World of Zhor: The Lancer's Girlhood

Episode I: The son turned daughter

She querously crushed her thighs together as she rode the palanquin home. Its rising and falling as it bore her, up and down with the steady yet still human steps, was awfully reminiscent of her bouncing girlishly on Hoel's twyll just hours before. Her cheeks flushed red, and her hands drew the curtain of the palanquin closed fretfully.

When Elene had been Elin, even the very morn of this day, she would have never moved this nervously or wispily. Goodness! She would have blushed about it before, when she was a brave young warrior. But now, it seemed so minor. There were bigger heartaches, more profound reasons to feel a twinge of shame.

Deep in her womb, for example. She thought she could feel his balm sloshing within her, coating her insides, invading her, lancing her least sacred place...

Elene whimpered in realization. All it took was ten seconds of idle thought for her to viscerally reimagine her violation. Her knees pressed inward even harder, 'till within the palanquin she looked quite silly and knock-kneed. Perhaps she felt herself getting wet and sought to dam it up, but the rubbing of her thighs together merely aroused her further. She swore she could feel the warm trickle down her leg, and her panic worsened.

Should her father see her... Or her sister... Would they notice? She peered down at the men's hose she wear, which now seemed so ridiculous. She couldn't decide if it was noticeably damp or not.

In fact, no one would be able to tell, such was the material of men's hose that often needed take warriors past thorn and thicket. But her mind was trembling, and to her there seemed a noticeable moistness.

It was too long of a journey. All the way to the outskirts of the city, a seeming lifetime to endure the worst kind of introspection. When finally the men stopped at estate of ob Cryf, she dared not look at them as she gave them an excess sum for a single palanquin ride. She didn't have time to worry about coinage.

"Thank you, sirs," she muttered and began her slow and sad walk through the courtyard. One of the palanquin-men merely grunted in reply. He'd lived long enough to recognize the air of torrens, "the beautiful shame," that would sometimes suddenly follow a newly-turned serum girl. He did not have to work hard to guess what may have happened to her.

Were it not for her former status as one of the most noble men Prydferth, he would have considered it nothing but a blessing for her as she began to realize what she was. Pity was not the Zhorian way. Yet, the whole city knew of Elin and his bravado, his wolfish dauntlessness, his devil-may-care smirk that had once assured the entire First Horse Lancer Troop of their invincibility.

There was an impossible sadness in the wildest bronco becoming the prettiest filly.

So, the palanquin-man heaved a sigh as he and his companion began their own trek to the market, where perhaps a customer would hail a ride to the city proper.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Welcome home, dear sister."

Clarie ob Cryf hardly looked up from the book she was reading when "Elin" staggered in. Seeing her new sister in shambles was hardly new, try as she might to hide it, so Elin's gloomy disposition was nothing worth noting. Rather, it was her small unhappy nod of acknowledgement that caused Clarie to raise her eyebrow. She was acting far too meek. Just a month ago, Clarie recalled...

'Shut your mouth, Clarie! Just be quiet, you scornful shrew!'

It was, in fact, the first time the proud 'son' had been so sharp toward anyone in the family, but she'd had enough of Clarie's painful ribbings. Ever since she'd been Ruk'd, the once filial and gallant son had been like a girl in puberty, simmering resentfully and just waiting to blow up -- and so she did.

Alas, that had ended with just one slap from their father, and another vicious word Elin said not. However, while his father's harsh reprimands had stopped the serum girl from open and unsightly rebellion to her sister, a born-woman, Elin had never ceased her defiant glares to Clarie's sarcasm. Indeed, Clarie never called Elin as "larian," the term used between sisters of mutual respect. Instead, it was always the patronizing "larisse," which, essentially, meant "little girl."

"My, what a darling attitude my pretty larisse shows today!"

Clarie did not fail to test the limits of her former older brother's seeming soft disposition. And though the smallest hint of fire came to Elin's eyes, it quickly disappeared. She stirred the nest, and yet no wasp would show.

"I do not wish to talk today, Clarie," Elin said quietly. "I'm going to rest in my chambers."

And so Elin retired to the second story, while Clarie eyed her with amusement. The way she quickly retreated, her thighs close together, seened hardly different from a slut's mincing step in heels. Yes, in the previous months Elin had seemed to take on a swivel in her hips.
But now, did Clarie spy a wiggle?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Elene threw herself onto her bed, and immediately regretted the sheer femininity of the action. She'd be lying if the way she fell face first upon her pillow didn't remind her of when Hoel had thrown her on the couch, right before.... right before the penetrating act of gair. She moaned softly.

Her anguished mind had hoped she would find respite once alone in her bedroom. But that was a foolish thought. She had already spent months miserable in this very room, her status as a serum girl weighing down her spirit, every effect Ruk had so ingeniously crafted so long ago threatening to slowly overtake her. Now, just as before, there was no place of true solitude. When outside, she felt the gaze of others on her derierre, their knowing glances that her wide hips were now perfect for bearing children. Her tits were perfect for nursing, and even better for grabbing. Her only real rebellion was her hair, still fairly short.

But worse than outside was alone, in here, because worse than the gaze of others was the touch of her own treacherous hands. Sight could be an illusion, but flesh spoke true. She was so soft, so sensitive, so damnably jiggly in all the wrong places.

Gods! She couldn't rid her mind of the disgusting way he'd fondled her. She hated every second of it, the way he'd grabbed her... a little bit like...

Damn him! Damn him, damn him, damn him that blasted degenerate!

There was only one place she felt small happiness returning to her. It was in the den of a friend who saw her for who she once was, instead of what she became. They'd once been estranged but, she thought, he came to her in crisis and for just a moment made her feel like a "him." It made her happy. And that had her heart break twice as much when she was betrayed.

"UGH!" she began to pant, purely out of anger and disgust and nothing else, mind you. She hated him. She couldn't stop thinking about how much she hated him for his betrayal.

Hoel... Hoel... Hoel!

She slammed her dainty fist into her pillow, laying face down and gritting her teeth. She clenched hard, and gnashed them, afraid what kind of face she'd make if it wasn't an angry one. And slowly her other hand drifted...

"Hoel... stop!" She whispered into her sheets. "Don't, Hoel! Don't! Stop!" She teased herself, penetrated her saer but barely, pulled it out leaving herself on the verge of orgasm only to edge back again as he'd done to her over and over earlier this very day.

"Don't!"

She thought about the wet kisses he'd made her give.

"Stop!"

She thought about his twyll, right in front of her face; about her saer, humiliatingly displayed for his examination while she was bound.

"Hoel, don't!"

She panted and grunted into her pillow. She started trembling as she remembered the name he made her take which she heard even in her thoughts. Elene's grunts rose in pitch 'till calling them grunts did them a disservice; though not terribly feminine, they were a touch too sweet for so harsh a word.

"Don't stop, Hoel!"

And she came, but softer than she'd hoped. Though she'd been afraid she might scream loud enough for the entire estate to hear, she only let out a gentle and disappointed moan, which was somehow worse. For better or worse, though, it was enough. Her quiet panic had distracted her from just how tired she was. She thought Hoel had done just about everything to her petite body, which was just as well for her current sanity; in the coming year he was going to do much more.

But it was no matter. She fell into a more peaceful sleep than she'd had since she was Ruk'd, not hearing the soft giggling of slaves listening outside.

Episode II: A slave's slutty heart

The braed Woram was, as usual, at his quiet post reading case studies. Less intelligent men took this as idleness, but he was a truthfully busy person.
After all, braeds, best translated to language on Earth as "physician of the soul" took on many more functions than an Earthling would understand. They were psychiatrists, essentially, but also theologians. Depending on the city-state, they took on functions close to priests.

Woram was busier even still, because he was something of a maverick. Sharper than his colleagues, more observant, and more ambitious in his investigations of the soul, he sought to explore knowledge that most considered already completely charted. Thus, his earnest attempts to build upon the work of his predecessors was taken as the work of a reactionary hack, and while he still had the reputation of a man of virtue, he was widely disliked by his peers. In the civilized world of Zhor, the only wars as pointlessly cruel as Earth's are academic wars.

Today, it was a case from a distant land, which made it of suspect truthfulness. A son of high society had resisted ignition for a mind-boggling three years, despite being injected with a most potent strain of Ruk's Serum. She had not been secluded, either. She had partaken in the typical 'concessions' that meant a slower but surer path to slavery, the frequent liaisons, the use of oernads, the intentional servitude at a joy house.

By the local braed's account, her slave orgasms were as powerful as any he'd seen. Sustained and frequent, voice moaning 'til hoarse, a look of rapture that bordered on religious. It seemed as if ignition was just a matter of time, and would not even take a skilled lover to push her into it.

Yet she did not ignite. And she had the curious habit of calling out a specific Zhorian's name when in the throes of pleasure
At least, that was the local braed's take. Others scoffed, suggesting that she was already ignited like any other slut, and the braed was simply fudging the facts because he wanted to make a name for himself. But matter her willingness to degrade herself, to even wear pleasure silks in public under thrilling request, she did not cross her wrists no matter who asked. There was no way, he believed, a woman ignited could refuse to do so.

That is, until the son of a rival house laid claim to her -- the very man whose name she called when brolled.

The young man had been rivals with her when they were young, her better in swordsmanship, equestrianism, and all activities virtuous and manly. She had hated him fiercely. But, the braed attested, all it took was for him to utter her name softly into her ear for her to orgasm. The slut fell to her knees on the spot with a squeal, hugging her breasts and leaning over, love juices dripping while her lower body writhed.
With no continued action from her rival at all, she stayed in that position continuing to softly squeal for a full two minutes, happily and deliriously repeating the name she'd say so many times.

And when she finally came to her senses, she wordlessly crossed her wrists before him.

The strange facts of the case continue. After her ignition, her feminine sex drive seemed to reduce to half of what it was. By any standard, it was still voracious, but it did not take ten men a day to satisfy her as it used to. And an orgasm caused by her master could still her for many hours.

So reports the braed of Rae'heare.

Woram felt gloom creep upon him. Rae'heare was a long way to go to confirm this report, but it seemed to confirm so many of his own theories that he was already agonizingly rearranging his schedule in his head. He groaned, knowing it would never be possible, and he'd have to send an assistant. But his savings were nearly as dry as his time.

He knew the evidence must abound out there in nature, but he also knew why reports such as these were suppressed. Many braeds who were more observant than they were brave hesitatingly called it a state of half-ignition, knowing it was taboo to treat ignition as anything other than
absolute, permanent, and more powerful than any other physiological force.

But Woram knew better.

So he theorized, it was not an inferior state of ignition but an alternate, or even a superior one. His centuries' long experience with the testimony of dozens of serum girls who had once been high-born led him to theorize of a process he monikered 'imprinting.'
He'd seen it rarely, but enough times to know it was a true pattern. Serum girls who seemingly drop in libido, and yet achieve their most blissful
orgasms simply by the words of their master.

In one instance, a serum girl who had been ignited by her decades-long teacher. The girl, face lovely and rose-cheeked, had testified to Woram himself. Her teacher had merely begun his gentle exploration of her body, and she imagined herself a book that was laid open before him. Memories of him reading aloud to her flooded her mind, and immediately she flooded the furs they lay on.

A strange tale, but Woram had a hard time seeing anything but truth in the way she flushed and beamed, face held in her hands embarrassedly. So it was with the other girls he discovered. Here, a former hunter who was captured by a florist who had long looked down upon and bullied. There, a former merchant who found herself indentured to one of her former debtors.

There was a maddening amount of variation in the stories, but one detail seemed to hold true through all of them; they had all had long acquaintance with their eventual master, long before they had even been Ruk'd.

Alas, his theorizing would be interrupted by a knock at his door. He smacked his forehead. He had forgotten that today he had the rare occasion of an appointment. He normally would avoid it, but the girl coming in today was rather high-born, and her mother who had done him much good had personally asked him this favor.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened, and a young woman walked in, wearing a close-fitting jacket and male hose. Immediately he recognized torrens within her demeanor and gait, ironically obvious by how she tried to nobly carry herself. "The beautiful shame" unwittingly becomes palpable by that very friction. She kept a regal posture, and yet it only made her more aware of her breasts, which she embarrasedly covered with crossed arms.

Her conscious attempt to minimize the sway in her hips made her teeter unsteadily.

"Thank you, sir," she said, trying still to tip toe between the humility expected of a serum girl and her own noble standing. "I'm not sure how I should..."

"Woram is fine." The girl in front of him relaxed a little, pleasantly surprised. Though most men would scorn being referred to so casually by a serum girl, it was the duty of a braed to pay extra care to those in need of healing of the soul. He'd become a braed, in fact, as it was part of his natural disposition.

"My name is... Elene ob Cryf," she said, somehow seeming nervous about her very name.

"Right, er... Elin, is it?" Woram repeated after her, not noticing the subtle discrepancy.

"...yes, that's right."

"I understand you were a prare within the First Horse Lancer Troop?"

"Yes, I was."

Had Woram been a man more of the practical world instead of the intellectual one, he would've been far more conscious of who Elene had used to be. But to him, ob Cryf or commoner, Lancer Troop or serum girl hardly mattered except for the facts around their case. The simple and straightforward way he asked put Elene at even further ease.

"Elene, I know you came to me looking for ways to rein in your slut urges, but..."

"Of course," she smiled bitterly. "I know there is not much to be done. But my mother insisted I come. Even when I was a fierce warrior, she was overprotective as hardly befit the kinswoman of a Zhorian. But I loved her all the more for it."

Woram sighed, reading her sad eyes. He would have to try for this vulnerable one.

"Have you given your ymylu up to a man?"

"I...! How dare...!" Elene instinctively recoiled to the frankness of the question, but immediately wilted, biting her lip. "I-I have," she stammered, and unconsciously began pressing her thighs together. "But it was not of my volition," she hastily added.

"What is it you want, exactly, Elene? Perhaps you came simply to please your mother. If you desire we can spend this next hour over tea. Ah, I do have a board to play charen."

Elene considered it, but shook her head.

"If I'm here anyway, then I may as well ask your advice on how to remain a freewoman. Since a few eves past... I have found myself heavy with doubt. That is why I finally took my mother up on her offer."

"I can prescribe the usual tricks, of course. There are first-class oernads that only a family of your standing can afford, who can brol you well and let you play out the role you desire. I merely need write a note."

Now Elene reddened in his presence. With how recent and sudden her induction into these powerful slut urges, she had never even considered an oernad.

"Any role you say...? And they will keep it a secret from my family?"

"As secret as your room is private, and your moans are quiet at least," Woram replied. "But your family would know you've hired their services, regardless. What would you possibly wish to hide?"

"It's none of your business!" Elene snapped. And when a second of silence hung in the air, regret seeped in, as did nervousness. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

Woram calmly dismissed her worries with his hand. He was used to this from serum girls. "It matters not to me, at any rate. As a favor to your mother, I'll refer you to the most skilled man in the city."

"Thank you," she muttered, gazing demurely sideways as he wrote his prescription. "Um, the oernad... Would they be willing to play the role of a specific person?"

And now she was blushing furiously.

Episode III: The master awakens

"Now, now Sara. Don't come just yet. I prefer my hunts with a little bit of sport."

"MmMM! MMM!"

Hoel had hardly stuck a finger into Santos, who would soon take the name Sara, before she'd writhed on his finger and pushed against him. It had all been too, easy, the way she came in, and hardly talked back when he'd suggested she try on the slave tunic as a simple jest.

"Why, I'm sure you've thought about it before, haven't you Santos?" Hoel had said, retrieving it from a drawer. "We're all friends, here. I've no judgment for a proud son of Prydferth."

"Well, I - I merely came here to see how my comrades were doing, since I'd heard you'd seen so many of them! This unholy sort of act..."
Oh, could it even be called a chase? It was as if both of them already knew why she came. There was no foreplay, no searching of the souls, no reading of Sara's eyes and heart for what her mouth firmly denied.

No, it was just simple pretense. Sara wanted to be fucked, and they both knew it.

And so the moment she wore it, she moaned most pleasantly the way a man shivers and exhales when he's finally eaten after a fast. Hoel owned her the second he'd opened the door, and as humorous as he found that, his yearning for Elene tugged at him and pricked at his heart. He found himself fondly recalling her.

Yes, Hoel had been beset by a pleasant melancholy since his conquest of Elene.

It was a funny juxtaposition, the way he softly smiled, eyes somewhere else, even as he plunged into the gagged Sara, the act of gair transforming her mind this very moment. In fact, he would tell this story over drinks over the course of many centuries, many times with Sara giggling by his side.

Elene had not sought any form of retribution, so for now the conquest was seemingly halted. He still endeavored with fire in his loins to make her his fully, but he felt a sadness overtake him; one very similar to when one reaches the last hundred pages of a book. It would be over so soon, and when she was following him quietly and patiently with no bark from her pretty lips would it really be the same?

How strange. He almost wished he could stay in the pursuit forever, even as he excitedly obsessed over the moment of her surrender. Little known to him, this sentiment was slowly growing in the lands of Zhor, not just in the masters but within the slaves and sluts, too. It was the spirit of the times, and within the natural born slaves it bloomed like a beautiful rose, and for the men it roused their twylls like great oak trees.
On Earth they say they wish to have their cake and eat it too. And on Zhor, within the century, many would speak of wishing to dans te flaes, which roughly translates to "to pluck and watch bloom."

Absent-minded as he was, the hard fuck he was giving the would-be Sara had slowed in its intensity and she, thinking he was teasing her and denying her orgasm, had began desperately pressing back against him in defeat. She had such a marvelous jour, and she felt its softness against his thighs as she rocked back and forth rhythmically.

"Mmm! Mmmmmm! MMMMMMMMM!"

Even without his balm she orgasmed, clenching on his rod, gushing from her pussy. She whimpered into her gag, almost as much wetness seeping from her mouth, eyes tearful and dewy as well. So long as Hoel came on her tits, she'd be soaked all over.

He led her to rest on the couch, not inclined to tire her any further. Sara was just an intermission for him, as he had developed a taste for the former members of the First Horse Lancers Troop, and they seemed to have a way of finding him. Just last week he had turned Perry to Penny, and at the start of the month Aaron to Aubrey. All of them had already been forcibly turned into women, of course.

But it was with Hoel's work they became damsels.

Gently stroking Sara's face, he undid her bindings one by one, though for a while she made no attempt to flee. Instead, she came to rest her head against his lap, now uncaring that her cheeks smushed softly against his suren.

Sara had broken rather fast, if it could be called that at all. Hoel suspected that unlike Elene or even Aubrey, she had come looking for an excuse to be broken. How else is it she would visit when she had heard rumor of how so many of her comrades vanished into his residence for hours, and spoke not a word of what happened in those voids of time?

She'd had her excuse, that she was merely curious how her former prare Elin was doing. But even as he heard her breath still when they entered his chamber, and she began to tremble when she heard the lock click behind her, she gave the most gestural resistance yet. She was hardly stripped before she began to kiss him, and she needed no ¬teur-gag to perform oral. She'd pushed his twyll so far down her throat he realized she'd practiced, and the act of binding and gair had only caused her to give love kicks.

Now her silence was her open admission. Hoel had no doubt she would cross her arms for him immediately if he asked, but some deep instinct told him to take his time. So, he bade her rise, and even helped her dress.

Though many Zhorians would scoff and call this weak, a way to fast lose the respect of a slut and even a slave, this kind of aftercare would become popular in the coming decades. It would be through documentation of Hoel's methods in the tavern he would soon open, in fact, that would spur it, the art of quen po: "the heart's caress."

He led her to his doorway, giving her coin to hail a palanquin though he knew she probably had money enough.

"Now go, and know your true name. You'll come back to me in time."

Sara said not a word but met his eyes once, turned hers downward demurely and scurried away. All in all, it was his most efficient catch and release.

It would sate him for now, but Hoel yearned to see Elene once again. Maybe, having had his vengeance already, he would be kinder to her as he had been to her comrades. Or maybe his passions would make him all the crueler, not for hatred, but for his deep passion for her and to see what faces she would make. All he knew is that she had lit something within him that no slave had before; not even the slave that Elene had once stolen from him as Elin, the one that had started their feud.

When Sara had gone down on him, he could not help but compare. Elene had certainly not been that skilled with it, and she had required a gag. But her clumsy licking and gagging had aroused him far more than Sara's practiced motions, and the thought of forcing Elene's education aroused him even further still.

She'd peer upward with eyes still rebellious, made up with sultry slave face, bringing her bright rouge lips forward to give his twyll a kiss...
Damn! Hoel splashed cold water on his face. It had been barely minutes since the newly christened Sara had left, but here he was already craving Elene. He would not force her back to his residence though, no. It would be all the sweeter when she came on his own. But he felt impatient.

And so it was he found himself conspiring to have yet another former Lancer come across his lap. Perhaps one of the others would return and cross their wrists before him; this place needed a good cleaning, he noted. If all went well, he'd have many gorgeous and wanton slaves, as slutty as they had once been mighty.

They had been great warriors indeed. Which is why they would become the finest of whores.

Episode IV: Pin me down!

When Elene had approached her mother and father to warn them of the braed's prescription, they had made no objection, though they had such different reactions.

Her mother had smiled at her pityingly, but warmly still, and Elene felt some warmth inside. They were not much, the women of this house, and yet her mother had not abandoned her... If not for her mother, Elene may have like many of her comrades found herself an alcove girl, driven to it by her powerful feminine urges and the rejection of the city that used to praise them.

She met her mother's eyes and then looked away immediately, stifling down the sad feelings that came with their warmth. They had been some of the few kind to her, but Elene still found herself fighting for her identity as a man, even as she accepted her feminine name. She hated this futile contradiction, and she couldn't accept what it meant to be in feminine solidarity with her mother.

She did not want to accept her girlhood.

It mattered little, for Clarie would hardly let such a thing happen, anyway. Though she had no say in the manner, she loudly berated Elene and the disgrace she'd bring on the family by hiring an oernad, and bringing him into the house of all things. What could Elene do but glare back at her? If she didn't glare as hard as she could, then she'd be able to feel her aching heart, which stung when she remembered how Clarie used to cherish her so.

Her father had merely regarded her coldly. He had always regarded her this coldly since she returned in shame, and to escape thoughts of her father may have been why she returned so often to Hoel's manor as a friend. The way he stared at her like she was an insect, like she was pathetic little creature bumping against dirty glass and trying to escape... hurt. It hurt her badly. But she was used to it.

"Thank you, father," she said quietly.

"It's not father, Elin. It's Lord ob Cryf," he spat.

Elene's stomach knotted up at the line he'd never drawn before, and a piece of her heart caught in her throat. She desperately wanted not to show it. She smoothed her face stony as she did so often as a child when she killed her emotions, putting such effort into it that she didn't notice her mother's saddening expression, much less her sister's twisted smirk. And she squeezed her throat monotone, as she forced her gaze past him.

"Yes, Lord ob Cryf."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The day had finally come, and Elene shifted restlessly on her bed.

She'd had disturbing dreams lately, all involving Hoel. Amazingly, the least disturbing dreams had been the ones in which they'd brolled. Elene did not need a braed to see those eventually coming.

The worse ones were less direct, perhaps symbolic, seeming to speak on the part of her psyche which Elene forced herself to reject. This very morn, she'd dreamed back to the days of their schoolcraft, when he was Elin, and was reminded of so many feelings she'd thought forever banished.

She dreamed about her endless training, the unflappable attitude she'd donned in front of her peers, the utmost effort she'd spent into becoming a true ob Cryf worthy to inherit the house. There would be no moisture for tears so long as she sweated, and she put her all into trying to turn her father's head in her direction.

She remembered how her mother had always done the same, always searching for her father's gaze.

Elin grew strong. Always the fastest, always the proudest, always the strongest. He'd realized with disappointment, however, that his father was never concerned with him in the first place. He cared for the name, and so long as Elin made it shine, then Elin would suffice. But it earned him no love -- simply approval.

Hoel had always been different. For someone who's always been less physical than average, he was far too fearless; not the type to start fights, but not the type to care if he did start one. He was smart enough to know who he didn't need to make his enemies, and yet he never seemed truly afraid of them.

One day, Elin and Hoel had stayed far too long in the woods, and when night fell they found themselves hopelessly lost. Though Elin had forced on a brave face, he was just a boy, and he had hardly the presence of mind to navigate a dark forest.

But Hoel had stayed calm, asking him the necessary questions, how shall they stay hydrated, how should they build shelter, how shall they keep safe from the animals, how shall they build a fire. Hoel had learned the answers in class just the same, but had saved Elin's wits by posing them as questions. Elin was not unaware.

When the morn came, and they had reached the ob Cryf estate, Elin's father was waiting coldly. He did not seem to care that his child looked staggered and hungry, or that he had spent a cold winter night out in the woods. He merely saw a foolish heir, and so he slapped him across the face, demanding to know what happened.

While Elin had sputtered, and his father was to strike him once again, Hoel had grabbed his arm.

"Stay out of this, boy! A prideless commoner understands nothing!"

Hoel had simply sighed and glared.

"Are you a fool? What use is it to your son to strike him so? Will the ob Cryf shine brighter if the heir has a bruise across his face? I see! The mark of a warrior must be a black eye!"

As he had always done, Hoel lashed with his tongue until Elin's father began angrily striking him as well. Of course, Hoel was a fairly weak boy, but he merely blocked the blows with his arms, and ran off, continuing to mock Elin's father and throwing snowballs all the while. Even laughing.

Elin had never realized that perhaps his father's blows, vicious as they were with emotion, were not harder than the physical demands of their schooling.

Of course, Hoel was no hero who was courageously saving his friend. He was simply a boy who couldn't stand things he thought were stupid, and knew that Prydferth society frowned upon overt acts of violence from men against children.

Elin was forbade from interacting with Hoel again, though that hardly stopped them.

In the present, Elene had dreams that she was once again standing beside Hoel, in front of her father, as she was about to be struck. Sometimes she was Elin again, as young as she was before. Sometimes she was who she was now, only half a foot taller than she was back then.

Every time she had the dream, she felt her present emotions mixing with her past, her admiration from back then becoming something strange. But she also felt the anger rise in her chest, as she thought of how foolish Hoel would turn in the years that followed, more concerned with dallying with women than bettering himself or growing stronger for Prydferth.

She fumed. She found, once again, the temperature of her body rising, that strange mix where one cannot tell if they're turned hot by anger or arousal, and she hugged herself tightly as if it could contain the emotion, restlessly rolling around in her bed as she thought of Hoel brolling with every slave and slut and tramp in the whole city of Prydferth.

Elene, breathless, glanced delicately at her clock.

The oernad would reach the ob Cryf estate momentarily, but Elene could hardly wait another second.

Her mother, father, and sister had already left, not wishing to see the oernad, and treating it as a shameful thing. But that they allowed it at all was fairly tolerant for such a noble family. Despite the cold treatment, there was little more Elene could ask for. Even if her father's treatment made her feel empty.

And with the privacy afforded her by her family taking leave, and her servants told to stay far away from her room, she desperately tried to fill that emptiness.

Again on her bed, but with no need to stifle her moans, she hugged her pillow close to her chest till her breasts were squeezed as if she were being held. Her right hand wandered to her peren slowly, mousily, slipping her hand under the waistband of her hose and stroking the fur of her peren.

Mmmm! She squirmed, her breath growing heavier, her left hand now frantically undoing her jacket, and twisting her body to tear it off and pull the top of her undershirt over her breasts. The silks were becoming hot, and she was sweating, trying to imagine that it was not her own danty hands exposing her but Hoel, now inserting --

A knock at her door interrupted her. Gods! she thought, irritated, before realizing it was the oernad. For a moment she panicked, thinking to make herself presentable, but what would be the use?

When she opened the door, her now-longer pageboy hair in disarray, sweat trickling down her abdomen from between her breasts, her perked areolae how in the open, she had thought it a small act of bold assertion. But she let out a mousey "eep!" when she saw that beside the presumed oernad was Ymdod, her guard that usually accompanied her to the city.

She slammed the door, hating herself for the cute little noise she just made.

"Gods, Ymdod! I told you I wanted privacy!"

"My deepest apologies, master. But Clarie had ordered me to show the guest to your room when he arrived," Ymdod explained, genuinely apologetic.

Elene fumed quietly as she lay back against the door, the cool wood against her bare and sweaty back informing her how hot and bothered she just was. She was a serum girl, but a free woman, and Clarie's older sister -- gods, she hated saying it -- her standing should have been higher. But she knew as well as anyone in the house that was not the truth.

Most any consideration she got from the servants in ths regard wasn't due to standing; no, they just liked her better. Ymdod, though, would have had a diminished standing in her father's eyes if he'd listened to Elene over Clarie.

A bitter pang of jealousy rose in her chest, as if she could feel Clarie's small, forceful hands gripping her very ribs. But Elene forced it down as she always did, and the quiet, painful question of her father's preference she never let enter her conscious mind.

Now was not the time. She opened slightly the door, and stuck just her head out surreptitiously, speaking with her eyes to tell Ymdod to "leave!" Which he did quite promptly. Then she caught the oernad's eye and gestured him in with her disappearance into the room, the door left shyly open.

She merely went and lay back boldly on the bed. She was nervous, but not as much as she expected, and that was somehow disappointing.
The oernad, ever the professional, did not wait for any cue. That would have been a turnoff. Instead, he strode over, one hand cupping her breast, the other yanking her up by hem of her undershirt. She gasped.

"Hoel, you devil!" Elene rasped out, immediately pulled into her fantasy.

She threw her fists at him with as much power as she could muster, in the back of her head remembering the braed's assurance he could handle it. 'And if I hurt him?" she'd asked dubiously. 'You can try,' was all he said in response.

Her very real anger at Hoel that still existed, came out at 'Hoel' in a strike she'd practiced a thousand times. And he took it upon his forearm with but a small wince, smirking at her. It reminded her of a time not so long ago when she'd taken the same sorts of blows from defiant maidens herself, in stride, with powerful arms hardly afraid of some strumpet.

Of course, she thought timidly. Back then, she'd thought it a funny joke, too. It was as if she was living his and her own experience at the same time, pinning down the girl as she was pinned down. Firmly pulling the girl's legs apart as her own dripping saer was exposed.

"Don't you like it, Elin?" 'Hoel' asked. "I thought serum girls thought of nothing else but making love," he said, as he'd been scripted to.

"Oh...! Don't, Hoel! No! NO!"

'Hoel' calmly proceeded to pinching her jour, and lay kisses upon her pillowy chest. Ah! she moaned when he began to nibble her jutting nipples. His finger circled around, and then began tickling her along her peren, and she whimpered angrily in reply. Without warning, his finger entered. She gasped.

Elene thrilled at the foreign hand exploring her maiden interior. Already her hips were bucking toward him, even while she twisted her upper body away, 'Hoel' using his finger to detail every soft fold within the girl. She wondered what she looked like, squirming so indecently.
"It is time now, my lovely. I shall deprive you of your maidenhood and make my balm a gift to you."

Her eyes opened wide with realization. Not at his declaration, which was scripted, but because she found herself suddenly embarrassed that she'd remembered what the real Hoel had said, word for word, before he entered her. She was knocked out of her fantasy, her face burning up in a completely different way from just a moment ago.

The man no longer looked like Hoel; not at all. She was still aroused. She still felt the need of release, and a desire to be penetrated. But this was not the man she desperately wanted.

Still, she clung to his back as he entered her.

"Now, my lovely Elin, just lie back and quietly enjoy yourself," he said, as professional in his role as ever.

"Please," she gasped as he drove into her again and again. "Call me Elene!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Episode V: When your soul is penetrated

The research was becoming clearer to Woram, who'd sent assistants to look deeper into the cases he was studying, and to see if any others fit the pattern.

So, it was that the girl who'd once been a hunter and had been imprinted by the florist had, on that day, been presented by him a single orchid, which even in Zhor symbolized fertility. The assistant, both clever and skilled, realized that what she had worn at the time of her ignition had certainly influenced the process, and thus produced a depiction: the young lady in a dress of pink and white, its hem frilly and just above the knee, a blue ribbon around her trim waist and her shoulders bare.

The girl had reported that she had felt as if she were prey, hunted down until that moment, cornered, fearful and trapped. But when the florist had seduced her, he compared her likeness to the orchid he presented, the hem of her dress like petals.

He minced no words, addressing her as naes luls, "delicate flower," and she herself imagined herself in full bloom, her emotions overcoming her. She stared at him speechless with dewy eyes, and a saer warm and wet like summer rain. Astoundingly, she had ignited merely through the act of fingering, his searching fingers like a bee buzzing within her pistil.

The hunter was not captured like a beast, but plucked like a flower.

Woram silently tsked at the unnecessary artful embellishment of his assistant's report, but the point was well taken. His other assistant had not reported in a way that was nearly as romanticized; though, the imprinting of the other girl was not nearly so romantic.

The former merchant had still originally owned her immense wealth. It was only due to her slut nature that she ever found herself in dire financial straits, as she found herself irresistably wanting hentt only with the man who once owed her. Though the reasons for her indefatigable attraction to this specific man are still unclear, it seems that after he paid off his debt by brolling her good and well, she still could not stop herself. The man incredulously kept increasing the price of his 'services' until she had given up her entire fortune to him to have sex with him.

Expecting the once money-hungry harlot to be driven to despair by her poverty, instead she seemed to have an inexplicable look of rapture, as she crossed her arms before him and happily murmured to herself that now he had taken possession of every coin of her soul.

What once was a vague feeling began to materialize for Woram. It was a matter of 'replacement.' Whatever was the serum girl's most cherished value, deepest in her core, had to be displaced and have its spot taken by something new, bestowed upon her by her new master. Oftentimes, Woram noted, that something seemed to be the exact opposite. But not always.

Woram had little idea this moment what a revolution his theory of 'imprinting' would bring to the scholarly world of Zhor, much less its impact on the laymen. It was not long after his theory was published that braeds would speak of that deepest and most central part of a serum girl as her saer-ani, the soul of her sex, the empty spot which aimed to be filled.

But he had little time to continue conjuring his theory at that moment, for the daughter of ob Cryf had arrived. She had come a few times now. Her hair, he noted, was longer still than last time, but it seemed in disarray, or perhaps it was just her countenance. She seemed irked and restless, and without the mental energy to shush any feminine mannerisms as before, such that once she sat down she started unconsciously crossing her legs and idly twirling her hair.

"Lady ob Cryf, you seem out of sorts today."

She gave a flinch at being overtly referred to as feminine. The servants at the manner had all duly continued to refer to her as 'master,' and she did not go outside nearly enough to get used to 'lady' or 'miss.' It was a trifle compared to her usual worries, but today it seemed to carry extra sting.

"It must be bad if it's that obvious," she muttered. "Thank you for referring me to the oernad. I think it's helping." Her eyes cast down at the admission, but she looked sullen somehow. Actually, Woram thought, it seemed like she was simply being polite.

"Do you not find his services satisfying? There are others who I consider to be nearly as skilled, so perhaps it's just a matter of chemistry -"

She waved her hands in a bit of embarrassment.

"No, no, there's no need to worry, Woram. There's nothing wrong with him, and he does...um... a solid job."

And she was back to looking sideways at the ground, left hand fiddling with her hair. A layperson, or even a braed of lesser experience would have interpreted this as shame and defeat from enjoying the oernad's services. But Woram knew better. Serum girls who had just had their first oernad experience usually came in exultant and confident, sure that they had found the way to conquer their urges and stay a freewoman.

If it went well, the honeymoon period could last months; in rare cases, even a full year. Certainly, the urges would then grow stronger, and the serum girl would realize with great mortification that they needed something more extreme, but it was a gradual process. At any rate, Elin lacked the wild look in the eye, the excitement hiding powerful fear.

No, Elin seemed bored. Restless and bothered, and yet bored nonetheless. This was new ground for Woram, but there wasn't much he could do but rely on his past experiences.

"I can write you a recommendation for a joy-house or even a month long stay at a slave camp," he offered. "It's strange to move through the stages of slave need so quickly, but a braed needs to be flexible."

At the proposition, she merely looked reflective, as if she'd thought of it before. She had neither the barely restrained, manic leap for joy, nor the fiery, thunderous and feigned anger that tended to precede an eventual acceptance anyway, though not without a long hour of needing to be 'convinced.'

The twirling in her hair sped up just a little bit, and she unconsciously uncrossed her legs, once again squeezing them tightly together. Clearly, the thought still aroused her on some level. But truest, most powerful form of slave need was just as psychological as physiological.

"I suppose that's what makes the most sense," she said softly. "I'm not sure if I want to jump into it, yet... I'd have to talk to my family, and they're..." She bit her lip in frustration.

Woram, studying her, tapping his fingers rhythmically as he so often did while considering an interesting problem, suddenly had a flash of insight. The coincidence seemed too good to be true, but he remembered what she'd asked at the end of their last session.

"Could it be, Elin, that there's someone specific who's been occupying your mind?"

She froze, lock of hair in finger, before an irate, defensive look came upon her face. In fact, she started to adopt a defensive posture entirely, hugging herself beneath her breasts , knees squeezed together so tight it was like she was trying to crush a fruit between them.

"Is there any reason you ask that, sir braed?" she asked in a voice with such waver it was almost musical. All at once one of her legs started a nervous shake.

"I thought that you might be preoccupied with the man you had your oernad play," Woram replied, pausing a beat. "Not that I'd know who, of course, because I did not pry. But it would help if you were honest with me, Elin."

"Please call me Elene," she said quietly, while also starting to squirm in her seat. It was as if the mere thought of him was bringing her close to climax. Woram duly noted that now her behaviors were an almost exact match for serum girls seeking for slave camps.

"Elene, is it?" he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Elene, this man-"

"His name is Hoel," she said, her voice even quieter, but her body even louder. She didn't seem to notice her own panting, or that she was doing that most feminine gesture of fanning herself with one of her hands.

The other was slipped between her thighs.

"Did he drin you?"

"...yes," she blushed.

"Did he awaken your slave need?"

"Yes," she replied, louder, almost angrily.

"And have you known him for some time?"

"YES! Gods! That swine!" Her fanning hand turned to a fist she repeatedly beat upon her lap, while the other gripped her hose furiously. "He drinned me and turned me into this! He was my friend, Woram! That low-grade degenerate! That COWARD! THAT TRASH!"

She was screaming now, at first directionless and into the void, but quickly it shifted to the target in front of her. Woram remained unfazed, and in fact inwardly felt relieved, because this was much closer to the usual course of things.

"I'll kill him! I'd rather be killed by him than let him live a second longer! Gods, this must be why that wretch hasn't left my mind! That thug won't even let me properly turn into a slut!"

Her screams didn't diminish in volume one whit, but her fanning motion returned, and anyone could tell that her face was red not merely with anger.

"He's stopping you from igniting? By force?"

"YES! No! He's... He's in my dreams!" she rasped out. "I dream of the night he took me and I woke with sheets wet with lust! And sometimes I dream of when we were but boyhood friends, and I trusted him like no other, and I startle awake with anguish! And sometimes... s-sometimes I dream that he's taken the place of..." Her screaming faded into stammering in an impressively fast reversal of her long crescendo.

"But," and now Woram raised an eyebrow at her, "why is it that you have not gone to do so before this?"

"How daft can you be?! Do you think it would be easy to cut him down when he's so...so..."

Strong? The word stuck in the air, and she seemed to shiver in arousal. When she realized how turned on by his strength she was, she promptly laid her face in her hands with exasperation. Emotionally spent, she stayed that way, hiding her face as she drew ragged breaths.

Woram understood roughly what was going on, but unfortunately diagnosis was only half a braed's battle.

"Unless you suppose you could actually kill him," he said, glossing over her plans to murder, "I can tell you right now that if you go over there and engage in hentt, you'll ignite immediately. It may not satisfy you, but perhaps if you give a slave camp a sh-"

"Oh, Woram! I can't just leave him be!"

Well, she could, Woram thought, but he considered her options. As much as he desired more evidence of his theory of imprinting, it would be malpractice of the soul to send her to Hoel right now. Of course, sending a serum girl to a slave camp was as much as admitting they were doomed to slavery, but...

Then, he thought, there was the possibility of her actually killing him. Would that make him complicit? Perhaps technically, but if the man had managed to be killed by a mere serum girl, anyway, it's doubtful the law would care much.

"What exactly do you want to do, Elene?"

"I'll go there and prove my valor," she purred, thinking it a growl. "Perhaps I am charging to the crossing of my wrists, but is it not better to be pierced facing your enemy than to be pierced from behind?!"

"Pierced by..."

"I meant a weapon!" she blushed.

"As a braed, I cannot at all recommend this course of action-"

"I may be a serum girl but I can't remain a coward! You understand that, right Woram?" She gazed at him expectantly. "I've led men into battle! I've taken more women to bed, and slain more men than he has hairs on his face! You must realize what shame I'm going through, don't you?"

"...Of course," Woram sighed. Fire and thunder, indeed, though he wasn't exactly sure if she was feigning her wish to slice this Hoel down. What could he possibly say to convince her at this point? "I suppose if you bring a guard-"

"No!"

"What? Why not?"

"I c-can't!" she sputtered. "What honor is there in taking his life with the help of another man? H-his head is mine alone!"

"What reason would you possibly have at this point to engage him with 'honor?'"

"An ob Cryf never forgets their honor!" Elene snapped. "A-and, at any rate, if Ymdod comes, he may piece together what happened and report my shame to my father!"

Oh, that was actually fairly plausible Woram thought to himself. Still, and now he found himself scratching his neck, he wasn't sure how he felt about helping the girl in front of him be hoist by her own panties. But seeing the fiery and lustful look in her eyes, he knew she'd reached that stage where nothing would come between a serum girl and twyll. The least he could do was help her save face.

"I suppose if you go to his abode now, you can... resolve your worries in one fashion or another," he said helpfully.

"Yes, and I'll rid the city of a wolf in a stallion's clothing," she declared with a pride she had not felt since that cursed day when she rode with her troop of lancers toward Gendir. This excursion, a disinterested observer may have noted, would most likely be similarly ill-fated.

"Thank you, Woram. I must admit, I had my doubts about the alleged wisdom of braeds, but my soul feels filled and exuberant right now," said Elene with eyes so starry that Woram felt his body wrack with guilt, and his face turn away so he needn't stare into those trusting eyes.

"...certainly, we often see things that the serum girls themselves do not," Woram said all too truthfully.

"So the elders say, and so the young come to know," she said with a friendly smile. "But I have no time left this noon to wax eloquent, though your company is appreciated, Woram. The sun will set too fast if I don't depart. I will enthusiastically recommend your services to my comrades."

And with almost a skip in her step, Elene left the room.

Now it was Woram's turn to put his face in his hands and groan. He couldn't help but wonder if he had failed as her physician.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Episode VI: Splitting saers

"Turn around, Aubrey," Hoel commanded.

"My name's not Aubrey," the girl snarled before, hesitatingly, following his command.

"Then would you prefer I called you Aaron as I penetrated you?" he said, clasping her throat, nibbling on her ear as she let out a quiet whimper.

Aubrey wasn't fooling anyone, least of all herself. Not while she wore a lacy chanette, and certainly not with the ruby lips and shadowed eyes of slave paint. She relished the way he cupped her breast beneath the sensuous material, how it felt to have its weight rest in his gigantic hand. And Iau above, how she hated the way she loved the hand softly restricting her throat.

"Huff... Uuhhmmm...Ohh..."

She closed her eyes with a happy sigh, and gave naught but a startled moan when he pushed her to the bed on all fours. Yes, Hoel thought admiring his furniture rearrangement, the Comfortium really needed a king-sized bed for proper lovemaking.

With her face smushed to the pillow, and her ass exposed for him to take, she couldn't help but wiggle invitingly. The heat from her saer was tempered by the cool air in the Confortium. Her gate was open for her enemy to take, the dribble down her thighs signaling that the time was right for pillage.

"Ohh, please Hoel! Fuck me, please!"

Bam bam!

A loud knocking came at the Comfortium door which, it shall be noted, Hoel had not even bothered to lock this time. Aubrey shrieked in frustration, pushing her face down into the couch so she could muffle her girlish vexation.

"Hoel! HOEL, you damnable scoundrel! Are you once again using the machinations of this vile chamber to force yourself upon a woman?!"

That voice. Gods, it couldn't be. Not right now! She couldn't have shown up with another hour's passing?!

Now the door lightly shuddered as if someone was throwing the weight of their body against it to crumple it with force. It was already a sturdy door, but the laughable jitter it made with each effortful blow from the petite body on the other side made Aubrey wince with secondhand embarassment.

So it happened that, just as the girl on the other side was in the midst of preparing her next tackle, Hoel lightly but swiftly opened the door, the rhythm perfect for the girl to yelp in surprise and crash into his body, her sabre clattering to the floor.

"My mistake," Hoel said amicably.

"You...! You still treat me like a damn fool!" Elene pushed back from him at once, falling on her soft rear, while wildly grasping for her sabre. When she caught its handle and swiftly stood up, she finally noticed Aubrey gaping at the spectacle.

"A-Aaron! What are you doing here? Gods, look at what this damnable rogue has forced you into!"

"Ah! No, this is...!"

Having been so caught up in Elene's embarassment, she had forgotten her own. It came to her all at once, that at this moment she wore not even an arcoy, that her former leader could see her jiggling breasts in all their glory, her pretty red lips parted in shock.

She covered her breasts and her saer in shame, which made it all the worse, as it reminded both of them just how female the both of them were. She had come here to see Hoel to feel tiltillating disgrace, but her face flushed with an entirely different kind of shame. Seeing her leader flail about like a clumsy maiden, and being seen while made up as a sultry strumpet, the memory of who they used to be seemed to slap her across the face like the whore she was.

"You shouldn't have come, Elin," Aubrey spat out bitterly. She turned her face away in shame.

Elene's swordarm wavered, shock at Aubrey's reaction quickly transmuting itself into indignance, though she was not sure if it was at Aubrey, Hoel, or herself. But she had no words to say to a slut who had already surrendered herself, and turned her attention to Hoel, trying to ignore her former comrade.

"I've come to kill you, Hoel. You'll see Iau this day," she hissed.

In response, Hoel inexplicably raised his arms, and began walking toward her. Though Elene herself wielded the sword, she felt fear rise in her chest, a trembling in her arm, a wetness in her saer. She backed up step by step against the wall, still pointing her sabre, while Hoel made to grab it. She gasped, thinking he would now simply hoist it away, but he did naught but point its edge at his neck.

In shock and surprise she tried to pull it away, but he merely held firm, grasping its blade with one hand so his hands bled, the forceful jerk back and forth having made the slightest cut upon his neck.

"Then kill me, Elene. You have good reason to."

"What trick is this?!" she cried out.

By this point Aubrey had rushed forward as well. When she saw blood, she realized with shock just how little she wished Hoel dead. She clung to his arm.

"Stop it, Hoel! Stop, you fool! You've proven your point! Drop your sabre, Elene!" Aubrey howled with surprising force.

Elene flinched and fell weakly on her backside, and released her grip. Wordlessly, blood still flowing from his hand, he tossed the saber at the wall which it crashed upon with a mighty clang that deafened the room.

"Why?"

She wasn't sure who she was asking, or what she was asking. Why didn't I kill you? Why would you have given your life so easily?

"Why is she here...?" Elene murmured listlessly, resent rising in her chest.

Presently, Hoel returned from the lavatory from which he retrieved gauze, and made to dress his wounds while Aubrey wordlessly helped, though occasionally she sent a sharp glance Elene's way.

Indignation showed itself in Elene's cheeks. How was she the villain here!? What was this absurd situation? Suddenly she realized her eyes were blurring, and she quickly blinked them away. Of all things... Of all things! She was becoming more girlish by the hour! How dare Aubrey command her so?! Naught but a season ago she would've been starved a day for such insubordination in the face of her lord!

But now, curled up by the wall, she felt as if she was a world away from the two of them, their intimacy sickening her by the second. She could do naught but fume.

"You're free to join us, Elene. Is that not why you came?"

"I came to kill you, you cretin. Are you as daft as you are vile?" Elene muttered.

"So it would seem that you didn't, as here I stand in spite of you having opportunity aplenty. Shall I fall upon it to make it easier?" he said, gesturing to the fallen sabre. "Alas, if you're not here to kill, nor to fuck, then I bid you leave."

"I shall stay until you're done with this slut, and perhaps we can have a proper duel!" she huffed.

His dismissive tone made Elene absolutely simmer. She clutched her hands upon her knees with enough force to strangle a hen that could lay eggs naught, imagining her grip was on Hoel's throat.

Aubrey rolled her eyes and let out the longest sigh of her life. Astoundingly, in spite of the mirthless comedy currently playing out, she was still so painfully aroused, so strong were her slut urges. And she had to shamefully admit, even Elene's current joyless presence would have its tiltillation. She thought, with growing wetness, about ravenously, amorously fucking Hoel right in front of the churlish maiden.

But Elene had been an honorable leader who cared for all her men -- when they were all men, of course, thought Aubrey bitterly. When they had been captured, Elene had offered herself to be Gwanc's sole pleasure slave, if only his men could be released without bondage. She would have crossed wrists for the sake of her comrades.

It mattered not, though. Every single one of them was turned into a woman, with doe eyes and pouty lips, with saers instead of twylls, and long beautiful hair and bouncing breasts and wide hips for bearing children... even now she was doing naught but growing wet at the thought.

Thus it was that Aubrey sighed again and approached her former lord and commander, who was now a girl fighting her lust, and lightly and wordlessly took her by the hand.

"What are - ahh!"

"Shush, now," said Aubrey, raising her up firmly, and beginning to unbutton her jacket, muffling her protests with a forceful kiss. It had been an eternity since she'd dominated, and she felt an erotic thrill at bringing out her former commander's submission.

"Mmmmh! How dare you...!" Elene whispered, but made no resistance as her undershirt was pulled over her head, her hose removed. Her nipples perked at the cool air; a glance at her perens revealed just how aroused she had been this entire time. She was dragged along by Aubrey, all the while exuding awkward eroticism, avoiding eye contact with Hoel, and presently they went to retrieve something from the alcove.

"Have you not yet donned pleasure silks?" Aubrey asked, reaching within a satchel and pulling out a baby blue slave tunic.

"Of course not," Elene hissed. "I-I'm not a slut like you!"

Aubrey slapped her across the face, leaving Elene to sputter in disbelief, and thus Aubrey slapped her yet again, sharper, to bid her completely quiet. Yet Elene glared fiercely, fire in her eyes; in return, Aubrey glared fiercer and raised her hand yet again, to pour cold water over those testy flames. Elene cast her eyes down so her scowl could offend only the ground.

Bemused, Hoel whistled. She was a natural lash-slave. He really did have to open that tavern now.

"What? Want to say something?" Aubrey mocked. She clasped a similarly blue velvet choker around Elene's neck, replete with ring to attach a leash.

Elene's hateful stare at the ground sharpened, and she balled up her fists as tight as possible to keep them from trembling, every heart-racing emotion in the book hitting her at once. She was angry... and exhilirated... and humiliated... and so very horny. She could feel Hoel's eyes searching her body, watching her heaving breasts. He could see everything right now. Her dripping sex. Her face getting more flushed by the second --

"Your demeanor is abominable," she said coldly. "For that, you shan't pretty your face for master."

"That's not fair!" Elene shrieked, before covering her lips in realization.

Aubrey smirked before cupping Elene's face.

"So, you DID want to don slave face and charm the eyes of our master here. You little coquette! You've been dreaming about it, I'm sure, being all made up to be his most darling slut."

"I-I merely choose what I want to wear," she stuttered, now glancing fretfully at Hoel who smiled and waved oh so irritatingly in response. "Who would want to please him?!"

"Of course," Aubrey sighed, exasperated again. "Then choose to don this tunic, won't you? You do need to cover up your sex after all."

Before Elene could question the logic, Aubrey was already pulling the slave tunic over her head, bringing her arms through its sleeves, securing the sash around her waist. Then she reached once again into the satchel, and pulled out the vaunted arcoy -- that thin undergarment reserved for slaves. It covered so little that if its the aim was to cover nudity, it was only the silliest half-measure. It was sluttier than wearing nothing at all.

"N-no! I won't wear it! Eeek!"

Elene's defiance was met with a quick slap to her rear.

"If you insist. But I'll warn you that seeing your pretty jours in all its nude glory will only invite spankings," said Aubrey, giving another demonstrative swat for good measure.

And so Elene sullenly wore the arcoy, trying not to relish the feeling as the slinky material ran over her legs. She was failing. She was getting wetter by the second, moaning softly as the silky arcoy met the warm stickiness of her saer. Why even put on panties she was about to take off...? She hated how openly the question came to mind. Clearly, no one in the room was fooled by her protests. Not even her.

She was so aroused in fact, that she failed to notice the happy butterflies forming in her stomach; if she had, she would've realized that the feelings coursing through her were just as emotional as they were sexual.

But she didn't have time to consider it in the moment, as Aubrey tenderly led Elene over to the mirror, while Elene still squirmed and struggled with the pure tactility of it all, the brush of the tunic against her skin, the way it suggestively parted on one side like an open door inviting a man to come in, her saer somehow feeling so much more exposed and vulnerable than when she was nude.

"Look, Elene. There you are."

"No... wait, please..." Elene trembled and stared at the ground. She suddenly realized how afraid she was. Anxiety and dread gripped her right between the ribs, even as the butterflies kept floating around in her stomach. She desperately, desperately didn't want to look...

Ugly...?

Meanwhile, Aubrey rolled her eyes and forced Elene's chin upward, before stepping aside to let the girl admire herself.

"Eh?"

What an adorable little peep she made when she saw herself in the mirror! Her reflection stared back at her, and she realized that something deep inside her had been dreaming of this moment even as she consciously spurned it. A faltering smile came to her face, and her vision started blurring.

She didn't look hideous at all, or absurd. Rather, she looked so sexy; so lovely; so...

"You look so pretty, Elene," Hoel said.

"You!" She turned upon him with blushing skepticism, even as he began to caress her through the wispy material. "You say that to all girls, you knave!"

"Oh gods, I can't stand how cute you are!" Aubrey exclaimed, with both exasperation and genuine jealousy. She playfully but firmly shoved Elene into Hoel's chest forcing out of her a suprised squeak, and ably palmed her jour, bringing to fingers to fore upon her perens and teasing out of her the most girlish squeal she'd ever made.

"I-I'm not cute!"

"You're not," Hoel said, and her maiden eyes turned upward in disappointment, suddenly quite dewy.

"Of course I'm not...I'm just another lancer you've turned into a silly lass... oh...!" she said quietly, still moaning from Aubrey's attentive fingers. Mmm...!

"You're the cutest," he said with complete honesty.

"W-what? MMMMM!"

She squealed even louder as their tongues twisted together in the most amorous kiss, and she stood on her tip toes to latch her arms around his neck. By now, Hoel had surreptitiously brought his twyll from his trousers, to rub teasingly against her perens, Aubrey sullenly but pantingly grasping it and fondling his suren. She leaned forward as well, closing her eyes as her breasts rubbed against the back of Elene's tunic.

Ah! Elene's balance shifted forward yet, till her weight was entirely supported by Hoel's massive chest, one of her legs lifted in the air and pointed as she'd seen only the most delicate maidens do. Ah... ah...

"Ah...! Oh... no... not yet! No... I can't stop it... please, slow down!" she pleaded.

"The slave dares to order her master around?" Hoel asked, looking straight into her beautiful blue irises.

She was about to cum without even being penetrated. It was embarrassing and disappointing at the same time. "Please, put it inside me!" she whined, looking up at Hoel with pleading, dewy eyes, wiggling her rear beggingly at Aubrey behind her. But, alas...

Ohhhhhhhhh....!

Elene squirted right then and there, right in Aubrey's hand, right upon Hoel's twyll. She jerked and writhed upon her precarious, sexual pedestal, gushing all the while. Closing her eyes and moved to passivity, her head tilted backward while Hoel's tongue explored her mouth fully, every girly noise she made muffled by his kiss.

She pulled away in panic, the penetration of her mouth so erotic it seemed to extend her orgasm ever longer, and gods, even a slut needs to breathe! She gave one final soft squeal toward the celing, and then lay spent in his arms, her rationality slowly returning.

Nooo...! Ugh! She wanted to escape and stow away forever in a hole. She may as well have wet the bed! But the only place to hide was Hoel's chest, and she stuffed her face in it, half-consciously nuzzling it while making embarrassed little murmurs to herself.

But she had hardly a minute to recover, for soon she was hoisted up by Hoel and laid upon her back on the bed. Aubrey, evidently having had enough of the saer-teasing, crawled on top of her, their breasts squishing together. Now it was her turn to explore Elene's mouth , and Elene panicked as she realized her slut needs were rising once again.

She cooed sweetly now, their saers rubbing, both lubricated and inviting.

"Please.... Mmm!" Elene cried between kisses, as Aubrey seemed caught up in her own rapture. "Please give me your twyll! Master, please!"

But Hoel did not. In fact, rather than push his twyll into either of their pleading pussies, he started to suck softly on Elene's na-er.

"W-what? N-no...! Stop master, please!" Elene cried, covering her face and hiding the shameful tears in her eyes as she realized how squirmingly close is face was to her saer she had just squirted from. "That's dirty! Please! Don't look there, I'm filthy!"

Yet he only continued, treating her love nectar as if it was ambrosia from the gods. It was a sharper, almost painful pleasure, and her soft noises turned nearly to shrieks. His hot breath upon her girlhood nearly made her faint from sheer arousal, and her hips bucked everytime he suckled her clit. Everytime she jerked, she'd rub against Aubrey, who'd moan and jerk in return, the brushing and squelching of their wet pussies forming a rhythm.

Hoel moved back and forth between suckling upon Elene's sensitive na-er, all the while licking teasingly along the edges of Aubrey's perens, both of them yelping in concert.

"Oh! Oh god, please, slow down, please master!"

"Master, faster! I'm begging you!"

They came simultaneously, staring at each other's faces, lips parting into that vaunted 'o face' of which men make bawdy jokes, eyes tortured with pleasure and yet orgasmically serene at the same time. Is that what I look like? both girls thought breathlessly.

Yet as powerful a climax as they had, Ruk's serum was yet more powerful. Their exhausted panting renewed into the needy kind, their slut urges telling them that could only be an appetizer, their female ache so overcoming that they trembled in each other's arms. Doubtless they would have crossed their wrists before him if he ordered.

"Just fuck us for Iau's sake! Please!" Aubrey whined.

"Fuck me, Hoel...! Fuck me 'till I know my place!" Elene rasped out.

"By the gods, if only you two could see yourselves right now. Do you both enjoy being whores?"

"Of course I do!" Aubrey gasped out, wiggling her jours at him.

"You swine! Do not deign me a whore!" Elene spat at him, in absolute contradiction to what she'd just said.

Hoel looked as if he were having a reverential moment. Yes, it would not be Elene if it wasn't like this. He rose slowly, smile fond yet characteristically smug. He thought he might release his balm just from the absurd look on Elene's face.

And so he struck them both on their jours, one after the other, both of them squealing in return. When, and only when, he deemed they were ready, he pressed his erect twyll against them, hovering right between their trembling saers.

It was the steady pleasure of dominion, that only a man who has become a true master can feel. The two girls whined and whimpered like two pups in heat, and when he finally, finally, penetrated Aubrey first she shivered with a small orgasm. And to Elene's face returned to that lovely glare, perhaps jealous of Aubrey, though she stared at Hoel with loving, hateful eyes. Indeed, one would think that her lovestruck glaring was her favorite past-time.

Still, she managed to orgasm herself, the sheer friction of the three bodies in motion enough to vigorously tease her perens. The more she gave into her urges, the easier her orgasms came, and the louder. MMmmm! And yet with each orgasm she needed more.

Faintly in the back of her head, her more rational self wondered if she could even handle igniting.

"Why won't you fuck me, Hoel?! You coward! Fuck me, you coward!" she cried, feeling somehow as if Hoel owed her this. She had no idea what she was saying at this point, but her pussy tightened every time she acted defiant, and in the throes of pleasure some silly part of her thought her toothless, coy insults were helping her retain her dignity.

"Elene," Hoel said darkly and deeply in that voice of a disappointed master, causing her to whimper beneath Aubrey -- who had been in her own world this whole time, bucking back upon Hoel's twyll. "But I suppose I like you that way."

The butterflies were back again, more fluttery than ever in Elene's stomach, and she looked away from his bemused smile shyly.

"OHHHHHH!"

Aubrey closed her eyes as her saer tightened, shaking while her pussy gripped Hoel's twyll as if being him not to leave. But she could only moan sadly as she felt empty once again.

Then Hoel finally entered Elene, who gasped and shrieked at the same time, like a child who'd always wanted to ride a horse but only now realized just how high off the ground they were.

"Ohh! Ohh...! I'm being fucked! I'm finally being fucked by Hoel! He's inside me!" Elene cried out almost deliriously, while Aubrey could only wonder why she kept yelling the obvious. But everyone has their own ways of enjoying the sacred act of hentt. For her part, Aubrey liked a rough but silent ride, so she closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of her breasts rubbing against Elene, letting out soft pleasured sighs.

"I'm a woman! I'm a girl, and I'm being fucked like one! AHHHHHH! Your balm! Ohhhhhhhhh!"

Elene felt Hoel's sticky release inside her and came like the world was ending, crying out as if her city's walls had finally been fully breached. Mmmmm! Aubrey came softly as well, but it was enough. Her hips finally gave out, and she fell limply atop Elene.

"Oof...! You're heavy!" Elene whined.

"Gods... shut up, Elene. You perpetually bark like Zhor's most annoying puppy!" Aubrey snapped.

This hurt Elene's feelings a bit, and so she stayed sullenly quiet, but it wasn't enough to ruin her orgasm's wonderful afterglow. And she realized, shamefully, when Aubrey acted like this she liked it a little bit.

"Don't fight, my lovely lancers," Hoel rasped out, himself panting for air at this point. He really needed to start that tavern if he didn't want to work himself into the ground! He softly rolled Aubrey off of Elene to on side side, inserting himself and laying between them, giving his arms for them to rest on as pillows. Aubrey, tiredly and simply rested her head against him, nuzzling against his shoulder. Elene took to it slower, hearing her heart pounding wildly as she wrapped her arms around him in a timid cuddle.

They all simply lay there, quietly and contentedly, recuperating, and Elene realized she wished the moment could go on forever. And right now she just wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep, but...

"I have to go home," Elene said sounding like she was about to cry. "My family will wonder, and my father..." she paused, not actually knowing what her father might do or think. She realized with some sadness that he may not even care.

Hoel gave her such a sad look, at that moment, that she felt her heart skip a beat, and she turned her face away to hide her small smile, then rose out of the bed to and began undressing and redressing, feeling strange as she swapped her women's clothes for men's.

Part of her wished for him to ask her to stay. Maybe she could just forget her family; it certainly seemed like they wanted to forget her. But she had a feeling that her sister would raise hell if she didn't return.

She checked herself in the mirror, to make sure she didn't look out of sorts, gazing a little sadly upon her reflection. And before she left...

"Umm, Aubrey --"

"Keep it," Aubrey said, indicating the satchel, and everything contained within it. "No one will think twice about you carrying that men's satchel."

"...thank you," Elene smiled shyly and looked inside. "Umm, is there no... slave paint in here?" she fiddled with her hair.

"Gods, you're needy," Aubrey huffed. "Figure out how to get your own!"

Elene gave a cute little "hmph!" in response and opened the Comfortium door, standing a moment.

"You know Aubrey, I know you're a woman now, but..." Elene turned back. "You don't have to be such a bitch!"

And she made a face sticking her tongue out at Aubrey, before turning around and walking out proudly. Happier than anyone had seen her since they'd been Ruk'd. All Aubrey could do was bury her face into Hoel's chest in exasperation and jealousy.

"By Iau, she's so cute... I can see why you love her."

Hoel simply tenderly, almost apologetically stroked her hair, while Aubrey held her tears back. She'd ignited today, but she knew she'd never have Hoel's heart.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Episode VII: To make her happy

It had been months since Elene had started going to Hoel’s place.

She fretted about not causing rumors; she worried people would “find out” or start questioning her activities. Unbeknownst to her, given just how many of the First Horse Lancer Troop were visiting Hoel, she needn’t have worried at all. Everyone basically knew.

The other girls, not nearly so naïve or sheltered in their family’s estate, agreed not to tell her that by now the entire city knew them as the “First Hoe-Lassie Troop.” It had actually been the “First Whore-Lacy Tramps,” but a certain incident near an inn involving an incensed serum girl and a cauldron had led to a softening of the name. It turned out that, yes, a serum girl could in fact hurt a man so long as he wasn’t looking.

Besides that, most of the city had not forgotten what their former storied sons had done for them. And even if now they were debauched daughters, for Zhorians debts are not easily forgotten. So, they merely regarded the girls with some awkwardness and bemusement, and anyone who stepped too far in their mocking or openly threatened these girls’ security met with fists. The citizens of Prydferth could not protect them everywhere and at all times, of course. But within this city, by the rays of the sun, surely they could do this much.

Which is why those same citizens were not quite sure how they felt about Hoel, that weird man who talked to himself far too often, smiled quite strangely, and had clearly drinned many of these girls. They were ready to take to questioning him forcefully, but the girls themselves were not restricted in any manner, nor did they seem distraught. Rather, the girls seemed to have a lightness in their steps, and smiles once again upon their lips.

Indeed, the conventional Zhorian wisdom that for a serum girl to find her place makes her happy. Yet the girl who crosses her wrists before a cruel master; was she really “happy?” Certainly, the way that a fed man is happier than a hungry one. And to ignite is a similarly great relief.

But, any Zhorian who’d lived enough life knew, even if they couldn’t put it to words, that some serum girls and slaves, in those rare moments when they’re not in the throes of pleasure, take on a longing and distant look.

That, however, was not these girls. The city that had seemed so sad and dead seemed to enter a spring that seemed forever gone. The proudest sons of Prydferth blossomed into its loveliest flowers. Slutty flowers, that all but invited the birds and the bees to the wartm of their pistol, but lovely flowers nonetheless.

At any rate, completely oblivious to the winds of change blowing softly through Prydferth’s complex society, Elene was happy. So happy she got embarrassed at night thinking about Hoel, and convinced herself that even if she went three times a week nobody would really notice.

She was having the time of her life. Elene was having such a good time, in fact, that her tri-weekly brol sessions had completely shoved out of her mind her weekly braed session, and Woram was worried sick. He had gotten so worried in fact, that he went around asking the guards of the city if she had perhaps been kidnapped. Yes, during many of those nights where Woram lay sleepless and guilty, Elene was sleeping better than ever.

Right now, however, she was groaning. She realized that pants didn’t feel comfortable anymore. And riding on the palanquin away from Hoel’s residence, having just worn the cutest – er, the most comfortable pink chanette, she felt a little gloomy. Yes, it must be because of how itchy men’s clothes felt now. She had definitely not squealed a little when she saw how beautiful she looked in the mirror.

"Dare I say today today you walk that tantalizing line between princess and harlot?"

"I'll kill you!" Elene snapped, though blushing and hiding her smile. Ugh! This damned serum! Both those words made her abdomen tighten in the most embarrassing way, and she could swear he could somehow sense it.

"Shall we make an heir?" he'd whispered into her ear, placing his hand softly against her lower stomach.

"A...baby...?" she'd said back, dazed. He swept her up off her feet right there, carrying his princess to the bed and laying her on her back in a whirlwind.

Elene snapped back to reality, trying to shake her head of the feeling of gripping him with every part of herself, wrapping her legs around him, so aware of the softness of her own thighs. And then...

The poor girl was already closing her eyes again, thinking of when she'd be able to visit Hoel. Lately, she’d enjoyed the moments after the vigorous brol, just laying there with him talking about small nothings.

“How is your family?”

“Distant, as always,” she’d muttered dreamily, uncaringly.

“Are things going better with your sister?”

“Clarie’s a bitch,” she’d said quite honestly. “Gods knows why. Maybe she just needs to get laid…”

And so forth. It was, Elene surmised, probably because she was glad to have her friend back. Yes, that and nothing more… That’s why she was feeling so great lately, and also why sometimes at night felt the fear of losing him again grip her.

Presently, she’d arrived at her home, and somehow it seemed that the man who’d carried the palanquin – yes, she’d seen him a few times now – seemed to be in a good mood, too. She paid her fare, and gave a bright smile to his gentle one. Refreshingly, both their smiles were honest.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“And where exactly have you been?” Clarie asked, again in her usual spot, languidly turning a page of her book as if Elene had come in to bother her. Yes, here was the perennial ruiner of good moods. But Elene’s recent happiness had engendered boldness.

“Gods, Clarie,” Elene said, rolling her eyes. “You’d think you were our father, the way you track me like I’m an animal.”

“No, our father simply doesn’t care.”

Elene winced.

“I-If that’s all you have to say to me, then I’ll retire to my room,” Elene said a little shakily, flinching as Clarie rose swiftly and grabbed one of her wrists.

“I did not say you could,” Clarie said. “Tell me where you were.”

But this was a step too far, and Elene angrily slapped her hand away.

"Stop that, Clarie! This is infuriating!"

Clarie, was having none of it however, and forcefully slapped her sister across the face. Elene's eyes shook in shock. Her head spun. How could a slap from Aubrey and from her sister evoke such different feelings?

“I-I…” Elene’s eyes swum nervously about. "I don't need to take this from you!"

The words were spat out, driven more by panic than anger, and she looked in Clarie's eyes receiving nothing but a cold stare back.

"If where you're going brings so much shame that you won't speak it, then you won't go out at all."

Elene froze stiffly. She felt as if they ground were grabbing at her feet, and poison were in the midst of her stomach.

“No... you can't do that! You’re not my master, Clarie!” she screamed.

“Oh? And who is?”

Elene glared back for a moment before spinning on her heels and walking slowly and with as much dignity as she could to her room, all the while feeling the silence of Clarie's eyes on her back.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Won't you look only at me, for just this moment?" Aubrey begged, sincerely, eyes locked with Hoel's.

"My dear, I am looking at you. Where else are my eyes?" Hoel replied.

"We both know where," said she plaintively. Even still, she kissed him passionately.

Hoel had found himself changing, even as the many serum girls of the First Horse Lancer Troop fought for his attention. Aubrey had crossed her wrists before him many months ago, right after Elene had left. She had ignited, and ignited furiously, and needed Hoel so. And she was not the only one. Penny, and Sara, and Gwen, and the others were not far behind.

But they all knew who he had eyes for. Lately, he had clearly become distracted, as Elene had failed to return for even a month. When he sent word to the ob Cryf estate, he had only received a stern response from the house servant that "their master would not see him again."

And his eyes turned distant, and all the girls who would one day serve in his tavern wished desperately that the man would look and see what was right in front of him. They yearned.

Yet, yearning did not mean discontent. Hoel had become a master unique in all of Zhor, his heart seemingly expanded by his zest and passion for Elene. What other man would so tenderly respond to his slaves' soft wishes for love? Who else would carefully hold their vulnerable hearts, and yet fulfill their need to be conquered?

They were serum girls. Many of them were now slaves. But they were women, and Zhorians so often forgot that, the romance of these girls' souls being so thoroughly hidden in the shadows of their slave urges.

But they would not submit simply to a man who professed his heart, or to any dandy who whispered sweetness. Perhaps the pain of knowing they could never have Hoel appealed to their slave nature in others ways. His heart was forever unconquerable to them, while they belonged wholly to him.

And for some gods-cursed reason, Aubrey lamented, that made her very wet.

Hoel, for his part, was more gentle than usual with Aubrey, as he pushed in and out of her slowly. Aubrey presently straddled him, amazed that sliding so softly onto his twyll could feel so vigorous and penetrating.

"Ah!"

Aubrey covered her mouth with one hand in embarassment, and shut her eyes as she suddenly orgasmed. Her insides clenched, her whole body shook, and there was nowhere to run.

"Look at me Aubrey," Hoel commanded, pulling her head back by her hair, firmly.

"Ahhh... Ahhhh!"

She squirmed all over, cumming again immediately, her eyes opening just a smidgen to see the face of her master. She pushed at his great chest as if she wanted to escape, but she was caught on his lance.

It was painful, realizing that even as his lips said Aubrey, his heart only beat for Elene. But for some awful reason concocted by that bastard Ruk, that very pain just gave her the best orgasm of her life.

The Zhorians have no such phrase, but on Earth it would have been called the most human of moments, their respective angsts fueling their lusts. Though she lay spent against him, or perhaps because, Aubrey realized what she needed to say with surprising clarity.

"You should go to her, Hoel," she said, almost out of nowhere, hesitantly.

"Aubrey, you know as well as I do that my soul will not be satisfied with a mere physical conquest," Hoel said exasperatedly, as if for the tenth time. Aubrey slapped her forehead in frustration.

"Gods! You two are the same in so many ways! If only you could be honest!"

"I should have you across my knee for that," Hoel threatened, eyebrow raised.

"I truly must be your slave, the way I care more for your own happiness than my own," Aubrey said with just a hint of bitterness. "Don't be a fool, Hoel. She's waiting for you."

And now Aubrey pleaded with her eyes, not for herself, but for him. It was an act of virtue that would be recalled by many a generation of Zhorian and that would, in the long run, come back to her and lead to her happiness. But that is a story for another time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Episode IX: Clarie

It had been over a month now, and her urges were making her fray at the seams.

But she hadn’t left the ob Cryf residence. She hadn't even left her room, hardly, and had her meals taken straight to her. Elene realized, with no ability to avert her eyes from the truth, that she was scared of her sister.

Everything was so confusing right now. It didn’t make sense, the way she stalked the atrium as if to keep Elene hostage. It didn’t make sense that Clarie had frightened her more than she’d ever been frightened by their father.

She hadn't realized, at first, how serious Clarie was about this. But every time she left her room, there was her sister sitting imperiously in the atrium and reading, and Elene's blood ran cold. Had she told their mother and father? They didn't even come to her room to see her in all these weeks, and the only time Elene basically ever saw them before was at meal time.

She didn't know what her family even wanted, or if they wanted her at all. Indeed, most times when a noble son is Ruk'd, he's treated as dead by the family and cast out. Gods, if only!

This confinement was nothing if not, bizarre. But Clarie stayed out there, with seemingly the full force of the family behind her. And the more reality dawned on Elene, the more she felt as if she was going to puke.

The weight of the ob Cryf name that had so burdened her in childhood came back again, a heavy boulder whose weight was crushing her, suffocating her, making it hard to even breathe. The servants openly recognized that Elene wasn't even at the bottom of the totem pole within her house: she was simply a prisoner. And when Elene begged Ymdod to at least send tale to Hoel of what had happened, he merely shook his head sadly.

At one point, Elene had strung up the courage to defiantly walk out, only to be pinned against the wall by her sister. Why was she so much weaker than Clarie? She'd trained her whole life! She was a soldier, not just by brute strength, but by smarts and wits and skill! But such is the nature of Ruk's serum, that often traits see their full reversal. As Elin was once the strongest man, so Elene was an equivalently feeble woman.

At first, she refused to acknowledge it.

"I've led men into battle! I've slayed more men than you could ever know! Let go of me! LET GO!" Elene screamed and strained against Clarie, putting all her might into shaking her off, realizing with desperation that her sister wasn't even trying.

"Some good it's done you," Clarie spat out. "You're nothing but my weak and frail larisse now, Elene."

Elene's struggling stopped instantly, and she felt something break inside. Exhausted from thrashing about, her body went limp in despair. Clarie had delivered her words, her name, with such purposeful malice, the subtle change in pronunciation revealing she knew all about Elene's wanton activities, the sheer disgust painfully evident in her tone.

"Don't you dare shame our family any further. Go back to your room like the kept girl that you are."

Clarie released her, having asserted her dominance. And what could Elene even do in response? She glared as hard as she could to hide her pain. But her lips still trembled. A couple of tears still ran down her cheeks, and she ran back to her room like an angry teenaged girl.

She stomped her feet all the way, slammed her door shut, hating herself as she did it and yet it was better than letting Clarie know how much she hurt her. She would rather look petty and girlish than let Clarie she was close to breaking her.

And when her adrenaline calmed down from the encounter, depression brought about that rare lull in the libido of a serum girl. For the last three weeks she'd managed to satisfy herself simply with her fingers.

Day after day, she laid in bed not wanting to think about anything, and engaging in the basest pleasures available. She slept. She touched herself. When she still couldn't sleep, she touched herself again 'till she was exhausted, and sometimes for hours a day simply laid there awake.

"I want to see Hoel..." Elene whispered to herself.

She was desperate, confused, and vulnerable. Her gloom wasn't lifting, but the urges of Ruk's serum were starting to surge. The sheer energy, all the negative emotions swirling in her, kept her paralyzed in bed, and the modern Earthling may have recognized that distressed shortness of breath that would somestimes hit her as a panic attack.

It was exactly this unraveling state of mind that made it so easy for Elene to fall for her sister's trap.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Elene was among the brightest of all the sons and daughters of Prydferth, and Ruk's serum had done nothing to change that. While a common Zhorian myth purported that Ruk's serum diminished intelligence, because witlessness is inherent to natural slavery, the actual truth was that serum girls were often just too beset by lust to think clearly.

When one of the house's pleasures slaves had come knocking whimsically to her door, Elene should have noticed something was up. But she was tired, mentally spent, and lonely. And anyone's presence would have felt comforting.

"Terra...?"

There stood one of the pleasure slaves of the ob Cryf household. Her lips bright red, and her eyes shadowed and sultry, wearing nothing but an arcoy and a wispy loincloth as was favored by Elene's father. It was a surprise, to be sure, and a strange sight the way she impudently stood with her hips jutted out, a strange smile on her face.

"I'm sorry to see you like this, master," Terra curtsied, flattering her with the name master, just barely veiling the condescension in her tone.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see how you were," she whispered conspiratorially, and ushered herself into Elene's room without asking permission. "No one in this house likes your sister, you know."

"Enough, Terra," Elene tried to say firmly, as she still had not let go of her ob Cryfs dignity. "Do not speak of your master that way."

"Oh, Elene, always so noble," Terra lilted, and pulled her along by the hand to the bed for them to sit down, as if they were just doing girls talk. "Why offer your sister such respect when she has none for you?"

Elene flustered at how blithely she was brushed off, suddenly feeling nervous, uncomfortable, embarrassed. Just a month ago she would have reprimanded her further, but...

"Do you come here just to gossip? I don't... I don't want to, so please just leave me be, Terra..." Elene said, meeker than ever. Terra just giggled in response.

Things had changed in such a short amount of time. At first her "master" had clung to masculinity, asserting herself "a lesbian, if anything" and engaging in that frowned-upon practice of tribadism with the slave girls. But it was clear as the weeks went on that it was becoming half-hearted, and soon the girls began to throw in subtle jibes at Elin (as she had still considered herself back then).

Coming from the world of Zhorian men, Elin had not been prepared for the backhanded that she made a "good Ruk's girl," the giggles she she'd moan softly, the soft insinuations that her saer was begging for someting bigger.

She didn't even punish them. She'd felt so ashamed that she began avoiding her own pleasure slaves, knowing they would simply find their relief among the house's manservants. The relief she couldn't provide anymore.

And when she'd lost her ymylu to Hoel, Elene stopped facing them at all.

So why? What reason had Terra for being here? Did she really just come here to mock? To kick her while she was down? Wasn't it enough that they whispered loudly behind her back?

"Elene," Terra said, clasping her hands, "I'm here to help you. How can one girl of Ruk let another one suffer so?"

"You'll help me leave...?" Elene asked hopefully.

"No, no, I can't do that, dear," she said with feigned sadness. "Though the good miss is gone, the servants would never let you leave."

"Ah, right... I'd thought so."

"But," Terra's eyes glinted, "you simply must keep your spirits up. A city under siege must be able to endure long and stand tall, must it not?"

"Yes, of course, that's true..."

The logic was sound, even if the relevance was suspect. But how could Elene possibly question it? She didn't even know where the conversation was headed, or where they were headed as Terra lifted her up by the arm and pulled her forcefully out of her room. It seemed she was being dragged everywhere these days.

Maybe part of the reason she followed so compliantly was because she just wanted to leave this room she'd felt so trapped in, even for a little bit. She was technically free to move as she pleased about the estate, but there was no way she could stand Clarie's presence. It was too painful. Too depressing. And frankly, too scary. With her spirit on the verge of shattering, what use was it pretending otherwise?

"Wait, are we... Are you mad?! Why are you taking me to the slaves' quarters?!"

Elene frantically tried to pull away, but Terra's strength, while the weakest she'd fought against yet, still slightly dwarfed hers. Was there anyone in the entirety of Zhor she was stronger than?!

It was not without effort that Terra stopped her 'master' from running away.

"Master, there's no shame to be had! Are we not both girls of Ruk?!"

"I..."

Were they not? Elene didn't even know what she was fighting for. She did hardly consider herself different from othe Ruk girls by now, but she felt something sickening in the air, the miasma of bad intention. Her mind, though, couldn't evaluate it as such.

Right now, it seemed to her that she was just holding onto some vestige of silly pride. The alarm bells that would normally ring out stayed silent, the simple consideration that as bad as her situation was it could become worse with an act her family considered shameful did not occur to her.

So, she listlessly went along with it, and Terra beamed at her. Once again, she felt the difference from when Aubrey pulled her along, despite Terra's seemingly friendly face.

It was a startlingly different environment, the slaves' quarters. With a floor of clay, and beds crowding the room with two to a single bed, it could hardly be called comfortable. And yet there were ornate wardrobes, and long counters with implements for the application of cosmetics. The air was filled with the scent of arousal, and the sound of giggling.

Something felt very wrong. Panic started to rise in Elene's chest, and she found herself backing away. But it wasn't long before she was being pushed forward by a pair of slaves, while Terra drew her along.

"I shouldn't be here..."

"What are you saying now, you tease?" Terra asked. Presently she led her along to the counter and sat her down. "I know you've been dying to don slave face. All of us do."

"You'll look gorgeous!"

"Those lips were meant to be scarlet."

Mumurs of agreement and encouragement surrounded Elene. In truth, she still hadn't worked up the courage to don slave face, and amazingly Hoel hadn't made her. She had found herself wishing he'd simply order her to, and free her from the decision. Yet in his usual manner, the type of dominance he wished to show was more subtle. He wanted her to do it fully of her volition and will, as a declaration to him and all of Zhor "I do this for you."

And she wanted that too.

She'd been dreaming about it these last few weeks.

Terra gleefully handed Elene a circular container of brass, containing within the rouge that slave girls applied to their cheeks and lips. Really, anyone looking at Elene would have doubted she needed it, the way she was blushing and trembling.

"I- I can't... I shouldn't..."

"You will," Terra said, smiling, dipping one finger in the container and gracefully lining Elene's lips. She closed her eyes as the cool mix of wax and dyes made her shudder, unconsciously puckering as if preparing for a lover's kiss.

At the same time, some of the other slaves joined in with thin, long sticks to apply kohl to her eyelashes and eyelids.

"Darling, your eyes look like sapphires right now."

"Sapphires, you say..."

Slowly, Elene's suspicions began to fade. At this point, she'd long lost any vanities of holding onto masculinity. Rather than pride, any hesitance Elene still had came from her sense of duty to her city and her family.

She desperately didn't want to fail either.

But had she not already? Did her father view her with disgust? Did her mother not see her as nothing but an abandoned puppy, to be looked at with pity? And her sister... Gods, why did her sister hate her so much?

For the first time completely surrounded by girls like her -- and Elene shuddered a little at acknowledging it -- she started to loosen up.

All of them had been men like her, before. Many of them had been warriors. They were the same weren't they? They weren't laughing at her; they were giggling because they wanted to share the wonders of femininity with her. The smallest smile crept up to Elene's lips as one girl brushed her hair, complimenting her on the gorgeous chestnut color.

"It feels wonderful when your master runs his fingers through your hair, doesn't it?"

"H-he's not my master... but... it does," Elene admitted, trying to keep it as ambiguous as possible.

"I bet it'll feel even better when he pulls on it," she whispered devilishly, yanking a little too hard to be playful.

"Ack! By Iau, what's your proble-?!"

But Elene was quieted from a pinch to her derierre from another girl.

"Don't be so uptight, Elene."

It was like a magic word at this point to get her to quiet down. She still didn't know how the name made her feel. When Hoel said it, her heart raced with a strange competitiveness and joy. When Clarie said it, she felt like that very same heart was cracking.

She wasn't sure how she felt when these girls were saying it.

Now her hair was being made up, though she couldn't see what they were doing to it. The very same girl who had just pinched her then made to 'jestingly' yank hard on her hose, which led Elene to reflexively bring her hands to keep it in place.

"Will no one in this damned city be satisfied without stripping me?!"

But the girl only giggled while bringing one hand under the waistband, before gasping in mock surprise.

"Oh, Elene... Has our noble son been wearing such adorable pleasure silks under her trousers?"

Her finger presently pinched at the gusset of her panties, probing just a bit at her saer. Elene moaned softly, feeling a sticky and squirming feeling inside.

"Ooohh...."

"Doesn't it feel nice?"

She was being overwhelmed. The word embarrassment didn't even apply anymore, so much was happening at once. Dragged along at their pace, she felt a strange thrill at the coy revelation of what she were wearing, almost like she was waiting to be discovered.

Indeed, it may have been less tiltillating if she was wearing that symbol of sex and sensuousness, the arcoy, which left so little to the imagination. Instead, she wore floral lace, nominally covering more skin, and arguably more innocent. But it was that mix of innocence and transparency in all the right places, the perfect mix of cute, frilly and sexy.

And it was made all the sexier because Elene came right then and there, the slave girl's expert fingering taking no time at all to take her to climax. Now her panties were innocent, wet, sticky, and so wonderfully defiled.

"Please, s- slow down..."

It was an assault on all fronts. The girls working on her face had gone through the whole regimen of creams, and kohls, and rouge, her hair was styled, her saer teased, her shirt pulled over her arms while Terra whistled and cupped her impressive breasts. Elene felt so deliriously good, and wondered if she would feel like this every day if she would merely cross her wrists. She hardly noticed she was wearing naught but her increasingly damp panties.

"Now, Elene, it's time for you to fully come to terms with who you are!"

With all the showgirlship in the world, Terra minced over to the wardrobe, and pulled out the pieces to an outfit most licentious and malicious to anyone who understood what it was.

It was the First Lancer's uniform.

Or a mockery of it. The verdant green of it was altered to a sleek and inviting emerald, the shirt reduced to a croptop, the pants to shorts that would hardly cover a rump. It was a complete joke. What should have been a mix of mail and quilted linen was replaced with a cute and satin fabric. The pauldrons that were menat to cover the shoulders were more pearly and ornate than protective. The boots and stockings meant to cross mountains and rivers were laughingly adapted into the mary jane's of schoolgirls, and blue socks more suitable for footsie than hiking.

The gauntlets were, amusingly, quite accurate.

"You... DARE?!"

Elene made to rise out of her chair, but was pushed down with little effort by the squad of slave girls who had undressed her.

"I'm sure you'll find this easier to wear than the armor you returned to Prydferth in," Terra ribbed.

"I won't stand for this... this mockery!"

This was too far. Elene had changed a lot in these last months. She'd learned to let go of vanities, to put happiness before pride. She'd turned meeker and humbler, and more willing to let go of slights.

But, this was more than a simple attack on her pride. It was the moment her life had changed, when her and her comrades had been men and fought for the freedom of this very city from a tyrant.

This wasn't right. She didn't deserve to be -

"Shhh... Elene, no one here is mocking you."

Terra simply walked up slowly and diplomatically, which caught Elene by surprise. Frankly, lately she'd grown used to getting slapped, and shoved, and dragged, and stripped... No, she didn't want to think about that. But now Terra cupped her face and stared her in the eyes.

"W-what can you call this except mockery...?"

"Elene," Terra said firmly. "Do you think yourself the only warrior to ever be Ruk'd? Do you imagine no woman here, no man who once stood here has never played on the boundaries of lust and shame?"

Terra had once been an aspiring tailor, a journeyman aiming to become a master. She'd been just a boy named Tate then, and the most skilled with his hands, already embarrassing those twice his age. However, Ruk'd by a jealous older rival, she'd been taken into slavery and forced to bear the insult of tawdry slave "silks," the cheap fabrics chafing upon her budding breasts as they bounced, the tacky workings of the cloth denigrating her as the lowest kind of whore.

As per Zhorian law, she did not engage in coitus until she was of age. Instead, she was sexualized in every way, shamed for her syringe-caused desire. Boys who'd looked up to her did worse than laugh, they turned their heads away as if they did not know her, and turned their heads back as she blossomed.

They, however, did not see her as a beautiful flower to be held. She was a sour, tartish apple to be picked off a tree before it was ripe, bit once, thrown away in disgust. Terra would never admit it, but by that point she'd wanted nothing more than to be held gently. Deep down she wished for someone to save her, but they never came. And eventually she found herself in the on Cryf's household as a slavegirl known for having a nack for sewing.

Which is, perhaps, why she seemed to take such delight in the cruel game of dressup with Elene as her doll. She was like older sister dressing her younger sister in women's clothing for the first time, painting her lips red for the first time, watching the bewildered, frantic back and forth in Elene's eyes. She loved the mixed up feelings; the joyful sigh as Elene felt the cool rouge on her lips; the quivering of those same lips as she felt control slipping further away.

Terra wanted nothing more than to break her in.

Elene nodded demurely at the twisted logic. Terra's hands were soft on her cheeks, felt gentle on her soul, and Elene did naught but feel girlish companionship when Terra rendered upon her a soothing kiss on the cheek. Intrigued, Terra forced something more than a peck on her lips, even invading her mouth with her tongue, which Elene only plaintively resisted before she'd opened her lips to let the Terra's tongue in.

Her hands hung limply at her side, and when Terra pulled away, she giggled evilly and pretended it was mere friendly ribbing between women.

"You feel no passion unless I have a twyll, is it?"

"T-that's not true..."

"There's no need to shame, darling. You're a girl now, and girls like boys, don't they? Every lance needs a sheath, does it not? Is there shame in being a beautiful, ornate sheath for a daring lance?" Terra knew this would get Elene quivering, and surreptitiously a girl behind Elene started pullling her hair into the most schoolgirl like pigtails.

Elene had been turned from a maiden into a woman, but she'd skipped over all the stomach-tickling joy of adolescence. It was often not passion that made a Ruk'd girl into a slave, body and soul, but darling curiosity, as if something was invading into the very memories of their boyhood and replacing swords with dolls, and tag with patticake.

And Terra was ready to twist and corrupt those memories most violently. She was getting wet now, as Elene let the girls redress her, pulling the soft garments over her bounteous breasts with no undergarments for modesty.

It was the hopelessness that aroused Terra the most. Somehow, it was in Elene's hopeless eyes that Terra most saw the remnants of Elin, a young man turned into a young woman. The eyes are the one thing that never change, even as the face and body change around them, the soul within them. And when Terra stared into a Ruk'd girls eyes long enough, she could imagine it: the way their muscular waist had been cinched and crushed into something waifish, their thin hips pulled apart, rounded forward to allow babies to pass through. Their chests rendered to useless, sexual fat for groping by real men.

And their face! It was like she could see just how their face had reverted to what it had looked like when they were fair youths on the cusp of young manhood. Before the beards set in, and the strong chins. With a little makeup, any boy could look like a girl.

Yes, right in front of Terra wasn't Elin the man, or Elene the woman. It was Elin the young adolescent, completely unready for the coming, embarrassing puberty that besets a young girl.

Elene felt such gnawing fear as Terra seemingly gazed kindly into her eyes, somehow feeling her twisted intentions.

"Beautiful... so beautiful. Do you want to see what you look like?" Terra asked, when the girl was finally ready. But she didn't give Elene time to reply, except for Elene's gasp when she was sat down in front of the mirror.

Of course she knew it was coming. But she looked like the worst kind of common whore, where the innocence of a schoolgirl was played upon in her dress. Perhaps she'd only idly noted the pigtails.

She didn't know what to feel. It was every emotion at once. Shame. Arousal. Happiness. Sadness. Her stomach clenched in dread at the same time as it tickled with butterflies. From moment to moment she felt something in her soar up, up, up, all while her self-esteem was crashing down, down, down.

The tart was ready to learn exactly what she was.

"Do you like it?" Terra whispered seductively, wasting no time in fastening a collar around her neck, massaging the girl's breasts. "You make for such a cute prostitute, Elene."

"Ah... ah... please don't say that...Mmm..." It hurt, hearing those two words together. And it made her so wet.

"So eager to open your legs... so ready to lie on your back... you must be happy to have that huge cushion of an ass, you little bitch!" Terra snarled, letting the mask slip. She forcefully thrust her fingers inside of Elene who cried out in pain.

"STOP! PLEASE, IT HURTS!" Elene cried.

But Terra just dug her fingers in deeper, while her other hand forcefully invaded Elene's mouth, as Elene let out a yip. Her breathing was ragged and scared now. Elene had never been this scared in her life.

"Won't get wet for me you stupid slut? Just imagine I'm your boyfriend! That's all you need, isn't it, a man to get you slick on the inside? Say it!"

"Pweas- uuhhh- stwop-"

"SAY IT!"

"I-- wuh-want a m-man..."

Terra immediately turned just a couple notches gentler. She pulled her one hand from Elene's mouth, while letting the other retreat to gently stroking Elene's labia. Elene gasped in relief.

"Good girl. Now say it clearly."

"I want a man..."

"To what?"

"I want a man to fuck me..." Elene said.

Now Terra, who'd been handed a toy surreptitiously by the other girls, slipped it into Elene, who whimpered.

"Pretend I'm your boyfriend, you bitch."

"I don't have a- UGH!" Elene's hair was yanked back.

"Don't act dumb, you slut. I know who you want. Call his name!"

"H-Hoel... Mmmm!!!" Elene whimpered again, as the toy slipped in again. "MMM! Ahh... ahh?!"

"Give us a show," Terra huskily whispered into Elene's ear, while clutching Elene's fingers around the toy. "Sit on the floor there, put that little toy in and out, and pretend he's fucking you."

Terra grabbed Elene by the hair and threw her to the ground, and Elene noticed it was a small pink little thing hardly the size of lipstick. It was so humiliating, but she was just aroused enough right now to do it.

She wanted to leave. She was scared and willing to do whatever they wanted. For the first time, Elene realized she could be treated so badly she didn't like it. But a Ruk girl is a Ruk girl, and Ruk girls can always cum.

"Ho-Hoel... mm... Hoel, please..." In and out, she closed her eyes to shut out the sounds of the servants giggling.

"Hoel, please what?"

"Hoel, fuck me... ah... Hoel!" Elene's rhythm got faster. "Ah...mmm! It's not as big as him!" she whined desperately making Terra snicker.

Elene tried to crush out thoughts of how ridiculous she must have looked, trying to piston it in and out. It wasn't enough. All the servants must have known how dissatisfying it would be and wanted to see her panting in heat, on the edge of climax, never quite reaching it because of another barked and scary order.

"Tell him what you need!" Terra barked.

"I need to cum! Please!"

"NO! Tell him what you NEED!"

Elene barely knew what was happening. Something was unraveling in her head, she was so dizzy. She didn't know what Terra wanted, but she did deep down. Her pussy clenched hard, like it just didn't want to let go, and she felt her womb descend. This was it. It was coming. The thought of it was enough to distract her from the pain right now, and all the people around her and she shut her eyes and cried out.

"Your baby! I want your baby Hoel! Fuck me! Please, coat me up inside! KNOCK ME UP, HOEL! AHHHHH! AHHHHHHH!"

And even in the midst of the den of mocking whores, Elene orgasmed at the thought of being a mother. She kept her eyes shut still, not wanting to be reminded, but obviously not able to ignore their increasing laughter. Tears started to spring to her eyes, dripping out even though she had them closed. And it was about to get worse.

"I can't fucking believe this," she heard Clarie say, and Elene's eyes shot open. "I'd heard you turned into a fine little prostitute, but I never imagined this."

"C-Clarie?! W-w-why are you here?!" Elene tried to pull her shorts up, but to little avail, as that hardly fixed the matter.

"Don't bother, you disgusting trollop. Just keep being what you are." Clarie made a wretching noise. "It's time we all stopped pretending you were anything but a filthy cumdump. Can't help it, can you? My god, we'll just have to figure out how to hide it while filling your little animal desires."

"D-don't talk like that Clarie, I-I'm sorry-"

"QUIET! If you're going to act like a slavegirl, then you'll do so in every manner! Do NOT speak unless I speak to you. Do not use my name."

"Clarie, please, that's not fair...!" Elene said, with just a note of quivering anger appearing.

"Fair? What's fair about our heir riding into battle like a fool and turning our city's 'finest' batallion into giddy, cheap escorts?! Father is beside himself! He's lost ten years of his life from the stress caused by his idiot son! He'd die where he stands if he saw you like this! You ruin our city and you have the gall to touch yourself without a care in the world and pine over some man! Have you no shame?! Have you no dignity if not as a man, then as a noblewoman?!" Clarie let loose her onslaught breathlessly, grabbing Elene up by her collar and hardly stopping herself from slapping her senseless. But that would hardly be necessary, because her words stung far more. "You weak little thing," Clarie whispered with disgust, staring straight into Elene's eyes.

It was far, far, far more than enough to let loose the emotional dam within Elene, as her lips quivered terribly, and the tears began streaming quickly and quietly from her eyes, and she breathed in a choked up gasp. She'd held in crying for so long she went straight to sobbing, even while Clarie's grip on her collar made it a little hard to breathe.

"I...ugh...! I only... wanted to... protect this city... Clarie! Hheuk... Protect... you!" Elene barely choked out, daring not even to raise her hands.

Clarie gritted her teeth, stopping herself from screaming at Elene to quit her crying. But she just threw her back onto the floor and turned on her heels ready to leave.

Elene just sat there listlessly, crying. "Hoel... please... save me..." She pawed at her increasingly puffy eyes.

Of course she knew he wouldn't come.

She'd probably never see him again. Sent out to some 'convent' that was nothing more than a brothel for disgraced Ruk's sons in disguise. With this appearance, Clarie had every reason to convince their father of it. She just wanted to see Hoel again... She swore she could hear his familiar footsteps down the hall. With, her father's? She was already hallucinating.

"My god! Elin, you damned tramp! Shut the door! Do you want to destroy our family?!" her father hissed in a panic. "What the hell is going on in here?!"

Huh? Now she was really hallucinating. Elene swore she could see Hoel's aggravating face looking bemusedly at her, while standing next to her father.

"Elene, my darling. The uniform suits you so! But while I usually admire the beautiful tears that stream from your doe eyes, I cannot say I appreciate that sorrowful look."

"Ugh...oh... shut up!" Elene sniffled, shocked, happy.

"Father!" Clarie cried out, pulling up to the family patriarch's shoulder. "Heavens that you should see this shameful display from your 'son'!"

"Shut your mouth, Clarie!" their father said, leading her to flinch. "Do you consider yourself blameless?! I told you to leave well enough alone, but you couldn't stop yourself from daunting a weak-willed Ruk girl into a sobbing mess!"

Elene felt the deadness inside of her rise once again. Not his 'son.' Not his 'daughter.' Just a Ruk girl. It would have hurt less to be called a disgrace. But in her trembling, she saw Hoel kneel down before her, pulling her shirt down with what little modesty it could afford, brushing the hair out of her eyes and a few tears as well.

"Yes, just a Ruk girl I suppose. I trust the generous sum I paid will be enough to take this 'liability' off your hands, old man?" Hoel said, leading the patriarch to snort.

"You should thank my generosity, you little bastard. Never breathe a word of what you saw here to anybody. None of you! Keep your mouth shut, Clarie, and all of you girls be prepared to face punishment! She may be a slavegirl, but she was in name an ob Cryf. I will not see this name be stained."

The growling old man had hardly any attention to give the quivering girl. Out of sight, and out of mind. He was a solutions oriented man, and Hoel was willing to be the simplest, most profitable solution.

Clarie could only gape. Her scathing contempt could hardly comprehend their father's lack of care. Alas, her passionate hatred for what her brother had become showed she, in some terrible way, had actually cared for him more than their father. The old man was completely indifferent.

And while this made Elene want to cry, Hoel had only a passing interest in their family yokes. He had already scooped Elene up into his arms, having thrown a vestment around her. As usual, though, he had some words.

"ob Gryfs, I do bid you leave now, as I wish for nothing more than to be with my bride," Hoel said.

"Y-y-your w-what?!" Elene squealed.

"But I must say, if all family's were such as I've witnessed today, then I believe our very Zhorian race may face extinction. I bid you peace, father," Hoel said with some amusement in his voice as Elene's head swirled. The old man spit on the wooden floor in response, saying nothing, but scowling. "And Clarie? Learn to be nice to your sister. I expect you to visit and mend things, for Elene will never be happy as things are. Heed my advice. Continue as you are, and an angry Rukking surely awaits from one or another angry enemy hiding in the shadows. Empathy for my dear bride will certainly come to you. But I'd suggest the more dignified and comfortable way."

Clarie gaped, while Elene just buried her face in Hoel's chest while blushing furiously.

"Hoel, j-just shut up and let us leave! Please! Please I'm begging you!" Elene whined like a petulant lover. "B-before my father changes his mind..."

Hoel chuckled and swiftly made his way out, strutting like a stud through the ob Gryfs residence as one or another servant stared at Elene who, covered now in white vestment, truly did look like a bride.

"Palanquin man! Take us back to my residence!"

"Oh? Oh, if it isn't Ms. Elene! As I'm told you're called now," a familiar palanquin man grinned. "What a sight it is to see you again."

"H-huh?" Elene stuttered.

"Don't play the fool, man! You and I both know had you not let me know of what was transpiring at this residence, she may very well be on her way to a whore's convent by now!" Hoel said, carrying his bride into what felt like a honeymoon vehicle.

"What is he talking about, Hoel?!" Elene hissed.

"Elene, you sweet girl, what possibly confuses you?" Hoel asked.

"W-why does he know what's been happening to me?! Why did he know to get y-you?!"

"Elene," Hoel sighed. "Do you honestly believe there is even a squirrel in this city that doesn't know we've been brolling? Or that you're mine in heart and soul?"

"?!" Elene couldn't even speak, but found herself beating against his chest in embarrassment. All this time?! All the palanquin rides for 'friendly visits.' All the times she'd hidden herself in vestments to disguise what salacious things she'd worn underneath! Who knew? Everyone? The city? She was the only one going around oblivious that all the fine citizens were discussing how she was getting stuffed?!

"You are giving that deep consideration, I see. No matter. Elene, my love, you have the duration of this ride to fret your prodigious but adorably frazzled mind over this. But once we cross the threshold into my abode, we shall start the rest of our lives with a night to be remembered into our old age! Imagine my surprise as I discussed terms with your father as I could hear, with such quietness I was not sure if it was a trick of my mind, my lovely Elene begging to be impregnated!" Hoel monologued in his obnoxious fashion that Elene had learned to love as much as she hated it.

Elene felt her very soul squirm as she crushed her thighs together to fruitlessly hide how wet she was becoming. Hoel gave her a soft kiss on the cheek, and in her disassociated state she heard herself mew like a kitten in response.

This was a new beginning for Elene, though it marks the close of this story. Hers and Hoel's adventures would continue yet, including the discovery of a new form of ignition that bound any one slave girl hopelessly but to one man in soul as much as body, as the good braed Woram would document. But that is a story for another time.