DISCLAIMER:
This story uses characterizations from the Universal owned crossover between Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules, 'Armageddon II.' I am not keeping them and I certainly won't be making any financial gain while they're in my care.

WARNING:
It's a bit of a departure from my usual kind of tale. Told in the first person and with a lot left to the imagination, it still carries a NC-17 rating for inferred sex between two women, a swear word or two as well as S/m and Bondage concepts.

You can find more stories by Dark Angel at XENADOM and at Dark Angel's Den.

Send feedback to darkangelxena@hotmail.com

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Chattel
by Dark Angel

© 1999 Dark Angel

The first time I saw her, I was standing in line on a small platform waiting to be resold. Well, it wasn't exactly the first time I'd seen her. I mean I'd seen her from a distance plenty of times whenever she came into the square or led a detachment of her troops out of the village. But it was definitely the first time I'd been so close, I could see for myself the stories about her eyes being cobalt blue were no exaggeration.

She walked right past me at first, and I remember feeling very relieved that I'd drawn no attention to myself that would cause her to stop.

But she'd turned back. When she finished her inspection of the line, she was in front of me again. Two of her royal guard flanked her, looking me over like they could actually afford me for themselves. Black and gold robes billowed about her like sculptured wings as her midnight hair and Sovereign crown glared down from above. She seemed huge in comparison to my meager build. Even on the platform, she towered over me. I had to will my legs not to simply give way in her presence.

She didn't speak, at least not directly to me. Just a simple wave of her hand in my general direction and a clipped command cast off to some unseen slaver.

"Her." She said and before I knew it, someone had me by my collar and was pulling me down from the platform.

You see, I'd become too old to be house help with a brand new husband around. My mistress had caught her dearly betrothed trying to take a peak under my skirt on their wedding night and I suppose, it really wasn't much of a choice - him or me. It was why I'd been sold back to the government. Why I'd been given a bath and a clean set of rags, ready for some warlord or merchant who had it in his mind to keep a body servant.

I suppose thinking back, I was lucky in a way that I caught her eye.

I got pushed and turned so many times I started to feel dizzy. The streets were particularly busy and her appearance in the city no doubt added to the throng. It's funny, I'd grown up on those streets of her kingdom, been orphaned, sold and resold so many times I'd lost count. This was different somehow. I expected to be in the back of some cart on my way to a make shift camp. Or already being poured by grubby hands while my new "Master" checked me over. Instead I was on my way to the God's only knew under the guide of military guard. I was terrified.

When my head finally stopped spinning, I was being ushered through the rear gates of her palace. I recognized the line of scrap bins just inside that I'd been forced to scavenge from in my harder times and cringed at the possibility of ever needing to visit them again. A little while after being halted at a water barrel and told to wash my feet and hands, I was shoved through yet another door to her personal chambers.

The room appeared empty so my escort had me kneel in the very center of a rug of such materials I guessed had been acquired from her many exploits overseas. I waited for an eternity, kneeling there next to some oversized brute with his boot on my shoulder to keep me down. I stared at the colorful textures and tried to work out why she'd picked me. Feeling sick to my stomach, I was worried how she'd react when she discovered she'd claimed second-hand goods.

She entered silently through an entrance I had not seen. She didn't say much to me then either. Actually, the only reason I realized she'd been speaking to me at all, was because after the guards had backed their way out, I was the only other person there. Then it wasn't really like a conversation, more like abrupt remarks made to the air of what she wanted.

"Get up."

"Take your clothes off."

"Lay down."

"Open your legs - wider."

A few more phrases that amounted to nothing more than; turn, or bend, or, like this. Not anything I could really think meant she was interested in whether I had a response to her commands or if I cared what she did.

She didn't take her robes off, not that time. Just kind of parted the folds and lay down on top of me, spreading the collection of embroidered silk and satin over us like a blanket. She didn't hurt me. In fact she hardly touched me, you know - down there. A brief kind of grab and fondle so she could ready herself but nothing more. She made me put my hands above my head and used her arms to pin me down. Then she kissed me roughly about my neck and shoulders as she ground herself against me.

It didn't last that long - longer than the men who'd used me but not much more. She barely made a sound while she was doing it, less still when I knew she'd approached and achieved what I was there for. A slick layer of moisture as the only trace of her release being left on my crotch and upper thigh. She only stayed on top of me long enough to catch her breath. Then she let go of my hands and was off me, striding away from the huge bed and me like she had something important to attend to. She kept walking, tucking herself back in, until she was almost at the door. Just before she opened it she turned back, still not really looking at me and said,

"You're done. Get dressed."

So I did.

Knowing I would have missed the last shipment for the day, I took myself back down to the slavers' compound. There was always one or two pallets left for those waiting to be placed. I waited in and around the compound for three days for someone to whack a new collar on me or tell me what I should do.

No one came and no one said anything. Stranger still, the slavers didn't try to throw me out or have me for boarding costs. The best explanation I could get out of anyone was that I had a new owner and that I should mind my tongue if I intended to keep it.

The next time I saw her was the day before the autumn festival. Perhaps a quarter moon had elapsed from our original encounter and I had started to think I was ready for resale again. Two of her guards arrived at my tiny cell, grabbing me pretty much like they had before and hauled me discreetly back down to her private suite. I knew where I was heading this time and tried to step carefully so I wouldn't arrive looking like I'd been dragged through the mud. It didn't help much and I was still forced to wash my feet and legs at the livery before they would take me the rest of the way.

I leaned against one of the stable walls to keep my balance while I did my best to give the appearance of taking a bath. I wondered why I was worried whether she thought I smelled or not. I knew somehow, she would have me wash properly first. She always made me wash first.

She was there this time to give me greeting me of sorts, sitting on the edge of her magnificent fur-covered bed in a dark blue and gold trimmed gown with the hint of bare leg showing. I knelt the instant the guard let go of my arms and cast my eyes downward. They left without a word and I heard her rise up, and then move to cast a shadow overhead.

She didn't say too much more than she did the first time but her tone was less abrasive and somehow less distant. She touched me a whole lot more though and had me touch her. I'd never been an active participant in sex before, well, except when I was by myself. I remember it felt bizarre to be actually reaching over and stroking smooth sweet smelling flesh that didn't involve having my head held down and my hands forced. The only comment she made when she realized she wasn't my first was it saved her breaking me in herself. She made me come - much to both our surprise - forcing open a part of me no one had explored before in a way that shamed and shocked me all at the same time. She taught me what she liked most - to have me that way from behind and with what, then she instructed me on how I could do it right with little pain.

She had me bath her after, leaning back to brush against my belly while I soaped and molded her front.

She told me there was some food left for me in the kitchen. But she didn't look up when I bid her good night, sensing without instruction that she was done with me. I sat in the dingy parlor then with the chef, and ate a feast of fresh fruit, meat and oven bread. If it hadn't been for the after-effects of her attention to my sex and the bite marks on my neck and breasts, I could have fancied myself as a queen. - Well at least the property of a queen. My sole companion, an elderly woman who appeared to sample too much of her own cooking, didn't say more than was necessary to me either. I think she kind of felt sorry for me, knowing where I'd been and why. But she smiled pleasantly enough and gave me a parcel to take away.

I walked back to my cell with enough food wrapped in clean linen to feed me for days without begging, guided by the same guards who had brought me to her. I slept well that night with my booty tucked up under my clothes for safekeeping and dreamed dreams of wandering the countryside telling tales of great adventure.

Then it became quite regular, every other day the guards would come. They stopped mauling me after the night she fed me and provide safe passage through the rear alley ways that led to the palace.

A bath would await me and, in time, a robe to avoid a chill if she was delayed. I knew to remove it instantly in her presence, but I liked the fact that I had something nice that was almost my own. I never had anything made of silk before nor anything that I knew had been made purely for me. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't like a consort or anything. I had one purpose and one purpose alone in her chambers. To lay or kneel or stand in answer to whatever her drive dictated. She touched me as if I was hers, because I was. Sometimes she used me with all the attention of someone using me as their toilet. Sometimes with a kind of tenderness that almost fooled me into thinking she cared if I enjoyed it or not. Either way I was called to serve her and serve I did.

Often she beat me. Not because I hadn't performed best what was my role, but because it simply pleased her to do so. She would chain me spread eagle on her bed so I could see the strikes delivered and take a short whip or crop to me. Sometimes she would leave my hands undone so I could hold myself splayed for her, or just have me stand or kneel, removing the protective illusion being bound could give.

But when she was done, whether it was with beating or having me in her bed or across a table, the end was always the same.

She would disentangle herself, release me from my bindings or withdraw and rise off me, walking away, always to the most distant point that her suite allowed.

"You're done." She would state in a voice that bid no objection and I wisely would bow respectfully, gather my clothing and leave.

In time, I was provided with my own quarters within the walls of her palace, in distance they were no more than a few turns of a corridor away from her private chamber. But far enough so I could never confuse my position. I wore a collar, crafted in fine dark leather that could be removed, but still a collar that bore her crest. I had a wardrobe of clothing including undergarments of such sheerness, I could close my eyes and pretend to be naked in them. All of my gowns were designed to be opened easily and with little fuss. Some barely covered my 'attributes' as she called them. Many, especially my under things, had no gusset.

Still, it seemed I spent much of my free time making repairs to the assortment of rips and tears she managed to make because of her haste to have me.

Outside the walls of her empire, regiments fought battles in her name and returned victorious time and again, in the months I had become bound to her. She would parade me for her amusement at the functions organized to praise them, punish me for their petty defeats.

She took me frequently in the company of others, generally with little thought for my comfort or embarrassment.

All too often in the beginning, she would fly into uncontrollable and violent rages, seemingly with no provocation. I realized later that it was usually followed by the start of her curses a day or two on. But back then, I had no idea what plagued her and would often take the brunt, bewildered and afraid.

One time when she thought I'd hadn't been listening to her, she dragged me the entire length of the palace, north to south, bare as I had been in my service and still with her essence smeared over my skin. She had been naked herself, save the floor-length robe and slippers she'd quickly donned. I remember the sight of brilliant colors flapping beside me, occasionally her garment parting from the pace to show muscled thighs as she pulled me along by my hair. All the way down to the stables, she bellowed, scolding me that I was more interested in turning the head of any one of her soldiers than in what she had to say.

She offered me to any and all we encountered on our way, ranting in the most explicit and humiliating terms that they could have my cunt, it wasn't fresh when she'd got me anyhow, but my ass would always remain hers. Not surprisingly, she had no takers, just obediently bowed heads and a trail of nervous followers made up of her Captain and several of his lieutenants. It took four of them to hold me still when we finally arrived and woke the blacksmith, and two to steady the iron so the brand would go on clean. She didn't call for me for nights after that and when she did the X she'd had burned into to my shoulder had healed enough so she needn't take particular care with me.

On another occasion, she made me stand for hours in the winter's rain. Holding my torn clothing outstretched in each hand with my back and breasts bleeding from her belt, because I hadn't worn the dress she'd been expecting. She'd used her thing on me before she'd pushed me out into the forecourt and just to teach me I was nothing more than her 'bitch', she made me keep it up inside me while I relearned my place.

Other times she would simply withdraw and not send for me for periods that stretched on from days to weeks. I would manage well enough through the daylight hours, having plenty to occupy my mind. At night, I'd lay awake wondering what I had done wrong and who she had taken in my place. The isolation was worse then any beating and bore deeper than any prong. As least when she hit me or had my sex, I had a purpose. Even in her rage, it was clear in some strange way, she needed me. Without it, I was nothing. She knew it and so did I. Just as suddenly she would reappear, recovered from whatever angered or bothered her and summon me back to her chambers - treating me with such nonchalance and as if no time had elapsed from our last time together.

Throughout it all, I always had plenty to eat, amicable company among the other servants and a warm bed that though threatened often enough, I was never required to share with anyone but her.

Over time, she allowed me to remove my collar when I was within the palace's gates, she would leave me to myself on the first night of my monthly's and on occasion, she would have me share a meal and conversation with some passing dignitary or scholar. But she never once kissed me on the mouth with any affection or referred to me by my name.

I have served her now for so many seasons that it's impossible to draw distinction between my born freedom and my life with her. I am twice the age I was when I came to her and I sometimes think, no wiser. She still rules with an iron will and is still known and feared as the Destroyer of Nations, the Empress - ruler of all the lands. She still calls me to her bed with the frequency of a male in their prime and still appears as beautiful as the first time I stood on that platform and studied the color of her eyes.

A few nights ago, with her back turned away and the protection of a darkened bed to shroud her, she told me that she wished things between us could have been different. And if they were, she would have filled my belly with children she'd be glad to call her own. She didn't elaborate and I didn't push her to. I wanted to say something like, 'I would have liked that too.' But what would have been the point? We both know wishing doesn't change a thing.

I don't know if she has taken others since I came to the confines of her palace. Part of me whispers it doesn't matter, while another secretly frets at the possibility that I have not been enough for her.

I have taught myself to read and write and I keep detailed scrolls of my thoughts. I know I'll never have cause to share them with another soul, yet strangely I feel compelled to tell my story, if only to myself. I think if it wasn't for my scrolls, for the handful of books she has allowed me to keep over the years, I would have lost the ability to think long ago. I read mostly of adventures which make her laugh and give her reason to tease me. Sometimes I read them to her and catch her watching me with a look I hardly recognize.

I write mostly of what was once my childish dreams. Dreams that now are stranger than any bard's fictitious tale.

My name is Gabrielle and I am the Conqueror's whore.

The End

Continue on to the sequel Thrall