Annie hung her head, her eyes blank, her body still faintly trembling.
Lilith heaved a sigh; she knew Annie wouldn't come to trust her on the strength of a few words.
Trust was a process.
"Here's what we'll do — let's have a talk first. Where are you from? How did you come to be a slave?" Lilith sat across from Annie, her voice very soft.
This was one of the succubus race's racial powers: not only did they carry an inborn allure, but their voices, under their own control, could also work certain shifts in another's mood.
They could make the other party grow quiet, grow tense — grow ardent, even.
This gentle voice eased the somewhat tense Annie a little, though sitting in the chair she was still ill at ease.
"Annie… Annie was in the mine… looking for… ore… and got… got caught by… people… shut up in… a ship… No food… if Annie didn't obey… that… that bad woman… would… would beat Annie…" Annie said in a very faint voice.
At once Lilith drew the information from these words.
Annie had been living on a planet when that adventurer fleet had seized her.
Adventurer fleets took on all manner of work — beyond the aboveboard interstellar pioneering, mercenary tasks, bounty tasks, and the like, there was no shortage of gray-market businesses too, human trafficking among them.
And since Annie had lived on a planet, then there were surely many of her people there!
A whole community of dwarves…
Lilith went on probing, gingerly.
But Annie was plainly tight-lipped about the planet she'd lived on.
Seeing this, Lilith asked no more; to dig to the root would only make Annie recoil — better first to let her lower her guard.
And from their chat, Lilith learned that Annie had been abducted and held for over three months.
Because that leather-clad woman had priced her high, a great many people had been unwilling to buy her.
For though a dwarf was a born Interstellar Artisan, to draw out her ability required a whole suite of industrial equipment, and technical blueprints, and so on.
What ordinary power had such things?
And those who did wouldn't want a dwarf of unknown origin — what if she were a spy come to dig out their own technology?
Just when the two had talked a while, two portions of fragrant fried rice were set down before Lilith and Annie.
To this fried rice Lilith had long since grown used; she took up her spoon in a practiced hand, scooped up a full spoonful, and put it in her mouth to chew.
But across from her Annie, at this moment, stared with those big eyes, gazing in disbelief at the food before her…
This was… real rice?
And vegetables… and minced meat…?
By the ingredients she could see alone, there were at least five!
"Don't you like it?" Lilith asked.
Annie shook her head, gulped, and said, her eyes timid yet full of longing, "Can Annie… eat this…"
"Of course. This is the most ordinary food aboard this ship," Lilith said with a smile.
This seemingly plain exchange had, unseen, already begun to work upon Annie.
For no one could refuse the Owl Dragon Fleet's cooking!
Annie hesitated a moment, then, unable to withstand the assault of her appetite, reached out her hand outright and stuffed rice into her mouth by the fistful.
Because she was so short, Annie's head was near enough level with the table; at one point she went straight up onto her knees in the chair, rice grains all over her mouth.
"Wait a moment—" Lilith suddenly called a halt.
Annie shrank her neck in fright, the rice in her mouth caught between chewing and not, pitiable as a little girl who'd done wrong.
Lilith came to Annie's side, pressed a button beneath Annie's chair, and the chair began to rise slowly.
"This chair can be adjusted for height." Lilith set it to a fitting height for Annie.
Then she took a tissue and wiped Annie's hands, and the rice at the corners of her mouth.
At the last she set that spoon, which Annie had ignored, at the edge of the bowl.
"Don't eat with your hands; use the spoon," Lilith said gently, looking at Annie as one would look at one's own little sister.
She'd taken her in with the aim of winning her into the fleet, true — but at the same time she truly did pity this poor little dwarf.
"There now, keep eating. Just not too fast," Lilith said.
Hearing Lilith grant her leave to go on eating, Annie let out a breath, swallowed the food in her mouth, sat obediently in the chair, and ate the fried rice with her spoon.
As she ate, Annie's tears began to fall.
She'd never eaten food so good; on the planet she'd lived on, resources were scarce, crops hard to grow, and they could only gather some low-grade ore to trade with passing interstellar merchants for artificial nutrient meals.
Over these three months of abduction, she had no idea how her family were living, no idea whether they were even getting enough to eat.
If only they too could eat such delicious food.
Happy times are always brief; every last grain of rice in the tray before Annie was eaten.
But she still looked toward the counter — before, too abased to dare look, she'd only over this meal noticed that everyone who entered the canteen ordered there, and a robot server brought it to their seat.
Besides fried rice, there was all manner of delicious food.
And one thing more — not a single one of these people was human; they were all beast-folk!
Suddenly, Lilith gave Annie a light rap on the head.
Annie clutched her head in pain.
"Stop looking; you can't eat any more. That little body of yours has already eaten a great deal. It's your first time eating food like this; eat too much, and it'll be a heavy burden on your stomach." Lilith thought back to when her own succubus people had first eaten.
Wolfing it down, near all of them had ended up with bloated bellies.
A whole row of lovely, alluring succubi sporting little rounded bellies — anyone who didn't know might have thought Zhao Chen had gotten them all with child in the span of a few days.
"Mm…" Annie nodded obediently.
"Now let's go bathe first." Lilith led Annie out of the canteen and to the ship bathhouse.
Soon Annie was made new — her once-tangled hair, her grime-caked skin, all washed clean.
And in a set of fresh, crisp clothes.
A brand-new little loli appeared before Lilith.
"So cute." Lilith looked at Annie's round cheeks and truly wanted to give them a few squeezes.
Annie sniffed the fragrance on herself; when she'd last bathed, she could no longer even remember.
She'd long since grown used to the sour reek on her body; now, all at once scrubbed clean and put into clean clothes, she felt rather unaccustomed to it.
Bath finished, Lilith brought Annie to her own bedroom.
As secretary, Lilith had a 50-square-meter single bedroom; not so large as the captain's room, but with a private washroom and shower, a big bed, and a desk besides.
"You rest here for now; I'll go and work first." Lilith settled Annie in the room and went off to work.
This was Lilith's deliberate arrangement; with Annie meeting so much all at once, she needed a stretch of time to digest it herself.
That way, the efficiency of "winning over" this Interstellar Artisan Annie would greatly increase.
Alone, Annie looked at the clean, tidy room; she walked to the edge of that soft big bed, laid a hand on it and pressed, and sniffed the fragrance upon it.
Annie lay down on it, gingerly, and closed her eyes.
Very tired — yet somehow Annie couldn't fall asleep.
At last Annie got down off the bed, came to a corner of the room, wrapped her arms around her knees, and curled into a ball against the wall.
This time, Annie fell asleep quickly.
A faint smile even on her face — she must have been dreaming a good dream.