Service, Humility, and Grace

This story features a knight being forcefemmed by a Princess until she becomes a knight who is both strong AND also a super submissive feminine pet for her liege so, like, maybe some folks would be into that. I know I am I think it rox. It's also nearly 16,000 words so, like, take it in short bursts I guess. There's hopefully enough smut to keep folks interested but also a lot of personal dynamics and relationship interplay for the discerning tastes.

This story is more forceful on the whole forcefem than I usually write, so heads up! As for more specific warnings, there's lots of power dynamic abuse, bullying, people getting embarrassed about being made into girls, and some light light transphobic inferences from a jerkass during the ball scene, all kinds of stuff that is not, strictly speaking, nice. There are good vibes at the end, I promise! And everyone ends up enjoying themselves despite some initial reluctance, but I want to say up front that there is some GENDER (in caps) in this story, so read it when you're ready to have a guy getting Forced to be Femme and not pleased by it (at first).

Also there's a fight scene. Heads up there's mention of some slices and minor wounding/blood loss. Not during the actual sex scenes obviously, but in between.

Enjoy!

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"Do you know what power is?" Princess Katerina asked, her focus pinned to her perfectly manicured nails as opposed to the object of her query. She sat with one leg draped over the armrest of her throne, with her elbow resting on her knee. The casual way she let others stare up the frills of her petticoat beneath the hem of her dress left many newcomers scandalized. Offended, even.

But Lennox barely gave her lurid display of impropriety a glance. Instead, he waited to see if this was yet another of her tiresome rhetorical questions. When she didn't continue to roll into another self important rant, he proffered a reply.

"No, I'm afraid I don't. Pray tell, highness. What is power?"

They held this conversation in the Throne Room of the Winter Court, the Kingdom's holdfast in the frigid southern reaches of its territory. For continuity reasons, the various sons and daughters of royal blood were kept far away from one another. That way a Curse or particularly devastating weather spell couldn't kill them all in one swoop. Katerina was sixth in line, and thus never considered a serious contender for power. Nevertheless, she was of the blood. Worthy of protection by a Houseguard Knight.

Katerina was an archetypal Daughter of the House of Forde: beautiful, talented, yet delusionally self-confident. She wore her family's silver hair long, allowing the faintly glowing ends to rest on one side of her clavicle. The glow was not natural, though not remarkable either; merely a magical affectation that was all the rage with mages of particular pedigree. Her bronze skin and pinched features made her look like a pitiless statue of some ancient empress, not the young woman she was. Despite her youth, she often exposited on matters of the world like she was just a few weeks study away from knowing everything worth knowing. Not omniscient...but getting there.

"Well, I'm glad you asked. Power, my dear Knight, is the ability to make people do things they don't want to do. Whether it be financial power making people slave away in toil, or martial power enforcing one's own will through blade or..."

"Or the power of one's oath," the Knight added. Unsaid was his outright contempt for someone so completely inexperienced with the world waxing lyrical about its fundamental forces.

But something about his statement added a glint to the Princess' eye. "Mere words can give you control over someone with tremendous physical strength...like yourself, for instance."

He bristled despite himself. "I...cannot say I agree with the idea that an oath, taken in the Light of the One, is merely words. Words are cheap, and spoken without concern to their cause. Oaths are statements. An impression stamped by force of will into the world." Unconsciously, he touched the pommel of his sword. A gift from the King upon becoming a Knight, and a material symbol of his fealty.

The look of amusement on the Princess' face made it clear that rather than find his breach of propriety insulting, she revelled in it. The young woman was a terror, plain and simple. Though he was only a few years older than Katerina, the two had lived in separate worlds for much of their lives. Being a Knight was a life of duty, honour, and respect for those in authority. A trust, implicit but firm, that your betters would not only have your best interest, but those of the entire kingdom at heart.

Katerina was a firm rejection of the ideals at the heart of Lennox. He'd known that she'd been 'wild of spirit' growing up, having served as Palace Guard for several months before the war. He had hoped that after turning of age, she would have learned from her parade of tutors and instructors some level of respect and decorum. Some infinitesimal speck of gratefulness, for being placed as she was in the lap of one of the finest kingdoms of all of Argan.

But no. The young woman who looked at him with barely concealed impish delight was no more fit to be Queen than he was. And yet, by dint of blood and the capricious winds of fate, he was duty bound to her. To give her not just the respect of her birthright, but to offer his very life to assure her protection.

"The paragon speaks!" the Princess declared, shifting in her throne to be leaning in like a rapt pupil attending a lecture. "Are you telling me there is nothing anyone could do to make you break your oaths?"

The verve in Lennox's replies drained away. He was unsure where Katerina was going with this, but she had much more freedom to 'play' than he did.

"I am a Knight, Highness. I have a duty to protect you, but if you are thinking of attacking me-"

She waved off the suggestion like a trivial gnat. "I am not about to leap upon you. Nothing so crude, at least. But your commentary has given me something to think about."

The conversation ended there, but Lennox knew the fiendish gears in the mischievous woman's mind were turning. Not for the first time that day, let alone his assignment, he began to think of ways to, gracefully, be assigned to another part of the realm.

***

Weeks later, and Lennox was returning from one of his frequent patrols of the castle grounds. Heavy boots crunched in the packed snow as the air threatened to drain the very life from his bones. Even in less than an hour away from the keep, he felt dangerously close to losing the feeling in his fingers and face. The rest of him was bound in scaled mail, bound underneath heavy icebear fur. Like a lumbering beast, he trudged into the castle's cracked gatehouse.

The guard was one of his, not a Knight but a competent enough sort, some daughter of a retainer looking to curry favour. She saluted in the new style and offered a spot by the fire. Lennox's stoic exterior concealed just how enthusiastically he accepted the offer.

"How many more months of winter, sir?" the guard, Crys, asked. She wore much less lavish, and likely less warm, furs over her armour. Rodents mostly, with a patchwork of pelt colours that evoked a whimsical quilt his Grandmother had once sewn out of the outgrown playclothes of the royal children. Her spear leaned up against the wall, with wrapped hands thrust close enough to the fire to be a danger of the cloth catching if she wasn't careful.

"Same as the last time you asked. Three at the least. But the winds-"

"-will keep the air cold enough to cut with," Crys finished, and the soldiers exchanged a small smile. Neither were from this part of the world, so snow had been an interesting novelty when they'd arrived. Now, Lennox wished every time he saw the stuff it would be the last.

The Knight entered the keep, past the heavy wooden door, and doffed his sweat-slickened armour as quick as decorum might allow. The perfidious chill of the air would fade, he told himself. He would head to the dining hall and request a big, heaping bowl of the royal cook's hunting stew. Then he would curl up with one of his books and-

"KNIGHT LENNOX!"

He turned weary eyes to the other end of the room to see the jittering form of Vikka, the Princess' attendant. Whip thin and a permanent resident of the edge of her wits, she followed her charge's instructions with all the enthusiasm and vigour of a bound demon. If her mistress was deserving, that loyalty might have been inspiring.

"I have just returned from patrol, Vikka, so unless this is urgent-"

"It is INCREDIBLY urgent!" the maid, among other things, said in her shrill tone. She even stamped her feet for emphasis, though the fact that she was a full foot shorter than the Knight while he wore boots made the gesture less of a tyrant making a demand and more of a temper tantrum. "The Princess DEMANDS your attendance AT ONCE!"

Lennox took the deepest breath of his life. In it, he cultivated all his ire, all his frustration, feeling it swell in him like a cresting wave...then exhaled, letting that feeling flow out of his body.

"Tell her I will be there momentarily."

The servant didn't so much leave as she did vanish in a cloud of dust, her departure heralded by the pitter-patter of footsteps that were too quick to be a walk but far too dignified to be a run. Lennox did allow himself some time to make himself presentable, quickly throwing on a change of clothes.

The one thing he kept from his patrol outfit was his sword. Not only was it his weapon, his tool with which to protect his Kingdom. But it was the symbol of his rank. A militia or a guard could wield many weapons. A bow. An axe. But only Knights could use a longsword, or at least, use it the way it was meant to be used. An axe could chop logs, a bow could poach a deer or rabbit. But the blade of a sword was meant for one purpose alone: the death of another person. A weapon of war.

And so he wore his scabbard along with his formal doublet and pantaloons, a new fashion he'd grown quite fond of for its lack of frivolity, to his meeting with her royal highness. He still smelled of sweat and metal, but if she had a problem with it, that was her problem. A minor riposte for having summoned him in such a way.

The door to the Princess' bedchambers opened just before his hand touched the door handle. Vikka stood on the other end, her eyes wide like those of a prey animal in the last moments of life.

"You were told to come immediately!" she hissed.

"Let the man in, Vikka. And let yourself out. I have something to discuss with him in private." The maid sputtered, but obliged, curtseying her acquiescence before leaving the two alone, closing the door with unnecessary force.

Lennox had been in the Princess' bedroom often enough, though rarely on his own. It wasn't like she had anything to fear from a Knight sworn to her father's service. But it was a matter of decorum and propriety; Knights were not left alone in the presence of young noble ladies who they were not actively courting. A royal in direct line to the throne least of all. Though, as always, this was not a concern his charge seemed to hold.

As for the room itself, it had somehow gotten messier in the several weeks since his last visit. Items like clothing and food were not in sight, of course, that was Vikka's purview. But the tables were covered in notes, quills, jars of ink, various half-consumed potions, and magical gemstones of every description, things likely specifically excluded from the servant's duties. Tomes older than some religions had been piled up like cordwood near the room's fireplace, liberally marked with finger-width strips of coloured fabric to mark place. Some were even dog-eared, an act of almost callous disregard for the cost of what a book like that cost.

"May I ask the nature of your summons?" he asked. After years of practice of dealing with those in authority, the irritation barely bled into his tone.

The Princess held up her right hand, continuing to write in her notebook with her left. For whatever reason, those with magical talent tended to be left-handed. Not always, but often.

"Do you remember our last conversation, in the throne room? On the nature of power, and honour?"

"Yes." Short answers were always preferable. Katerina was a rhetorical hyena, and would clamp her jaws on any elaboration like a scrap of meat. Something he regretted not hammering into his head.

I've been mulling over what you said." She put down her pen in a crystal inkwell. The magical dye drained from the phoenix feather and back into its reservoir with steady pulses of soft, red light. "I will be the first to admit, I may have been too quick to judge your response. We see things differently, as two people in different stations in life are wont to do. As a scholar of the arcane as well as an heir to the throne, it is my duty as well as my desire to see beyond my first impressions. How can one rule if they only see what's beneath the bridge of their own nose?"

Lennox felt a swell of hope. Just a tiny sliver, he'd been cut out at the knees before. But maybe, just maybe, the young woman was starting to learn something more than how best to make a father disappointed.

"I'm...grateful that I could be of service in such a fashion," he offered, inclining his head slightly. She smiled in return, though he could could on his hands the number of times that expression had been a good omen.

"Honour is not something I've interacted with in any meaningful way. I'm aware of it as a concept, and by the rules those under its sway operate. But I lack intimate context, something I'd like to amend. You are brave, and strong, and surely a representative of the best qualities of your sex and position. But who are you besides the powerful man? The virtuous paladin? You play the role of the protector of young maidens, but what of Lennox the person? Is there anything underneath the armour?" She pantomimed covering her mouth in shock as if embarrassed before adding: "So to speak."

Frankly, he thought there wasn't a whole lot about her to understand. But he played along.

"'Understanding other perspectives is one of the steps towards true wisdom,'" he recited. A flaccid truism a Prior had told him once.

"I couldn't agree more! To that end, I'm giving you a gift." She pointed to the hilt of his sword. "Present that to me, pommel out, if you would be so kind."

With a flicker of hesitation, he did so. His sword was, in more ways than one, his most valuable possession. But ultimately, it was a symbol of loyalty and obedience to the royal family. And she was a Princess. She was His Princess, his charge. So he obeyed. He could do nothing else

Katerina examined the weapon like it was a curio fit for a cabinet, not a tool of death. She let her finger trail along the handguard, the soft pad of her finger no doubt finding every slight chip and nick from its use. She smiled as she reached the pommel, no doubt recognizing the crest of her family's house. But as she stood there, examining her heraldry, her hand cupped around the metal ball at the base of the sword. And, with a chant from her lips, the metal began to warm.

"Your highness?" Lennox asked, but she did not respond. The chanting grew in volume, as did the warmth coming off the blade. He expected it to melt, or twist, or do something horrible that only a mage could conjure from their sinister imagination. But the sword remained whole. It did not drip down his hands, molten steel fusing to his flesh. But it had been changed.

When she uncupped the pommel, it had transmogrified into...something else. It looked on the surface like some kind of precious stone, raw and unpolished, but it was pink. He knew no stone or mineral that was that colour. It was very...very...

"The word you're looking for is rose quartz. Or, I suppose, that's two words," she supplied, examining her handiwork.

"I don't understand. You've changed the pommel of my sword to a gem?"

"Oh no, not a gem. Non magical rose quartz is barely worth anything in such a small quantity. But it does make for a spectacular medium for carrying slow release, long term spellwork."

The words slotted into place, and already he began to hold his blade out away from his body. "You've cursed my sword."

The Princess snapped her fingers. "Why aren't you the cleverest Knight in the land! Yes, Lennox, I've cursed your blade. I've made it emit a kind of, well, let's say transformational radiation. It won't affect anyone else, so long as you don't stand near them for too long. But if you keep it close to your body, over time, the spell I've woven into the pommel will begin to change you."

An ember of rage began to glow in his heart. This...profound violation of trust ate away at the very heart of him. His ideals, his beliefs. When he spoke again, it was with as cold a fury as he could manage.

"Transform me into what?"

"Well, I am not above admitting my own failings, but I've detected from you a lack of understanding as to the challenges and demands that come from being of the female persuasion. If I may be so bold, your stoic, taciturn, and dower attitude leaves you totally insulated from the concerns of a fellow member of the fairer sex. So, I've endeavored to correct this discrepancy."

"To what end."

"Toward the end of mutual understanding!" She said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Lennox stared at the pommel. The material had changed, but the royal seal was still intact. Damn, he couldn't even remove the cursed thing on a technicality.

"And if I refuse this gift?" he asked.

The Princess feigned shock. "I...I don't understand, my dutiful Knight. You would reject a gift from your charge? That's not very honourable, is it?"

"This...gift...would interfere with my ability to perform my duties," he replied, trying not to grind his teeth.

"That's strange. Knights Hesta and Gillain are both women. Do they not perform satisfactorily? Are you saying you are above them? Would Knight Hesta be somehow impaired by her mammaries or her increased hip to waist ratio and be unable to defend my person?"

"Of course not, but-"

"Then I can only surmise that the rejection of my gift, this lovely customized pommel for your blade sworn into my service, was that you personally do not like me. Is that the case?"

A long, perhaps too long, pause. "No, your highness."

She clapped her hands together. "Wonderful! Well, I expect to see you sporting your new, enhanced weapon at every opportunity. And I will instruct the keep's staff to make sure that you have the blade on your person at all times, as a good Knight should do. Failure to do so will, well, I believe you know what would happen to a derelict, disobedient servant to the crown."

Lennox did know. He'd done some of the executions himself. "And there is no way to convince you to not follow through on this...gift?"

She smiled serenely. "Well, I suppose there would be. If you would tell me you forsake your oath of obedience, then I would be forced to take back my gift. Of course, it would just be between you and me. There would be nothing to come of it, no reprimand or sanction. I would just need to hear from your lips that the vow you made in the Light of the One was just words."

His every hackle rose. The damnable, petulant little girl. She had no right to do this! Having lived a life devoid of actual trial, shipped away to live out these months in the lap of comfort on the far edge of any responsibility she might have, her Highness had decided to make sport of his most heartfelt of beliefs. Part of him, not an insignificant part, wanted to rip the pommel off and hurl it with all force at her smug face. But that was what she wanted. And, given her magical acumen, he doubted it'd do much.