Part 17

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"Ooooshaaaaananana" Chiana breathed out. She found the Stakira sniveling in the corner of a small, bare room off of the kitchen. Chiana took a sip from the water pitcher that had been left on a prep table and snarled a bite from the roll of bread that had been baking in an oven and waited for Oshana to look up to her. Chiana shook her head negatively while she chewed. "Not impressed with how you're taking care of your Sister."

Oshana looked up with her eyes wide.

"It's him or me, Missay. I'm not doing so good with him around. Well. Maybe it's good enough for you but not me" she tore another bite off the roll.

"What did he dooo?" she somehow grew more fretful.

"You wouldn't know?" Chiana looked up to her from her brow.

"Noooo nooo I don't know what happens when he uses me and I don't remember anything!" Oshana turned away to face the corner and buried her face in her hands.

"That's nice. You like being his little slave to make his a-abuse happen? Maybe you like misery and torment right? You don't want to do what you want to? Wouldn't even, want to work for, for someone else? You wouldn't want anything good, anything better than, than doing his dren."

"I've always served the estate, serve the estate, love the estate, from before him and now! I love the estate! I'm- I'm his sssslaaaave" she told her splayed hands held out in front of her face.

"You even share his hobbies?" Chiana eyed her openly but a bit aside.

Oshana turned around, still on her knees. "We've always known about the Sister, yes, all of us, here, since many generations."

"Oo bet that's not all you've always known about. What a coincidence Larran's into it isn't he? You think I imagined that girl down there? Think I made it up? No you don't know what I'm talking about do you? That glow's left you with a smaaaall part of a brain huh" she cackled. "Well you're gonna know. Next time you let him do that to me you'll be on my side or you'll get things straight, you get that straight?"

Oshana froze in place.

"That's good. We're making progress this time. John, you wouldn't want to work for him, right?"

"We like John" she nodded yes, wringing one hand with the other. "Mbut I thought John Crichton was working for Larran" she got up from her knees.

"Yeah...." Chiana's face turned further aside, her eyes still on Oshana. "Yeah he does. Oh we all do. Cozy" her brows flashed up once "isn't it?" Chiana turned and walked from the room, pouring from the pitcher of water overhead into her mouth.

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"Yeah, what's on the menu, cookie?" John asked Larran as they passed the ornate garden grate, entering the dinning room. John tried not to stare when he saw Chiana for the first time since Larran decided to experiment with keeping them apart for a couple of weeks. She was busy squirming on her chair to some unheard rhythm. Despite her being well under the skinniest thing he ever saw, she seemed oblivious to the heaping plate of food in front of her, just out of reach due to the delicate metal restraints. Perhaps she was just trying to tune out.

But what caught his eyes were the new ornaments, delicate gold and silver loops and jewelry chains bound from her collar to each nipple, then between them, each way seeming to be a few of the little links too short. The jeweled loops weren't tiny. He wondered if she'd had those amazingly hard nipples of hers pierced before, or if that was also new. Probably done a long time back, he decided, knowing Chi.

John took his seat across from Chiana. "Hey Pip you with us?"

A slight added hum might have meant "yes."

"Isn't she appetizing?" Larran smiled.

"More like she's been living on appetizers. What've you got?"

"Crethel basted with Drel, a Fallilk on the side. Of course, as you see she refuses to eat any. Such a snerit. Did you like Turin?"

"Sure thing. Takes all kinds, ma always said. What was with his ranting about some colony corrupting the poor innocent Nebari civilization?"

"Clarticies. Yes, a necessary trade region, but so rife with discontent and individuals in need of correction that many sensible Nebari won't venture near the region. Of course that means insensible ones have a curious attraction to it."

"You been there?" Chiana raised her head and looked up aside at Larran, her nearly white eyes almost lost in the overgrown thresh of bangs.

"Of course. And I know you would love it there."

Chiana laughed and swayed in her chair. John glanced at her, but with her, it was easy to get used to her acting crazy. "These crackers are good" John said with his mouth full. "You know, Lorrie, we oughtta hang with some people that do like that Caretosee region."

"Interesting idea." Larran rose at the appearance of Oshana in a doorway. "I'll be back"

"That's what the man said." John got up with his plate and went over to Chiana's side, leaning against the table beside her. She tried getting up. He paused eating long enough to unfasten her. She attached her mouth to the opposite side of the long taco-like thing he was eating. Hungrily eating it, she kept at it until their mouths met. She hungrily worked at his mouth. After the absence of breath got serious, he finally broke it off "Whoa whoa, I need oxygen."

"Me too" she exhaled, moving in to repeat the kiss. He stopped her again. "Like my accessories?" she tugged on the pierced nipples, changing the subject before he refocused on his food again. "Drad huh?"

"Oh yeah....got any others in other drad places?" he joked, taking another bite.

Her lips pursed. An interesting idea, she decided. Maybe a good diversion to propose if the drannit Larran gets some worse idea. Her sightless eyes snapped to the door. "Quick" she said. He helped her get fastened in and returned to his seat in time for Larran to stride in.

"Lemme guess. Your mother in law?" John quipped.

"Huh? No, just business. Enjoying you meal, dear?" he sneered at Chiana, looking her over as he passed behind her.

"It's good" she smiled wickedly.

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Chiana opened her eyes slightly to look down at Larran while he approached the couch she sat in a corner of. "If you're not edible" she slightly slurred "frell off."

"You have such" Larran sat on the couch cushion turned towards her "animal appetites. You do have higher sensibilities?"

"I ate them" her eyes stayed barely open and dull but she smirked sharply.

"Such a beautiful specimen, still" he traced his finger down her cheek. Her face was more sharply chiseled and her face structure more pronounced. It became her, he decided.

"Collect many like me?" her face barely changed. The wry look was still unmistakable.

"Not....." his finger ran down her ribs "one as infernally petulant. Lucky for you, you have your points of interest. You never bore. After all these weekens...."

"Nno, never bore" she slid down in her seat luxuriously and arched her hips up to make her point "too bad I can't say that I never get bored...."

"Your former server has proven good for keeping busy these past couple of weekens. At the most suspect of places, he was busy emptying his ammunition with other willing women, and men, in revelry. Perhaps you had made a good choice of companion. He knows how to party" his sneer twisted evilly. Chiana's gaze stayed ahead and distant but he wasn't discouraged. He leaned closer. "Of course a lacing of suitable stimulants should help him to repeat his experience more relentlessly, perhaps all night."

"You mean another lacing....Well shouldn't take long" Chiana smiled and slid down further, tossing a pillow with her feet "two shots and he'll be emptied" she laughed.

Larran's surprise at her reaction was clear. "Yes that is unfortunate for him" Larran seemed to be growing angry at her seeming lack of anger.

"Yeah and everyone. But me" she tossed the pillow with her feet again. "Might be the max for his species, but I got more, from him....if he's real motivated by what he wants" she smirked.

He straightened up, aware she probably was trying to provoke some reaction from him that would discourage him from stripping her of the only remaining companion that she had. "You think such primal indicators are so useful? You are so primitive. We must try to add some sophistication to your condition. If that's not possible, then your appearances." He pulled a jeweled hairpiece from his pocket and placed it in her hair. He admired its sparkle in her silken locks. "There. That looks more refined already."

She became so still he moved his hand over her eyes to see if she was still living. Then she smirked. Removing her hairpiece, she placed it in his black Nebari hair, and with the pin uncapped whacked her palm against it, sticking the pin into his scalp. "Aaaah!" he yelled, bolting off the couch and glaring at her.

She arched her hips back up and watched her own hands stroke around the planes of her hips. "Maybe I'm not refined enough for your place." She lifted a leg up onto the table opposite the couch, knocking off a painted vase, cutting her eyes up to him while it broke. "MnI can alwaaays leave...."

Larran's sharp eyes narrowed. "Provided" he stepped one leg through the space between her thighs and bent over with a hand on the cushion over her shoulder. "You tell me.....where you would be going."

"Honestly.....?" she arched her hips higher running her sex along his rough pant leg "I don't know!" she yelled, knocking his hand off the cushion and bolting out from under his ungraceful fall into the couch. He glared, still holding his injured scalp with one hand. Her eyes glared even harder, moistening while she seethed at the thought of him drugging John. The only thing holding her from trying to kill him now was the consolation that John wouldn't know what he'd done while drugged.

He rose and collected himself. She sat against the arm of the couch and raised her knees up under her chin. "Don't you" she quirked her head "you ever want someone....you like maybe like you? Do something for, for fun? To be living?"

"A pity, your aimless absence of identity and culture. I know what I like, I know what I want, I know how to get it, and I know where to go."

"You know where I want you to go?" her eyes and face sneered, mocking at him contemptuously. Her eyes pricked with tears to think that this captivity would go on. She smiled in spite of it at her pleasure in doing so well at playing him while he stormed from her rooms. She slid down and stretched across the couch, dropping a cushion on her broadly smiling face. "Eeeya! ....Rich fekkik...."

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