late and doubts begin to set in.

A few minutes pass and you’re left alone again in your mistress's caravan. You look down at your paws still clutching the flask; the very same flask that happens to be the key to your freedom. For a moment you begin to ponder all the ways in which you might trick your mistress into drinking from it. Be it spiking her drink or pouring it out into another flask, you're quite confident you could pull the wool over her eyes. Then you start to think of the potential freedom it could grant you and all the things you might do once it's back in your hands. You would take off these damn clothes, go wherever you want, and sit in whatever chair you damn well please just to spite your mistress.

As your mind considers all the possibilities a single creeping doubt starts to make its way back into your head: “Is it worth it?” You shake your head and try to push it out of your mind. Try to blow it off as your mistress’s lingering influence on your thoughts, but deep down you know that's not the case. Your mind is as clear now as it's ever been; it has been ever since Mistress left you here alone.

What would you do if you were free again? Like actually do, not the silly fantasies from earlier. You're here in the middle of nowhere days from the only city in this world you’re even remotely familiar with. With no money or food and no way of acquiring any either you couldn’t be sure you would last more than a day. You hate to admit it but your mistress is right; you are helpless without her. Even if you were back home you’d still be out of a job with a deadline on your rent fast approaching. You curse your past self for pursuing something as foolish as an empty idea of adventure over securing your own well being.

Something else comes to mind as you think back on your little apartment in Resseldon, and that's the crushing loneliness of your situation. You knew no one there besides the officer put in charge of your transition and he couldn’t care less about you. At least here you had Mistress and she seemed nice enough, at least when she isn’t punishing you.

Maybe she really did do you a favor by making you hers. After all now you could always be sure to have a roof over your head, a warm blanket to curl up in, and food in your belly. There are those weird comfort oriented thoughts again. Even if they are foreign to you, you have to admit they feel more rational than your old whimsical flights of fancy that could have gotten you killed.

As you inspect the vial you remember what Vilkra had told you about holding the chain. Does that mean that if Mistress were to drink this then she’d be the ****? What then? You’re sitting here thinking of all the trouble you’re having on your own, and you want to add supporting a **** on top of that. Not to mention the idea of owning another person doesn't exactly sit right with you. Maybe it’s your native earth sense of morality or maybe it’s an effect of your familiar spirit but the idea of holding that much power over another person just made you uncomfortable.

For a moment you try to imagine your mistress as a cat-girl herself, and you wonder if you could actually do that to another person. Then you wonder is it really all that bad in the first place? At first being a demicoro was terrifying but the more you think about it the more it seems like it’s not all that bad. Your heightened senses make everything seem much more vivid, like you are now finally able to see the world for what it actually is. Plus your new body is significantly more flexible which coupled with your small size means you feel like you can tuck yourself away into any nook or cranny you could find; a thought you find oddly thrilling. Yeah maybe this body isn’t the most masculine but its not without it’s upsides either.

You look up to the horse and the bench that you and Lovara had shared that first day together back when she told you of all the places she's been, and all the places she’s going. She’s the real adventurer. She can go anywhere and do anything and support herself while doing it, not like your childish game of make-believe. So what if you were to stay at her side? Then you might be able to see all of those sights too, you’d get to experience all of her future stories first hand. Maybe that could be just as good as all those cheap ideas of freedom of yours.

Finally You return your gaze again to the flask in your grasp. That one doubt had cascaded into a hundred and now all those ambitions of freedom were completely shaken. Still you can’t just bring yourself to throw everything away and just down that flask either. A part of you must still be attached to the old notion of freedom from your time as a human, and no matter how tempting the thought of staying a familiar was becoming it still terrified you. Even if you are so conflicted you know you have to do something and once Mistress comes back she’s going to be able to tell something is amiss immediately, and will probably punish you severely for it. So you resolve to confront her instead. You’ll lay out everything you’ve learned and all of your feelings and just figure things out from there.

The next thing you know you can hear footsteps approaching the caravan and you can tell it’s your mistress. You quickly hide the flask in your skirts and prepare for the worst.