Rose & Berg

[WizardElement5]

Here is part of one of my stories. Hope you enjoy it.

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Far above the glaciated ravine where the sheer, black rock walls were no longer natural, but were lain one carved stone upon another to produce battlement after battlement. And higher still, where tower above tower lept and sprang into the starry night sky, there, through an unopened, locked and bolted half-metre thick metal door, a bone-thin, silver-filmed figure appeared. Pacing lightly upon the snow-covered narrow bridge that spanned the great fall between the two uppermost turrets, the Princess turned toward and climbed nimbly upon the ravine-side parapet. Standing there on the very brink, Sapphire stared out and down into that dark oblivion while the icy cold breeze took up her long blonde hair like a pennant blown out behind. Slowly, she lifted up her emaciated, fragile arms, her chilled white hands with their bloodless long fingers stretched wide to either side. Very gradually she leant forward against the great emptiness beneath. Everywhere was still and quiet and frozen.

One after the other, the unmeasured hours fell irrevocably, unmarked and uneventful into the unrecorded void. Only the creeping passage of Mazzuron's pale blue globe across the firmament offered any hope that the night would ever end. And when at last it fell, seemingly pierced upon the horn of Thorrun's peak, the Princess dived from the bridge. Now the air whistled shrill past her ears and fetched tears to her lid-narrowed eyes, but not for one moment did she break the focus of their aim. Down, down, down she plummeted, faster and faster, a flash of silver against the mountain side, a shooting star that would smash and explode upon the hard granite bones of the world. But it was not with rock that Sapphire had set herself to collide. Just ten metres above the mighty mass of ice that slid, centimetre by centimetre, ever so gradually down that deep ravine, a young male Gelfin glided silently and gracefully with shadowy turquoise wings spread wide upon the wind.

The impact produced a loud singular "CRACK!" that boomed off the mountain wall and was unmistakably the sound of breaking bone. With severed spine the target fell; the missile's hands now penetrated into and partially through the victim's lumbar region. In a blur, the united pair crashed into the ice, throwing up a great spray of ejecta and burying themselves over two metres down. The plume of frozen fragments arced away from the crator to fall in a perfectly expanding circle over a few seconds of dull pattering and then silence and peace returned. And it would have appeared to those who did not know the nature of the two concerned that both should have been thoroughly destroyed, but within a moment, the new tranquillity was broken by a shrill, agonized scream.

"Mummaaa! Mummaaa!" The adolescent Gelfin wailed desperately into the ice, but his mother was not there. And immobilized by his broken back and the slender, fierce creature that squatted there upon him, there was nothing he could do for himself. By contrast, the immortal Princess was completely unharmed. Standing elegantly, with a fistful of bloody flesh in each of her mockingly delicate hands, she used one foot and no apparent effort to spin the winged body over so that her prey looked up into those pittyless blue eyes. Then recognizing the cause of his fall, the Gelfin stopped his screaming and though he was loosing blood rapidly through the two holes punched into his lower back, he still had strength and presence of mind enough to feebly beg with a single word... "Doctor."

In return, however, Sapphire only gave him a hard, cold smile, then fell upon his neck with savage jaws...

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[WizardElement5]

Ok, in this next bit of the story the two main characters make their first appearance.

Part 2
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Amethyst spun weightless within the narrow, metal shower cylinder while all sixteen heads sprayed hot, scented water at her from every conceivable angle. The droplets bounced off her naked body, the cylinder's silver wall and coalesced into amorphous globules of various sizes, becoming so numerous it was a wonder the Captain didn't drown. Eventually, she asked for g, the water cut out and the flood fell to the floor in a moment of torrential downpour. Then, at another word, half the tube revolved within itself, releasing the soldier from its steamy confinement and filling with mist the white, three metre cube that was the shower room.

Crossing over to the mirror-wall, Amethyst palmed clear a small patch at head height and gazed into her own eyes' reflection; their transformation was complete. In both, the iris and pupil had vanished to leave a dark eyelash-fringed, unmarked oval that now coloured a deep, rich purple. For several seconds she stared right into those strange new eyes, finally diverting them only to discover that her previously military-short-cut blonde hair had retracted totally into her scalp and that from the crest of her forehead there was now growing a single silver horn, already five centimetres long.

Amethyst turned from that alien image of herself and pulled a large, white towel from the glass rail. it was the second day after she'd taken the genetic transform and both the physical and mental changes it produced were progressing at an incredible rate. As she rubbed dry her tall, slender body, she could not help but see with those mutated, purple eyes how much longer her legs were. At one hundred and eighty centimetres, she'd always been long-limbed, graceful in her movements and as a teenager, a promising ballerina, but in the last thirty-six hours she'd grown another twenty centimetres and all of it in her legs.

Once dried, Amethyst perfumed herself from a spherical, blue crystal bottle, then took up a small, silver capsule from where it had rested beside the scent. She pressed the device to the top of her chest and it held to her without any sensation of stickiness.

"Dress!" The Captain commanded and the clother sprang to life, spreading a fine metallic-black film that completely enveloped her body from the neck down, leaving only her hands uncovered. It fitted like a second skin and was just as subtle, except on the underside of each foot where it hardened to form a protective and supporting sole with a fashionable but impracticable needle-sharp heel. The process took only a few seconds and when completed, Amethyst fastened her silver-ring belt about her hips, pausing to ponder in a most unmilitaristic manner how well it set off her still extending similarly coloured horn.

Two minutes later, Captain Rose entered the control deck to find Lieutenant Berg sprawled at her navigator's post, her chair reclined almost to the horizontal and her feet up on the panel before her.

"Attention!" The superior officer snapped.

In response, Violet lazily turned her head and gazed at the Captain. If anything, the Lieutenant's transformation was even further progressed than Amethyst's, her horn fully grown to thirty centimetres, her stretched out legs at least one hundred and twenty-five and her eyes fully mutated to a sparkling emerald green. She had ordered her own clother to match them and noting it, the Captain immediately wished that she'd done the same. However, she checked the impulse to cry, "dress purple," not wanting to be seen to be copying the idea of her junior.

"Amy, do I really have to?" The Lieutenant sighed.

The soldier in black smiled playfully... "Yes, you do."

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[WizardElement5]

Part 3
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Daal’s personal cube was far from being the typical slave-quarters that were enjoyed, or more correctly, endured, by his peers. He was the Princess’ favourite and as such, was treated as well as any pet could desire. Of course the mighty man was no dumb animal, but considering his position, he simply could not expect any more. The only real problem was, and unfortunately it was one of some considerable consequence, being Sapphire’s play-thing was neither something guaranteed for life, nor for that matter, something that guaranteed that one’s life would last for very long. However, Daal did not dwell on that and for now, he benefited from the perks that he was given. Materially, the foremost of these was his cube. It measured thirty metres per side and was fitted with a multi-vectored gravity layer, five metres deep, enabling the down-force to be applied to all of its six internal surfaces. This meant that the slave actually occupied six dwelling spaces in one. It took some practice to be able to move nonchalantly from one surface to another without stumbling or breaking stride, but the big man had long since achieved a level of physical fluency that would have graced a ballet dancer.

Daal looked wistfully up at his bed which lay invitingly, some twenty-eight metres away, almost directly overhead of the workout station where he now stood. Of course there was no point going to sleep, as the Princess would most certainly be calling for him at any moment. For the same reason, there was little point in starting a gym session, but the slave figured that pumping some weights would perhaps keep him from dozing off in the meantime. However, that was not to be so, for no sooner had he lain himself down upon a bench in order to warm-up with a few light presses, than a silver-clad female figure floated up, straight through the solid floor and hovered some two metres away to his right and a good three metres above the cube’s surface.

Looking at her, it would have been perfectly natural to believe that this person had suffered in some recent ghastly accident. The young woman’s face, neck, and hands were awash with fresh red blood, just recently dried upon her oh-so-pale skin. Only the shining metallic material that coated her tall, stick-thin physique like a fine layer of paint, remained unmarked, and that had everything to do with its self-cleansing properties and nothing whatsoever to do with the care, or lack of it, with which the Princess had feasted. And feasted she had, though from looks alone, one would have presumed that this creature never ate at all. Sapphire was not just thin, but very literally bone-thin. Any mortal woman on a diet would have already died before reaching the Princess’ condition, and not just a few had done so trying to copy Sapphire’s style. For the Princess was considered the very greatest beauty and was worshipped as such throughout her father’s empire. “It simply is not possible for a woman to be too thin,” she’d declared, and so this edict had become law. And now, unless a woman could show some bones, she was considered obese, frequently subjected to abuse and was thoroughly rejected from mainstream society. Each week, many thousands of women died from starvation, but what did Sapphire care? At two metres tall and some way under thirty kilograms, she set an impossible target. This beautiful, living skeleton. What use was flesh to an immortal anyway?

“Da-baby,” she cooed and floated menacingly over to her favourite piece of property. There, she descended until she stood firmly upon her slave’s powerful pecs, where he still lay upon the bench-press. Daal opened his mouth to return her greeting, but instantly a footful of silver toes were thrust into it. Then, with incredible, unbelievable force, the Princess shook his head from side to side so that it resembled a young sapling in a fierce winter’s storm. This was a source of much amusement and the blonde-haired skull beamed an excitedly happy smile down at her play-thing’s feebly flip-flopping head. But Daal had long ago learnt to relax in such situations, for even his bull-like neck had not the strength to resist. Tensing his muscles would only lead to them being torn, or his upper spine being snapped, or even just having his head completely ripped off.

After a minute, the princess had grown bored of this sport and stopped. “Da-sweetness, how are you this morning?” She enquired in a sing-song little girl voice, but with half her right foot still thrust deeply into her slave’s mouth. Daal raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes. What this was supposed to convey, he wasn’t sure. Certainly not: “Well, I’m actually rather tired because I’ve been up all night making love to a Gelfin whose greatest desire in all the worlds of the Empire would be to see you die in pain and suffering.” And though that would have been the truthful answer, the one advantage of his current predicament was that at least he didn’t have to lie. Not that lying was a problem for Daal; he lied all the time. He had to; it was a matter of life or death. That is the great problem for all tyrannical psychopaths – that they very quickly loose touch with emotions, with reality and with the truth. People tell them only what they want to hear, or at least, what they believe they want to hear. “The suicidal truth,” had become a common phrase and what people said and what people thought no longer bore any resemblance to one another.

Sapphire had evidently thought up some new game to play, for she removed her foot and jumped down from her man-toy’s chest, to sit there instead, with one oh-so-long-and-slender leg to either side. Then, curving her bony spine, she leant forward until her soft-lipped, sharply-chiselled, skull-like face was only millimetres away from his. Suddenly, her blood-stained fingers were squeezing firmly about his throat, tighter and tighter, until finally, Daal could no longer breathe. His face began to flush red and his eyes seemed to bulge out from their sockets. The Princess’ previously inviting mouth was now drawn into the most terrible grimace, revealing dagger-like rows of deadly sharp teeth. So this was it at last, the killing bite; to be ripped to shreds, just as he had always known he would be, one day… this day… here… now.

But no, not yet, for this was in fact the Princess at her most gentle. Very lightly her lips grazed his, her warm, wet tongue-tip moistening her slave’s own dry skin. “Daaly, I want to make love to you,” she whispered. Then louder, annoyed; “But I’ve got the most damn-awful boring duties to perform.” However, her oxygen-starved slave was lost now in dizziness, once again unable to say anything at all. The princess stared expectantly into his almost popping eyes until suddenly, finally, she seemed to realise the reason for his inability to express the sympathy he must surely be feeling for her. So, she let go of his neck, sat up and waited while he gasped for his life-saving breath. Quite uninterested in this, Sapphire pointedly paid attention only to the removing of the now dry, black blood from under her finger-nails.

“Come on Daal, I want you to bathe me.” She demanded impatiently, well before the muscle-man was fully recovered. And with that, she flew off, up into the air. “And bring your cavalry uniform. I want you to look cute at the reception.”