Tony scrubbed at his skin until it was red and raw. He still felt dirty, unclean... used. The scents of lavender and sage did nothing to ease his mind. He played the scenario over in his head, trying to figure out what he could have done differently, how he could have dissuaded Serketzi's advances, resisted her questioning.

The damn collar made it impossible, but Tony was an Ascendant. Nothing was impossible.

----------------------------------------

"The whole of the Padinus Empire heard of your victory over Sujuko, but no one knows how you and the Princess met. Tell me about that." Serketzi asked as she gestured to the bath.

"The ship I was in to come to Arach was shot down, I cut through a bunch of spiders and then she challenged me to a duel." Tony answered. Maybe giving direct answers to her questions would be enough to avoid the collar's influence.

He moved toward the steaming pool and one of Serketzi's tails stretched out in front of him, barring the way forward.

"The servants will wash your clothes. Put them on the steps."

The command burned through his spine and then the rest of him. Tony disrobed and threw the blood and ichor-stained clothing against the wall.

Seemingly contented, Serketzi withdrew her tail and allowed Tony to pass.

The water was scalding and was up to his belly button when standing. Tony was content to be covered, even if it was only with the water of the bath. As he ran his hands over the surface and scrubbed at the blood covering them, he looked at Covenant.

It was still there, but something was wrong with the armor. When the bracer had been nicked or gouged in the past, it had regenerated. The hole punched through it by Rania's tail was still there, the formerly red metal had blackened, it was heavy on his arm.

What does this mean?

"So that's it? A crash landing, a duel, and then the engagement festival?" Serketzi's voice interrupted his train of thought.

"Pretty much." Tony lied.

"Somehow," Serketzi said, her voice drawing closer, "I don't believe that is all of it."

"Sorry to disappoint." he quipped as he dropped a handful of water over Covenant, flushing the dried blood and grime out from under it.

Come on, wake up! he thought at the bracer.

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt Serketzi's fingers trace over his shoulders and down his arms.

"You know, a little spider told me that you and the princess bonded under similar circumstances." she breathed into his ear.

Tony swallowed hard. Serketzi's hands wandered back up to his shoulders and back, the stirring in the water around his legs told him that the barbed ends of her tails were not far from his ankles and if he acted in a way that she did not like, she would likely try to poison him again.

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"You shouldn't listen to everything you hear." Tony muttered.

He felt Serketzi's weight against his back as she leaned into him.

"Relax," she ordered before he could flinch away from the contact. The sensation of skin on skin under different circumstances might have been soothing. The intimate touch only served to flood Tony with anxiety.

Her hands started to wander again, dancing over the, now sealed, gash in his chest and over his abdomen. He couldn't relax, it was impossible. Attempting to distract himself from the prickling of Serketzi's affections across his skin, Tony went back to flushing water over Covenant.

"Oh don't be so coy Antonious. I'm trying to be nice," Serketzi cooed as she circled around to his front, forcing him to take in the entire sight of her, "look at me." she ordered.

Essence thrummed through the collar and forced the muscles in his neck to lock in place and prevented him from averting his eyes.

"Have you ever thought about asking nicely." Tony growled through grit teeth.

Serketzi latched onto his hands and ran a curved nail over Covenant's surface, "But I am being nice."

Both of her barbed tails lifted through the water and came down to rest on his shoulders.

"This is being nice?" Tony challenged.

"Mhmmm," Serketzi answered as she slipped her fingers undeneath Covenant and removed it from his wrist, "I said that the servants would wash your clothes, you needn't worry yourself with such trivial tasks."

Tony felt no pressure against his mind, no need to comply.

"Was that an order?"

"Was it?"

Tony arched an eyebrow at the Empress, as she pulled on his wrists with her hands and drew him closer with her tails.

"Relax Antonious."

"You know, I don't think that word means what you think it means, and I don't think that ordering me to do something is going to force my body to comply." Tony answered with a note of defiance.

"Well, why don't we test that theory?"

----------------------------------------

His right forearm started to bleed with the repeated scrubbing.

"You! Out!" one of the servant's shouted.

That wasn't an order. Tony rationalized when his body did not immediately turn and march.

"Did you hear me?" the servant shouted again. The sound of arachnid appendages on the stone floor approaching reached Tony's ears followed by the whooshing of a crook soaring toward his head.

Tony ducked the strike and whirled around, storming out of the bath toward the servant.

"What? Your turn next, huh?" he shouted, "Is it you who gets the leftovers or someone else?"

> Rancor has activated

The Padinus guard's eyes went wide with fear as they scuttled backward away from him. The arachnid legs could not gain purchase on the slick stone fast enough to escape his advance, even after abandoning the weaponized shepherd's crook. Tony slid his foot underneath the discarded staff and flipped it up into his hand.

"What? You don't want your piece?"

He heaved the staff against the wall shattering into a cascade of splinters.

The servant chattered and clicked in a frantic rhythm and Tony's legs stopped, then his muscles slackened, and his face hit the floor. Contrary to what he expected, Tony's consciousness did not fade. He was entirely lucid and aware of the fact that his body was unresponsive, that it was being dragged across the floor, covered in a towel and deposited back in his "room."

Through the next three weeks, Tony maintained his awareness. Every time Serketzi ordered him to "relax" in the baths, every time he was able to ignore a statement that should have been an order, everytime he thought he found a loophole in the workings of the collar.

Antonious King was an Ascendant.

Not even the impossible remained so for long.