Nothin' left to lose without my baby

“…And that’s basically what I got from my dream,” Morgana finished. She practically collapsed in her seat once she was done.

Her suspicions had been proven correct. Telling this to Dawn and Amelia had indeed been incredibly embarrassing. Dawn, because Morgana respected her opinions on so many things (she was her closest friend on the island) and Amelia because she was an older woman who meant a lot to Nick, and therefore Morgana wished to earn her approval.

Telling the both of them about her prophetic dream where she whipped a tied-up girl for Nick’s pleasure made her face feel like it was going to catch on fire.

Thank goodness no one else was here. If Rose heard me say that stuff, or Gina… they probably would have made fun of me! Morgana sighed with relief.

Then she felt something poke her in the cheek. A finger. Confused, she turned her head… and her blood froze in her veins.

“Wuh… bwah?” Morgana’s mouth flopped open and her eyes bulged out of her skull. Augmented Synthetic Human Assassin was standing behind her, leaning over with a conspiratorial grin on her face and a finger extended into Morgana’s cheek.

Was… was she listening the entire time?! Morgana’s scream was as silent as the mute assassin poking her. She recoiled away from the other woman and nearly passed out from the terror.

I didn’t even see her there, or hear her! She snuck up on me! Stupid… stupid mute assassin! I don’t believe this!

But it was too late for regrets now.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the distress her presence was putting Morgana through. She poked the other girl again, like a curious child trying to see if a dead animal would move or not.

Morgana moved alright. She flailed her arms around like windmills and nearly fell out of her chair. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin seemed delighted by that response, and stood up straight. She pointed at herself with the same finger, and her eyes were eager and expectant.

Why… why is she looking at me like that!? Morgana couldn’t make sense of it. She stared in confusion at the gleeful expression on the assassin’s face, who for once wasn’t being aggressive or confrontational. She almost looked like…

“Hey, you don’t think… she’s volunteering, do you?” Sylvia asked. She shook her head, dismissing her own suggestion. “No, no way, that’s…”

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin bobbed her head up and down, and Sylvia’s voice died on her lips.

“…I stand corrected,” the former host said with a shrug.

“So to be clear…” Dawn adjusted her glasses and looked at the Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. “Are you volunteering to be the one getting spanked by Morgana, then?” She really hoped it wasn’t the other way around, and the assassin was volunteering to do the spanking.

Thankfully, the assassin nodded again.

“Why… why are we talking about spanking!?” Morgana sputtered. “No one said anything about spanking! I didn’t agree to any of this!”

“You were using a riding crop or a whip or whatever, but you were still spanking someone for Daddy, right?” Sylvia pointed out. “Just stating the obvious.”

Morgana glared at her roommate and fought back the frustrated tears welling up in her eyes. She knew they all meant well, but this was just too much!

“Stop talking about this, all of you.”

Amelia’s cold voice sent a chill through the table. Everyone looked at her for a second, stunned, and even Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin seemed slightly perturbed by the ice in the older woman’s voice.

Amelia turned to Morgana and adjusted her glasses. “…My apologies. That came out… harsher than I intended.” As usual. “What I meant to say is that… it is clear discussion on this topic is causing distress for this young lady here. Perhaps it would be best if we table this discussion for a later time, would that be amenable?”

Why couldn’t she ever say things correctly the first time? It was such an inconvenience!

“Well… what would be that later time, then?” Sylvia asked quietly. “I mean… correct me if I’m wrong, but Morgana, tonight’s your night with Daddy, right? And unless Dani invites you up with her or Carly gets you roped in or something, well… there won’t be a lot of other options to explore, isn’t that right?” She pointed out.

Morgana bit her lip and nodded glumly. As much as she hated to admit it, Sylvia did have a point. This conversation was embarrassing, but it was also necessary.

“Well, maybe I can give my perspective, then,” Dawn said with a sigh, seeing that Morgana was coming around a little more on talking about this kind of thing. She looked at the other girls as all eyes turned towards her. “I also had a dream last night…”

Sylvia’s face lit up. “Oh yeah! I almost forgot! It’s because of that transformation of yours, what was it called again?”

Dawn’s cheeks turned red. “…The New Thing All the Kids Are Into,” she answered. It made her cringe just saying it. “But yeah, that’s the one…”

“So you had another dream… about what you’re going to be competing on, then?” Morgana asked. She was curious and a little afraid how that related to her own dream, especially when she saw the embarrassed look on Dawn’s face.

It looked like the cat girl’s head was going to pop off.

“Apparently, it… it’s… …foot stuff,” Dawn managed to get out.

Morgana stared blankly at her, not knowing what she was talking about. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin also looked at her cluelessly.

Amelia adjusted her glasses and remained silent. There was certainly nothing for her to comment on in regards to that.

Sylvia, of course, felt differently. “So, foot stuff, you mean like Daddy worshipping your feet or something?” She questioned. Ever on the forefront of fetishism in spite of her age. “Or like, sucking on your toes or something?”

“Eeww! Gross, of course not!” Dawn’s tail stood on end and her ears sprung up on top of her head. “That… that’s disgusting!”

“Then what is it?” Morgana asked. Admittedly, that had been the first place her mind went to as well. In spite of her abundance of sexual fantasies, “feet” had never been one of them, and so she was just as in the dark as everyone else.

Dawn’s blush reddened deeper and deeper. “It… it’s about… me… rubbing his… his thing with… with my feet… that was… what I was doing…”

She could just about die.

The stares everybody was giving her? Yeah. Death. Death was preferable to this.

“…So like, you were stepping on him?” Sylvia cut through the awkwardness the only way she knew how, by making things even more awkward.

“NO!” Dawn shouted. “No stepping! I… I was just-! I-! Rubbing! Caressing, really! Not stepping on him! No!”

Morgana wasn’t sure how much better that made things. She wisely decided it was best to just keep her mouth shut and her head down.

Unfortunately, Dawn was eager to take the heat off of herself, and turned to the goth girl with a frantic look in her eye. “So… yeah! That… that’s what I got. So considering that… I think… Morgana… maybe you should be hesitant about your dream.”

Morgana blinked. That wasn’t the direction that she’d expected this conversation to go in. “Huh? Wh-why?”

“I see,” Amelia nodded. She pushed her glasses up and straightened her back. “With a dream like that… it is clear.”

Of course, as usual, she had failed to actually elaborate on what she was saying due to seeing it as entirely obvious, much to the chagrin of Morgana.

“I think what Dawn is trying to say is that Echo gave you both dreams where you would have to be dominant involving Daddy,” Sylvia pointed out. “It’s clear that she’s going for a ‘theme’ here, then. And with that in mind, it means she definitely has an ulterior motive.”

Morgana bit her lip. She didn’t like the sound of that. “So you guys think… I shouldn’t attempt to explore this, then?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Dawn admitted. She felt that way, but at the same time, she knew that Morgana might take her words as gospel, and she didn’t want that burden on her shoulders. “I think you should spend today thinking about it, and talking it over with Nick. And if you can get anyone to go along with it, then, well… maybe give it a shot?”

“Yeah, don’t let Echo influence you, but also don’t be afraid of doing something because it’s what the host wants!” Sylvia encouraged her. Her own experience as a host was somewhat clouding her judgment here, she could admit that, but she still felt like she was correct in the advice she was giving the other girl.

Morgana bit her lip. She looked to Amelia to see what she thought, but Amelia remained silent, knowing better than to influence Morgana’s feelings one way or the other.

Unlike Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, who was quite definitely trying to influence Morgana’s feelings, and pointed repeatedly at herself.

Morgana winced.

“Someone sure is eager,” Sylvia laughed. “I guess any excuse to be with Daddy, huh?”

The assassin shot her a smoldering look and shook her head sharply. That surprised the other women a bit.

Before anyone could comment, though, the door to the Banquet Hall creaked open and someone came in to join them.

“Um… good… good morning…” Ella said, approaching the table. She had cleaned up after what happened with Nick and changed her clothes, as well as brushed her hair flat. But she still felt a twinge of embarrassment after everything that happened. She may not have been in the “driver’s seat” as it were, but she was still in a body that had just gotten a taste of a serious orgasm. And not only that, thanks to Passenger Seat, she really HAD felt the sexual pleasure that Cinder had been given in real time, not just the lingering effects.

Thankfully, no one thought to question why she looked so flustered, and figured it was just Ella being Ella.

“Just in time, Ella!” Sylvia chirped, waving her over. Morgana glanced enviously at Sylvia being as friendly as ever, and wished she could be like that. But she kept her mouth shut.

Ella walked hesitantly over to the other woman and looked warily at the girls. But then she realized that she got along okay with everybody here, except maybe Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, so she didn’t have anything to be tense about.

A small smile touched her lips. “Um… what were you guys talking about?” She asked, hoping to be included in the conversation. She wanted to be friends with the others, even if she was clumsy in doing so.

Sylvia giggled. “Oh, well, isn’t that ironic?” She turned and winked to Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin, who rolled her eyes in response.

Ella, confused, didn’t know what to make of any of that, and just looked back and forth at the other women.

“Um… what…?”

“Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was just pleading her case about something,” Dawn explained to her. “Nonverbally, of course.”

Ella blinked. “Nonverbally…?”

“Without using her words,” Amelia brusquely informed the uneducated girl.

“…Oh! Because she can’t talk, right…” Ella felt like such an idiot. Compared to the other girls at the table, certainly. Except, again, maybe the mute assassin.

The mute assassin who was looking very, very cross about being interrupted.

“Sorry!” Ella held up her hands. “I, um… didn’t mean to get in your way or interrupt… what, um… …I’m just gonna go get food.”

She scurried off to go get breakfast, and the conversation kind of resumed from there. Almost.

Sylvia coughed. “Well. Maybe we should ask Ella what she thinks when she comes back? You know, about the whole ‘Morgana being a dom’ thing.”

“What!?”

Everyone turned their heads towards the buffet table, where Ella was looking back at them with a stunned expression frozen on her face.

“…I wasn’t eavesdropping!” She poorly lied. “I just… happened to overhear!”

“Well, come over and join in, then,” Dawn said, waving the girl over. Ella’s tray was only half-full with fruit and bacon. She hadn’t even made it to the sausage station, or the eggs, or the hashbrowns, or the pastries, or…

…

Maybe she had a bit of an eating disorder. Not that she knew what that was. Regardless, she quickly hurried back to the table with her food and sat down, trying not to look too eager to hear more about the conversation.

“We were talking about this dream Morgana had,” Sylvia explained. “Morgana, you okay if I tell her about it?”

Morgana had kind of a sulky look on her face. “Don’t you think it’s a little late to be asking me that?” She pointed out.

Sylvia blinked.

Maybe she was right.

“…Well, anyway, she was dominating another girl. For Daddy’s sake, you know?” Sylvia giggled and shook her head. “She wasn’t sure if she wanted to actually make use of that transformation or anything, but I told her to go for it! And it looks like Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin here is ready to volunteer!”

The assassin nodded swiftly.

Sylvia continued, “And then I said it was because she wanted any excuse to be with Daddy, but she got all grumpy when I said that, and that’s about where you came in. Whew!”

She fanned herself with one hand while pulling out her white tube top a bit like she was sweating up a storm.

Dawn rolled her eyes.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin was still giving Morgana an intense stare, and the goth girl didn’t know what to make of it. She didn’t want to say yes, because she didn’t know the assassin very well, but she was too intimidated to say no. And not only that…

She felt like if she said no, that was just not fair. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin really seemed to want this!

Morgana bit her lip, not sure what to do.

“Um… I think…” Ella glanced at the assassin and saw the fierce look in her eye. She could see that the assassin was being intimidating, maybe to get her way. Like a certain someone else she knew. “Can I say something?”

Morgana couldn’t agree fast enough.

“It couldn’t hurt,” Dawn nodded.

Ella turned in her seat and looked at Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin. Having been her roommate a few rounds ago, she wasn’t as intimidating to Ella as she might have been to another contestant.

“You do want to be dominated by Morgana… right?” Ella asked her tentatively.

The assassin nodded again. She turned her eyes to Ella and stared intensely at her.

She’s trying to communicate… but she doesn’t know how… I see… I’m sorry.

Ella bit her lip. That feeling of desperation, of wishing that someone could hear what you were trying to tell them… that was something she was all too familiar with.

If she hadn’t written that note to Cinder last night, then maybe things would still be just as tense and uncomfortable as they had been.

On that front… Ella wasn’t sure what to do. But she knew what she wanted to do. Or at least, she thought she knew.

And that was try to get to know the assassin better.

Weird as it was to feel that way.

“It isn’t just that you want to be with Nick… is it?” Ella asked. “There’s something else you want, isn’t there?”

She was expecting the assassin to nod her head, given the context of the conversation, or what Ella could glean from it, anyway.

But Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin just looked resigned. Like Ella had let her down somehow, and that stung.

So… it’s not that? I thought… Then what is it? Ella wasn’t sure. She looked hesitantly over at Dawn, who just shrugged. She didn’t know, either.

Ella felt her throat getting very dry. She wished she’d gotten something to drink before coming to sit down.

What kept her going was the look of desperation in the assassin’s eyes. She really wanted Ella to understand her perspective, and Ella was trying, she really was!

But this wasn’t easy for her, either.

Then she thought about Cinder.

And an idea occurred to her.

“Could it be… it isn’t about Nick specifically… but about getting to know everyone? Or maybe… being with other people?” Ella guessed. Her thought had a bit of her own insecurity mixed in, but it was the best she could do right now.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin looked stunned. Her eyes widened slightly and her mouth opened, but beyond that she didn’t indicate one way or another if Ella’s suggestion was correct or not.

But Dawn took that ball and ran with it.

“So wait, it’s about us, then?” Dawn thought back to some of the assassin’s previous responses and actions. “Or no… wait… could it be… …Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin… are you trying… to connect with us?”

That was it, wasn’t it? Dawn knew what it was like to not have friends. To have difficulty communicating with people. And she saw it all over the other girl’s face.

“It makes sense…” Sylvia frowned. Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin cratered in the Popularity Poll last round. And it’s easy to see why. She may be gung-ho about sleeping with Daddy, but she wasn’t bothering to get to know anybody else. She wasn’t making friends or opening up to people. And yeah, it’s hard, because she can’t talk, but she didn’t even really try.

If she was trying to change herself in the eyes of the audience, it made sense that she would seek to connect with the other women in the harem however possible, even if her relationships with them were rather shoddy and unfocused.

Augmented Synthetic Humanoid Assassin’s complex facial expression wasn’t helping, either. She looked happy, but at the same time, frustrated. Like she was glad that the other women had understood her perspective and what she was after, but also embarrassed by it.

The sort of response that Ella knew from sharing a body with Cinder, and feeling some of her other self’s emotions leak into her at times.

“Well… I don’t know, then,” Morgana said hesitantly. That new bit of information changed a lot for her, and she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel. She looked hesitantly at Dawn, who just shrugged and gave her a pointed look.

Morgana got the point. This was something for her to figure out. She couldn’t keep relying on the other girl to do it.

She sighed.

But before she could give her answer, the door to the Banquet Hall opened again, and the cheery voice of Vivian Carrington rang out through the room. “Hey there!” She called. “We’re here!”