The Slave Queen of Etherion Ch. 06

Malachite Palace, Lysannum

Princess Jade's maid woke her well before dawn, bringing in her breakfast. Jade ate as much as she could, stuffing herself, since the likelihood was that she wouldn't get much opportunity to eat later in the day. Xenia click-clacked into the room on her hooves, yawning and stretching and looking satisfied after her night with the king. Once Jade had finished eating, she visited the palace baths, and Xenia helped her wash from head to toe with the plain, cheap, unscented soap that Jade had insisted upon for this occasion and not the scented, flower-filled soaps that were usually provided. Then, once she was clean and dry, she put on her running shoes, and slipped the ruffled gauze dress on over her head, and settled her heavy breasts into the supportive pockets sewn into the dress. Finally, she slung a waterskin over her shoulder.

When Jade and Xenia exited the baths, her father, Biblis, Jade's ladies in waiting, and a few trusted servants were waiting for her.

"Wish me luck," Jade said.

Her father hugged her. "If I was thirty years younger and not your father I'd give you a run for your money," he complimented her. "You're a vision, Jadie. Go and get caught... but not too soon! Good luck!"

Jade exchanged farewells with her other well-wishers, then stepped into one of the palace's bolt holes, and shut it behind her. It took quite some time to make her way down the secret passage and emerge into a woody copse some way out of town. It was still dark, and the stars twinkled in the cold night air that made her nipples tighten and ache. She looked around to ensure that she wasn't being observed, then emerged from the copse and began to jog in the direction she had previously planned, beneath the light of the full moon. Exertion would help warm her against the chill morning air. Jade listened to the bells of Lysannum as she ran.

Prince Rodger need not have worried about missing the start of the challenge. Bells rang out, and a herald was bellowing a summons for all men who wished to try their suit with the princess to present themselves at the palace to register. Rodger had already eaten and armed himself, and emerged onto the plaza across from the palace, and crossed through the mob in the plaza to the palace doors, where the prospective suitors were assembled.

The head of the line was dominated by many of the suitor princes from the other nations of Etherion. Given the number of men who thought that they had a chance to catch the princess, Rodger wouldn't have been surprised if it took until noon to clear the queue. However, it soon became evident that the kingdom was dealing with the problem by throwing personnel at it. There was a line of desks that had been brought out onto the palace driveway, each with a bureaucrat, a ledger, writing tools and a lantern.

The queue soon led Rodger to a desk where an unattractive, spectacled, middle-aged lady with iron grey hair pulled back into a bun sat beneath a flickering lantern suspended from a wooden pole.

"Name, please?" She asked absently.

"Prince Rodger Cymonson of Galadon", Rodger answered.

The woman's head snapped around in surprise to look at Rodger properly.

"My apologies, your highness," she said. "We were not expecting any other royalty than..."

"Not to worry," Rodger replied while the woman was writing down his name in her ledger. "I was here on personal business, not Galadonian, so I wasn't expecting to be recognised."

"Thank You for being so understanding, your highness. Now, since you're not an Etherian, is there anything you'd like to ask about this situation? "

"I gather that this is some sort of custom?" Rodger waved at the desks.

"Well... actually, a bridal challenge can be completely informal, however sometimes accidents happen, and this process assists in locating the next of kin... or the culprits. Oh, you don't need to worry, all challengers must still follow the law of the land, and the gods see to it that cheats never prosper," she finished. "So, any questions?"

"Well... not right now, thanks. Perhaps later, though..."

"Very well, your highness. Please take this token as acknowledgement of your suit," she handed him a small, oval wafer of bright copper stamped with an image of the Princess in court dress. "Please retain this until the challenge is settled, you may need it until then."

As the horizon was beginning to lighten with the approaching dawn, the last of the waiting suitors were finishing their registration, and the Royal fanfare sounded from the balcony overlooking the crowd.

"Good Morning, gentlemen!" the king called out from the balcony. "Thank you for answering my daughter's call for suitors who are prepared to compete for her hand in marriage.

"The nuptial challenge is an ancient custom that has existed in Etherion for as long as there have been kings who have daughters. It is seldom practised, since no matter their title, Princesses are women, and the challenge is a custom that is inherently unpredictable, and few women relish such unpredictability.

"I speak to you from a position of experience in the nuptial challenge; I myself was the winner of the last challenge issued by my dear departed wife. However, my wife's challenge was to write an argument favouring one's suit, while my daughter's challenge is rather more physical.

"Many of you will have heard her challenge when she issued it, but I will repeat it for you now: At dawn, all participants shall depart upon a hunt, with Princess Jade as the quarry, and she shall belong to the first man who can find her and claim her for himself!

"Now, gentlemen, you will have been given tokens signifying your suit for Princess Jade. These tokens may be shown in order to gain access to any place in my Kingdom in pursuit of my daughter, until the challenge is completed.

"So, gentlemen, all that remains is to await the dawn. Princess Jade has already departed the palace and awaits your pursuit." The king paused, and looked at the brightening horizon. As the balcony was bathed in the dawning light of the sun only moments later, the king spoke again, "Gentlemen, you may depart! The challenge has begun!"

There was a mad rush as men scrambled this way and that in their haste to begin their search. Pretty soon, the only men left in the palace grounds were those men whose infirmities were outweighed only by their ambition... and Rodger.

Rodger just stood in the square and looked around at the frantic men as they scrambled to place distance between themselves and the palace. He looked up at the balcony, where memory suggested that the first clue may have been there.

The king looked down at the palace courtyard where so many men had been only minutes before. There were a few crippled men making their halting way from there, and one knight in full plate armour, who just stood and watched the flood of humanity retreat. He looked like a foreigner... Perhaps he didn't know what to do... or perhaps he was cleverer than all the rest.

"Xenia, could you be a dear and help me?" the king turned and spoke into the room behind the balcony. "My hip is stiff this morning."

The topless faun slave girl stepped onto the balcony and smiled as she held out her arm for the king to lean upon as he limped inside.

Rodger wondered if the king had indeed required assistance, or if he had been offering a clue... he remembered now that the faun had attended to the princess when she had displayed herself for her suitors three days previously. The faun might have been privy to her mistress' plans. Rodger walked towards the palace door.

"Who goes there?" One of the two door guards challenged him as he approached, the two of them crossing the door with their halberds to bar the way.

Rodger held out the copper token he had been given. "I am Prince Rodger of Galadon," he announced himself.

The guard who had spoken examined the token, then withdrew his halberd followed by the other guard doing the same. "Pass, Prince Rodger of Galadon."

"Can I help you, Sir?" an older, greying serving man asked Rodger before he had gone very much further.

"Oh... Perhaps you can," Rodger replied. "I'm looking for Xenia."

"Ah... I expect that if she's not in her room, she'll be there soon," the man said, then he gave Rodger directions that were perfectly clear and direct, but complicated enough that anyone following them would need to pay attention and have a good memory.

"Thank you very much," Rodger replied.

The directions that Rodger had been given was the most direct route, but the Malachite Palace was not the product of a single plan but had been built in stages over centuries with no consistent vision, and was as convoluted as a rabbit warren. However, Rodger had grown up in yet another even more convoluted edifice, and also had a good memory, so he followed the instructions exactly, without succumbing to the temptation to try to take a short cut, even though the design of the palace was such that in one place, a short cut appeared to exist. However, after following the servant's terse instructions, Rodger could see why it would not have worked.

Rodger arrived at Xenia's door, a heavy wooden, ironbound object with a large lock and an outward-opening peephole, with a gap at the bottom that would allow food to be passed in. It was basically a dungeon cell door, much like the others in the dim hallway, a couple of floors below ground level.

Rodger rapped on the door with his knuckles since there was no knocker on the door.

"Come in!" a feminine voice called from inside. "There's no need to knock, it isn't locked, and I'm just a slave...!"

Rodger opened the heavy door and entered and saw the faun sitting at a simple table with her back to the door.

"...Though you might want to lock the door now you're inside," Xenia finished, rising from her seat and turning to face him.

"Are you Xenia?" Rodger asked, after sliding the bolt on the back of the door across. "I'm Prince Rodger of Galadon."

There was a flicker of an expression on Xenia's face that suggested that the faun had heard Rodger's name previously, though it was gone within moments.

"Yes, I'm Xenia," she said, walking toward him, her hips swaying sexily beneath her mid-length skirt. "I'm Princess Jade's body slave." She pressed herself against Rodger, the rings in her nipples clicking against his breastplate just before her large, bare, shapely breasts flattened against it. She tilted her horned head back to look him in the eye, while her fingers tapped against Rodger's breastplate just below his neck. "What can I do for you, Prince Rodger of Galadon?" she asked sexily.

"I'm looking for Princess Jade," Rodger said.

Xenia sighed. "Of course you are... It seems that everyone is off chasing after my mistress, and you're the first to come to ask me. It's very lonely down here today, and I was expecting a few more men than just you to come to talk to me..."

"Ah... might I point out that I saw you on the balcony with the king only a few minutes ago? You can hardly have been here more than a few minutes."

"How observant of you, Prince Roger," Xenia smiled at him. "It gets lonely down here very quickly." Her fingers traced patterns idly on Roger's breastplate.

"Can you help me find your mistress?" Rodger asked.

"I don't know..." Xenia began. "I might be able to... but you're going to have to... convince me," she smiled.

Rodger had a pretty good idea where the faun was going with this conversation but decided to probe a little further. "May I ask why you would need to be convinced?" he smiled at her, showing his even, white teeth.

"I'm Princess Jade's slave, and also her friend. It's my job to look after not only her person, but her happiness too. I'm not going to help just anyone, so you'll need to convince me that you and she would be a good match for each other."

"Just how do you think that my dallying here with you might be of assistance to your mistress?" Rodger's tone was curious rather than accusatory.

"My mistress is not a jealous woman. When certain men do Her Highness certain services or favours, or she wishes to learn more about a man or the contents of his mind, she is limited by her status as a royal virgin as to the nature of the rewards she can bestow or the enquiries she can make. However, as a slave and a faun, my virginity was only important to me and the man to whom I gave it and who gave me his, and having given it, I have no reputation to preserve. So, my mistress sends some of these men to me... men who are in a position and of a mind to appreciate the erotic arts. As a faun, I find this aspect of my servitude to be very enjoyable."

Rodger placed his hands on Xenia's bare lower back, just above the waistband of her skirt, and the girl turned her head and laid it on his breastplate with a sigh, her left horn bumping gently against his chin.

"In Galadon, there are laws against slavery, so any that exist are playing a role, and can legally choose to stop playing that role whenever they want, regardless of the wishes of their masters. So, my royal sisters have only ladies in waiting and maidservants. However, many of my sisters' maidservants have something of a reputation... but few speak of it. I never thought until now that my sisters might have been choosing their maidservants' lovers for them."

"Will you allow me to get to know you better, your highness?" Xenia asked.

"You're not going to help me until you do, are you?"

"No," Xenia answered cheerfully.

"What if I was to threaten you? Or perhaps torture you?"

"I don't believe that you're such a man," Xenia said. "I love my mistress, and if anyone chooses to treat me that way, I am willing to suffer any pain or even die to protect her or her secrets from them."

"Well... you're right, mostly. I don't like hurting women... unless they want me to hurt them, if you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I rather think that I do..." a naughty little smile crossed her face.

"So, shall we get to know each other better, then, Xenia?"

"By all means, Prince Rodger," Xenia answered, and tilted her head back and lifted it towards Rodger's for a kiss.

Rodger had expected a simple kiss on the lips, but Xenia proved to be an enthusiastic lover despite the fact that they had just met, and grasped his head so as to be able to kiss him thoroughly and enthusiastically.

After Xenia and Rodger had kissed, progressing rapidly from kissing to fencing with their tongues as they kissed, Xenia proved that she had extensive experience with armour, as she removed Rodger's without having to remove her lips from his for more than an occasional moment, entirely by touch.

Once Xenia had Rodger completely stripped, and had finally removed his padded trousers and underwear to release his already-erect cock, Xenia went down on her knees in front of him and took his cock into her mouth. He hardly needed the extra stimulation, but Xenia licked every inch of Rodger's cock, and eagerly sucked up and swallowed the pre-cum that began to ooze from the slit in its head.

Rodger reached down and grabbed Xenia beneath the arms and lifted her to her hooves. "I want to fuck you, faun, not just dick around," he almost growled, then he took hold of the waistband of her cheap, shabby skirt and yanked at it, tearing the thin cloth from her body, and leaving her naked.

Rodger paused a moment to have a good look at Xenia's naked body, his gaze travelling down from the horns upon her head to her beautiful, exotic face, then further down to her generous, puffy-nippled breasts with a slave ring in each nipple, then further down to her flat belly and the slit between her green-furred ungulate legs, and finally down her furry legs to her cloven hooves and back again. He stepped up to her, enfolding her in his strong arms as he kissed her again, then he turned her around so that he could caress her breasts and tease her pierced nipples. One hand stroked down her side and onto her furred leg, then pulled the leg up from just behind her knee, while his other hand touched her between her legs, his fingertips brushing across her labia and then parting them to feel between them, dipping into her already wet cunt, and then rubbing her wetness across her clit and the hood piercing above it, drawing a gasp of pleasure from her.

Then, Rodger lifted Xenia and threw her across her narrow bed, her head falling over one side while her hips were falling off the other side. Before she could recover her breath from the sudden impact, Rodger grasped her fetlocks and lifted her legs up and spread them wide, exposing her dripping cunt. He positioned his cock in her vulva, rubbing its head over her clit before he suddenly thrust his cock inside her eager cunt.

Rodger fucked Xenia at just the right pace, his hips slapping into hers powerfully without descending to the almost quivering over-eager too-rapid thrusting that some men did that did little to stimulate her. Xenia admired Rodger's powerful physique as his thrusting hips made her bed creak in time with his movements. He was not excessively muscular to the point of looking almost fat, but still strong enough that she could admire the play of his muscles beneath his skin as he fucked her relentlessly. Then, Xenia's head tilted back, falling over the edge of the bed, her horns almost reaching the floor, and she gasped as her orgasm approached, then cried out wordlessly as it struck, and then again and again with each delightful spasm.

When her cries of pleasure ceased, Rodger lifted Xenia from the bed and stood her in front of him, facing the bed. He kissed her neck, then her lips as she turned her head to offer hers to him, then he seized her long, wavy green hair and wound it around his left hand, then reached up behind her head to take hold of her left scimitar-shaped horn, and pushed her head down toward the bed until she had to place her hands on the bed to avoid having her face pushed into it. Then, Rodger grabbed the furry, foot-long tail that satyrs and fauns typically have at the base of their spines, and held it firmly while he probed around her pussy with his cock, and on finding her cunt, he continued to fuck her, pulling at her hair, her horn and her tail.

Rodger kept hold of Xenia's horn and her hair, but his other hand shifted about, sometimes caressing her back and side, sometimes cupping her breast or pulling her nipple or its ring, sometimes reaching between her legs to massage her clit, and sometimes taking hold of her other scimitar-shaped horn, but never at the expense of the rhythmic thrusting of his big cock into her cunt. Xenia loved having her hair, horns and tail pulled while being fucked. She came again, as Rodger held her hair and horn, and pulled her tail, and as Rodger kept up his insistent fucking, shifting his hand from her tail to her other horn, she came yet again. She screamed with each orgasmic spasm, but she was moaning now between orgasms. Rodger released her right horn, and felt beneath her chest, placing his hand so that her nipples brushed across his palm as his thrusting made her breasts swing back and forth. His breath began to hiss between his teeth, and his hand moved to her crotch and massaged her clit insistently, and just before her orgasm struck again, he shouted wordlessly as he had his orgasm, his seed spurting into her.

When their respective orgasms were over Rodger pulled his cock out of Xenia's cunt and released her horn, hair and tail, and she stood up.

"So, do you know me well enough now?" Rodger asked.

"Let's talk about that," Xenia said. "Could you lie down on the bed please?"

"All right," Rodger climbed onto the bed, and lay on his side, facing her.