Enchanted Twelve Triplets Ch 02

Author's note: This is part of a Chain story detailing a new twist to an old legend, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Please indulge yourself in the other parts of this Chain and partake of all the adventures of our Enchanted Twelve. Magic, romance, and sex are waiting for you.

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Oarthland

The flicker in the yellow light of the oil lamp on his desk told Prince Donal that someone had entered his chambers as surely as if he'd had a bell on the door. He glanced up from the thick volume before him and looked at the figure over the top of the many similar books, logs, and sheaves of parchment and vellum upon the surface of the usually tidy desktop. "Yes?" he asked. "Any word yet?"

Prince Seamus shook his head. "Nothing yet. They seem to come and go without any sign of their passing. Cathal even took it upon himself to track them. He said it was easy enough, what with the worn footwear leaving obvious marks on the trail, but that they only went but so far into the woods and then...nothing." He shrugged and took a seat by the desk. "How about you? Any luck in finding this Westingfield?"

Donal sighed. "Variations. Similar sounding places. But nothing that is referred to by that name on a regular basis, and certainly not on a level to have princesses. It's like they're phantoms come to us from somewhere beyond the edge of the world."

"Well, as long as they continue to come to us, with us, and for us, they could rise from Hell itself and I'm not so sure I would care. Cathal would probably say the same thing."

"I know what you mean." An echo of bells chiming and a call from the lookout tolled the time and Donal looked to the grand clock in his chamber. "Almost time to drop the longboat," he said. "Go see if Cathal is ready, I'll be up in a moment." He rose from his chair and began changing his clothes. Seamus chuckled.

"There have been times these last few months when I wonder why we bother wearing clothes to meet the princesses at all. It's not like they'll stay on for long."

"Decorum and image, my friend." Donal laughed as well. "We may be pirates, but we're also Sea Princes and have a reputation for being dashing and all that. Face it, fit as we are, naked and dashing don't go hand in hand."

"Good point," Seamus conceded as he headed out. He paused by the door and looked over his shoulder. "Besides, I'm not sure I want to see you or Cathal without your clothes unless it involves a naked princess--or three."

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Westingfield

Groaning, Princess Violet got out of bed and began getting herself ready for the day's activities.

It is getting worse. Whatever it is.

She stood and stretched, eliciting more protests from her aching joints and body. Her sisters were still asleep, she saw, although Hazel seemed to be having disturbed dreams and Robin was sprawled in an odd way upon her bed. Robin had her legs mostly apart, and one hand rested along her thigh and between them as if she might have been unconsciously pleasuring herself during the night. With a slight sigh and a shake of her dark curls, Violet leaned over slightly and pulled the coverlet more fully over Robin's splayed figure, then drew herself up on tiptoe and tucked Hazel's blanket in close and gave her a kiss on the forehead. She worried about them. Both of her older triplets seemed so worldly sometimes. Robin was given to being naughty and flirtatious, while Hazel always had to be the best of the three of them.

Making up for a few minutes difference between herself and Robin.

And me? What am I trying to make up for?

Violet sighed and sat on the floor by her bed. She drew forth one of her notebooks, wedged a couple of pillows behind her to lean against, and settled her lap desk into place. She made certain that quill and ink were nearby--not to mention a sufficiently sizable stack of blotters--and opened the notebook.

"Now, where was I?" she asked aloud as she perused the last page with material written upon it. Her brow furrowed and her eyes widened as she read the debauched scene transcribed in her own neat, feathery script.

What is this?

She slammed the book shut with a great slap of the pages upon themselves, and pitched it away as she upended her desk and got to her feet. The noise of the notebook and desk hitting the floor prompted a pair of disgruntled moans from the beds beside and above Violet.

"Keep it down, Vi, some of us aren't early birds," Robin said.

"What ever are you doing down there?" added Hazel as she leaned over the side of her bed.

Violet swallowed a moment to take a breath, then smiled and gave her sisters a little shrug. "Spider. That's all it was. I got startled and dropped everything all of a sudden. Go back to bed, it can't be morning for either of you yet."

Robin stuck her head out from beneath the canopy provided by Hazel's bed and looked up at her middle triplet. "Does she expect us to buy that? Come on, now, Violet, there's few of any of the twelve of us that would startle for a spider. I think Merry may even like them. Tell us what is really wrong."

Violet sighed and stepped to retrieve her notebook. "Very well. Here, then, see what you make of this latest story of mine," she said as she handed the journal to Robin. Hazel slipped over the side of her bed and dropped lightly to the floor, then joined Robin in looking at the story.

"Is it about the pirates? I love listening to you tell those tales," she asked. Within moments, she leaned back and looked at her youngest triplet, then to Robin, and then back to Violet once more. "I'm not so sure I would love to hear this one. Whatever possessed you to write such as this?"

Violet nodded and tears began to well in her eyes. "Possessed is just what I was thinking. I do not recall having written it. I don't even remember having such thoughts."

Okay, perhaps I have had them.

She reproached herself mentally and wondered anew at the aches she had awoken with.

Robin stood up and offered her arms to Violet. They hugged, and Hazel joined them. "There, there, it is nothing to cry over. I am sure of it. Do you want to take this to Danielle? Somehow, I don't think it's anything we ought to worry Mother about, just yet."

"Just yet?" Violet broke the embrace and looked at Robin in horror. "That will not happen. Can you see her reaction? It's bad enough we are all dropping off at the dinner table and daily having to have shoes--or more, have you seen the state of some of our dresses and undergarments of late--mended or replaced, but to say that I've begun writing tawdry tales of things we're not really supposed to know about until our wedding night?"

Hazel placed a hand upon Violet's arm and turned her to meet her eyes. Her hand slid down Violet's arm and took her hand. Hazel clenched it tightly and then squeezed it even more. "Relax. Let's go about the day as normal, but let us go through all your recent journals and take notes on anything else that seems untoward or that you fail to remember writing. Then...and only then...will we speak with Danielle, or anyone else, about it."

Robin nodded and moved behind Hazel to look Violet in the face as well. "Sounds like a plan. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Fine." Robin looked to the window and the pale glow visible through the shades. "Then, as we are up anyways, let's bathe and dress and see about breakfast."

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Oarthland

The pair of men sat upon barrels in the middle of the ship. The worn codger had seen almost too many years at sea, but still loved to come aboard a fine vessel when the chance presented itself. And, on hearing the scuttlebutt through the grapevine that the Sea Princes were paying for specialized information, Gormic had all the excuse he needed to come breathe in the salt air and tread upon a firm deck once more.

"I thank you for coming," Prince Cathal said to the man as he handed Gormic a small purse. "As you requested, the money is in assorted coinage." He let it fall onto the informant's outstretched palm and smiled at the look on the old man's face at the sound it made.

He's probably not had a purse that clinked rather than jingled before. I'll have to have the Harbormaster watch over him while he's in the area. Would not do to have him mugged within sight of our ships.

"Thank ye, Captain. Yes, a traveler and merchant as I have become needs to vary up where his money comes from. Some people there is who have a problem with the pictures stamped on this or that coin."

"But not you?"

Gormic laughed deep and hearty at the very thought. "I could care less, truth be told. Gold and silver is gold and silver, so it is, and you could mark it with pixies and puppy dogs and it'd still be worth what it's worth." He nodded to Cathal and turned to make his way down to the pier and home again. Cathal shook his head slightly as he watched him go.

If that is my fate in three score years, than may the Kraken take me to the sea floor well before then.

Seamus emerged from below, just then, and waved to him. Cathal closed to his fellow Sea Prince and looked at the empty space behind him. "Let me guess," Cathal said, "he's still dressing." Seamus nodded and Cathal smiled and then laughed. Donal could be a bit fastidious for someone in their line of work. Cathal then shrugged. "Well, that's fine. We're almost ready, but not quite. I had a visit from someone with some information for us."

"Really?"

"Old seadog named Gormic. Says he worked for DPR back in the day, and heard tell that we were paying for information about a place called Westingfield. He's not been, but he has heard other people discussing it in recent months."

"Indeed. What sort of people? Did he give you names or has another bag of our gold walked off for nothing?"

Cathal smirked and raised an eyebrow. "And who's fault was that? Never mind, the names he gave were some of the other Princes we have met or had pointed out to us at some of these dances the Princesses drag us off to. Apparently, we're not the only ones to be interested in exactly where the sisters come from. And, at least one man, seems to be trying to gain himself passage there." He stopped for a breath and to let the first boot settle upon the deck.

"Gormic says he's heard that such a passage may have been found."

Seamus started at this last bit and grabbed Cathal by both shoulders to turn him and meet his eyes. "Is true? We must tell Donal, at once."

"Tell Donal what?" Seamus and Cathal looked to the doorway into the lower decks and at the now quite dashing Prince Donal. He raised an eyebrow in the silence that hung between them, and then stepped closer. Before he could ask again, the pair quickly began filling him in on what Gormic had told Cathal and what it might mean for their own search into where the Princesses had come from and who or what they might really be.

Donal signaled to his men to finish getting the longboat ready, and then the three Sea Princes were lowered to the water and set off to meet the triplets once more.

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Westingfield

"How can this be?" Robin was saying to her closest siblings. Over the course of the afternoon, whenever they could get out of official duties and studies, the three of them had gone over Violet's journals. They had started with the most recent, and worked back from there. Hazel and Robin marked anything that seemed unusual to their eye, and Violet reread those passages to confirm or deny the supposed strangeness therein.

"It's like we have been living two lives. All of us." Much of what Violet had written about had not made much sense alone, but when matched to other entries or when the three of them discussed what was written with dreams they had had or odd comments or interactions between them and the other nine princesses; it was surprisingly clear what had been happening to them.

Violet bit her lip as she tried to keep her fraying emotions in check. She felt like an overfull levee, waiting for that one last storm to make her burst forth or overflow to flood the surrounding plains. "Now can we go to Danielle?" she asked. She really wanted to take this to their mother, but all of them were used to following the established chain. Danielle always came before any of the adults in their lives--not trusting chambermaids, or learned tutors, or caring governesses. And, certainly, not Queen Andrea.

"What do you think, Hazel?" Robin asked.

"I think we should wait until tomorrow," she replied after a moment's thought. "The writings in Violet's journals are daily, as they always have been, but the odd passages only seem to be now and then. I don't know. Maybe it's like we're charmed or bewitched and so only the most intense events manage to slip their way into her mind and then onto her pages. We have spent so much of the day in tracking these things, let us allow one more night to pass by and see what happens."

Violet looked alarmed. "But what if we don't know what happens? Maybe it will be a quiet night or a night that cannot slip through the magicks that have been upon us?"

"We will tell Danielle of our discoveries tomorrow, no matter what. Will that work?"

Robin and Violet nodded to Hazel, and the three of them proceeded to get ready for bed.

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But even as had happened the night before, and many other nights through the last several months, sleep came fitfully and then was interrupted altogether by the enchantment laid upon them. One by one, all three of the triplet princesses rose from their bed, dressed themselves in traveling clothes, and headed into the hall to meet up with their similarly enspelled sisters. Once more, they were watched by an unseen figure who followed the lot of them along the palace pathways, down into the forest, and through the portal back to Oarthland.

Once at the water's edge, the clouding of their minds faded and the three of them rushed forth to meet with their Sea Princes. This night, there was no intermingling of ties, for each man claimed the woman who had come to mean the most to him. By their embraces, one would have thought they'd been apart for weeks rather than mere hours. Robin reminded everyone that the night would pass quickly if they didn't make an effort to stay on track, and so the six separated and began getting underway to meet with the rest of the princesses and the men they had been seeing.

Donal helped Robin and Violet into the boat, while Hazel splashed about with Seamus and Cathal, helping them to ready to turn the longboat and head back out into the water. Once aboard, Seamus and Cathal reclined upon the deck and let their pants dry, while Hazel ducked down into the small, covered space that served as a hold on a boat that was not really large enough for a true below-deck area.

"Where's she going?" Donal asked.

Seamus laughed. "She slipped and soaked herself completely from head to toe. I mentioned that there might be dry clothes to match her own finery in the chests we took from those Belarin merchants last month, and off she went."

Cathal gave Violet a bit of a squeeze and leaned in to nuzzle her neck. "Heh, and here I was thinking Hazel was the tough one and you the girlie type."

His laughter was cut short by a jab in the belly from Violet's elbow. "I'll show you girlie," she said as she clamped a hand between his thighs and grabbed his personal treasure. Cathal slipped down to lie on his back upon the deck, his speech reduced to a series of gasping protests. Robin and Seamus laughed all the louder, while Donal merely shook his head and stepped off to see if Hazel needed help finding those chests.

She had found things just find without him, he discovered when he ducked down into the space. Hazel stood with her back to Donal. She was naked except for her hose and held a fresh pair of those in one hand while looking about for a place to sit and change them. "Need a hand?" he asked.

Hazel turned suddenly at the sound of his voice and looked at Donal with widening eyes. "What's the matter?" he asked as he stepped in closer. Hazel backed up from his approach, holding the new hose before her in an attempt to cover her exposed body. Donal cocked his head and tried to look Hazel in the eye, only to have her shift her head away and avert her gaze.

"Do you always burst in on a lady changing clothes?"

"I'm not in the habit, no, but this is hardly bursting in." He gestured to the makeshift walls and partial ceiling of the space around them. "This is practically out in public. Do you always change your clothes in such a place?"

Hazel swallowed and turned her face away from Donal entirely. "No, I'm a princess. Good and proper and well brought up and I wouldn't have to change if I...I..." She whirled about and looked at the Sea Prince. "What am I doing here? I found myself, just now, standing here in nothing but sopping wet hose, looking down on yet another pair of ruined shoes and...and...oh, Andrew will be so cross. And Mother?"

Donal took a step back. "Who's Andrew?"

"Our cobbler. He makes the best boots and slippers and dancing shoes. They've moved him into the castle because we've been just terrible at keeping our footwear presentable of late. I just don't know why. And then there's the dreams. Violet and all those pirate stories of hers."

Pirate stories?

Donal's mind tried to sort out what Hazel was talking about, even while the rest of him was more interested in the way her breasts heaved while she spoke and worked herself into a tizzy--and, especially, how her nipples jutted out in reaction to being cold and wet. "It'll be okay," he told her. "You remember who I am, right?"

"Well, sure, you're Donal the Sea Prince, I suppose, from Violet's description of you. You and me are always being put together into...various...assorted...oh no." Hazel's voice trailed away for a moment, and her eyes widened all over again as she took in her surroundings as if for the first time.

"Hazel? Calm down...Hazel...come back here..."

The middle triplet backed away from Donal and returned to the main deck of the longboat. "Violet?" she called out. "Robin?" Donal hurried after her and almost ran her down as he found her just a step or two away. Hazel stood with her mouth open and her hands at her sides, nakedness forgotten at the surprise of the scene before her.

Violet was on her knees with her forearms resting upon a large barrel, hands together, and her head lying against her hands. Her dress was hiked up over her back, and a man knelt behind her. He had one hand entwined in her panties, holding them to one side, while his other spread open the folds of her pussy to let his tongue have better access to her.

A mere step or two away, Robin knelt between the legs of another man and bobbed her face up and down upon his lap. Hazel watched in amazement as each downward motion Robin's head made let her mouth fully envelop the thick cock being slowly thrust between her lips.

Hazel stared.

We are in one of Violet's stories. Not the usual ones, but the parts I always wished she would tell us about.

She swallowed nervously, even as her sisters turned to regard her with questioning eyes.

Donal stepped up behind Hazel and gently rested a hand upon her hip. He leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Are things becoming clearer?" he asked. She took in a deep breath and bit her lip as she tilted her head to look at him over her shoulder.

"I don't understand," she whispered. "We're princesses. Real princesses, not pirate ones." His hand began caressing her body, working its way up to slowly touch and fondle the breast on that side of her torso. Hazel sighed at the way Donal's fingers found her hard nipple and toyed with it in such a practiced manner.

He chuckled, then kissed her cheek and neck before turning his attention to her ear. "You can be both, you know," he told her. "I can see all of us will have much to speak of later on; but, for now, come...lie with me and be my princess. My domain is not as grand as some, and Sea Prince may not be as glorious as other titles, but it has its moments."