This work is copyright 2000-2004 by Xaltatun of Acheron (A Pseudonym). It may be posted on the Internet to any free forum, provided it is not modified in any way, and provided that this notice is included in its entirety. It may not be sold, or included in any compilation that is sold, or posted on any forum that requires a fee for access, without my written permission. My permission will require payment, terms to be negotiated. For purposes of this notice, sites guarded by Adult Check or similar packages are considered pay sites. Posting on any site must include this copyright notice.
Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery and forced sexual acts. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
OK - now on to the story -------
Chapter 2. As the shock wears off.
Chapter 5. The Princess� Apartment has some Interesting Furnishings.
Chapter 6. The new ponygirls meet their owner and their trainer.
Chapter 7. Interlude in the Palace.
Chapter 8. Back at the Stables.
Chapter 9. Back at the Palace.
Chapter 11. �Honey, Look what followed me home!�
Chapter 12. Elidon goes for a carriage ride.
Chapter 13. The Royal Game Preserve.
Many years ago, at a science fiction convention, I saw a very short, very low budget film called �Bambi Meets Godzilla.� I�m told that it was quite popular on late night shows for a while, usually as a trailer to �Hardware Wars.� This is not that story.
It was followed by an even lower budget, shorter picture called �Bambi�s Revenge�, by the Friends of Bambi. No one I mention it to has ever heard of it. This is not that story either. However, a fan of these occasional scribblings mentioned that the True Story of Cinderella seemed to be begging for a sequel. This is that story.
In our last story, Ms. Ella Cinder has managed to go to the Prince�s ball by the intervention of her godfather, Uncle Guido, a rather blatantly gay man who runs the Casino. She had not originally planned on attending because, as her stepmother and stepsisters claimed, �there was no money left.� Ella was not at all certain she wanted to attend because she felt that if she was chosen, there would be somewhat of a compatibility problem. Uncle Guido tells her a few things about the Prince which are not common knowledge. This seems to cheer her up immensely.
She�s not quite as happy about the chastity belt included in the outfit he�s provided, but what the heck, at least it fits the pumpkin motif of the coach and four ponygirls. They have an interesting discussion about how the foursome came to be ponygirls. At the ball, the Prince is quite taken with her, and announces that he will ask the Royal Council to approve his asking her hand in marriage.
She is, quite naturally, blown away. Eventually, the evening draws to a close, and they arrive back at the Cinder mansion, where she discovers Mr. Marley and several guards discussing financial matters with her father, Nunzio, and her stepmother and stepsisters. It seems they had gone into debt to finance their appearance at the ball, and Nunzio Cinder is not about to pay. Mr. Marley takes the stepmother and stepdaughters as security, muttering about taking a loss on the transaction.
As the first story draws to a close, Ms. Cinder, Nunzio and Guido head toward the Casino to celebrate realigning their Family connections.� They speculate on the eventual fate of the ex-step-mother and step-sisters.
Ella sat back, holding her wineglass rather carefully. She was not exactly drunk, but she was not taking any chances either. The After the Ball party at the Casino had gone on for hours, and promised to go on for several more. Ella was, in fact, sobering up by making sure she had only unspiked punch for the last hour.
Several members of the Royal Family had graced the party, and she was rather puzzled by the absence of Prince Patrick. His twin sister, Princess Patricia was much in evidence, though, and seemed to be having a great time.
Uncle Guido nodded toward the private rooms they had reserved to allow themselves to refresh themselves. When Ella arrived, she discovered that the Princess had preceded her.
�Well, the newest addition to the Royal Family,� she proclaimed, following the statement with a massive hug.
�Uh,� Ella managed to sputter.
�Oh, don�t be bashful,� Princess Patricia said as Guido closed and barred the door. �We didn�t get real well acquainted at the Ball. The Prince my brother was quite taken with you, and you look like you�ve got the makings of a great sister. However, there are a few niggling little details that you need to be aware of.�
�Oh?� Ella said, suddenly cold sober.
�Nothing really earth-shattering,� Uncle Guido said from the background. �It�s just that the Royal Family is decidedly odd, and taking in a new member is a rather, um, delicate process.�
�Exactly,� the Princess said. �How much do you know of our history?�
�Well, Mordeci the Debauched conquered the Old Kingdom, and then Prince Harry the Virtuous overthrew him and founded the dynasty. Beyond that, not a whole lot. Our kingdom seems to have the most boring Royalty on the continent.� She sounded like she wasn�t sure if that was a good thing or not. �It doesn�t seem to have much in the way of history, either.�
�We had good scriptwriters, that was for sure,� the Princess said as Guido chuckled. �That�s the way it started out. Mordeci the Valorous came down from the north with his barbarian army and conquered the Old Kingdom. When he was done, he looked around, prepared to spend the rest of his life being Debauched, and discovered that, instead of one of the richest Kingdoms on the continent to support his proposed lifestyle, he�d created a battle scarred wasteland.
�Mordeci was a pretty good leader; the Old Kingdom hadn�t fallen because its generals were particularly incompetent. One of his virtues as a ruler was the habit of comparing what his advisors told him was going to happen with what actually happened, and then asking the teller to explain the discrepancies, at sword point if necessary. It didn�t take him very long to discover where his plans had gone awry.
�He put together a team of advisors and ministers and told them to fix it. Then he had an annual review. If things went as desired, they got all the perks of the position. If they didn�t, they got reassigned to supporting roles more suited to their actual talents.� She grinned nastily.
�Some years went by and the surviving advisors and ministers had turned the kingdom into a pretty prosperous place. Mordeci looked back and saw that there was only one really major problem left. He was getting a bit old to do a real good job of Debauchery. So he wrote back home and called in a Sorcerer.
�The sorcerer, one Xblgrfqzpml the Unpronounceable, told him that he could extend his life indefinitely, but at a cost. Every decade or so, he had to bring new blood into the family, with pure, virtuous maidens being at the very top of the priority list.�
At this point, Ella suddenly became aware of the constricting feeling of the chastity belt that her Uncle Guido had locked her into all those hours before. �Uh, I�m to be the maiden?�
�That�s the plan. There were a few more provisos. One was that the maiden became a full member of the Royal Family after the ceremony. Another was that she had to have the potential to be just as debauched as Mordeci, and she had to work on living up, or maybe down, to her potential.
�Then there�s a balance that has to be maintained. Debauchery has to be balanced by Morality. While the balance will take care of itself if you ignore it, it�s much better to manage it very carefully.
�The last proviso was that none of the Royal Family was allowed to be sexually normal. Any abnormality would do, the prohibition was on plain old, garden variety heterosexuality.
�So Old Mordeci cast a look on his offspring, and found several that were not only as Debauched as he was, but were being intelligent enough about it to avoid too many outraged brothers, sisters, fathers and lovers. They put their heads together and decided that the Old Man just had to go, and the Royal Family had to establish a reputation for stultifying dullness and a total lack of the ability to generate any interesting scandal. As I said, they had a good scriptwriter.
��The sorcerer left us a number of useful spells. One is a disguise spell. If we decide to appear in disguise, it will perfect the disguise as long as the disguise is Immoral. It also lets our close retainers appear disguised as one of us. There are a few limits. It can�t make major changes to height, weight and so on, and there can�t be more than one of someone at a time anywhere someone could spot the deception.
�He also gave us the ability to Cloud Men�s Minds. Also Women�s Minds. So if you want to withdraw from contention, just say and all you�ll remember is a fascinating discussion about something inane.�
Ella looked at the Princess soberly and thought for what seemed like a long time. �Are you telling me that you�re the Prince?� she finally asked.
�You got it!� the Princess exclaimed.
�I would be delighted,� she replied. �I don�t really care if you�re the Prince pretending to be the Princess, or really are the Princess and pretend to be the Prince. I�d love to play a male part sometimes. Well, more than sometimes.�
�I�m actually the Princess,� Patricia told her. �There was a Prince Patrick at one time, but he declined the opportunity to become a full member of the family. So we created a new character for him, and he went into the Royal Guard. You�ll undoubtedly meet him.�
Ella nodded. Things were whizzing by rather rapidly. �There�s just one thing that would make my life complete,� she said thoughtfully.
�Ask,� the Princess said regally.
�I�d like,� she said very carefully, �to take personal charge of making those three debt-felons that used to be part of my family regret the way they treated me.�
�You have some ideas?� the Princess asked curiously.
�Well, turn Esmeralda and Hermione into ponygirls, and I�d love to put their mother in charge of training them.�
The Princess beamed. �How delightfully evil,� she cooed. �I take it your uncle filled you in on our attitude toward unwise expenditures?�
�In detail,� Ella said.
�How long will it take?� the Princess asked Guido.
�The course of justice takes an interminable while. They�ve got to see a judge, Mr. Marley will have to produce all the records, and then they�ll have to have a chance to pay him back. Then they�ll need to be advertised to potential buyers. I need to make sure that the right buyers are in the auction. All that takes time. It might be as long as two weeks.�
�Scandalous!� the Princess exclaimed in mock horror. �I shall have to ask Our Advisors whether there is anything to be done about it.�
Esmeralda looked across the bare room at her sister, Hermione, and her mother, Edith. The three of them wore plain grey dresses that could have been regarded as fashionable if very low status servants were the arbiters of fashion. They were totally devoid of any hint of makeup. Edith had her graying hair in a bun, and her two daughters had theirs bound back with leather thongs.
The former Mrs. Cinders looked every year of her age; without the corsets and makeup she resembled nothing so much as a dumpling. Moreover, it was apparent that the cook had neglected to beat the batter until all of the flour had smoothed out; the woman who was no longer Madam was a very lumpy dumpling. Her hands looked much the worse for wear; after several decades of doing no work heavier than applying makeup and tightening corsets they were not in shape for scrubbing floors and cleaning latrines.
Her hands were, however, the least of her worries. When she moved she favored her back, which still bore the marks of the last beating. It had taken several of them for her to finally realize that the overseers did not particularly care for their charges putting on airs, and that they did not expect a debt slave to dispute their orders. The lesson had not set particularly well.
Esmeralda reflected that her mother simply had to be a slow learner. It had taken her only one beating to discover that innocent teasing would be instantly punished, and to quit doing it. Talk about a way to spoil a girl�s fun! However, the game wasn�t worth the beatings. All in all, she reflected, her sister had fared best, or to be accurate, least badly. Hermione had always been the follower, not the leader, so she tended to do what she was told. That had spared her any beatings.
The door to the next room opened, and the tall, saturnine clerk walked into the room. �Edith Cinders,� he said. Then he added, �Esmeralda, Hermione, go back to the housekeeper, we�re keeping you for a while to see if we can find some more bidders.� The girls walked out of the room where they had expected to be told their fate as their mother followed the clerk through the other door.
Maybe, Esmeralda thought to herself, we�ve left the bitch behind. She chided herself on being uncharitable, and then remembered that being here at all was their mother�s fault. Bitch was utter flattery in the circumstances!
A week later, Esmeralda and Hermione found themselves in the waiting room again, waiting patiently as the clerk called first one debt slave and then the next. Eventually, their turn came.
�Esmeralda, Hermione,� he said. Then he turned on his heel and walked back out the door. The two girls followed him out without a backward glance. The clerk walked behind his standup desk and cleared his throat. �You are aware,� he said as if he had said the same thing a thousand times before, and fully expected to say it many more times in the future, �that the law provides that you get to choose among allowable bids for your services.�
The two girls nodded cautiously.
�There are,� he continued, looking at his papers as if they were a new species of noxious insect, �two bids. One of them is, of course, from the mines. You are aware of what the mines expect from slaves?�
�Nothing good,� Esmeralda answered. �I�m told that if you survive three years, you will wish it was shorter.�
�Cough your lungs out with the rock dust,� Hermione added. �Not a particularly fun way to die.�
�Exactly,� the clerk said primly. �You�re both young and healthy; they will probably hitch you to ore carts and have you drag them out of the mine.�
�What�s the other bidder want?� Esmeralda asked, slightly panicked by the image this raised in her mind.
�The other bidder,� the clerk said, consulting the paper in front of him as if he would rather not have anything to do with it, �is a man named Elidon.�
�Household servants?� Esmeralda guessed. �Sex slaves?� Hermione added, her voice rather undecided between attraction and repulsion.
�Neither one,� the clerk said. �He wants you as a ponygirl team.�
��He wants what?� the two debt-slaves chorused as they turned and looked at each other.
�A ponygirl team,� the clerk repeated as if the two girls hadn�t said anything. �It says that he�s contracted with the Excelsior Livery Stables for stabling and training.�
�Rock dust.� Hermione said thoughtfully.
�The only ponygirls I ever saw looked stunning,� Esmeralda added with a slight frown.
�I suppose,� Hermione said, �whichever choice we make, we�ll wish we made the other one.� She shrugged. �If you want to be a ponygirl, Es, I�m up for it.�
�It sounds like the choice is between pulling ore carts and people carts.�
�It does at that.�
�Being a ponygirl can�t possibly be worse than the mines,� Esmeralda replied. �We accept,� she told the clerk.
Ella drew her uncle�s team of ponygirls up to the curb of the Royal Family�s private entrance to the palace, and looped the reins around the post with exaggerated care.
�I�d tell you to be a good girl,� her uncle Guido said, �but we both know that�s not on tonight�s agenda.�
�I know,� she replied, giving a little wiggle to settle her chastity belt.
�Here,� he said, holding out a thin silver chain with a key. He carefully hooked one end of the chain to her dress just over the left nipple, and then hooked the middle of the chain over the right nipple so that the key dangled somewhere in the vicinity of her waist.
It had to be a miracle, she thought. My dress is still staying up. Part of what was causing her a more than a little trepidation was that it wasn�t designed to stay up for very long.
�Having an etymological moment?� the Princess asked from the shadows.
�Huh?� Ella said, mercifully distracted.
�A bad case of butterflies,� the Princess clarified as she pulled Ella into a firm hug, and captured her mouth with a kiss that definitely meant business.
By the time they disengaged, Guido and his ponygirl team was leaving the entrance.
�I think they�re breeding,� Ella said as they came up for air.
�Well, let�s go on up, the party�s waiting for you.�
Both women wore similar outfits: strapless gowns that fit like a second skin from where they showed just a hint of aureole to where they hugged their hips. From there, the gowns descended to the tops of their dancing slippers in four panels, giving the illusion of a hobble skirt as long as they stood still with their legs pressed together. Walking as they were, however, the silken panels fluttered back and forth, showing off the girl�s legs to maximum distraction of anything male in the vicinity.
A few moments later, Ella and Princess Patricia arrived at the Private Ballroom where a uniformed minion bowed before opening the door. Ella straightened up and entered the ballroom, making her way across the floor to the single figure that stood in the light on the far side.
The figure was clearly a northern barbarian male, well over six feet tall, with long blonde hair, broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He may have been the hairiest male Ella had ever seen; some part of her mind giggled at the notion that rugged and rug weren�t that far apart in the dictionary.
Another part of her mind reflected that Mordeci looked exactly like his publicity portraits, except for two details. The portraits showed him clothed, and they didn�t do justice to the size of his raging hard-on.
The rest of her mind, though, was incapable of noticing anything other than that the butterflies seemed to have unaccountably vanished, to be replaced by a totally different sensation. She barely felt her nipples hardening as she strode across the ballroom floor, leaving ladylike restraint behind.
Her hardening nipples, though, were the trigger that the dress designers had in mind. She burst out of the garment as if she was an enthusiastic caterpillar on her way to becoming a butterfly. Some residual piece of magic in the chastity belt caused it to open and drop onto the floor just a few feet before she leaped into Mordeci�s outstretched arms and wrapped her legs around his waist before settling onto the really important part of his anatomy.
One last thought flitted through her mind before all thinking vanished, washed away as the tide of sensation from his enormous rod crested and blasted its way out in a howl of pure lust.
A moment later, Mordeci�s tree-like legs quivered as he came, driving another wave of sensation up through her core into another, louder howl. Then a moment later she stiffened in an orgasm so strong that she managed to squeeze the breath out of her lover�s lungs, not that anyone could hear the grunt of escaping air over her final, ear-shattering scream of sated lust.
A few minutes later, she came back to awareness to find she was sitting next to Mordeci, head nestled on his slab-like chest while one of his massive hands idly played with a nipple. The first thoughts through her awareness mostly concerned how to get his other hand into a strategic location. She stirred and looked up at him.
�You�re back with us, girl,� he rumbled at her, sitting up and dumping her off of his lap slowly enough that she managed to land on her feet. �It�s your party. Go circulate!� He hurried her on her way with a slap to her bottom like a gunshot.
The dazed girl managed to bump into the Prince next, who took her on a highly energetic dance, followed by another equally energetic dance of quite a different character, much to the amusement of all.
A few dances later she ran into the Princess. By that time, she had somehow managed to become a massively hung male much to her bemusement and several other party-goer�s pleasure.
Finally, the party wound down when Mordeci left. Ella had transformed back into herself in time to stagger out the door, more than half leaning on the Princess, who led the poor girl to her suite in the Family quarters.
�Welcome to the Royal Family,� the Princess intoned as she ushered the thoroughly wiped out Ella into the door. �Let�s do a quick washup and then collapse!� True to her word, she showed Ella to the bathing room, where a very pretty girl put the basket of mending she had been working on aside to attend to the two ladies� ablutions. Besides being pretty, the girl was entirely nude except for the iron collar around her neck, and an iron shackle padlocked on her right ankle that chained her to a ring on the wall.
Ella barely managed to notice the strangeness of it all as the bathing room slave washed off the residue of the party. A few moments later, they staggered out and fell into the Princess� luxurious bed, and curled up in each other�s arms.
�Have fun becoming Debauched, pet?� the Princess asked drowsily.
�Oh very!� Ella answered, equally drowsily. �It just occurred to me, though��
�What?� the Princess asked, on the edge of sleep.
�Pure is an adverb.� Ella answered, as she slid into the arms of Morpheus.
�Um?� the Princess said, the question sliding into the nothingness that enfolded her.
As soon as Esmeralda and Hermione had made their fateful decision, the clerk rang the bell and the other door opened. Two massive guards entered and held out a set of shackles. The girls frowned at them but obediently turned and put their hands behind their backs. The last few weeks had taught them a few things, and one of them was that when the guards wanted to chain them up, it was easier on the complexion, as well as substantially less painful, to cooperate.
A few minutes later, the guards had outfitted the girls with leather hoods and collars, and had bound their arms so that their elbows were tied in back and their wrists were tied in front. They led the two girls out the door. The clerk made a notation on the paper he had been looking at, deliberately placed it in his out box, and picked up the next piece of paper.
A few hours later, four draft horses pulled the prison wagon up to the Excelsior Livery Stables, and the guards opened the bared door in the sides. �Two for you,� one of the guards told the stable master.
�That�s what the owner said,� the stable master replied. �Let�s see them.�
The guards pulled the two hooded girls out of the wagon, where they stumbled slightly before regaining their balance. �Think we can make something of them?� he asked his head trainer.
Sarpedon looked the two female forms up and down. �Should be able to,� he replied. �They look young enough to take the spells, and healthy enough to survive the training.� He shrugged. �I�ll get them to their stalls. The magician should be around shortly.� He took the leashes from the guard and tugged. Esmeralda and Hermione cautiously followed him, feeling their way to avoid tripping.
The Excelsior Livery Stables was a largish establishment, with stable space for several dozen horses and a similar number of ponygirls. They did a thriving livery business, hence the name, but also boarded and trained horses and ponygirls for owners that couldn�t afford, or didn�t want, their own stables in town.
The ponygirl part of the stables was a long, two story wood frame building with what looked like an open bay in the center facing an exercise and training yard. Sarpedon led his two new charges past the exercise carousels into the open bay. Inside, the space turned out to contain carriages and sulkies on one side, and a series of open latrine pits on the other.
Halfway through to the far side, wide corridors led off to either side. The head trainer led the two hooded girls to the left, past one pair of open squares containing ponygirl stalls to the next one. He turned left again, and then hitched their leashes to a ring set in the massive center post.
The three sides of the open square had seven stalls on each of the sides, and six on the back, for a total of twenty stalls. The two far corners were devoted to storage space.
The stalls themselves were about four feet wide and seven deep, with solidly constructed four foot high sides. Each of the front corners had a solid post running to the roof beam about eight feet above. The back of the stalls had a low cabinet with open bowls of food and water. The cabinet contained personal grooming equipment; various items of tack and equipment hung from the post.
There were ponygirls standing in three of the stalls. One of the �girls had a light bronze chain running from a ring in the front of her collar to a ring set in the side of her stall; the other two didn�t seem to be tethered in any way.
�Let�s get you two prepared,� he said to no one in particular. He slid one massive hand under the collar of Esmeralda�s dress and pulled with the other. The dress came off with the sound of overstressed fabric giving up the unequal struggle. A moment later he had divested the surprised girl of her undergarments to the accompaniment of muffled sounds from behind the leather hood.
He tapped her left thigh with a massive finger. When nothing happened, he reached down and pulled her leg up, being careful to not quite overbalance his victim. He slid her shoe off and dropped the foot. Then he tapped her on the other thigh. This time she lifted her foot for him to remove her shoe.
Finally, he removed her hood and led her to an empty stall with the name Spendthrift Jester prominently displayed on the back wall. He caught her eye. �Stay there and keep your mouth shut,� he said. She nodded, still shocked at having been stripped so suddenly.
He walked back to the center pole and efficiently stripped his other ponygirl. A moment later, the two girls were in adjacent stalls, staring at the man.
He was well worth staring at, Esmeralda thought to herself. He was around six feet tall with arms and shoulders that would have done credit to a blacksmith.
��Now,� he said as he backed up a step and looked them over, �the magician will be here in a little while. Don�t leave your stalls, and don�t try to remove your arm bindings. We�ll start training after he�s done with you.� Sarpedon spun on his heel and walked out of the stall area without a backward glance.
�Magician?� Hermione said in puzzlement.
�Has to be,� Esmeralda responded in a low tone. �How else do you think they�re going to give us a tail?�
�A tail?� Hermione squeaked.
�You mean you�ve never actually looked at one?� her sister said in amazement.
She shrugged. �I�ve seen them, but I thought that was simply clever costuming. You mean they�re real?�
�Absolutely real. That�s why I agreed to this so easily; I figure those spells have to cost quite a bit, so they�ll probably take real good care of us.�
The magician turned out to be a bit on the small and tubby side. There wasn�t any way of mistaking him for anything else; his decorated carpetbag and cloak covered with mystic symbols were enough identification of his profession.
�Two ponygirls,� he said as if to himself. �This looks like them.�
�What are you going to do?� Esmeralda asked in some trepidation. He looked at her a bit irritatedly, and then made a gesture with one hand that ended with a finger snap. Esmeralda�s mouth snapped shut in response, and her eyes widened as she discovered she couldn�t open it.
�As I was saying to myself,� he continued, �you two look like you�re needing to be transformed into ponygirls.�
He made another gesture and his carpetbag opened. A wand and a scroll rose lazily. He plucked the wand out of the air as the scroll positioned itself at eye level a bit to his left. He studied the scroll for a moment and nodded. �That�s six spells each,� he said. �Let�s start with Animal Noises.�
The next afternoon Ella drifted awake, drowsily aware of how nice it was to be in bed with someone friendly. She stretched a bit, taking care to avoid waking the Princess, and looked around. She smiled in approval at the hers and hers makeup tables, and then jolted fully awake on seeing the stools in front of them.
In fact, she jolted awake so fast she sat up, the blankets falling from her. Her not so ladylike �eek� of alarm woke the Princess.
�What�s up, pet?� the Princess asked amusedly.
�Those chairs startled me,� she said. �That�s one perverted sense of humor you have, darling, to have stools made to look like crouching slaves.�
�They are crouching slaves,� the Princess answered.
�They are?� Ella said, wide-eyed. �They must be; I think I can see that one breathing. That�s really perverted.� She paused to gather her thoughts. �What are they doing here; besides being stools, I mean?�
�The female,� the Princess said, �was a journalist that decided to make a career out of publicizing us, without either our permission or our direction. Scandal does sell newspapers, and when she couldn�t find any easily lying around, she started digging, and then making it up. I thought she�d enjoy being right in the middle of the Family.�
�That is nasty,� Ella said admiringly. �Placed so she knows all, and can�t tell anything. Why is she so still?�
�Training furniture is an art. I do it to amuse myself. I�ll show you the next time a feral piece of furniture shows up to be trained.�
�So what�s next on my agenda, oh � what?� Ella finished the rolling phrase in confusion. �I can hardly call the Princess my husband, and wife sounds so��
�Out of character?� the Princess said. �Well, we do need to stay in character. If we�re talking to someone outside of the Family, we use whatever terms are appropriate for our characters. The Princess and Ella are sisters-in-law, and I�d call you my sister. Within the family, whether we use husband, wife or consort depends on the person and the situation.�
��I see. The Family knows that Prince Patrick and Princess Patricia are the same person, so they wouldn�t get confused.�
�Right. We tend to use consort when we don�t have a specific role in mind, and husband or wife when we have that role in mind, though. You�ll get used to it.�
�So, what�s next on my agenda, love?� she asked as they walked into the bathing room, and then stopped as she saw the bathing room slave.
�What�s up with this one? I think I remember from last night.�
�In specific?� The Princess shrugged. �Mostly they�re the same. She would have been a servant in the public part of the palace that did something too criminal to overlook. The competent ones are given a choice if they do that: they can be sold as common criminals, or they can serve the Royal Family. They know that�ll involve loyalty conditioning; she no longer has any choices in that area of her life.� The Princess shrugged again.
�What was she doing? Stealing food?�
�Probably not that. We let them take as much food and repaired clothing as their immediate family can use. It�s in the household budget, and doing it that way saves on management overhead. We draw the line on pilfering anything else, or on taking food or supplies for anyone other than their immediate family. We feel the one is part of their salary, anything else would have to be sold, and that requires criminal contacts.
�As to what she�s doing here, this is an entry position. She�s half a day on, half a day off and a full day off once a week. They�re circulated among the bathing chambers in the Royal Apartments. We tend to promote our servants from within; it saves a lot of training.
�Today�s agenda,� the Princess continued, �is that I�ll be the Prince for the rest of the day. The Prince has got several things to do including a ceremonial bridge opening that I�d like you to attend with me. Otherwise, you�ll spend time with one of the tutors getting oriented to how the Family works.� The Princess frowned in concentration, and then seemed to somehow go a bit vague around the edges. A minute later, the Prince stood there instead.
�Then tonight,� the Prince grinned at his fianc�e, �we�re going to work on your male character. The one you created last night was just yummy!�
�I did one last night?� she asked, startled.
�You sure did, and I want him inside me tonight!�
A few minutes later, they returned to the bedchamber where they found two identical maids waiting for them. Ella looked from one to the other in some confusion; they were absolutely identical. Every characteristic she checked to distinguish them was the same, they even had the same mannerisms and, of course, they were dressed identically. Their uniform was a loose brown dress, held up at one shoulder and gathered at the waist with a belt that held numerous pouches for small implements. Otherwise they wore sandals with two inch heels and had long, brown hair that was held back by a headband. Even their hair was exactly the same length.
To top it all off, they had the most forgettable faces and bodies it had ever been her experience to see. One thing they would be good at, she reflected, was to fade into the background and remain effectively invisible.
They had three outfits laid out; one for the Prince, one for the Princess and one for Ella. The two maids promptly got down to work outfitting Ella and the Prince.
�How do you tell them apart?� Ella finally managed to ask.
�There�s a trick to it that you�ll learn later,� Prince Patrick said. �The only really important difference is which one of us they understudy.�
A moment later, they had finished with Prince Patrick. One of them slid out of her uniform and then faded around the edges, turning into Princess Patricia. Ella looked at her in confusion as she began to dress herself.
�You�ll get used to it,� the Prince said. �There�s a trick to telling us apart. The real one always wears one of these.� He pointed to a small ornament. �The stand-ins wear this other ornament. We change them regularly so people who aren�t supposed to know don�t pick up on it.
�That�s for people outside of the family that need to know whether they�re dealing with someone that can make deals, or that can�t. Family members have a different way of telling that you�ll learn in a few weeks.�
�This is very confusing,� Ella said.
�We aren�t particularly ordinary, and that�s a fact. Your tutor will get you oriented in time for your appointment with me for the bridge dedication.�
�I�m supposed to do what?� The screech could be heard for miles. Well, that�s a slight, if pardonable, exaggeration. It�s no exaggeration to say that the former Mrs. Nunzio Cinder was totally flabbergasted by her new owner�s orders.
The novice stable hand was dressed in a pullover potato sack. Holes had been ripped out of the bottom to make room for her head and arms. The sack was, as one might expect, applied upside down, and seemed to be a bit lumpy.
The rest of her outfit consisted of one iron collar, riveted on, a pair of heavy leather work boots and a leather thong to keep her long hair out of her face. She had already learned the basic facts of life for bottom level stable hands: Start at one end of the stable and shovel the muck out of the stalls and replace it with fresh straw. When you reach the other end of the stable, start over, as horses generated an amazing amount of muck. After that, do whatever else her superiors found for her to do.
�My orders,� the stable master said with apparent patience, �are that you are to train our two newest ponygirls. They are direct from the �girls� owner.� He nodded to the smartly uniformed army officer standing next to him. At least, the person seemed to be an army officer, although his uniform did not bear any rank markings. He had been introduced as Elidon, but the stable hand had the distinct impression that her incorrigible former step-daughter, Ella, was somehow involved.
�But�� she dithered.
�But what?� the stable master asked coldly.
�They�re my � daughters,� she said in a small voice.
�Oh?� the stable master said, as Elidon clapped delightedly. �Who better than their mother to want her daughters to put on the best possible impression?�
The used feed sack seemed to get even lumpier. She was now certain that Ella was somewhere around, even though she couldn�t see the uppity bitch.
�Since you undoubtedly don�t know the first thing about training ponygirls, Sarpedon will instruct you, but you will do the work.�
Sarpedon stood by as the stable master said this, massive arms folded across his broad chest, menacingly tapping one bulging bicep with an index finger. �They will,� he rumbled, �come up to my standards.� He left no doubt that the newest stable hand would wish she had chosen the mines if they didn�t.
�Let us,� he said, leaving no doubt that it wasn�t a suggestion, �proceed to inspect the new �girls.� He turned and walked down the stable, certain that the new stable wretch he had been stuck with was following closely.
Ponygirls stood in some of the stalls, looking at the visitors curiously. A few ponygirls were curled on the floor, sleeping. As usual during the day though, many of the �girls were out working or being exercised.
Sarpedon stopped by one of the stalls that contained a sleeping ponygirl and planted his feet, waiting for the other two to catch up. �Let�s start at the beginning,� he said. �This is a ponygirl stall, complete with ponygirl. There�s a simple slide latch on the front. There isn�t a lock. Why doesn�t she just walk out and wander about?�
Elidon looked at the arrangement and nodded. Iron discipline might provide the answer, but the question suggested that it wasn�t the entire story, and a quick look at several of the standing ponygirls indicated that the other obvious answer probably wasn�t it, either.
�Sack?� Sarpedon prompted his newest student for an answer.
�I�m sure I don�t know,� she muttered.
�I presume there�s a spell involved,� Elidon added once it was clear that the student didn�t have a better answer.
�Exactly,� Sarpedon said. �There are six spells that we use to control them. This is the Bondage spell. It keeps them from using their hands to free themselves. Unless, of course, they�re told to do so by their owner or a stable hand.�
�I see,� Elidon said. �So the stable hands don�t have to bother with locks and such.�
�Exactly. Three of the other spells are Comfort, Tail and Whinny. Comfort keeps them from freezing or frying in the weather; it also protects them from ticks, lice and similar unpleasantness. Tail gives them a tail and lets them swish it around, and Whinny forces them to make animal noises instead of speak.
�The Chastity spell lets us control when they go into heat. They get real irritable if they don�t get to rut for a while, but it�s easier on us if we determine when.� He grinned. �It also keeps the more intelligent ones cooperative; they know who controls when they can rut.
�The last spell is Control. It lets the stable hands give the poor beast a jolt of pleasure or pain. Trainers have a different way of working with them, but ordinary stable hands don�t share it.�
The talking had woke the ponygirl, she had stretched and gotten up to stand at the front of the stall, chestnut hair flowing over her shoulders and down her back, hands held loosely at her sides and tail flowing out the back in a chestnut wave to halfway down her calves. A light bronze chain dropped from her iron collar in a graceful curve to a heavy iron ring set halfway down the wall. It attached to a ring at the front of her collar with a simple snap hook, although it looked like it was riveted around the ring at the other end. The chain gave her enough slack to move around the stall in relative freedom, but would not let her get more than a foot or so outside the door.
�Now, let�s look at this one,� he told his fascinated audience. �Let�s start at the top. She�s got a good head of hair and she keeps it herself. The Tail spell keeps it clean and free from tangles, but it doesn�t do much else for it. We experimented with a Grooming spell at one time, but it was simply too much bother for what little it did beyond the Tail spell. The better ponygirls are definitely vain creatures and it�s more efficient to let them take care of their own hair and tail. They keep their brushes and so forth in the cabinet below their bowls.
�The next thing down usually puzzles people.�
�Why put a piece of leather on their nose?� the potato sack finally asked.
�It�s certainly curious,� Elidon added.
�It makes them less skittish and easier to control,� was the surprising answer. �You use blinders on a horse so that they don�t shy when someone walks up from the sides. Well, ponygirls� eyes are set in front rather than on the side, so regular blinders only do so much. This little piece of leather makes sure that the eye on one side can�t see very much on the other. If she wants to pay attention to something, she�s got to turn her head so it�s right in front of her.�
�Which lets you control what she pays attention to with checkreins,� Elidon said. �That�s clever.�
Sarpedon nodded slightly. �Continuing on down, we see a pretty standard iron collar. It�s riveted on; there�s nothing particularly surprising about that except the eyelets for attaching tack. We normally use either a bridle or a halter; the ring on the front of the collar is only for tethering her when she�s not wearing one or the other.�
�Before we go on,� Elidon said, �I�ve got a question. Why the chain if she can�t open the door?�
�The short answer is that she likes to climb out.� Sarpedon chuckled amusedly. �The longer answer is that we don�t actually use the latches to keep them in. Most of them have permission to leave their stalls to take a leak as long as they come right back. They don�t like to live in the filth any more than you would, and the stable hands don�t particularly like to smell it or clean it up. That one has a tendency to wander, though, and we simply haven�t taken the trouble to break her of it. One of these days a trainer is going to get fed up with having to take her out every couple of hours, and train her into returning properly. Until then?� He shrugged massively. �She stays chained in her stall.�
��Now,� he continued, �what do you notice about her body in general?�
�She�s got a good complexion,� the potato sack spoke up.
�That�s a good observation,� Sarpedon complemented her. �The Tail spell does a lot more than just add the tail. She�ll stay strong and healthy for several tens of years. In fact, there�s no real easy way of telling how long she�s been a ponygirl. This one�s been in our stables for well over two decades, and she still looks like she did when she arrived. When she finally does start to go, it�ll be obvious within days, and it never takes longer than a month or so. The final decline is quite painful, so we just break their necks to be merciful.�
�Maybe I should have volunteered to become a ponygirl,� the potato sack muttered.
�Wouldn�t work. The spell can take a few years off a �girl�s age to get back to her physical peak, but it won�t turn a mare into a filly. If we put it on you, you�d start to decline in a moon, and be dead in another one.�
He paused, waiting.
�I presume the rings in her breasts are for bells,� Elidon said.
�Yes. We install them after the wizards get done with the spell work. They heal in a few days, and the bells are traditional. It is no great deal.
�Which brings us down to her tail.�
�Turn around,� Elidon said to the �girl. She obediently turned, hand brushing the bronze chain so it didn�t catch on anything.
�It looks like part of her,� he commented.
�It is,� Sarpedon confirmed. �Flaunt your tail, girl,� he commanded. The ponygirl obediently brought her tail up as the long hair flared into a bush. Then it dropped, the hair dropping smoothly back into a brown fall.
�Now, the last thing to notice,� he said as he opened the stall door, �is her feet. Bring your foot up, girl.� She obediently brought one foot up out of the straw to where he cradled it in a large hand. He stroked the top of it gently and she extended it until it was almost in line with her leg.
�Her feet are adapted to standing almost in full extension. It gives her another several inches in the leg when she�s in harness, and some people like the effect on her calves. In any case, the �girl�s working boots are all designed for this posture.� He stroked her leg, eliciting a soft whinny and let her foot go.
She leaned against him and nuzzled his face for a moment. He reached up and scratched her behind the ear, and she began to purr.
�Purr?� Elidon asked, mildly astonished.
Sarpedon shrugged. �The Whinny spell only specifies animal noises, it doesn�t say which ones.� He shrugged again. �Now you know something of what you�re dealing with, let�s go look at the two new ones.�
He led the way further down the corridor to another bay of ponygirl stalls. A neatly dressed man stood gesturing at the back with some kind of a long, thin stick.
�Oh, there you are,� he said as the trio walked up. �They�re both done; I was just checking my work.�
�Very good, Journeyman,� Sarpedon replied, as the wizard packed his wand back in his symbol covered carpetbag. The wizard�s eyes narrowed as he looked at Elidon, and then he shrugged microscopically.
�I�m puzzled by all this,� Elidon said to the wizard. �I�d think some of these would be very expensive spells, or else everyone would be using them.�
�Well, there�s the matter of the balance,� the wizard replied.
�Balance?�
�The universe is always in balance. If you do something, other things always happen to maintain it. You may not see them, but they�re there. So which spell is puzzling you?�
�The Comfort spell, for starters.�
�Think of it this way,� the wizard said. �She�s still human, and humans have certain things they use to maintain their comfort level, like protective clothing and clean living quarters. That takes effort, which is also part of being human. Now if you didn�t need clothing for protection from the elements, and you didn�t need to do anything to be vermin free, there would be no effort for those results. So the effort for clothing would be wasted, and the effort in cleaning your lodgings would be wasted.�
The army officer�s brows furrowed in puzzlement. �I see some of that, but surely�?�
�The balance in this case is that she can�t wear clothes that have a protective function, and she can�t live in an environment that excludes insects. Granted, she�s not permitted to, but that�s not the same thing. I could give her a pretty frock, and she could wear it. But it would never be comfortable regardless of what she did. She can, of course, still wear things that are utilitarian like harnesses and decorative like plumes and bells.�
��So,� Elidon said, picking his words as he thought the matter out, �confining her to a stall in some way violates the balance, and the comfort spell rights it?�
�That�s close, except that it�s impossible to violate the balance. The spell simply makes the adjustment come out where we want it to, rather than some random place that merely satisfies some chance configurations.�
�I think I see. If you were to use the same spell on someone else, then you�d need to do more spells to keep the balance.�
�Exactly,� the wizard nodded. �That�s what would make it so expensive. I�d have to do a lot of scrying and custom tailor each one.� He picked up his bag and prepared to go to his next scheduled appointment.
Elidon watched the wizard walk away for a moment, and then turned his attention to the two girls standing uncomfortably watching them. At least, one of them was standing uncomfortably, shifting back and forth from foot to foot. The other was looking at the new stable girl and trying to avoid giggling.
Elidon, who you might have noticed was actually Ella in disguise, avoided cracking a smile himself. Esmeralda, who was the one giggling, had always had more of a sense of the ridiculous than either her mother or her sister. The fact that she exercised it mostly on her unfortunate step-sister had not been one of her more endearing traits. Elidon took the opportunity to visibly inspect the new ponygirl, taking his time looking from head to foot.
As he might have guessed, once Esmeralda noticed his attention, she struck a pose, and then almost lost it when her new tail brushed her legs. She recovered swiftly, arching her tail prettily behind her. Elidon chuckled and then turned to Sarpedon.
�Why does the blonde look uncomfortable?� he asked.
�Sack?� Sarpedon asked his unwelcome apprentice.
�I�m sure she needs to take a leak,� the woman answered as if it should have been obvious. Hermione cast her a grateful look.
�Quite true,� he answered imperturbably. �What are you going to do about it?�
�Uh?� she answered. When no response was forthcoming, she ventured: �Take her out to the latrine?�
�That�s right. How?�
�Uh?� she said again. �I suppose a pony needs a bridle,� she said cautiously.
�In this case, she needs a halter,� Sarpedon unbent enough to say. �Do you know the difference?�
�No. I never had to do with horses before, and no one�s explained it yet.�
�A bridle is for reins, a halter is for a lead rope. Bridles are more complicated; halters are just a length of knotted rope.� He pointed at a rope dangling from one of the posts between the stalls. �Build one and put it on her.�
She reached up and removed the rope from its hook and turned it over in her hands, a look of panicked puzzlement on her face.
�Where do I start?� she asked.
�I suppose if you�ve never built a halter before, it isn�t all that obvious,� he said, taking the rope. Esmeralda reached up and took another rope.
�Should she do that?� Elidon asked.
�Let�s see what she does with it,� Sarpedon answered. �We like to encourage some forms of initiative in our ponygirls. Other forms of initiative are not welcome,� he added with a meaningful look at the filly.
�Now, measure so long,� he started, indicating the place on the rope. �Wrap it around your arm a couple of times until you�ve got the length.� He handed it to her and watched her wrap it. Esmeralda copied her movement.
�Now, tie a knot here,� he said, watching as she did so. He lead her through the exercise of building a halter, finishing with �now tie the final knot around the rest of the rope and slip it over her head like so.�
The novice trainer managed to get the newly created halter over her daughter�s head, and tightened the slip knot at the throat. Her other daughter slid her halter over her head, tightened the knot and held the rope out to her mother.
A moment later, the new stable hand had opened the stall gates. She tugged on the halter leads, saying: �come along now� to her daughters, and led them down the corridor toward the latrine.
�I�m puzzled about a few things,� Elidon asked the head trainer. �All the times I�ve seen ponygirls, they�ve been tacked up very stringently. Now, it almost looks like you�re giving them free rein.�
�As the wizard said, it�s a matter of balance. Regardless of how we treat them, they are still human. Humans normally go to the latrine by themselves; they don�t need a keeper to do that. If we make them dependent on us for that, it�ll come out somewhere else. The same goes for letting the brunette knot her own halter. It�s well within her capability. Many of our �girls tack themselves up and hitch themselves to their carriages. Some of them help out around the stable. How much we let them do depends more on what they want to do, and whether we can trust them to do a good job and not get into trouble.
�As far as the tack goes, though, that�s a simple matter of health and safety. Loose tack chafes.� Elidon nodded. �And if there�s one thing you can count on an undisciplined human type mind to do, its wander if it�s not working on something. So there are really only two options. Either you tack them up so they�ve got the bit in their teeth, so to speak, or so that they�re going to go the way the reins point, and no doubt about it.�
�It seems,� Elidon said, �that I do not really understand what it takes to train a ponygirl.�
�Well, it can be a bit confusing. Just remember that, under the spells and the close training in how to act like a horse, they�re still relatively normal girls. It doesn�t take a whole lot to get the point across that, if they want to be able to hit the latrine when they want, they�d better come right back to their stall when they�re done. It�s not that much harder for them to figure out that if they don�t want to spend a whole lot of time either staring at the walls or sleeping, they�ll help out around here when they�re given the opportunity.
�On the other end, it does take some serious training to be able to pull a carriage smoothly without straining anything. And some more to look pretty while doing it. Then there�s quite a bit more to be able to stand there for hours without going a bit crazy. Most of that training is straight, unadulterated stimulus/response work, and the parts about proper attitude take quite a bit of experience to get right.�
�So, how did you like your new ponygirl team?� Princess Patricia asked her consort, who still looked like Elidon.
�I�ve got mixed feelings,� the newly minted Prince confessed.
The two of them reclined on a plush sofa, the Princess comfortably curled up against her fake Prince�s manly chest, both of their feet propped up on a comfortable footstool. What made the footstool so comfortable was that it was a crouching slave who had once been a rising star in the Kingdom�s bureaucracy.
Ella well remembered her reaction when she saw the slaves that served the Princess as furniture. Over the last few days, though, she had gotten used to seeing their motionless forms, frozen into their appointed positions and completely immobile except for their gentle breathing.
They weren�t, she knew, completely immobile. When they weren�t performing their functions they exercised and ate, and otherwise lived locked in their cages. It was not, she supposed, much of a life. Whether it was better than a short, miserable life coughing their lungs out in the mines was a question that she had discovered didn�t really apply. The mines, as portrayed, didn�t exist. There were mines, of course, but they had modern equipment, well trained workers, and took great care that their workers stayed in good health.
At least, the fearsome mines didn�t exist in this Kingdom. As the advisor had explained, it simply wasn�t efficient to harness human females, no matter how strong, to ore carts, and there simply weren�t enough convicts to afford to waste them on very inefficient mining techniques. Some other kingdoms had mines that were nearly as bad, but that was them. Our kingdom, he was at pains to emphasize, did things better.
As he explained, the human furniture of the Royal Apartments was a method of keeping expenses down. Enslaving miscreants was all very well, and was wonderfully efficient and cost effective if the miscreant in question wouldn�t cause more trouble for the prospective owner than it was worth.
Since the Royal Family needed to be Debauched, they were the obvious destination for convicts that simply didn�t get it. Prisons were expensive, and effective prisons that reformed their inmates rather than brutalized them were even more so. The Royal Family had quite a collection of criminal incompetents that were drawn to the seat of power like moths to a flame, only to discover that the flame was much too hot for them to survive. Here, at least, they could bask in the attentions of Royalty.
It did, Ella thought, make a certain amount of very perverted sense.
�How so, pet?�
�I thought I�d get a charge out of getting back at them. Now, I wonder if I didn�t go too far.�
�Was any part of their debt problem your doing?� the Princess asked from her position snuggled up against the apparently handsome army officer�s side.
�No, that was their own stupidity.�
�Then, becoming slaves was their own doing. You simply held on when you could have let go.� She shrugged. �As long as you don�t let them know it�s you, I can�t see that it�s anything more than maintaining a rather perverted hobby. That is going to take a bit of work to keep going, since we can�t allow you to appear as yourself.�
�I understand that,� Elidon sighed. �How did your day go, love?�
�More of the usual,� she smiled up at him. �The Horticulture Society is at least interesting. Well, I think so � I like flowers!� she laughed. �I presided over opening their new greenhouse. Lovely tropical orchids!�
She snuggled in deeper. �Then the Prince my brother attended the Royal Council meeting. He finds all of that stuff deeply interesting; I find it boring.�
�But you�re the same person!� Elidon said.
�Well, of course we are! But part of good character design is making a character you can play that is still different enough that people won�t get curious. Another part is making one that your stand-ins can play as well.�
�I suppose,� Elidon said with a bit of a sigh, �that means I can�t have a stand-in attending Council meetings.�
�Quite true; you�re going to have to attend those as Ella. Oh,� she twisted a bit against him as she rubbed her hands, �we�re going to have fun designing your characters.�
�What about my stand-ins? I don�t have any idea of how to go about recruiting some.�
�Not a problem,� the Princess said, snuggling her head further into the crook of his arm. �The kingdom is blessed with a large number of hard working, honest and intelligent subjects that like to do well by their neighbors and contribute to the well-being of the kingdom. It�s also blessed with a lot of venial powerseekers, thieves, confidence men and similar parasites on the body politic. My two,� she waved her free hand at the two absolutely identical maids that stood inconspicuously waiting for orders, �were very accomplished confidence men that specialized in pretending to be members of the nobility. Our police eventually caught up with them, and they decided that pretending to be me was preferable to actually being my footstool.�
She giggled softly. �Even though it does mean they�re my maids when they aren�t pretending to be me. Otherwise they might think they were being rewarded!�
�You are,� Sarpedon said, �going to supervise the two new girls at their conditioning exercises. Your job is to make certain they stay focused on what they�re doing.�
�On going round and round? How, and why, would one do that?�
�You will find out why in good time. For now, all you need to know is that, when they are in harness, they need to focus on that to the exclusion of anything else, for as long as they remain in harness. The only thoughts that are allowed to cross their minds are thoughts that horses would have in a similar situation.�
�And how do I do that?� The woman in the potato sack seemed to have regained some of her confidence from guiding her daughters to and from the latrine.
�Now that,� Sarpedon said, �is the secret. He took a small object from his pouch. �Look at this, take a deep breath and imagine yourself falling into it.�
She backed away from the disk.
�Or else,� he said with real menace in his voice, �resign yourself to a short and miserable life in the mines.�
She took a deep breath and looked at the dull-seeming disk. After a moment, it seemed to unfold before her, and she felt like she fell into it. She staggered a moment, and then regained her feet.
�What happened to your head?� she asked after she reoriented herself.
�Nothing has happened to my head. Your vision has changed; you�re seeing my actual thoughts.�
�Oh. Seeing thoughts is not like I imagined it would be.�
�For a fact, it isn�t. The wizards don�t care to have playwright�s fantasies match the real world too closely. Besides, it would make for a boring play.
�The way it works is that each place in the cloud of thoughts does something, and the thoughts go from place to place.� He looked at her confused expression, and sighed.
�You know cooking, I presume?� She nodded, still confused. What did cooking have to do with thoughts?
�Think of a grinder where you can tell that something is being ground, but not what. Or a chopping board, where you can tell that something is being sliced, but not what.�
Her brow furrowed. �Oh. Then some things might need to be chopped so they�re fine enough to be ground.�
�Good enough. If you notice, there�s an area up here,� he pointed to the middle of the left side of his head, �that�s active when I talk. There�s another one back here,� he pointed again, �that�s active when I listen.�
�What?� she asked, then she said �Oh! I see what you mean,� as she saw the listening part of his brain light up.
�Good. Now, what you are going to be doing with our two new ponygirls is watch their thoughts to see whether they�re paying attention to what�s going on around them, or simply off daydreaming. They are quite distinct patterns. Then, I�m going to give you a little talisman that will let you influence them. Shaping their thinking so that they only pay attention to what they�re supposed to while they�re harnessed is a long and detailed process, and it can�t be hurried.
�It�ll take you a while to learn it, and that can�t really be hurried either. So what I�m going to do is show you one basic pattern and how to keep nudging one of the two ponygirls into it. That�s more than enough to start with. Now get a halter on Spendthrift Jester and bring her out to the exercise yard.�
A few minutes later, the trainee trainer in the potato sack emerged from the stable leading the brunette ponygirl by a halter. The �girl followed her, walking easily, a bemused expression on her face. Sarpedon stood by a waist-high post that had a long arm sticking out the top. The arm had a number of leather straps and two long handles hanging from the end.
�Bring her over here and put her between the shafts.�
The shafts in question stuck out from the end of the arm. They, in turn, ended with upturned handholds. Each arm had a silvery wrist cuff dangling from a short chain.
The sack led her charge over to the shaft. The �girl looked at the arrangement, shrugged and walked between the arms, taking hold of the handgrips. Sarpedon snapped the cuffs on her wrists. �Next, you�re going to finish harnessing her.
�For right now, we�re just going to use the waist band. Later we�ll use the shoulder harness, but we�ll work up to that.�
The waist band dangled by a pair of straps. The new trainer picked it up and examined it briefly before wrapping it around the ponygirl�s waist and fastening the buckles. She settled it and then tightened the buckles, eliciting a small grunt from her charge. Then she attached the other set of traces and stood back.
�Look at how she�s holding her arms,� Sarpedon commented.
�Um. Another inch or so back?�
�Two, I think.� The new trainer made the adjustment.
�That looks good. Now look at this.� Sarpedon pointed at a lever that stuck up from the post. �This controls how hard she�s going to have to pull. Right now, I�ve got it set on the easiest setting. You�re to make her go ten minutes on, five off. If she�s having trouble with that, you can adjust it.�
�I see,� the nameless trainer said. �I presume we�re going to keep records of how she�s doing?�
�You are going to keep records. Accurate records are important, and I�ll show you how later. Right now, though, you�re going to learn how to keep her focused. Stand here,� he pointed at a circle scribed in the stone next to the building wall.
�That�s magic?� she asked, eyeing it warily.
�No,� he laughed. �It�s out of the sun where you can keep an eye on the clock. We put the circle there so people don�t dump something and block the position. Of course, if the �girls think that it�s magic, so much the better!
�Now, watch what goes through her head.� He raised his voice and said �Go!� to the ponygirl. She dug her heels in to the dirt of the yard and shoved forward, the muscles of her calves and belly straining as she pulled the massive arm behind her.
�So, what did you see?� he asked.
�Lots, but I couldn�t make any sense of it,� she said.
�Of course. Now, I�m going to outline the paths for you,� he said, as a series of golden lines seemed to take shape in the light grey cloud where the ponygirl�s thoughts coursed. �These aren�t actually in her head. They�re a kind of overlay we use for teaching and explanations. Now watch.� He called out �Stop!� Spendthrift Jester quit straining at the traces, and the arm stopped behind her.
�Oh! I see. It went from where you said the hearing was, up to the front and then back, and then all the movement is a different pattern.�
�Exactly. It�ll take a while before you see the patterns without tracing them out. The big loop I just showed you is the conscious decision pathway. In a few days, we�re going to start shifting what happens on commands so she doesn�t have the opportunity to think about it and make a decision. Right now, though, we�re going to look at the attention pattern.� A different pattern of gold lines sprang into existence.
�This is the basic awareness pattern when she�s paying attention to what�s going on around her, and simply reacting rather than thinking about it. Anything outside of this pattern is something else. Like right now,� he said as the pattern changed, �something�s caught her attention and she�s thinking and not paying attention.�
�I can see that,� her mother said. �Her posture changes. She�s never figured out that�s how I know.�
�That�s one way of telling. Now, what you�re going to do is break up this pattern and guide her thinking back to the basic attention pattern. You do it like this.� He outlined a place and then did something, and the ponygirl�s thinking pattern shifted, settling down into the attention pattern.
�That looked too easy,� she said.
�Well, sometimes just breaking up the daydream is all that�s needed. Sometimes you need more. I�ll teach you what the more is later. Now, you start her and I�ll watch for a while.�
�Start!� the woman in the tattered potato sack said. The ponygirl sighed and then leaned forward, muscles straining as she pulled the bar behind her, completely unaware that her real training had commenced.
�Ummm�� the Prince said as he took a sip of wine. He and Ella were sitting in the comfortable living room of their apartment on opposite sides of a low table. The table itself (or possibly herself) was a former manager in their bureaucracy who had gotten a bit above her station and begun siphoning off funds to various private projects. The Royal Family considered this stupidity of the highest order; one of the perks of rising in the bureaucratic hierarchy was being able to fund personal projects. Doing it outside of channels, however, simply wasn�t permitted.
Since the Prince was sitting on a cushion tailor-fashion, and the new Princess was sitting with her legs neatly folded under her, they had the table set fairly low: the tips of her nipples brushed the floor as her arms and legs maintained the proper bend to keep her back level.
�I�ve been thinking,� Ella said, �that my two ponygirls are probably a good deal more fortunate than this table.�
�How so?�
�The table crouches here for most of the day, day after day after day. She goes to her kennel at night, and never does anything else except eat and exercise, and both of those are so thoroughly trained that I doubt if she�s aware she�s doing them. Spendthrift Jester and Blonde Fancy don�t have that much more free will, but at least they get to move around a lot.�
�Oh, come on, Ella,� the Prince said. �I grant you these are in pretty stringent bondage, but you�re indulging in the guilts for no reason I can tell.�
�Oh?�
�Yes. You need to learn to manage the balance to really work with us. Consider your step-mother. Did you have anything to do with her being a spendthrift? Or with her decision to marry your father to further her social ambitions for herself and her daughters?�
�Uh, no.�
�Did you have anything to do with her treatment of you?�
�Well, I tried��
�Right. In many ways, you�re pleasant and easy to get along with. There�s no way you could have created that situation. Did you have anything to do with the daughters becoming spendthrifts or nasty bitches? Again, no. They were that before they wound up in your family.�
�I see. And father cut his losses.�
�And took his sweet time doing it, too. You uncle wanted to cut them out a year ago.
�In fact,� the Prince continued, �debt slavery is not that bad a deal for the lower classes. They expect to spend their lives working for someone else; all they usually get is more security for less freedom. Is it a fair trade? Depends on which one you ask. We�ve got a number working here in the palace, and they don�t act more than usually oppressed.�
�But��
�But what? You had your uncle maneuver your stepsisters into becoming ponygirls, and your stepmother into becoming their trainer. I thought that last was creatively nasty at the time, and I still do, but my sources tell me she�s quite happy with it. I suspect she thought it was her job to run her daughter�s lives for them, and she�s still doing it.�
Ella looked at her husband, and then bent over slightly, laughing. �You know, you�re absolutely right. I thought she had a better nature to attack her through. Silly me.�
�Debt slavery is quite a shock for the middle and upper classes, though,� the Prince continued. �As far as your step-sisters are concerned, my sources tell me that they�ve gotten over the hump of discovering that they don�t have any control over how they react to commands. They�re about as happy with that discovery as any ponygirl, which is to say, not very. However, it�s not that different from what they�d have had to endure with anyone else that had bought them. They�d have had to learn instant obedience one way or the other, and at least this way they miss most of the beatings.�
�So you think it all balances?�
�Better than most first attempts. I�d have separated the mother and daughters, and distanced myself from all of them. However, I didn�t have several years of getting systematically put down by them, either, so I can see your wanting a balance there. In fact, I�m mildly surprised that you�re having second thoughts this early.�
�I suppose that�s just that I�ve still got them on my hands. I suppose I could sell them,� she said doubtfully.
�And you don�t really mean that. Well, it will work out the way it works out. We�ll just keep Elidon as the owner, and I may create a character so I can hang on his arm looking decorative and keeping the masses salivating while he�s having fun driving them around the city.� The Prince beamed at Ella. �We�ll keep them separate from the Royal Family for now. We might decide to have some ponygirls in the Royal Stables, but if we do, we�ll buy them from Elidon and separate them from your stepmother. That�s for the future, though.
�Right now, it�s lesson time. How are you doing with the Royal Library?�
�Better than I expected,� Ella said seriously. �When you showed me that I could �remember� anything that had ever happened to any member of the Royal Family or our stand-ins, I was just blown away. I can�t say I�m entirely comfortable with it, but I�m beginning to figure out how to use it.�
�Excellent. You�re clear on the difference between a Full Member of the Royal Family, a Candidate Member and a Utility Member?�
�You�re a Full Member, I�m a Candidate Member and our two maids are Utility Members. Uncle Guido is an Associate Member. I�ll become a Full Member after I learn quite a bit more and, I presume, pass a number of tests. The maids stay Utility Members permanently.�
�That�s right. So let�s start on the next lesson. What would you look for to determine how well a kingdom is being run?�
Ella thought for a moment. �I�m not at all sure,� she said. �I suppose prosperity is one factor.�
�That�s certainly one thing. The basic thing I�d look for is negative, though. That�s a lack of history.
�From most people�s viewpoints, History is a list of Kings and Queens named Someone the Great, other rulers that usually didn�t get a descriptor, and the occasional Good King or Queen Whoozis. Greats usually cause chaos by their ambition, and the rest kind of reign lightly over whatever happens to occur. The few Kings and Queens that earn the descriptor of Good are the ones that manage to get the mess under control; the latter parts of their reigns usually look quite placid and historyless.�
�In other words, boring is good.�
�Right. One of the more cynical philosophers came up with a curse: May you live in interesting times.�
�I�ve heard that one,� Ella responded with a grin. �Never could figure it out, though.�
�Well, we don�t usually have interesting times in that sense. The reason we don�t is that the Royal Family�s job isn�t to run the kingdom; it�s to make sure the kingdom is being competently run.� The Prince picked a small, dull looking disk from his pouch. �See this?�
�It�s a spell disk?�
�Yes. It�s one of the spells that old Unpronounceable left for the Family. Look into it.�
�Huh?� Ella said, and then stiffened as she was drawn into the disk. A moment later she swayed before coming back to her balance.
�What did you do to me?� She looked around, puzzled.
�Those grey clouds you�re seeing in our heads are our thoughts. You�ve now got the ability to see how people are thinking. I�ll show you how to use it to tell if someone is telling the truth, and to force them to tell the truth if they�re lying.�
�I thought truth spells were fables.�
�Mostly, they are. This isn�t a truth spell: if you know what you�re doing, you can use it to tell when someone is strictly sticking to what they thought happened, or filling in with imagination. It won�t tell you whether what someone thought happened is what actually happened, though.
�This,� he continued seriously, �is a large part of how we keep control. Over the years, the bureaucracy itself has matured so that it filters most of the hopelessly incompetent or power-mad before they can do too much damage. Of course, some slip through, and some get corrupted later on. Incompetents usually don�t get to senior levels without people noticing, but the power-mad can worm themselves into the machinery. So we�re the last check on corruption; after attending a couple of annual reviews, the senior bureaucrats somehow seem to develop a strong interest in whatever their religion proposes as ethical or moral behavior.�
�I can�t understand why,� Ella said archly, one hand idly caressing the curve of the table�s nearer hip. The table seemed to shudder slightly under her attentions, causing the wine in the glasses to ripple.
�I can see how it�s like keeping a house. You keep at it, and it�ll stay in good shape. You let it go, and the rot multiplies. But that still doesn�t tell me what keeps us from getting corrupted. As the saying goes: �Who will watch the watchers?��
�How?� the Prince asked. �If there�s any way we could be more corrupt, I�ve yet to hear of it, and I�d really like to know. Remember what I said about Mordeci�s Realization.�
�Oh. In order to enjoy the cream off the top, there has to be cream on the top.�
�Right. For us to live the way we do, we need a thriving economy and a satisfied population. In turn, that means we also need a competent bureaucracy to make it happen. The real question is: what keeps us from being cleaned out.�
Ella thought for a moment. �Oh, you mean the balance?�
�Exactly. As far as we can tell, there are only two universal laws. One is the Balance, and the other is that unintended consequences tend to be evil to the extent that the actor is evil or incompetent. Good, competent people tend to have good unintended consequences; bad people tend to have bad unintended consequences.
�What we do to keep the kingdom running smoothly tilts the balance back in our favor. It tilts it quite a bit in our favor, actually. If it didn�t, we�d be knee deep in reform movements, revival preachers, white wizard�s councils and heroic quests. Since there is no way we could be considered as good people, we need to avoid unintended consequences. We do that by considering what we do very, very carefully, and try to keep the balance tilted in our favor.
�In the next few days, though, you�re going to learn how to tell if someone is telling it like they saw it, or shading the truth, and then you�re going to go shopping.�
Ella�s eyes glazed momentarily at the apparent non sequitur.� Then she rallied. �I suppose you mean shopping for a stand-in.�
�Right. Once you�ve found one, then you�re going to have to train it. Training it is going to be your learning exercise; it doesn�t matter if you spoil one or two before you get it right.�
Elidon stood in the shade of the ponygirl stables, watching Sarpedon and his ex-stepmother working Spendthrift Jester and Blonde Fancy at the pair training course. Three weeks had certainly changed them. Well, it had changed the three women; Sarpedon seemed to be as massively unchangeable as a small mountain. Even Sarpedon seemed to have changed in one important respect: he seemed to have accepted that Edith was going to work out after all, and he was now training her in earnest.
The big problem with the practice carousels was that they trained the pony to turn left. Or right if you hitched her up the other way. Going around in circles didn�t seem to be real good training for being able to follow a straight line. Of course, he thought, it didn�t matter if you intended to keep a firm hand on the reins.
Today they had the two �girls hitched to a two wheeled ceremonial sulky. Edith sat in the center holding the reins, and Sarpedon sat behind and a bit above her. The �girls had been fastened into stringent corsets that pulled their waists in and emphasized their hips. The corsets were attached with four straps to the shafts; two on each side. The straps themselves distributed the strain onto their flat and increasingly muscular bellies when they pushed forward; and onto their backs when they had to slow down.
A second set of straps held the top of the corsets up; these straps crossed their backs and between their breasts, and topped out by crossing their shoulders. They had nothing to do with making the sulky go forward or back though; they were there because much of the weight of the sulky fell on their shoulders.
The sulky shafts ended in a set of handholds. The two �girls had firm hold of them. They didn�t have much choice in the matter; their wrists were shackled to the shafts with short chains, giving them only a few inches of movement.
The handholds were for more than simply a place to rest their hands. Human bodies were, after all, not really designed to pull from the waist so they used the handholds when they were pushing or pulling hard.
The black hoof boots on their feet shined with the luster that only a thorough polish would give them. They would get dusty, of course, but Elidon knew that the two ponygirls took care of their tack themselves. He chuckled. Esmeralda and Hermoine would find a way to look good, even if they had to work on it themselves.
The shoulder straps served another purpose. A webwork of small straps led upwards to the headstall that encased their heads, and kept them from turning in the slightest. He�d seen Edith adjust the checkreins with minute care while they were being harnessed.
Today they�d been outfitted with ostrich plumes coming jauntily up from between their eyes, and they wore the standard small bells in their breast rings.
The practice course was laid out with a bewildering set of straight lanes and curves that resembled nothing so much as a giant�s fancy embroidery. The one thing there wasn�t was a clear path through the maze. Every segment ended with at least three ways to go, and Sarpedon seemed to be flipping some kind of large die in his hand and calling out the next maneuver as they approached the decision points.
What fascinated Elidon the most, though, was that the two trainers seemed to be using the same set of spells that Princess Patricia had just taught him! It had taken him a few minutes to realize that the two ponygirls weren�t reacting naturally.
Once he got over the realization, he settled in to watch the tentative corrections that Edith was applying to first one and then the other�s thought patterns, and Sarpedon�s less frequent but much defter touch.
He frowned slightly, the movement shadowing his classic features, and then reached into the Royal Library.
The hour Elidon had allotted to watching the training session drew to a close, and he turned away, well satisfied. It seemed like the trainers had made substantial progress. The two ponygirls had not shown a trace of self-awareness in the entire hour; everything they had done was pure stimulus and response. Over the hour they�d seemed to be getting smoother on turning under the prompting of the reins. They�d started out quite ragged, but had now settled down to where they maintained perfect step as they went around a turn. It looked like they�d be ready for him to take out on the street in another week or so.
�Quite a good session,� Sarpedon unbent enough to tell Edith as she deftly guided the sulky back to the stable with light tugs on the reins at each turn.
�I think we�re getting it, if I do say so myself.�
�Indeed. You need a lot more work, but you�re showing a good balance of curiosity and willingness to experiment.�
�Only way you get anywhere,� she responded a bit abstractly as she stopped the pair in front of the stable. Then she said �Back! Slowly now!� as she guided the sulky into the slot in front of the stable. A minute later she gave the reins a shake and dropped them over the front; the two ponygirls stood in place, eyes somewhat unfocused and looking straight ahead.
�Groom them and get them back to their stall,� Sarpedon ordered as he swung out of the sulky. �Good session.�
�Ah. There they are,� he said to himself as he spotted the next pair of ponygirls on his training schedule, all tacked up and ready to go.
A moment later, Edith unhitched the pair from the carriage. She got their attention, and told them: �Take your tack off, wash up and get back to your stalls!� Edith watched them shake themselves and then start to unbuckle the checkreins. Then, she shrugged. Standing here wasn�t getting her own work done, and the stable master was not at all hesitant with the beatings if she slacked off! Her two �girls were perfectly capable of finishing up that task on their own.
She turned away, shaking her head. Even after the month she�d spent here, she was still amazed at the way the ponygirls acted. It was nothing like she had imagined before this. Then she chuckled, amused at herself. They were, after all, slaves, and slaves did what they were told or faced the consequences.
A half hour later, Spendthrift Jester and Blonde Fancy walked into their stable alcove carrying their tack. They hung it on the posts next to their stalls in easy reach, and then gestured to each other for a moment. They went into their stalls and shot the bolts behind themselves. A few moments later, they were both busy with the really important part of their day: brushing out their hair and tails so that they would dry properly. While cleaning their tack was import, they had their priorities straight even if no one else did.
Blonde Fancy made another gesture, and Spendthrift Jester whinnied in amusement. She was so right! The animal noises spell was certainly inconvenient, but it didn�t prevent them from using sign language. The effort they�d put into learning it a few years ago so they could look good with those wretched deaf-mutes had paid off in a really unexpected way. In fact, she reflected with some amusement, being ponygirls might actually be preferable to being princesses. Nah, she thought to herself, but it sure beat the mines.
A few days later, Elidon sat relaxed on one of the immobile slaves that served the apartment for chairs, having a spirited conversation with the Prince of Porapodia and his consort. The Prince and his consort also sat on the immobile slaves, with another slave crouched between them serving as a table.
Elidon was hard put to keep from smiling at the unreality of the situation; the Prince and his consort didn�t seem to notice anything strange about their surroundings. In fact, they seemed to be enmeshed in a fog of unreality that was about to vanish as if dispelled by an overly enthusiastic noonday sun.
�Hello, Honey!� the Princess� cheerful voice rang out as she entered the apartment.
�Welcome Home, Love,� the Prince answered her. �Look what followed me home.� As he spoke, he stopped the gentle nudges with which he had been herding his two unwitting guests� thoughts into appropriately unaware channels. The two of them suddenly stiffened and began to look around themselves in dawning horror as the significance of what they were seeing, and what they had been saying for the past hours sank into their now unfettered minds.
�You found something on your shopping expedition, I see,� she said as she removed her fur wrap and handed it to one of the maids.
�Like the outfit?� she asked as she slowly twirled.
�The outfit?� he waved a hand. �It�s great, but it�s you that makes it perfect.� The garment in question was a simple strapless daytime gown that fit like a glove from the top of her perfect breasts to where it hugged her hips, and then fell in gentle folds to just an inch above the floor. It was much less elaborate than an evening gown, as well as being marginally less revealing, however it was something that would only be worn in the daytime by a lady of such exalted social standing that she would never have to lay a hand on anything remotely resembling honest work.
It was, as the Princess described it, a working gown, where the work consisted in overawing anyone she interacted with into believing that immediate compliance with her wishes was not only the best policy, it was the only conceivable policy.
Elidon himself was still garbed in his army officer�s uniform without rank markings. The Prince of Porapodia and his consort were likewise garbed in accordance with their rank, although the Prince�s consort didn�t quite have the panache to wear a strapless gown for daytime use. She wore a much more practically impractical dress, with just enough hint of the tailoring showing to make it plain that she needed a personal maid to get into it.
�So, where did you find them?� she asked amusedly.
�I chatted up Lieutenant Markey in the Palace Guard Investigations unit.� The Princess nodded, she was also acquainted with the good Lieutenant. �He had several visiting foreign nobles that he had some suspicions of their provenance. This pair was visiting the Dowager Duchess of Devomal, and he was wondering how much of her spare change they were extracting.�
�The Duchess is such a dear, but she is getting on, and her children really aren�t paying her proper attention,� the Princess nodded.
�So I stepped around and paid my respects. I�m sorry to say that the Lieutenant was exactly correct in his suspicions.�
�Shocking!� the Princess exclaimed, rather obviously not shocked. The maid hovering in the background managed to hide a smile behind a raised hand.
�I�ll be right back, after I refresh myself,� the Princess said, gesturing to the maid to follow her as she regally walked from the room.
�I suppose,� Elidon said after retaking his seat on the broad back of the crouching slave he had been using as a chair, �you�ve got some questions about what is really going on.�
�What is this?� Lisset, which was the consort�s name, asked.
�It�s demented, that�s what it is,� the fake Prince exclaimed. �What are you proposing to do with us?�
�Well,� Elidon said, looking at the fake Prince, �it�s not Demented, it�s Debauched. You�re where you thought you were, in Prince Patrick�s apartments in the Royal Palace. Of course you recognized the Princess Patricia, and I suppose I should introduce myself as the Prince�s new consort, the Princess Ella.�
�No way in Hell you�re a Princess.� Lisset said. �I was at the Ball. You couldn�t possibly be Ella.�
�Well, you�ll find out soon enough,� Elidon said. �Once the Princess gets back, we�ll start the evening�s entertainment. At least, the two of us will be quite entertained. If you expect to also be entertained, I�d suggest you retrieve your sense of humor from wherever you misplaced it. You�re going to need it.�
The fake Prince said, �Given the conversation, and what I remember telling you, I suppose we�re in for it. Pray tell, what is it we�re in for?�
�Life,� the Prince told them, and then gave a small smile as Lisset grimaced at the non sequitur.
�Seriously, this is your audition to become my retainers. If I decide to accept your services, you�ll be set up for life. If I decide to decline employing your services, you�ll leave here without remembering anything about us. I�ll be kind enough to give you a day or so head start before telling the good Lieutenant that you�re totally bogus, though. Consider that your interview fee.�
�What would we do for you?� Lisset asked.
�I find myself needing one or two retainers that enjoy, and are good at, impersonating members of the nobility. It�s steady work, by the way. When you�re not doing that, you�ll be my maids, and, of course, you�ll be conditioned for loyalty. There�s no option on that.
�If you decline you�ll have an opportunity to try to make it to the border before the Royal Guard catches you. If you don�t manage that,� the Prince shrugged his shoulders, �you may very well wind up right back here in this apartment, but this time as a chair, footstool or table. You�ve left too much of a trail of murder and mayhem behind you to allow you to go free, and you�ve convinced me that you�re much too clever for the normal run of slave holders to control.�
�And you had best believe every word of that,� the Princess said from the doorway. She had changed into a gently flowing dress that fell loosely off of her shoulders and was gathered at the waist to fall gracefully the rest of the way toward the ground. �Let�s get started, love.�
Elidon gathered her into his arms for a lingering hug and kiss, and then released her. She took her seat where Elidon had been a moment before.
�This is still not making sense,� Lisset complained.
�Well,� the Princess said magnanimously, �maybe one of my maids can explain better since you�re interviewing for the same position.� She waved a hand at the closer of the two identical seeming maids.
The maid in question cleared her throat. �It�s very simple,� she said. �Prince Patrick and Princess Patricia are really the same person, and Elidon, as he said, is the same person as Princess Ella. The entire Royal Family has a shape changing spell; there are fewer of them than you would think. I understudy the Prince and the other maid,� she nodded toward the woman who was putting the Princess� dinner on the back of the slave kneeling in front of her, �understudies the Princess. When Mistress is being Princess Patricia, she changes me into the Prince, and I do his schedule; when she�s being the Prince, she changes her into the Princess, and she does her schedule.
�Beyond that, we�ve got a method of exchanging experience so there aren�t any gaps, and we serve her as maids the rest of the time. The working conditions are what you�d expect for a noble family�s servants. We don�t get paid, but then we don�t have any expenses, either.� She shrugged. �Whether it�s better than the Royal Game Preserve is debatable, but it�s definitely better than the alternative.� She gestured toward one of the immobile furniture slaves.
�I hope that answers the question,� the Princess said. �You,� she pointed at Lisset. �Disrobe.�
�You�re crazy,� Lisset responded, wide-eyed.
�You�ve got a choice,� the Princess said as she waved the fake Prince�s hand away from the meal. �You can either get up and disrobe, or you will get up and disrobe. The Princess Ella and I will know which one you took. It�ll be interesting to see whether you can spot it, and I doubt if your partner in crime can tell. His turn will come next.�
Lisset looked stubbornly back at her, and then got up and started to fumble at the closures at her waist. One of the maids looked at the Princess, who nodded at her. The maid moved in smoothly and helped Lisset off with her dress.
The fake Prince�s consort turned slowly, and then unhitched her bra, letting it fall to the ground, and then divested herself of slip, panties and hose. A minute later she stood there, back slightly arched as if displaying herself.
�Very good,� the Princess clapped after swallowing a mouthful. �Now, we will get down to cases. While you were busy displaying yourself, you�ll notice that Elidon has also disrobed. Watch this closely.�
Elidon seemed to blur at the edges, and then suddenly the Princess Ella stood there, also nude.
�You can pick up your jaws now,� the Princess said dryly from behind the two confidence grifters. �Both of you study the Princess closely. I want you to engrave each and every delightful curve into your mind.�
She waited a moment. �Now, Lisset, pretend you�re Ella. It goes like this,� and suddenly the nude woman seemed to fade out and then back in; there were now two Ellas in the room. The fake Prince looked from one to the other incredulously.
�If I hadn�t seen it, I wouldn�t have believed it,� he said with admiration in his voice. �How did you do that?�
�It�s a secret held by the Royal Family,� she told him. �Now,� she instructed the two Ellas, �walk back and forth for a minute.�
A few minutes later, she asked the puzzled Prince, �which one is which?�
�I think she�s Lisset,� he said, pointing. �She�s got a pretty little hip wiggle that the other one hasn�t quite duplicated.�
�I like that,� the other one said, hands on hips. �Pretty little hip wiggle indeed!�
�Oh, you do,� the one he�d indicated replied. �I was afraid I was overdoing it, though. It certainly had his attention! I�m going to have to try it on Prince Patrick and see if he likes it.�
�They�re not putting you on, either,� the Princess said. �The members of the Royal Family can tell who�s who, even if nobody else can. Now, you�re going to join them. Get up and disrobe.�
A minute later, the fake Prince�s clothes were on the floor. His form shimmered, and suddenly a third copy of Ella stood there, looking down at herself in astonishment.
�Well, walk around,� the Princess commanded. �Just let your body lead.�
A few minutes later she stopped the procession. �That was pretty good for a first try at running a female body. Let�s take a break before the next act.� She waved, and two of them shimmered and regained their proper forms.
The three of them sat down again, not bothering to clothe themselves, and helped themselves to food.
�As you were told,� the Princess said between mouthfuls, �Prince Patrick and Princess Patricia are the same person. We weren�t always, but when we grew up and it was time to join the Family as adults, the Prince my brother decided that he didn�t want to be quite this Debauched, and also that he didn�t want the other responsibilities that came along with being a full member of the Royal Family. So he found a position in the Royal Guard, and I started playing his role in public. As my maid told you, they�re also my standins. One of them plays the Prince, and one of them plays the Princess, so people see us together all the time.�
�Prince Patrick married Ella, or at least he�s going to as soon as we get the wedding set up! She�s already joined to the Family and everyone treats us as married. The Princess, however, is still single and she needs a husband. So the script calls for another Ball, and the Princess will select one of the love-struck suitors for her hand. Of course, that suitor will be Ella in a specially built male character, but nobody else will know that. There�ll be another Royal Wedding, and everyone will have a lot of fun celebrating.�
�The task right now is to design the character for my new husband. As Prince Patrick I had to take what I could get, and fortunately what I could get was superlative!� Ella beamed at the complement.
�However, now I can design my new husband, with my consort�s concurrence, of course. He�s got to be someone all three of you can play, as well as someone that it�s reasonable to have show up. I might like a stud that would make Mordeci look puny, but there are limits to how much the disguise spell can change a body around, and that�s way out of bounds. So what we�re going to do is start out with the Elidon character and change him around a bit.�
An hour later, the two Princesses and the fake Consort sat back looking at the fake Prince. �Now that is one studly hunk,� Lisset said. �And I get to play him, but I don�t get to play opposite him. Life,� she grumbled, �is so unfair!�
�Well,� the original Princess said, �life around the Royal Family is never fair. At best, you can hope that it�s interesting, rather than interesting.
�Now that we�ve got my future husband designed,� she smiled lasciviously, �we�ve got one more thing to do before we send you two on your way. We�re going to finish up your loyalty conditioning. Then you�re going to go back to the Duchess you�ve been defrauding, find a reason to leave the country, and then vanish and come back here. Once you�re back, we can begin training in ernest.
�And don�t think you can simply skip out. When you leave this evening you won�t have any intention of skipping, but it�s possible that you might be able to change your minds if you really work on it.� The Princess shrugged at the expressions on their faces. �We use magic to mold your minds, of course, but we don�t use anything to make sure whatever conditioning we impose sticks. We�ve tried it in the past, and it simply doesn�t work well enough to be worth pursuing. We just spend a few minutes here and there touching up your conditioning. Unless you really practice self-awareness, you won�t notice us doing it.
�You�ll be watched, and if you try to skip Ella will use you as practice material for furniture design.�
�You know, this is one place I�ve never been,� the lovely blonde burbled at Elidon as he handed her out of the carriage, which had drawn up in front of the Excelsior Livery Stables. �I�d just love to see how all of those delicious ponygirls live! I�ll bet it�s so exciting!�
Elidon grinned at her. �I think it�s fun Pet, but it�s not all that exciting,� he told the blonde, who hadn�t existed for much more than an hour at a time for the last week.
�Anything you do has got to be exciting!� she burbled back. �Are we in time to watch them being harnessed?�
�We should be,� he answered as he idly scanned the waiting stable hands that were trying not to stare too openly at his companion. He gave an imperious gesture, and one of the stable�s clerks hurried over, trying to project the air of blas� competence that the stable expected of its business staff.
�Your desire, sir Elidon?� the clerk asked.
�I�d like my two �girls harnessed for a ride into the city parks,� he told the clerk. �My companion would like to watch the process.� The clerk tried to retain his composure as the blonde favored him with a dazzling smile. He gestured at one of the waiting hands, and gave her some instructions.
�If you�ll follow me,� she told the two in a slightly hesitant alto, �I�ll show you to where your ponygirls are stabled.�
She turned and walked down the path, taking a firm, hip swinging stride as if to challenge the brainless piece of blonde fluff behind her.
As soon as everyone was out of earshot, Princess Patricia chuckled evilly. �Do you think I�m overdoing it?� she asked.
�Of course not,� Elidon gave the expected answer. �You have no idea how much work Hermione put into acting like a brainless blonde when the occasion warranted. She was pretty good at it too, gauging by results. Of course,� he hesitated, considering, �it helped a lot that she�s the more submissive of the pair. I doubt if Esmeralda could have done it, even if she�d been blonde. I know I couldn�t.�
�A brainless brunette?� she asked, astonished. �Brunettes can�t afford to be quite that artless.
�What�s with the, uh, dress?� she asked in a louder voice, apparently referring to the way the slave girl that was leading the way was attired. The slave in question was, in fact, dressed somewhat skimpily, since the only visible accouterments were her collar, a somewhat tattered sleeveless and very short pullover, and a pair of sturdy work boots. The leather cord that kept her hair bound in a jaunty ponytail was small enough not to count.
�It�s a potato sack.� Elidon shrugged his massive shoulders. �They cut costs by dressing the lowest status slaves in them.� He dropped his voice so they couldn�t be overheard. �I gather step-mother wasn�t all that happy to wear one, but it was either that or nothing.�
Pet giggled. �I�ll bet she really loved the choice!�
The Excelsior stable was a fairly large establishment. By now, they�d gone past the regular horse barns and exercise areas, and had arrived at the ponygirl stable. The long building with the exercise carrousels and the practice areas was as he remembered it. Their guide led them into the center and down the dimly lit corridor past the first pair of stall alcoves and into the second.
�Here they are,� she said as she scooted off to find something else to do before the pair she was guiding could put her to work.
�What�s with her?� Pet asked.
�She�s probably a slacker. Since she knows her way around, I doubt if they�d still be dressing her like that if she was very useful. Our two should still be here, let�s look and see if they�re sleeping.�
As they walked toward the back, both Spendthrift Jester and Blond Fancy stood up to look at them. By this time, they were well acquainted with Elidon�s voice, and had come to the conclusion that Elidon was in fact their half sister, Ella. Not that they could do anything about it, or that it mattered in the slightest. As far as they could tell, their owner treated them the same way the rest of the ponygirls were treated; that is, like horses.
Pet stepped forward to look them over. �They�re cute!� she exclaimed. �How ever did they manage to do the tails?�
�Magic, I believe. The sorcerer was just finishing up when I saw them the first time.� He turned to the two ponygirls. �Get your tack; I�m taking you out in the sulky.� The two promptly bent over to put on their boots. A couple of minutes later, they had stripped their tack from the posts and put on halters. Spendthrift Jester handed her halter rope to Elidon; Blonde Fancy offered hers to Pet.
�Hum?� Pet asked, looking at the rope.
�I think she believes one good blonde deserves another.� Pet giggled and took the proffered rope. The �girls slid the latches on their stalls and followed their owners down the corridor, items of tack in their arms and thrown over their shoulders.
A few minutes later, they�d gotten back to the central area where all of the various carriages and sulkies were stored. Elidon led them to the harnessing section, and swiftly knotted Spendthrift Jester�s halter rope through a ring set in the wall. Pet tethered her ponygirl at the next ring.
�Get yourself tacked up while we find a carriage,� he told the two ponygirls.
�Huh?� Pet said as she walked away with him. �Now I�m beginning to feel like a bubbleheaded blonde!�
Elidon laughed. �All I can say is what I�ve been told. They like to give the ponygirls as much freedom to do their routine by themselves as they can while maintaining discipline. Our two seem to have decided they�d rather handle their tack themselves, rather than have some of the grooms pawing them over. Well, they always were a bit fastidious that way.�
�That I can understand,� Pet said dryly as they walked over to discuss the carriages with the section head.
�I think,� the Princess said, �you were right about your two ponygirls. We do need to get rid of them.�
�What brought this on?� Princess Ella asked interestedly as her maid fussed about her settling her morning gown so it draped properly.
�The Queen my Mother mentioned that one of my uncles wrote about some questions that the clerics are asking about them. Well, about ponygirls in general; he doesn�t know about your special arrangement. She did a bit of scrying and discovered that it�s an Unintended Consequence of your keeping your ponygirls in a public stable.�
�So what do we do? Move them to the Royal Stables?�
�No, that would be worse. We move them to the Royal Game Preserve and leave their mother behind. She seems to be doing fairly well.�
�I know we�ve got a Royal Game Preserve,� Ella said, �but it�s still a blocked subject for me in the Royal Memory.�
�We were saving it as a surprise,� Patricia told her. She frowned prettily at one of the four identical maids and told her: �Time to change.� The maid promptly stripped out of her uniform and stood before her Mistress. Then she blurred, and Prince Patrick stood before them. Another of the maids started helping the Prince into his uniform.
�The Royal Game Preserve,� the Princess said didactically as her maid worked on her hair, �is, as you undoubtedly know, somewhere in the Forest of Foreboding. The Forest is off limits supposedly because of ancient sorcerous artifacts, deadly animals and other such unpleasantnesses. In fact, there are still a few of those around, but the real reason we don�t open it for development is that the soil is wrong, and turning it into farmland would be more likely to create a wasteland in a few decades.
�At least, that�s what the advisors say, and one of my aunts, who decided to become a scholar rather than specialize in Debauchery, agrees with them. So we spread rumors of vile things happening to people that go into the forest. The Royal Game Preserve is in the center, in one of the few meadow and woodland areas in the otherwise dense forest.
�What�s amusing about it is that the odd, sorcerous beasts actually exist. The Queen my Mother specializes in creating them; although the rest of us have a bit of fun occasionally turning a criminal into a Vile and Dangerous Sorcerous Beast.� She laughed at the way she had said that. �Right now she�s creating a school of mermaids. They�re in a little lake with an island, and it looks like they�re adapting nicely.�
�I suppose,� Ella said thoughtfully, �some of those rumors of vile things happening to tresspassers have a basis in fact?�
�Oh, quite a few of them. We turn the more vicious criminals into super-wolves and let them roam the Forest outside of the Game Preserve.�
The tall woman stepped out of the chariot and handed the reins of the two ponygirls to a waiting attendant. The woman herself seemed to be utterly ordinary except for her height and the air of command. People who saw her inevitably remembered her, but for some reason they were unable to describe her to anyone else.
�These two are beautifully trained,� she told Sarpedon. �They�re very smooth, and you�ve built up their stamina quite well. It�s much better than I would usually expect for only two months.�
�Thank you,� he answered. �My assistant seems to have an unexpected talent for the work.� He nodded at the two ponygirls� mother, who had shed her potato sack for a much better quality, if more revealing, blanket. The blanket had a hole punched out of the center for her head, and otherwise fastened at the sides in three places: just above her breasts, just below them and at her waist.
She�d lost considerable weight in the two months she had been working in the stable. In fact, what fat she had left served to soften the bulge of the muscles she was acquiring from the hard work. Her new garment served to show her off in a much more attractive package.
In a sense, it was definitely a promotion. She was, all things considered, quite happy with it, even though it had taken her some time to come to terms with the fact that she actually looked better wearing her blanket than she ever had in all the expensive finery and makeup. And it wasn�t as if she had any hope of attracting the upper crust any more.
�Very good,� the woman turned to the assistant. �I�m happy to hear that you�ve finally found a place that suits you.
�Elidon was certainly right about this pair. I�m buying them from him, and I want them shipped out to my estate. I�ll have a horse-carriage here for them later today.�
Somewhat later, after a long and bumpy ride, the two ponygirls stood side by side, halters tied to a ring in the side of a massive fountain. The fountain itself occupied the exact center of the small circular park created by the loop which ended the road by which they had just arrived. There were a number of mysterious buildings on the other side of the circle. At least, Esmeralda thought to herself, some of them weren�t all that easily identifiable, but some were. One was clearly a stable, and another seemed to be a residence or lodge of some kind.
The center of the fountain contained statues of five young women, each of whom knelt up to her waist in the water, legs spread wide, back arched slightly and arms extended. They all had their heads back so that the stream of water that came from their mouths rose and then splashed noisily.
Esmeralda studied the statues intently. Whoever had created them was undoubtedly quite an artist. They looked very lifelike; she could almost swear that she saw their eyes move and their chests rise and fall as they breathed.
�You like the statues,� a woman�s amused voice broke her concentration. She turned to see the woman who had driven them that morning.
�I think they were some of my best work,� she continued. �I�m Circe, and this is the Royal Hunting Lodge.� She paused a moment to see if they recognized it. �As I�m sure you�re aware, this is the Royal Family�s retreat. I amuse myself by turning unrepentant criminals into strange and magical beasts.�
She paused a moment. �The two of you don�t quite fall into that category, though. You�re here because we need to do something with you, and people were beginning to ask embarrassing questions. So while I�m going to finish the job of transforming you into ponygirls, you won�t be under the same restrictions as the rest of the menagerie.� She left the �as long as you behave yourselves� unsaid. Somehow, it didn�t seem to need saying.
�You need a bit of work,� she said, frowning slightly. �First,� she said as if to a student, �let�s get rid of some of the magical cruft so I can see what�s actually there.� She made four swift cutting motions with her right hand extended as if it was a sword blade.
�Good,� she nodded to herself. �That�s got rid of the Bondage, Whinny, Chastity and Control spells. Now�� she paused while she looked at her subjects.
�If you�re going to be spending most of your time out in what passes for the wilds around here,� she mused. �Ah hah! The satyrs and fauns are certainly doing well.� She gestured, and a moment later the two girl�s bodies shimmered. When the haze cleared, they both had a thick coat of horsehair from their waist down, and their feet had been replaced by hooves. �That looks good,� Circe nodded to herself. �I like your tails a lot better than that silly little stub the satyrs have. Now for the rest of it.� She studied her two subjects a bit more and then nodded. �Well, horses have manes, so�� She gestured again, and when the shimmer died down the two ponygirl�s hair had been replaced by a thick coat of short fur, except for an inch wide strip that ran from the brow line most of the way down their backs. Their new manes were long enough to fall onto the top of their tails.
�I like that,� she said. �Turn around quickly so I can see how it flows.�
Esmeralda and Hermione tried to pirouette, and almost tripped when their hooves didn�t react the way they expected. Circe laughed and clapped her hands. �Beautiful,� she said.
�I know that�s not what you intended to do, but your mane and tail flared out wonderfully. Let�s just add horse�s ears.� She raised both hands, and a moment later the two girl�s ears started growing as if they had elvish ancestry.
This time Circe nodded. Almost there. One more thing. She snapped her fingers, and bronze rings appeared in their noses. The rings pierced the septum, barely cleared the sides of the nose, and swung free, ending just above their upper lip where they could touch them with their tongues.
�So,� Circe said to them, �how do you like your new look?�
�It�s different,� the irrepressible Esmeralda said as Hermione simply shook her head in wonder.
�You are now,� Circe told them, �two of the magical beasts that brighten the Royal Game Preserve. Stay away from the dense part of the forest and you should be perfectly safe. There�s plenty to eat, and the Satyrs and Fauns can show you places to shelter during storms.�
She frowned at them in thought. �I�m going to do one more thing,� she told them as she waved at them. �One thing you may not have thought about is that I try to keep some kind of a balance. You were quite vain creatures, so I�ve stuck you with a lot of hair to keep up. Also, you didn�t do any useful work, so I�ve done something about that. You�ll have to spend a few hours a day doing some kind of work. If you don�t, you�ll get sick. It won�t be all that sudden; you can skip a couple of days and you�ll just feel a bit off, but you won�t last long if you decide to just laze around and look beautiful.�
Circe nodded to herself and walked off. Esmeralda looked after her, and then looked at her sister. �That,� she said, �does seem to be that.�
Hermione nodded. �This is a much better look if we�re going to be ponygirls.�
She paused a moment. �She did say something about working, though.�
�Good point, sis. At what and for who?�
Hermione shrugged. �We�re ponygirls. Let�s face it, that�s the only work we know. What would a horse do?�
�Good point. We�re not as strong, but we�re a lot smarter. That looks like a stable, so there�s got to be a stablemaster around here somewhere.�
The Lodge at the Royal Game Preserve, Ella thought, looked like a comfortable place to get away from it all. She alighted from the carriage just after Princess Patricia. The two maids they had brought stepped down after them. They�d left �Prince Patrick� behind in the capital. They hadn�t, after all, been officially married yet although the ceremony had finally been scheduled. It was still a month away, and they needed to keep up the appearance of propriety before the Official Honeymoon. In any case, she was sure the Prince would reserve a few things about the Royal Game Preserve to show his bride.
�Princess, you�re back!� a high voice said from the vicinity of their waists. Ella looked down on a very strange sight. Well, at first glance it wasn�t quite so strange; the animal looked like a large cat, in the 120 to 150 pound range. The cat was cream colored with black points, and that was where the strangeness started.
The cat�s head was much larger than she would have expected, and the mouth was a good deal wider. It was clearly the speaker. Also, the cat�s front paws looked more like hands than paws.
Patricia reached down and scratched it behind its ears, and it butted its head against her hip playfully and began purring. �It�s good to see you again, Prissy,� the princess told her.
�Have you got a surprise coming,� the cat said mysteriously as hooves sounded in the distance.
�If it�s the one I think it is, I planned it. Meet Princess Ella, Prissy. She�s the Prince�s fianc�e.�
�Pleased to meet you,� the cat said politely, holding its head out for a good scratching.
�And I�m sure I�m pleased to meet you,� Ella said in return, letting her fingers dig in around the cat�s ears and under its jaw.
�You!� a too familiar voice said from behind them, and then it giggled. Ella spun around to see Esmeralda standing next to a harnessed Hermione. She managed to take in the pair without goggling too much.
The two ponygirls had changed quite a bit since the last time Elidon had taken them out for a drive. The most obvious change was the hooves and the thick coat of horsehair that covered them from the hips down. Then they both had manes and horse�s ears. Someone had removed the collars, but had added nose rings. The funky blinder on the nose had vanished as well.
Hermione was harnessed to a small luggage cart. She was tacked up with the familiar waistband and traces, and her hands rested on the handles of the shafts. However, they weren�t chained to the shafts. She was, however, wearing a halter, and her sister had a firm grip on the lead rope.
Ella recovered quickly. �You two look good! I certainly didn�t expect to see you here yet.�
�Yet?� Esmeralda said, putting her hands on her hips and then relaxing with another giggle. �So you were behind us getting turned into ponygirls. Figures.� She giggled again. �If I was you, I�d probably have done something worse to me, though.�
�You�ve certainly changed, and you sound a lot happier too! What happened?�
�We got moved from that dratted stable a few weeks ago, and then Circe came and changed us around. I think she�s the Queen? Thankfully, mother got left behind. The Satyrs and Fauns are great company, but frankly we prefer to hang around people. So we made a deal with the manager; we get to hang around and we make ourselves useful. We�ve got a small place above the stable. It�s just a mostly empty room with straw on the floor, but it suits us. He may have figured out we got the better of both parts of the deal!
�You�re both in the Princess� Suite? See ya!� She tugged on the other ponygirl�s lead, and they walked off toward the lodge, towing the luggage behind them.
�They�ve certainly changed,� Ella said to Patricia as the two of them walked up the path to the lodge.
�Sometimes physical changes do that,� Patricia said thoughtfully. �It�s almost like they can see they aren�t human any more, so they just do whatever they think they want with the new pattern. Getting away from their mother undoubtedly helped. Then, since they were trained ponygirls anyway, they just continued on wanting to pull stuff while they�re harnessed. Try doing that to a Satyr, and you�d need a healer!�
�I�ll bet!� Ella said. �I find,� she continued thoughtfully, �that I like the resolution. They�re happy, their mother�s happy, and I don�t particularly care about what happened between us before.�
She added, even more thoughtfully as they entered the Lodge, �I�m beginning to see what Daddy meant. Revenge is a dish that�s best left on the platter.�
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