Pabro: En-Cemra

Content warning: The following story contains violence, S&M, and dubious consent.

There were a thousand reasons to come to Pabro, the City in the Mists. There were decidedly fewer reasons for a young man to visit the ludus district, and only one to explain why he would walk through the gates of En-Cemra unannounced. Luzoel knew his purpose at once, though he would first hear it from the man's lips.

The man was a fine representative of his species--tall, bronze-skinned, and muscular, with a mane of tawny hair falling about his shoulders. His jaw, angular and masculine, was dusted with a short layer of stiff stubble, surrounding a set, stoic mouth. He wore a suit of battle-tested leather armor reinforced with pauldrons and a breastplate of plate steel, as well as a longsword slung across his back. Young, Luzoel thought, though it was difficult to tell with humans. Likely stupid, which, on the other hand, was a near certainty with them. He carried himself with the surety of a practiced warrior.

They all did.

The young man marched through the atrium, heedless of the servants attempting to slow him, and pointed across the mirror pool to the fruit-laden table where Luzoel sat with his large, smirking companion.

"You there--cat," the man called, overpowering the gentle harp music with a brassy voice.

Luzoel's red-furred guest put a clawed hand to his chest, his feline muzzle curling into a smile to match the waxed whiskers twisted into a distinguished mustache.

"This is En-Cemra, is it not? You must be the lanista," said the young human.

The black-striped tiger-man at the table glanced down to Luzoel, who replied with only a lazy glance, opening his hand to offer him the floor.

"Must I?" the tiger-man said, planting his hands on his knees to push himself to his sandaled feet. "It is a bold man who enters another's home without first knowing the master of the house."

"I can see by your scars you must be rudiarii," the human said. "The lanista of En-Cemra is known for his might in the skallio."

"Known by whom?" the tiger-man said, folding his hands behind his back before beginning a slow, limping trek to the intruder. "Not you, certainly, which puts us on even footing. Tell me--human--what is your name?"

"Ryas of Gajra," the human answered, his chest proudly thrust out.

"Should I know it?"

The man deflated somewhat, drawing a bassy laugh from the tiger-kin.

"Worry not, Ryas of Gajra. News of the outside world doesn't often reach Pabro. I'm sure your victories are many and glorious. I," the tiger-kin said, bowing deeply at the waist, freeing numerous chains strung with gold, silver, and jewels to dangle from his neck and wrists, "am Sveric Gung-Trias."

"Lanista," Ryas said, nodding.

"Yes, but not the one you seek. That fine gentleman would be your most gracious host, Luzoel En-Kan."

Luzoel put a pipe no bigger than a matchstick to his mouth and took a slow draw before his broad wings began to flit behind him, lifting him from a tiny lounge set beside Sveric's fruit plate. The lanista gently glided across the mirror pool, hovering at eye-level above the calm surface, just beyond Ryas' reach. Slight, slender, and possessed of a cold, fae beauty, the pixie was no longer than Ryas' hand, though his robes hung nearly to the human's knees. Long the robes might have been, but they did little service to the pixie's modesty, flapping freely around his otherwise nude body, granting teasing glimpses of the lanista's pale, flawless form.

"Is this a joke?" Ryas growled, staring at the diminutive form hovering before him.

Luzoel did not respond, though Sveric drew a sharp breath and gathered his gold-woven robes about himself, edging around the pool.

"I will see myself out, Luzoel."

Luzoel drew more smoke from his pipe, his pale, pink eyes fixed, unmoving, on Ryas' face. "You do not wish to stay to watch?"

"You know I have no taste for your interviews, my love."

"Very well. We'll discuss more tomorrow. Do give Peraktos my regards," the pixie said, his voice high, musical, unreadable.

A boom of laughter escaped the tiger-kin again as he strode to the gates, collecting a pair of servants on his way out.

Ryas glared at the tiny shape lingering in front of him. "Do--"

"Smile."

"What?" the human said, somewhat taken aback by the strange request.

"Smile."

Scowling, his hands balling into fists at his sides, Ryas stared down the tiny man.

"Why?"

"Because I commanded it. If you wish to fight for En-Cemra, you will adopt a habit of obeying my commands, and with haste," Luzoel said, flitting closer to Ryas' face, his own utterly impassive. "Now, smile."

Of all the things Ryas had expected would be required of him to show his worthiness for Luzoel's ludus, a winning smile was rather low on his list of predictions, but the pixie was serious. Deadly serious, judging from the intensity of his pale stare. A corner of Ryas' mouth quirked. If the pixie was going to make such a ridiculous request, he may as well grin.

Luzoel darted closer as Ryas' lips parted and began to appraise the human's mouth. "You have most of your teeth--and they look healthy enough, for a human."

Ryas' brow furrowed with a glare and he opened his mouth to protest. "I--"

"Stick out your tongue."

"Why?"

Luzoel's expressionless face went dark and he slowly flew closer, hovering no further away from Ryas' face than the tip of his nose, saying, "Humans with poor oral hygiene are a bad investment. I do not make bad investments."

"I am not an investment; I am a warrior," Ryas growled, stamping his hob-nailed boot on the smooth-polished green marble of En-Cemra's atrium.

Luzoel's eyes widened. "Are you? You've fought in many battles?"

Ryas began to swell, a natural grin coming to his lips as one hand fell to his hip and the other drifted up to the grip of his longsword. "Aye. I was commended for my valor after repelling the Shtari invaders at Kell Pass."

Luzoel extended a slender hand toward Ryas, palm up and waiting. "Excellent. You must have been handsomely rewarded. I thought I would have to pay your way."

"Pardon?" Ryas asked, staring at the tiny hand and gripping his coin purse.

"You can pay the skallio entry fees on your own, can you not?" Luzoel asked, his beautiful face once again torturously free of emotion.

Ryas' hand tightened around his pouch, a nervous look coming to his eye. "How much does it cost to enter the skallio?"

"En-Cemra doesn't touch skallio worth less than forty tekla."

"Forty tekla? That's madness!"

Luzoel flitted away, his broad, moth-like wings carrying him to the center of the mirror pool, where he cast his arms about himself and spun in a quick ring, his robes fanning, then twisting beneath him. "I have built this ludus from the ground up, Ryas, over ten of your lifetimes. We have earned our prestige with the blood and sweat of better men than you, and none of them thought themselves above the commands of their lanista. Do you or do you not have forty tekla?"

Battling with his own pride, Ryas cast his eyes to the green tiles covering the floor, eventually, grunting, "No."

In an instant, Luzoel was in front of Ryas' nose again. "Then stick out your tongue. You've had no trouble using it since you intruded into my home. Show it to me."

Ryas' cheeks colored and, begrudgingly, he parted his teeth and extended his tongue from his mouth. The servants in the room began to draw nearer, concealing their giggles beneath open palms as they watched the lanista assess Ryas. Immediately, the tiny pixie focused his attention on the tongue, running a small, slender hand across the wet, flexible muscle.

The contact was too much for Ryas. Alarmed, he withdrew his tongue into his mouth, glaring at the pixie, who slowly turned his pink eyes on the uncooperative human.

"Get out," Luzoel stated plainly. "I will not train disobedient gladiators."

The anger fled Ryas' blue eyes.

"Wait," the human stuttered. "Forgive me. I'm... not used to... such treatment."

"A gladiator who won't tolerate being touched is of little use to me," the pixie replied, turning and beginning the slow glide back to his lounge.

"Please--sir! Allow me to prove my skills to you. I will serve you better than any gladiator who's ever fought under the banner of En-Cemra," Ryas begged, stepping into the mirror pool as he followed after the tiny lanista.

At the first heavy plunk of Ryas' boots stepping into the water, Luzoel slowly turned, his lip curling into a sneer, but only for a moment. Once the warrior finished his declaration, a small, sly smirk danced across Luzoel's lips.

"A special case? If I had known you were a special case, Ryas, and not some braggart street tough, I would have been much kinder to you."

Ryas perked up, his brows rising slightly with renewed hope.

"In that case," Luzoel continued, "I'll offer you the same opportunity I offer every special case--a single bout of combat against En-Cemra's doctore. Should you draw blood, I will take you on and train you. The name Ryas of Gajra, of En-Cemra, will be known the world-over. You will be rich, famous, powerful. Women and men of all races will fall at your feet, desperate just to bask in your glory--willing to serve you however would best please you."

The muscular warrior straightened up, his posture finally as confident and as proud as it had been when he first barged in.

"Of course," Luzoel said, his honeyed words dripping into Ryas' ear, "En-Cemra doesn't fight opponents for less than forty tekla... though our doctore has been retired from the skallio for some time."

The pixie put a finger to his chin, making a show of being deep in thought.

"You are a mighty warrior, yes?"

Ryas nodded, his hand gripping the hilt of his longsword.

Luzoel's hands drifted behind his back, his head sinking into the thick collar of white down around his neck, and smiled. "Very well. Since you are a special case, and such a good investment, should you emerge victorious, I will waive the fee and take you on. However, should you be defeated, I will still take you on and train you, but only to work off your forty tekla debt with your blood and sweat."

Drifting to the middle of the stilling pool, Luzoel flashed Ryas a bright, sharp-fanged smile.

"Agreed?"

***

When Ryas stepped out of Luzoel's manor and into the training yards, he knew he had made a mistake.

A vast courtyard, open to the sky and divided into numerous fighting pits, the ground was so soaked with blood that the dust and earth which had once floored the yard had been caked into a dark, unyielding concrete. Each fighting pit was occupied by at least two warriors, and each fighter was stranger to Ryas' eyes than the last. In Gajra, they would call these people monsters.

"Hail, lanista!" came a bizarre, trumpeting blast of a voice. It was quickly echoed by every other voice in the yard as each warrior put up their arms and knelt in reverence. The original speaker, however, did not kneel. Not in any way Ryas recognized, that is.

He was a vast thing, slithering across the blood-cemented yard on a thick, sinuous, serpentine tail which dragged wandering trails through the earth. However, his front half, held erect on a thicker trunk of serpentine body, was shaped like a human's, albeit an exceptionally large and exquisitely muscled one. The serpent-man's black-scaled muscles twisted and swayed sensuously as he approached, before, seeing Ryas, a great, scaled hood unfolded from his shoulders, crowning him with a cobra-like mantle.

"Lanista," the nagaji hissed, bowing deeply.

"Sivran," Luzoel said, inclining his head in greeting. "This is Ryas of Gajra. He is a special case."

Sivran the nagaji's slitted eyes fell onto Ryas, cold and unblinking. Ryas tried to meet the creature's gaze, but found it deeply unnerving, not least of which because the doctore absolutely dwarfed him in size.

"I see," Sivran breathed, his forked tongue snaking out from his scaled snout. As it did, Ryas caught sight of a tiny, silver orb flashing in the midday light--the nagaji's tongue was pierced. "Would it please you to watch, Master?"

"Not today, I think," Luzoel said, folding his hands behind his back as his wings carried him to the manor's interior. "I will see you when you wake, Ryas. Best of luck."

"Hail, lanista," the nagaji rumbled as the pixie withdrew.

Ryas furrowed his brow as he watched the pixie disappear into the dark of the ludus' interior, but said nothing. The doctore would serve as witness to his skill, even if the lanista himself would not. Drawing the long blade from his back, Ryas entered the nearest empty ring and fixed his eyes on the looming nagaji. By the time the sun fell below the bluffs of Pabro, he would be a gladiator of En-Cemra.

***

Ryas' mouth tasted foul. There was a vile sharpness to the air in his nose and his teeth were covered with the thick, cloying taste of iron. As he began to run his tongue over his teeth to clear them of filth, he felt something click, hard, against the back of his incisors. He tried to lift a hand to investigate, but found he could not. His eyes shot open.

"Good evening, Ryas," came a quiet, lyrical voice. Turning his head, Ryas saw Luzoel sprawled across a hand-sized lounge set atop a bedside table, a petite book clutched in his hands as he surveyed the bound and bed-bound warrior. "It seems your bout with Sivran did not go as you'd hoped."

Ryas blinked the haze from his vision. Where was he? It was dark and warm. His head rested atop the softest pillow he'd ever felt, while silk sheets were draped over his prone body. There were heavy, velvet curtains surrounding his bed on all sides. He started to speak, but stopped when he felt something strike his teeth again. In alarm, Ryas opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue.

"Good boy," Luzoel said with a smirk, rising on his wings to hover over Ryas' head. "You were somewhat slower than they usually are, but at least you've learned how to obey."

What was he talking about?

Sticking out his tongue as far as he was able, Ryas beheld a glimmering orb set in the middle of the muscle--just like the doctore's.

"What did you do?" Ryas cried, putting a hand to his lips as the metal ball piercing his tongue struck his hard palate.

"Nothing more than what we agreed, Ryas," Luzoel said, reaching up one hand to the fluffy collar around his neck. The clasp of Luzoel's robe quickly surrendered to his nimble fingers and the draping silk fell away, pooling on Ryas' chest. "You lost your bout."

Still coming to his senses and addled by the new addition to his mouth, Ryas barely registered the pixie's casual disrobing. "I didn't agree to--"

"It's nothing more than a badge of your debt. It doesn't even hurt, does it?"

Ryas began to protest, but realized Luzoel was correct. He would have expected soreness, swelling, bleeding from a piercing like this, but had none--not anymore, at least. Even rolling his tongue and working the stud aggressively with his teeth produced no discomfort.

"Once you have paid what you owe," Luzoel continued as Ryas' eyes lost their panicked edge, "I will remove the stud and it will be like it was never there in the first place. How does that sound, gladiator?"

The title was not lost on Ryas. Calm and clarity crept into his vision and he fixed his eyes on the lanista, hovering, completely nude, just over his face. Without his robes, Luzoel's body was on full, unashamed display, and Ryas couldn't help but take him in. The pixie's skin, which Ryas had thought to be pale, was, in the dim light, a rich caramel color, but even the lonely, flickering candlelight shone kaleidoscopically off him in bursts of color and white, lending him an odd, ethereal glow. The white-furred collar which Ryas believed to be part of the lanista's garment had not fallen away, however, leaving his neck concealed under downy fluff which now appeared natural. His silver hair cascaded past the collar and over narrow shoulders, nearly to a gently-defined chest, set over a slender belly whose shallow lines tempted the eye to the pixie's smooth groin, devoid of any silver or white to match that on his neck or head.

Watching Ryas' comparatively massive eyes trail down his body, Luzoel smiled and pulled his hands from behind his back, trailing them down his waspish hips. "Well, Ryas? You are a gladiator of En-Cemra now. You got what you wanted. All you have to do in return is obey your lanista's every command."

Ryas could not take his eyes away. He'd never looked with desire on another man's body and even now, despite his fixation, he didn't know that he desired the tiny pixie. But it didn't matter.

"Now, smile," Luzoel ordered. This was no longer a negotiation.

"Hail, lanista," Ryas attempted around the unfamiliar stud in his tongue, smiling wide for his new master.

"Good. Stick out your tongue." Luzoel's hands slid inward, across his pelvis, and down the proportionally-impressive manhood hanging flaccidly to his mid-thigh, and Ryas did as he was bid, his eyes unavoidably drawn to the pixie's dick as Luzoel took his length in hand. "Do you want to know how your master tastes, gladiator?"

He couldn't. Ryas knew what Luzoel was asking. He understood his position. He knew that he was essentially his lanista's property, but he couldn't ask for another man to--

Pain.

Sudden, searing pain, radiating from the stud in his tongue, growing hotter by the instant. He tried to bring a hand to his mouth, but the restraints around his wrists were too tight, too strong. And as Ryas twisted his body in the bed in a futile attempt to relieve the agony, Luzoel hovered over him, gently stroking himself, his face once again impassive.

"Please," Ryas whimpered, his jaw open wide to stop the searing stud from touching anything else in his mouth.

"Please what?"

"Stop, please!" Ryas cried, tears springing to his eyes.

"No, no. Please, what?"

Ryas found the needed motivation. "Please, let me taste you, Master!"

The pain was gone. Instantly--without even an echo of the burning punishment.

"Good." Luzoel alighted on Ryas' face, planting one foot on his chin and the other on his stubbled cheek. "You do learn quickly, Ryas. Perhaps you will serve me well."

A tear freed itself from Ryas' eye to flow down his left cheek before Luzoel swept it away with an open palm.

"There is nothing to cry about. Serve me well, Ryas, and I will make you more powerful than whatever petty ambitions brought you to this place. Stick out your tongue."

Closing his eyes, Ryas obeyed, extending his pierced tongue into the open air and the unforgiving scrutiny of his tiny master. Barely a moment passed before he felt something warm and hard press against the tip of his tongue. It was unlike he expected. Slightly salty, yes, but strangely sweet and aromatic, like cloves.

Another tear squeezed out of his clenched eye. He liked it. He liked the taste of his master's cock. But then it was gone, replaced instants later by something else. Larger, just as warm, but with a milder flavor. Ryas opened his eyes again, taking in Luzoel as the pixie threw a bare leg over his tongue, straddling it like a horse's saddle. He was confused, until he felt pressure on the stud in his tongue, which Luzoel had quietly positioned between his own legs.

"Mas--"

The flexing of Ryas' tongue pushed the stud up, between Luzoel's tongue-spread cheeks, and into the pixie's tight hole. The pixie released a deep, shuddering sigh of pleasure as the sphere entered him, then squeezed hard around it, grinding the orb against his own prostate.

"Ahh," the lanista breathed, wrapping his legs around the wet, sinuous saddle of Ryas' tongue. He bounced in position a few times, grinning and looking deep into Ryas' eyes as his new gladiator did his best to serve him. "That look in your eyes, Ryas... You want it, don't you?"