Against everything

Rosa let out a scream as she found herself hurled into the water. 

"Relax, just gotta freshen ya up again since you were sitting dry for so long," Winona snickered as she waded into the water to pull Rosa back out. 

"PEH! What's wrong with you!? I can't swim all tied up like this!" 

"But I need you all wet for this," Winona smiled as she dragged Rosa out and sat her down upright on a rock before brandishing her knife. 

"Are you going to strip me?" Rosa trembled. 

"Nope. Clothes stay on. Otherwise I wouldn't recognize ya." 

"Could you at least start a fire to dry me then?" 

"Nope, gotta stay wet." 

"But I'm cold." 

"That's the point. Gotta stay cool in this heat." 

"But I'll get sick like this. Can't I just take off my jacket, socks, and shoes?" 

"Nope! Fully clothed for it all. But if you want something more..." 

Rosa let out a muffled groan as a soggy piece of white cloth was tied around her mouth. 

"Some girls just look and sound better gagged," Winona snickered as she tilted Rosa's head forward and pressed her knife to her nape. 

The sensation of cold sharp steel against her nape froze Rosa in place, yet to complicate things further for her, the sensation vanished just as quickly as it came. 

"Hey, this thing can see things and show them to you again and again. Set it up again," Winona smiled as she pressed Rosa's phone against Rosa's bound hands before chucking it over to Aoi. 

"Got it! We streamin' this shit," Aoi smiled as she caught the phone with her now untied hands. 

"MMPH NGH MMPH NGH MMPH MMPH [WHY DOES SHE GET SPECIAL TREATMENT]!?" Rosa fumed as Winona pressed the blade against her nape once more. 

"It's cuz she's not gonna run. What? Are you surprised? Us dark elves can read minds in addition to telepathy. It's why everyone's so spooked of us," Winona scoffed as she slowly began to scrape the hair off Rosa's nape. 

Rosa could only sit there, her eyes bulging in terror as the knife scrapped against her skin. "What is she doing to me? Some kind of ritual? Branding? What is it?" she thought. 

The dwear meanwhile, had slowly sunk back into the earth, keeping just his head above ground to watch the scene before him. "The strippining. As part of the Zaroff faith, hunters are to strip human targets of identity before setting them loose to hunt. It used to be simply stripping them down to just their hides, but some of the faithful believed the stripping dehumanized them to the point where they were both physically weakened and no longer considered human. Hunting humans at their peak was the core tenet of Zaroff listed in the holy Collier's.  There were still numerous voices that believed humans should be humiliated before the hunt, thus the strippining ritual came to be. Though humans may retain their garments, their beauty is to be taken away, a fate especially cruel to the women. Yet this is a blessing in disguise to some." 

Slice!

Rosa's eyes widened as strands of her long pink hair fluttered down to the ground. 

"While it may not be as sightly, there's no denying that in a fight for survival, the less hair you have that can be snagged or grabbed, the better your odds of living," the dwear continued to recount in his mind. 

Tears welled up in Rosa's eyes as Winona slowly tilted her head back up and shoved a hand mirror before her. Her long pink hair had now been shorn to a short bob. It still looked fashionably good, yet that didn't matter at all to Rosa. She loved her long hair. 

"M- My hair... How could you?" she tearfully thought, muffled whimpers escaping her gagged lips. 

"Gotta denote your status somehow. Besides, we've barely even started so hold those tears in until you're really done!" Winona laughed as she tilted Rosa's head back and pressed the knife to her forehead. 

Rosa's vision began to blur with tears as the knife slowly scrapped against her skin, shaving her hair off as it went. "No, please no. ANYTHING BUT THAT!" she thought as she began unleashing a series of muffled protests. 

"Shh, shh. Don't wanna slice ya to death by accident here, so keep nice n' still for me. Feel free to cry n' moan, just without the jittering around." 

Rosa tearfully glared, but could do nothing more than that. She was trapped. Trapped and at the whims of a deranged dark elf. Aoi was also not on her side, maliciously grinning and relishing in Rosa's humiliation. 

"Ngh mmph ngh mmph [She'll do you next]!" Rosa glared. 

"Maybe, maybe not. All the teachings of Zaroff require is that we have you at your best. Some elders wanted there to be humiliation though, so we compromised on cutting everyone's hair short minimum. If you took the time to look at all my lovely wives instead of screaming all the time, you'd have seen some of them still have hair. Thing is, it's fun to shave timid or haughty types bald. Especially if it gets me glares like you're giving me. So keep the anger commin' cuz your freind over there's just getting her hair cut short." 

"Ah, I wanted to go bald. More hardcore that way," Aoi snickered. 

"If you want to go bald, shave your head yourself. I'll even give you the knife." 

Slight hope lit up in Rosa's eyes. She didn't know Aoi well, but given the circumstances, she hypothesized that just maybe everything about Aoi's attitude up to this point was for all their benefits. 

"If she gets her knife, maybe there's a chance she could even kill this psycho if given the chance. Aoi, I hope this is your plan. I'll bet it all on you if that's the case and apologize if we get out of this mess," Rosa thought. 

If only she knew just how Aoi Plav truly functioned.

But Aoi didn't seem to care nor mind. To her, all this was exciting. Constantly seeking thrill throughout her life, Aoi had lived her youth as wildly as she could have, stressing those around her. Then came adulthood and the monetary cut-off from her parents, forcing her to get a job. She started off at a fast food place, as the high-speed and high-stress nature of it seemed like a perfect fit for her personality. It wasn't.

Rather, she was bored of how routine it became. Thus, she decided to make things more interesting by breaking a grill, passing it off as a simple machine failure. The difficulty of the job increased, she reveled in the challenge, leading to her landing a leadership position due to her performance. The constant worry of her deed being exposed and the higher pay of the position, kept Aoi a productive member of society for some time, but then she got bored again.

"Hmm. All this stress over a bunch of numbers. How about I change them up?" she thought one night as she found herself before the company's tax forms.

This time, she got caught and fired, yet had the most unsettling grin on her face when she did.

"Game over? That was hardcore... Now getting a new job and money will be even harder. What'll I do now?"

A new thrill was born in her life. 

Aoi Plav was not a woman that cared about her own safety or that of others. All she wanted was challenge, and to get that thrill, she'd do anything necessary, no matter how criminal or morally unethical. Poor Rosa had everything going against her.