The Princess and the Pod

"Sela requires me to concentrate on nothing but Sela," Honnie said. "And Sela herself does not keep up with the outside world. So I know almost nothing of the past two years."

Rokal nodded solemnly. "As I suspected. Let me tell you what's happening. First, the Ice Kingdom is fighting a two-front war. They are battling us, of course, based on our own king's misguided orders to invade, and they are slowly losing. But they're also struggling with an invasion by the Berserkers of Corthos."

Honnie cringed. "The Corthosites are terrifying."

"They're horrific," Rokal agreed. "They are the cruelest and most brutish lot of savages in the known world. The Ice Kingdom has historically been our buffer to them, but the Ice People are beleaguered. They're in serious trouble in a two-front war."

Honnie was well schooled in the art of diplomacy, and Rokal had respected her perspectives during their earlier journey together, when she had been bargaining for her life. "Why can't you offer peace to them? Let them fight off Corthos on one front?"

"Because our king had ordered us to war, and now our king is dead. The only person who can call off the dogs of war is Princess Sela. And as you just mentioned, Sela knows nothing about such matters. She will not even entertain a conference with me on the topic."

"You're the lead general. Can you arrange an informal truce without Sela's knowledge? Something that doesn't show up in the official records?"

Rokal smiled at the savviness of the tiny Lainian princess. "I must follow the orders of the king. At the moment I am skirmishing the Ice Kingdom as lightly as possible, and am in a defensive stance. I'm nonetheless tying up entire divisions of their army because they don't know my strategy and I obviously can't reveal it. I would much rather see those soldiers fighting Corthos and keeping them from our own doorstep. The war against the Ice Kingdom was a huge mistake by our king. At the end of his reign his mind was little more than that of a child. Sela wished to have an Ice Kingdom royal to warm her bed as a servant, so we effectively went to war for the sake of a warm tongue between her legs."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm dead serious. And as a result, we face the risk of a full-scale Corthos invasion if the Ice Kingdom collapses. And that collapse is imminent."

Honnie took a deep breath. "I certainly bear no positive wishes for your own kingdom at the moment, but we all know that the worst fate for everyone would be to fall under Corthosite control."

"They're a scourge upon the planet."

Honnie swallowed hard. "And as we talk about control, may I ask the fate of my own kingdom?"

"The Lainian Kingdom formally fell with your capture and the downfall of your father. The world's maps no longer show it as a nation."

Honnie's nostrils flared and her mouth set with grim determination.

Rokal studied her reaction for a moment. "But that doesn't tell the whole story. A handful of generals retreated to the coastal islands, and they have built a guerilla army. They continue to fight."

Honnie's eyes rose, and in them Rokal saw a glimmer of redemption. "They continue to fight?"

"Yes. Now, you realize that they're doomed. They're a tenth the size of the forces that we can send after them if we choose."

"Then why haven't you done so?"

Rokal shifted uncomfortably on the cushions. "There are many reasons. The war with the Ice Kingdom is taking our troops, of course. Beyond that, the Lainians have relationships with the various pirate tribes, and those pirates are tying up our navy. Attacks are happening all along our coast to keep us from crushing the Lainian resistance. The we have the Malokian problem. The Lainians have always been a buffer against the Malokians and their ships. You have relationships with them, and we don't. We have no appetite for a war there. It has historically been in our best interest to have a Lainian ally on that flank." Rokal swirled his wine in his glass as he debated his next statement.

"And finally," he said with a deep exhalation, "I am madly in love with the heiress to the Lainian throne and I wish to see her rightly crowned."

Honnie's jaw dropped, and she tried to comprehend the statement. Then her eyes sagged with melancholy. "Our moment has come and gone, Rokal. The world has changed. I no longer even hold the crown. I'm just a servant now, and in fact you hold the crown to my kingdom, for whatever value it's worth."

"It's worth nothing in my hands. I'm despised there. It's my cannons and my troops who destroyed them. But you, on the other hand..."

A glimmer of recognition alit. Honnie made eye contact and he saw hunger in her eyes.

"If the right set of circumstances arose, and you and I found ourselves in the right positions, we could end this strife. We could re-establish the Lainian Kingdom with its rightful borders, and perhaps we could merge the kingdoms peacefully under one reign."

Honnie had a wonderful sly smile. "General Rokal, do you have a plan?"

Rokal smiled at his one true love. "I recognize that you're still exhausted from the Secondskin. But as the crown prince of the Lainian Kingdom, I would yield my crown for a single kiss from my love."

Honnie's smile broadened, the impish adorable smile that he had fallen in love with. "You've already ravished my body, general, but you have not yet fallen under the spell of my kiss."

Rokal's dream came true, and seconds later he became a commoner again.

****

Honnie had endurance and she had loyalty. As a royal, she could pleasure Zeeta without consequence, and she did not leave her fellow princess's squirming body for the next several days. Rokal, no longer a royal, sat with her as often as his duties would allow. They had two years of catching up to do, of course, and he also allowed himself to enjoy the sight of Honnie going down on Zeeta's coral-pink pussy and sucking on Zeeta's melon-sized breasts. Honnie had serviced Zeeta unwillingly, and vice versa, for so long that she knew every movement, every spasm of climax. Honnie knew the pleasurable agony that Zeeta was undergoing, and was determined to ameliorate it as much as possible. Day and night she fingered the trapped blonde, stroked her, and licked her, and Rokal delighted in anticipation of the day when this crisis was over and it might be his turn to receive such delights.

On the morning of the fourth day, Zeeta fell free. With a final chip of the Secondskin she rolled without warning, only to be caught by two workers before she could impact the ground.

Honnie and Rokal knelt above her. "Zeeta!" Honnie cradled the Ice Princess's head. "You're going to be okay. You're free."

Zeeta's lashes fluttered open. Her blue eyes stared up at the sky, then blearily gazed at Honnie, trying to focus. Her lips mouthed unintelligible words, her body quaking and quivering in the aftermath of two weeks of nonstop sexual torment.

Rokal grinned. "Take her to a tent and get some food and liquid into her," he ordered. "Princess Honnie, your highness, would you please accompany Zeeta and oversee her care?"

"Certainly, General." In public, Rokal and Honnie knew to be distant and formal.

Rokal watched as a crew of medics carted off the beautiful blonde. His cock twitched at the memory of how he had serviced her for so long, and how he had had the privilege to use her for his pleasure. He was going to miss that toned body and those succulent, sensitive breasts.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Now he had other things to attend to. Unpleasant things. Redhead things.

He walked over to the giant pod of the Secondskin, which was now nearly three-quarters demolished. Only one princess remained trapped, and she was the problem princess. Sela was free up to her chest, and Rokal could see the swell of her pleasantly sized breasts emerging from the thick, hardened gel. Her stomach moved with each breath, flat and smooth. Her shoulders, arms, and head were still trapped firmly in the creature.

Because she had been trapped while on her back, she would have been in an extremely uncomfortable position with her lower body free. To keep her back from arching downward, her ankles and knees were now tied to tall poles, suspending her legs and hips in the air. This kept her wearily humping pussy wide and exposed. Rokal stepped between her legs and gave himself a good look.

Sela's red pubic hair was a neatly trimmed rectangle on her mound. Her lips were bare of fur, and nicely shaped, symmetric and pink, though their inflamed desire painted them more of an angry red at this point. They were glistening with desire, and nestled between them was a large and needy clitoris. As he watched, Rokal could see the clenching and unclenching of her desperate vagina.

If Sela had been a beloved queen, her situation would be different. Rokal had figured out a way to help Honnie and Zeeta to relieve their desperation, but neither he nor anyone else in the camp had a desire to help Sela. As a result, her needs had been quietly and conveniently ignored as the camp concentrated on the two hostage princesses. Based on what he had heard from the others, he could only guess at the exquisite agony she was feeling from two weeks on the edge of orgasm.

He leaned down close to her pussy, and gently blew air onto her clit. The slim hips bucked and begged, causing him a little grin.

He stood up. Sonnsoe the scribe was sitting nearby.

"Scribe Sonnsoe, has Princess Sela made any requests or demands since we last spoke?"

The woman nodded and picked up her scribe tablet. She spoke in the precise manner of her people. "She decreed to, 'make me cum', 'touch me', 'get Honnie lick me', and 'get Zeeta lick me'. She has repeated these decrees many times."

"Please record that Princess Honnie and Princess Zeeta are royal hostages of foreign kingdoms, and thus are not obligated to provide any services to Princess Sela. However, General Rokal will forward the requests to them as a representative of the kingdom as soon as they are rested and able to consider such a request."

The scribe looked calmly up into Rokal's eyes. "It will be done."

"And please enter in the record that General Rokal cannot authorize any commoner to provide sexual services to the princess unless she willingly gives up her crown."

"It will be done."

Rokal looked over his shoulder at the trapped royal, her slim hips exhaustedly and desperately humping air. "And now," he murmured, "it's time to finally get a good night's sleep."

****

Progress to free Sela went very slowly once Zeeta had been freed.

Very slowly.

Rokal noticed that the soldiers who had been chiseling away the Secondskin seemed to be weary, so he offered to pay for camp concubines if they wanted a day off, and they did. Insala and Sonnsoe, the official communicators for the victims, were sent off for rest as well.

As evening fell, he sat with his trusted aide Giana on wooden stumps near the princess, sitting guard around a small campfire. The two captive princesses, Honnie and Zeeta, sat with them in fine padded chairs that were pulled from Sela's wagons of goods. Together, they watched the trapped princess Sela writhe and struggle. She was not far from being freed, with everything but her shoulders, arms, and head now exposed to the world, but that didn't bring her respite. The remaining elements of the Secondskin still hummed through her body in a way that was driving her insane with sexual need. By happenstance, her left hand had been freed up to the wrist, positioned far from her body as it protruded from the mass, and it waggled and made fists, tapping frequently against the solid creature that still imprisoned her. Her index finger frequently pointed frantically downward toward her hips.

Rokal sipped from a canteen of mead. "How much longer until we're back moving again?"

Giana shrugged as she held her own alcoholic beverage. "I figure maybe five days. We get her out in three at the current pace, and then by the time she recovers and we get camp broken it'll be four."

The fire crackled, embers floating up into the evening air.

"Don't tell the princess," Rokal said quietly, "but I've rather enjoyed the peace and quiet of the past two weeks."

Giana laughed, and even Honnie and Zeeta chuckled.

Rokal watched the red-haired queen struggle. He took a deep breath. "I ask this not for my own personal curiosity, but for other reasons. Can you tell me what she is feeling right now?"

Honnie and Zeeta looked over at their mistress.

"Will you inform the princess of what we say?" Zeeta asked.

"We are off the record. We're just four people sitting around a campfire."

Zeeta spat onto the ground. "She's getting what she deserves." The Ice Princess was not raised to be tactful.

Honnie's response was softer. "They say that there are things that you would not wish upon your worst enemy. After two years as the princess's slave, I would say that it's something that I would not wish upon my second-worst enemy."

Giana knew the line of questioning that Rokal was trying to introduce, so she used the directness that a female could offer. "How far is she from cumming right now? It's an important question. We need you to tell us exactly how it affected you."

Honnie and Zeeta watched the squirming Sela for a moment and conferred in low tones.

"We think it depends on how much of you is in contact with the Secondskin," Honnie said. "When we were completely imbedded..." She shuddered involuntarily. "When I was imbedded, it always felt like I was right on the verge of cumming. Just a quarter-second away. But I couldn't get there."

Zeeta nodded. "I couldn't even think. My brain was right at that point where it's about to explode in an orgasm."

"I couldn't think, either," Honnie said. "I could only feel. It was like time was stopped right as I was about to cum. I knew that I was alive and I knew that I was about to cum, but I was capable of nothing else."

"Hellish. Absolutely hellish," Zeeta concurred.

"But that's when you were completely imbedded. Is it different if you're not?" Giana leaned forward in interest. "What if most of your body is free?"

Zeeta nodded. "At the beginning and at the end, it was different."

"How so?"

"I think it was because we were only partially trapped. But I could think. I was rational. I just badly needed an orgasm."

Honnie agreed with her fellow captive. "It's like when a lover is pleasuring you and you're so close that you pull them into you to keep them going. Or if they pull away, you have to finish yourself regardless of how it looks." She blushed with the words. "You're so close that you can't let it stop. But in this case, it won't stop anyway."

"So she's not on the razor edge of orgasm any more?" Giana tilted a head toward the imbedded Sela.

"No, it would probably take 20 seconds or a minute to make her cum. She's really close, but given how much of her body is outside the Secondskin, she's going to be rational at this point. She's just dying for an orgasm."

Rokal and Giana exchanged meaningful glances.

"And we're not servicing her to let her cum. Sonnsoe says she keeps demanding us. Sela's going to be mad as a hornet when she gets out," Honnie said. "Rokal, is there any way you can protect Zeeta and me?"

Zeeta shook her head warily. She was recovering quickly and had the light of awareness back in her eyes. "She's mean," the blonde said. "Not just mean, but cruel."

"You won't be the only ones facing her wrath," Rokal said. "I suspect she won't be happy with me, either."

Sela's bound hips humped the air, her trim legs slick with sweat.

"Tell me," Rokal sighed. "What is it like to be her servants?"

Zeeta and Honnie exchanged glances. Honnie continued, her voice muted. "It's terrible."

"How is it terrible?"

"She treats us with disdain. She torments us. We're on the run 24 hours a day trying to keep her satisfied, but if everything isn't the way she wants, she ... does things to us."

"Does things?"

Zeeta and Honnie again exchanged glances. Zeeta was less shy. "She keeps us naked in her private quarters. And she'll twist our nipples if she doesn't like something. Hard. She won't stop until we're on our knees begging for mercy. Or she'll make us stand with our legs spread and she'll kick us between the legs."

Rokal practically snarled. One did not treat servants in that manner even if they weren't royals.

Zeeta continued. "And you know by now, so there's no reason to hide it. She makes us service her sexually. In many different ways. Sometimes she makes Honnie and me do things with each other while she watches. Unnatural things."

"She'll tie us down to the bed and ride our faces," Honnie said glumly. "I don't want to go back to that. I can't."

Rokal frowned even as his cock twitched.

"Tell me how she interacts with advisors. She does get visits from advisors, correct?"

"Yes." Honnie spoke up. "We're at her side 24 hours a day. We hear what happens."

Rokal knew that he wouldn't like the answer, but he asked anyway. "How studious is she? How astute is she in understanding the responsibilities of royal power?"

Honnie and Zeeta looked at each other and laughed. Honnie spoke for them. "She rejects her education and tutoring most days. She's far more interested in hosting parties and sailing on the royal yacht."

Zeeta chimed in. "The advisors will come back day after day, and she'll send them packing. You had an emergency visitor recently. An envoy from my kingdom. And she was turned away."

Rokal's brows rose. "An Ice Kingdom envoy visited Sela? When did this happen?"

"A few weeks ago. It was how Honnie and I deduced that your king had died."

"What was the conversation?"

Zeeta's eyes flashed lightning. "There was no conversation. Sela refused to meet with the envoy."

Rokal's thoughts spun, both with the tactical and the strategic. "Do you know why the Ice Kingdom sought a meeting?"

Zeeta shook her head. "No. But your diplomats were begging Sela to meet with her. Our countries are at war, a war that your king started, and she refused to have an audience with our diplomat. That sends a strong message."

Rokal put his head in his hands. There was no reason such a thing would happen unless the Ice Kingdom was seeking a truce. What an opportunity lost.

"General Rokal, may I ask you a question?"

"Yes, Zeeta."

"How is my kingdom faring? I've heard that the Corthosites have attacked." She cast a quick guilty glance toward Honnie.

Rokal didn't mind the violation of confidence, and in fact had expected it. He made direct eye contact with the Ice Princess. "It's not good."

"Who leads them?"

"That's a complication." Rokal hesitated a moment, but went with the blunt truth. "Your mother's caravan was ambushed by the Corthosites, and she did not survive. Were you aware?"

"Sela informed me with great delight last year." Zeeta's powder blue eyes lost focus for a moment.

"I'm sorry." Rokal's remorse was sincere. "History will not look kindly upon our king and our kingdom during this era. But I have a reason for telling you this. You were next in line for the throne, but obviously you are not able to assume that duty, so it has fallen to a person named Marston. We know nothing about him."

Zeeta's eyes widened. "Marston?" She did some math in her head. "He was seventh in line for the throne at the time that I was ... well, before I was enslaved by you." Her face hardened at the recognition. "There must have been a number of untimely deaths."

"The two-front war has been very costly to your kingdom." Rokal looked around the group. He could trust Giana. He could trust Honnie. He needed to trust Zeeta. "Can you tell me about Marston?"

Zeeta's face turned to stone. "I will protect my kingdom to the death. We are at war, so you will learn nothing from me."