Tributes to the Dark Elves

What if she didn't return to the surface, and sent some money as well?

Setting off into the marketplace, Suri kept a leisurely walk, trying to adapt her mind to the sudden change in her fortunes... Her heart beating fast, she inevitably sauntered over to the slave merchant matron, who was just finishing a deal: selling the three human adventuresses to a wealthy Kitsune lady with a tight equestrian's outfit, handing her the leashes and seeing them off, the fox-woman's tails swishing as she took the three slave women away, who seemed quite docile after a long night of restraints. They followed their new owner with heads held high, gags still blocking their mouths, feet shackled and hands tied behind their backs.

"Thank you! Come again! Now, what can I do for you?" The matron turned to her with a smile, filling the gold coins into her small lockbox. "Suri, isn't it? I'm Maliz."

"Yes, good morning!" She shook the matron's hand, who kept touching her fingers after the shake was over. "How's your day, ma'am?"

"Best day ever. Just sold the three prisoners to a nice fox lady who wanted a ponygirl chariot, the boy to a horny blue Oni lady, and the chubby cutie to a succubus baker! How's yours?" The slave trading woman looked her over, her bespectacled eyes gazing kindly into the troubled dark elf girl's eyes.

Suri sighed, and shook her head, big, long elfin ears drooping. "Bad."

"Oh my..." The matron sensed an opportunity, it cost nothing to be nice. She pulled a chair for Suri to sit on. "Tell me."

"Mom went bankrupt. She's a debt slave. Again."

"Oh, dear." Maliz blinked with sympathy in her eyes, filling a cup of tea for both, and handing her one. "How big of a...debt are we talking about here?"

"She was never good with money. The last time I checked it was a few thousand gold coins before I joined the army, her jewelry shop was already a dumpster fire. Medusa sculptor bought her at auction, guess she'll be an art statue being dusted for a long time. It's still two thousand and nine hundred gold coins. And there will be interest..."

"Ouch." Maliz shrugged, sipping her tea. "So what's your plan?"

Beautiful dark elf Suri sighed, her ears drooping as she ran a hand across her long mane of lustrous, platinum hair. She looked crestfallen, her almost alien beauty, being a dark elf visibly fading every time she sighed. "And I was thinking of staying on the surface. The air's fresh and the food is fresher..."

Maliz smiled in a kindly, disarming way. Slowly she held Suri's hand, squeezing softly and readjusting her silken, gold-and-blue robes. "I can help you out with what you are thinking about." She gently held the young dark elf's chin. Then the matron softly spoke:

"I sell dark elves to discriminating humans and other rich monsters as exotics. You'll stay on the surface if that's what you wanted: the rest is up to your owner. your sales price will be sent to Chel'drai treasury minus my commission. Is this acceptable?"

Gulping, Suri nodded. She didn't have much of a choice.

"Please come with me." She stood up and led her to her office. "Let's see what I have to work with."

Suri followed, ears burning with excitement and shame.

*-*-*-*

Maliz guided the new girl to her office, sitting down at her desk and going through her notes.

"Remove your clothes, and present yourself naked to me. Let's see what we have to work with."

Suri blushed, slowly removing her leather armor, and underwear, revealing a purple-black body that was toned, far too muscular for a fancy slave, Maliz thought. Her breasts were small, abdomen hard enough to grate cheese with. Her hips were wide, suggesting great breeder potential, though Suri had to be willing for it.

"You are a strong girl. This leaves us some options..." She paged through papers, watching Suri strip naked. "Aside from slave quarries and mines on the surface, there is the Reik Hippodrome which takes in ponygirls, sporty chariot-pullers who can win great sums at races. Arms on your head, legs spread."

Her entire body shot up with electrified excitement. She was a slave now. Suri immediately obeyed, getting at ease as the matron patted her body, enjoying the purple dark, soft skin. Maliz preferred men, but nothing was wrong with a little pleasure in business. She pulled Suri's arms behind her clasping steel handcuffs and locked them shut, observing her reactions. Seeing nothing, Maliz approved her military training, and knelt before her, putting a cuff on each ankle before rising and slapping her ass with a harsh blow when done.

Suri's ears shook as she gasped.

"I'm glad you enjoy this." Maliz smiled, nonchalantly fitting Suri's collar with a small chain for securing at night. "I'll write you for an expensive athletic slave, so let's hope it's not a mine overseer that shows interest in you." The poor dark elf gulped. "Unless you have the bravery to take in a slave brand rather than a tattoo, marking you a slave for the rest of your life. Then your family debt would be paid and your mother would be set for decades."

Suri rapidly shook her head in panic. She had a long life ahead of her, preferably on the surface.

"Not a natural submissive, I think..." Maliz's eyes squinted. "Misfortune, hmm? Fair enough. Bring your ass over." She dipped a small stamp in a glowing jar of silvery ink.

Squirming, Suri bit her lips as Maliz gently cupped a buttcheek and pressed the stamp on her ass. The poor little dark elf shuddered with pleasure and humiliation, her huge ears shaking.

"There. You are a slave now." Maliz smiled, writing her name in the ledger. Go outside, sit in the cage, and smile at passersby. Answer questions truthfully, and Goddess allowing, you'll start working, and I'll be a bit richer." She led the naked dark elf outside and opened the cage from the side.

Head bowed, Suri sighed and went outside, her body burning in shame as she sat inside the slave cage, legs crossed, leaning against the bars.

"I hate you, Mom." She sighed, trying to smile at the visiting monster women. "I want to explore the surface and the first thing you made me sit in a cage and work my butt off for years..." She licked her lips. Still, the collar and cuffs felt her body warm. She hoped desperately that it wasn't her natural calling. Maliz ignored her, sitting on a chair outside and reading a book. After all, she was just merchandise now.

Nishari looked back, seeing one of their own, Suri, naked and in the slave market's cage.

She shrugged, hoping for the best for the girl.

Happily singing, the dark elf party minus one was on their way to the duchy.

*-*-*-*

DUCHY CASTLE

"Good morning milady." The dark elven maid was unlike her kin, standing at her bedside. The maid was a distant relative of the queen, sent as a maid and hostage because she was way too submissive, and meek to be an active member of their society. Possessing a lovely, chocolate-colored, gentle face with her prim and proper white hair, and a figure fit for a motherly wetnurse was clad in the softest, most conservative maid dress the duchess knew, unusually curvy for an elf. She had already brought breakfast, fed the children, and even played with the duchess' youngest after breastfeeding him. Eve was an angel amongst dark elves, soft, gentle, and polite, a skilled maid, slightly overweight, great with children, and well-read. Even the maids who had relatives taken by dark elves couldn't hate her. Now she was bringing the duchess her velvet slippers, clothes, and a basin to wash her face.

"Good morning, Eve."

After a quiet ritual of washing and dressing up, the duchess stared from the windows of her small castle, hearing singing, laughter and happy voices approach her demesne. The tribute collectors were coming. Ever young, ever arrogant, beautiful to look at, yet coming to take more of her people away in chains and humiliate her for peace, and her selfish desire: longevity. The Dark Elven Queen promised the duchess potions that would make her younger, and ensure her reign for another century.

Her overlords were beautiful, yet dangerous like mad honey.

Svartalvar. Dokkalvar. Dalekethnon. They had many names throughout history.

Dark Elves.

The single-gendered monster women had sent their yearly tribute train. They would collect silver, fabrics, and tools, things they couldn't be bothered to produce in large amounts. However, they would also take some of her people, her duchy's people as slaves. The Svartalf Queen had mercy and sense to take the most undesirable (but healthy) humans first, but the tax was also extended to the youth. The dark elves would comb towns and villages, cities and districts for suitable humans, mostly unwanted youths to be taken: some said the queen was merciful, yet some said the Succubus Empress Agrat forced the Dark Elven Queen, who was her vassal in turn, to pick only youth passing their eighteenth summer. Children were a waste of resources, she argued. Let the humans raise them before sending the tributes.

The vassalage worked: the Svartalvar were merciful suzerains, and their empress succubus had made sure of that. The dark elven emissary assured they treated the humans tenderly: boys given to single mamono in happy marriages, and girls taught trades the dark elves couldn't be bothered, with excessive abuse frowned upon. In a few decades, the emissary told her, the girls would be freedwomen, free to return home or explore the Reik life instead. Some of these earliest tributes returned after five or six years. However, they rarely stayed with their families, their libertine ways and newly discovered wanton sexuality made them chafe in human lands. Many set out for themselves, though a few were back with their families, and even fewer took their older parents to live with them in the Reik with their monster wives.

Still, it wasn't easy, being humiliated like that. If anything else, it beat the alternative: mass enslavement, sieges, starvation, and death on both sides. The peasants knew it, and the duchess was luckily seen as a poor victim.

"Time to receive our overlord..." The duchess sighed, adjusting her red dress. Her maid hugged her from behind, massive breasts pushing on the duchess' back, her plush frame supporting the young, yet weary lady.

"You are doing what's right, milady. My sisters need your people, one day you'll understand that."

*-*-*-*

The dark elves were downstairs, making themselves at home, the duchess noted with weary acceptance, judging by the clinking of glasses.

This year's tribute collectors were rather young, cheerful dark elves with purple-black skin, suggesting they were the lustful purple-black-skinned variants rather than the brown-skinned surface dark elves. They wore light armor which looked like a bikini fortified with a flimsy chainmail vest, showing off ample legs and butts, wearing leather boots with high heels, carrying backpacks full of chains and carious lewd, immoral, dehumanizing bondage gear. They were led by a deep-dwelling dark elf, Nishari.

She was the dark elf who dictated the duchess the terms and had her sign the paper.

The Duchess was ambivalent towards her: Nishari was polite to her in public but was rather arrogant, and cocky, and did not hide the fact she had amorous designs. The beautiful dark elf insisted on visiting every year and held the tiny factor that made the duchess sign the vassalage contract: Magical dark elven wine infused with youth potions.

The rest of the entourage were rather young dark elves this time. The girls had amorous grins on their faces, yet were rather friendly to humans in the meeting room. The duchess could already see a few dark elven youths grab, kiss and embrace a few human maids, not a single one was reluctant, it seemed.

"I welcome you to my duchy, overlords." She curtsied with a weary, sad voice, her blonde, curly hair made to resemble a crown, fastened with a silver circlet, wearing a long, conservative dress with a fur coat warming her shoulders.

"Thank you, dear Gwendolyn," Nishari answered back, her hair made like a lioness' platinum mane, her uniform snappy, tight, and cut in the most provocative design the dark elves could imagine. "I hope the Goddesses favor your rule well."

The human maids scurrying about with plates and goblets, begrudgingly put out for the "visiting" dark elves, blushed. The dark elf visiting Gwendolyne wore virtually nothing below the waist save for a leather thong and steel boots, her buttcheeks bare. A whip was tied to her belt, her upper body clad in a scandalous mix of leather and plate armor bikini.

"Yes. I assume you came for the yearly tribute." The duchess spoke as if swallowing bitter poison. "The money, tools, and fabrics are being loaded to the mule train as we speak..." She looked at the deep dark elf, her gaze melancholic.

Nishari smirked, her huge, jewel-studded elven ears wiggling with joy as she replied with a soft voice that promised pleasure. "And the second part of our tribute, my lovely duchess?" She loved seeing the beautiful blonde's lips quiver, her eyes mist.

The blonde vassal sighed. "I have a few volunteers waiting, some lustful peasant daughters and sons who are...enamored with your kin. Some volunteered so that their villages will be left alone, as well as criminals locked up in my dungeons."

This made Nishari smile brightly. "Excellent! I'll take note of these villages not to extract any more human tributes..." The dark elf turned around, kissing the human maid bringing her a cup of wine on the cheek (who gasped and ran away), and looking around. "They will be happy in our arms and chains; did you know our smiths make slave collars and chains so light and soft they don't hurt your skin anymore? My cousin developed a new alloy: Like Svartstal, but less iron, with a dash of electrum..."

Her cringy small talk attempt went unnoticed. Nishari rolled her eyes and continued. "Although, my lovely duchess, I also bring some bad news: Our Queen demands the tribute to be raised this year."

"We can pay..." The duchess spoke hopefully, assuming it was about the coin. The ebon vixen dashed her hopes the moment she spoke, however.

"Sadly, we meant the human part, more boys will have to be taken," Nishari smirked again, sipping the wine with wiggling, long ears, her blue, almond eyes wide with pleasure. "Excellent, this..." She sniffed the goblet and smacked her lips, enjoying the crimson liquid.

The Duchess was crestfallen.

"I assume the jails have suitably healthy men and women for starters. My daughters and sisters will collect the rest from the households, tell your guards not to interfere. We'll try limiting ourselves to the most willing ones. Horny youth, bondage curious peasant girls, and already "soiled" tavern wenches." The dark-elven general sighed. "Seriously, you humans put too much stock in "virginity" and "virtue". Oh well, it makes our job easier."

"Yes." The duchess looked down with sorrow. Nishari smiled, knelt, and kissed the human's hand, much to the surprise and consternation of the castle's maids who were all virtuous girls and didn't believe the duchess would be queer.

"We should talk in private about your payment."

The maids gasped, and the duchess cringed about her sinful present being mentioned. The other dark elves giggled and went downstairs, to collect the dungeons' criminals and the volunteers at the serf quarters, unpacking chains.

*-*-*-*

The little town had the silence of the grave, all the children locked indoors, the youth and parents nervously waiting for the inevitable. The bailiff, a burly man in his mid-40s had instructed all the children to hide and made sure the tribute materials were packed, present, and sealed, twitching nervously inside the massive warehouse the town had for traders. He had tried his best to persuade the town to part with their sons and daughters that would not be missed, were "immoral" or were troublemakers, to begin with. He even persuaded two widows, young enough to be tributes to give themselves up. The rest was in Fortune's hands.

The overlord's delegation and the monster women were approaching from the city, a splinter group from the main tribute collectors, singing lewd songs with their beautiful voices. A dozen dark elves, with dark chocolate complexions, platinum white hair, and armor fit for a decadent emperor's bodyguards kept approaching with a small mule train. The beautiful dark elves ignored the women and men shutting their windows and doors, throwing lecherous glances at what little youth finished their errands and trying to stay calm.

The dark elves had brought a mule train with carts, setting up shop in the middle of the town center. The poor mules, faithful beasts oblivious to the deeds of their two-legged owners, started drinking happily from the fountain, happy to rest after a long trek.

"Good afternoon, bailiff." Their ringleader, the eldest dark elf, smiled at the nervous man and his wife cowering behind him. "I trust this year's tribute is in order?"

He nodded back: "Twenty pounds of silver, forty bales of linen, as your ladyship requested."

The dark elf nodded with a polite, yet dangerous smile. "And our other tribute? Surely you didn't forget."

He gulped. "We have two thieves, brigand women the sheriff caught..." He mumbled, slipping into the gutter accent of the common folk. "We simple folk. Two women volunteered, them's poor widows, they can do housework."

True to his word, weary sighs echoed his description. Two peasant women, a blonde, pale Ermorean and a southern, Aquilean brunette, sat on a small carpet wearing flimsy peasant garb, looking as if their fortunes sank after being left alone in the world. They did not resist when smiling dark elf youths lifted them kindly by the armpits, shackling their hands and feet and connecting them with chains to each other, revealing their homely, plump physiques as the garbs were stripped away, the bailiff trying not to look. The blonde had a soft, round face, a big nose, and ample breasts, sniffling as the dark elves started fondling her large mounds, their slender, dark hands enjoying the soft, pale, peasant body. The brunette bowed her head, quietly crossing her hands before her. The steel shackles clicked as both were women stripped naked, wrists shackled, ankles chained. The dark elves surrounding them lifted both naked women and opened the cart's cage door, ordering them to sit inside.

With nothing else to do, both women sighed and surrendered to their fates, sitting with their backs leaning on the bars and on each other's shoulders.

Another two human women, brown-skinned, tomboyish female bandits by the look of it, were hogtied and squirming, their armor stripped away, squirming in their body wraps that passed for undergarments. They were not too pretty, but their bodies looked healthy enough. Good enough for labor slaves, the dark elf mused. She knelt next to them, harshly slapping one when she tried to bite, and frowned.

"Quiet! You are slaves now, so stay still, and this will be painless."

Theother one, apparently the brigand's sister, groaned, looking at the slapped bandit with worry. "We won't make trouble. Please don't hurt my sister."

"Good." The dark elf nodded, turning to the combative captive. "She shows sense. I suggest you do the same. If you stay quiet, we will not separate you at the slave market, and I'll tell the slaver to find you kind owners with good homes needing maid work. Otherwise, you both will be breaking rocks and carrying soil for the rest of your lives!"

That made both bandit women very docile and quiet. The dark elven lady, the tribute collector pulled their body wrappings away, revealing them naked in public as the worried human peasants looked away except for the boys and a few girls with blushes kept staring before running off home.