Everyone's a Catgirl! Ch. 339: She’s Afraid of the Net (Patreon)

Ravyn’s eyelids opened to slits. She lay on her side, curled up with her legs pulled close to her chest. The sheets of her bed—if you could call it that—were bunched in her left hand. She groaned and shut her eyes. 

Fuck. She was still in her mother’s dungeon.

Sighing, she pushed herself to sitting, and the chain clinked with her movement. She looked down at the chain and brushed the link that was fastened to her collar. The thought of snapping the chain apart brought her a modicum of solace. That was, until she looked up to see that Chi was still leaning against the wall directly across from her cell.

This bitch, she thought.

Chi was the greatest shining example of everything wrong with those who associated with Emberlynn. One good look at her told Ravyn everything she needed to know. The bitch—being Chi, not Emberlynn, though she was a bitch as well—most likely had some tragic tale where she was wandering the streets of Shulan for all of her life, rummaging through trash and stealing to survive. That was, of course, when the great and venerable Embelynn would approach and grant her sanctuary in her estate.

At first, Chi would be quiet and reclusive, hiding in the shadows and sitting in corners whenever she ate. Emberlynn, being the gracious goddess that she was, would usher her back to the table and insist she eat with everyone. The servants would dote upon her, and as time went on, Chi would start to come out of her shell.

Since then, like every catgirl who worked under her mother’s wing, she’d fostered an extreme allegiance to Emberlynn. My life is yours, or some stupid shit like that. Chi would die for her, kill for her, do anything for her. Needlessly loyal, sickeningly efficient, and ruthless beyond measure, Chi had to have been manipulated, just as the servants were.

“Hey,” Ravyn said barely above a whisper. Her throat was hoarse from crying and screaming. Of course nobody heard her. Or maybe they just didn’t care. “I want water. Get me water.”

Chi hummed. Something glinted in the low light between her fingers. Ravyn figured it was some type of Enchanted stone with a counterpart. Rub it, and whoever had the other half would come running. Or walking. Whatever.

“Do you ever say anything?” Ravyn asked. 

Chi said nothing. 

Ravyn’s left eye twitched. “Have you ever said anything?” She found a renewed strength in her voice.

Still nothing. Chi simply continued to observe her the same way an insect did before it considered attacking. 

“Well, if you’re not going to talk, then I will. Since I’m not leaving any time soon, you and I may as well get comfortable together.”

Ravyn readjusted so that she sat cross-legged. It was hard to stay awake, stay focused. The Enchantment draining her Myana was a newer sensation she was unaccustomed to. Each time her body regenerated some of its lost magic, the Enchantment snatched it away. A tingling sensation would start at the tips of her fingers and toes. It would turn cold, flow through her veins like ice, then stop when it reached the collar. It was uncomfortable and bizarre.

“Have you ever been rehabilitated?” Ravyn asked. Chi, of course, didn’t say a damn word. That was fine. She’d been wanting to vent about this for a while. “I’ll assume not. You seem like a very loyal, easily manipulated person.” She shrugged. “This is a sanctuary”—she gestured to the walls around her—“compared to how they treat you during rehabilitation.” She tucked her hands into the gap made by her legs and leaned forward.

“They stuff you into a dark room. No windows. No light. No sound.” She scoffed. “Just you and your thoughts to keep you busy. Sometimes they walk by and pound on the door, just to remind you that there’s something outside of your cell. The only peeks of light I ever got were when they slipped food into my room through a small compartment at the bottom of the door. Those moments were bliss.

“You can’t do anything in these rooms. Nothing useful, anyway.” Ravyn leaned back, oddly soothed by the sound of the clinking chain. “They Enchant them so that if you try to use your Skills or Spells, the room shocks you. It hurts like hell.” She licked the top row of her teeth. “I don’t know how long I was in there for, but eventually there came a time when I started using my Spells just so I could feel something.

“Every so often, they would remove me from the room for a while and strap me to a table. They kept me blindfolded the whole time, telling me that it was my fault Finn died, it was my fault I was suffering. This was Saoirse’s way of repaying the favor, apparently. I had abandoned her, disobeyed our great goddess, and this was the only way I could repent.”

Chi’s ears flicked forward. Had she caught her attention?

“Something about my story sound familiar?” She waited. Chi said nothing. “No? Then I’m going to keep going. See, this is one of the side effects of being locked up without anyone to talk to. You start talking to yourself, sometimes the walls, mumbling and saying strange things. So, Chi. You are my wall today. Or tonight. Whatever the fuck time it is.

“That’s another thing. When you’re being rehabilitated, you can never tell what time it is. Did I say this already? You never know just how much you miss the sun and moon until you can’t see them anymore. You have no sense of when morning is, whether or not you should be sleeping, it all fucks with you.

“Every time the rehabilitators come in to check on you, ask how you’re feeling, ask if you still love him, your skin crawls. Your body aches. Your eyes twitch. At that point, you’ll do anything, say anything to be free from your cage.” She sneered. “Sometimes they take you out. They bring you to another, more traditional cage.” She raised her arms and looked at her walls. “Like this one.” She stretched her legs out in front of her and tucked her hands under her thighs.

“Never for long, though. I think they just do it to fuck with you. Because for those few hours, you can see the sun again. You can hear the pleas of other catgirls in the room, begging to be released, begging for forgiveness. They cry and scream and no one comes to help them. They may as well be screaming into their pillows for all the good it does them. But still they cry.

“I joined their chorus after a while. I cried my eyes out and begged just as they did. I’m not proud of it, but I vowed never to think of or mention Finn ever again.” Ravyn leaned to her side, and the chain followed. She touched the stone on her collar, and the cold sensation sapped away the Myana she felt returning to her body. By now, Bally had likely been dismissed.

She clenched her teeth, terrified she’d lose him next.

“Of course, they took me back to my cell anyway. Nothing I said was good enough for them. I was practically a walking husk by the time they had considered releasing me. They promise that if you’re on your best behavior that you might get out early.” She laughed. “What bullshit. The girls I saw there had to have been there for months. They don’t release you until they’re extra sure that you’re cured.”

Ravyn pulled her legs up to her chest, then wrapped her arms around her legs, perching her chin between her knees. “I still think about Finn sometimes. His voice has quieted, and I can barely remember what he looks like now. But every once in a while, I dream about him. I dream about the life we could’ve had, and as I sit here, I realize how wrong I was. The life I wanted, the kittens I dreamt of having, the destiny I thought I could forge myself will never exist.”

I hope you’re okay… Matt.

“I’m still my mother’s daughter,” Ravyn said. “Which means that as long as she’s still alive, I’m still a piece in her grand scheme. Hell, I’m certain that she’ll find a way to haunt me long after she’s dead. One way or another, she’s always had a way of slithering back into my life.”

Ravyn let the silence hang for some time. She reminisced about that first day she met Matt and how foolish he looked in her doorway. Whisking him away into her room when she was still half-drunk and practically naked had proven to be so much fun. It helped, too, that he was so easily paralyzed by her features. She reveled in it and found any opportunity she could to tease him.

She’d learned from Finn that many of the men who arrived in Nyarlea were quite easy to play with. It helped that Matt was a genuinely good person. Naive, and a bit hardheaded at times, but he—to borrow a phrase she’d learned from Finn—wore his heart on his sleeve.

Knowing that he was in bed with other catgirls had begun to bother her. Watching him sleep with Keke almost every night, urging him to keep bedding more after Yomi… She’d fought hard not to let her possessiveness show. A good man like him had enough to think about already with Cailu the Cunt breathing down his neck, and Matt had begun to understand his role in the world. She hadn’t wanted to add to his pile of things to worry about. 

Even so, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to be the one person he could rely on, no matter what. To be the woman he came home to every day. To sit on the couch, laugh, cuddle, enjoy a bottle of wine, and fuck like animals. Since Matt had also come from Earth, the transition would’ve hopefully felt natural for him. But there would always be the other catgirls. The ones who needed kittens.

And Ravyn could never come between that again.

Her mind wandered, and heat rose to her cheeks. She pinched the skin on her forearm. Hard. She winced and looked up at Chi. As soon as she opened her mouth to speak, a knock came at the door. Chi pushed away from the wall and started up the stairs to Ravyn’s right. A crack of light spilled into the room, and a gentle voice carried down the stairs. Ravyn’s first instinct was to cry out, but by now she’d learned how fruitless her attempts were.

The light disappeared, and Chi’s footsteps echoed against the walls as she descended back down. She placed the cup of water by the cell door, then resumed her position against the wall.

“You’re sick.” Ravyn scooted over to the edge of the bed and walked over to the cell door. She descended to her hands and knees and reached for the glass, but she was just a few inches short of reaching it. “You,” she hissed. “You did that on purpose.” She gritted her teeth. 

Chi continued to remain silent. 

“Give me the water, you bitch!” Ravyn gripped the chain strapped to her collar until the feeling left. “Now! Give it to me right now!”

But Chi did nothing. Said nothing.

She just kept watching.