Contrary to belief, not all humans in the Elsiran war effort were treated equally. Oh certainly, all were reduced as soon as they were located and identified but the value they had to the war effort was considered. To conquer your enemy you had to know your enemy, this was the method that had allowed Grand General Nalista to succeed across her history. Some humans thus were more valuable than others, those that knew their homeland well and its defenses. Nobles, merchants, commanders. Those that stood opposed to Elsira and tried to stop its march were made into tools to help assist the downfall of their country.

Among the Elsiran Army however, none were more skilled than Dalia at turning humans into tools. While technically a general, Dalia rarely commanded forces in the field. She was instead one that commanded the intelligence and mage network the army needed to truly thrive. A high position but one that rarely saw glory. It was fine. Glory could all go to the Grand General. It was the natural course of things.

The dark haired elf’s boots clacked upon the cold stone of the dungeons, echoing out in the forlorn halls. The guards on duty straightened out at her passage. She was dressed in dark leather, her normal attire when she was outside her armor. The flickering flames of torches gleamed and reflected upon her glasses, sharp eyes ever alert. She didn’t look like the most imposing woman among the elves, slim and modest.

Her steps brought her to an oak door, the hinges squealing ever so as she opened it up and stepped inside. When this fort had been in human hands the room had likely been the office of whatever warden had been in charge of the dungeon. Now it was the dungeon as far as the Elsiran prisoners were concerned. Upon the table were ten clear jars and in each jar was a human. A couple were pounding their fists against the glass. Some were curled up and weeping. Others were shouting. They were all trapped however.

An elven woman stood to attention, saluting Dalia as she entered. A wave of her hand had the woman at ease. “Which one is it?” She asked.

“A-ah, it's that one there. Refuses to say anything, bitch is as disrespectful as they come as well. Would have smeared her a long time ago if she was mine.” The guard said as she pointed to a jar with a brown haired woman in it.

She was different from her peers. No pounding or struggles or screaming or crying. She was glaring up at the elves, eyes boring into both of them in the distance. The corner of Dalia’s mouth twitched as she met the gaze levelly with her own. The woman didn’t look away. The haughty look in her eyes. Indignation. A noble perhaps? Well she’d find out soon enough. Very very soon.

“Lets thank the gods she isn’t yours then. I’ll take her from here.” She said as she approached the jar. The human didn’t flinch away.

Dalia gripped the jar and walked from the room to an interrogation room across the way. It was a wide open chamber decently lit by a fireplace across from the entryway. A number of torture tools lined the walls. She ignored these and walked up close to the fireplace. She then idly upended the jar over the stone floor below, idly shaking it to send the human falling from it and down the long length of Dalia’s body to the floor below. Any pretense of indignation flew out the window as a scream was torn from her lips, arms and legs flailing as she plummeted.

Dalia flicked her fingers just before the woman hit the floor and a blue glow suddenly seized her, stopping her just before she struck the unforgiving stone below. The human was panting and hyperventilating as Dalia was idly sliding her boots off and setting them off to the side. She peeled off her black gloves as well and tossed them aside before flicking her fingers again and letting the human fall the now much shorter drop to the floor.

“I’ve been told you aren’t being cooperative with the guards during questioning. Mind you the other humans aren’t exactly the pictures of cooperation either, but they have the common sense to squeak out what they know after a bit of prompting. Not you though.” Dalia mused aloud. “You are…?”

“Lady Tyneth Inara… ah… ha… so are you the one they call when they get frustrated when their toys don’t do what they want? Already pitched a fit over me?” Tyneth wheezed as she forced herself upright.

“Would that make you feel better if I said yes? Then yes. Doesn't exactly change your current situation though now does it?" Dalia remarked as she seated herself down.

Her legs slammed down on either side of the woman. There was a wary, yet defiant, look in her eyes. She was watching Dalia carefully, like a rabbit trying to decide if she should flee or not. An improvement over the glare from the jar. She had been shaken up, not expecting the near death experience. Dalia leaned back, her fingers resting against the floor behind her as she let out a long sigh. A noble then. Not unexpected. Most of the hardest ones to crack weren't military commanders, they were the nobility. People born into being treated one way and standing over others.

"I've nothing to say to you, elf, and if you expect me to worship you like you're some god you'll be as disappointed as the others." Tyneth said.

A smirk curled up Dalia's lips. "The guards you've dealt with are rather ham fisted." The woman said at length as she idly slid her legs back.

The human regarded her warily as she watched the walls of black leather shift around and soon enough a pair of pale shapely bare feet surrounded her on either side, black painted toes idly curling in the cool air of the dungeon. To her credit she wasn't trembling or cowering. Yet anyway. She stood firm and glared at Dalia defiantly, refusing to give an inch of ground.

"You know I have a sister back home. Woman by the name of Essira." Dalia said at length. "A soft silly woman that runs a pet shop of all things. A pet shop where you humans are the product. She's a soft loving hand, delights in making her humans feel safe and protected. We don't agree on a lot of things, she finds my tastes perfectly repulsive for instance and I find her sickly sweet nature nauseating. Yet if there is one thing we share it is a delight in breaking you animals." The dark haired elf boomed as all at once Tyneth felt herself seized with the same blue energy before, this time freezing her in place.

"Oh Essira will never admit it of course, but I know she takes special glee in taking one of you and just destroying your false illusion of being a person. You're not a person after all, you're an animal. Little better than a mouse. To her, it's a kindness of course. As a pet you'll be loved and adored and protected." Dalia let out a little gagging sound as she flicked her finger and forced the human to stare at one of her feet. It was the only thing she could see in her field of vision. Every dip and curve of the foot was visible for her viewing pleasure.

"To me however, you're disposable. No different than getting off with a handkerchief and tossing it into a wastebasket. If one of you creatures dies so your betters are fed or pleasured or amused then you have served more purpose in your lives than you otherwise would. You only act differently because you've deluded yourselves for so long that you're civilized. Better. Different from animals. I'm called in when it's time for you to remember you aren't different. That you should *delight* in telling an elf anything they want to know. And you will."

Dalia could see the woman wanted to scream and protest and refute the words booming down upon her from on high. She couldn't though. She couldn't move a muscle in her body because Dalia wasn't allowing it. There was no level of control Dalia couldn't have on her, no hold she couldn't maintain over her. The guards were hamfisted, but Dalia gouged with brutality.

"Ah but of course, you're a sentient being. You're a person. Humans can fight elves and kill them. Humans are equals. I've heard it all before. So why don't we examine just one little aspect hmm? Age. What would happen to a human living an elven lifetime." Dalia mused aloud.

She snapped her fingers and all at once Tyneth was seized by magic once more. Her eyes widened and she tried to strain against Dalia's hold but she couldn't. The spell was a rather complicated one. Outwardly Tyneth's body twitched and seemed to shift rapidly. She was aging. Every second was like a year and her mind experienced just like years were passing. To her she had been held staring at Dalia's foot for years, when in actuality it was seconds. Her body was growing older, hair starting to gray, wrinkles starting to form. Decades passed for her. Then a century.

Tyneth's body was experiencing the passage of time of centuries in a few minutes and it was starting to show drastically in her body. Dalia's magic kept her alive, kept her body functioning and thus her mind sharp and alert. It might have been the greater mercy if she had simply expired. She went from old woman to a curled and hunched pruned creature that barely resembled a human.

After ten minutes or so, Dalia released her hold on Tyneth and allowed her body to collapse. Held together by a baleful immortality and kept from being dust. Withered paper skin was pulled painfully tight around bones that were so brittle and ill from age that they couldn't have possibly allowed her to move. This hairless thing was once a human, now little more than a wretched lump of aged flesh upon the floor between Dalia's feet.

"Look at you. How can anyone see *that* and claim our two species are the same? At that age any elf would look as beautiful and radiant as I am now. You though... well. Little more than flesh and bones." She sneered as she snapped her fingers again.

Just like that it reversed rapidly, much more rapidly than the aging. There was a scream forced from the woman's lips as she was reformed just as she had been before in seconds. All at once she collapsed to her knees, panting and gasping with eyes wide with fright. A mind that could barely process what she had seen. Dalia idly leaned forward and smirked as she watched the woman try to grapple with it all. For indeed she did remember it. Remembered the passage of centuries held in place.

"You know. You probably have more memories of my foot now than you do anything else in your life. After all, you stared at it for longer than any human has lived for." Dalia remarked. "Your constant companion over the centuries. How romantic, don't you think?" The pale elf remarked as she idly curled her toes.

"P-please... gods..." The woman lifted her hands as though that would shield her.

"Is *that* all it took to get you to stop with the defiant glares? A little chronomancy? Such a resolved person you are, able to stand your ground against the worst." Dalia snickered. "I'll tell you what though, Tyneth. I won't do that again, if you do one little thing for me. You don't even have to speak or betray whatever secrets are in your skull. You just need to do me a little service." Dalia said as she glided her fingers across one of her bare soles.

"Crawl over here on your hands and knees and lick. Lick until your tongue feels dry and then keep licking until I tell you to stop. Do that and I'll put you right back in the jar and let you rest. Doesn't that sounds lovely?" Dalia said in a sickly sweet tone of voice.

Tyneth's eyes flickered as they looked up at Dalia. There wasn't defiance in them, there was fear, naked terror. It was fear that bid the woman crawl across the stone floor. Fear that bid her slink her way over to a wall of pale doughy fleshy. Fear that had her lean forward with tears in her eyes. It was fear that had her loll her tongue out and drag it along the surface of Dalia's foot. She licked at it like a dog, like the worthless human that Dalia and every elf had said she was.

The dark haired elf felt an almost erotic spike of pleasure between her legs as she watched it. She watched Tyneth's pride crumple under just the slightest efforts from Dalia. Watched her defiance turn to submission. Much like Essira breaking wasn't torture in her eyes. No, this was *training*. She was training Tyneth, teaching her how things were. That was why so many elves stumbled and staggered when it came to interrogating humans. They didn't see it like that. To truly break a human you had to shift their self worth. You had to teach them what the world order was. You had to make them believe it.

As Tyneth's tongue lapped along the surface of Dalia's foot she was taking her first steps. The first steps all humans in Elsira would take at one point or another. The first steps in learning not just to worship their betters, but to love worshiping them.