The Tale of Queen Arta Ch. 02

Author's Note: Chapter 2 has been a LONG time coming. No pun intended here. I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the series but couldn't quite find the voice, the inspiration, the time to make progress. It has lurked in the shadows of my computer, begging for completion. At long last, it is here, completed. With the amount of time intervening, I fear this chapter--and those that succeed it--will feel like when a second author inherits the work of the first. I hope this is no disappointment and that you enjoy it.

-----------------------------

Missing. Killed. Disappeared. Or just plain moved on, men being such fickle beasts as they are, after all. Whatever the case, whatever the story, her Violet Knight had vanished. Neither man, nor beast, nor lady, nor vagabond had reported sight or sound of the warrior for well over six months.

She had first become worried when the Yule had passed and he had not come. The soft-spoken promises of lovemaking always bear with them a sense of impossibility and of longing, but the promise to see each other beneath the Yuletide moon had not been one so birthed. That which should have been a time of celebration instead proved a time for despondence and introspection. All those explanations for why he hadn't returned, or might not have returned, as promised poured through her head day after day, often multiple times a day, until she could remain idle no longer.

She knew that to actively seek news of the Violet Knight would open her personal affairs to the machines of state and society, but she also knew she had no real alternative. The pointed request for information went out via some few parallel channels, most importantly via the captain of the guard, Sir Gottfried, and via the court wizard, Maester Erln. Neither of these avenues had proven worthwhile, with many a coin or favor dispensed and returned with trivial or downright useless result. It was only after a few months of this nigh-futile search that Erln had, begrudgingly at that, proffered one final direction of search: the red-headed hedge witch living mere miles beyond the castle walls. It had not taken long for the failure of their extant search to prompt Arta to dispatch her guards to find the identified woman.

And so Queen Arta Dragonborn sat on her gilded throne in silence, watching as two of her guards dragged the young woman in question towards the throne. Ironically enough, Arta had seen this woman unknowingly a few times before in several court complaints, some accusing her of misdeeds and some of her own at another's expense. The woman's face bore upon it a jubilant defiance, simultaneously furious for being treated thus and enjoying that the Queen herself had demanded her presence. Her brilliantly red hair tumbled around flushed cheeks and piercing eyes. Eyes the sort most could not meet in sustained contact, yet Arta's blazed back. The redhead's smile widened.

"Oh, mighty Queen Arta, whatever do you need of me?" The woman intentionally broke the rules of court protocol.

One of the guards interjected, "You do not address the Queen before you are first addressed!" He raised a mailed hand to strike her.

Arta sighed internally, "There's no need for violence, good sir. This woman was invited and warrants hospitality." Looking at the degree to which the guards were struggling to pull the woman forward, Arta asked, "Dare I ask why she required such rough treatment?"

The redhead didn't give the guards a chance to answer, "I told them I needed to take in my plants before I left. These." She paused to spit upon the nearest, "Fools interpreted this simple statement as 'disobeying the Crown' and informed me 'disobedience has consequences.' They'll be lucky if I'm willing to sell them their get-hard potions again after this!"

The looks on the guards' faces were priceless, even to the Queen, as they tried to babble their way into explaining what really happened, that they don't purchase the woman's services, and even things that no one had implied or asked. Arta closed her eyes and smiled disappointedly. She cleared her throat.

"Gentlemen, I believe there has been some misunderstanding. If our guest will apologize for her side of this and you for yours, we can return to why I asked her here in the first place. No. Discipline. Required. For anyone."

The redhead's mischievous eyes glittered, "Oh, quite reasonable, my Queen. I, Orrea, do apologize for putting the needs of my plants above the needs of the Queendom." Her voice dripped with partially-veiled sarcasm. She was fortunate that the commentary amused Arta rather than displeased her.

The guards stammered together a pair of apologies that were about as coherent as their earlier statements. Arta nodded and waved them away before turning back to the redhead. She looked Orrea over, fascinated by the subtle way in which she plays innocent and displays... dare she call it omnipotence? Surely there was an end to the redhead's power, but her rough-spun cloak was matched with a silk lining, the dagger at her hip exceptionally crafted silver-inlaid steel countered by the twigs in her hair. The designed juxtaposition continued, details that would be thoroughly overlooked by less-attentive or less-observant eyes. Eyes that were not Arta's.

But Arta's eyes were not only focused on the belongings of the woman before her. No, she was also eyeing the very intentional way in which her clothing revealed her looks. She was buxom, heavy breasts straining against the supposedly cheap fabric that bundled around her clearly-thin waist. Her tunic also gathered around what had to be shapely hips and buttocks. Her legs were slender but toned and were the most on-display part of her body before they ended in the bizarre half-boot, half-sandal, whatever-you-call-them shoes no one else would dare wear. And then her face. A light dusting of freckles on her pale skin. Those brilliant, piercing, green eyes. Plump lips. And not a wrinkle or crow's foot upon her face despite the clear wit and wisdom of a quarter-century, minimum.

Arta smiled, halfway put-on, "So, Orrea, are you hungry?"

The redhead's smile continued and broadened into the tapered grin of a predator, "Well, I'm parched. And probably a little hungry, too."

"Then let's adjourn to lunch. I've had my chefs prepare some roast lamb and some spiced vegetables. I still have a good few pounds of seasoning from the war camp of the dear Duke," she made sure to place extra emphasis on his new, lesser title, "Baurus. His gift was most kind."

Orrea's eyes glittered, "I never turn down a girl who asks me to lunch."

Arta's eyes narrowed, "Oh? I am just 'a girl' in your eyes? Perhaps I shouldn't have let you off the hook so easily after all."

Orrea tittered back, "Your hand will deliver the only punishments I'd possibly accept. Not theirs."

Arta flushed slightly at the comment, thankful that none save the flirtatious redhead were present. "This way then, Miss Orrea."

"Just Orrea is fine, my Queen." The last word was artificially weighty on the girl's tongue, accentuated.

Arta rose and gestured Orrea towards the nearby door that led deeper into the castle. Remaining at the enchantress' back was likely a hollow caution but still prudent. Their appointed dining room was not far away, lurking up a leisurely set of stairs and in a nearby library with a thick-enough wooden door to ensure the necessary privacy and yet still allow calls for help, if urgent enough, to be heard. The table waiting inside was enough to seat eight and yet only had two places prepared, on opposite ends of the table. A small flagon of water and two upturned glasses waited alongside empty plates.

The chefs had prepared a decadent meal, far too lavish for Arta's preferences, and that took far too long for the serving girls to carry. What was supposed to be a few roasted lamb chops and a similar number of roasted vegetable skewers turned out to be two full roasted lambs, a rack of ribs, a cauldron of soup, and more roasted vegetables than would practically be required to feed the castle's entire population. Arta thanked them politely as she always did, simultaneously deciding what to eat and what to save for the others. A young man followed shortly after with a bottle of wine, offering it wordlessly to the Queen. She nodded and he dexterously poured a glass full for both Queen and guest before departing, the uncorked bottle resting at Arta's hand.

As soon as the servants had left, Arta sighed, "Well, eat up. This meal could feed twenty and is served to two."

Orrea smiled, "You haven't seen me eat. This would clearly only feed ten if so."

Arta's laugh was a bemused one, perhaps the first genuine laugh Orrea would have heard, "If you say so. Eat up. I'll have my own fill as we go. The servants will take the rest and none shall be wasted. I'd hate such frivolity."

The two ate in a rather unusual silence, both watching the other as much as they were eating their own food. It was an exercise in observation, in measuring their company. Despite the modestly awkward company, the food was, admittedly, quite delicious, but certainly did not require such abundance. The lamb was well-seasoned and thoroughly displayed that hearty, slightly greasy, and soft texture it ought. It crumbled slightly and washed down well with the wine. The vegetables held some crunch but otherwise yielded easily to chewing. Were she a culinary expert, Arta would likely have had no complaint.

"So why did you have me here, O' Queen? If I were here to eat, we both know the proper meal to have offered me is currently hiding beneath your garments."

Arta was taken briefly aback, such direct and pointed speech a rarity in her life, "If you must know, I need your help finding someone. A man who is dear to me."

"So. Let me get this straight. You, the Queen of half the Isles, has fallen for one singular man who has left you. And you wish me to find him?"

"Minus your commentary, Orrea, yes."

Orrea shrugged, a guarded level of comport and pretense shed as a lizard does its skin and a hardness coming into her voice, "I've heard dumber and more fantastical tales. You're lucky you're cute, Arta."

The Queen bristled slightly at being called this without her first permitting it, "What's the cost, Orrea?"

"For a cute girl such as yourself, I'll be pretty cheap. I've been through similar heartbreaks, and I'll be here to comfort you when my search shows he's simply left you for some buxom farm wench... or four."

"And when I'm right and something has actually happened?"

Orrea pretended she had to pause to think, "Well, then, I'll be hoping you want to be just as caring for me in my time of need. I do so hate to be proven wrong." She pouts and pauses a moment, "But, no. That's not the cost. The cost will be simple. It will be a game of my choosing. If you win, then that's it. If you lose--or choose to lose--then you will spend a night in passionate embrace with me."

"That's it?"

"What were you expecting? My magic and my perverted mind are both fueled by sex. I've sampled all the pleasures the world has to offer time and again, and this is the only one worth revisiting. I've little need for coin or jewel I can't already exceed and I've no desire for title, pomp, or circumstance. And I must admit you've proven a rather tantalizing conquest for me ever since the first time I was dragged to your court."

"So you have been causing trouble to come see me."

"Who? Me? Little, innocent, darling me? Never." A wicked grin spilled out on her cheeks.

Arta groaned, "My poor guards. How about this, Orrea. You want to see me in future, come knock at my door during my reading hours. I've no doubt that you can slip unseen through this castle."

"Oh, but that would be splendid. I wouldn't have to leave my poor plants unattended, and I wouldn't have to hassle or be hassled by those sweet little townsfolk. I do hate when their get-hard potions are mixed with ingredients that make them cum after two pumps. It's really quite a shame for their poor wives... or whores."

"You're incorrigible, Orrea."

"Oh, yes. And like I said: you're the only one who I'll let punish me for being so exquisitely. Deliciously. Deliriously. Naughty. But. Back to business." Orrea pulled a cloth from one of several hidden pockets within her cloak, tossing it such that it fell at Arta's side upon the table, "Tonight, you will wrap this around your eyes and think of your missing love. You will touch yourself and reminisce. You will allow yourself to drift off into what I can only call an erotic realm between dreams and nightmares. And you will remain there until this realm allows you... release." She chuckles to herself with her wording. "If all goes as planned, this cloth will duplicate everything you experience tonight and will serve as a beacon to light his way home. And if he is in a place he cannot follow, then it should allow me to locate him."

"That's all?"

"All?" The sorceress pretends to be taken aback, "We're talking merely the first steps." She begins to spew out a litany of words that sound as though they might be related to the arts or sciences of magic but could equally be made up until she grows short of breath, "And you say that's 'all' I'm doing."

Arta laughed. Long and ruefully. "Very well. It sounds like hard work."

Orrea's eyes blink rapidly, trapped in some sort of internal debate whether to downplay what she's doing or to embellish further, "You're a clever one, Queen Arta. I'm going to enjoy playing my games with you. I hope you come to enjoy them as well. Now, I'm stuffed, and the sun is setting. I think it's best I depart."

Orrea rises before receiving any sort of sign she's excused and slips out of the door. Arta rings the bell for the servants and waits the mere fifteen seconds before her personal serving girl appears. Arta explains the usual excess of food and directs the girl to take half to the food to the barracks and half to the servants quarters but none to the chefs. They'd not benefit from the waste they inflicted. The girl nods appreciatively and flits out of the room with an entire roast lamb platter clutched between eager hands. Arta can hear her whispering to other nearby servants and soon several more, many of whom don't usually carry food, bustle in to clear the table lest the Queen change her mind. Arta smiles kindly and lifts Orrea's mysterious cloth from the table.

Whatever this thing is, it is made of thin and glossy fabric. It stretches but does not distort or deform. It is cool to the touch and allows light to shine through it. It carries no odor but does carry a vague, ephemeral attachment alongside. Despite such tentative touch, Arta's skin feels an unusual yearning to feel more of this cloth against it. She can't tell whether it's the majesty of this fabric or some sort of magical effect. Either way, the cloth holds her attention long enough that the servants finish their work and the sunset is beginning before she finally diverts her gaze.

Arta rises and adjourns to her chambers. Her chamber maid knows to keep the fire lit but otherwise to stay outside the room, much like most nights, but worthy of particular reminding tonight. Such banal conversation past, she set Orrea's fabric beneath one of the many pillows on her bed. Arta looked to the window, longingly, seeing the quarter moon shining in seclusion and the myriad stars twinkling beyond. It was a peaceful night out. Romantic. The sort of night best spent... not alone.

But Arta was alone. She had ensured she would be. She had looked around, locked the door, latched the window, closed the curtains. If it were possible to achieve greater privacy, she didn't know how it would have been possible.

And yet, somehow, she did not feel alone. She felt eyes upon her as she slipped from her day-gown into her nightgown. She felt someone drinking in the contours of her body in those few moments of nudity. She could feel eyes loitering upon the slopes of her breasts, the toned muscles of her arms and legs, the soft curves of her ass, the soft swell of mons and its delicately-groomed thicket.

This unease extended even after she slipped under her bedsheets, even as she lay alone in her bed. She knew what she needed to do. She knew what she had to do. And yet that discomfort, that sensation of being watched lingered. She tied the thin cloth over her eyes as instructed. Despite its thinness and the crackling light of the fire, the cloth absorbed any light around her and even sound faded away. She was soon stuck within the scope of her mind, just as promised.

She tried to get in the mood, she really did, but her fingers and hands seemed as clumsy as her efforts overly-intentional. Her hands teased her breasts, her fingers stroked her nipples, her hands drifted lower and her thumb traced that site that usually brought forth such pleasure. But nothing seemed to work. No warmth, no heat, no excitement, no building pleasure. Her nipples didn't tighten, her breath didn't catch, her slit remained dry. She sighed in disappointment and went to pull the cover from her eyes.

But as she moved, something changed. She wasn't sure quite what. It was probably a few things but they shifted so simultaneously and so effectively that Arta's mind didn't quite process them until they'd been so stretched out over time that it didn't really matter. The cloth seemed to heat up. It seemed to glow with the colors of the cosmic recesses between the stars... pale green, neon magenta, a deep violet flaring indigo, and the occasional starburst of golden yellow. Her hands, mid-motion, were suddenly pulled beneath the pillows about her head. They moved by external force but were not held in place by anything, immobile as they were. And, at the same time, she felt something. Or somethings. Touch her.

She could feel fingers tracing her body. Despite there being more fingers than two hands could possibly wield and being too disjointed to be attached to a pair of hands, they were there. And somehow, she knew they were her fingers. They knew where on her body to pinch and tease. They moved with the dexterity and know-how her own physical hands had refused to follow mere moments earlier. These spectral hands, unlike her own, were tireless. They moved, ceaseless and unyielding, calling and tracing and touching and stroking the inches of her skin, the fibers of her neurology to find where her body would react, with or without her conscious mind's acceptance. Though some part of her grasped that her own hands were fixed and immobile, it almost felt as though she were intentionally guiding the greedy, probing spiritual digits about her.

As these hands worked, bringing her to the edge of orgasm and halting, only to begin again once more, she felt them change. Their thinness, their litheness, their dexterity, their smoothness shifted. They thickened, they became both rougher and less smooth at once... man's hands. But when she felt them as they traced her sex and two slip between her nectar-soaked folds, she knew these were somehow his hands. These infinite hands belonged to her Lancelot, her missing Knight, and they were determined. Several pairs were set to teasing, his calloused hands stroking her neck, her breasts, her thighs, her lips, her labia. Two remained still, pinching, teasing, tweaking her nipples. One stroked and rubbed and pet her lovely little button time and time again, sometimes rough, sometimes gentle, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. And two fingers stretched and flared deep within her, stroking the hidden places that mattered most.

His hands worked at her for what felt like an hour. She lost count of the number of near-orgasms she experienced. The tidal waves of pleasure seeming about to crest before freezing, captured behind some sort of dam, leaving her in a state of furious, unquenchable erotic flame. She was drenched in sweat just as her tortured, sensitive hole drooled its nectar. Whatever focus her mind had held at the start of this session had resolved itself into two simple desperations: the need to cum and the need to find her Knight. But the ethereal hands did not care for her desires. They continued their edging unabated. Her mind reeled, railed, desperate against the walls of the dam preventing her release. She wanted. No. She needed. To cum. But the hands didn't care.