NOTE: This story takes some inspiration from the Tolkien legendarium, but features only original characters, all of whom are consenting adult Elves and Orcs. Includes some heavy kink themes including degradation, BDSM, golden showers, and more. Sorry, Professor.
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"Do you, King Ishbolg of Lime Hollow, take Thanaleth, Marchwarden of the Woodland Realm, to be your wife?
"Will you love and honor her? Will you fight by her side in war, rule by her side in peace?
"Will you raise her up to be your tower of strength, to cast her shadow on you in friendship and power as long as you both shall live?"
"I will," said Ishbolg, his yellow eyes bright and feline in the lamplit hall carved out of the rocky hillside.
Thanaleth drank him in, fixing this moment in her mind. His jutting jaw, asymmetrical but not unhandsome. His gray skin that somehow shined in different colors at different angles, green here, fire-red there, a hint of deep blue in some of the shadows. He wore a magnificent suit of leathers and wool and polished bronze studs, overlaid with bright multicolored jewelry. His taloned toes, clicking bare on the stone floor as he shifted his weight, were painted blood red.
When she had first brought up the idea of marriage, he'd laughed in her face. When she had brought it up a second time, he had patiently explained to her why such a union was beyond imagining. Why no Elf would want to marry the Goblin way.
"And will you defile and dishonor her? Will you sink her into the dirt, to be the wretched and fertile slime of the Earth, to slake the sordid lusts of you and your band as long as you both shall live?"
Ishbolg stared into her eyes for a long moment. He still didn't believe she could really do this, she knew.
"I will," he said, and there was a hungry growl in it that shot through her, from the hot skin of her face to the blood rushing between her thighs.
For four hundred years, Thanaleth had been, as far as anyone knew, nothing but good and pure, serene and maidenly. A spring blossom dancing lightly on the tips of tree branches at her mother's endless recitals. A graceful shadow piercing intruders on the forest domain with unseen arrows.
Her future had been set. She was supposed to eventually fall in love with a handsome, high-born Elf-husband, kind and gentle. They would marry and become serene lovers, frolicking in the trees. Once every millennium or so, they might produce a perfect baby.
Thanaleth was still an Elf, and she
did
love to frolic in the trees. She was beautiful, she knew well, with a sharp mind and dagger.
Pure and maidenly was more the difficulty.
She had dallied with a dignitary on a visit to LothlΓ³rien. She had even spent a lovely and illuminating afternoon with a Man, many mortal lifetimes ago, a broad-shouldered hunter who had blundered into her woods.
And she had heard the rumors of the depravity of the Goblins. On night patrol, she had heard whispered stories of nightmarish orgies and twisted displays of love.
She was supposed to shudder in fright, and be thankful that she was an Elf, living among Elves. But she knew she was only pretending.
Some hundred years prior, when she led a company of Elf warriors to the aid of a King of Men whose domain was under attack by the Dark Lord, her detachment had stopped for the night near where their allies were camped.
Thanaleth had stolen away to catch a glimpse of these Men. She hadn't admitted it to herself at the time, but she had realized later she had obviously been hoping to meet someone like her long-dead hunter.
She had come upon a knot of what she learned were camp-followers, civilian entrepreneurs who travelled with the army to sell food, laundry services, and entertainment. All kinds of entertainment.
Perched in a tree, Thanaleth had watched in fascinated horror as a plump young Woman came her way with four nervous, gangly soldiers in tow. The Woman had laid out a tattered blanket under the spreading branches, shimmied out of her dress, and had given her hidden watcher a vivid demonstration of cocksucking.
By the time the young Woman departed, a few coins richer and dripping pearly white, Thanaleth's fingers had found their way inside her traveling breeches, and she shook so hard with her release that she almost fell out of the tree.
She had also learned a new word: whore.
In the morning, she strode openly into the Men's camp, and all around her soldiers and camp-followers fell into reverent silence, gazing reverently, awed, she knew, by her beauty and poise and more-than-mortal presence. Most had probably never seen an Elf maiden up close before.
But when she asked the Men to tell her more about whores, some froze, other fled in terror. One fell to his knees and begged her not to destroy him. She saw a deep and powerful shame in them that twisted strangely in her gut, and colored her memories in throbbing hues.
When she had told Ishbolg about this experience, and how many late nights thereafter she had imagined herself in the whore's place, the Goblin King had guffawed even harder than when she first brought up marriage. But after he wiped away the tears of laughter, he had looked at her with a more thoughtful expression.
"Do you, Thanaleth, Marchwarden of the Woodland Realm, take King Ishbolg of Lime Hollow to be your husband?"
She glanced over at the craggy old Goblin priestess in her black robes embroidered with red fangs and coiling dragons.
"Will you love and honor him? Will you fight by his side in war, rule by his side in peace?"
She thought of Hend, Ishbolg's wife, who had died some years back, in the final battle against the Dark Lord. The Goblins of Lime Hollow had turned against the Dark Lord at the end, and had allied with the free peoples of the world.
Thanaleth had fought alongside Lime Hollow in an early skirmish, in which she had made a foolish mistake and gotten herself injured. Ishbolg and Hend had jeered her mercilessly for her ineptitude, but after a few minutes they were feeding her a rich and spicy broth and telling bawdy stories while she waited for her companions.
Thanaleth had only known Hend for a short time, but the Orcish Queen had been proud and strong. She had described in gruesome detail how she had dealt with a Man in the Dark Lord's service who had demanded she and Ishbolg order their band to fight to the death in a useless stand to defend a worthless hill.
Thanaleth hadn't known then just what being Ishbolg's Queen entailed, but the picture of it somehow seemed to rhyme with the brave warrior she remembered, dripping with the blood of her enemies.
As Ishbolg had later explained to her, between the King and Queen, there was always one who led the band in battle, and one who was subordinate. But the one who led had a second, special role.
The Goblins had been dominated by a high and untouchable Dark Lord whom they feared and despised. Perhaps that deep well of resentment was why they had developed a warped form of hierarchy.
An Orcish King or Queen regnant was far from high or untouchable. When they weren't commanding their subjects, they served as a low and compliant figure to be humiliated and debauched for the people's pleasure.
The thought sent lightning surging through Thanaleth's blood.