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Karlach holds the leash securely in one hand, the soft leather coiled between her fingers. There's no pull, no strain: Shadowheart follows because she wants to, bare feet whispering against the floorboards. The collar sits snug around her throat, warm from her skin, its weight both strange and grounding.
Every step carries her further from that house. Further from her mother's frail and brittle smile, from her father's careful, measured silences. From the name that feels like blood-grit caught behind her teeth.
Jenevelle.
Even thinking it makes her shoulders tighten, her breath hitch. Back there, she'd worn the skin like armor: smiling through the hurt, speaking where silence would have been more true. Polite and composed, answering to a name that did not belong to her—every gesture precise, each word soft. All while her mother touched her hair, smoothing flyaways, calling her daughter, darling girl. Her father's gaze had skipped away when she flinched. Neither of them noticed. Or maybe they did.
She hadn't noticed how much she was holding until they'd left. Until the door closed and air rushed back into her lungs like breaking surface after too long.
Karlach had seen it instantly: she hadn't asked, hadn't needed to. The locked shoulders, the frozen jaw, the stiff, too-tight smile had said it all. And so she pressed one warm hand to the back of her neck, anchoring her without a word. Back in their room, she'd peeled Jenevelle away piece by piece: sliding pins from bound hair, loosening the braid till it spilled down in waves. Tugging stiff clothes over her head, letting fabric slump shapeless to the floor; brushing bare flesh beneath rough palms.
Each layer removed left less behind, until she stood there stripped raw, holding herself together by threads.
"That's not me," she'd whispered, so hoarse it hardly sounded like her at all.
Karlach had touched her forehead to hers, voice low and strong, as though speaking a spell:
"I know," she'd said. "We'll let her go."
Now, the leash lies between them, a promise of some simpler time.
Karlach settles into the wide leather chair, which groans beneath her weight, and then she looks up at Shadowheart with a gaze both warm and hard. She pats her thigh once, then points to the rug. The command is unspoken, yet clear: come.
Shadowheart's throat tightens. For a moment she can't make her body move, can't bridge the impossible distance between standing and kneeling. Karlach tilts her head just slightly—patient, steady—and the hesitation breaks. She folds to her knees.
The rug is rough beneath her skin, fibers tickling flesh; sensation sharp enough to drag her back into herself. Her breath escapes on a soft, shaky sigh.
Karlach's hand finds her hair, threading through still-curled strands, and calloused fingertips scrape her scalp. A scratch behind her ear makes her spine arch despite herself. That warmth melts the tightness in her chest; exhaustion spills out in a rush. Shadowheart leans forward, resting her forehead against Karlach's thigh, letting weight settle there, solid and safe.
"That's it," Karlach murmurs, thumb stroking circles. "Good girl."
The word lands sharp and wrong, sticking like steel behind her ribs. Girl. No. She shivers.
Karlach feels it immediately: her fingers pause, stroking gently at the side of her neck.
"Want to let that go?" Karlach asks.
Shadowheart swallows, nodding once.
As Karlach bends close, her exhale warms Shadowheart's cheek. "Alright," she says. "Then tell me."
"...Just," she breathes, the word breaking free, "just it."
Karlach's approval floods hot and bright, her grip threading more firmly through its hair. "That's my it," she murmurs, pressing a kiss to its temple. "Not anybody's daughter. Not anybody's girl. Just mine."
Something deep in its chest unknots, loosens, blooms. A single exhale, shaky, wild with relief.
"Sit up," says Karlach, less gentle now.
It obeys instantly, back straight, chin high, breath evening out as Karlach's hand cups its jaw.
"Pretty thing."
Its throat works, but no sound comes. It flushes hot beneath the praise, muscles tight with desire and shame tangled together.
"Paw."
It hesitates, blinking, caught off-balance, then remembers: Karlach wants obedience—as is her due. It raises a hand, fingers curled in on themselves, limp. Karlach takes it, turns it over, presses a kiss to the knuckles.
"Good little thing," she whispers into its skin. "Look at you."
Then: "Bark."
The breath stutters in its lungs. It freezes, shame twisting sharp and hot in its gut. But Karlach's grin widens—wicked, yes, but never cruel—and she waits, patient, as if time itself will bend before she'll force.
Silence stretches till it's unbearable, until humiliation presses too tight beneath its ribs. The sound escapes then: a pitiful yelp, breaking, tugged free.
Karlach laughs, low and delighted, a sound spilling warm as the sun. Her fingers scratch again behind its ear, coaxing another shiver down its spine.
"Perfect," she purrs. "My obedient nothing."
Fetch comes with a pillow tossed lazily across the rug. It crawls without hesitation, palms sinking deep into the coarse weave, collar tugging gently at its throat. The pillow tastes faintly of softener as it takes it up in its teeth, returning to lay it neatly at Karlach's feet.
"That's my creature," Karlach murmurs, pride a low thrum in her voice. "Always so eager to please."
"Down," and it folds instantly, chest to carpet, cheek against the rug.
"Roll over."
Its cheeks flare hot, but it obeys, rolling once, hair tangling across its face. Karlach's laugh bursts bright and unrestrained, so warm it aches to hear.
"Good little nothing," she murmurs, softer now, stroking back its tangled hair. "Perfect like this."
The leash lies slack against the rug, forgotten, unneeded. Everything now—every kneel, every crawl, every absurd command obeyed—flows freely. It is lower than a person, smaller than a burden, and yet it is cherished. Every word, every laugh, every stroke of her hand affirms that truth.
The paradox stings and soothes all at once: to be less, and in that lessness, to be loved more. Adored in ways Jenevelle never was, in ways even Shadowheart cannot allow herself to be.
Tears sting sharp and hot, spilling before it can stop them. It trembles, overwhelmed, breath breaking ragged with relief.
Karlach cups its cheek, brushing away stray strands of hair, her thumb warm on damp skin. "My nothing," she whispers, steady and soft. "My everything."