She was the sort of thing that had been grown to break prettily. His un-checked blood had seen to it, when all the vines had been sorting themselves into veins and her mother fruit had nourished her heart and lungs to be proficient in pain. To disassemble Iris would only be to create a new artform. It was as if his soul had settled on finding validation for its darkest parts, rather than therapy. There were so many documents on the nymph that had been left unread.<br/><br/>“It’s not too much, Master. I can do it properly,” Iris said. It was quaint that she tried to reason with him. She could hardly understand all the strange suggestions whispering through her bloodstream. He might enjoy it, this effort to bargain, if only because it gave him more ammunition with which to scar her. Certainly, though, it would get her nowhere. So, Iris was compelled to speak the useless words. As if she needed further crises to internalize, she was made to wonder behind the sounds. She had been grown exactly as he would want her. Pity that she should be made to believe she had been grown with an inescapable flaw, too.<br/><br/>“I’ll try my hardest,” she offered, and there was a sense of rising worry in that heartbroken voice. It was her own, not his maid’s, because he insulted Iris’ worth and not Manon’s. Hadn’t the little nymph been so very pleased to offer her services? She’d been a little proud, even, when he’d toted her into the room.<br/><br/>It would have meant very little that he undressed her, hadn’t he told her to dress herself before. Iris had no sense of shame for her nakedness, but let out a shrill gasp when he pulled the smock off her in a rough gesture. She could be distraught for having such things taken away. Surely, Kedrick had realized by now that to issue her a directive was like handing her precious gifts. He took away the evidence of her obedience now, folding it beside her like she should be made to care for her own inadequacies. “Master, please,” she entreated, again with those words that were both necessary and worthless.<br/><br/>His answer was to drag her by her hair again, letting the shards spilled by her crash landing carve new patterns against her spine, until she was writhing to follow him toward the wall. She had twisted to her knees by the time he was yanking her upright. Had she really been so bad? He’d been the one to toss her so casually. Was she supposed to have been able to anticipate it? Her blood surged in protest. It was ridiculous to think she might consider resisting any of his whims.<br/><br/>She let out a little squeal when he twisted her hair around the hook. It was just high enough that she would dangle if she did not extend her toes, and even with that effort she was only marginally relieving her own weight. It was fortunate she had a mass more suiting a house plant than a woman, or she’d surely have been sobbing for the pain of it. Straining to hold herself on tiptoe, chin tipped up to relieve what stress on her scalp she could, she gasped for her Master. “I am still learning.” She whimpered, though it would do nothing for the weight of his accusations on that heart which existed solely to please.<br/><br/>She flinched when he pressed his cheek to her skin, still gasping at the insult to her development. She was only as defective as he had dreamed her to be. Iris did not know how she could be anything else. Still, to be anything but precisely what he desired was as good as invalidating her existence. She would have been better, if it were the truth, ground between his teeth like some exotic catch. It was humiliating, and she trembled as she shook her head in protest. “Please, Master, don’t do such a thing. Please don’t send me back.” It came out as a soft cry, the prospect of return spelling abandonment across her single-minded persistence. There was, too, the reality of being burned like dry branches for fuel—nymphs were useless for any form of resale—but that fate might as well be respite if he were thinking to send her back.<br/><br/>“Anything but that.” She said. When he met her gaze, she was imploring.<br/><br/>Despite the harshness of his rebukes, she was pathetically willing to weaver her fingers with his. Perhaps it was an effort to endear herself to him again, or perhaps her bespoke physiology left her without much choice. Flowers turn toward the sun without thinking, after all. “Master?” a whimpering hope which was broken quickly as he pressed her joints back toward an angle they were not meant to be folded. It was fortunate that she had sapling bones, flexible for their purpose, but good fortune could not prevent him from over-extending her as he wished. Iris had been built with a great diversity of breaking points for his pleasure. It was an additional cruelty that his blood had not let that secret out to her.<br/><br/>Her breath came in little, stuttering hiccups as she held herself as still as one could, dangling from one’s hair. As if he might stop investigating this harm if she were statuesque. Her eyes fluttered. “Please don’t send me back.” She shuddered, despite herself. There was a strange and warm sensation creeping up her limbs. Was he enjoying this? Iris felt an unwelcome ache low in her belly. How cruel that he should find any sort of amusement with her this way. Iris swallowed hard. She did not know how to reconcile the growing frenzy of her bloods enticements in her veins.