Elly watched her inject the last girl, and the results were predictable. The girl got very sleepy and instantly fell asleep. Then fluids began to secrete from her skin, as she curled up into a ball. Within minutes she was surrounded by a cocoon. Finally, she looked at the Swarmling, and asked, “How long will this process take?”

“It will depend on the individual, but about one week maybe two. In the meantime, we should make sure they are warm. Also, we will want plenty of food and water available for when they wake up. They are going to be very hungry when they wake up.”

She nodded, and replied, “That sounds reasonable.” The girls had all eaten recently so she wasn’t too worried about them. She knew the human body could go for a few days without food, but it still didn’t sit quite right with her. Just there was nothing she could do about it. So after she was certain that they were going to be alright, she asked the swarmling to follow her. Elly was hoping the Swarmling could provide her a few insights into the idiots that had let these girls get infected in the first place.

She had a lot of questions for them and now was a good time. Well at least for her. It was rather late in the day for them. The last few days had not been easy for them, but they had worked out a routine of sorts. Only about twenty men and women had survived the wreck, mostly men. The lack of wood on her island had proven problematic for them, but a few enterprising individuals had used the remains of their ship and salvaged tools to make the tools they needed to survive. The women spent the day foraging around the island, while the men typically went spearfishing. One of them, a woman was a half-decent fire mage and had become the village cook. She was responsible for cooking their meals, with the aid of a couple of other girls. Most of the women were slaves, a fact she hadn’t noticed earlier during the storm, but it didn’t change much for her.

Aya collapsed onto her bed and resisted the urge to cry. Today had been terrible for her, but so had the day before. She was careful not to let her sore butt touch her mattress. Her mistress had nothing to do with her sore butt. As much as her mistress treated her as a naughty little girl, she had never spanked her. She was also very true to her word to the point that since her reincarnation she had never been given solid food. Instead, the vampiress personally breastfed her.

Problem was she found being breastfed, very embarrassing. She often found herself wishing she had never forced Reia to drink from the breast. In addition, she just plain missed solid food. Aya would have been happy with anything solid, even some plain bread. Before she would have dismissed many food items out of hand as peasant food or slave food. Now that was no longer the case. She wanted solid food so bad, that she no longer cared about those things. Then when the opportunity presented itself, she had taken it to make a foray into the kitchen.

It had gone well at first. She had gotten in without being detected by anyone. There were a few cooks and maids moving around in the kitchen. She had taken advantage of her small size to remain unseen, and managed to get into the pantry. Grabbing the first thing she found, a small loaf of bread that had been baked earlier and was resting in a rack. She tried to leave but barely made it a step out of the pantry before the head chef caught her. The worst part wasn’t the spanking, but that she never even got a chance to take a bite of her prize. Part of her was also dreading the next encounter with her mistress. She had no doubt the vampire would hear of this. Aya was already imagining punishments she might receive for betraying her trust. This was the first time that her mistress had left her unsupervised since she got here, and she had gotten caught stealing food. One thing she was certain about was that she wasn’t going to be left unsupervised again anytime soon. The rest she couldn’t really be certain about. Her chest was empty as her mistress hadn’t given her anything to store in it. Also why she was still naked. Mistress hadn’t given her anything to wear. Aya had told her that she needed to earn that privilege. 

Then she glanced at the thin blanket next to her. It was the only thing she had been given, and now she was worried she might lose it. All because of a small piece of bread that she didn’t even get to taste. She clutched the thin blanket to her bare chest and wished she had at least gotten to taste it. Maybe then it would have been worth it, but she was now worried that she was going to lose her only possession. It occurred to her that these were worries she never would have had in her last life, and it also occurred to her that her mistress might consider the spanking punishment enough. It didn’t change the fact that she was worried it wasn’t. Trying to distract herself she opened her status and looked at the screen. Her level hadn’t changed at all since her rebirth. Not that she had expected it to change. Sure she had earned some experience and gained a couple of skills. Just not enough for a level.

Looking at her skills window, she sighed. She had gained three skills since she had gotten her. The first was naturally called basic cleaning, and she had it at level three. Mostly because her mistress was always making her clean things. Below it was another skill, she never would have had before. The skill had come about as part of her religious studies. It was a lore skill, just like the last of her new skills. The two just covered different aspects of the dark faith. Lore skills helped a person to remember things they had been taught. While she wasn’t exactly happy to see these three skills in her list, her mistress, on the other hand, was very happy when the lore skills came up. 

Suddenly her door opened, and Aya closed her status window. Shifting over, she winced a bit where her butt touched the mattress. Standing in the doorway was her mistress. A part of her was glad that she didn’t have to wait long for the dreaded encounter. She was hoping that any further punishments would just be handed out, and they could get this over with. Instead, she was asked a question. “Was it worth it?”

She spared a glance at the vampiress and noted that she didn’t seem as mad as she feared. More along the lines of disappointed. She glanced at her feet, and clutched the blanket tighter to herself, and quietly replied, “no.”

She had already answered that question herself, but she chose to omit the fact that she only felt that because she didn’t get a bite. She was rewarded with a mild shock. It didn’t really hurt but was just enough to get her attention. “Don’t look your feet. Look at me, and speak clearly. Now was it worth it?”

Aya adjust herself a bit, and then answered again. This time she looked at her mistress and spoke more loudly. Her mistress showed a brief smile, and then asked, “If it wasn’t worth it why did you do it?”

Aya glanced at her feet again and remained silent. Not because she didn’t want to answer her, but because she needed time to consider her answer. Thankfully her mistress was being patient today, and she was given the time to think about it. “I wasn’t thinking. I had just finished your task, and no one was around. The kitchen was right there, and I let my desires lead me.”

Her mistress smiled and crossed the short distance to the bed. As she sat down next to her, she said, “Glad to see you finally admitting to your mistakes without me having to prod you too much. Now knowing you, you only think it wasn’t worth it because you didn’t get a bite.”

She sheepishly looked away. Her mistress knew her way better than she did her mistress. She knew why of course. The day they met, her mistress had rifled through her memories. Aya had barely been aware of it at the time. Her mistress suddenly pulled her over her lap, and said, “That’s what I thought.”

Aya felt a rush of fear at first, as she thought her mistress was going to spank her. Then she felt a gentle warmth spreading across her rear, and that was followed with pleasure. It took her a moment to connect the sensations with dark healing. She could have healed herself with the spell, but she hadn’t because she wasn’t allowed to use magic without permission. Mostly because she didn’t want to risk compounding punishments.

Before she could even ask why she was suddenly being healed, her mistress said, “Now since you decided to try and take someone else’s dinner you are losing yours.”

By this point, Aya already knew better than to complain about a punishment. That was often a good way to make things worse. A couple of moments later, her mistress left the room. She was grateful that her butt didn’t sting anymore, but she had mixed feelings about losing her dinner. On one hand, she was spared the embarrassment of being breastfed again, but now she was going to bed hungry. The punishment did, however, fit very well with how her mistress liked to treat her. As if she was a naughty little girl.

The vampiress left happy with what had happened. Aya’s training did have its rough spots. She was very defiant at first, but she had been broken of that rather quickly. Aya still resented her, and it was quite obvious. Well, at least it was to her. The young elf still tried to get out of things or misinterpret her orders on occasion. The first few days though had been the toughest, as she hadn’t yet accepted her new role in things. The crest helped her a lot. It forced the girl to accept reality, and for the vampiress that meant she was able to skip the months of denial and escape attempts, she otherwise would have been forced to deal with.

She knew Aya wasn’t happy with her current lot in life, and she often dropped reminders that things could be worse. So far it seemed to have worked, as she hadn’t tried to run away, but she knew it was because she was afraid of ending up a slave. One thing she was working on at the moment was getting the young elf to pray to her patron. She still won’t do that without prompting, but it was something she needed to do if she wanted to earn Rumina’s forgiveness. Having her help out with the rituals would be another way to help her gain favor, but the vampiress didn’t think she could trust her with that at the moment. Regardless, she was having her study the rituals carried out in the temple. It wasn’t too hard to keep her attention during a lecture, as she knew all of the girl’s little tells of boredom. Having rooted through her mind before had helped with that. In addition, she regularly quizzed the girl on her lectures, and while she hadn’t really paid attention the first time, she did after failing the first quiz. Aya hated chores, so a good way to get her attention was to dump extra ones on her. Once she realized that failing a quiz meant extra chores for her, she started paying more attention to the lectures. The Vampiress knew she wasn’t a fan of the religious schooling either, but it was for her own good. Being disfavored was not a good thing, and if she didn’t shape up and repent Rumina could easily make her life hell.

Regardless, breaking her down, so that she could be rebuilt into a better person as the goddess desired was a slow process. The girl had actually refused to eat at first. She was initially unable to overcome her embarrassment at the prospect of suckling to actually do it. The vampiress had let her go hungry for a few days and may have used a small spell to give her the push she needed. What was most important about doing this was that it helped tear down her nearly bottomless pride. That pride of hers was really her greatest failing. It supported her self-image and blinded the young elf to reality. Having rooted through her memories, the vampiress knew that her parents in her last life were in-part to blame for that. They had done nothing to discourage the emerging behaviors when she was young. They weren’t the only cause for it, but she was most thankful that the goddess had chosen to land this girl in her lap when she had. When she was done training the girl, she was going to send her to Bordertown and have her apologize to young Reia. Reia had not deserved what Aya had done to her, but she wanted to make sure that Aya sincerely regretted those actions first.

As she entered the altar room of the temple someone called her name. “Hey, Reina! I heard your new pet got caught trying to steal bread.”

She stopped and looked over to see it was her friend that had called her out. A fellow high priestess who had been there when they had found Aya magically bound to the altar and wearing only a sign. The sign had simply said, “I am a naughty girl that has displeased the goddess, and needs training from the temple.”

It was very straight forward and told them what they needed to know about her. It was why Aya ended up as the talk of the temple the day she arrived. It wasn’t often that the goddess herself sent someone in for training. The temple regularly accepted young girls for training. Most of them were unruly children, and more often than not nobles. Nobles whose antics had embarrassed their families. Not all the nobles in the city agreed with the light temple, and they sent their embarrassments to Rumina’s temple for training. The other group was young elven children that had been caught by slavers and rescued by these noble families. Most were just employed as maids or other jobs in the household, but some proved a little unruly and were sent to the temple. Most of their worshipers, in fact, came from these households, but they had seen a sharp rise in attendance of late. A certain primordial goddess was responsible for that.

As her friend got a bit closer, she noticed the small elf girl hiding behind her leg. She was dressed in a tattered rag, and her hair was a bit unkempt. Her face even had a little dirt on it. If she had to guess, she placed the girl between eight and ten years of age. So it came as no surprise that she had yet to develop. Her hair was currently black, but Reina didn’t think that was her natural hair color. Even from here she could tell the child was in desperate need of a bath.

“Yeah, I already spoke with Aya about that,” then she knelt and with a gentle smile she asked, “Who’s this hiding behind your leg.”

The priestess replied, “this is Violet. She lost her parents, and just needs some guidance from the temple.”

“OH? Has she been up to no good or something?”

The priestess shook her head, and said, “She had a premature awakening thanks to the stressful event. Turns out she has talent as a nature mage and cleric. I was hoping to add her to your class. You are already training one acolyte, and I figured Aya could use a friend close to her age.”

Reina could see that, and it could help if Aya had a role model. She gave the girl a gentle pat on the head, and said, “Sure, I’ll help her get settled in, and then tomorrow we can introduce the two.”