The Warlord's Kitten Ch. 02

NOTE: So, since I had a few people commenting that they were confused about the main character - here's a tl;dr

Lin'qa was born fully male/masculine, however, she identifies as female. She is basically transgender except she's never been on hormones due to the restrictions of her upbringing. Rakshasa in this setting just happen to be really androgynous and Fem, so, to other races she looks sort of passable. The narration strictly refers to her as "she" because the story is written from her perspective and that's how she sees herself.

Also when I re-read Chapter 1 I realized that I wrote that Lin'qa was basically virgin and I'm not how that got written as that was never the intention. Sexually repressed? yes. Virgin? no. So, that's being retconned.

***

"So you... work here?" Lin'qa asked Nissa after she rinsed her mouth out with the small cup of tepid water she'd been provided with. She spat the water that probably tasted like Rugana's piss down the little drain that probably connected to the Fortress' plumbing.

"I do. Chief doesn't do her own laundry or clean her own rooms. Or clean up her slaves, I guess, but I don't mind that part as long as you don't make a fuss about it."

"I S'pose... She's like nobility here, huh?" Lin'qa asked, avoiding calling her Momma on purpose. The last thing she wanted was to normalize something so weird.

Nissa snorted. "She's the Chief. She fought for and earned her position. She's not some priss who was born into leadership and never worked a day in her life." Nissa wrung out a washcloth somewhat angrily.

Lin'qa bristled a little as Nissa basically described her in a way she wasn't especially fond of. It took her a moment to realize that Nissa probably hadn't realized that she was the oldest child of one of the wealthiest and most influential Rakshasa families in the U.R.F. Her ear twitched in agitation. A day ago she would have given this woman a piece of her mind. Now, she didn't know how to begin. How do you demand respect with a face full of cum and the taste of orc piss still on your tongue, possibly never to go away.

Speaking of which, Nissa came over to her and started wiping her face, and Lin'qa murred with discomfort as the woman scrubbed roughly.

"Yeesh, Chief really got you good. Not sure why she wants you put to work if she's gonna make you a concubine or something." Nissa muttered as she scrubbed.

"Put me to work? What?" Lin'qa pouted a little. She, as Nissa had aptly described, had never worked a day in her life. Well, not physical labor, anyway, she had many many long hard hours of study and magic practice, but all that was going to be pretty useless here. It made her feel at that moment like her entire life had been pointless. She was extremely apt at conjuring elaborate illusions, and deftly evocating and controlling simple kinetic shapes - which she could easily use to eviscerate someone as surely as Rugana could with one of her big axes. What good were five celestial cycles of practice at magic when she couldn't cast any? The iron shackles held a simple yet potent enchantment that rendered all those years wasted, useless. Fuck, her limited practice sucking cock, which was the practice her parents had most disapproved of, had been the most useful skill she'd been able to apply since she'd gotten here.

"Yep, you're scrubbing the floors with me today, Kitty. It's tough work, so it'll be nice to have some help," Nissa replied cheerfully, gently using the washcloth to clean one of Lin'qa's ears between thumb and forefinger, making the girl shiver at the overwhelming sensation.

"But... I've never done anything like that before..." Lin'qa mumbled indignantly.

"Never? Who hasn't scrubbed a floor before? You a merchant's daughter or something?" Nissa laughed, like the idea of her never having done this before was ridiculous.

"Umm... first daughter of House Talla... my formal education was mostly economics, trade, conjuration, mathematics, history..." Lin'qa looked away and blushed, not sure why she was spilling her guts about her education instead of just lying to Nissa. It certainly would be less awkward to do that.

"Oh. You're ransom? Weird. Well, Chief wants you scrubbing floors today so just do your best, I guess. I'll have to rap your knuckles until you do it right if she wants you to do this for real but for today just do your best and work hard, okay? I'll clear it up with her tomorrow."

Nissa finished up and hung the washcloth to dry, and Lin'qa sighed in defeat. Well, maybe some physical activity would make her feel better, take her mind off of the situation. Nissa went about grabbing some buckets and brushes, filling them up with water and adding soap. After she finished the first, she handed it to Lin'qa. When she took it, she squeaked in surprise at how heavy it was, almost dropping it.

"Wow, you weren't kidding, huh?" Nissa snickered as she grabbed her own bucket. "Don't make me yank the leash while I'm holding this, come along, Kitty." She attached her end of the leash onto one of her apron strings and started to lead the way. Lin'qa hurried after her, spilling a bit of water as she did, but Nissa didn't seem to notice. Lin'qa held the bucket in front of her crotch as she awkwardly waddled behind the older... well... younger woman, actually. Humans didn't live very long.

They got just as many stares and looks as the previous night, and Lin'qa didn't recognize anybody as they followed the familiar path through the corridors to the big dining hall. She spent more time looking around, and she paid attention as they passed through a large metallic archway decorated to look like it was covered in dragon scales. The roof changed from wood to carved stone as they passed through the threshhold. It wasn't perfectly smooth or level, but it was clearly chiseled and carved out of the mountain, signifying that they were going into an underground portion of the fortress. There were a few other servants puttering around the dining hall, mostly orcs wearing work clothes similar to Nissa's, but there were a few humans and even one older looking dwarf who seemed to be co-ordinating the efforts to organize the table. There was no food there yet but clearly they got ready well in advance, as they would have in Lin'qa's house.

"You start on that side. Need me to show you how to do it?" Nissa pointed to the side of the room where Rugana's large elaborate chair stood.

"Scrub the floor... I think I got it..." Lin'qa muttered bitterly as Nissa unclipped her leash and she carried her bucket of water over to the corner.

In spite of her protest, after less than an hour of trying to scrub the floors, Lin'qa groaned and sat back on her butt, panting softly. Trying to be modest as the orcs who flitted in and out of the hall leered and made comments at her was difficult, and trying to do that while working was rapidly exhausting her energy. At this point, she was pretty much beyond caring about the Orcs seeing her naked.

"No slacking!" Nissa called at her after she spent several minutes resting, and with a groan, she got back to it.

The rest of the afternoon was hell. Total hell. Lin'qa's back ached, her hands were soapy and gross, her knees were sore, she'd chipped her nails, and she was getting dust and grime all over her face. Her sweaty and gross hair clung to her face in long strands, no longer its normal snowy white but a dirty dark grey. Her black and white striped tail had gotten soaked, the fur matted and now looking more like a solid grey with dark spots on it. It hung limply, since the last few times she'd allowed it to twitch and swish, it had flicked dirty water over her clean section of floor, and she'd had to go back and wipe it up. She eventually met back up with Nissa, their cleaned sections of floor joining up.

"You weren't kidding when you said you've never done this before, huh Kitty?" Nissa snickered at her as she stood up, wiping her hands on her apron. Lin'qa looked, and saw that Nissa's section of the floor must have been at least three quarters of the hall, and even now she was moving to clean up sections of Lin'qa's floor that didn't look as nice as hers. There was something deeply frustrating about that. She'd worked herself ragged and Nissa had gotten three times as much done as she did. Not only that, Nissa looked just fine.

The two of them finished up, going over Lin'qa's section a little, Nissa pointing out the spots she'd missed or done improperly. She then took the leash back, leading Lin'qa back to the little servant quarters, carrying their respective buckets of dirty water and dumping them down the drain.

"Ugh. I need to lie down..." Lin'qa muttered, too tired to be properly upset. Instead she was just, sad and annoyed.

"Wash yourself up before you lie down in the Chief's room. Normally you'd have an apron so you don't get so filthy but Chief wants you naked. I'll run you a bath but you'll have to do it yourself, I've got more to do. Maybe I can talk Chief into letting you wear an apron tomorrow." Nissa led her over to the washbasin and turned the water on, clipping Lin'qa's leash to one of the pipes. Lin'qa actually inspected the leash for the first time. The clip seemed to be unlocked, it just worked on a simple thumb lever. She reached over and tried to depress the lever to unclip the leash. As her thumb came into contact with the little metal nub, a stinging pain shot through her arm, making her scream and recoil in shock.

"Gah! W-What did..." She wheezed, squeezing her hand with her other, the pain had stopped as soon as she removed her hand, but it left a lasting impression upon her.

"Oh, maybe I should have mentioned. Don't touch your own leash, Collar's enchanted. It both causes pain and resists manipulation, so spare yourself the pain and don't think you can fight through it just long enough to get it loose. I'll tell the Chief that you're in here, she should be back soon." Nissa sounded halfway between apologetic and amused at her little blunder. She turned the warm water off and left Lin'qa alone in the basin to wash the dirt off of herself. Her stomach growled at her, she hadn't eaten since the food Rugana had fed her last night.

"Relaxation time over, Kitty," Rugana walked into the quarters, making a beeline for the washbasin and unclipping the leash from the pipe, giving it a tug to drag her out and back towards her room.

"Ummm. Chief, can I--" Lin'qa spoke up, wanting to ask about some food. As she spoke, Rugana gave the leash a vicious yank, dragging her forward, sending her sprawling onto her face.

"Sorry Kitty, I think I misheard what you just called me." Rugana spoke flatly, not sounding terribly amused.

"Momma... I wanted to talk about... my family..." She mumbled as she rose to her feet.

"No," Rugana answered. Lin'qa blinked, expecting more, a reason, an explanation, but nothing came. Rugana just headed back outside, dragging Lin'qa back through the fortress, taking her on a different route out to a wide open balcony built out of the mountain. It overlooked the vast sprawling city built on the gentle slope of the mountain, and stretched all the way to a huge pair of iron gates that spanned a valley that appeared to be the only entrance by land. She saw several watch towers situated along the edge of city, up on the hills. They were probably there to shoot down airships that weren't welcome overhead. Lin'qa could see steam and smoke belching from a dozen different foundries and machine shops, and on the far southern edge of the settlement was a huge lumber mill. A convoy of machine carts was heading in through the massive gates, and Lin'qa could vaguely make out stacks of logs and felled trees strapped to the back of them.

On the balcony itself, were two different Orcs, a male and a female. The male orc was wearing an eye patch and had a huge greatsword strapped onto his back. The woman wore an oversized cloak, concealing her face under a hood, and she was leaning against the wall, watching the two of them approach like a hawk. Lin'qa recognized a bodyguard when she saw one.

"Rugana, thank you for making time for me on such short notice, I know you're busy with the Red Scar making trouble for you," The Orc with the eyepatch spoke, his voice was cordial and familiar, like he was greeting an old friend.

"Bunch of cunts. Caught one of their raiding parties this morning, I took four of their heads off myself, and we got the remains of their airship being hauled back here as proof. I'm going to the Clansmeet with it. Sit." The last part was directed at Lin'qa when Rugana noticed her wobbling tiredly. She did as she was told without complaining, sitting down and leaning wearily against Rugana's leg, closing her eyes a little, her tail unconsciously curling around Rugana's ankle.

"Cute cat boy you got there. He new?" The male orc asked.

"Brand new. Got him yesterday for less than three hundred. Apparently he's some rich prince or something." Lin'qa pouted at Rugana and weakly pawed at her leg, not wanting to interrupt the conversation since Rugana's lesson about keeping her mouth shut was fresh in her mind... and on her taste buds. That was never going to go away.

Rugana rolled her eyes. "She's a rich princess, or something," Rugana clarified and Lin'qa smiled a little. "She wants to be a girl, so she gets to be one if she's been good, and she made some progress today. You should feel her tongue, Gehra, it's kind of scratchy, feels amazing."

Gehra laughed, "Well, I won't question your training methods for your own slaves. If you bring... 'her' to the Clansmeet I might have time to try her mouth, but don't have time for that kind luxury just now. What are you gonna do about the Red Scar at the Clansmeet?"

"Declare war. Challenge their Chief to a duel. Be diplomatic and demand they stop harassing our airships. Dunno, what do you think?"

Gehra exhaled softly and muttered to himself. "Tough call. Can't say that war sounds like the smart move, Red Scar are bigger and better armed than--"

"Fuck that. Three quarters of my battles are against bigger and better armed forces and I've won them all anyway," Rugana growled angrily.

"Aaaand," Gehra continued, annoyance in his tone. "More importantly, you don't want the other Warlords thinking that you're some crazy power-hungry Chief whose only response to any issue is to fight it out. Makes them twitchy, you don't want one of the bigger coalitions in the Clansmeet to declare you to be a menace. We're Orcs, Ruge, we know that fighting keeps us sharp, but we still gotta use some peaceful methods every now and again, yeah?"

Rugana sighed, sounding defeated. "Why do you always have to be right, big brother?"

"Been doing this since you were a babe. Fifty Clans is just about all I know. Deliver the proof to the Clansmeet, declare that the Red Scar are taking warlike actions against you without a proper declaration. I'll back you up. Even if the other clans don't buy it, Red Scar'll back down for a bit."

Lin'qa was trying to listen closely. She may have been shit at cleaning floors but politics was something she understood. She was exhausted and starving, though, and she found herself dozing a little. Her stomach growled angrily, returning her a little to wakefulness.

"You feeding her, Ruge? It's kind of hard to tell, she's so skinny." Gehra asked.

"I... I told Nissa to feed you, didn't I, Kitty?" Rugana asked, giving her leg a shake to get Lin'qa's attention.

"No, Momma... haven't eaten since last night..." she whined weakly, looking up at the big Orcess, trying to look pitiable.

"Momma, huh?" Gehra asked, sounding amused.

"Yeah. Got a problem with that?" Rugana challenged her brother, taking a step forward into his space. As the leg that Lin'qa was leaning on moved, she wobbled a little, almost falling over, but she caught herself, curling her tail back away from Rugana's leg and into her lap. When had her tail done that? She hadn't even noticed, and she hoped Rugana didn't realize how intimate a gesture it was in their culture.

"Nah. You should hear my girls beg for Daddy's cock," He laughed, and Lin'qa heard the cloaked Orcess in the corner mutter something.

"Pervert," Rugana snorted.

"Yeah, yeah. Since you forgot to feed your cat, maybe that's a good excuse for us to go get some grub."

"I thought you had no time." Rugana sounded skeptical.

"I don't, really. I'll just eat quickly and head back to my ship. Kahle, you wanna eat?" Gehra turned to address the cloaked bodyguard standing in the corner.

"That deaf knife ear... she still in the kitchen?" The hooded orcess asked, her voice gravelly. She'd probably had a vocal cord injury with the way she sounded.

"Yeah, I set her free when I took over, actually, but she wanted to stay. She's officially in charge of the kitchen now, instead of that cunt who took credit for everything she made. Good thing too, bitch makes a mean rack of lamb.

"Alright... I'll eat..." Kahle conceded.

"Who cares, it's food, let's go." Gehra rolled his eyes and walked past Rugana into the fortress, acting like he knew where to go in the building and didn't need Rugana's permission to move about. His bodyguard followed and Rugana tugged Lin'qa's leash, urging her along impatiently. They headed back to the dining hall that Lin'qa was becoming intimately familiar with, servants bustling about to set the table already, and two Orcs were already seated and eating. Lin'qa recognized one of them from the night before, he was the one who had asked about Lin'qa sucking his cock, and she avoided looking at him. Rugana took her seat and a servant came over to start making her a plate of food. Her two guests sat immediately to her right and started serving themselves. Lin'qa sat at Rugana's feet between her and her brother without being told this time, looking up at her pitifully, the scent of food driving her crazy.

She didn't have to wait long before Rugana tore off a piece of meat and started moving her hand down towards Lin'qa. She darted forward, meeting Rugana's hand halfway, biting into the juicy little piece of meat without hesitation. The movement placed her other hand on the inside of Rugana's thigh for support, but she didn't notice as she hungrily ate the morsel, licking Rugana's hand clean of the juices afterwards.

Rugana laughed softly but didn't make the humiliating comment that Lin'qa expected, she just held her hand out for Lin'qa to finish licking. Some part of her realized that this was what Rugana was training her to do, but she didn't care just then, all she wanted to do was put a dent in her hunger. She'd never been truly hungry before in her life, and she'd never realized how awful it was.

"Careful you don't spoil her, Ruge, letting her have nice food. Might even be an improvement over what she used to eat before you got her." Gehra spoke with his mouth full.

"Pfft, this bitch's family is rich as fuck, actually. She was a spoiled, prissy little brat yesterday. I wasn't planning on feeding her off the table all the time, but I forgot to tell Nissa to feed her today, so whatever," Rugana withdrew her hand, rubbing Lin'qa between her ears briefly before going back to her plate. "Besides, Kitty is grateful, for everything her Momma gives her, isn't she?"

"Thank you, Momma..." Lin'qa mumbled weakly, settling back down on her haunches a little, still hungry but happy that she'd gotten something. She was thanking her because she was hoping to get more food, she realized. Part of her was yelling at her to resist this conditioning, this manipulation, but no other options seemed palatable to her at the moment. Starving herself wasn't exactly going to get her anywhere except maybe put out of her misery.

Rugana didn't answer, just kept eating for a little, chatting with her brother about nothing in particular. She tossed a hunk of bread down onto the floor at one point. It rolled next to Gehra's foot, and she crawled over to it, snatching it up and devouring it hungrily. She knew the floor was clean, at least. She froze when she felt a hand on her tail, fingers curling around it, stroking it gently, playing with her fur. She resisted the urge to snap her tail away from the hand and looked up at Gehra, whom the hand had to belong to. He wasn't even looking at her as he continued to fondle her tail. She went back to her hunk of bread and scarfed it down. It was actually the best floor bread she'd ever had, it had a bit of cheese baked into it, which was a premium delicacy on her home plane. Having enough cheese around to waste it by putting it in bread would have been an unthinkable excess, but right now she loved it. Gehra's hand left her tail as she ate and patted her on the head briefly before going back to his plate. Lin'qa looked up at him, still hungry, wondering if maybe he'd offer her some food too.