“We… will start with a simple acclimatization exercise.”

Alice quietly watched from the sidelines, doing her level best to purely observe the unfolding events rather than judge them.

The sleeping ferals had been given a black collar, put in place, and then a single one was dragged out of the cage as she slumbered. Laying downwards, they tied her wrists to the ground with wires, and her throat was put into a metal-lasso that would bite into the flesh if tugged hard enough.

A maiden straddled the feral’s hips as she kept the other hand on the lasso. In front of this was none other than Victor, the teacher grimacing just as much as the others as they watched.

“We will wake her up slowly. Be sure to keep your fingers out of her reach.” The Major explained slowly. “She will panic and attempt to escape, you should try to soothe her. Shushing sounds work, no need to touch, just stay in front of her and wait things out. Eventually she’ll tire and calm down.” He nodded slowly. “Whenever she’s calm, try to put your hand near where she can smell, but not within reach. Repeat until she smells you without reacting violently.”

“And then?”

“This might take the whole day, Doggirls have good stamina.” The Major answered with a sharp nod. “But you should try to move closer, turn allowing yourself to be sniffed into touching her arms. Once she’s used to your touch, you can move into feeding her.”

“What’s the end-goal?” Alice whispered at Helga.

The Valkyrie’s eyes lit up. “The goal is to form a strong sense of submission and trust, the collar boosts those emotions on the unbonded, as a way to promote bond formation.” There was a slight sing-song to her voice as she said this. “The Major usually prefers trust, but if you want to get submission, one of the better options is to pummel them until they realize they don’t stand a chance.”

“… and that works?”

“Sometimes?” A slight shrug of her wings. “I’ve heard it’s quite tricky. Stronger maidens don’t admit defeat easily, and are very slow to trust. But weaker ones could react with more fear and anger than respect.”

“Wait, how long do these things take?”

“Anywhere between a few days and a few months.” An apologetic smile emerged.

“A few days before they’re safe?”

“Oh no, that would be until the bond forms, ma’am.” Helga shook her head. “Once bonded, the maidens are to remain contained for at least a few more days if not potentially months until they’ve properly learned how to hold back.”

“Wait, then Monica?”

The Valkyrie’s smile tightened. “The Baron thought he could contain a Sabertooth, and he had more resources to spare than the Major.”

Alice could only nod at that, feeling keenly aware how fragile a situation it was to have someone like Monica walking around and being entirely unable to stop or contain her. They could only play nice and hope for the best. A howl drew their attention back to the unfolding scene, the Doggirl had awoken, and she’d begun struggling wildly against her bindings.

“As you can see, the feral is, understandably, in a panic. This is one of the most dangerous parts.” Huge spoke up over the howls. “There are ways to forcefully calm her down, maidens that wield psychic or corrosive energies in particular are quite adept at it. But for the sake of experience, we won’t be using any of those methods. We will assume you are without aid.” The man reached into the ruck-sack that hung at his side and he pulled out a large purple berry. “These are usually called passion-fruit. They grow in the wilds, the bush they grow from absorbs ambient elemental energy, somewhat. The fruit’s juices heal wounds, but that same component generally causes arousal and lightheadedness.” A slight pause, his eyes moving across the crowd. “There’s a trick to reduce the kick, if you don’t have a maiden to suck up the elemental energy, you can rub it against the leaves of the bush it comes from.”

“Can a bond even be formed while under the effects of some drug?”

“It’s not impossible, just harder, ma’am.” Helga spoke with a lowered voice, moving a step forward and making sure she was slightly ahead of Alice. The maiden’s hand was firmly on the sword on her hip. “The less aware, the tougher it becomes.”

The teacher could only really nod along, glancing back at the demonstration as Huge tossed the fruit at Victor, telling him to rub the skin against his fingers and to use that to let the Doggirl to smell them.

The man followed the instructions close enough, and they just about did nothing, the Doggirl kept struggling and whining all the way.

“Just keep at it, be patient, she’ll tucker herself out. Once she’s receptive, you could give her a bit of food, though it’s unlikely she’ll take it until hunger starts kicking in sometime tomorrow.” Huge nodded along. “How about we bring out the next lass?”

“So we’re meant to just… stay here for the whole day?” One of the students raised his hand.

The Major scowled when he heard that. “If things go bad, these girls are going to be your lifeline. Do you have any better ideas over what to spend your time on?”

The hand was lowered, worried looks were shared, and Alice could only grimace at the rawness of it all. They’d escaped the forest, but the danger never left. The young teacher could only sigh and watch as, one by one, the canine maidens were tied down, pinned, and woken up.

“Wouldn’t it be better to have them be separate?” She asked the Major as he’d been about to leave. “I mean, having them all howling at once like that… doesn’t it make them encourage one another?”

“It… um… Irene?”

“The idea isn’t to just teach them to trust the human they bond to but humans in general, ma’am.” The maiden spoke up smoothly. “Though it might take them longer, once the first of them caves in and accepts food and water, the others will follow along. Doggirls have a strong pack mentality, so they have an easier time accepting others as part of their group so long as the conditions are right.”

“You need to understand the feral’s breed as well as the individual’s disposition.” Huge nodded along, throwing a slight smirk at Irene, his large hand gingerly reaching out to her shoulder. “Having a psychic can help things along plenty.”

“Or a charmer.” Helga declared.

That made the Major flinch as if struck by lightning, his lips pursing and gaze turning away.

“What’s a charmer?” Alice quickly asked, noticing how the Major and Irene were apparently busy looking at something else.

“They’re maidens with very powerful abilities that let them influence others in certain ways, ma’am.” The Valkyrie declared with an enthusiastic nod. “There're breeds like the Mazouku and Demoness that can create fear, or the Harlequin that can create powerful self-doubt.”

“I fail to see how fear or self-doubt could charm anyone, but I’ll take your word for it.” The teacher replied with a quirked brow.

“Charmers have powers meant to manipulate others in a rather direct fashion. The Kingdom has some strict laws involving ownership of such breeds.” Irene declared with a slight scowl.

“Unlike psychics.” Alice frowned at the red-skinned woman.

“Though the average psychic does have the capacity to manipulate someone experiences, the best we can hope for is to place our targets into a temporal altered state of mind.”

“A psychic can only influence as long as they hold power over the target.” Huge nodded.

“Not really much of a difference.”

“A very important one, ma’am.” Irene declared coldly. “If I wish to cause someone to feel fear, I need to find something that scares them and present it to them. Charmers have no such limitation, a Demoness for example can cause fear with just an exertion of their power, unconditionally. The subject is left fighting a source-less panic.”

Alice nodded ever so slightly at this, the concept feeling a bit convoluted.

“Thus the restrictions and oversight.” Huge added, sighing. “Anyway, the enlisted will be having their hands full for the next few days. If you’ll excuse me, ma’am, that’s about it for today, I have to return to the important things to attend to.”

Irene nodded along, both of them walking off.

And the psychology teacher being left to watch as the group spent the remainder of the day trying to get the canines to calm down and accept their scent. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of wrongness growing within her.

Was this really the best way to tame a feral?