The Elven City

"They train naked?" It was one of the the first question I had to ask, and while it was both blunt and crass, I could not hold back my curiosity at the display below as well. I'd never been allowed in a place like this before, so it was fascinating.

We sat side by side on benches overlooking a training arena, in shaded areas. Or, well, Vuryn sat on a bench and I sat next to her on the ground, my head resting on her knee a she stroked my hair. The seating had made the military encampment that we were watching look more like a place of entertainment than war, and it probably was in this case. Elves of various careers watched the sparring bouts and exercise drills with varying levels of interest, some talking amongst each other. None of the elven recruits below wore a lick of clothing, leaving the ones in command and training them standing out as they barked orders. Those clothed elves were the elite soldiers who had shown excellency in training to progress to battle, and after they had shown skill enough for more promotions. They'd been given had the privilege of command of the recruits, with the benefits of such power, too.

"Of course they do," Vuryn replied. The elven woman had probably seen plenty of naked spars with wooden spears and swords, elves wrestling each other in the sand, and stretching muscles in gruelling exercise that felt almost hypnotic to watch.

There weren't only elves in the arena. Naked as I was, but with collars tightly on their necks, were two women. They had their hair shorn short, and knelt in the sand, staring at the ground while the elves engaged in spars wrestled.

I felt a sense of camaraderie as I and those women had both willingly signed up for this life. Though I could imagine a human joining the military of elves, expecting the humiliation and degradation of being a mere recruit to last only months, only for the truth that it took decades for anyone to progress to the privilege of wearing armour. But then, they'd have sent most of their careers naked and following orders, with little hope to progress beyond that. Only the best got to succeed, and elven military favoured their own.

"But why?" I had to ask anyway.

"It builds camaraderie, humility, obedience, and it garners funding from the wealthy who enjoy the sight," Vuryn pointed at two of the richer elves. They were in the stands, drinking while watching the events below. She lifted a finger and with her magic, floated fruit she'd taken with us to her mouth and took a bite out of it. It exploded in her mouth. I knew that it was an issue; When I bit into one, the juice dribbled down my chin onto my chest.

"So they're... entertainment?"

The idea of it fascinated me. I'd never seen elves in a submissive position before.

"Not quite," Vuryn replied. "Now, I have a question for you. Your tour of my home city of Marnera so far - what do you think?"

Vuryn was tall, taller than me, even seated. Her history hinted at too much Orc blood too frequently in the distant past, presumably as part of the Steppe Wars, and because of her heritage, her skin was browner, and her canines protruded slightly, giving her small fangs. All of her appearance and aesthetic sent messages through my body and soul that begged me to just make her happy and keep on doing it.

Being naked aside her accentuated the difference, whilst she wore garments.

"It was very good, Vuryn."

It was a tour, but a biased one. The only way to describe it was if she'd taken Vuryn a tour of her own home city, but dragged her from brothel to tavern. It would have given a particular image of human culture. Though given elven culture, perhaps being taken from the breedery to an auction house to this place was the safest. Human women would be expected and tolerated in places like that here.

The elven woman smiled. "That is good to hear."

One of the human women on their knees was ordered into the ring. She didn't last ten seconds before she was pinned to the ground, the elf who was fighting against her making it a point to spread her legs out wide as she grappled her from behind.

Her opponent fought and bucked as best she could, but there was no escape. Even the instructor, who'd tapped out other elves early, wasn't helping. Instead, she was laughing alongside some of the other recruits. Eventually, she tapped the human out.

She practically crawled to her spot where the other woman was, and resumed her kneeling position while the instructor talked to the elven recruits, basically ignoring the two humans.

I knew that Elves were an odd race, academically. They didn't have men, and merely cloned themselves, occasionally varying their selves in appearance and physicality by occasional forays and dalliances into the locales of other races. It used to be that only free males were allowed in their cities, but as of recent years, they had allowed non-slave women within, too.

Not many did, and some that did quickly left due to one of the cultural quirks of elves.

One of those specific cultural quirks was - and it was an important fact for woman to know when dealing with elves in any context - that they saw women of all other races as vastly, vastly lesser to them. Elves were raised on their superiority, as the longest lived of all races. And this superiority it was enforced openly by law. In old times, women of the other races only had use in provoking elves to self impregnate and clone, to be sent to breederies as sows (which was a loanword that elves used to describe non-elf women in their native language) that once upon a time would keep the slave population stable, but now served as a form of entertainment for the male population who lived in the city, and as personal slaves.

Echoes of that still remained. If elven women were the first class citizens, and men were second class citizens, women were fourth class - right underneath actual animals. It took a specific kind of woman to willingly stay in an Elven city for any period of time. I was one of those women, it seemed.

Laws of the city utterly took away everything I would have had elsewhere. I was not allowed to wear clothing. I was not allowed to speak around elves without permission from one of them already. I was supposed to never mention my name, not even to other freewomen. We could not own property, or possess money, or do many other things because of all the rules and laws applied to me, even as 'free' women. As such, we were all at the whims of the elves who ruled this city first, and the men who lived here freely second.

Most women under such a number of humiliating restrictions give in eventually, even if just for the mercy of being allowed to wear clothing. They submit and marry to the men who thrived in this city, joined the various structures of government and business that would graciously accept lesser women for various purposes, or submit to an elf for enslavement, and thus some kind of protection.

I had pride in my freedom, lacking as it was. I was a stray human who had favoured people willing to be kind to my self. All I had to do was whatever they wanted and thank them for it. The act of being debased and pampered by them was how I got fed. The risks of that were worth it. It was thrilling, every second of it.

Vuryn was one such elf I got food from. She had a soft spot for women like me, as her heritage made other elves look down on her, just a little. Often, the 'halfbreeds' would be the most sadistic and cruel of the elves, as I knew too well from stories some strays would share, and my own experiences.

Vuryn took another bit of fruit, and fed me by hand. I wasn't allowed to touch food by hand, legally. She could have broken that rule at any point of our extended date, but she still is an elf. It's cute to her, to see me act like an animal receiving treats. It was a challenge not to brace my chin with my hand, to cup the juices as the spilled and not let them fall, but I managed it.

I suspected that the fact these fruit burst so easily was why she'd taken them with us.

I thought that she was willing to put a collar around my neck, to bring me into her home as a slave. I wouldn't submit, though. Freedom was too precious to me.

Another elven lady walked over to Vuryn. She saw and hissed in annoyance.

"Vuryn? Is anything the matter?"

Vuryn put a finger to my lips; the universal word for silence. I piped down and looked at the elf who had walked up to us. Her stern face, scar on her cheek, and broken and mended nose told me she was dangerous. The fact she wore a beautiful dress that looked just as good and colourful as some of the other elves told be she was powerful.

"Vuryn Tefole. How nice to see you," she said with false civility, before looking at me with mild amusement. "And is this sow yours? I didn't take you to decide to own a slave. I guess maturity changed you from such silly notions of equality of sows."

"Alaen Maron. I didn't expect to see you here. She's not mine," Vuryn said, her tone different. A little worried. I saw how her hands shook just a tiny bit. "She's a freewoman."

Alean smirked in a knowing way, as if to communicate that she knew that, and was just mocking Vuryn. I immediately didn't like her, because she pegged me as one of the kinds who looked down on elves who looked too unelven.

"Really? If she's not yours, then I can enjoy that thing, if I'm not mistaken?"

It wasn't a request. Vuryn looked at my eyes, even more worried, then back at Alean, her mind visibly racing.

I watched her deflate, and knew what was going to happen. She didn't love me enough to collar me, after all; just enough to enjoy my presence.

"That is not an issue with me. You may do as you wish with her."

Alean looked at me for a moment. I couldn't speak to her at all and she wasn't allowing me to speak. Her smirk made me want to punch it, and damn the consequences.

"I've done enough," she finally said. "I might take her under my heel if I see her around in the future, Vuryn. I'll be around."

She walked off with a strut. I breathed a sigh of relief when she was finally out of true earshot, which was larger for elves than humans, and Vuryn looked relieved too, but now I knew that she was a risk now.

"I don't think I can feed you any more," Vuryn said quietly. Her knuckles were held tight together, fists shaking in anger.

She knew. Alean just stated that if I was around Vuryn, she'd take me away from her. Just to get at Vuryn.

"Who was that?" I had to ask, regardless.

"Just some bitch who I knew in my youth," Vuryn replied. "I'm sorry, we should go now."

She gathered her things and got up, and I quickly followed, lest I be seen as a trespassing freewoman not under the watch of a superior specimen.

---

Vuryn had given me a pat on the head and quickly left, leaving me alone. I decided to look for a place to get my body clean. Women who were free and uncollared tended to avoid the streets. Married and enslaved women, Men, and elves tended to be there, and they'd see you as a nuisance at best, or get ideas at worst.

One such example was the poor freewoman who I saw out in the street, who I'd dubbed "Red". She was on her all fours, but with her hands and feet on the ground instead of the normal hands and knees, which made her butt and pussy prominently show themselves to everyone, and her head bow low to the ground. Two Dwarven men laughed as she tried to walk. "To the end of the street, bitch, then you get fed," the first one told her.

"And relief if you're fast enough," the second one added.

Though the idea of relief was good. Was Red a woman who liked being free to run wild, or was she a pervert who enjoyed being debased and degraded by almost everyone, with no name, no clothes, and no right to refuse?

What kind of woman was she? I'd seen her before, sleeping where free women were allowed to lay - small stations throughout the city, nearby drain urinals put into the street. Even women who were allowed tings had to hike their skirts up, shift aside their panties, and piss into those drainage basins as people walked by.

Pity for the bred women, whose bladders were pressed by pregnancy. They'd have to go though the process frequently. They'd have their children taken away, in old times. Boys to be raised, females delivered back to nearby villages not owned by the elven kin. Things were different now, but the detail weren't my concern. There was something to do with villages on the outskirts, communal schools and such.

The two dwarven men were at perfect height due to their stature to see everything, and only when they got to the end of the street, did they tell her to stop. But not get up. Red was forced to turn around, and while still straining herself on her hands and feet, she buried her face into a bowl of food that the two dwarves had carried with them in a rucksack. Red's legs likely had to part to help her eat, and she saw an elf point out the display to her friends, who laughed at the sight before moving on.

I moved on myself, looking for a place to get clean. The fruit juice was still on her, as Vuryn parted ways with me before she could clean it off my body.

Showers were common utilities for women, like basins. In fact, most basins were replaced with showers as time went by.

The nearest one was a set of four showers that lay in the middle of a market, placed to attract the eye, and subsequently attract customers to stores. I could have used a different one but the juice had begun to dry and feel gross, and I didn't care, really. If my nudity motivated me hide, I'd have given into the system in Marnera months ago.

And besides, another woman was already there; another free girl I'd dubbed in my mind Knees. She'd been forced on her knees before, made to kiss the toes of the elves who'd cornered her; a traditional greeting for non-elven women to do to elven ones.

The full greeting had a third, much more humiliating place to kiss as a final show of submission. Vuryn had made me do the true version before. I still remembered that fondly.

Fuck, I hated this. She was so nice to me, and then Alaen took that away because she fucking could. Because Vuryn was scared of her.

I made my way through the open area, and reached the showers. Water drizzled down and with it I focused on getting my boobs clean of juice, then my face and chin. It was so deeply cold. I hated that coldness, but it helped fight many things, like the throbbing need to cum in my nethers.

My hands drifted a little too much for someone's liking as I showered, apparently. An elf yelled at me from a seat nearby wen I spent too much time washing my pubic hair, where she was eating food. "Brown haired sow! Hands away!"

My hands shot away from my needy sex. Was I really going to play with myself here? Knees looked at me with a flash of grim pity, having done with her shower, shaking off the water from her hair like a wet animal. She couldn't give me any encouragement, because neither of us were allowed to speak in public.

"Fucking perverts, the lot of them," she then said to her companion. She turned to him, a human male. "This is why we question your kind. They're sows in heat. Just chain them all up already."

I tried to ignore the conversation, but it didn't work. I was mildly curious to how he'd respond.

He replied as expected.

"I can assure you, give any real man a month in your wonderful cities, and they would have the correct answer about the sow problem if they didn't harbour it already," he chuckled. "I'd truly leave Dansel the moment I could and stay here."

The elf who he was talking to chuckled quietly. "You're a very exotic man," she said, putting him in his place gently. "I'd love to teach you how to tame a sow."

"I'm sure you would," he replied, not showing his annoyance at all.

Men like him were odd. How they freely let themselves be part of the hierarchy, when most men who spoke like him spent their time in human society pumping out relentless screeds and fiction about taming savage elven ladies. It was hypocritical, but I guess they were fine with living out their fantasies of true male domination in here, before going back to Dansel to preach about accepting the part of elven culture they liked, with modifications.

There was a joke I heard two years ago, when I was twenty years of age and living in the kingdom of Dansel herself. It went like this; 'Who would have thought that the elves taught the humans to see all races as equals?'.

Once I'd done washing off juice and stepped away from the showers, the elf at the table talking to the man called on me again. Wet and shivering with cold, I walked up to her.

"Greeting." She commanded, pointing down.

I got down on all fours and kissed her feet, right first, then left. After that, I took the position of waiting. Hands holding ankles, legs spread, leaning back, facing ahead horizontally.

Facing the ground was easier, because it meant less things would walk by and break focus. Horizontally? It made the eyes follow. And thus, allowed opportunities for punishment.

Everything was a trap for women in this city. But still, I stayed free. They couldn't make me submit; I had to be broken down by the system, first. And so Elves like this one couldn't help but try to make sure I moved a little quicker towards inevitability. As if it was so.

"You're a desperate little thing, aren't you?"

For a perfect example of a trap, that was a rhetorical question. They loved to try that trick often, trying to bait us into talking.

"She's a smart one," the man said with a tiny bit of pride. He didn't like the idea of being shown up by a woman, even if she's an Elf who is likely hundreds of years older than him.

The elf sighed. "Sow, you may speak to me. Are you desperate, my little pervert girl? You were practically mauling your cunt in the open, there."

Was I desperate? That was another trap. Disagree and I provoke her, agree and I get punished. There was no winning any encounter here in an obvious way, as the only act I could do was entertain her enough that she'd let me run off quickly. I knew that there were people watching with interest. This was why people like me stayed in the shadows. If they liked what they say, hey'd think to pressure me into a collar. It wasn't illegal to try so. After all, I had to agree, first.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, this stupid pervert girl was mauling her cunt in the open, because she was so desperate." One trick was to self-abase myself enough. If I put enough effort into making myself seem debased enough that putting me in my place felt redundant or to much effort for them, they often would let me go on my way. After all, Elves had lives to live. Delays to whatever they had to do because they wanted to toy with a woman was not an accepted excuse.

This elf had time to play, however.

"And so honest, too," she purred. Her fingers glowed as she started using magic.

My breath stopped.

The elven woman touched me on my left and then right nipple, and the glow drained out from two of her fingers to my breasts, before fading. I felt hot there, now. The cold shower's work was undone.

"You know where this goes."

Still seated, she lightly kicked at my thighs to my me push my hips up for her. She tapped my clitoris, and the magic infused there.

Nearby elves at other tables laughed, knowing what was going on.

Today was going to be a bad day, it seemed. I'd lost contact with Vuryn, which meant i'd have to look elsewhere for a source of food, I'd not eaten much more than some fruit, and now I'd attracted attention of one of the worse elves.

The heat built further. If my nipples felt warm and sensitive enough that I was just as horny as I was before taking the cold shower, then this was making it very, very tempting to just break the law and touch myself without permission. Even though I knew it wouldn't go away, not while I was in range of her and she wanted my to suffer. I'd felt this before, from another elf I thought would be an easy mark two months ago. She'd used her magic to make me needy and desperate, then watched for excruciating minutes as I fought the urge to touch myself.