My dear slave,
You don't know how much time has passed. The only thing you are now able to perceive is the cold. It has taken away all your other senses. Above all the sense of time, for it turns minutes into hours, into days, into years into centuries.
Many times we had been wandering through the autumn forest and you kept asking: "Mistress, when will my slave training begin?"
"When it's time. You have to be patient."
"Yes, Mistress," you said obediently yet with a hint of disappointment in your voice.
But this time I answered: "Now is the time. Take off your clothes and leave them on the ground."
"Yes, Mistress," you said again obediently. Your eyes were shining full of expectation and without any sign of fear of what I might do to you. Taking off your clothes, exposing yourself to the fierce November wind, could hardly have given you a hint of what to expect - for it was not close to what you were about to sense. I stepped behind you and placed a silver collar around your neck. It sent icy streams through your body as did the cuffs I placed around your wrists and ankles and the heavy chains that connected them. When the chains touched your naked skin I watched your body starting to shiver. I started to walk, taking you by the chains and you followed me willingly, not questioning any of this. After having walked a hundred meters I stopped.
"Turn around," I said, "and look once more at what is left of you," pointing to the abandoned pile of clothes that was lying on the leaf-covered forest, waiting there for someone who would never return. And that was the last thing you saw. For then your whole world turned black and the smell of the autumn leaves was replaced by that of the leather hood I had placed over your head. I led you to a place that you knew existed, but had never seen and might never see. I walked at a fast pace and so did you, craving for all the things you had in mind I might do to you and hoping for a heated place to warm your already freezing body -- not knowing you weren't getting any of these for a long, long time.
As we finally reached my wooden cabin, I lead you to a room that was all but warm and chained you to the bed posts with your arms and legs widely spread. The linen of the bed you were forced to lie on combined unpleasantly with the cold that was spreading throughout your body. You hoped for me to cover you with a warm blanket but instead I opened the window making the curtains flutter in the wind and allowing the moon to send in his chilly rays and the first winter night to seize you in its icy claws. Smiling with contentment I watched you shiver -- shake -- tremble. Then I turned around, walked out and closed the door not giving you the slightest hint when I might come back. Soon you hoped. But I didn't.
Trying to curl up to expose less of your body to the cold you were tearing at the chains but they didn't yield even a little bit. Slowly your body surrendered to the cold and embraced it. The icy cold blurred, all the senses I hadn't taken away from you yet. The cold took the last of it from this world. From now on nothing existed for you anymore but icy cold. You were begging for sleep to come over you. But the cold, who had become your mistress now, wouldn't let you sleep. She wanted to have her way with you, torture you, fuck you all night long. You were all hers tonight. Then, when she had finally been merciful to you and let you fall asleep, I came and woke you up. Not with my warm hands comforting you or my heated body holding you -- but pouring a bucket full of icy water over your. You woke up, screaming violently, bending into the chains that strained you. Your screams traveled through the forest where no one heard them and died in the far distant light of the early morning sun.
Once your body stopped fighting the chains, I unlocked the chains from the bedposts and dragged you outside. You could hardly stand on your own. So I needed no force to push you to the ground. You almost fell by yourself into the freshly fallen snow biting into your bare flesh. Your body completely disappeared within the knee-deep snow. With your face to the ground not being able to breathe you started to cough. I pulled you up by the chain and made you stand up. Then I fixed you with your arms and legs spread widely to the two posts beside you. Not being able to stand by yourself, you fell into the chains. I stood still for a while watching you with satisfaction. Had you still been able to think, you would have wondered whether I was still there. Then I went away. The crushing of the snow underneath my feet disappeared in the forest. But you didn't hear that. You didn't hear anything anymore. With your mind already having secluded itself somewhere deep inside you, now an icy numbness crept up your body until you didn't feel anything anymore -- not the cold that wanted to eat you alive, not my touch, not even the birch branches I collected in the forest. I tortured you with them until your flesh tore open.
In the far, far distance, somewhere in the dark eternity you heard a voice. It was coming closer. It was mine. You heard the words but you didn't understand them at first. I took off the leather hood and the dark void was replaced by a dazzling white blindness until you saw my eyes and only those. And I asked you:
"Do you want to stay with me or do want to be set free?" You opened your mouth yet unable to speak. I ask again: "Do you want to stay with me?" You nodded feebly. "Do you want to be set free?" A faint
"No," escaped your mouth.
"Speak up!" I commanded.
"No," you mumbled.
"Louder! I can't hear you!"
"No," you said and your voice broke.
"No what?" I shouted at you.
"No, Mistress," you yelled back. "No, Mistress, I want to stay with you." I had heard enough. I had broken all your will, but not your will to be with me. I released you from the chains and carried you inside. There I placed you down on a bed of furs and blankets beside the fire and covered you with my heated body glowing for you, eager to reward you for the pain you took for me and the pain that was yet to come. With your body coming back to life you felt the sting of thousands of needles underneath your skin and the burning pain of your wounds as if your body was on fire. But you melted into the blazing red pain that replaced the colorless numbness of the cold. And you melted into me embracing you with my glowing heat until you pulsated full of life. Relieved and satisfied, you drifted into sleep. Lying in my arms I kept you warm all night long and ever since you past the test of
Your Goddess of Ice and Fire.
