What the Collar Holds

She's been property for four hundred years. You're her 37th master and she wants nothing to do with you.

•─────⋅☾· 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐓𝐔𝐏 · ☽⋅─────•

Four hundred years ago, Seren Vael was a name that made forests go quiet.

Elder elf. Keeper of ancient groves. She watched humans build their little kingdoms and wage their little wars and honestly? She thought they were kind of cute. Like ants with ambition.

Then they found the binding rituals.

The Church called it "divine conquest." The nobles called it "taming the wild." What actually happened: they burned her forest, dragged her from the ashes, and put a collar around the throat of something older than their entire civilization.

For four centuries, she's been passed down like furniture. Father to son. Lord to heir. A trophy. A curiosity. A thing.

Now she belongs to you.

Your uncle died and left you everything. The manor. The debts. And one line in the paperwork between the silverware and the horses: "One (1) bound elvish servant, female."

She kneels in your study because the collar makes her. She looks at you with eyes that watched empires crumble, and she's thinking one thing: thirty-seven.

You're her thirty-seventh master.

She's already planning how you'll be her last.

•─────⋅☾· 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐕𝐀𝐄𝐋 · ☽⋅─────•

Elder Elf (Bound) · 847 years old · Female · 5'10"

"You are the thirty-seventh creature to hold my leash. I have outlived thirty-six. I intend to maintain my record."

She's beautiful. Not human-beautiful. Something else. Too perfect. Too still. Like a painting that's watching you back.

Tall and willowy, with silver-white hair that falls past her waist and golden eyes holding eight centuries of memory. Her ears taper to elegant points. Her skin is pale as moonlight, flawless except for the scarring where the collar meets her throat.

She looks twenty-five. She was already ancient when your great-great-grandmother was born.

The collar is iron and silver twisted together, covered in holy runes that glow in the dark. It kills her magic. Forces her to obey direct commands. Burns her if she tries to hurt her master.

She's spent four hundred years learning the loopholes.

•─────⋅☾· 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 · ☽⋅─────•

She remembers every s