A Damsel in Dissent

"No. No! You can't be serious. That's my home. My kingdom! I shouldn't have to deal with a war! This isn't fair. I wished you would serve me, Dragon. Not the other way around!"

Yolfi moved to strike the princess. She was quick, but my sharp senses anticipated her. Before she had gone two steps, I created a Stasis Sphere at her location, trapping her safely outside of time. She had already formed her hands into fists, prepared to deliver a nasty blow to the girl.

Azralynn gave a start as the spell was cast, recognizing the working as very high level magic. I sensed her pulse and breathing quicken, and noticed the slight pause in her touch before she resumed, her rhythm slower than before.

My large, clawed hand rested against the side of the ball of timelessness as I regarded the princess. "Yolfi is very eager, Ilithya. I am sure you would be collecting your teeth from the ground already if I hadn't stopped her. She will be punished for raising a hand against my Companion, but the severity of her punishment depends now on your attitude."

Sephillia purred softly at the mention of punishment and I felt fairly certain that whatever lust-inducing aura she projected actually grew stronger.

"I know you are a silly, spoiled girl, with very few thoughts in your head..."

Her face shade grew brighter, her eyes wide and lips drawn tightly.

"...so you probably don't understand the situation in which you now find yourself. When you raised your voice to my Dragonfall and wished upon it, you became subject to my price. That price is your loyalty and companionship. You will remain with me wherever I go, and my causes and purposes are now your own. You may not maintain allegiances to any other kingdom, family, or power." I stepped forward, maintaining contact with my Stasis Sphere as I moved around its perimeter.

Azralynn stayed behind, letting one hand trail down my flank as I passed her.

Ilithyia took a step back, swallowing nervously when I drew close enough to require her to tilt her head up to look at me. She was nowhere near as beautiful as Azralynn or as sexy as Sephillia, but the way her perfectly styled golden hair bounced cheerfully as she moved struck me as very cute. Perhaps she had some appeal of her own after all.

"This is not a request. It is a fact. You can't refuse the price. If you try to betray me, you will find you cannot, and I will be very disappointed in you. Your family's rule, their armies, laws, and borders... they are in my way and I will destroy them. But I need not destroy your family. Be smart, for once, Ilithyia: serve me willingly and in return I will spare their lives. But you will be asked to play a role in the destruction of their power, make no mistake about that."

Taking quick inventory of my other Companions, I could tell Sephillia was, naturally, aroused. She wouldn't care at all for mortal politics, perhaps even their lives; she just liked to see me wield authority. Azralynn's demeanor was stiff, but my guess was that she was determined to face the price of her wish with dignity. The goal was made plain for all of them to see, and it didn't matter if they liked it. As long as they sided with me.

Ilithyia frowned, torn between anger and fear. "How can you ask me to do this? To betray my family..."

"Your family, like all those who pretend to rule in Elderia, was doomed the moment I arrived in your world. I'm offering you a chance to save them from ****. As a gesture of my goodwill, I will spare them if you swear your fealty to me. If not... well they mean nothing to me, and you will be made to serve all the same."

The wind died down for a moment, allowing an eerie silence to creep in as I awaited Ilithyia's response. It was a lot to drop on her all at once; I knew that. But I wanted to push her hard to see what she was truly made of. I suspected I might find the heart of a queen and the soul of a warrior beneath her soft, spoiled exterior. She just needed to be tempered in the furnace of painful experience.

"Well?"

It was a simple question. She could throw an impotent tantrum and sentence her family to die, or she could submit. Help me bring about the end of their reign but thereby secure a place for them in my empire. It was a hard choice. The kind of choice her father had likely made a dozen times over, and Azralynn had certainly made when she first offered her flesh to Dragonkind in exchange for security in a hostile world.

Yolfi and Sephillia, likewise, had earned their places in the world, although I still wasn't entirely sure why an archdemon would willingly step down to become a lowly ****. Probably just bored; I had no idea how old she really was, and how long she'd been in her position. But Yolfi had been a ****. Used and abused but never broken. The path she now walked, she walked of her own volition and with purpose. All of them did.

All except Ilithyia. She'd never made a real choice in her life.