Collapsed World [MxM, Non-Con, Mpreg]

Part 43 [Lykaios]

Iris was wrong about one thing, or at least partially wrong. Lykaios did not revel in his pets pleading and crying, though he did like them distressed. While it would have given Lykaios some sense of pleasure to feel the strength of the distress in Iris, he also would have grown bored very quickly. If Lykaios wanted unadulterated distress and despair all he had to do was walk outside and into the city and he could absorb all the suffering there. But no, that was an unrefined suffering without true object or focus. Lykaios liked his suffering like he liked a fine wine, carefully matured and expertly flavored. Iris' resistance was much more pleasing to Lykaios as it would mature his suffering and make it all the sweeter when it chose to come out in small pieces and laced in Iris' eventual pleasure. Lykaios was not completely unaware of how Avaens tended to reflect and internalize the emotions around them, though he had never met an Avaen that did so in quite the way Iris did.

However, the little knowledge he did possess on the subject was the reason for the vents in all the play rooms and also for him injecting himself with lust serum. If Avaens absorbed the emotions of others then Lykaios was sure to project the emotions he wanted them to feel, whether or not they were his own true feelings. Besides, Iris pushing down his feeling for Julius would only serve Lykaios in the end. Whether they were pushed down so far that they were forgotten, overlaid by the emotions Lykaios sought to imbibe, or came rushing back in a harsh moment of facing reality, didn't much matter to Lykaios. It would all have the same end result of tying Iris to him as the others had been, though Lykaios had hopes for something more from Iris.

Lykaios enjoyed the way Iris' body tensed in its desire to want to be away from him, but also applauded Iris his restraint and not pulling away. Lykaios wondered whether the resistance was out of fear of going back to the pain room, the drugs, or something else entirely. He supposed he would find out soon enough. For the moment he was greatly enjoying the ripples of unease and discomfort Iris was feeling from the touch and from what he was hearing. Iris wasn't completely unaffected after all and it seemed it didn't take much to breach that shell of apathy. Lykaios hadn't expected Iris to reply to his words, but a faint smile crossed his face at them. Lykaios agreed of course, with Iris' assessment of his kind. Lykaios too felt that their wanderings had gotten to a point where there was no longer a real purpose but was done just for the sake of it. They could have stayed content on the first planet they had conquered, but some bug of violence and war-mongering had prompted them from planet to planet. Though it had served Lykaios in a number of ways, he found the sentiment revolting and tiring. The Corvines had become like locusts who swarmed from one crop to the next, eating all there was and them moving on, endlessly.

Lykaios had no intention of being like the rest of his kind, who would sooner, rather than later, meet their end for their mindless consumption and conquering. Lykaios had a home, had some place he wanted to stay and people he wanted to stay there with. It would come as no surprise to any who actually knew his intentions that even on planets where colonization had failed, Lykaios maintained ties and held families. He did not simply populate a world and then move on, but took his time to get to know the planet and its people. Lykaios was neither discontent nor suffer from displacency. His was a singular focus which used his race's greater affliction to its own ends. But for now he didn't dissuade Iris of his conceptions nor explain to him how viewing Lykaios like the others would be to his detriment. It was part of the game after all. Iris might find that their aims were not so different, at base anyway. For it was assuredly true that Lykaios enjoyed conquering others as the rest of his kind did, and he enjoyed making his pets submit and giving them pleasure against their will. Of that there was little doubt. His motivations and the extent to which it defined him differed from that of his brother and others, but the superficial result was the same that he escaped notice.