Echoes Of The Seven

Seven Years Ago

Nima cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks and hands clenched into fists as tight as they could go. Not that she was trying to move away from the table she was seated at with her arms outstretched over- it was merely an instinctive reaction to pain. The instinct to run, the animalistic urge to escape away from the threat. However, she couldn’t. She shouldn’t. She did something wrong- apparently- and she needed to remember not to do it again. She forced herself to stay seated.

“Hands,” the voice above her said with an edge of shakiness. For a moment, Nima didn’t move. She didn’t want to. Not again. After a few seconds though, she choked down a sob and slowly unclenched her fists to lay her palms flat against the wooden table with her fingers outstretched. Her knuckles weren’t bleeding, but they were red and sore, surging in pain once again as the meterstick slapped down roughly on the joints across her fingers. Nima yelped and clenched her fists a second time. The person above her let out a long breath and even sniffled a bit with the telltale sounds of them wiping their own nose. When they knelt down beside the eleven-year-old in the chair, a hand gently came to rest on their back in a way that was disorientingly comforting compared to the punishment they were doling out.

“Why are we doing this?” Father asked quietly and gingerly.

After several seconds, Nima sniffled. “Because I did something bad.”

“What did you do that was bad?” Father asked. It was a rhetorical question- he, Mother, Nima’s teachers and her principal had all explicitly stated it to her many times over the day. Still, Nima took a shaky breath and answered.

“I threw a pot of ink at Mrs. Scheiner.”

“Why did you throw ink at your teacher?” he asked. Once again, a rhetorical question. Nima had explained herself several times, but it seemed as though Father wanted the answer again. Nima reached up and wiped some of the tears from her cheek before resting her hands back on the table- ready for discipline.

“Tatum said I could copy her answers on the test if I didn’t know them, so I did. Then Mrs. Scheiner said that wasn’t allowed. I told her that Tatum was letting me so it was okay, but Mrs. Scheiner kept saying it wasn’t and that I was cheating. Eventually, she ripped up my test, gave me a new one and told me to start over without cheating. So, I threw my ink pot all over her face to get her to leave me alone.”

Before Father could respond, Nima twisted in her seat and sniffled. “She was being mean! I wasn’t cheating because Tatum said it was okay for me to copy her if I didn’t know!”

Nima was silenced by the sudden presence of a warm embrace around her, with her face being pressed into Father’s chest. The hug was nice, at least.

“Nima, copying answers from someone else is a form of cheating, even if that person allows it.”

“But then I would have gotten the questions wrong and gotten a lower grade,” Nima mumbled. “If the test is supposed to be about getting the right answers, why aren’t I allowed to put down the right answers?”

“It’s more complicated than that.” Father sighed, eventually pulling away from the hug to look Nima straight in the eyes. “But regardless of that, you shouldn’t have thrown ink in your teacher’s face. That could have blinded her.”

Nima simply stared onwards. “So?”

She saw Father flinch at that response, but she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t the one with the meterstick coming down on his knuckles.

“Nima, you can’t do that to other people. How would you feel if she threw ink in your face and blinded you for life?”

Nima paused. Trying to use a quill and ink for ‘ettiquite’ class while left handed already ensured she had no small number of sour experiences with ink staining her skin. She’d hate to get it all over her face- much less in her eyes. But what did that have to do with-

Oh.

Nima blinked, face straightening. “Then I’m sorry for my actions. May I go to my room now?”

Father sighed and stood up. He was quiet for several seconds before he eventually forced out words that sounded more like a cough. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

Now that she’d apologized and everything was okay, Nima walked out of the kitchen with nary a worry in the world. She was happy to go to her room, even having a little skip in her step despite the lingering pain in her knuckles.

Harvey, however, couldn’t help but feel a little pang by the way that his daughter never looked back at him before she disappeared around the corner. He glanced down to the meterstick he leaned against one leg of the table.

Did Nima hate him? No, probably not. She’d more than made clear every single thing she liked or disliked. She would call dinner disgusting right in front of her mother if the meal was bad (at least saving Harvey the need to). She would throw a book in the trash, regardless of if anyone else wanted to read it, or was already in the process of doing so thanks to a bookmark that Nima would inevitably remove because it got in her way.

If Nima hated her father, she would have told him to his face when he was striking her.

Ugh, even the thought made Harvey’s throat sting. He hated it- probably even more than Nima did. Every time he picked up that meterstick felt like he was lifting an executioner’s axe. Seeing Nima with tears running down her face and whimpering from her bruised knuckles made him angry beyond belief- angry that he couldn’t do anything else.

Psychopath.

That was the word the therapists used. A clinical term, but glorified by scary stories about bad people doing terrible things and shoved under that phrase. A person incapable of empathy. To them, there was no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The entire world boiled down to whether a thing or an outcome was good or bad for them, completely disregarding how the outcome affects other people.

And Harvey’s daughter was a psychopath. Among other problems.

Harvey pinched the bridge of his nose, desperately trying not to let the water in his eyes start falling while he sat down in the same chair he beat his daughter in. A horrible thing, but it was the only option they could think of. If Nima did bad things to give herself good outcomes, then they had to force bad outcomes as punishments to drive her away from those same acts.

Time-outs didn’t work. Keeping her in her room was actually preferable for the girl. Even locking her in the hallway closet without dinner was shockingly unreliable. After three incidents with stealing from other students three days in a row, Harvey and Carmine started to piece together that Nima clearly wasn’t seeing the punishments as anything that outweighed the benefits of the actions she couldn’t properly understand the fault in.

She’d always apologize afterwards when the fault was explained, bless her heart, but the fact that Nima couldn’t even begin to piece those faults together until other people told her it was wrong was the troubling part. If she couldn’t attribute other people’s lives as things she needed to avoid doing bad things for, then she needed to attribute bad actions leading to bad results for her directly. Things she gets punished for.

Things that hurt, so she hopefully wouldn’t do them again.

Harvey choked a sob into the palms of his hands. Either he had to painfully punish and discipline the most precious thing in the world to him, or he had to watch that beautiful, troubled little girl grow up with no sense of morality and get herself into more problems he could bear to watch.

By the gods, the world could be so cruel.

Nima was confused.

Based on the way that Alexandra had left the room in a huff, it was a reasonable deduction that she was upset. What Nima wasn’t sure about was the context of Alexandra’s statements immediately leading up to that. They weren’t a party? That was a blatant lie. They had formed their group and went on their first venture into the Obelisk. Until it was explicitly stated in a meeting with all party members present that someone in the party was leaving, being kicked out, or that the party was disbanded, then the party would stay as-is for the purposes of Syndicate documentation and ease of clarification. It even said as such on page thirteen of the Marrix Code of Conduct and Recruit Training Statement.

Since there had been no party meeting to discuss previously, Alexandra had clearly misspoken and misremembered. Or she was deliberately lying to try and make a point that Nima didn’t understand.

Strange.

As for the second comment about Nima and Meghan ‘hating’ each other, that was a far stretch. Nima found the Shaman to be irritating, rude, inconsiderate, and above all else, downright annoying. However, Nima not enjoying the company of Meghan and rather seeking solace by her lonesome meant very little. Nima didn’t particularly enjoy anyone’s company. That didn’t mean she hated people- she would simply just prefer for interactions to have a distinct goal; a means to an end.

Forming a party to venture into the Obelisk and gain experience.

Sparring with an instructor to better learn combat with a spear against armoured opponents.

Buying a tree costume from a Tailor to attend a costume party.

Engaging in coital activities to relieve stress and enjoy carnal pleasure.

Nima let her breath out through her nose in short, even bursts as she thrust into Tondelaya. As for Tondelaya, she was facedown on the bed, hands gripping tight onto the sheets with her butt raised to line up with Nima’s pelvis, who was kneeling behind her. Every time Nima’s length bottomed out in the brunette, Tondelaya gave a little moan that Nima assumed was pleasure given the context (though certainty was unfortunately never an option). Looking down the smooth back and the rounded bottom, Nima did have to admit that Tondelaya held a figure that was appealing to her arousal. Convenient, since the previous two ladies Nima approached with the offer of coitus had declined.

Apparently, asking and using full names at an orgy didn’t seem to be a widely accepted custom, which Nima hardly understood. If individuals were going to trust each other with the sanctity of communal pleasure using very sensitive and vulnerable genitals, surely knowing who a partner was would be a comfort, not a concern. At least Tondelaya was more amicable. When Nima introduced herself alongside a handshake, the girl even laughed- obviously delighted that someone else was taking the intimacy of the act seriously before she too, introduced herself with a deep bow. It may have only been a name, but that was a level of trust that Nima found a solid pleasure in.

Now, Nima could relax in the sensations of sex, hands resting gently on the smooth swells of her partner’s rear end. Tondelaya Middelnaime Fancypants was now a familiarity in the river of faces and nude skin of this party. Someone Nima could place her assurance in as an honest soul looking for pleasures of the flesh. Odd name though.

Perhaps it was a northern custom.

What had she been thinking about?

Right- her supposedly hating Meghan.

Nima let out a small sigh as she thrust- distracted by the goings-on in her head. She wouldn’t say that she hated Meghan. Not in the same way Nima hated other things. The taste of mustard made her gag. Being tickled was a cruelty. But as for Meghan herself, Nima would be hard-pressed to consider her feelings towards the girl as genuine hate. Not that it truly mattered in any capacity what their feelings were for each other- they seemed to be functional enough in a combative scenario and that’s what mattered for a party. Relationships meant absolutely nothing in a dangerous situation as long as those involved were able to distance personal feelings and obligatory duty.

Nima would much, much prefer having anyone else be a ‘healer’ for their party and would gladly see Meghan replaced on a personal level so she didn’t have to engage with the irritating girl as much. But by no means was Nima going to intentionally shirk her duties and let Meghan die simply because she found the girl annoying.

Nima unconsciously rubbed the back of her knuckles.

It became harder to focus on her internal debate as Nima felt the familiar tingling in her testicles. Even so, it had been nice to have that moment to herself. With Tondelaya facedown in the bed, there was no need for conversation and thus no need to incessantly analyze every facial or body movement the girl made for Nima to deduce her feelings. Nima could simply continue as she was, focused on her own pleasure and trust that Tondelaya was doing the same while Nima let herself get lost in thought. Now, on the road quickly leading up to climax, it was quite difficult to remain so unfocused.

Tondelaya’s warm wetness gripped tightly around Nima’s length as it pistoned in and out, in and out, in and out. The girl was breathing heavily into the sheets her face was buried in, amidst muttered expletives interspaced with comments like ‘so big’ and ‘just like that’. Since they weren’t clear and deliberate expressions of denial or a wish for Nima to stop, she didn’t. Nima continued her thrusting, greatly enjoying the feel of Miss Fancypants’ inner walls wrapping snugly around her member and desperately massaging every bit of surface area, getting her ever-so-closer to that lovely finish.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer…

Nima let out a husky breath while sinking herself as deep as Tondelaya’s tunnel would let her. A pelvis pressed against a rounded bottom and the tingling in Nima’s lower regions culminated in a fiery wash of relief. Each throb eased off the pressure that had been building, letting loose rope after rope of thick, pasty cream deep into Tondelaya’s core. Nima stayed there for several seconds, basking in the glory of her climax while the pulses slowly tapered off. One of Tondelaya’s hands remained on her nethers, furiously rubbing even while Nima pulled away to retrieve her cock from the depths of her partner’s snatch.

The darker skin was glistening with the natural lubricant of a lovely pussy, but very little of her own cum since there hadn’t been additional thrusting. She looked at Tondelaya’s lower entrance for a moment until it started to gently form a few beads of white from the fluid oozing out, then Nima crawled off the bed. As the rainbow-haired girl walked across the carpet and towards the washroom, Tondelaya spoke up.

“Uhh, what the fuck?”

Nima turned around to see the girl had retrieved her hand from her masturbatory efforts and was now looking at her with a furrowed brow. Concern, maybe?

“What?” Nima asked.

“What are you doing?”

“I was going to wash my penis,” Nima responded flatly. “I would prefer to be clean before I leave.”

“That’s it? You aren’t gonna finish?”

Nima furrowed her own brow in confusion. “...I did climax, yes…”

“Well, what about me?” Tondeleya asked.

“What about you?” Nima repeated, unsure of where this odd conversation was going. The girl on the bed stared for a number of quiet, awkward seconds before letting out a sigh. Probably one of relief, given the context of the orgy.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Tondelaya breathed out. Nima raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t make a joke, but I do believe I’m quite humorous, so thank you.”

Tondelaya’s only response was to roll off the bed, then walk out of the room. Extending her middle finger in Nima’s direction while she did so was decidedly rude, however.

Some people just had no manners, apparently.