Slave Woman's Grave Eeper

Previously:

A slave woman, Karma, has been kidnapped and buried alive in the desert. Her abductors have been drugged to forget what they have done. The only witness was a bluebird, the familiar of a witch who likes to watch but not get involved. Karma awakens in her grave to find another presence, Ileana, a creature whose purpose is now to keep Karma alive.

***

0 - 0 - 0 - 5:17 - Verraily

"Yes, Ms. May I help you this fine evening," Rolf, the gate guard, asked.

Verraily looked out at the blowing clouds of dust in the streets and the roiling dark skies. "I've come to check on the status of a slave. Karma is her name. Has she returned to the castle?"

Rolf stepped into the small gatehouse and started to examine the conveyance logs. "What is her id?"

"P-346. Her name is Karma."

"One of the Princess's slaves? Hmmm... P-346..." Rolf made a show of searching through the log with his finger dragging down each page. "Ah, yes, she left the castle at 10:47 this morning. She does not appear to have returned. I shall make sure she reports for punitive action when she returns."

"I am concerned," Verraily said as she attempted to peer over the guard's shoulder at the log. "Her errand was not difficult and should not have taken much time..."

"Shall I activate the locator?" Rolf asked. He lay down the logbook and stepped over to a glass orb.

"She was wearing no collar, I'm afraid..." Verraily said, looking once again through the guardhouse window at the dark skies.

Rolf chuckled and lowered his voice, "Then she has probably run..."

"Nonsense! The Princess treats all her slaves with the utmost respect. They know their exalted status. They would not choose to run!" Varraily said with a gasp.

"You're probably right, Ms," Rolf said holding up his hands as though he were surrendering his argument. "But, you know slaves are not so smart. They sometimes get the foolish notion that their lives should amount to something bigger than their natural destiny predicts. Odds are she will return in no time begging for the whip just to escape the harsh reality of the world outside. A slave needs a collar to remind her of her position. Heavy, and welded on, no less! They are born with the need for proper control."

"I can't imagine Karma... P-346 would have run. She is part of the Princess' dowry. She is to depart with the Princess' retinue for Joppa-by-the-Sea tomorrow morning."

"Ah!" Rolf responded with the confidence of his convictions. "There is your answer. She does not, for whatever reason, wish to leave Cowen. Tis no big deal. I'm sure that the Princess has a host of harlots from which to choose to replace the slave."

Verraily regarded Rolf with a frown. "Could you just make a note for her to report directly to her dorm upon her return?"

"Gladly, Ms." Rolf made a slight bow.

0 - 0 - 0 - 9:42 - Ileana

The woman was making a low moaning sound when Ileana slipped back through the portal in the footboard of the sarcophagus and into the small space of the grave. But her voice quickly changed to a strangled panic when she felt Ileana begin to crawl up along her body.

"Fucking hell! What the..."

"Shhh," Ileana tried to sooth the woman. "It's me. Your keeper. I need to replenish the sedgling weeds and promote your continued existence."

"Oh, fuck!" the woman gasped struggling fruitlessly in her bonds. "I thought for sure you had been a delirious dream. Before."

Ileana was curled between the woman's legs draping the wet weeds along the sides of the sarcophagus. Already the air was regaining a bit of vitality - expunging the stifling stagnation that had developed since she had last visited her ward. Ileana could feel the woman's legs tense and shaking beneath her as she leaned side to side.

"The pain is excruciating," the woman croaked. "My back and legs... Can't move at all."

"When you nurse, you will receive some relaxants which will soothe your muscles. That seems to be the way it works..." Ileana explained. She slowly slid a hand up along the woman's outer thigh and over her hip as she moved further into the sarcophagus.

"I think that my bladder is going to burst."

Ileana let her hand slide over the woman's lower abdomen. She felt the hard knot under the soft skin. Her bladder was swollen. "You must release your wastes."

The woman groaned. "Yes... Can you...?"

"Don't worry so, for this is my job," Ileana said. "Just relax."

Ileana lowered her face towards the captive woman's crotch, open-mouthed and gently sealing her lips tightly around her sex. The woman was shaking, but still resisting the inevitable. "I can't..." she cried.

Ileana slowly pushed her tongue forward until it rested against the woman's labia, holding it steady, applying only the lightest of pressure. She let her hands gently stroke the woman's taut stomach, feeling the muscles of her ward, smoothing the skin over and around the her bladder.

The woman's body spasmed and she grunted, then the warm stream of urine began to spray into Ileana's mouth. She pulled her tongue back and opened her throat to allow the woman's wastes to be absorbed, closing her eyes and letting her instincts take over.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." the woman said and her chest shook with sobs.

In due course, the chained woman finished. Ileana quickly flicked her tongue up along the woman's slit eliciting a quick spasm through her subject's body. Ileana then pursed her lips, keeping pressure against the smooth skin of the woman's sex, until finally pulling away with the suction of a light kiss.

"Are... Are you OK?" the woman asked. "I'm so sorry."

"These are simply the things that are necessary to keep you alive," Ileana said.

"OK... well... Thank you," the woman whispered between somewhat panicked gasps for air. "I hope that you don't have to do this too long," the woman moaned. "Air or no, I don't think that I'll survive the pain of lying here motionless too long."

Ileana looked up the length of the woman's body - across her abdomen and her heaving breasts, past her collared neck and blindly twitching eyes, her glorious mane - glowing, framed by her tautly pulled arms. The woman seemed gracious - a rare trait for a human woman. At least from those that Ileana had encountered. Why would someone wish to bury her alive? The cruelty of humans never ceased to amaze Ileana. Certainly, it angered her.

The woman seemed to try to flex a muscle in her leg, but then began to jerk wildly in her chains. "Ow! Fuck! Ow!"

"What's wrong?" Ileana asked pulling her knees up between the woman's spasming legs in order give space for the woman's seizures.

"Calf muscle! Oh, shit, it hurts! Cramp!"

Ileana twisted a bit in the enclosed space of the sarcophagus. "Which one?"

"The right... arrrg," the woman sobbed, her back arching slightly from the satiny padding of her bed.

Ileana grasped the woman's calf, feeling the knotted lump of muscle which she began to knead with her hand.

"Ow, fuck!" the woman moaned. "Thank you. Ow! Oh, that's better... Earlier I got a cramp in my foot and I just had to lie as still as possible for who-knows-how-long."

"You must nurse," Ileana said as she continued to massage the woman's calf. "It seems to help alleviate muscle cramps."

"Ok... I was hoping to get out of here quickly, before it came to this."

Ileana grimaced in the darkness. She knew that it was highly unlikely that this human woman's situation would be resolved any time soon. The evidence suggested... well, quite the contrary. "Let me get into position. Everything will be much better."

Ileana crawled deeper into the sarcophagus taking care not to pull the woman's hair as she lowered herself to her elbows, straddling the woman's waist. She directed her right nipple toward the woman's mouth. "Ready?" she asked.

"Uh huh," the woman said in a small voice.

Ileana felt the woman's lips around her nipple, then her tongue began to tease the tip. She did not seem to know what she was doing though as she let her lips relax and continued to rub her tongue gently over Ileana's puckering nipple. Ileana detected a reluctant demonstration at some erotically oriented skill. Certainly, this woman had had a nipple in her mouth before, though not, perhaps, for the purpose of nursing.

"That feels nice," Ileana said. "But you need to seal your lips around my nipple and apply a bit of suction."

"Oh, sorry," the woman mumbled around Ileana's breast.

Ileana felt the woman's lips press around her nipple again. "More suction... Wait! Ow! You don't have to smash it between your lips. Come on!"

"No. I can't do this," the woman cried from underneath Ileana.

"Look! Certainly you did this as a baby." Stupid fucking humans! How did they ever populate the world? "Don't you human's still nurse as babies? I'm sure you can figure it out."

"I didn't have a mother," the woman cried.

"What? Did you magically appear from nowhere?"

"No..." the woman sobbed.

"Do you descend from sea horses? Were you spewed from your father's belly?" Ileana could not help herself as her agitation grew.

"No. I'm a slave..."

"Oh, Goddess! Humans and their oppressive tendencies! But, certainly slaves have mothers too!"

"No! Not me! I was sold before I even took my first breath of air! That's how my mother made a living. By fucking and selling her babies into slavery." The woman's voice was raspy and cracking from the day's stress, but Ileana noted that she was not crying. Still she felt bad that she had pushed the woman so hard. "At least that is what I've been told."

"I'm sorry. No one should be a slave... Fucking humans!"

"It's not so bad," the woman sighed. "At least not for the past few years. I've been blessed in this life." There was a moment of silence as Ileana looked at the woman's face which seemed more contemplative than it had. "Well... until now, that is..."

"OK," Ileana sighed. "Let's try this once more before you start cramping again."

Ileana purposely shoved her nipple back into the woman's mouth before she could respond further. She did not want to know any more about the woman's history than necessary. Information bred empathy and there was no room in this grave for that. After a moment of muffled protest, the woman began to work Ileana's nipple again. Obviously, the human was smart. She took direction well. Already, Ileana could feel the tingly feeling of fluid beginning to be released through her nipple. Her letdown. With a minor shock of horror, Ileana heard herself quietly moan.

"I can't balance like this on my elbows," Ileana said. "Let me move to the side a little."

Ileana's back pressed against the cool stone wall of the woman's sarcophagus as she shifted her weight off her elbows and knees and onto her left hip. She used her hand to tilt the woman's face, though there was little room before the woman's collar chain tightened to its limit and her pinioned arm became an obstacle. Ileana positioned her right knee just above the woman's pubic bone and left her foot to slide up along the smooth skin of the woman's inner thigh.

All this time the woman remained latched onto her nipple, and Ileana let out a soft sigh as she relaxed. After a couple of minutes, she realized that she was still tenderly cupping the woman's face and began to remove her hand, but the woman grunted quietly in a way that sounded like protest, so Ileana replaced her hand softly against the woman's cheek.

Ileana lay quietly listening to the woman's occasional grunts, feeling her breath whistle against her chest. Slowly, the woman's breathing became slower and deeper. Ileana noticed the heat glowing from the woman, now much less concentrated about her skeletal frame and large muscle groups - much more diffuse and even throughout the woman's body.

"Maybe we should try the other..." Ileana began to say, but as she shifted she felt her nipple slide from the woman's mouth which was now slack. She was completely unconscious, Ileana realized - deeply asleep. Before she thought of what she was doing, Ileana leaned forward and brushed her lips on the woman's forehead in a light kiss.

Ileana let her pointed foot slide down across the woman's knee and toned calf until it reached the cool metal shackle locked about the woman's ankle. She looked one last time at the woman's face - so relaxed and blissfully asleep. "Rest well..." Ileana whispered, "you stupid, fucking human." And she climbed backward through the portal set into the footwall of the sarcophagus.

0 - 0 - 0 - 10:15 - Evanescent

Evanescent stood in the wind at the top of the southeast tower looking off across the dark desert towards Ailyan canyon and the distant mountains that crept down to the Tennaton Sea. Despite the chill in the air, she removed her robe and stretched her arms up and wide. She closed her eyes and set her jaw as she summoned her strength for one last Thump. Her body began to shake, slowly building, until her torso suddenly bowed outward in one quick spasm. Afterward she sighed and relaxed a little waiting to feel the familiar tingle of any sort of response.

Her power swept out through the streets, past the city walls and outlying shacks, on across the shrublands and into the barren wastes. Cowen was a dying city and the surrounding kingdom fared no better. On one hand, the emptiness would make the response Evanescent was looking for contrast much more. On the other, her powers just didn't penetrate as far across the countryside as they had in the past.

After a minute, Evanescent opened her eyes, frowning, slowly bending to pull up her robes. Nothing! Not even the hint of a response. The slave, Karma, had been tagged with a locater charm hung from seamless rings embedded within her flesh. For two hours Evanescent had used her magic to search for the charm, sending waves of magic out across the landscape, and so far, not a single ghost of its existence. Perhaps, she was looking in the wrong direction. Perhaps the slave had gone beyond the sphere of her ability to detect. Perhaps the slave had come upon foul play and she was dead and the charm destroyed.

Evanescent was just finishing a huge yawn when a castle slave came up from below. "Madam Evanescent, the Queen's Witch would like to have a word with you. She is waiting by the vault."

Well, at least Evanescent wasn't the only one up and working in the middle of the night. She followed the short female slave down several flights of stairs. Evanescent felt her eyes drawn down to the bottom of the slave's heavy, black robe which ended just past her knees giving view to finely shaped calves, slim ankles wrapped in black, steel cuffs, and dainty barefeet. Such a delicate beauty...

Finally, they came to the vault. The heavy steel door was opened and the slave stepped inside. "Madam Morgana, the Princess' Witch has arrived."

Evanescent stepped around the steel door into the vault and nodded at the older witch as the slave girl made a quick departure. The room was lined with an array of small compartments fronted by drawers, each labeled with numbers and requiring two keys to open. Morgana beckoned Evanescent further into the vault to the far wall where she inserted two keys into seemingly random drawers (numbers 564 and 832, Evanescent noted). Upon twisting the keys simultaneously, the entire wall shifted half an arm's length to the right revealing a passageway. Evanescent had never known about this secret. Morgana led her down the dimly lit corridor, through a metal barred gate and then another heavy steel door which required some fairly specific handwaving and an odd chant for Morgana to unlock. There was a hum of some dedicated air movement system behind a wall of odd machines which appeared fairly inert but for a single flashing light on each. There was a table with a sealed glass cannister, within which was a glowing green, gooey liquid of some sort. Various tubes ran from the walls to the cannister.

Next to the table was a chair with wheels designed to move an occupant easily from one place to another. Currently the occupant was a slave woman bound to the point of immobility. Her arms were cuffed to the armrests, her feet locked to a foot rest. A thick collar held her head upright and a large black ball was strapped into her mouth. Besides her bonds, she was naked and her breasts heaved up and down rapidly as she gasped for air through her nose. Her dark, wet eyes shifted nervously between Evanescent and Morgana dimly reflecting the flashing lights of the machines.

"The time has come for me to teach you of the Crown's Concern," Morgana said as Evanescent's eyes returned to the glowing green liquid.

Of course, Evanescent was familiar with the Crown's Concern. It was practically the only item of value that the royal family still owned. It was a magic rumored to bestow its wielder with great power over any foe. The nature of the magic was a great secret, considered by most to be overstated. Still, the possibility of great magic was enough to attract many interests. In fact, regardless of the Princess' great and virginal beauty, it was more likely her inheritance of the Crown's Concern that catalyzed her upcoming nuptials with Prince Jansen.

"This," Evanescent pointed skeptically at the green liquid, "is the Crown's Concern?" She glanced over at the bound slave girl for a moment. Immediately, she realized that the slave girl would likely face a questionable future. She would never be allowed to communicate what she was witnessing. Her obvious distress was warranted. The way the slave trembled suggested that she too understood that her future looked bleak. "Is it some sort of potion?"

"No. It is a disease - a magical virus, perhaps. It only takes the smallest drop of liquid for an individual to contract the disease."

"But what does it..." Evanescent began, but Morgana interrupted her.

"There will be time later for me to explain," Morgana stated. "But, now, we must infect this girl." The slave woman moaned and violently shook her head, pulling at her bondage. Morgana ignored her. "You see, the missing slave, P-346, Karma is her name I believe, was infected three years ago in one of my experiments. She still carries the disease, if she is still alive, that is..." (Evanescent suddenly realized that Morgana had not even inquired as to the results of the Evanescent's search for Karma.) "I have found a way to manage the disease in a carrier. In fact, I have been managing Karma's infection all these years, limiting the effects to the array of magical rings set within her flesh - I'm sure that you are familiar with them."

"Of course," Evanescent nodded. Karma was easily identifiable amongst the slaves due to her extensive collection of piercings. But, the piercings were magical?

"Well, Karma was supposed to travel with the Princess to Joppa-by-the-Sea and then be used as proof of the power of the Crown's Concern. A demonstration would ensure that the nuptials proceeded to the benefit of the Princess, the Crown, and indeed, all of Cowen. Unfortunately, as you know, the slave seems to have blundered into trouble and now is missing. So, now this one must replace her, which is unfortunate because it will take a while for the disease to advance appropriately and with proper care."

Evanescent looked at the cowering slave girl bound in the chair. "If Karma were so important, what was she doing out in the city by herself?"

"There is no way that anyone could have known about her condition," the older witch explained. "Only the Queen and I (and now you, of course) know about the experiments. We felt there was no need to control her and she has always been quite happy and compliant. Even the slave did not understand the nature of her condition. I shifted her thoughts on the piercings to make her feel that they were voluntary - marks of beauty."