The Manliest of Honors

"I don't want this," said Alvin. "I cannot be a...woman."

"But you are. You are a fertile, young woman who is our property. You shall be the bed warmer for some of our fiercest warriors. Your first few children will be half-breeds, but in time another ritual will make you even more like us. Then the rest of your very long life will be spent making babies and being a nurturing mother."

Harleah looked at me.

"This is your fate," she said. "We dark elves need more children, and you pliable humans are going to help."

She beckoned me to go with her.

"You have elsewhere to go," she said. "Leave her to her thoughts. If she's smart she'll start to think to think of herself as a woman. If not...well even a mad woman can have babies."

As we left, the woman that had once been Sir Alvin looked at me. Tears were in her eyes.

"Please," she whimpered.

We left her in the cell alone.

Harleah led me down the corridor passed other cells. I heard the screams and the anguish as so many of my fellow soldiers met the same fate as the brave Sir Alvin.

"You're stronger than you look," said Harleah. "I've had other humans soil themselves, and fall the ground sobbing when they watched it happen. Understand that to us it's disappointing. You should be down on your knees begging for the chance to be a mother to our children."

"Then why don't you do it?"

Harleah stopped, and reared up on me. I thought she would strike me, but she stopped, and calmed herself.

"I wish I could," she said. There was a deep breath. "When I was a little girl I wanted to be a fighter, but I also wanted to have many strong children for our people. One of your human diseases ravaged our people, and almost killed me. When I got better, our healers told me that I would never be able to have children of my own. By doing this I am doing my part for the future of my people."

She smiled.

"Our people now."

"So, that's it then? You'll lead me to a cell, and I'll just wait there until that spider shows up?"

"Would you be more cooperative if I gave you something special?"

"What could that possible be?"

She kept talking as we walked. "Since I did not have to settle down to have children, I was free to attain more rank and power. We dark elves are matriarchal, so I can do quite a bit with some...encouragement."

"I don't follow."

"Every fortnight I meet with the man who runs the dungeons. I pleasure him with my mouth, and swallow his salty seed. He gives me free reign of the complex, besides if I really wanted it, I could take his position. This merely makes him feel gratified. What I'm offering to you is much the same. I will make you feel...like a man before.... well, you saw what will happen."

"You can't spare me that?"

"I'm not that powerful, and I believe in what we're doing. You should try and enjoy the pleasure that I'll offer you. When it's over you will have the honor of being a mother. Something that I will never have."

I said nothing.

It was difficult to think of myself as a traitor. I wanted only to escape at that point: to wake up shivering the cold, and realize that I was still with my human comrades. It would have been better to be suffering in the cold and hunger if we could still be ourselves. I wondered if I was the last one. Had all my companions already been converted to be breeders? How many of them would grow to accept that? Could I?

We finally arrived at a cell, and Harleah pulled me to a stop.

"I hope you don't waste this. I'm kind to so few of you."

"Why are you offering me anything?"

Harleah put her hand on my chest, and felt her way down.

"Perhaps I've taken a certain fancy to you. Of course, if they caught me mounting you there would be so many questions about my dedication and more importantly professionalism. So, it won't be me with you, even if that is slightly disappointing."

"Wait a minute," I said. "I thought that's what this was about: you giving yourself to me for pleasure."

"You were wrong. As I said it's too dangerous, besides I give myself to my commander when he desires it. Believe me: you don't want to make him jealous. No. What I shall grant to you will still qualify as funny and cruel to any who ask about it. They'll all laugh. Safer that way."

"Then what— "

She stopped me with a raised hand, and uttered the word to open the cell door. Harleah spoke another word and my shackles popped off. She pointed inside.

"Take what's offered," she said. "And know that if you refuse to do so, I will take it as an insult. Others will take her then, and you will be forced to watch. They will not be as kind."

I stepped into the cell, and Harleah closed the door behind me. The interior was much like the one with Sir Alvin. Once I passed the film hanging from the ceiling, the heat struck me again. The flow of the mushrooms was there. I remembered what Harleah did, and I pulled one off the wall, and cracked it open. Its oily liquid sprayed across the room at its rupture, and continued to pour onto the floor. I could see so much more then.

I saw the young woman manacled to the wall. She was petite thing, nearly a head shorter than I. Her hair was nearly black with sweat, and hung just to the nape of her neck. Despite her small size, she still had all the correct curves of a woman. The change had been hard on her, and her face was downcast in exhaustion.

There was no way I was going to do what Harleah wanted. It was cruel and terrible.

The young woman looked up to see me. Even in female form I knew those mousy features.

"Oh gods," I said. "They did it to you too, Jonah."

She whispered my name. Then asked: "Who am I? Am I still me?"

"You're my friend," I told her. "You always will be."

"What happened to me?" she asked.

I cringed. "You've been changed. I'm sorry. It's happening to all of us."

"But not to you."

"Not yet," I said. "There is no escape for any of us. Even Sir Alvin. I saw him...well, her now. This whole thing is a nightmare."

"I cried out for you to come and save me," she said.

"I'm so sorry, Jonah. "I failed us both."

The new Jonah smiled, and I was torn asunder trying to determine if her smile was sad or beautiful.

"She talked to me," said Jonah. "The dark elf. I heard her voice in my head. She told me that she would bring you here. I know what's expected."

"I won't do it. Not to you."

Her eyes went down again. "She also told me what would happen if you didn't do it. They'll hurt me."

"I can't do it, Jonah. You're my friend. I..."

"Say it."

"I love you. As a friend.... a brother. You know."

There were tears in her eyes. "Could it be more? If this is how I am now, then I will learn to live with it or I will die. If I could choose the first person to have me like this, then I would choose you. Who else would be kind with me?"

"But..."

"No," she said. "Please, let my first time be with you. Even if it will never happen again, it can at least be something for me to remember."

My hands found her shoulders. "Jonah..."

"Joanna," she said. "That makes more sense."

"No matter what happens, I love you."

"I know."

I heard Harleah's voice in the distance, and the manacles holding Joanna to the wall snapped open. She fell into my arms. I caught her, and with her body against mine I never felt so warm or so good in my life.

Her lips found mine. We kissed. There was no thinking of it as wrong.

She could stand with my help. Her feet looked so small compared to what Jonah's had been. The change had made Joanna only slightly smaller than Jonah had already been. It was not the startling contradiction that I had seen with poor Sir Alvin.

She clung to me, and I found myself afraid to touch her; as if she was suddenly so much more fragile than Jonah had been. This was not the same person as my friend. Harleah had said that she would be unable to say "no", but had that simply been referring to Joanna's desperation to have a good memory? She kept kissing me, and I held her petite form away.

"Joanna...we shouldn't."

"I want you to," she said. "Ever since I've known you, I've felt...different about you. I could never do anything the way I was before. Well, I could have, but I didn't think you would like it, and wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. But, maybe like this..."

My mouth opened to say something, yet there were no words there for me to grasp in desperation.

Joanna held me. Her small hand tracing the outside of my torn trousers. My body was firmly aroused despite the hesitation of my spirit. I was drawn to everything about her: the body that was now hers, the spirit that it contained, and the knowledge that it was still Jonah there despite everything that had happened.

"We don't have much time," she said. "I want us to be together this way, please."

I kissed her—committing fully to our fate.

Joanna pulled at what remained of my clothing. The road and our hardships had rendered my once expensive clothing into rags.

We stood naked together in the glowing light of the mushrooms like a newly married couple. I've never thought too much about the future. At this point my life was lost in the terror that the dark elves had leveled onto us. We had this small moment though.

Joanna urged me to the floor of the cell. She lied on her back, and I hovered over her. Our embrace continued. My hands found her pert breasts. They were proportionate to her form. Molder perfectly with hard prominent nipples. I could not keep my mouth away from them for long. Joanna made little noises as I suckled her.

"You like them," she said.

I could deny her nothing.

As we continued, my rigid cock touched the moist lips of femininity.

She liked it.

I used my hand to grab my erect sex, and traced it around the moist exterior of her cleft.

"You can do it," she said. "Be the first, please."

I found her warm, velvety entrance. Just the tip of my aching cock probed into her. Joanna breathed my name.

"Please take me," she said.

I eased my hardness inside of her, and nearly lost myself in the drowning heat of her. Joanna grunted as I ripped through her new maidenhead. Someone who had been a man only hours before must have never thought they would experience that: being filled for the first time.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No," she said. "It's what had to be."

We had to get into a better position. She scooted up her bottom—giving me a better angle to push myself into her.

"More."

And so, we continued. There was no thought of the significance or the consequences. We rutted like animals in those precious few moments. I wanted to apologize for everything that had happened. Jonah had always looked up to be as the strong one. It only made sense.

"Joanna," I tried to say.

Her mouth covered mine. We continued for several minutes. It was difficult not to get go immediately. We had been kept away from women for so long that the very experience seemed so foreign and fantastic. I didn't consider the oddities: that this had been my best friend who up until an hour ago, had been a male, and that fate was going to be mine shortly.

I didn't want to think.

Finally, the newly minted Joanna gripped me tightly, and cried out my name. She told me that she loved me. I tried not to think about that. How could I accept the love of someone that I had failed?

My own climax was not far behind. Joanna pulled me closer, and into my ear she said: "Please, put it all inside of me."

The tingling drain cranked its way through me. Thick jets of my seed poured into her. I didn't even consider that getting her pregnant was an option. I nearly collapsed on top of her.

Her hand stoked my wet hair, and she thanked me lovingly.

I didn't deserve that kind of adoration. It wasn't due for a traitor. I wanted her to hate me. Jonah had never been the hating type though. He was a lover, and now so was Joanna. I eased myself out of her, and lied down next to her. We held each other for a long time, and waited. Harleah did not return, and somehow that made it all so much worse.

"She's going to take you from me, isn't she?"

"Probably," I said. "This was supposed to be a one-time thing."

Joanna tightened her grip on me. "I like us like this," she said. "If we could be this way for the rest of our lives, I'd be happy."

"I'm not sure— "

"—No," she said. "I'm your woman now, and I say that you'll get us out of this."

She looked at me: straight in the eyes—probing deep within me. Trusting that as her man I could move the world. Not just trust, but an expectation she had with a new authority in our relationship. Jonah had become a different person after all.

"Get us out of here," she ordered. "Make us safe."

I sighed.

What was I supposed to do?