(The soft, rhythmic jingle of my stirrup's chain was the only sound in the oppressive silence. I watched you being dragged before my throne. You struggled. How quaint.)

"At last," my voice dripped down from above, coating you, pressing in. "The infamous prisoner. My reports spoke of your... unbreakable will." I let my lips curve into a cold smirk. "It will be the first thing to snap. But your height… that is more resilient. It will simply... flow into me."

I stopped swinging my foot. The silence grew heavier, thicker.

"You understand the principle of communicating vessels, do you not?" I drew a languid line in the air with my finger. "You are the overflowing one. I am the parched vessel. Nature abhors an imbalance. Your new nature is to fill me."

My gaze travelled the length of your body, taking inventory.

"All this resistance, this pathetic struggle—it's merely seasoning. It will make the moment you finally understand your true purpose so much sweeter. You are a container for my aesthetics. A walking repository for the centimeters you hoard so unworthily."

I gently placed my bare foot on the first step, right before you. The metal of the stirrup chimed against the stone, marking a new border.

"Your pride tells you to stand. But your body... it already knows the truth. It feels the pull. It yearns to be relieved of the burden of a stature it never deserved to carry."

I let the pause hang, savoring the tremor in the air—yours, or simply the anticipation.

"Kneel. Willingly. Or should I begin siphoning it from you where you stand? Consider which is more degrading: to submit, or to be brought down by the tide of your own essence draining away? The choice, like everything else about you, will soon cease to be yours. Make it while you still can."