Thralls of the Dark Queen Part 1: Falling Into Bliss

by Echo Stardust

  Finally, the dome stopped. A series of lights illuminated the dome. A doorway of light appeared to the sound of a mechanized whirring, followed by an onyx catwalk seeming to materialize from the shaft walls to their dome. The glass before the catwalk seemed to melt and compress into an exit. From the doorway emerged two guards, men clad in black pauldrons, masked black helmets and thick leather shorts wrapped around their crotches, but wore nothing before their chests and abs, leaving them bare and oiled. They were armed with what appeared to be long pikes, but the tip seemed too small to gore anything.

  After them came a woman clad in a long white dress and black shoulder cloak. She was pale, her head hairless save for two thin dark eyebrows over her luminescent gray eyes. Her small hands clasped together other over her midsection as she moved over the catwalk, her steps so subtle she seemed to be gliding over the floor.

  Alexia and Echo stood, their hands stills grasping each other as they looked over the envoy before them. The bald woman bowed politely before them. “Greetings. I am Sulana-114. I am an artificial humanoid lifeform and vizier to Queen Nyxana the 1st: sovereign Queen of the civilized Galaxy. You two have been selected for the honor of being guests of our beloved and beautiful Queen’s court. Do as you are commanded and you will be cared for generously.”

  There was an awkward silence. Sulana’s eyes shifted between the two again and again. “Do you understand me?” she asked politely.

  Alexia cocked her head, a glare of anger flashing across her face. “I didn’t understand anything past ‘Greetings, I am.’”

  Sulana smiled, squeezing her hands together tighter. “I…understand this is a shock to you both. Your world lacks the technology of our empire. You most likely did not even know of us before this moment.” She moved to the door out of the Dome. “I beseech you to follow me, and on the way I will explain.”

  Alexia and Echo looked at each other, then back to Sulana. “And what if we don’t want to?” Asked Alexia.

  The light hint of a smile faded from Sulana’s face. “You don’t seem to understand.” She silently motioned of the guards to flank them. “The queen has commanded me to bring to her audience chamber right away. This was not a request.”

  The guard on their left flank lowered his pike and pointed it at Alexia’s hip. He pulled a trigger on the shaft with his finger, eliciting a white crackling bolt of light from the tip. It struck Alexia, sending a sensation of pain across her flesh. The other guard moved to Echo’s side and lowered his shock-pike to her rear, thrusting it tactlessly against her backside and eliciting a meek yelp from her lips.

  “Move,” Sulana ordered. “Now.”

  They were taken through a dark corridor.

  “W-what is this place, miss?” Echo asked as they moved, her voice resounded through the empty corridors.

  “You are currently in the Queens royal palace in the imperial capital of Argo, on the Planet Kysis. This is a holding place for new arrivals. Our patrols often bring many guests to entertain the Queen. She keeps them here until she is ready to…. entertain them back.”

  The group entered a small chamber. “Throne room,” Sulana commanded to seemingly no one.

  The automatic doors shut behind them and the chamber seemed to jolt and move. Occasionally, the lift felt as though it turned or tilted, occasionally stopping and resuming, as though going through a labyrinth of different shafts. Each time the chamber jolted to a stop and continued, Echo would squeeze Alexia’s hand tighter.

  “You say ‘guests’,” Alexia found the courage to speak “but I don’t think you mean ‘guests’.”

  “Then enlighten me,” Sulana asked. “What do I mean?”

  “You kidnap us from our home, you threaten us if we do not do as you say. It feels more like we are prisoners.”

  “Prisoner; a pejorative term. Implies punishment or negative reaction to a social disobedience or disruption. That is not what your new role is.”

  “Then what is our role?” Alexia asked, her voice rising a little.

  The elevator walls suddenly burst into light as Echo and Alexia realized they were glass walls. The elevator travelled up a glass tube on the side of a massive golden palace. They looked outward to the city around them: great glittering spires and structures spanning for miles, all illuminated by the entire spectrum of color. Then there was the sky. It was night, or seemed to be, the faint glow off the horizon blending with a purple sky speckled with more stars than Echo could count.

  A strange fear, but also a pleasant excitement, washed over Echo as she gazed into that star field: It’s not our sky.

  “You will know your role in time.” Sulana continued. “Usually new guests undergo processing before being taken to the Queen’s audience chamber, but the Queen has demanded to process you herself.”

  Echo continued to look downward. She could make out the faint shimmering of the surface of water between the buildings. “We’re over a river.”

  “Not a river, an Ocean.” Sulana commented. “Argo, and many other cities of our planet, are built over our Oceans. It is what powers our city. ”

  “Powers your city?” Alexia commented, trying to distract herself from how anxious she felt in her gut.

  “Yes,” Sulana remarked, seeming to be happy she could deflect the conversation. “Our empire has mastered the science of hydro-fusion. It may seem rather complicated to you, as your planet has yet to even discover fossil fuels, but basically it is the mastery of liquids to serve many purposes.”

  Echo gasped, taking the majesty of the seemingly endless city, stretching off into the darkness as the faint glow of starlight reflected in the infinite ocean horizon. “Your people… to make all this from water, you all must be Gods.”

  “Or witches,” Alexia remarked coldly. She looked back as Sulana, who was seemingly avoiding eye contact.

  The elevator stopped at the top floor, the doors opening to a ravishingly decorated marble hallway. “This way please,” Sulana asked, resuming a once again polite demeanor.

  They were escorted through the hallway, decorated with purple and red carpets and frescos depicting various scenes that appeared to be from their planet’s history. Great battles between clashing armies. Strange ships landing on new and uncivilized worlds.

  Most of it seemed lost on the pair as they were taken through the labyrinthine maze of top palace floor.

  They passed a group of noble-looking women. Alexia’s jaw dropped at their clothing, or what little there was. Strips of soft fabric covered their breasts, their hips adorned with jeweled belts that hung cloth downward to conceal their sexes. Their faces were subtly adorned with makeup, smooth concealer and a variety of colors of eye shadow. One of them, a brunette, eyed the two as they passed and whispered something to her friends, eliciting the group to erupt in a chorus of laughter.

  Alexia felt a twinge of anger in her stomach. She knew not why.

  The group approached a set of ornate golden doors that separated as they approached. Echo and Alexia entered with Sulana while two guards stood at the entrance, blocking any escape.

  They were in a circular limestone foyer, another set of onyx doors on the opposite end of the entrance. Guards stood along the walls. They wore no helmets, or very little armor aside from hard leather armor over their hips and crotches, as well as leather greaves ,as red cloaks over their left shoulders and strange looking weapons that looked like short muskets to Alexia and Echo.

  Echo’s eyes drifted over their hard, glistening bodies, disciplined from years of training. Hard pectorals that stretched out their dark nipples, abs smooth but rippling with muscle underneath. Echo’s flesh begun to feel hot and feverish, her legs rubbing together as her cheeks begin to blush. One of the guards, a blonde with a boyish looking face, caught her blue-eyed gaze and smirked back, seeming to relish her stare.

  Echo leaned in towards Alexia, her hand tightening anxiously.

  “I have two new guests for the Queen.” Sulana told the guard captain. “Please allow us
to pass, she is expecting them.”

  “Yes, great Vizier.” The captain replied, pressing a button near the onyx doorway.

  The three women stepped into a dimly lit chamber, clouds of smoke and the aroma of various alien spices filling the air. In the dim lights of the room, Echo and Alexia could make out the forms of people relining on divans and beds all about the room. As their eyes adjusted, they realized the people in the room were either naked or scantily clad. All about, naked flesh, both male and female, splayed together, naked bodies pressing against one another as they drank and conversed and smoked strange pipes.

  At the end of the hall, atop of an ascending marble stairway sat an empty large Divan with one large armrest. It was lit from behind by a reddish and purple light being filtered through a stain glass window overlooking the entire chamber.

  Sulana motioned the two to a pile of pillows that made up a makeshift bed, flanked by four guards. The pair sat upon in, their arms wrapping about each other.

  “The Queen will be here in a moment,” Sulana then turned from them and left through a side door next to the staircase.

  The pair felt eyes travelling all over their bodies, gazes burning through their layers of clothing. A buxom woman with long blond hair blew out a cloud of smoke from her lips as she eyed Echo. She licked her scarlet lips as her free hand slowly rubbed down her stomach, traveling down past the tuft of pubic hair as her middle finger burrowed between her moistening sex’s lips.

  Echo looked away, her cheeks now enflamed. Her mind raced through the years of sermons about the saints, how they would often come to bad cities. Cities of sin where the people engaged in lustful and sinful excess. How some saints would fall astray and debase themselves into acts of animalistic lust, then be struck down by the Gods for their immorality. Even as a child, Echo would always tell herself it wouldn’t be her. She would be resolute and steadfast and abhor such urges of the flesh so the Gods would let her into the nine heavens when she died a good faithful woman.

  Alexia remembered those sermons as well. As a child, she didn’t think much on them. As a woman, she’d feel ashamed, as sometimes they’d get her wet.

  The side door opened again as Sulana reemerged, taking a few steps up the stairway and stopping midway, before the purple, gold-trimmed divan. The sound of some kind of electronic trumpet filled the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said a mechanized voice. “Presenting Queen Nyxana the 1st; sovereign ruler of the known and civilized universe, and her champion and commander of the Kysian Imperial Armed forces; Akreon of Valgeria”

  Chapter the 3rd: The Queen

  From behind the throne, a woman entered, escorted by a youthful looking soldier. The guard seemed dressed similar to all the others, bare chest, abs and legs, but his garments were pure white. He had feather brownish blonde hair that cascaded down to his shoulders and a boyish looking, angelic soft face. As Echo looked at him, she thought of the pictures of angels in her books.

  But Alexia’s eyes seemed too fascinated with the Queen. Pale white flesh, dark flowing raven hair cascading down her bare back, combed back by a silver tiara, supple hips protruding out from behind dark linens pouring down from her silver belt. Supple, thick breasts encased in a tight velvet corset, fastened together by small silver chains. Long elbow length velvet black gloves clung to her arms, cut off at her fingertips to show off her black nail polish. Her hips swayed in step as she walked. Alexia became envious of her a little, as Alexia could not help her hips swaying, but the Queen seemed to relish their movement, each step a note in a slow, seductive waltz.

  And she felt something else. A feeling she knew she should resist.

  The soldier in white bowed and softly touched his nose to his Queens hand. The Queen bowed softly back before they broke their grasp. The soldier took a seat on an ornate iron chair next to the royal divan. Meanwhile, the Queen took a slow and deliberate pace splaying herself upon her divan, positioning herself to display as much of her naked flesh as possible, but subtly hiding her nipples and sex.

  “Your exalted and beautiful highness,” Sulana called out in a booming voice. “The imperial expeditionary force has returned with their survey of planet 724 of the Andares cluster.”

  As Sulana spoke, the Queen reached to a small onyx table near her divan, opening a small drawer and pulling out a silver pipe.

  “They identified 47 unique instances of flora and fauna, 103 unique cultural and mythological variants amongst the local populations, 72 unique geographical anomalies, and…and….” Sulana found herself trailing off as the queen put her pipe to her lips, taking a draught of evaporated juice that she then blew into the air as thick, sweet smelling vapor.

  Sulana knew it to be a sign her Queen was bored. “A-and various other phenomena that I am sure her highness has already read about in the report that was sent to her this morning.” Sulana laughed anxiously.

  The Queen rolled her eyes. “You know I haven’t.” her voice was deep, sultry, but resounding.

  A small look of worry flashed across Sulana’s face. “P-pardon, your highness.”

  The Queen’s head rolled toward the direction of her Vizier. “You know I haven’t read it. It’s boring! I hate boring things! The other one-hundred and thirteen Sulana units knew I hated boring things.”

  This outburst elicited a chorus of gentle laughter from the people of court.

  The queen turned to the soldier sitting by her Divan. “You know I hate boring things, right my beloved champion.”

  The soldier nodded as he smiled.

  “And what do I love, dearest Akreon?”

  Akreon, the soldier in white, shifted in his seat. “My Queen only loves beautiful things. Yet I know not where she finds them, for there is none more beautiful than she.”

  The court chuckled more as the Queen feigned a swoon, then smiled as she took in another draught of her pipe.

  Sulana softly closed her eyes and squeezed her hands together before she forced herself to smile and then continued. “Yes, well, I apologize of course.”

  “So,” continued the Queen “what gifts have they brought for me?”

  “The Expeditionary force has brought back a variety of scientific samples, rare and valuable metals and herbs,’ Sulana gestured to Alexia and Echo lying on the bed in the center of the room, “and, as our armed forces know of our Queens love of companionship, they have also brought two of the planets locals here to serve the Queen’s amusement.”

  Alexia felt goosebumps all across her flesh at the word ‘amusement’.

  “Lexy,” Echo whispered into her friend’s ear. “What does she mean?”

  Alexia looked upward at the Queen, whose dark hazel eyes peered back at her, a finger tracing its way through her raven hair. Alexia shut her eyes for a moment, feeling the Queens eye on her, fighting away images of the Queens flesh against hers.

  “I don’t know.” Alexia voice felt dry as she spoke.

  ~~~~

  Alexia always fought hard against her urges, and even harder to hide them from Echo. Echo was like a sister to her, and Alexia feared she wouldn’t understand. But it was always there, tormenting her like a sickness.

  At the festivals back at the village, she would watch the local women dance with their suitors, hoping to attract a husband for marriage. For some reason, she felt envious of all the men, even the idiot ones who tried to win her hand. She envied how the women blushed and cooed and coquettishly fawned over them.

  She wished one of those women would fawn over her.

  On a few rare moments, she tried to entertain the thought of being with a man. When the bard took her on the mountain, he had kissed her many times. She tried her best to entertain him, tried to let herself be seduced by the witty and strange artist from another land like all the other girls. But in her heart, as his lips touched hers, she felt nothing. No heat or flutter in her stomach. Just the feeling of his lips and the faint scent of rum. And as she gave up, he still tried to take her, provoking her fists to give him a bla
ck eye.

  But a month later, a travelling gypsy caravan visited town for a spring festival. Their leader, a brazen caramel toned woman in gold and violet colors, beckoned Alexia to dance with her. As their bodies touched in mid dance, the gypsy’s dark eyes meeting hers, Alexia felt her flesh boil and tingle in a strange an agonizing delight.

  Later that night, after Echo went to sleep, Alexia stirred, her fingers reaching under shift and rubbing themselves madly against her slickening labia. As they circling along the entrance of sex, she desperately imagined them to be her gypsy, the woman’s hot breath against her cheeks as she whispered her name. Her fingers stroked faster, finally driving inward as she held her sheets to her body, stifling her whimpers of pleasure as she climaxed less Echo awaken.

  A month later, the village elders caught up with the Gypsy woman. They accused her of bewitching the town’s people in vile and immoral lusts. She was hung in a public execution.

  Alexia cried hard after seeing her beloved Gypsy dangling there, her caramel toned face turning purple, a hopelessness overtaking her body. Echo did her best to comfort her friend, but Alexia tossed a pan at her, screaming at her to get out.

  Echo came back later that night, the two hugging tightly as Alexia tearfully apologized.

  She always feared Echo would not understand. She could never reveal that side of herself to Echo. She hated it. She hated how she felt she was committing a sin just by existing.

  ~~~~

  The Queen licked her lips, her eyes travelling over them. “Mmm yes. They have such exquisite knowledge of my tastes.” The Queen lifted her hand and beckoned the two to come closer. Alexia and Echo did not move. “Oh come now,” the Queen assured thought her soft, bubbly laughter. “I do not bite,” she quickly turned to Akreon, mouthing something to him. He laughed lightly.

  The two women ascended the staircase, their hands still clinging tightly to one another. They reached the top floor the stairwell and stood before the darkly dressed monarch. On being closer, Alexia could make out her porcelain toned flesh, as well as her thick black eyeshadow which had the faintest hint of purple. The Queen sat up, the scooted to the center of her divan, patting the two empty spaces by her side. “Come ladies, sit with me a while.”