I originally posted this on FA, but then I remembered this place and decided I might have a better audience here. I forgot I even had an account here. This started out as just a dream about my mate and myself, but then I decided to make it into a Skyrim fanfic so the people on FA that I know wouldn't know who it was. I'm sorry to say that this contains furry paws, not scaly ones, but depending on how things go, you may see some scaly paws in the future. Not my best work, but I wrote it in a day and a half, so cut me some slack.
I crept up slowly over a dark hill, revealing the elaborate mansion before me, lit in the moonless night only by torches scattered about its perimeter, some held by supports on the walls and others by guards. It had been a long time since I'd done any mercenary work, much less an assassination, but it wasn't every day that I was offered literally a fortune in exchange for just one kill. The contact hadn’t performed the Black Sacrament, but had contacted me directly. That was nearly unheard of for a job like this. I’d even shaved my feathers for the occasion. With the reward from this last job, I'd never have to do this kind of work again. Maybe I'd find some quiet village near some woods good for hunting... But I was getting distracted. I had to focus on the matter at hand. I was a Shadowscale, and I had best not ruin the reputation.
Despite all the guards patrolling, it was easy to slip past their terribly inefficient pattern and sneak inside through a partially opened window. Once inside, my disguise was simply a set of fine clothes that my contact had provided, and my own self-confidence. If there was one thing I had learned after years of being in places I shouldn't, it was that if you looked like you belonged, then most people assumed that you did.
It didn't take me long to find the target: a nord male in… perhaps his mid-30's, it seemed to me. Apparently, the man had caused some grief several years ago by hiring bandits to attack specific carriages along trade routes, one of which had contained my contact’s sister, and the others ruining the family business. I always liked having a job that brought quick, merciless justice. My plan was simple, yet elegant. According to the information I had been provided, the target liked to go out on the balcony before sleeping. I guessed he was most likely taking up astronomy as a hobby as he slowly approached middle age. My timing could not have been better.
As I walked through the ornately decorated halls of the mansion, the contact passed right in front of me at the intersection of two hallways. I followed casually, as if I simply happened to be walking in the same direction. I went completely unnoticed until the target opened the door and looked back as he exited. I smiled faintly and gave a polite nod, the latter of which he returned with a stiff face, then shut the door hurriedly. I quickly scanned the hallway in which I was standing. Not a soul in sight. Perfect.
Drawing a small elven dagger from a hidden pocket, I quickly and silently slipped through the door. The target was saying something, but didn't have time to finish his sentence. I quickly put one scaly hand over his mouth and plunged my dagger into his throat. Wait... Had he said the words "my love"? Panicked, I glanced up, and was surprised to see another man there, a shocked expression on his face and a rose in his hand.
It took me but a moment to realize what was going on. I hated that it had to be this way, but I couldn't afford witnesses, and it would have been far crueler to leave the man alive than to kill him. As my dagger was still lodged in the nord’s throat, I rushed forward and swiped my claws as fast as I could across his throat, but not before he could utter a sharp cry of surprise and anguish that echoed seemingly for miles. I cursed under my breath. It was time for me to go.
I tried to appear casual as I walked back down the hallway, but it was difficult to hide my bloodstained claws from anyone who passed by. I had planned on using only my dagger to avoid exactly such a problem. I was about halfway to the exit two more floors down when I heard the first sounds of commotion. I tried to go along with the rest of the crowd, but soon a woman screamed and pointed at my bloody hand and claws. So much for that. To cover for myself, I suddenly pointed down the hall with my clean hand and shouted, "There he goes!" then immediately took off down another hallway. It was a very temporary, crude distraction, but it allowed me to slip away.
I didn't know the layout of the mansion very well, but I knew I at least had to make it to a window. Then perhaps I could jump if the need arose. The next corner I turned, I was greeted with four heavily armored guards with swords drawn. The need had arisen. I sprinted back the direction I had come, pushing aside a couple of people who got in my way and heading for the stained glass window at the end of the hallway. I didn't make it. Seemingly out of nowhere, a blast of... something knocked me sideways into the wall next to me. I knew I had hit my head because my ears were ringing loudly, and everything was starting to turn black. The last thing I saw was a pair of boots heading towards me, and the last thing I heard was the words, "You are in such deep shit..."
I awoke to a dull throbbing in the back of my skull. I groaned softly and slowly opened my eyes. I was lying on the floor in the corner of some room, possibly a lounge, with a similar style of the mansion, though I wasn't entirely sure I was still there. My legs were bound together at each joint, and my hands at the wrists behind my back. It took me a moment to realize that so was my muzzle. It looked like it was nothing more than some sort of white tape, but after trying unsuccessfully to free myself for several seconds, I decided it must be enchanted. However, I wasn't bound to anything other than myself... As a tried to wriggle my way up into a standing position, I heard voices just outside the room, both female. "I'm telling you, you can't do this!" "And I'm telling you, you can't stop me," came the reply in a distinctive accent. I knew I had heard it before, but my head was still fuzzy… There was silence for a moment. "You know that I can't just let you take justice into your own hands like this." "This isn't about justice. This is about revenge." Silence again. "Can you at least guarantee that he will leave with us once you're... finished?" "You can have whatever's left." There was more to the conversation, but I didn't want to stay around to hear it. I managed to get to my feet, though balancing was difficult, and started to hop forward as quietly as I could. Thankfully, the floor was carpeted and my tail wasn't bound, so I could balance somewhat while hopping. Unfortunately, the quickest way away from the voices I heard was downstairs.
I didn't hesitate. As quickly as I could, I got down on my belly and slid down the stairs. My scales allowed me to slide easily against the carpeted steps, but they burned like fire against my belly. I was less than pleased, after sliding down another set, to find another full flight below me. A cry of surprise from above hurried me along. My captor must have realized that I had escaped. I rolled as I reached the bottom of the stairs to come up on my feet again and resumed hopping, however ridiculous it must have looked.
Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. I took in a quick, deep breath, as I couldn't scream through my bound muzzle. I blinked in confusion as I found my back pressed against a wall, and a female kahjiit in front of me, her claws red with my blood and my throat in her hand. She must have swiped her claws across the back of my head. She was glaring at me with a hatred I had scarcely ever seen. She must have been the one whose boots I had seen moving towards me before I blacked out. With a jolt of fear, I realized she must be a mage. That did not bode well for me.
After a long moment of seemingly staring into my very soul with her steely gaze, the kahjiit finally released me, but not in the way I had expected. She pulled her hand off my throat, giving me a much-needed breath of air, but then she spun with unnatural speed and struck me right in the muzzle with a powerful roundhouse kick from her large footpaw, which I noticed was now bare. I grunted loudly and fell to the ground on my belly, gasping in pain.
Bending over slowly, the kahjiit ripped the tape-like substance off my muzzle, stinging fiercely. I gasped and tried to say something, but a large footpaw came down on my head, forcing my muzzle shut again and my chin against the ground. "Do you know why you're here?" the kahjiit asked. I managed a faint "Mm-hmm" through my nose. "No, you don't," she snarled. "I knew you were here, and I knew you were sent to assassinate York, and I couldn't have cared less. However," the kahjiit growled deeply and dug her claws into my forehead painfully. "You weren't supposed to kill Geoff. He was one of my closest friends, and now you're going to pay for your mistake."
The pawpads on my face started to glow an eerie blue color. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew it couldn't be good. Mages were infamous for their horrendous torture methods. It seemed like the glow kept getting brighter and brighter. Wait, no... I was just seeing more of it. But how could that be? A feeling of dread settled into my stomach as I realized what was happening. My restraints were loosening, and the kahjiit’s paw on my head seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. As I shrank more and more, the glow from the pawpads on top of me slowly began to fade, and finally the paw was removed.
I was free of my restraints, but my situation was as dire as ever. The kahjiit reached down and grabbed me in her hand, her thick, black pads squeezing the air from my tiny lungs. "I have something special planned for you," she muttered as she started off towards a half-open door. I squirmed uselessly in the palm of her hand, but she just squeezed me tighter in her grasp, not even looking down. For a moment, I thought she would simply crush my rib cage right then and there, but she did not.
Without warning, I found myself plummeting towards the ground at an alarming rate, having been released from the mage’s iron grip. I screamed as I fell and shut my eyes, sure I would die upon impact. I didn't. I hit something firm, but somehow... squishy. It still wasn't a pleasant landing, but it was better than splattering my guts on the ground. Opening my eyes, I found myself in a large, circular container with some strange, slightly sticky substance about a foot deep in its bottom. At least, it would have been a foot by my reckoning, but scarcely an inch or two in reality. I didn't like where this was going.
I looked up with a pleading expression, but was met by that same steely, slitted gaze. "My name is Shavani," the kahjiit muttered softly. "I want to hear you scream it as I send you to the deepest pits of Oblivion." My heart sank in my chest. There was a flash in Shavani's eyes, and I saw in my mind exactly how I would meet my doom...
Shavani lifted one large, feline paw over me and stepped down forcefully, pressing my body into the muck below me painfully. I couldn't breathe at all. I couldn't move. The massive footpaw pressing down on me wouldn't allow it. Slowly, the pressure increased more and more, causing every part of me to feel swollen and painful. I saw from an outside perspective, but felt all the same. I saw Shavani leaning more and more weight onto me, then felt my ribs crack beneath the pressure. I would have screamed, but there was no air in my lungs. Little by little, I felt various parts of my body shattering beneath the pressure until Shavani lifted up her other foot to put her full weight on me, then all sensation ceased. A pool of dark blood oozed out from beneath her foot.
I shuddered involuntarily as I came back to reality. What had I just seen?! And why had it felt so... I shuddered again at the phantom pains, and once again met Shavani's gaze. "You know, I was going to kill you… but now I have a better idea," she said, pausing for effect. "I'm going to make sure you live for fucking EVER." I didn't realize until later on what she had meant by that. For the moment, I had bigger issues to worry about. Much bigger issues....
Shavani lifted her huge paw over me, just like in the vision I had seen, but set it down a little more gently, though its weight was still nearly unbearable. Her large, padded toes rested on my bruised face while her heel pressed down against my thighs. She pressed down slightly, but not enough to break anything. The strange substance beneath me gave way, allowing me to bear more weight than I would have normally. Still, I was in a significant amount of pain as Shavani lifted her paw again so that she could stomp down on me harder, smashing my face beneath her pawpads roughly.
She stepped off me for a moment so she could put both paws into the container with me. I tried to scramble away before I could be captured again, but the sludge beneath me hindered me enough that Shavani was easily able to drop another paw down on my back as I moved. I gasped as she pressed down harder and harder, then stepped onto me with both massive feet, my small body able to sustain the weight only because of the thick, viscous liquid beneath me. She began to tread mercilessly, her feet taking turns seemingly attempting to crush the life out of me. It was a constant struggle just to keep my face out of the muck to breathe for a few seconds before my head was smashed down underfoot once again.
After several long, torturous minutes of this, Shavani apparently grew bored with it and removed one paw from my body, then rolled me over with the other one onto my back again. She pressed her heel down on my belly experimentally, grinning evilly as I curled up instinctively. Pressing her paw flat against me again, she started rolling me over and around under her foot like a bug she was just waiting to squash. The strange goo quickly began to coat my scales, leaving them feeling sticky and unclean. I didn't have the time or energy to think of why she was doing that.
Once again, the massive pawpads began to glow that same eerie blue, and I began to shrink even more, but this time I didn't shrink so much. I stopped when I was about the size of Shavani's paw from toepads to heel. I screamed in terror as the enormous footpaw lifted up again, then slammed down on me again with bone-shattering force, only the substance below me even keeping me alive. It was only when the enormous paw lifted that I realized what she had done.
As Shavani lifted her paw, the sticky substance that she had coated me in caused me to stick to her sole. I cried out in surprise and tried to squirm away, but I was stuck fast. I could only wait to feel the ground pressing me up against her paw again... and again... and again.... Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time that I was slammed down beneath her huge foot, I felt a rib crack. I gave a muffled cry of pain, but it went either unnoticed, or Shavani simply didn't care. She stepped on me three or four more times before she finally relented and scraped me off her sole.
I fell to the bottom of the container groaning and clutching at my side. "Oh come on, it can't hurt that bad," Shavani taunted from above. She poked me with a toe roughly, gashing my side and causing me to recoil in pain. "Come on, get up. I have a job for you..." She grinned mischievously and poked me again, scratching my side with her toe claw and getting another sharp cry of pain from me. Becoming frustrated, she snarled threateningly and bared her fangs. "I said get up, you little fucker." Shavani slammed her paw down on me again, nearly breaking another rib. I gasped and shuddered in agony as she lifted her paw and I forced myself to slowly stand, clutching my side firmly.
Shavani held her huge paw just in front of me, her sole exposed to me. Each of her toepads was easily the size of my head and hung over me just enough to make me uncomfortable. A single word from above cause my stomach to sink: "Lick." I realized then that a good portion of the enormous sole was coated with the sticky substance that had held me against it just moments ago, some of which was also soaked with blood from my recent wound. I hesitated for only a few seconds, but that was too long. Shavani lowered her paw and spread her toes, catching my head in between them and squeezing.
I gave a muffled cry of surprise and tried to wriggle free, but it was no use. "I said lick," Shavani growled from above. The sudden movement of having my head grabbed between her toes hurt my injured ribs and caused me to cough up blood onto the webbing between her toes. Before I could be punished for this involuntary act, I quickly shoved my muzzle forward and lapped it up with my long, slender tongue. I felt rather than heard a deep purring from above, the toes holding my head vibrating just slightly. "Good boy..." Those words hurt my pride far more than I can accurately describe, but I didn't want to die, so I just squeezed my eyes shut and kept licking dutifully.
As I licked, Shavani slowly released her hold on my head, though only so I could perform my job more thoroughly. I slowly withdrew my head from between her toes and started licking the pads on their undersides. Their surfaces were mostly flat and smooth from spending so much time walking, but the taste was what really disgusted me. The sticky goo stuck to them tasted like wet clay, and was twice as hard to scrape from my tongue, much less from the enormous sole in front of me.
Every time I stopped for more than a few seconds to spit or claw at my tongue, I received a low growl from above reminding me not to shirk my duty. I once even had to duck to avoid having my head caught between Shavani's massive toes again. I quickly learned that it was faster and more efficient to use my teeth to scrape the muck away in most places. Shavani liked that a lot, thankfully. I imagined she probably got some sick pleasure out of feeling my tiny, dagger-like teeth poking up against her footpaw.
The job didn't get much easier as I traveled down from Shavani's padded toes to her heel, still on the ground, forcing me to bend down as I went. I winced slightly and shuddered as I recognized a scale pattern imprinted in some of the goo on the massive sole, and some drying blood alongside. I tried to ignore it, but I knew I would press new patterns in soon enough. When I got to the padded heel, I had to get down on all fours to lick at it enough to please Shavani. Once I had, I felt the paw begin to tilt downwards again.
I tried to roll away, but my head was already caught beneath Shavani's heel, and I soon felt the rest of her paw come down on my back, her foot extending all the way down my legs and her claws lightly pressing against my ankles. I couldn’t help but whimper softly as I felt the massive heel press down even harder on my head – hard enough that my vision started to dim. I gasped as the pain became almost too much to bear, and I was sure any more pressure would cause me to lose consciousness, then I heard Shavani's voice from above.
"You've been good, but now it's time for you to die," she said in a cruel, sadistic tone, twisting her foot and grinding her heel down on my head for emphasis. I gasped and twisted my tail back and forth in agony. "Unless," she released some of the pressure off my head, "you agree to serve me as a slave for the rest of your miserable life." I almost did want to die just then. There was no telling what sorts of things I would be forced to do for her... But I had to accept her offer. If I had to die, it wouldn't be like this.
I squeezed eyes shut and nodded as much as the heavy footpaw on top of me would allow. "I'll need more than that," Shavani scoffed. "Tell me you'll be my slave forever... and call me 'Mistress.'" I hesitated again, reluctant to give up the only pride I had left. Shavani snarled and flexed her toes. That was all the encouragement I needed. "O-okay," I stammered, coughing as I spoke. "I-I'll be your slave... forever..." I coughed again and mustered my courage. "And I will serve you as long as I live… Mistress." I might as well have just sold my soul to a daedra.
"Good," Shavani said with a cruel grin, lifting her paw off me. "Now get yourself cleaned up. You're a mess. Then in a few hours I might consider changing you back to normal size. In the meantime," she lifted her foot and put it right over me, causing me to cringe and whimper softly, but then set it down behind me and kept walking, "you'd best watch my step." I knew that would be a difficult task, as careful as she was likely to be. "Oh, and one more thing," Shavani tossed something over her shoulder. It landed with what sounded to me like a loud thud, but I soon saw that it was a giant black, leather collar with sliver spikes. "If I decide to return you to normal size, you'll have to wear that." My heart sank. For the foreseeable future, I was going to have a very rough life...
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