"My name is Zuad. Zuad Upphazeer Zemeira Erromis Vropohkty"
Zuad spoke softly as she ran her fingers through the barbarian lordling's long hair. It was delightful, his hair, a reddish brown shade that she had never seen before. She had never seen long hair on a man before either, though his was not exceptionally long, and only just went past his shoulders.
His eyes opened, and he looked up at her without responding. She frowned, he did have such an annoying tendency of thinking he was smarter than she was, and his silences were always a sign that he was in such a mood.
She had been here, in this rock facing the sea, for three days now, with the barbarian lordling - his name was...she struggled for a moment...'Selio'? Yes. Selio Saggio and so on, of the Permidin blood.
By 'with him', she of course meant, fucking him until what poor excuse for a mind he did have was washed away in a sea of animal lust. He pleased her, and filled her up quite nicely with his barbarian cock, but he had a tendency for roughness that excited her, but also left her sore and bruised at times.
"Z-zwad?" He struggled to say her name with that horrible way he spoke the degenerate Imperial vernacular, mangling the words quite terribly. Her name suffered no less under his gentle care. She sighed, and said her name again, she had done this a few times so far, and had been trying to get him to say it correctly, but her attempts invariably led to him becoming frustrated, which in turn made him distracted and aroused, and which then finally led to another marathon session where they tested the limits of the bed in this, the supposedly 'best' room in the fort.
And he was getting distracted and aroused again, his hand reaching for one of her breasts so that he could begin playing with her nipples again. She sighed, yet again.
"No. Not this time. Are all you barbarians so unendingly lusty? Or are you just some sort of freak? My slit is sore, my thighs and breasts are bruised, not to mention my shoulder, and I swear I have memorized the texture and taste of the different parts of your cock. I think this bed has taken enough abuse for the next several years." Zuad's tone was a little sharper than she had originally intended, because as she spoke, she began to suddenly really feel those bruises and that soreness again.
He grunted before replying, still playing with her nipple. "The longer we fuck, the less time I have to waste on whatever quest you're going to force me to perform for you." He squeezed her nipple for emphasis, and Zuad hissed slightly in response.
"I promised to release you after my need for you was finished, not after the year and a day you seem stuck on." She tugged on his cock for emphasis, and managed to get a grunt out of him.
"Well, then plenty of time to fuck some more, isn't there?" He pushed her down onto the bed, and brought his face to hers, pressing his lips against hers hungrily.
She managed to turn away from him after a few moments of him shoving his tongue into her mouth, and then she slapped him. She had been slapping him for the past three days, and all it had ever managed to get out of him, if anything, was a pause in which he would go to the door, open it, and command the guard outside to have food brought up. They would eat what he surely thought was fine fare, and then he would let the food settle while staring out at the sea from the windows...and then he would come to her again.
"Alright. Fine. My cock hurts anyways. I don't think I've ever quite been this mad for a woman. Are you sure you aren't a witch?" His tone was light-hearted, and she rolled her eyes.
"No. I am not some crazy hedge-woman peddling potions and curses to the peasant folk." She hadn't quite answered his question - since some of the equipment she had with her, he might well consider magical, and she wanted to only have to explain things to him on a need basis. Barbarians were strong, but hardly bright, and she didn't want to panic him needlessly.
He gave her an odd look, as though he saw through her, but it passed, and he playfully slapped her thigh - she winced, he seemed to like to slap her there, and even his playful slaps were not gentle, and bruises were forming - and rolled off the bed. He began putting on his tunic and breeches, for the first time in three days, and was whistling a tune to himself like some kind of idiot.
She herself knew that there was no point in donning her guise as the hag - first of all, no one would think he had spent three days of loud moans, screams and passionate groans with an ancient and grossly fat hag, and anyways, the guard had gotten a peek at her several times when Selio had opened the door to order food, or to bring in the tray after it was brought up...
Zuad worked to assemble a reasonable Imperial women's robe from the long ragged strips of cloth she had worn as the hag - the sort of robe worn by noblewomen who had sworn away their wealth to the gods, and lived in a form of regal poverty. Even women such as that had proper undergarments, of which Zuad had none, but she simply ignored that omission and wrapped herself in a single long strip of the black wool, feeling its texture against her skin as she did so.
There was no mirror, so she took longer than she might have making the appropriate knots and folds that the traditions called for in her robes. Finally, she did manage to finish, and draped the last long strip over one of her bare shoulders, completing the austere and regal black dezgroza that she remembered wearing as a newly flowered girl...
The thought brought back dark memories though, of the rise of Kakourmen and the purges that had followed as he had feverishly attempted to 'cleanse' the ranks of the ministries and nobility of those he deemed enemies of the Empire.
It was the barbarian's rough touch that brought her out of her reverie. He had...slapped her on the thigh! Again! Even though clothed now, he had struck her hard enough to make her bruises there flare up in pain anew, and she bit her tongue from the sudden shock of it.
"Stay here. I'm not sure they won't just kill you for being a witch anyways, but I can at least try to explain...what you seem to be, and why I must answer to your commands." The barbarian's voice was gruff, he was more distant now that she was dressed...her anger flared at the idea - she wasn't quite sure why she was bothered, but she was - that he only valued her for her nude body.
That was the mental state in which she responded to him. "You will explain nothing. I will accompany you now. You will call together an assembly of those individuals of import in this primitive village, and I will address them. You will surrender the position from which you would normally address them formally to me - in front of them - and assure that I am heard as I speak. If you cannot do this, then I must leave, and you will gather up equipment and supplies for a long journey, and those men you deem truly loyal, and we will depart as immediately as possible. If you will not do this, then I will still leave, either physically or spiritually, after I make my sincerest effort to kill you."
He struck her, hard. A backhand blow that dropped her to her knees, and made her see spots for a few moments, disoriented by the force and speed of the blow. By the gods, he was fast. She still had the bruises from when he had torn free the bedpost and outright thrown it at her in one smooth motion, and doubtless he had just left another colorful mark on her flesh. He was making an ugly habit of hitting her. Imperial men did not hit women...doing so bore a high penalty in the law, well-bred men of the Empire were expected to have slaves cane unruly wives or sisters, or even mothers, and the knife or strangulation if they found their wives beyond redemption - sisters and mothers were the property of their husbands or fathers. Hitting a woman, with fists and hands or even sticks, by the man himself, was to lower oneself to the level of a slave or...barbarian.
She sobbed for a moment, the pain overcoming her own formidable self control, the sound tearing free from her throat before she could contain it.
"You will not speak to me like that. Not in private, not in public, not ever. You have my obedience, but you will not steal the rights I have earned by birth and blood with a few words and a ancient trinkets." The barbarian lord's voice was firm, and utterly uncompromising. "I will allow you to address my vassals and trusted warriors, as you have asked, but you will make it clear what the nature of my service is, and the honor I gain from obeying you and staying true to the sworn oaths of my ancestors. Do you understand?" His voice was hard. She had heard him speak and behave like this only twice now, and it surprised her again, caught her off guard. He was...dangerous, and she feared she had attempted to saddle a beast that was well beyond her ability to control. She was afraid, but there was no way to dismount now, she had to ride him to the end...whether that be to her enslavement or death, or an eventual reclamation of her rights in the Empire.
***
She stood on the rough stone dais, her feet bare, dressed in a manner that might even seem peasant-like to these lords and ladies. The seat of the Lord of the Seafort sat behind her, made of a heavy wood and gilded with an elegant and minimal touch. She had her back to it now, and had only seen it on the long walk down the hall towards the dais where the barbarian, Selio, had stood, waiting...while from either side, the various warriors and lords and ladies and assorted figures of import of this place watched with curious eyes.
"I am of the One Empire Under the Stars. A scion of the Vropohkty, who are honored in the annals of the Empire... I wear the degroza of a noblewoman of the Empire, as dictated by the seventeen codes of the Righteous Citizen, and I speak the common tongue which you learnt at the feet of the Empire, but also can read and understand the thousand verses of the Histories of the Nations of Men as written in its original words in the Ancient scripts, and the language of my birth is High Mystic of the Empire." She paused, though she doubted they understood even half the significance of what she had said, though they at least recognized powerful titles and names when they heard them.
Words had power, even with savages, and she would use them like a cudgel if she had to. But she had two other weapons, and she would use them as well, when the moment was right.
"Once, the clan Permidin served the One Empire. You know this, and honor it in your own histories. However, you do not know the extent to which they served. In the secret vaults beneath the tombs of the first Emperors lays the roster of the Hidden Guard, on which the names of each of those who spoke the oath of Hidden Guard are listed, along with every direct blood descendant of theirs who bore their name that was known to the Empire." She studied the audience as she spoke, Selio was to her side, and she dared not even glance at him, lest the effect of her presence be weakened by the distraction...so she could not know how he was reacting. However, she had the crowd now, they were related to, or served these Permidin, and the honors she spoke of also filtered down to them in some way or another. She was coming to the duties that accompanied those honors though...
"The Hidden Guard lived to serve. They guarded the Empire from all enemies, inside our out, and in the last, could be called on to shield any Emperor or Ascendant Imperial with their lives, should it be so required. The name Selio Sagio Permidin is listed as the last of the Permidin clan on the rosters of the Hidden Guard. You know him as Selio the First." They were hers now; she had to make sure that that would carry through the parts of her speech that they found less...pleasing.
