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Her body nestled in the cocoon of sleep, Futaba Sakura's mind drifted off once again to the palace built by her dreams. It was the same palace she had attempted to raid weeks before as Alibaba, but the circumstances were vastly different. She found herself not as a thief, but as a princess, clothed in resplendent white robes decorated with copious amounts of gold lining and emeralds. She turned her head to the right and saw two men seated beside her. The first was Sojiro; judging by the grandeur of his throne and dress, including an almost comically oversized turban, she assumed him to be the sultan of this realm. And one place beyond him was the grand vizier who, much to her surprise, turned out to be Ren. His darker robes made him look mysterious, but not quite sinister, for some reason.

In front of the royal assembly knelt a prisoner, shackled and in shabby rags. Given the state of his clothes and unshaven beard, he must have been on death row for years. Of the two guards who had brought him in, one held a sword in front of his neck, and the other was unfurling a scroll. Were Ren having the same dream at that moment, he would have recognised these guards as Caroline and Justine, the twin wardens who assisted Igor in the Velvet Room. But to Futaba, who had not yet met them in person, they merely manifested as masked, shadowy creatures, albeit strangely short and with a feminine lilt to their distorted voices.

The guard holding the scroll began to read aloud from it. "Your highness… The prisoner, Takashi Aramaki, has, in a previous court session, been found guilty of running a slave-trading operation." Within the context of this dream, Aramaki's real-life crimes were presented as buying and selling off his dancer girls as slaves. "This is a sentencing hearing; I shall defer to you and your counsel to pass final judgement upon the prisoner."

"Please let us execute this inmate, your highness!" the guard holding the sword proclaimed with bloodthirsty vigour.

"Now hold on," urged sultan Sojiro, "we have to let him state his case. Prisoner, please tell us why we should not have you executed."

Aramaki clasped his hands together as he pleaded, "Your highness, you've already repossessed all the money I made offa those girls. I want ya to split it up for them, give 'em a fresh start. Just please don't kill me! I won't set foot into another slave market no more!"

Vizier Ren leant towards the sultan and counseled, "Your highness, I like the idea of redistributing his money to all the women affected by him. Given our current finances, we don't need it for ourselves. As for the prisoner's fate… if this man is already willing to set things right, I see no reason why he should be given the opportunity to put his new ways into action. I recommend that he be rehabilitated into society. After he has paid for his crimes by serving the necessary time in prison, of course."

Futaba wished to protest the advice of vizier Ren. For all she knew, he had never personally known any of the girls trafficked under Aramaki, whereas she and her handmaiden Ann Takamaki had worked together with one of his own slaves, Atsuko Saito, to bring him to justice. But, she held her tongue. Partly because of her natural reticence to speak out, but also because the thought of rehabilitation had a certain appeal. Surely, it would be a waste of life to deny all but the most egregiously irredeemable criminals of a second chance to set their lives straight. She stalled, but eventually got out, "Well… what you did was kinda unforgivable…" Aramaki's gaze fell despondently until princess Futaba continued, "... almost. I've gotta agree with Ren - I mean, the vizier."

"I guess we're all in agreement then. Very well… Takashi Aramaki, I hereby sentence you to imprisonment until such time as you are deemed fit to re-enter society. Take him away!"

The guards tugged on Aramaki's chains and he followed them out of the throne room without a word. With them gone, vizier Ren announced, "That's the end of the docket tonight, your highness."

"Thank you, vizier Ren. Guess we'll call it a night, then," sultan Sojiro said as the three of them stood up in unison. "See you in the morning."

"Good night, your highness," responded Ren, as they began to depart for their chambers. But as he started down the hallway, he suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder. Princess Futaba had tagged along behind him. "Ah! Princess Futaba… what is it?"

Futaba's request came out hesitantly. "Um, vizier Ren, I… would like to show you something. Would you mind meeting me in my room in a few minutes?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"It's a surprise!" the princess blurted suddenly. "I… I'll send someone to get you when I'm ready."

The vizier shrugged and smiled. "Okay. I'll be waiting, then."

About fifteen minutes later, vizier Ren was gently disturbed from a brief rest by the presence of Ann the handmaiden in his bedroom's doorway. "Master Ren," she said with a bow, "the princess requests your presence in her chamber. Please follow me." He followed Ann around the balcony passage until they reached the princess's bedroom on the other side of the courtyard. When she parted the green velvet curtains behind the doorway and bade him to step in, what met his gaze stopped him dead in his tracks.

Directly across the room from him was princess Futaba, laying on her side atop a wide bed topped with shimmering satin sheets and a copious number of pillows. In this dream world, she was older, taller, and had a more pronounced hourglass figure compared to her physical self. Her green dancer's outfit, consisting of a bikini, coin belt, and silks trailing from her hips and wrists accentuated her idealised curves. Instead of her glasses, a green veil was draped over the lower half of her face. Most beguiling of all was the emerald lodged within her navel, which caught the candlelight of the room with a sparkle as she slowly stood up and walked towards him in a sly, seductive trot.

"Y… your highness!", vizier Ren stammered nervously. "What's the meaning of-"

"Shh…" The princess hushed him and gently put a finger to his lips. "I would like to perform a dance for you, master Ren. A very… special dance." She spun him around and gave him a slight push towards the bed. He stepped backwards in its direction and sat on the edge. "Make yourself comfortable," she urged, "and watch me perform… just for you." With a sharp couple of claps, she summoned her three handmaidens off to the side with their instruments. Makoto sat with her legs wrapped around a large hand-drum, Ann cradled a lute-like oud, and Haru held a woodwind instrument called a durum to her lips.

The instant Haru blew the first airy, melancholic notes from her pipe, Futaba rose her arms up and began waving her hips from side to side, Ren's gaze transfixed upon her bejeweled belly button as it swayed along in turn. Before long, Makoto started tapping on her drum and Ann plucked the strings of her oud, adding texture to Haru's droning durum melody. Futaba responded to the musical complexity by spicing up her mayas with some twists, pushing her hips forward and backward along with the sideways motions, before transitioning into other moves and steps. One touch she subconsciously incorporated from her real-life performance that evening was her so-called "charm attack" of camel undulations, here embellished by turning herself at different angles with each roll of her chest and hips. Unlike her physical self's performance, this addition was deliberate. Futaba was coming to accept the idea the bellydance could be sexy, and without the filter of her superego keeping her in check, she unleashed this sensual power upon the nascent target of her affections.

A blazing sensation of arousal spread throughout Ren's body as he witnessed this display. His jaw slackened open, his posture slouched forward, and his mental faculties dulled, but his focus followed the princess intently as her footwork took her left and right across the floor. Her other body parts remained in the periphery of his consciousness - her dainty hands, her slender legs, her perky, bouncing bust - but it was her belly, and the navel jewel at the centre of it all, which captured the attention of his senses. Indeed, this was the same hypnotic dance employed against her in her last visit to this dreamscape, but now Futaba was the one commanding its power. She was even able to effortlessly pull off moves which would be unfeasible for her in real life, like the splits and the belly flutters which led to the climax of her performance.

Futaba kept on fluttering her belly at a rapid pace as she stood back up, powering the motions with swift, shallow breaths. The music began to crescendo, Haru trilling notes on her durum and Makoto banging out an intense, sustained drum roll. Slowly, the princess began to sway her hips, even as her stomach continued to cave in and puff out with unbelievable speed. She coordinated both motions with expert control, gradually increasing the tempo of her swaying hips, until eventually combining them into a vigorous hip shimmy. Her seemingly weightless arms floated down and up again, Makoto's drum roll grew ever louder, and Futaba's hips quivered with violent intensity, until suddenly, she stopped with a sudden hip bump to the side. The music of her servants cut off as well, leaving the only sounds in the room the heavy breathing of both the princess and the vizier.

After standing still for a few moments, letting the afterglow of the moment settle in, Futaba broke her pose and slowly walked towards Ren once more. Rather than kiss him straight away, she whispered to him in a dominant, seductive hush, "Tell me what you thought of my dance… and be honest."

Ren would have showered Futaba with glowing compliments in any condition, but his hypnotised state he let his words flow freely and honestly, without stopping to filter them. "You were wonderful, my princess…", he intoned flatly, "you were sexy. I would do anything to please you, my master."

Satisfied with the absolute control she had gained against the vizier, a smirk spread across princess Futaba's face. She knelt over his legs and leant in closely, forcing him to fall back onto the bed. "Well then… I command you to make love to me all night long… And you may start by kissing my belly."

"Your wish is my command… master." With that, vizier Ren cradled the small of princess Futaba's back as he encircled her navel with kiss upon kiss. Each kiss was received with a giggle or a moan from the princess. Ann the handmaiden, sensing where this was going, lowered the curtains surrounding the princess's bed and ushered her fellow servants to leave the room with her. She did all that she could to ensure that they would not be disturbed, for a pleasurable night lay ahead for Futaba Sakura, both in the real world and the fantasy of her cognitive creation.

THE END