There’s not enough regret in the “defiant whumpee finally breaks” tropes.
That moment when Whumpee finally obeys, in the moments where their mind is so clouded with pain and fear that they give in to the command for the sake of self preservation. Let Whumper work off that. Slowly breaking down their tolerance until they barely have to hurt them in order to draw obedience, and then the point where they don’t have to do anything at all. The mere threat of violence is enough to keep them subdued. And then not even that. They submit without command, every order is followed directly even when Whumper poses no intent of violence.
When it gets to that point, where Whumpee has stopped fighting completely, make them look back. Trace their scars and invade their dreams, every thought paired with a lurking presence of something cold and heavy.
All of the suffering. All of the pain, the terror, the anger, the defiance, it had been for nothing. Just as Whumper had promised them, that very first day, “It doesn’t matter if you fight, I’m going to break you.”
It didn’t matter. They spent weeks, months, starving and bleeding while comfort and sanctum hovered only behind a low kindle of humiliation. They had been too stubborn to accept it, the backhanded relief, and now their body was marred with wounds that would never heal. All because they were too prideful to obey.
It had been two roads to the same destination, and they had chosen the longer one. Winding around a mountain and through a storm, the vast rocky terrain abusing them with each footstep, when they could have cut across a flourishing meadow and reached the same stop.
It had all been for nothing.