Patience of the Thief

Story by dark end on SoFurry

, , , , , ,

A little vignette that popped into my head. It's fan art (fan story?) of Zinnick's main fursona Zinni, and the many predicaments she gets into.


The most important skill for any thief, moreso than lockpicking or blending into the shadows or sleight of hand, is always patience. If you are patient enough, then no matter how well guarded an object is, there will come a time when you can just walk up and take it away without anyone looking. The most legendary figures of the thieves guild are simple, humble people who just knew the right moment to strike. They could regale a batch of fresh apprentices with tales of the perfect burglary, performed in broad daylight, with people all around, not a tool on them, merely because they moved at the perfect time. That is the lesson they drilled into every apprentice: wait. Be patient.

Zinni, former master thief and current bondage toy, was learning that lesson the hard way. She had been after the Sky Ruby, a beautiful red gemstone currently in the possession of the Duke of Ergan. The Sky Ruby wasn't actually a ruby, and the Duke of Ergan wasn't really a duke, but when you had that sort of money, people would nod and agree with whatever you said.

The cat had been scoping out his estate and, sensing no security, taken a step too far forward. The stun charge hit her out of nowhere. She woke up an hour later in the Duke's clutches, learning that her fate was to be his plaything.

In the two weeks since her capture, she had barely been allowed to wear a stitch of clothing. Her prized stealthsuit had been tauntingly displayed by the duke, right next to the Sky Ruby she had intended to steal. In the stealthsuit's place she wore, most often, nothing more than a leash and a thick ballgag. At times the duke would add bindings or hobbles or armbinders or rope, but he preferred to have as little as possible in the way of her nudity. For she was, he felt, a beautiful thing, a black and white cat with a shock of bright pink hair atop her head (which the duke took great pleasure in matching with a similarly brightly colored leash and gag). The duke, in contrast, was a eccentric middle-aged raccoon, wearing such flowing and billowing clothes that he nearly disappeared inside of them.

When the mood struck him (which was often), the duke had far more than simple binders and hobbles at his disposal. He was a connoisseur of bondage gear of all types. If it hadn't been for the unwilling position she was in, Zinni might have enjoyed many of the devices that were used upon her. The first time she had been taken into the expansive basement dungeon, she marveled at the array of furniture, some of which she knew but most of which she guessed was custom built. Within those two weeks, she had been tied to every item in the room. On three occasions she had been trussed up and suspended from the ceiling as the centerpiece at one of the duke's parties, and each time a sign was hung around her neck declaring "Free Fondles!"

She had been eager to look for escape at first, but as the days wore on, the duke succeeded in breaking her. He made sure every morning and every evening to take his new pet for a walk. Of course, for this walk, she was wearing a blindfold, armbinder, and a short chain between her ankles. At first he would tug sharply on the leash and tsk her for stumbling, and she would shout muffled curses through the gag. But soon, she would whisper a soft "Sorry, sir" after every mistake and double her efforts to please him. Where once she had thrashed about as he applied a vibrator to her clit and brought her to orgasm after orgasm, trying to get away, now she held meekly still, alternately moaning and thanking him even after she had reached the point of overstimulation.

Yes, he thought, she was truly broken.

Then came a day when she seemed to show a little more spirit than usual. She didn't resist him in large ways, but she seemed a touch more reticent to obey, made a few more mistakes than usual, and was less eager to thank him for her pleasure. It grated on him. Things had been going so well and her sudden reversal of behavior grated at him. He took her down to the dungeon, tied her to a bench, and pulled out his favorite flogger. When he was done, you could almost see the redness showing through the fur of her rear. His arms ached, but, he thought, it was a job well done and she was behaving much more appropriately now.

He took her to his room, tying her leash off to the post at the foot of the bed. There, in what had become her sleeping space, she curled up on the floor, still wearing her blindfold and armbinder. The duke undressed, slipped into bed, and quickly fell into a deep slumber.

He should have been more careful.

Zinni was a master thief for a reason. She was very, very patient.

She knew there was no way to attack the duke's estate from the outside. Although he lived alone, the perimeter was state of the art. Even burrowing in from underground was out of the question. She had to get herself inside, which she did, and now she was ready to get back out. The cat had deliberately acted up that day, knowing that the raccoon would flog her. As much as her butt was hurting now, she knew his arms were even more worn out: he had terrible technique. He would sleep soundly and deeply all night long.

Zinni sat up and pressed her nose against the bedpost, working her way up until she felt the leash's knot against her snout. She turned her head one way, then the other, running her whiskers along it to figure out what type of knot it was. Sure, her arms were still bound behind her, and even her tongue was trapped behind the ballgag, but with careful movements of her nose and tail, she was able to work the knot loose.

All the while the duke snored on.

Her long stay at the estate meant she knew the layout of each room intimately. She was able to leave the duke's room and make her way to the other side of the manor without bumping into a single wall and more importantly, without knocking over a single vase or dislodging a single painting. Silently, she crept into the kitchen. She worked a knife out of the knife block and then managed to wedge it against the base of the block so that it stayed in place. Carefully, she angled her body to have the knife slice through the cords that held the leather armbinder shut. The larger strap at the top was too much for the knife, but once her hands were free, she just reached up and pulled it apart.

Finally free of the armbinder, she set about taking off the gag and blindfold too. For a moment, she thought something was wrong, as even with the blindfold off, she couldn't see. But then, she tossed her head back, and her pink hair that the duke had left tousled and splayed lifted from over her eyes. She undid the leash and used it as a makeshift hair tie before she made her way to the trophy room.

She took a moment to stretch every muscle in her body, even forcing herself to yawn widely to give her long-suffering jaw some relief. With that done she searched for and quickly found the estate's security control. The duke was so confident, he hadn't even bothered to password protect it. He had only locked it behind a door, which Zinni made short work of now that her hands were no longer bound.

And then, with the slow swagger of someone who knew that her story would be told to apprentices for years to come, the master thief pocketed the Sky Ruby, slipped back into her stealthsuit, and simply walked out without anyone there to stop her.