"She can hear nothing now?"
"The shock will clear her mind for some time, Second of mine," the Sorceress of Abundance responded.
Atreya was worried. She'd seen a lot of corporal punishment carried out, but had never seen anything so painful in her life.
"Indeed," the Queen added as she looked down at the head cradled in her lap, "she hasn't her wits about her yet."
Talla looked up blankly at the Queen, confusion and the memory of pain creasing her brow.
"There, dear, easy now," the Queen said soothingly. Unlike Atreya, the Queen had seen the like before, but never at an upgrade. She pulled the thick white robe more tightly around her young charge to stop her shivering. It helped very little.
"Perhaps you could tell Us what happened."
Abundance sat in a chair at right angle to her Queen's couch. Atreya stood before them wearing only her skirt, not having taken the time to retrieve her top when they had taken Talla out of the Augmentation Chamber. The Sorceress of Point had been left to finish the evening's docket. The upgrades remaining were all hers anyway.
"He took too much," Atreya started. She stammered a moment and then corrected herself. "I gave him too much. I – I've never seen anyone draw it out so quickly. I thought it impossible, that I was fooling myself somehow. But he really pulled it out of me before I even - "
She stopped speaking and shook her head.
"How much, do you think?" the Queen asked patiently. There was only one more thing she could do for poor Talla. Cradling Talla's head in with her left arm, she began undoing the toggles of her blouse with her right.
"I don't know," Atreya replied.
The Queen slid her right arm out of her dress sleeve and let the left shoulder slide down as well. She drew Talla in closer, bringing the young one's mouth to her breast.
"Drink, dear," she said softly as she squeezed her breast. "You'll feel better."
A tiny drop of milk came forth and dripped in to Talla's mouth. She latched on mindlessly and began suckling from her Queen.
"There. It will calm you some."
Abundance, following Protocol and finding herself in the presence of a topless Queen, unlatched her sash and removed her bikini top. She looked at Atreya and raised an expectant eyebrow.
Yes, rules, Atreya remembered.
If a Queen is wearing only a long skirt and a Sorceress is wearing only a mid length skirt, a Second has no business wearing the same. She unlatched her skirt and let if fall to the floor. Too bad she hadn't worn anything underneath.
"You didn't consider halting?" the Queen asked. Her voice was still quiet but the soothing had gone out of it.
Atreya shook her head. Halting the Rite was her responsibility. But it was a difficult thing to do. It was frowned upon as an admission of failure. "Not until I saw him ... when I saw him twisting like that. I knew I hadn't been imagining things. I was about to -"
"Yes," Abundance put in as she folded her arms under her pendulous endowment, "I saw that. Late."
"Yes, late," Atreya admitted.
"This is a violation, you realize," the Queen said.
Protocols. If she had done this knowingly – and with intent – the punishment was severe. Mere incompetence merited punishment as well, but not as harsh. A woman of her rank was expected to know what was going on with her body.
"A lack of control," Abundance put in deadpan, "from my Second."
"In your defense?" the Queen asked.
Naked, in this quiet, dark room in the Queen's offices, she was to defend herself?
"It is difficult," Atreya began, "to pierce the seal of an unupgraded Virgin. That's why we use Officers and High Officers."
"Indeed," Abundance said, unimpressed.
"Many woman even take two or even three tries to get the first upgrade to take."
"Also true."
"When has any man every taken more than one upgrade from a woman in such a short time?", Atreya added, "I have heard of a double upgrade, but even that never led to such – such -"
She looked down at Talla, sleepily taking in the wonder drug that was the milk from Perfected mammary glands.
"Such pain," she finished sadly.
"I have myself witnessed several accidental double upgrades," the Queen said. "If I were to search the histories, I would probably find many more. I would probably also find that punishment for such was minimal."
That was hopeful.
"But what have you done today, Atreya?"
That wasn't quite as hopeful.
"I don't know. He was so fast. I don't know how much he took."
The Queen pursed her lips and looked down at Talla. She shifted her body to the side and let her other breast in her charge's mouth.
"I'm nearly empty," she remarked to the Sorceress.
"Let me know."
They turned back to Atreya.
"What of this?" the Queen said. "This can be no accident. You should have realized what you had given to this boy. The harm done to Talla could have been immense."
She nodded to the Sorceress as she lifted Talla's limp body to a sitting position. They switched places so Abundance could cup her own breast to let Talla suckle thereon.
"Yes, Highness," Atreya said contritely. "It pains me."
"As it should."
Atreya nodded in agreement.
There was silence for a time. The Queen refastened her dress. Atreya remained, by reason of her Sorceress's semi-clothed state, naked. The three women stayed in these positions for some time – nude, topless and fully-dressed – while Talla suckled peacefully away.
"She is done now," Abundance said.
The Queen rang a bell. The door opened immediately to admit two attendants – Endowment women with several Form upgrades.
"Take her to my quarters," the Sorceress said to them as she replaced her top and her sash, "Find someone to keep a close eye on her, then find a physician. Within, if you can find her, or her Second. Let her know that there was an overloading incident during an upgrade."
"Yes, Mistress," the senior of the attendants replied with a curt bow. They produced a stretcher, in to which Abundance gently lowered the young girl in her thick white robe. Talla was carried off.
Neither of the attendants showed any awareness of the naked woman standing at attention in the middle of the small room. They both knew who it was, even without the clue of the blue skirt sitting in a pile at her ankles but the tension in the room was palpable enough to speed them out.
The door closed behind them.
The room became decidedly cooler. All sense of soothing was gone. Atreya stood stiffly with her hands clasped behind her back and looked over the heads of her seniors.
The Queen rubbed a forefinger on the bridge of her nose and looked at the floor.
"A court would say six common lashes and one night severe Service," she said. "We offer you six common lashes, here and now. Five of them to the rear."
The Sorceress nodded her agreement.
"We make the offer to keep it a private matter," the Queen said, "out of respect for your many deeds. You may protest and take it to court on the morrow."
Court would be worse. Without the context of seeing the Rite – seeing how fast Zhair'lo's absorption had gone – a judge might not be so lenient. It was just so rare for a Second to be lashed at all. At least if she did it this way, in this room and without protest, few would know of it.
"I accept."
At least she was already naked. That saved a lot of time.
The Queen produced the common whip from a drawer in her desk. Did she always keep one there? Atreya had never seen it before. Was there a heavy whip in some other drawer?
The Protocol was clear. Already bare of clothing, Atreya needed only to lean over the couch while keeping her knees straight and her feet planted shoulder width apart. If this were done in court, there would be a wooden table upon which she would have to lay her upper body and restraints to hold her wrists in place. Here, in this informality, she was trusted to accept her punishment without resistance or evasion.
"For the crime of Overloading a Conduit, for causing unnecessary pain to two human beings and for reticence in acknowledging your failure in time to prevent such pain and suffering, you will receive six lashes," the Queen said.
"I am ready."
The Queen was a strong woman. She possessed eleven upgrades in the three Disciplines of Endowment. That wasn't the part that worried Atreya. Except for some pectoral strength, it hardly mattered. What really mattered was that a Queen was upgraded to the tenth level in every other Discipline, lest some accident require her to suddenly become Goddess. That meant ten upgrades in all of the Form Disciplines.
That was why the first lash she'd had in so many years stung so badly. The funny thing was that she heard the snap before she felt any contact. Her ears gave her a tiny fraction of a second to anticipate the pain that was coming. It seared a line across her rear that almost made her move. Almost.
But she didn't move. That would have been unforgivable in these circumstances. They were giving her the chance to keep this off the record. She must demonstrate her appreciation by acting as if she actually were tied down to a piece of wood somewhere in the domain of Form.
The second strike was just as bad. The Queen might not have to personally punish her underlings often, but she was more than dexterous enough to repeatedly strike a single spot with a lash. Her cheeks burned.
She accepted it, though. What she had done to Talla through her negligence had been far worse than this. Hell, what she had done to Zhair'lo had probably been far worse. At least he had recovered and walked away.
The third strike was vicious; an assault to remind her of her failure, not just as a qualified source of upgrades, but as a human being.
Number four scraped across the upper part of her thighs. It surprised her so much that she had to stifle a scream. They would get no such protest from her. She knew that what she was enduring was only what she deserved. A protest would be an attempt to deny that simple truth.
The fifth lash was the hardest, striking diagonally across her cheeks and cutting across the three streaks that had already been laid in to her delicate skin.
