It's been at least two years, but I've finally gathered enough inspiration to complete this chapter. Special shout out to reader gdhill and all my other readers that have either begged me to continue this story or asked for a continuation of another story that wasn't as heavy as my current multi-chapter fic. This chapter is for you! DHKY is still in the works, but I hope this tides you over in the meantime. I will also go back to correct the spelling/grammatical errors for this story in previous chapters. Wonky things happen to your edited chapters when you upload to this site, man.
Enjoy!
O-O
She left Finn sleeping in her chambers, soundless and content as he dreamed pleasant dreams. The crooked smile on his rested face was endearing, and for a second the princess reconsidered leaving her pet behind, but the responsibility of the kingdom still rested on her shoulders. Selflessness wasn't just a character trait, it was her civic duty. Pleasantries like lying in bed all day were privileges reserved for her subjects. Royalty rose as soon as Ra graced his face over the horizon and flooded the kingdom with the glory of sunlight, illuminating the earth with the promise of a new day. New days meant new tasks, new problems to mend, and new lands to conquer.
And sure enough, a clamoring of feet and loud voices echoed through her halls from the palace. With a sigh, Mercedes slid on her sandals, dressed, and made her way out, mentally switching roles from lover to leader of a people.
"What goes on here?" Mercedes asked the crowd, voice rasped from sleep.
"Ah, young one! So lovely of you to join us!" The pharaoh exclaimed, too excitedly for her liking. "Come and witness how the gods pass judgement on those with poisonous hearts." The wicked gleam in his eye halted her steps, but Josehsput, never once to be disobeyed, marched forward and yanked her to him.
"Your father has summoned you, child." he growled in threat, squeezing tighter until she winced and hissed in pain. "Come and learn how to weed the vipers from Egypt's sacred flock! These lessons will serve you well."
Sour, but aware of the small crowd of guards around them with sharpened spears, Mercedes reluctantly allowed her father to pull her towards the center of the room. Her veins pumped noble blood, but the court's guards were trained to obey Pharoah's every command. And her father, the great and terrible man who dared to call himself the highest of high, was not above killing his last born if it meant protecting the power of his reign.
"Look what we found among the treasury." The guards dragged two tan bodies wrapped in scraps of silk forward, one man and one woman. They were thrown to the ground, below their feet. "A couple of Hebrew thieves slacking off in their labors to steal gold from us!" Santana snickered in the corner when one guard shoved the woman's fallen body forward with a nudge of his foot. One chilling look from Mercedes and all humor drained from the captain's face. Her threatening stares were just as effective, if not more so, than Josehsput's own.
"State your names, slaves," snarled Pharoah, spittle flying in their faces as he leaned in to speak. "And speak quickly, before the power of your stench causes the collapse of my precious temple."
Terrified, coal lined eyes darted around the room as the guards laughed, then landed back on Pharoah. He eyed them expectantly, waiting for their reply. "Well?" he barked. The prisoners jumped and clung to one another.
Josehsput took their silence for defiance, as he always did when those beneath him cowered under the weight of his titled power. His cruel gaze flickered over to the man. "If you do not speak, I will disembowel this woman in front of you and make you feast on her rotting innards! SPEAK, meal worm!"
The threat of death seemed to register in the man's eyes, for they widened and darted about the room in search of escape. Desperate, the woman fell forward into Pharoah's arms, pleading in a tongue that was unfamiliar to him and his Hebrew servants waiting about. They frowned in the same perplexed confusion as he did.
Pharoah yanked the woman up by her wrists, holding her wriggling, crying body away from him like a dying fish dangling from a fisherman's line. A strange branding on her forearm caught his eye, one unlike the slaves in his kingdom carried, in the shape of an all-seeing eye with a blood red iris.
"What is this marking? Guards!" The armed men (and Santana) clustered around Josehsput and the woman struggling in his grasp. "Does anyone recognize this marking from their travels to other lands? Is this a people we conquered? A land we've pillaged?" The woman cried out when Pharaoh violently tossed her to the floor, protected by only the quick reflexes of the man's arms beside her. The man gathered her strewn body to himself, resting his chin above her trembling head in a show of protection. Under his breath, he mumbled more words from the unrecognized language, in a tone that suggested ill feelings.
"Sorcerer!" cried Pharaoh, pointing an accusing finger at the man's mouth. "He means to curse me! Curse Egypt! Behead him at once!"
"No!" cried the princess, running to their aide just before the spears pointed toward their necks could sever head from body. Mercedes dropped to her knees and crawled toward them, shocking everyone in the room but Santana, to wrap her arms around their bodies. "I know their tongue. They do not wish to curse you, father. They are Persian, not Hebrew. They are a nomadic people. We have not conquered them." she explained, pleading, "Call down your guards and give them fair judgment."
The guards dropped their spears and stepped away before the Pharaoh could command it, in fear of harming the princess. The act incensed the quick-tempered ruler even more.
"You wish to defy me, child?" he questioned, challenging her. If she answered incorrectly, they both knew that she would be killed without question for disobeying a god's decree, as the law of the land commanded.
"I wish to save two lives we know not to be guilty, father." She replied, just as saucily as her superior. "Or does Egypt wish to start an unnecessary war with our neighbors by spilling the blood of their innocents?"
Josehsput felt the weight of the expectant gazes around him, waiting for his sound ruling. As prideful as he was, the threat of a potential uprising in his kingdom always colored his decisions.
"Very well." He sneered, whipping back the hem of his bejeweled robe. "I shall not pass judgment on them for Sorcery. You say you are familiar with their tongue, Princess?"
"I am." Mercedes confidently replied, rising to her feet. "It is one of the many dialects spoken to me in my studies. There are several variations, but I know their speech. They are neither Hebrew nor Egyptian, your greatness."
She bowed low, hoping to appease him and quell his anger. Judging by his pleased smirk as she rose, the action had served its purpose. "Yet there is still the matter of my stolen gold..."
"Was their actual gold in their possession or was it attempted, your grace?"
Josehsput raised a heavily arched brow at her boldness. "Does it matter whether or not the apple was in the hand or in the pocket? Either way, they are proven thieves."
"Which means that they are in my court for judgment, does it not?" Mercedes saucily questioned, careful to keep her tone as even as possible. "Are not matters of petty theft and laundering within the powers you've given me, father? Should I not pass their sentencing?"
Clearly, the suggestion displeased the Pharaoh, but he was not one to go back on his word. He swallowed hard, shoulders flexing back as he nodded. "Their blood is yours to spill, little flower. Prove yourself to be a sound ruler in front of our people."
He stretched his hands out to the guards and servants scattered about room, all focused on her, expectant of her ruling.
Mercedes stepped forward to take a closer look at their captives. Though her eyes held more warmth than her father, they couldn't help their flinching and trembling when she reached out to touch their clothes.
"You are in a land you do not know, surrounded by people speaking words you do not understand. My heart is with you." She whispered with a kind smile. Genuine empathy, she'd learned, breached the barriers of language. Almost immediately, the captives visibly relaxed and released their hold of each other, frowning at her gentler tone.
"I am Mercedes." She told them, resting her hand over her breast. "And you..." she rolled the fabric of their torn shifts between her fingers, noting the expensive feel of the fabric. "You are not in search of any of our wealth are you?"
Mercedes offered her palm, pointing to the woman's hand. The woman looked to the man beside her, a man Mercedes assumed to be a brother, for assurance. When he nodded, she rested her slender fingers in the princess's soft grasp.
"Thank you." Mercedes whispered with a small smile and nod, which the woman returned. She brushed her thumbs across the woman's fingers. There were no signs of calluses or dirt, nothing that indicated heavy labor. In fact, the woman's hands appeared to be as well groomed as any member of her palace.
Probing brown eyes met wide, curious ones. "Who are you in your land, kind one? A noble woman?" The woman only smiled and nodded in response, as she had been taught to do. The princess's words were mere gibberish to her.
"Well, child? What is your judgment?" Mercedes rose, her back to Pharaoh, and peered out into the desert. It was a habit that helped her gather her thoughts, grounded her enough to make the difficult decisions that came with her rule.
"They are clever and quick-handed. The man is strong and the woman is a fighter." She noted, authoritative in tone and diction. "They shall serve me well in my palace as guardians. Until I can learn more of their intentions here, I will withhold charges against them."
"Are you mad, Mercedes? They are thieves!" barked Pharoah, nearly strangling the golden serpent head of his royal scepter. "You wish to keep attempted thieves in a palace of fine linens and precious jewels?"
"They shall remain with me at all times, day and night. I will watch them, as will my guards." declared Mercedes with a resolute nod, leaving little room for further questioning. "If they are simply hungry travelers, we will provide them shelter and food, goading their loyalties toward Egypt. They shall pledge their lives to Pharaoh and serve as clever spies when we are required to travel to foreign lands. Think on it, father. Who would ever pair Persian peasants with Egyptian nobility? Enemies will never suspect ties with us."
Pharaoh slowly inched back in his throne and thought on it, squinting suspiciously at his daughter as he considered her words. "Why do you wish to keep them?"
Internally, she screamed at his pettiness. Every one of her decisions was always a secret attempt to assassinate him. "I have learned their tongue, your greatness. Scholars have taught me some of their ways and customs. Also, I have the least to gain by punishing them. I believe they sense that."
As if in answer, the man and woman bowed at her feet and turned their palms upward in an act of submission. Josehsput, ever a jealous man, snarled at their loyalties to his outspoken daughter.
"Very well. I shall allow them to remain with you. In fourteen days' time, if you do not uncover their intentions for roaming my treasury and gain their loyalties, I shall pass judgment myself." He rapped his heavy scepter against the marbled floors. "Take these prisoners to be bathed and oiled. If they are to remain here, they should at least smell like they belong."
O-O
The guards brought the prisoners to her chambers after their baths, as instructed. Finn had long since been escorted to the courts to be trained in sword fighting. Everyone in service to the princess was required by law to learn proper methods of defense, even those that only served to sate her physical desires. It was an education that provided opportunity and growth, one that had not been gifted to many of the lay people in her kingdom. After the last war ravaged their lands, Pharaoh foolishly set his focus back on rebuilding his pyramids and statues instead of his people.
"I will do differently." Mercedes vowed to herself, arms outstretched as Sugar and Rory anointed her skin in perfumed oils. She turned to the two listening ears standing by, awaiting her command, and greeted them with a soft upturn of her lips. "I am not him, dear ones. I can promise you this. You will not be harmed here."
With a snap of her fingers, Rory and Sugar quickly gathered their supplies and dismissed themselves, leaving the three strangers alone.
"Pharaoh believe we should not trust any foreigners. He says we should kill or be killed. He is a fool blinded by pride." She confessed, safe in the knowledge they could not understand her treasonous words. "I learn a person's spirit and judge them by it. Is that not better than reading skin colors or strange tongues? Are you and I not more than our difference? Are we not beautiful and ugly by the souls we carry? It is how we are judged in the next life, is it not? It seems death is wiser than man."
The man and woman merely blinked and nodded.
"Oh, dear ones." laughed the princess, striding towards them to cup their cheeks. "You do not have to agree with what you do not understand. And even if understanding came naturally to you, it is in your right to think differently. This, " she gestured to the draped walls around her, "is my kingdom, separate from Egypt. Here, you are home and you are welcome."
The woman smiled and leaned into her touch, resting her hand on top of Mercedes's own. The princess found herself mesmerized by the kindness in her eyes. Their bodies drew closer, until she could feel the heat rising from the woman's tanned and supple skin.
"You are one of the beautiful ones, aren't you?" Mercedes whispered, eyes falling to her lips. Her thumb brushed against its curves and fullness as the woman sighed. If lust hadn't suddenly fogged her mind, the princess would insist that the sigh felt tinged with want.
"I know your secrets, beautiful." whispered Mercedes, scoring her cheek with each warm breathed utterance of a word. "All but your name. If I am patient...If I learn to speak in the way you understand..." she smiled, noting the woman's shiver when their mouths grew close enough to graze together, "Will you let me in? Will you grant me the pleasure of a name to call out in the nights I need you?"
The man beside them grew close enough to brush his bare chest against the princess's arm. He too felt the magical pull of her voice, but Mercedes paid him no mind. She would tend to him later. Her focus rested solely on the slender body in front of her, arching and moaning to every one of her touches. It was only when a granite nipple brushed against her own that Mercedes felt her senses overwhelm her. She leaned in, with little warning and plenty of willing tongue, to properly thank her guest for the pleasure of her responsiveness. The woman gasped when her highness's tongue flicked up the center of her top lip, then across the underside of her bottom, and finally found the courage to open her mouth and utter, in a shuddering breath,
"Ree-chel."
The simple word sent the princess stumbling backward in fright, falling to the ground with a dull thud.
"You can speak?" Her fearful eyes suddenly grew alight when her guests smiled and nodded.
The man patted his chest. "No-ah." He spoke, heavy with accent. He pointed to the woman beside him. "Sees-ter."
Mercedes's gaze darted between them. "She is your sister? Your blood?"
They smiled and nodded slowly.
"And you understand my words?" she asked eagerly, already brimming with an abundance of questions.
The woman, introduced as Rachel, frowned and drew her hands close together. "So, so leetle," she told her with a shake of her head, nodding to the space formed between her hands. "Not much words."
"I see." Noah assisted Mercedes to her feet, gently guiding her stunned frame back within close proximity. "Where are you from? Are you Persian?"
The siblings looked to each other with confused frowns and shrugs.
"Peer-is-an?" Noah asked, pointing to himself. "What is?"
"Persia is..." The princess wracked her brain for a simple way to explain geography. Thoughts of regions brought back to memory a scroll, kept among her study materials. She ran over to the corner of her room and unrolled each from the tall pile, discarding scrolls left and right over her shoulder. Noah and Rachel amusedly observed, covering their mouths as they snickered.
"She is different." Noah quietly muttered, in their tongue.
"She is the sun in darkness." Rachel replied in awe. She eyed the princess's backside and licked her lips, eyes darkening. "And water in the longest drought."
Noah smiled knowingly at his sister, communicating the same intent shining in her eyes. "She saved the lives of her equals. We must thank her properly."
"We must." Conversation dwindled when the princess made her way back toward them, unrolling a small map.
"Here is Persia." She pointed to a large region of land, decorated in small mountains and bordered by a thick red line. All of the lands surrounding Egypt that had yet to be explored were colored in such a way. "Are you from there?"
The foreigners leaned in and observed the map, nodding. Rachel pointed to a region located just in the center. "Home!" she cried, smiling and tapping the papyrus incessantly.
"This is your home?" According to her studies, the small region central to the vast land only housed Persian royalty. As future Pharaoh, it was her job to know all of the rulers that occupied bordering lands. "Is...is Bycurius your father? The king?"
Noah's eyes brightened in recognition of the name. "Bycurius! He is Josehsput."
"Yes, he is ruler of your land, much like father is ruler of Egypt." Mercedes nodded, connecting the parallel. "Are you like Mercedes? Are you royal blood?"
Rachel stepped closer to her, slowly reaching for Mercedes's crown. Her coal lined eyes met the princess's, silently asking permission. At her nod, Rachel removed the bejeweled weight and set it upon her own head, then pointed between them.
"Ree-chel is you. She is..." She pointed to her crown, then to the Persian region on her map.
Mercedes, as always, understood. "You are Persia." She replied, just as she was Egypt.
Rachel took her brother's hand and pulled him closer. "We are Peer-sia." She corrected, smiling.
"So, if you are wealthy and powerful, why did you come here? Why take my father's gold?" questioned the princess. "Why aren't you in your kingdom?"
"Bycurius wants death." Noah replied. "Marry see-ster. Cut throat of me. We do not want."
"Mother is dead. No more royal blood." Rachel's face fell, and a solitary tear rolled down her cheek. "We have no one."
Their confession broke the princess's tender heart. She knew the pain of losing a mother, understood the threat of death when one's father kept the throne. The only reason she lived, despite her bold nature and clever tongue, was because Pharaoh could not manage to produce another heir. Her father also knew that she'd managed to capture the favor of the Egyptian people with her kindness, and her death would mean a certain and bloody rebellion.
"You must stay here with me." Mercedes insisted, taking each of their hands in her own. "You will be protected and safe. I will tell Pharaoh of your plight and beg for his mercy. You will not want for anything here, dearest Noah and Rachel."
Noah and Rachel dropped to their knees and bowed before her, clutching her ankles as they thanked her in their tongue.
"Please do not bow to me." Mercedes insisted, running her fingers through their hair to capture their attention. "I am merely a princess, like you. I only hope to be a friend."
Noah rose first, deliberately slow, and circled around her. The princess gasped when he kissed her shoulder.
"Only friend?" he whispered, hugging her waist and gently guiding her towards him. Rachel rose from her knees and pressed against her front, kissing the unattended shoulder.
Eyes fluttered shut, and Mercedes raked her nails up the tanned and muscled thighs resting behind her own as Rachel leaned in and kissed her lips. Immediately, like all of those blessed to be in the sensual company of her highness, Rachel tasted her once and fell in love.
Noah dug his fingers into the swell of her bottom, and Mercedes's gasp allowed Rachel's tongue to slither in and stake her claim. Mercedes reached out to cup a small breast, running her thumb across the hardening nipple, as she pushed back against Noah's groping hands. Quickly, he bunched her heavy dressing robes in his hands and exposed her bare legs, then slid his knee between her thighs to spread her legs apart. Rachel sighed at the warmth of her newly exposed skin pressed against her own, soft and inviting to the touch. Their mouths parted.
"Touch?" she asked timidly, sliding a hand between Mercedes's legs.
"Please?" begged Noah, parting his shift to expose his hardening erection. He gripped its base and nudged its firm tip against her sopping center, waiting for permission.
"Please," breathed the princess, and on her command, Noah deftly slipped his penis between her folds as two of Rachel's fingers slid between her labia, rubbing her clit.
"Thank you, my King." Rachel sighed, sinking her teeth into Mercedes's pliable throat and licking the wounds. "Thank you."
"I am..." The princess struggled to breathe under the assault of affection. Noah's thrusts were slow and teasing, but the impact of his hips with hers always held force. "I am not King. I am only a princess, like you."
Noah disagreed, resting his forehead against the crown of her head as he thrust. "You give life. Not take. You love, not hate." He said. His arms tightened around her waist, and he could feel his sister's caresses grow faster and more urgent. "Ree-chel is princess. You are king."
Mercedes's head lolled back as she cried out, colliding with Noah's parted lips. Rachel pressed loving kisses along the exposed skin, and Noah bit his bottom lip as her climax triggered his own. A few easy strokes of the princess's fingers inside her sex was all it took for Rachel's essence to gush forth, and the three of them shuddered and fell into each other's embrace.
"You born to be king." Noah purred in one ear.
"Our Mercedes." Rachel murmured in the other, tracing the shell of the softer woman's ear with her tongue.
O-O
Mercedes's father's name is pronounced Joe-ses-put. Just an FYI. Also, did anyone else laugh at the fact that Noah (Puck) and Rachel's father's name was essential bi-curious? The irony! LOL I enjoyed writing them as siblings. I also enjoyed the fact that Rachel didn't get to talk too much. I like her alot better that way.
Hope you enjoyed! Please review and share your thoughts!