Marcus wants to know why she's so cruel

"Um..." The young prince stared at the gorgeous purple eyes of his goddess, the words sticking in his throat. The pressure of her expectation warred with his fear of disappointing her, and at last he managed to **** his voice free. "I...why do you punish people like that, Mistress?" He asked, trembling with unease.

"An astute question, apprentice." Mistress nodded, leaning back against the throne. Her arm dropped and at the same time the bowl of water vanished into thin air. "It must seem strange to one so inexperienced that the vengeance I tend to inflict upon my enemies is so convoluted. Why not merely kill them outright? There are two reasons, apprentice, and both of them you will come to understand as well as you gain in power." Marcus frowned slightly, not sure she'd understood his question properly. "The first relates to magic itself. You remember how I told you that the energy your gift draws upon can be gained from sexual secretions?"

"Yes, Mistress." The young prince nodded, blushing faintly as he remembered that lesson with the tentacle.

"Well, by transforming those who challenge me into twisted forms such as those you saw, I can use them as vessels to generate more power for myself." Mistress explained. "Like the foolish former prince for example. Once he'd been thoroughly turned out by his transformed soldiers, I harvested the semen they'd sprayed all over his body, preserving and bottling it for later consumption. In this way I gained back all the power I'd expended and more. By careful application of transformation magic in this way, a sorcerer can use the ungifted as an endless supply of energy to power their magic."

"And...um, what happened to the prince afterwards?" Marcus asked, not even sure he wanted to hear the answer. But everything she did was right, wasn't it? No matter how awful it might seem at first glance.

"I left him there, with his former guards to entertain him." Mistress smiled thinly. "In a cell I sealed off so that no-one would ever find them. I expect he starved to **** while still being fucked in all his holes, and then the beasts turned on each other." The young prince winced. He couldn't imagine anything so awful, but she said it with such cold delight. "You are unsettled by this?" His goddess raised an eyebrow.

"Yes...it just seems so cruel." Marcus whimpered, his hands working nervously over each other in front of his belly.

"Ah, it is easy for me to forget how young you are, when your gift has such potential." Mistress sighed. She didn't sound angry at least, just the thought of her being mad at him made his stomach twist into knots. "That is related to the second reason I meant to discuss. As your magic grows in strength, so too will the desire to test yourself in ways that may seem strange or unsettling to you now. As is only proper, you will see how far below you the ungifted are, worthy only of being playthings and subjects for your experiments. That is all they are compared to us, apprentice, never forget that."

"Yes Mistress." The young prince nodded, even though he wasn't sure he really agreed with her. Sure, it had been fun bossing the twins around, but that didn't mean he was going to turn them into horrible monsters. That didn't seem right at all.

"Enough philosophy." Mistress purred. "It is time for you to practice some transformation magic for yourself. We will start with the very simplest of tasks, turning one inanimate object into another." She raised her hand again and another silver goblet appeared in her grip. "Take this apprentice." She held it out to him. Marcus carefully took the cup from her grip, running his hands over the polished silver and feeling the weight in his grip. "That's right." She nodded her approval. "At these early stages it is best you familiarize yourself with the subject of your transformation. In time, as using your gift grows easier, you will no longer need such a crutch. Now, I want you to try and turn the goblet into something else. Any object will do, but better if it is something roughly the same size that you can picture clearly in your mind." She paused a moment, as Marcus tried to focus on the lesson instead of his lingering doubts. "Do you have an idea?"

"Yes Mistress." The young prince replied. A pretty coronet his Mother had given him for his last birthday, silver studded with sapphires. She'd told him to only wear it for special occasions, but he'd sometimes put it on when he was trying new clothes, prancing about in front of the mirror looking very fancy. He pictured the jewelry in his mind, how it had felt in his hands and on his head.

"Now reach for your gift." Mistress told him. Marcus concentrated harder, finding that hum of power inside him. He frowned at the tingling wrongness of the thing she'd put inside him, pulsing away over the more familiar feeling of his own gift. Just thinking about that horrible thing made his butt clench tighter around it, sending some distracting warm tingles through his lower body. He **** those aside, clenching his jaw and gripping the power in his head. "You have it." Mistress nodded. "Good. Now hold the image of your target in your mind, as clearly as you can make it, then project that over the cup. Do not get distracted, just focus on what you wish to happen."

Remembering the disaster of his first attempt at magic, the young prince screwed his eyes shut and **** himself to focus only on the coronet. The image grew sharper in his mind, until he could almost see the blue sapphires glinting in front of him. The power rose inside him as if to answer his call, swelling up to something larger. Just like Mistress had told him, he imagined he was holding the crown instead of a cup, how it would feel in his grip, how it would look when he opened his eyes.

This time there were no mistakes. He felt the moment of transformation as a warm pulse through his core, as the power inside him responded to his wishes. In his hand, the thin handle of the goblet shifted under his fingers. He felt it growing longer and thinner, stretching out to the curve of the coronet. When he opened his eyes, he knew what he'd see, and sure enough there in his grip was an identical copy of the crown, exactly as he'd pictured it. Every gleaming sapphire the same, and even the way the silver was carved around them.

"Amazing, apprentice! Done almost perfectly the very first time!" Mistress clapped her hands, her voice trembling with excitement. "I sense you have a real talent for this kind of magic!" Marcus smiled wildly, his heart aching with joy. He couldn't even remember why he'd been upset with her. Now all he felt was warm gratitude for her kind tutoring. Without her, he'd never even know he could do these amazing things. She was smiling still as she reached out and took the coronet from his hand, then lifted it up to put it gently on his head. Marcus laughed shyly as he found himself standing in front of her wearing nothing but a crown. "You are a very special boy." Mistress cooed. "Even that small magic I expected to take days at least to teach, with many painful mishaps. I cannot wait to see what you become in the future. Truly you are a worthy successor to me."

"Thank you Mistress." The young prince blushed, wriggling a little as warm happiness welled up inside him. He couldn't believe Mistress thought so much of him! He was just a clumsy, scared and girly boy who'd never been good at anything much in his life. Now it seemed like he was actually really special to her! And good at magic somehow.

"I anticipated it would be some time before you were ready for this." Mistress smiled at him, her purple eyes alight with anticipation. "But I see no reason to wait any longer. Let us move on to living subjects, the true test of your abilities."