In the Thrall of the Slumberwitch
By Limewah
Patron Reward for Flarfenarfle (Feb 2023)
18+

Utahime cursed as she peered at the wanted poster. It was about the consistency of a bar napkin to begin with, and after that dozey idiot at the tavern spilled his beer over it, the face of the Slumberwitch was just an alcohol-scented smear, the cheap ink having melted away to almost nothing.
The satisfaction of her clog connecting with that dipshit human’s crotch didn’t do much to offset the frustration. The kitsune was planning on keeping the poster as a souvenir once she bagged this bounty, and… well, it wasn’t really in a fit state to be a keepsake anymore. Maybe she’d find a discarded one somewhere along the route to the Slumberwitch’s lair. Considering how high the bounty was, she’d surely have sent a fair few incompetent would-be heroes packing. Or put them to work as one of her so-called ‘SleepThralls’. 
Utahime would have gone with ‘SleepSlaves’ but maybe that was too on the nose? 
In any case… it was time to get to work.

The journey wasn’t too far. The Slumberwitch had taken up residence in an old abbey that doubled as a hospice, long abandoned. Rumours swirled about the place, and its current resident. Utahime would make sure to ask her about them once they met.

As expected, she found a couple of spear-wielding guards stationed outside the entrance. They certainly weren’t dressed like guards… more like wandering sellswords. Easy to assume that they’d been turned.
She cracked her head from side to side as she approached, tying her robes tight, and put her arms behind her head as she walked, aiming to show just how unruffled she was.

“Afternoon, gents!” she said as she got nearer.
Neither the goat or the alpaca responded. Their eyes were open.
“Fine day, isn’t it? Shame you’re stuck here doing nothing!”
“Nn, that’s tasty…” the goat murmured.
“But I don’t want to go on the boat…” the alpaca sighed.
“Huh? What?” Utahime got closer to them, face screwed into a confused grimace.
Once she got close enough, the spears were suddenly pointed directly at her. 
“Whoa-ho! Okay. So you aren’t sleeping on the job.”
The alpaca let out a little snore. 
“Or… maybe you are?”
As she disarmed both spear-men with ease and yanked them closer for a choking chop to the neck, she wondered to herself : did this count as knocking them out, or waking them up?
Now she understood why they were called SleepThralls, at least.

There was a pretty obvious disadvantage to them being asleep, of course. Their reflexes were just a little bit less tuned than normal. It was easy for Utahime to run laps around all the sleepwalking sentries who stood in her way, leaving crumpled, groaning bodies in her wake. She thought of interrogating one or two of them, but she was eager to get this job done as soon as possible. If the guards were pushovers, how bad would their mistress be?
Something felt off about the air around her. The atmosphere of this place was tugging at her, tugging in a particular direction. It had all the hallmarks of Big Magic. Some spell that probably took a day to cast, and would have some serious, far-reaching effects. Most ne’er do wells attempted Big Magic when they wanted to alter the landscape, or try to ascend to godhood… most ended up a smear or a scorch mark. But she had to assume that this Slumberwitch was competent enough to pull off whatever she had planned.

Her instincts told her that if the Slumberwitch was going to be holed up anywhere, it’d be in a place to carry out rituals. The best place for that in a spot like this would be the chapel; conveniently the modest little space was just off the main plaza.
Just to show off, she took a running start at the wooden doors, coming to a sudden stop directly in front of it with a stone-shattering stomp before using the remainder of her momentum to open-palm strike the door into splinters. 
She heard a loud shriek from the altar at the other end of the chapel, a little slip of a thing looking back at her with frightened eyes.- Utahime assumed they were frightened, anyway, as the witch’s eyes weren’t even visible. White wool covered her entire head save for her snout, her big glasses and her  thin ears. Her torso was cut more close, but her arms and legs were similarly puffy, like she was wearing leg and arm warmers. 
Kinda cute, to be honest.

“Slumberwitch!” she struck a threatening, yet unruffled pose, pointing at the shocked sheep at the other end. “Your days of abusing magic are over!”
The sheep whined and stomped her foot.
“I was so close too… this sleep ritual is never going to be finished…”
“Ritual, huh?” Utahime asked, walking forward as she effortlessly smashed some sleepwalking guards out of her way. “You trying to put everyone to sleep? Boring plan.”
“Shut up!” the Slumberwitch spat back. “N..no! Th-that’s not what I was gonna do!”
“Also, why a hospice? Weird spot to hole up… this place gives me the willies.”
“Now, th-that’s an easy thing to answer…” the Slumberwitch said. “Sleep is a cousin of death, so, why not turn a house of death into something a lot, you know, n-nicer!”
This witch was a nervous wreck. How she managed to last this long without being stopped, Utahime didn’t know. But it really made no difference to her. A job was a job.
She wove through the attacking goons like water, tripping them up, or throwing them over her shoulder. The sheep was quivering a little, holding her fluffy cowl around herself. And… was she blushing? 
In any case, the room was clear. It was just the bard-monk and the witch.

“Y’might wanna consider getting more competent guards. I could do this in my sleep!” 
“Oh, m-maybe you will!”
“What’s that supposed to… *yawn*, what’s that supposed to mean?”
The sheep cracked a lopsided, nervous grin.
“You wouldn’t bring up sleep unless you were sleepy, wouldn’t you?”

As the Slumberwitch took a step towards Utahime, the chitinous hoof click reverberated through the chapel like the click of a pair of fingers. Utahime realised, too late, that she was yawning again. Something was wrong. The sheep had done… something to her, she wasn’t sure what-

“You’d say ‘I could do this with my eyes closed,’” the Slumberwitch continued, “though you could close your eyes, if you were so inclined.”
She was breathing more slowly and evenly, now. Her steps were getting less hesitant, or more confident. Utahime huffed and tried to keep her head upright. But it was so heavy…
The Slumberwitch continued.
“Or maybe, ‘I could do this with my hands behind my back.’ Am I getting your tone right?”

“Y…yeah…” 
“But you chose the words. In my sleep. You were s-saying something that’s been in the back of your mind for a while, it’s f-fine to admit it…”
Utahime could feel something trying to emerge from her throat, and bit down hard on it to lock it inside.
“You’re trying not to yawn,” the sheep said. “Why? It’s a natural thing.”
“Yuh….you’re… haahhh….” she yawned loudly, and the sheer relief that flooded her body made her back arch and her shoulders roll back. The sheep huffed loudly.
“godsthat’ssohot…Uh, ahem. Yawning is as natural as breathing…And the more you yawn, the more tired you notice you are. Just sleep, darling. Sleep.”

“Yeah…” her eyelids were drooping, and her vision was starting to swim and contract. Faintly, dimly, she realised her mistake; the most obvious trap in the world, and she’d walked- or talked -  right into it. 
She was a bard, she understood the power of the word. How words could evoke, and categorise, and contain…
The moment the word ‘sleep’ left her lips, she was already done for. The sleep-spell had already taken effect on her, building like a pot of boiling water. And she was in too deep to escape. Sleep was seeming like the easier option.

She stumbled back, though, trying to resist the thing she wanted most in this moment. Finding it harder and harder to remember why she wanted to resist in the first place.
“N…no… I can’t,” she groaned, even though she didn’t believe it much anymore. 

“You can,” the Sleepwitch said, her voice so kind and gentle. Click. Click. Her hooves came closer and closer. Utahime was passing out where she stood. Her head was lolling to the side, and she had to keep pulling herself back up right. Every time she blinked, her head nodded forward, and when she managed to look up again, the witch was closer, the scent of camomile and sweet milk washing over her. 
Utahime groaned.

“You’ve earned a deep sleep,” the Slumberwitch said, tracing her fingers under Utahime’s heavy head. “Those dark circles under your eyes will be gone before long.”
“Th…that bad… huh…?” Utahime gasped.
“Shhh. No need to talk, m-my dear… Just close your weary eyes, let your weary head hang… and… sink into the woolly pillow.”
“B…buh…” Utahime’s awareness was sinking down into her chin, where that soft, sweetly-scented hand was cradling her.
It was so soft. So warm.
And she was so tired. So sleepy. It was true.
She closed her eyes, and fell asleep where she stood, kept propped upright by the one gentle hand.
“S… s-so.” the Slumberwitch said, giggling like a lech. “C-could I touch you?”
“Yeah…” Utahime murmured. “Go ahead…”
The sheep’s woolly hands were soft and warm, and her hooves were smooth and firm. Utahime could feel her robes being shrugged off her body. 
“W-wow…” the Slumberwitch gasped. “Y-you’re really cute, uhm… wow, you’re way cuter than everyone else I put to sleep. And… you look really good asleep too… th-think I’m gonna have to keep you longer than the others, h-hehehe…”
Utahime smiled and sighed, nodding along. The sheep groped her breasts nervously, like a teenager making their first fumbling attempts at pleasing their partner. Utahime was still lucid. Just a tiny bit. But the wool in her mind was closing in around her. She’d already given up on staying awake, but didn’t want to go to sleep just yet.
“Nnh…” the Slumberwitch said. “O-okay, let’s put you to sleep properly…you’re holding on to something, you’re not letting yourself fall. Like you’re… holding onto a rope, the only thing keeping you from falling into the woolly pillow. So… lemme just….”
Utahime couldn’t see what the witch was doing. But when the hooves click-clacked together, the rope in her mind’s eye snapped. And she fell. In her mind, she free-falled, slowly and gently, like a feather.
In the waking world, she was still standing. Stiff, now, eyes closed, smiling serenely, standing to martial attention the way the other Sleep-thralls did.
“G…gosh.” The Slumberwitch said softly. “So, u-uhm, will you help me put the other thralls back to sleep? When we can, uhm, properly talk…”
“But I don’t wanna go to school,” Utahime gurgled, already deep in dreams. But her body obeyed. As she sleepwalked along with the Slumberwitch, Utahime’s mind was deep in a world of soft wool, warm pressure, and pure contentment.
Her arms pushed out in front of her, but one of them was tugged downwards, wrapped in the Slumberwitch’s nervous hand.
“Oh yeah! And m-maybe you can help me make sure my ritual goes off without a hitch this time…”
“Toast with jam, please… zzzzhn…”

Utahime would sleep and dream for days, unwittingly doing the bidding of the Slumberwitch along with all the rest of the thralls. Gradually, her normal dreams would shift. The cute sheep would appear in them, too. First, as a background character, out of the corner of her eye. Then she might be a carriage driver taking her to some faraway place. Then she’d be in place of her friends and family in a domestic setting. Then, eventually, the only thing Utahime would dream about would be the sheep, and every curve of her. The closest thing she was allowed to lucid dreaming was pleasuring her mistress. Licking her hooves and making her giggle, kissing her neck and making her quiver. 
At the very least, the Slumberwitch’s promise would be kept. When Utahime woke, she would feel more refreshed and alive than she had in a very, very long time, if a little more obsessed and lovestruck with the witch.
That awakening would not be any time soon, of course. The Slumberwitch had lots of work for her.

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