The Order (Supple Nail & Zombies Galore)

Auria took a deep breath to steady her nerves and tried to calm her body's motion, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet the way she always did when she was scared or nervous. There was a slight tremor through the shuttle craft as the docking web disengaged, the distant feeling of something massive and intractable lumbering along as the burners rumbled to life and pushed the craft away from the launching tower. There was the slightest delay between when the thrusters ignited and when the inertial compensator field kicked in and Auria wobbled, taking a step backwards to steady herself. She took another deep breath.

Her entire life had been leading up to this moment. Since she was a girl she had dreamed of the stars, of a life of adventure and exploration. To see the sights the spacers talked of in her father's shop, to feel the pull of a foreign star's gravity, to discover the great secrets the cosmos still had to offer, that was a price worth any labor. But Hadrian IV wasn't a planet of spacers or explorers. It was a backwater of farmers and miners. Simple folk bound to the surface as intractably as if they were chained there. There was no navigator's guild to offer a route off world, no military garrison to recruit a young hopeful. And so Auria had taken a longer shot.

The Baelish Order was more exclusive than the navy of any of the galactic regional princes, more demanding than even the grand steersman's college. With as much galactic scope as many small stellar nations they had their pick of candidates. Auria had studied hard, trained her body to taut perfection, memorized the catechisms and axioms. At least, the ones available to outsiders. The rumors of the Order's grand secrets and high designs were as entrancing to young Auria as the call of space.

She had studied and worked, traveled to learned tutors on the far reaches of her planet and competed with other hopefuls as fiercely as any warrior. And when the selection process had begun she was shocked by how far she still had left to go. She was tested and tested and tested. Memory, logic, recitation. Flexibility, strength, endurance. Some tests had seemed pointless. Some had seemed odd. Some of the most difficult tests had seemed like the examiners were more interested in Auria's capacity to follow orders under pressure than to perform the actual test. Some had seemed designed to see just what she would submit to without dropping out of the running. During her physical examination they had taken measurements that seemed so odd and specific she didn't know why anyone would need them.The size and shapeliness of her breasts, the ratio of her hips to her waist, the thinness of her arms and slenderness of her neck. They had even done a scan to confirm that she was still a maiden. She blushed at the thought.

Even the instructions that she had been given seemed odd. She was told to strip and dress herself in a garment provided, a flimsy robe so short that it left her legs exposed to the thigh, slit in the front and on the sides to show more than it concealed, precarious enough that sudden movement could cause it to slip from her shoulders and expose her modesty. She had been disobedient then, her shyness overcoming her, and had kept on her underclothing beneath the robe. The plunging neckline that would normally have exposed the inner slopes of her breasts instead revealed her chemise.

Ah, but that all paled in comparison to the ecstasy of knowing that she had been chosen. Nervousness warred with elation in her mind and she found herself rocking again. There was another jar as the unmanned shuttle docked with what could only be the Order cruiser. Auria's breath caught in her throat and she quickly assumed the stance that she had been instructed to, feet shoulder width part, hands folded behind her back, chin down and eyes focused on a spot on the floor in front of her.

Her nostrils flared in the rush scent and sound as the airlock hissed open.

This day was like any other, this day was not like any other.

Ezekiel formed the paradox in his mind and focused on it. As his attention narrowed his heart slowed, his skin cooled, his eyes stopped their rhythmic ticking. His attention rolled down from his head, loosening his neck, setting his broad shoulders, relaxing his callus studded hands. After finishing his morning meditation the Baelish Peer rose, bathed beneath a hand carved ivory spigot and dressed himself as fit for the occasion.

He pulled on charcoal linen trousers, a thick belted linen coat and a pair of dyed moccasins to match his dark attire. Today, finally, he would begin training his first disciple as a Peer of the Order. The monk left his spartan cabin, walking with purpose to finally meet the woman whose psychometric profile he had poured over.

Auria seemed suited to the kind of training that entrance into the Baelish Order required. Her temperament was malleable and, moreover, she had made her admittance to the Order a life long obsession. Ezekiel had been the same way decades ago when he entered the monastic life. He had been different then: less focused, less precise, without the inner secrets of the Order or the tech that had so well preserved as he approached his sixtieth birthday. Instead he looked less than half that age, with none of the gray an older gentleman might find and still possessing the strength of a young, fit man.

He passed long, wood paneled corridors, walked through open portals, waited a few moments in an obsidian lift tube that lead him to the docking bay.

It was only a few moments after entering the spacious timber and steel bay that she came into view, her head down in a gesture of supplication and garbed in supplicant’s raiments.

“I welcome you in from the exoteric world, Disciple Auria,” he intoned, the first verse of the greeting that all new Disciples heard. “I am Peer Ezekiel.

“Bow, as the burden of potential insight rests on your shoulders.

“You are newborn today.

“Come forward on hands and knees. Let your attention flow from your eyes to your neck, let it loosen your shoulders, let it rest in lowest reach of your belly as you make your first journey as a new daughter of the Order.

“As you crawl towards me feel your old self pivoting and turning, standing up with sloped shoulders and bowed back. For every foot you move forward, your old life moves ten feet back.”

Once Auria crossed the breach the docking hatch closed, followed by four sudden tremors: the explosive decoupling of the shuttlecraft as it peeled away from its recent host.

“The old Auria is in space now.

“The old Auria is dead now.

“Rise, Disciple.

“You are newborn today."

All of Auria's training, all of her nervousness, all of her awe seemed to crystallize into the figure that stepped into the receiving chamber as though stepping out of her mind. He represented everything that she had strove for to reach where she was standing, in a state of the art ship cutting through the night. For the first time the pull of gravity on her frame was not the trapping weight of her homeworld. The ship was power and mastery over nature wrought in plazsteel and fusion reactors. And this man was one of its masters. His was the power to bring light and heat and atmosphere even to the darkest voids of space.

But more than that, and she was surprised to see it, he was undeniably and powerfully male. She had built the Baelish monks up in her mind into powerful gods, striding the cosmos. She know intellectually that they were men like any others, of course, but her intuition told her that they were infinitely mighty and wise. To see the man before her in statuesque masculinity was almost alien.

Her ears pricked as he began an intonation. The words had the heavy cadence of time honored and potent ritual. She felt electrified as she moved to obey. It suddenly occurred to her that in all her studies and trials she had never been told what to expect once she was actually accepted.

She bowed her frame low, her supple waist bending lithely as she dropped to her knees. His words rang in her ears as she crawled forwards, the motion making the slinking sway of her hips pronounce itself as she crossed the chamber on all fours. As he commanded she pushed herself up into a shuffling, hunched gait, then straightened her back as she crossed to him. She felt like a stalk of golden wheat rising in the sun, for the first time becoming herself. She jumped slightly as the bolts fired and peeked behind her. The airlock door was opaque but she could visualize the shuttle tumbling away, falling back into the planets gravity. Her old life falling to burn up the crucible of reentry.

At last she stood before the Peer, looking up at him in awe.

"I have come, Sir." She said. She didn't know what she was supposed to say and simply said the first thing that came to her.

Looking down at his newly minted Disciple, the Peer felt quite dismayed and even disappointed. She had failed in her first instruction as a supplicant to the order, wearing undergarments beneath the traditional robe.

He raised his hand, casually flicking the wide neck of the robe to fall down Auria’s shoulder, revealing more of the chemise. “An old Earth poet wrote, 'No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.’

“So I must ask myself, in the face of this wisdom, is your ability to follow direction half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge? Perhaps it is slumbering.

“You have defiled it, Disciple. You have dragged the taint of your past into this holy place,” he sneered, “you have taken a sacred moment and twisted it, perverted its intent into something else.”

Ezekiel’s gaze was a commingling of disgust and disappointment. The monk raised a upwards that was caught between giving and taking before he let it fall to the side. “Lucky for you we are still near the gravity well of your planet.” He turned the inside of his beefy forearm upwards, swinging his wrist up so that it was parallel to the ground.

Without any conscious input red, green and yellow jewels shined through his flesh in a series of nested circles. “We will have you returned in under fifteen minutes.

“Unless,” Ezekiel looked through Auria as though she were a half memory already, “you can convince me you are worthy of being my Disciple."

Of all the responses she expected Auria was unprepared for Ezekiel's casual, controlling motion as he brushed the robe down to reveal her undergarments. The twin shames of exposure and disobedience rushed through her and she cursed herself for her shortsightedness. Of what use was modesty among such high minded and powerful men? But old habits died hard and her face blushed the color of a rose as he casually bared her. She stood stock still, bearing her humiliation like a cross although her first impulse was to jerk her hands up to cover herself.

"My lord! I am sorry, I did not presume to..." She began but trailed off. She would have to make her blunder right before she could beg forgiveness for it.

Her eyes fell down and to the side and she forced her hands into motion. Although her face burned she worked the supporting ties of her chemise down her shoulders and slipped it off. The motion exposed her breasts, pale as milk and not overlarge for her tiny frame, supple handful sized globes adorned with tiny pink nipples. She thew the discarded chemise down behind her and bit her lower lip as she reached up under her robe. She hooked her fingers under the hem of her panties and slid them down her legs, kicking them to the side and as far away from her as she could get them. She rearranged the scant robe as it was intended, the deep vee of the neckline plunging between her breasts and exposing their inner slopes, the almost visible shelf of her ribs, and the shallow divot of her navel. She was covered again, although the robe was nearly short enough to reveal her maidenhood, and yet she felt as if she were standing there naked.

"Please, I beg of you. I am worthy. I will do whatever you ask to prove my devotion." She said, hoping against hope that she would still be accepted.

Contrary to his expectations there had been no pleading, no excuses: just results. The psychometric profiles were right. One day Auria would make a fine addition to the Baelish Order.

This was not, however, the time for compliments. Instead the shining lights faded from beneath Ezekiel’s forearm as he silently watched the woman quickly remove her underclothes and toss them aside like so much offal. “Take those things to the airlock, on your hands and knees. You may not use your hands to carry them. Then return, similarly crawling.”

As patently beautiful as the woman’s breasts were, the Peer was more focused on her face. His own features were pale, with an aquiline nose and close cut jet hair on a clean shaven face. His slate gray eyes seemed more real than the rest of his face, a vivid high definition against the technicolor of his expression.

“You have three minutes,” he added, in the hopes of imparting a strong sense of urgency. Additionally, she would have to move fast enough to let her breasts slip through the robe’s plunging neckline, leaving her that much more exposed.

Given the way things were heading, he foresaw a certain amount of strict reinforcement in her future. There was a period of adjustment to the new role that was often jarring for new inductees to the Order, but ultimately necessary, and Auria was just getting her first bittersweet taste.

Auria hesitated but nodded at his words. Unable to look up into his steely eyes she instead kept her gaze focused on his chest. Her eyes were visible through her long lashes, a gentle brown like the fertile earth of her homeworld. Although her dark hair would have been long enough to brush the ground when she was on hands and knees it was fortunately twisted up into an elaborate bun at her neck, secured by pins that the embarking agent had provided along with the tiny robe.

"As you command, Sir." She said, sinking quickly to her knees.

She reached for her undergarments reflexively but stopped, glancing up at Ezekiel nervously as if for confirmation. You may not use your hands. Her blush deepened as she lowered herself to collect them in her mouth. They were clean but she could still smell her own scent on them, the earthy particulates of her world. As she bent forward the tiny robe slipped up and over her ass. It was toned and taut, the hips slender themselves and yet wider than the tiny waist they tapered up to. A tear of embarrassment rolled down Auria's cheek unseen as she felt the fabric sliding along her soft skin. She knew that on her knees, her back arced and her lips pressed to the floor, the folds of her pussy and the crinkled button of her asshole would be plainly visible. She felt the cool breeze of air on them to confirm her dread suspicion.

As quickly as she could she skittered across the receiving chamber, the motion awkward but as graceful as she could make it. She tried to move smoothly, the way she thought a Baelish initiate ought to move. This made her hips roll and sway, the robe still bunched up in her lower back where it had gathered. The front fell open just as Ezekiel expected that it would, although the view wasn't his until Auria's return trip. She kept her eyes down as she returned, halting when she saw his dark slippers before her.

In a hesitant motion she made to rise but stopped. Instead she settled back on her haunches, her hands still on the ground. The robe slipped back down over her ass but her leaned forward position left the front hanging immodestly away from her breasts. From his lofty position the tall Peer would be able to see down the whole front of the flimsy robe.

As he watched her swaying scurry, the Peer could not help but imagine his disciple with her cheek pressed flat to the ground while bouncing her hips against his waist. Her pink folds were tight against her body, virginal, and calling to be explored and played with until after Auria’s screams had died down into quiet gasps. He brushed the thoughts from his mind, reorienting himself to address Auria’s success.

“You made it with eleven seconds to spare, Disciple. Perhaps your obedience is not quite asleep,” he said neutrally, looking down at the bowed head of his mentee.

“I would, however, expect some form of contrition and rededication given your already…” He paused to give the word some weight, “Poor performance.”

He pivoted to the side and walked a small circle around Auria, penning her in with his quiet strides. “I had expected quite a bit more from you. The system is designed to shed false positives as stringently as possible.

“Are you—a false positive? Will you balk at your duties?” The questions were largely rhetorical. Ezekiel knelt down behind Auria, his hands reaching out to fold around the petite woman’s sides. “Are you ready to bear the mark of a Disciple?"

"No, sir. I will not balk. I will not fail." Auria said, nervousness wit large in her voice.

She tried to follow him with her eyes as he circled her, feeling like a deer being herded by a predator. She did not know what rededication he would require of her but she resolved silently not to fail him again. Her fingers balled into nervous fists but stayed on the floor and as he paced behind her she dropped her eyes to the front.

The hairs on her arms stood in anticipation of...something as she sensed him go to his knees behind her and she braced herself for what she assumed would be a punitive blow. instead he reached out to hold her from behind, his hands sliding forward under her rib cage. The contact was electric, his hands were as strong as iron.

"I am ready for the mark." She said, her voice trembling slightly. What did he mean by mark? Was she to be branded like the cattle on her father's farm? Or was he being metaphorical? In either case she knelt there with him behind her, caught in an agony of trepidation.

Ezekiel’s hands slid up his Disciple’s sides, blunt fingers trailing along her neck before he deftly removed the pins that held her hair in its intricate bun. His fingers curled onto her hair, pulling it out straight.

All the better to use as a leash.

“Follow me,” he ordered as he headed towards the lift tube, her hair now knotted in his hand. “Contemplate, for a moment, how precariously you teetered over the abyss.”

He spent the rest of the journey in silence as the woman crawled across the floor on hands and knees. “Detail is important. Rules have value. The Baelish Order illuminates so much when your ears are primed to listen and eyes are open to the truth.”

The cruiser was a long ovoid in shape ringed with toruses. Unlike many other ships of note, this vessel external elegance or frippery. No turrets dotted its carapace, no blisters of sensors marred its surface. On the inside it was a quiet sort of opulence that dominated the aesthetic. The walls and floors were, for the most part, wood paneled and lovingly cared for by the ship’s carpenters. In larger bays where timber would not do, plasteel arched in ribs leading to domed ceilings in the bays.

Workers and laborers walked by without a second glance. As Friends of the Order—descendants of families that had traditionally worked for and with the Baelish—they were steeped in the traditions and understood precisely what was occurring. The uniforms were similar to the thick linen trousers and shirt that Ezekiel wore, though emblazoned with patches and occasionally boot shod where he went with moccasins.

All of which Auria would no doubt see given the way her head was craned up by the use of her hair as leash.

As the toured down on corridor they came an unmarked door that opened as Ezekiel neared. It was small, little more a cell with a bathroom through one door way. That white tiled space was where Ezekiel lead his Disciple.

“Arise,” he ordered, letting her hair drop.

There was reflective, mirror like polymer bolted to the wall with a sink and drawers leading beneath it. “Take a pair of scissors from the drawer and cut your hair off."

Auria felt Ezekiel pull out the pins to release her hair and it tumbled down her back, still curly from where it had been kept up. She felt him tangling his fingers in her locks and let out a small squeak when he stood abruptly, pulling her onto her fingertips and slightly off her haunches. Her scalp burned where he pulled her hair, dragging her along with him as he strode through the ship. She made as if to rise but she could tell by the level that he held his hand that he expected her to crawl.

This she did, moving as quickly as she could and once again acutely aware of how exposed the brief robe left her. She couldn't move nearly fast enough to keep up with him on hands and knees and so he half led, half dragged her through the ship interior. All around her she saw wonders worked casually, attendants brandishing alien tools, moving heavy boxes with a single beam of energy, cutting and joining materials without a seam. Through it all she was filled with a sense of wonder, but that wonder was subsumed by the growing imperative to obey her new Peer.

She felt like an animal as he dragged her along, or lower. Nobody spared a glance at her. Either this sort of display was commonplace or she was simply too lowly to be worthy of their notice. She didn't know which was more unsettling.

When they reached the small cell she scrambled to her feet at his command. Her knees were bruised from her frenzied pace to keep up with him and her robe was in disarray. She took a moment to adjust it but froze when she heard his command.

She took herself in in the mirror, wide eyed. Her hair was a part of herself. An inert part, to be sure, but it was one of the things that she recognized as the quintessential self. More than leaving her home and her family, more than humiliating herself and discarding her old underthings, this command called for a surrender of the self. To give up what she was and to be come what he, what the Order wanted her to be.

Her fingers trembled as she drew a bright, sharp pair of scissors from the drawer in front of her. She stared at them for a long moment then steeled herself, gathered her hair up one hand, and began slicing through it with the other. A silent tear rolled down her smooth cheek when she finished. Her long dark hair was pooled at her feet. Her hair was now a ragged bob, hastily cut and messy. The difference was shocking. With her long, slender neck exposed and her profile altered she almost didn't recognize herself in the mirror.