That night after her work and orders were given, and almost all of her household slumbered, Nua returned to her room with Kaiji, and found it empty. 'Solution is probably busy flinging Sado around. He's coming along nicely, he'll be very useful to me as time goes on.' She kept that thought to herself as she stood in the usual undressing posture and let Kaiji begin her work.
"May I speak freely, mistress?" Kaiji asked with a soft voice.
"You may." Nua answered in a tight, controlled tone, keeping her ill mood in check.
"You didn't do anything wrong, you know that, don't you my lady?" Kaiji asked rhetorically as her fingers began to fly over the laces of Nua's left boot.
"I do, this was just pure dumb luck, but still, she was loyal to me, one of my first, I had high hopes for her and…" Nua rolled her eyes, "This will sound stupid."
"My lady?" Kaiji paused to look up.
"It was like looking at myself. She was a little shorter than I, and…" Nua touched her hair that had been severely shortened, "obviously we had different hair styles. But we're both slender blonde wood elves with blue eyes… if I weren't mutilated, we could have passed for sisters. So seeing her was sometimes like looking in a mirror. I couldn't help but think, looking down at her body, 'so, that's what I'll look like.' Strange, isn't it?"
Kaiji shuddered, "Please don't speak like that, Mistress. You're not going to die, but… I never thought you were much alike." The sharp eyed demon-elf met the glance of her mistress and nodded to affirm her words.
"You look like a goddess to me, and she never did. Something was different between the two of you." Kaiji gave a crooked smile with her dark lips, "I know, you don't believe me, you're thinking it because I used to fear you. But no, that isn't the case." Kaiji began to tug on the leather boot and Nua lifted her foot for it to be removed and set aside.
"I could never have done for her what I'm doing for you." Kaiji continued and worked the laces on the other boot. "Tomorrow, you're going to prove that difference." Kaiji's face went from pleasant with a crooked grin, to a fierce snarl that bared her teeth.
"You're a goddess, and someone took the life of a member of your house… a woman who called you a goddess herself… so divine retribution must fall on everyone in any way responsible for what happened." Kaiji advised with a vicious and raw quality to her voice.
"What do you suggest?" Nua asked with a calmly raised blonde eyebrow.
"The one responsible was transported here while you were speaking with Tir, I've had him secured where we kept Sergeant Vargas, and he's under the eyes of some of our best guards right now. Tomorrow, interrogate him in front of Freyjin's twenty-five. Then… skin him." Kaiji scowled. "Skin him before he's killed, then visit the prison. Terrorize the leaders of the gangs, find out everything, I'm sure Priceless will have finished going through Freyjin's notes before morning. Between all that, we should know much, much more than we did."
"That might not be enough." Nua responded thoughtfully.
"Mistress will think of something. We're about to go to Komestra and put you on the throne. Yanlim and Rasgen won't oppose it, but Queen Vexia won't be happy, not to mention the others, I'm sure they're going to take action soon. We need something that will make them think twice before they risk a possible coalition war." Kaiji replied, "Sad as it is, retaliation over Freyjin if it is fierce enough, might do."
"Very well. Something dramatic, the Prince already gave me the go ahead…" Nua commented in passing as Kaiji got the last of her lady's clothing off and quickly got her into her night clothing.
When she was done, Kaiji went to her knees and bowed her head, "Is there any other service I can offer you, my lady?"
"Just that you get a good night's sleep, and make sure you pack a few things, you and Priceless will join me on my wedding night as my personal attendants. Have the things you'll need for the trip to Komestra as well. You won't be coming back to this estate any time soon." Nua ordered, and Kaiji beamed up at her proudly.
"Yes, my lady!" She grinned, then shot to her feet and scurried from the room.
Nua flopped herself down on the bed with her arms open and stared up at the dark ceiling. She thought of nothing until a beautiful and evil looking face moved fully into view.
"You're taking up most of the bed, Student. Make room." Solution ordered, and Nua obediently rolled onto her side.
"Quiet today, are you?" Solution asked rhetorically as she got into bed as well.
"I lost Freyjin today, so yes, yes I am, Teacher. She was a good… good servant. I feel a little guilty. Four children lost their caregiver, one of them a birth mother, and the other three their adoptive one. She died helping my house." Nua replied, and felt the sting of Solution's hand resting on her shoulder, the dissolving power of a slime monster rising only enough to heat and sizzle flesh, but Nua was undisturbed by the almost irrelevant pain.
It cut off a moment later, "Good, you're you." Solution said with sarcasm as caustic as her monster skill. "Since when are you sentimental about anything but Raymond? Besides, dying in service to your betters is an enviable end."
Nua rolled over to face the fine featured blonde. "Since I've come to see everything as more complicated, since I've come to accept that I have a greater responsibility here than I initially thought I was willing to accept. Since I watched a woman who believed in me, die horribly under my eyes, and now more recently, since someone loyal has given up their life for even a hint of potential danger to me to be exposed. Pick a moment, Teacher. Besides," Nua paused and thought of how to address it in a way Solution would understand, "when somebody dies in service to their betters, their service ends. An end to service isn't enviable if the one over you is worth serving. Necessary… maybe? Enviable? No."
Her teacher gave that a somewhat reluctant nod of acknowledgement, but replied, "You walked up the stairs to get here, didn't you, student of mine?" Solution asked, and Nua gave a doubtful nod.
"Did you feel guilty about stepping on them?" Solution asked, and Nua rolled her eyes.
"You're saying slaves like Freyjin are just stepping stones, things for me to mount on my climb to the top. I understand, teacher." Nua replied, only for a burning finger to touch her lips.
"No, student…" Solution giggled and shook her head, "Actually, yes. But it's more than that. You knew from the start there would be sacrifices, but you thought they would be of other people, and there are lots of those. You were also prepared for them to be of some of 'your' people too, at least as far as that goes. But there was something you forgot."
"What's that?" Nua asked without thinking.
Solution rolled on top of her and pinned her down, Nua instinctively struggled for just a moment against the impossibly strong monster concealed within the guise of beautiful flesh. But Solution had Nua pinned into the soft mattress at her biceps and straddled her torso at the waist, there was no moving. Her teacher brought her face close to Nua's twitching ears, and the student relaxed completely.
Solution however, did not seem to intend physical pain, instead she whispered, "You're sacrificing yourself too. You were already evil, at least evil enough to have skinned the woman who cannibalized elves. Torturing her under my direction so that I would at least 'ask' for Raymond to be spared. But you're still thinking that you can be yourself in all this. You can't. You aren't 'Nua Calen Aiwenor' anymore. "You're Duchessa Aiwenor' and you're about to be 'Prince Aiwenor of Komestra."
Nua clenched her teeth and stared up into her reflected visage in the monster's eyes, absorbing her teacher's words. "Of all your slaves, Kaiji is my favorite, the Iron Will of Komestra, she slaughtered whole families, enslaved many more, had settlements burned, and framed people for terrible crimes… all because that is how you keep a throne secure. Sado… he's getting there, but is a long way off yet. You're not going to just fight some duels and stay safe by the power of your reputation alone, the way that former complete idiot… and now only slight idiot, seemed to think."
"Evil is the only path to good." Nua recited and felt Solution's hot breath in her ear.
"Yes. You are 'Mistress Aiwenor, Prince of Komestra and the future empress'. There are no lines for you if you want to win. Are you prepared to give up your dream?" Solution demanded to know.
"Never." Nua spat back with a brutal glare in her eye.
"Then you don't get to have lines, remember, it isn't just your dream on the line. Your slave died believing in you, believing you would protect her children, and you own many, many children, with more on the way." Solution reminded her, and Nua thought of the young women in the kitchens, and those maids who were pregnant from newly recovered husbands, or who had newly married themselves.
"All that is on the line, if you fail… everything that happens to them, every sale of those who looked up to you for leadership… every woman thrown onto her back by some warrior who helps overthrow you, everything that happens to Lenah, and Straen, and Shi, and Veema… when they fall into the hands of another person like Bracer if you fail… it's all on you." Solution's vicious whispers wormed their way into Nua's ears.
"Raymond knew there were no lines, he killed the worst of the worst, true, but even those who weren't, were fair game if it meant it made winning easier. You don't get to be a saint and a Prince, let alone an Empress. You get to be-" Solution's words were cut off.
"A sheepdog." Nua replied, causing Solution to furrow her brow.
"What?" Solution asked.
Nua made a bitter laugh, relaxed beneath the pinning body of her Teacher. "Something your sister and her friend Bertra once said, from that trip you took me on. Successful wolves become sheepdogs. I own all these slaves, all this land, all these villages and towns, even an empire eventually… but then I have to protect it."
Solution's sadistic smile parted into a wide laugh, she arched herself to let it all out, cackling violently at the ceiling. "Yes, my student… you're the sheepdog for so many now… and a wolf has killed one… now you're going to tear into the pack from which it came… 'Mistress Aiwenor'."
"Good advice." Nua said and her gaze softened affectionately, looking up into the eyes of the one she revered. "Assuming you don't intend any physical violence, I should sleep, teacher." Nua yawned comfortably and Solution let her go. She thought nothing of it when Nua rolled back over and pressed into her back.
As she drifted off, Nua faintly murmured to herself the lessons, or warnings, Solution imparted, before her cool breath began to regularly fall on the neck of her bodyguard.
'An excellent… excellent student.' Solution thought, and drifted off to sleep herself.
The four girls looked around the room, for a moment unsure of just what to do, each privately expecting Freyjin to waltz through the door explaining that she'd been held up, and getting them all ready for sleep.
Lenah was the first to begin to cry, followed quickly by Straen. Shi chose to practice hug time with them again, thinking to help but not entirely sure why the arms she wrapped around them, was so helpful to them or to her. 'My nestmother… gone… everything… how strange…' Her wide eyed stare was 'lost' for lack of another word.
Veema however, did none of that. She went and touched the bed in which her mother once lay, the soft cloth was not so fine as what she knew lay on the bed of her mother's mistress, but it was good, warm material at least. The mattress beneath was better than a common mat as well. It was bigger than the beds of her and her sisters, but most eerily of all… everything else.
On the bookshelf, a borrowed book still had its bookmark in place, as if Freyjin would return any hour to finish reading what she'd started. Veema picked it up, it made a small scraping sound as she took it off the shelf, and she began to flip through the pages.
She wrinkled her nose when she realized what it was her mother was reading, then flipped to the spine to see the title. 'Really, mother? That's lewd. Even I know that much.' She looked at the door, waiting for her mother to come in blushing and looking embarrassed about her reading habits, but the door remained closed.
Veema snapped the book shut audibly and slid it back onto the whirled on the other three. "Alright… she's gone. Her bed is mine, her things are mine, eventually, her collar will be mine… and that makes you all 'mine'. I'll do for you, what she used to do for all of us."
"What?" Three girls said at once.
Veema raised her chin to reveal her naked throat. "I'm a free person with no mother or father, that means I inherit everything my last living relative had. That means I inherit her duties. I'll take over for her, in everything. Plus, I am the oldest one here. You're all humans, I may only be a kid in elven terms, but by human terms I'm an adult. I'll ask our lady tomorrow for sure, but I know she'll approve."
"You sound sure." Shi replied with a hint of doubt.
"Yes, I am. And I can do it, lie down in bed, and I'll show you." Veema said with a voice she had to force to be sharp, she clapped her hands. "I said lie down! I'll tell a story tonight, then tomorrow we'll… we'll do what we do every day, we'll endure, and we'll make her proud of us!" Veema snapped out decisively and three girls scrambled into their beds.
Veema went through the little set of books and found one she knew they all liked, then she went to the center bed where Shi lay, and opened the crackling spine of the thick book of tales, and began to read.
She did her best to imitate the voices her mother used when the rabbit heckled the fox, and the fox when it ambushed the rabbit, and the pleading whine of the rabbit as it begged for other animals to hide it… and its squeal when it hid at the base of a tree with an eagle only to find itself taken away and consumed.
Answering laughs heartened Veema's spirit so much that she read two more stories before the yawns overtook their attentiveness.
She then went to each bed, kissed her sisters on their foreheads, and then put the book away before lying on her mother's bed, covering herself up, and quietly crying to herself and whimpering, "I'll make it alright, I promise, I'll make it alright, I promise…" over and over, until falling asleep at last.
Diana rocked back and forth on top of the former warrior Prince, reveling in every thrust and pull of tense muscle, her body reached a blissful state of climax over and over again, and he proved that he was a champion in more ways than one. It was only when his body gave itself over to his own pleasure that she finally arched in one more blissful moment, and collapsed onto his chest.
"So… is it, My Lady?" Sado asked with an arch smile.
"Is it what?" She asked reflexively.
"Different?" Sado asked, his face flushed from the pleasurable exertions.
She put her hands on his chest and pushed herself up, her ample breasts swaying to the delight of his following eyes. "Up here, big oaf." Diana pointed to her eyes, and he gave a sheepish look before tilting his gaze up.
"Yes, actually. The difference between work and recreation, I guess. If I had to put a difference to it, it sort of tells me what it'll be like with Yanlim when we go join him." She returned his arch smile, "And yes, I am absolutely certain he'll be more than happy to marry the daughter of an oath sister and cement an alliance with the house that gave him the throne. Plus…" She rocked a little, swaying her breasts and pulling Sado's treacherous eyes away from hers for a moment.
"See?" Diana asked rhetorically, "He's a great man, but naive, innocent in a lot of ways, kind of like you used to be, but in a different way. It makes him easy for me to predict, at least this far."
"Alright, but just to be clear, I assume we're not going to keep at this when we get to Hanak'sen?" Sado asked, unsure how he should feel about either answer.
He ran his hands up and down her waist and creamy thighs, the sleek form was poetry in motion and he could not keep his hands away, and didn't want to.
"Of course. I'm not Tir, I won't ruin myself by chancing some stupid affair…" She winked down at him, "No matter how much fun it is."
"So… I'll just be your bodyguard…" He said somewhat sadly, and she caught the brief mournful look, 'Does this even count as a 'second rejection?' He wasn't sure.
She touched his cheek with her hand and went down to kiss his forehead. "You're a good man, you didn't deserve this much heartache, but that is how it is. Yes, you'll be my bodyguard, you'll protect my children and serve your mistress, and serve me… I'll… I'll try to find a woman you like to give to you, and give you some decent kind of life in the role you've found yourself in. It's the best I can do for you. I'm sorry… Prince of Dreams. So very sorry."
Sado looked up at the lovely face, the dark hair and bright green eyes of Diana of Komestra, the greatest beauty of his city, the most dangerous living weapon in the arsenal of Komestra's Iron Will, and managed to keep the moroseness at bay.
"No, this is just what happens, and I'm not all unhappy, as soon as we get there… I'll establish a temple and begin to spread the word of the Black Book, the divine words are well suited to a city that has suffered all that Hanak'sen has. I'll convert their warriors, merchants, nobles… spread the glory of my mistress and see her legend grow. This is how I'll spend my life. I doubt any woman would want to be saddled to a man who can barely turn a thought toward her. However…?" He gave her a teasing look, "If you find one who likes relentless stubborn fools with a hard time changing? Well point her in my direction."
"I'll do that, Sado. Prince of Dreams… I never thought things would happen this way… but it looks like we're on a path to making things better… our people will be safe again, which is what you wanted." Diana said and yawned deeply before resting her head on the broad and powerful chest of the mighty warrior.
"That's a start at least. The beginning of what I wanted, not the end at all." Sado whispered as the fading candle flickered and died away. But the light was already gone for Diana, weary and worn from the day's events, she had fallen asleep before he'd even begun to speak, only soft murmurs that might have been words in whatever dreams she was having, passed her lips.
He stroked her back and closed his eyes, patiently waiting for a sleep that was very, very long in coming, but a very deep relief when at long last, it finally did.
AN: If you're enjoying this, you might also try my other work, 'The One Who Stayed' which is up to volume 4 on here and features a retelling of the originals with... quite a twist. For example in Volume 4, it is Demiurge, not Shalltear, who goes to the dwarf Kingdom, with very different results for all concerned. Alternatively, you can read my original work on pat re on dot com / tellingstories.