“The Mistress will be pleased, she will! Juice has done it! Yes he has! Juice has poisoned the Pretty Lady! With a touch of tulip, a pinch of petunia, and just a hint of hemlock!”
The slimy skinned, toad faced creature cackled with mirth as he danced around the slumped form in the flowing dress, her golden curls obscuring her porcelain features. Juice giggled and chortled as his scissors snicked a lock of the hair to tuck into the soft velvet pouch tied at his thick waist.
He hurried back into the thickets, following his own trail of slime easily enough, to find the opening to the tunnels that would lead him back to the Sithen.
Despite his royal invitation, the Dark Queen’s guards still treat him with the disdain of an intruder, catching him up by the hood of his cloak and hoisting him unceremoniously off of his splay-toed feet.
“Now now! No way to treat the Dark One’s Assassin!” he squeaked, and was rewarded with a mailed fist to the side of the head. The slimy amphibian gave a plaintive whimper and obediently fell silent, shrinking in on himself as he was hauled to the Dark Queen’s audience chamber.
“What is in now, Dion?” came the voice like dry twigs rattling in the wind. The Queen of the Dark Court of Faerie appeared translucent, a mere shadow of her former glorious self.
“Juice is here, Marm,” Dion intoned. There was a sound that could have been mistaken for a sigh. Dion had come to them from the British Isles, and Ni’ussys (Nie-oo-sis) was having a difficult time expunging the last of his affectations. She had considered negative reinforcement, however, his magic was one to be reckoned with. She preferred to keep him as a staunch ally, rather than a terrified supplicant. She would weather his ‘charm’.
The Queen beckoned them forwards.
Dion loosed his grip on the pondscum’s cloak, depositing him with a faint splat at the Queen’s feet, before himself, taking a knee and bowing his head. Ni’ussys gave another faint sigh. “Dion, you do recollect that the Slime is an ally of your Queen, yes?” She queried gently. She was also struggling to cleanse her Britannian pet of his deep seated biases towards lower creatures.
“I serve at your pleasure, my Queen,” came the reply. Dion’s standard reply when he was uncertain what she wished of him. He could be rather dense at times.
“Yes, and you are so pleasing to the eye,” she commented with a wry smirk, her fingers toying with the trailing wisps of his chocolate mousse hair. “Thank you, Dion. that will be all.” She dismissed the bigoted guardsman before she had to make compensation to the little toad at her feet.
For his part, Juice was splayed on his face on the floor, unsure of his status in the room, having trouble grasping the meaning of the banter passing above him. All he was certain of was that he did not wish to be the latest expression of the Queen’s love of playing on words. Being Bogged Down in the Mire had become her most recent method of punishing those who displeased her, using her magic to trap the victim chest deep in the swamps at low tide, letting the water rise to their chins while the local fauna swims and creeps and crawls about them, taking bites, laying eggs, and stinging as is their wont. While the Slime made his home in the swamps, this would not be his ideal way to pass time in his home environs.
Dion let the door close softly behind him, and the Queen let her Magic whisper over the Slime’s prostrate form. Juice shivered with pleasure and was instantly at ease. “What have you brought me, Assassin?” came the Royal query.
Juice scrambled to his knees and crawled towards the dais, untying the pouch from his belt, and lifting it in offerance to his sovereign. Ni’ussys snatched up the sac and tore at the lacings, desperate to get at the treasure it held. Her breath hissed in through her teeth as she plucked the strands from their resting place.
“At last! The final ingredient!” She pressed the lock to her cheek, inhaling the sweet stench of a newly slain virgin. “You have done very well, my Pet.” Juice thrilled. This was a term of endearment saved only for those whom the Queen truly valued. He had greatly risen in esteem this day! Which could be either a blessing or a curse in the tangled machinations of the Dark Court of Faerie. He would have to wield his new status cautiously.
No comments:
Post a Comment