Naga Princess

She opened her eyes minutes later. Body-warm crimson splashed many of her green scales, with an unrecognizable mass of pulpy meat and bone where Alan should be. Only when she spotted his face, lolling loosely to the side, frozen into a rictus of horror and pain, did she realize what had happened. In her orgasmic ecstasy, she had squeezed him with all of her now inhuman strength.

Someone screamed, long and loud, piercing the whole palace. Only after she gasped for breath did Anna realize the scream was her own.

The musicians stopped, looked around the screen, and began screaming themselves. She pulled back from Alan's mangled corpse, half her snake body dripping with blood and gory viscera. Upon seeing her they ran as one for the room's veranda entrances.

Anna could only blink at the ruin of Prince Alan's body, stunned. She had no idea she'd had that kind of strength, or that it would be so hard to control!

Gods, was that going to happen to all of her lovers? She had always reveled in being cruel and merciless, as that's what a sorceress was supposed to be, but she had always stopped short at killing. Looking at her unintentional handiwork now, a sickening feeling suddenly overpowered her. She doubled over, vomiting violently.

Would she ever be able to have sex again, without something like that happening? Would she ever even be able to close her eyes again and not see Alan's mangled face staring into eternity?

Soldiers burst into the room, halberds and swords bristling, followed closely by Anna's parents. The queen screamed at seeing Prince Alan and his blood-soaked killer. The king, an old veteran of a half-dozen wars, brandished his well-worn battle axe at the creature. "What goes on here! What kind of monster..." His eyes narrowed on the Naga. "It can't be...Anna?"

She gulped in fear. There were too many for her to control or overpower physically. Her only hope was to convince her father what had happened with Alan had really been an accident.

But just to be sure, she reached into his mind, pushing him to sympathize with his transformed daughter. "Daddy, its not what it looks like! Its me, Anna! Your daughter! You have to help me!"

His eyes glazed over, and for a moment, Anna had him. But then he shook his head, blinking, a hideous anger building across his features. Her father had suffered through too much in his life to be so easily controlled. "You are trying to bewitch me!" he yelled. "Trying to fool us all! You are not my Anna! My daughter is not a monster!" He shouted to his men, hefting his own weapon. "Slay that abomination!"

The soldiers rushed forward, and Anna, in a pure panic, plowed through them in a mad dash to get to the veranda doors. They drastically underestimated how fast her snake-body could move, and that saved her. She made it out of the room with only a shallow gash on her hip from a lucky, half-hearted sword thrust. But she heard many harsh shouts behind her. The alarm was being sounded, and lights were being lit all over the palace.

She dashed into one of the castle's secret causeways, slithering fast through its twists and turns, emerging through the sewers into the midst of the capital city. But even there she was not safe. She startled a few townsfolk. One, a young girl, screamed so shrilly Anna could swear that she could rouse half the city. Soon torches were being lit everywhere and troops were running through the streets with spears brandished, poking into every shadow to flush her out. More than once she turned a corner only to have some peasant or another begin screaming and throwing things at seeing her.

Her newfound abilities meant nothing, she realized. She had no hope of fighting them all! If only Trundle were still here! But he had been inadvertently sacrificed for Anna's new form. She was now thinking that was a very poor trade indeed.

If she stayed in the city, it would only be a matter of time before she was caught in a trap she couldn't escape from. She seriously doubted that they would underestimate her again.

She made a dash for the harbor, gambling that they wouldn't think that she would try and escape across the lake. She had barely made it into the water when arrows began slicing into the water around her. Her large Naga tail propelled her faster through the water than any of them could have guessed at, undulating behind her wildly like a gigantic eel.

Anna heaved herself to shore on the other side, knowing she couldn't stay there long. What was she going to do? She couldn't go back! But she didn't have anything with her, not even any clothes! And no one she knew would even talk to her like this! She would be hunted throughout the whole kingdom! Unless...

She found her way, slowly, cautiously into the ancient forest where she had first summoned the Naga queen. She did not see any other way, she had to be transformed back into her old self. As long as she was a Naga, she would be hunted down. But if she could be transformed back, she could say she had been held prisoner, or was ensnared by magical forces beyond her control. Or something.

She was glad she had been so preoccupied with her transformation the night before that she had left her bag of chalk dust and candles where she had abandoned them. She quickly redrew the summoning circle, lit the candles, and began the spell again.

She began the chant from the night before with no small amount of fear, remembering what Kervirtorax had done to Trundle. But the Naga queen herself had said that she would never devour her own flesh, and once transformed Anna would always be her daughter. So the princess gambled that she would be safe enough from the Naga queen to ask for a further favor.

An hour passed as she chanted, then two. Far off, she could hear shouts and feel the vibration of many booted feet through the ground. Her fathers' soldiers were searching the woods for her, perhaps had even tracked her directly here. She hadn't much time, now...

A bright flash of light and Kervirtorax returned. She turned, saw Anna, and snarled. "You! I told you never to summon me again, daughter!"

"But you have to help me! They..." Fear stabbed Anna as Kervirtorax slithered out of the summoning circle and slammed her hard across the jaw with back of her hand. Anna went flying, impacting a small tree and nearly cracking it in half. She groaned in pain. "But...the circle..."

"That only protects mortals, the soul carriers of the Path. Its part of the laws all powers dealing with mortals are bound to obey. But as soon as you took my flesh you gave up the rules of the Path. Now the only rules that apply to you are mine."

She cowered low, pleading. "Please, you have to change me back! They're hunting me, they're coming even now! I--I killed someone, crushed him..." She started crying. "I don't want this anymore! I just want to be somewhere safe!"

Kervirtorax lifted her up by her neck, finger talons digging deep into her flesh. Anna thrashed as helplessly in the grip as she had as a human. The Naga queen would have made sure, of course, that her daughters could never come close to her in sheer power. "Pathetic! If you weren't of my flesh, you would already be sliding down my gullet in pieces. I gave you power as few mortals could ever know! And you fear soldiers with measly steel? You have abilities you have not even guessed at! Those were all part of the test, to see if you had the brains and strength to persevere and learn of them! And you failed so immensely it shames me!"

They heard the shouts of the humans growing louder, saw the dim lights of their torches growing brighter. Kervirtorax tilted her head, contemplating them, then turned back to regard Anna with a wicked smile. "I think what you need is a lesson, daughter. A long, painful, humiliating lesson"

Before Anna's astonished eyes, the Naga queen's form shimmered and flowed like water under her, but the steel-hard grip holding the princess up never wavered an inch. It was if The Naga queen's body was melting like snow over a hot fire, and then splashing into a new form. Only the new form made the princess gasp. It was herself, as she had been before Kervirtorax had changed her! The Naga queen had transformed herself into the mirror image of Anna's human self!

She could feel Kervirtorax's mind plumbing her own, pushing, shredding at things to get at Anna's memories. It was the last thing Anna remembered for a long time...

- - -

Her thoughts were dim and her memories slow to coalesce. She remembered agonizing pain first and foremost, as if her body had been pulled apart and being sewn back together with a thousand rusty needles. Then a long, arduous journey, much hunger, much pain.

Her eyes opened. She was lying on her belly on what looked to be sand. There was something odd in front of her eyes, tapering and scaly. It looked like to be a...snout?

She tried to bring her fingers up to feel it, but she quickly discovered she had no fingers or arms at all. She looked down at herself, and could only see scales and coils, all vestiges of her human body gone. Anna reared up, and spotted her own reflection in some sort of glass barrier. A large green boa constrictor stared back at her, even flicked out its tongue instinctively. She was nothing but all snake now!

She looked and smelled around, twittering her tongue. She was in a large glass enclosure, similar to the one she had kept Prince in, but much more spacious. She knew of only one such enclosure built for snakes, in her father's royal Menagerie in the city's gardens.

She could feel panic welling up, the only thing keeping her from bashing the glass enclosure's wall over and over again was that her thought processes were still somewhat cottony. Why had Kervirtorax done this to her? She was still alive, true, but how was she supposed to live like this? What was she going to do?

Her tongue caught the scent of others in the cage with her, and craned her head around to regard them. One with golden coloring she recognized immediately: Prince, her former pet. At least he was still okay, and somewhere safe. There was another boa near him, just as big, but with darker scales.

Another flick of her tongue, and she was suddenly, acutely aware that they were both male snakes. The scent was unusually pungent. They began slithering toward her, dark intensity in their reptilian eyes. What did they want with her? Big snakes were solitary, and they certainly couldn't want to eat her. Unless....

She turned toward the glass suddenly desperate to find a way, any way out. She looked around panicky, even bashing her head against the glass in desperation, just as both males reached her.

They rapidly entwined themselves around her, pulling her down with their weight, writhing and wrapping themselves around her snake-body obscenely. She tried to slither away, but it was no use. They were both bigger, thicker, their squeezing and intercoiling having a near fanatic strength to it. She hissed a reptilian scream as she felt something long and insistent shove its way into an orifice far down her sinuous body.

"Enjoying yourself, daughter?"

Anna looked up to see herself, her human self, looking down at her from the other side of the glass. She suddenly remembered what had happened right before she had blacked out. That had to be the Naga queen! What was she doing?

"Taking you place. I thought that would be obvious," Kervirtorax said. "Yes, I can read your thoughts. As I said, you needed a lesson. I had hoped that you would be more intelligent than my naturally-hatched daughters, and I hope that still. A century or two living as a snake will no doubt teach you humility." She laughed. "I imagine your learning your first painful lesson of that right now."

But why? Why did you do this? Why are you me?

Kervirtorax shrugged creamy shoulders, adjusting her bountiful bosom under her sleeveless blouse. "Because I have to admit that I liked your original ambition. Ruling a human kingdom, raping its citizens and resources for selfish wants. Sounded like a very pleasant, hedonistic diversion after four millennia in that damned void. And the humorous thing is, they treat me like a hero now! It was so easy to make up a story of how I had been studying magic secretly and had used it to conquer the evil Naga that had invaded the palace, tried to take your place, and murdered that poor male you crushed."

That can't be!

"It is, idiot child. There were many powers you had as my daughter, including shapeshifting. If you had not panicked like a simpering fool after your first kill, you would have eventually have discovered that for yourself. You could have turned back into your human form whenever you wished. But that privilege is denied you now."

Anna writhed in agony, being mated by a lizard, screaming over and over again inside her own mind.

Kervirtorax laughed again. "You should also know that before the "evil Naga" was vanquished, she cast a horrible wasting sickness upon the king. After he was gone, your mother was overtaken with hysterics, clearly in no shape to run a kingdom. So, ever practical people little mortals are, they are going to coronate me tomorrow as the new queen. I plan on my rule being very cruel and unpleasant, especially for my lovers. That maid, Maria, she looked especially delicious, and so eager to please..."

You can't do this to me! Please! It hurts! I don't want to be a snake! Gods, what they're doing to me! She shuddered in horror. I don't want to lay their eggs...

The Naga queen's smile turned predatory as Anna began sobbing in her mind. "And not just any eggs, you should know. Your father is not dead, but I needed him to disappear. And I thought, if a solution worked well for one fool, why would it not work well for another?"

Anna threw open her jaw and worked her forked tongue in shocked realization. That black boa...that reptilian organ writhing sickeningly in her...

No!

"Oh yes, fool of a daughter. Have fun incestuously birthing many generations of my grandchildren." The Naga queen straightened and threw back her silky golden hair. "I'll return in a century or two to see if you're worthy of perhaps becoming my full daughter again. Hopefully by then you will have forgotten being human and its silly passions, and learn how to be more...cold-blooded."

Anna struggled futilely to escape the writhing grip of the two male boas. The transformed Naga queen walked away, laughing mirthfully, to tend to her new kingdom.

- - -

The Naga queen was good to her word. Nearly two centuries to the day, Kervirtorax returned for Anna. The Royal Menagerie had long since burned to the ground along with most of the rest of the city. All the other animals had perished, but for some reason the snake that had once been the princess had remained unscathed even in the hottest flames. She nested in its ruins now, hunting animals and the occasional human foolish enough to come near. She was now well over forty feet long, and just the week before had swallowed her first full-grown deer.

Kervirtorax slithered openly up to Anna over the moss-covered rubble, wearing her original half-snake form as the Naga queen. She had shed the need to disguise herself as Anna over a century before, when her reign over the continent as Grand Dark Empress had been fully consolidated. Much of the kingdom that her father had ruled had been ground into ruins and mostly forgotten, victim of decades of unrelenting warfare.

"That was very fun, daughter," Kervirtorax said to the gigantic boa. Anna just flicked her tongue at the smaller, snake-like creature. Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognized it as familiar, and it was the first thing that she had seen in decades that moved that she did not instantly classify as potential prey. "You have no idea the fun you missed, reducing a dozen human kingdoms to ruined husks, seducing and murdering and devouring so many of them along the way."

The Naga queen looked up into Anna's glassy black eyes, each as large now as a dinner plate. She glanced deeper into Anna's mind, nodding in approval at what she saw. "Interesting," Kervirtorax said. "There's nothing human left in you. I guess two centuries as a snake was enough to completely bury twenty measly years a human. I was going to see about giving you another chance, daughter, but truthfully, I think I prefer you like this. Far less whiny, and you are as reptilian as I could hope for."

She scritched under her daughter's massive scaled chin. "Come. I have sated myself here, and its time to return to universes that truly matter." Kervirtorax turned and slithered around a corner that wasn't there. A moment later, not even comprehending the power she was using, Anna followed her Naga mother into other worlds.