much, I don’t care about-” The terms of the contract I’d seen briefly flitted through my mind. “-anything else.”
She smiled. I didn’t like the look of it, what little I saw in the shadows; there was something in it that wasn’t healthy, that told me her thoughts didn’t include my own best interests. Or at least not all of them.
But my words were no lie, no ploy to score points with her. Anything could happen to me and I would just bear with it, I was pretty sure, so long as I could still pilot. Nothing else in the world held that same feeling. Not even sex – definitely not sex, the thought came with a wrench of my stomach. That was a joyless chore, when it had to happen. But piloting? That was sheer euphoria, every time.
“Ahh, you’re too honest for your own good,” my handler murmured after a pause, giggling softly. “But that’s fine. Stay honest with me and we’ll get along very well. Honest and obedient, that’s all I need to make sure you remain a pilot. But you’ve never been inside a real beast like this before, have you?”
“No ma’am. Only the standard Hound frames.”
She grinned suddenly, and this time I saw it flash in the darkness. The look of it, the points on her teeth, sent a shiver up my spine. Feralization. She had been a pilot too, once – a real pilot, not some pathetic show-toy. “Oh, I promise you, you’ll never forget your first time. I’ll make it memorable for you. So will she.“
My heart soared just thinking about it-
“But not until you’re properly trained.“
And then it sank. But not for long, as realization hit. “Wait – does this mean I pass?”
She laughed for a moment, though there wasn’t much humor in it. “Oh, you really are precious. So innocent. Yes, yes, you pass, of course you pass! You wouldn’t have so much as set foot in here if you weren’t worthy of her, after all. That was never in question to begin with.”
I blinked, momentarily confused. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to if there wasn’t a test involved. “Then- why-“
“Ah. Hush for a moment.”
My protesting died in my throat, as surely as if she’d stilled it with her hand.
“Do you have to know the why, in order to obey?”
“No ma’am.” I was no stranger to being told the prize was already mine, only to have it snatched away later. I wasn’t going to ruin my own chances for this one.
“Good, good.” She waited a beat, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “But do you still want to know it?”
“Yes ma’am. If that’s okay.”
“Mm.” She walked out of sight again, tap, tap, tap, behind me and to my left, edging into my sight again. I didn’t so much as move my head. “It is perfectly okay to want things, yes. But remember what you need to be. Honest and what?“
“Obedient, ma’am.”
“Good girl.“
Mmff. I tried desperately to avoid reacting to that, but fuck me, it was like grasping a live fucking wire to hear that kind of praise. I must have shivered a little without realizing it, because she laughed again – and then I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. Fuck. Two words was all it took to do this. Two words I’d be thinking about for hours, if not days.
“That embarrassment you feel right now? We’ll get rid of it entirely,” she purred, her lips almost in my ear. I hadn’t even heard her move closer, distracted by her earlier words as I was. “I know you’ve seen the other pilots being… handled. The vacant looks on their faces. Each one’s entire world controlled, defined, by the woman holding the leash. Nothing else mattering to them in the slightest. Not where they are, not what they’re doing. No matter what it is.“
Once again I tried not to react, but the memories surfaced anyway. Oh yes, I had seen them – and I’d heard the words everyone else used when talking about them. Disgusting. Depraved. Debased. Desperate.
“You fear becoming like that, don’t you?”
“Yes ma’am.” There was no point denying it after my little twitch.
“Of course you do. It’s only natural, after witnessing scenes like those. And yet…” She paused again, inhaling quietly. “There’s a part of you that’s still… curious. You’ve wondered what it might feel like to be that unrestrained, that liberated, even if only a little. Haven’t you?”
I didn’t want to answer that. But stars be my witness – I wanted to pilot, more than anything. More than dignity, more than reputation. Anything. “Y-yes, ma’am,” the words came, as if forcibly shoving their way out of my chest.
“Of course you have,” she purred again, soothingly, with a voice like a warm blanket around my shoulders. “We all have. All these structures and rules around us only hold us back from our true potential. So we’ll get rid of those, in time.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her serrated grin flash briefly. “And don’t you worry. We’ll get rid of that hesitation of yours, too.”
That was rather less soothing. But if it was a requirement – and I was beginning to think she determined all of those herself – then I’d simply have to abide by it.
“Kneel,” she said suddenly, without any warning.
I obeyed. Not perfectly; it wasn’t what you’d call a routine maneuver. But one knee down to steady myself first, second knee down, hands on my thighs, head slightly bowed. A moment later I felt her hand come to rest on the top of my head – gloved, but thinly.
“Very good,” she murmured, a faint note of – was it pride? “Not where it needs to be, but for a first time, the basic form is there. I’m a little surprised you actually read the material that far in.” Her voice dropped, sweet, dark. “You really want this, desperately want this, don’t you?”
“Yes ma’am. More than anything.”
My handler let out a quiet breath. “I see your too-honest tongue could do with some taming. We’ll get to that.”
A long moment passed in silence. I tried not to think about how good her hand felt, and failed. How long it had been since I’d been touched and hadn’t wanted to recoil from it. How all my previous attempts at relationships had cratered so horribly.
At least I didn’t nuzzle up into it, even though part of me wanted to; while the other part of me was screaming to run, to get away from her, that she’d turn me to cinders in time.
Well, if I had to burn, I’d do it, so long as I still got to be a pilot.
“You wanted to know why – why all this, if it wasn’t for you. Do you still?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Her hand never moved, steady as a rock, but warmer. Comforting, somehow. It shouldn’t have been; I was still conflicted about it. “Today, you’re still part of the Union, officially. Tomorrow, you’re mine. And I have… things that need to be done. Things only a proper pilot can do for me. Accepting you was never the issue; taking you into my confidence was.”
The silence that followed felt like it needed to be filled. “Am I a proper pilot?” I asked, staring at the red line on the floor, almost immediately regretting asking the question as it seemed to hang in the air, pointing back at me.
She laughed – a single, short bark, loud enough to make me flinch – at which point her fingers curled down into my hair and held me in place. “Of course not! But you will be. I will make you one.” She pulled, down and back, tilting my head back and leaning over into my field of vision. “Otherwise, we’re both dead.”
Well, that was interesting.
She let go (I didn’t want her to). I stayed in position the best I could as she drew back, looking up at the Queen Jackal once more. Fuck, I wanted to be inside her. More than anything. I’d do anything for it. For her.
Tap, tap, tap went my handler’s boots, getting quieter. “Get up and go back to your room,” she called, from somewhere that definitely wasn’t the entrance I came in. “Long day tomorrow.”
By the time I made it back to my feet, I heard the sound of a door closing. I was alone in the hangar once more. As much as I wanted to hang around, being outside the cockpit wouldn’t satisfy me – and besides, contract or no, she’d told me what to do.
And there was no universe where I was going to disobey my brand new handler.
diamonds from ash 
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