Chronicles of Pietro Ludvigs (original fantasy)

[Darth Smiley]

Yay cultural confusion!

This is really good.

MOAR!

[LadyTevar]

Well... that explains why she's got Red in her eyes and hair.

[Academia Nut]

I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I'm glad someone has finally started to comment on the signficance of the colours. So far each "species" in this story has its own sort of colour pallette, although so far you've only met three groups to be able to figure out their associated colours, although you might be able to figure out a fourth by some of the clues I've given you.

[LadyTevar]

Ok... Color Palates

Elves: Ice-tones would be the best way to say it. Pale, pallid shades for the eyes and hair, white skin.
Humans: Earth & Iron. Browns and Reds for the eyes and hair, and perhaps the occasional green eyes.
SpiderFolk (still unnamed): Zebra. Black and White stripes of variated widths and patterns. The pattern of stripes might be a family trait, which would allow them to instantly tell households apart, and higher-ranked families may have more intricately patterned skin, unless Cherach's pattern has more to do with her human father (not just her hair).


The Unknown Race: Dwarves. Mentioned in passing, not much said about them. Taking a wild guess I'd say Predominately Gray, like the rock they mine. They may have touches of other colors: brown, black, or red like lichen-covered rocks.

[Academia Nut]

Elves: Correct

Humans: Correct, except for the fact that green is mostly reserved for something else. Pretty much every part of the human colour spectrum can be represented, but certain colours and tones recieve flak, sometimes massive amounts, due to proximity to speciesist sentiments.

Spider guys (I'm still trying to think up a good, non-elvish name for them): Correct

Dwarves: Grey, yes, but not for the reasons mentioned. Some reds yes, which is one of the reasons why humans have an on again, off again relationship with them. They're close to them, but red is also a sacred colour for humans.

However, who has the yellow as mentioned in the eyes of the various nobles?

[Sidewinder]

However, who has the yellow as mentioned in the eyes of the various nobles?

I'm guessing either a demigod, a descendent of the Deathlord or one of his peers, or a half-elf, considering Pietro's dream suggested humans were slaves to the elves before the Deathlord freed them.

[Academia Nut]

And now things take a turn for the worse, the disturbing, and the extraordinarily fucked up. You have been warned.

---

Chapter 9: Party

Pietro’s brain was grinding the gears of his mind down to stubs trying to come to terms with what Cherach told him when there was a knock at the door to the room. The guard went to open it, and one of the maids said something to him. Looking over, he relayed the message to Cherach, who seemed to wave dismissively, having heard what was said.

Sighing, she looked over Pietro with a discerning eye and then said, “Follow me.”

Getting up, Pietro followed Cherach quietly as she exited her room to a small chamber nearby where there was a small, elevated pool of steaming water that smelled faintly of rotten eggs, although there were strange growths next to the water that sent down tendrils and gave off a vaguely pleasant smell Pietro could not quite place. Set off to one side of the pool was a plane of obsidian cut flat and polished smooth, with several of the glowing crystals set about its perimeter, giving a reasonably good reflective surface. A stool was positioned perpendicular to the pool and the mirror. There was a maid already waiting within, ready to serve.

Sitting down gracefully on the stool, Cherach looked at her reflection in the mirror and chatted with the maid, Pietro just standing in the background, watching and listening, trying to pick up even one in twenty or thirty words. Eventually Cherach undid the ponytail that held her hair tight over her scalp, separating it into the various bands of black and red. Shaking it out, she let the maid begin combing it with a bronze comb while she pondered something.

Eventually she gave a definitive nod and said to Pietro, “Come here,” before telling the maid something. Complying, Pietro stepped forward and accepted the comb the maid offered him. Cherach said a single word that Pietro knew from simple context meant, “Brush.”

So Pietro brushed her hair. It was slow and ungainly as he only had use of one hand, and he was almost certainly not as skilled as say the maid. But after some pondering, Pietro realized that it didn’t matter what he did, so long as he did it. He was the rare catch, the exotic human, so he could probably piss on her head and she could pass it off as fashionable because no one else had human piss in their hair.

It struck Pietro as being remarkably petty.

While he brushed Cherach’s hair, the maid assisted her in applying cosmetics, the primary form being some form of grease paint that came in either black or white, applied using brushes of varying size and texture. As Pietro watched, the various patterns on Cherach’s body were made significantly more complex, although from what Pietro had seen Cherach had one of the most complicated skin patterns already.

When Cherach slipped off her dress to continue the application, Pietro kept his eyes on her head as he continued to brush, while try to not look like he wasn’t looking as they seemed to be offended by that sort of thing. At least both the maid and Cherach were too busy decorating her to notice him.

Pietro frowned slightly as he felt his guts twist up in confusion and fear and arousal. On the one hand, she wasn’t human, so Pietro had no idea what the Deathlord would think of his association, even an unwilling one. She was also of much higher class than him and owned him, so it would not do to attempt anything that might sully her honour… and get him flayed alive by her mother. Finally, if he could he would try and get home, so it would do him no good to form any bonds with her.

On the other hand, she was strikingly beautiful despite being nonhuman, and if she found him interesting for his exotic nature, then the reverse was true for him. Plus the church had never made any rulings on interactions with these creatures so his soul was probably safe around them as they were not elves at least. As a princess she was also powerful, and power was attractive all on its own. Finally, their society obviously regarded sex differently from his own, and Pietro wondered how he would respond if she ordered him to lie with her. It was a terrifying, yet tantalizing possibility within the realms of reality, from what he had seen of these creatures.

With the black and white make-up applied, the maid then took out four pots and took out the finest brushes they had. Opening one of the pots and dipping the brush in, she began to draw incredibly fine lines of blue across Cherach’s face. After only a few small strokes, she closed the pot back up and washed out the brush in the pool of water. She then opened up another pot and drew a series of green lines. Then yellow.

Pietro closed his eyes and tried to figure out what to do. Really, he should bash in both their skulls, or at least try with his broken arm, for daring to use red ochre in front of him, but… but…

Cherach said that she had human ancestry; therefore her use of red ochre could be legitimate. Pietro would ask the first theologian he could find for an answer to the issue, as it was clearly something that as a farmer’s son he was not qualified to consider, so for now he would give her the loyalty demanded by her position.

Pietro grit his teeth and hoped he did not see anyone other than Cherach, Verach, or Lilcher wearing red ochre as he would have to try and kill any nonhuman that tried to use the sacred pigment in front of him, as demanded by the laws of the church. That would probably get him killed, or at the very least piss off Cherach, but better that than having his name written in the Scrolls of Oblivion.

Once finished with this application of colour, the maid got out a small pot and held it up before Cherach, who dipped her right index finger in. Touching both her index fingers together, she then touched her wrists with the opposite finger and finished by touching either side of her neck about the top of the throat. By then the scent from the pot had reached Pietro, a powerful, pungent smell reminiscent of fresh fruit mixed with some sort of animal oil or musk.

Satisfied, Cherach rose from the stool and did not put her dress back on. Instead she looked Pietro over with a critical eye while he stood silently, the comb still in his hands, his eyes locked firmly upon her face and not at the way her naked body curved nicely or how the patterns on her skin, both natural and painted, tried to draw the eye towards her womanly assets.

Cherach held out her hand and said something to the maid, Pietro catching the word, “Brush,” somewhere in there. The maid handed her one of the larger brushes.

Pietro stood there stoically, letting Cherach draw patterns in black and white upon his skin, although she was very reserved with the paint, obviously not wanting to obscure her prize too much. Rather she seemed to want to add on certain highlights to his muscles to make him look perhaps more powerful than he truly was. The various lines also uncomfortably seemed to have a radiating pattern centred just above his crotch.

Did these people have no modesty?

Stepping back, Cherach nodded in satisfaction, handing the brush off to the maid so that she could finish cleaning up. She then said, “Come, follow me,” to Pietro and walked out of the small room, her dress forgotten behind her.

Pietro trailed behind Cherach, trying and failing to not ogle her butt. It was a very nice butt, even in the poor light. It was the sort of butt that…

Pietro kept his gaze firmly on Cherach’s head.

They ascended through the palace, Cherach following some route she knew by instinct until they were close to what Pietro suspected was the centre and the top-most layer. At that point any and all attempts for Pietro to keep his mind on other things became moot.

They were in an antechamber of some sort, another, presumably larger room beyond a set of brass doors. A large number of candles and glow crystals illuminated the antechamber making it brighter than normal, but the room beyond was darker than just about any other chamber Pietro had seen in this subterranean place. From what he could see there were two large pillars in the centre of that room, and possibly a large altar at the back.

What caught his attention in the antechamber though was the score of naked women. The youngest was perhaps just beyond puberty while the oldest was the middle aged, but finely aged, queen, the only one wearing anything at all in the form of her crown. Every one in attendance was decorated similarly to Cherach, but only the queen had more intricate patterns and more colour. Mercifully she seemed to have only used blue, yellow, and green, so Pietro did not have to pick a fight with her.

Not that he would have made it very far. Every woman seemed to have a male partner in a loincloth as escort, and each one of them appeared to be a seasoned warrior judging by their musculature and the hard, appraising looks in their eyes. Of course, the women themselves were lithe and athletic as well, although at least they had a pleasant roundness in contrast to the angular sharpness of the athleticism of the elves.

Only nervousness and fear kept Pietro from losing control of his body and embarrassing himself. Apparently they considered a man’s arousal amusing in these situations, and twenty beautiful women laughing mockingly at him would sting for at least a week.

When Cherach arrived with Pietro in tow there was a great deal of excited chatter amongst those in attendance. The queen walked over to them and had a quick conversation with Cherach before she looked Pietro over carefully. Her eyes carried that same eerie hunger that so many of the females in this place seemed to have when appraising him, but unlike all of the others, she had the power to overrule Cherach and do whatever she wanted.

She had also killed Cherach’s, apparently, human father.

Pietro started to sweat bullets as he tried to remain as still and passive as possible. His heart was hammering in his throat and he wondered if everyone else could hear it. Still, he tried his damnedest to not do a thing, to not draw any further attention.

The queen leaned in close, causing Cherach to frown and say something. Something that the queen ignored, simply getting closer. Fear radiated off Pietro in waves. She was the queen of these people and she was naked and she smelled strongly of musk and she was naked and she was far too close to him and she was naked and…

The queen licked him across the cheek.

It took every ounce of Pietro’s willpower to not run screaming as fast and as far as he could while soiling himself. He did however let out a small, tinny, terrified, “Eep!” After her tongue receded, Pietro’s check felt tingly and numb, and he remembered how their bites could paralyze.

No one made a sound. Even the breathing of the two score others in the chamber paused for a moment.

The queen seemed to consider the taste of his sweat for a moment before smiling over broadly, allowing of drool to form upon her teeth and lips. She then licked her right index finger, covering it in saliva. She then ever so slowly reached down between her legs and fingered herself.

Pietro was quivering with the need to run from these disgusting, obscene creatures, but countless generations of natural selection for obedience to authority figures amongst the peasantry kept his feet rooted in place. He just stared at the queen’s face and at Cherach’s to the side. Cherach seemed somewhat annoyed with her mother for doing this, but said nothing.

The queen said something and the crowd let out a collective breath before they began to chatter excitedly. Cherach then said to Pietro, “Follow.”

He did so, following her to a place on the floor marked with a circular mosaic pattern. It was almost in the middle of the antechamber, but offset slightly. Pietro noted that the sides of the chamber were lined with similar circular patterns and the other males were filing towards them via some sort of arcane etiquette that they knew.

Cherach sighed and looked exasperated before she pointed to the floor and said, “Stay.” Pietro stood in the centre of the pattern, but rotated to face mostly towards the darkened chamber at Cherach’s command.

Pietro stood his ground while Cherach took up position next to him. All the females had formed a line down one side of the room and waited. Judging by the fact that the queen was in the front and that the skin patterns seemed to decrease in complexity as it went down the line presumably the order was based upon rank.

They all waited, no one daring to say anything.

Two maids, as naked as the nobles around them, entered the antechamber, dragging a limp body between them, down the middle of the antechamber. What they were dragging very nearly had Pietro leap from where he was standing, but fear kept him rooted in place.

They were dragging the elf from the dungeon, a bite mark on his shoulder bleeding blue and the gag securely in his mouth the only clothing on his body. They carried him past everyone and into the darkened chamber.

Pietro missed what happened next as the queen came up behind him and licked him again, but this time she was not so polite as to do it on the cheek, instead lifting up his loincloth and drawing her tongue across his left buttock. Pietro squeaked in absolute terror again while the queen walked past, a sinister smile of enjoyment on her face as she continued into the chamber beyond.

Then, over the next few minutes the other nineteen women in line took their turns licking him, Verach and Lilcher taking by far the most time individually, only stopping when Cherach said a single word that caused them to scurry off in embarrassment. By the end of it all the grease paint applied had run off through a combination of sweat and saliva, and Pietro tingled all over from the paralytic agent these creatures secreted. The also never licked the same place twice, although fortunately none were as daring as the queen and left his loincloth alone.

When it was all over, Cherach just looked at him with a tired expression and gave him a quick lick on the lips before following the rest of the women into the chamber. The maids had apparently finished tying up the elf between the pillars as he now hung by his wrists between then. Once Cherach was across the threshold, they almost closed the doors, except for a tiny crack that let a miniscule amount of light through to fall on the paralyzed elf.

Pietro was probably the only one with a decent view due to his position. The other males looked stoic, but a few showed signs of anxiousness or even outright fear, the only one differing being the male closest to the door that had been close to the queen when Cherach and Pietro had arrived, and he shot Pietro a look of annoyance and jealousy. Apparently he had wanted the position Pietro was in right now.

Pietro would have gladly let him take it.

Low, ominous chanting from feminine throats began to filter out of the room and Pietro just looked straight ahead the way he had been told. Still, he could see in his peripheral vision that crack that led into the room. Someone was making slow, steady circles in time to the chanting about the pillars where the elf was tied, each revolution taking her closer.

Eventually it reached a fever pitch just as the circling ended, and the woman knelt down before the suspended elf. A flash of colour caught Pietro’s eyes.

The woman kneeling before the elf had red hair, flowing free. Pietro wanted to deny it, wanted to not think about it, but only three of the women who had gone in there had red hair, and both Verach and Lilcher had their hair tied back.

Pietro did not turn his head, but his eyes refused to look away despite the straining angle. His heart twisted up with anger, disgust… and with some admission betrayal and jealousy as irrational as those were. He wanted to smash Cherach’s head in for this. He wanted to take the place of the elf, to have her mouth…

He just stood there and stared.

Eventually his brain registered small noises coming from the chamber, hisses and gasps and moans and growls and other noises that he did not have words to attach to. They were ecstatic and hungry and animalistic, and Pietro did not want to know what was making those sounds or the inspiration behind them.

After several minutes Cherach let out a gasp for air. Picking up what looked like a bowl that had been hidden by the darkness; she spit what the elf had given her into it before standing and walking out of view, another woman taking her place.

The ritual went on for what felt like hours, although Pietro had no way of knowing the true length, although by the rumbling of his stomach and the others around him, it had to be quite a long time. Cherach returned to the elf twice more out of the five times he was… Pietro did not have the words to describe what was being done, although he suspected rape was fairly close as the elf was clearly suffering from the strain being put on his body.

If he weren’t an elf and Pietro weren’t so angry at Cherach for her actions, Pietro would have felt sorry for the poor bastard. He didn’t know if a man could survive something like that, especially since every time the poisons in his system seemed to be wearing off he was bitten again, turning his shoulders into a wet, blue ruin.

And then, after the third time Cherach went up, fifth overall, she undid the bindings about his wrist in time for something enormously large loomed in the shadows behind the elf and catch him as he fell, dragging him back further into the darkness, out of sight. By now the sounds were full throated screams of the sort of joy that made Pietro’s bowels loose with terror.

Slowly though that subsided into a low panting and a singular groaning from the furthest reaches of the dark chamber, which slowly built with time. That noise was the only thing in the world for Pietro; that awful, awful noise that he knew was coming from the throat of the queen.

Cherach had two sisters from the same father but different mothers.

Her father was human.

Somehow Pietro knew that Cherach and her sisters had been conceived in a ceremony just like this.

The elf let out a horrific scream that mingled with the cry of the queen for an instant before his voice was cut off and replaced by a horrific, wet rending noise like soaked raw hide being torn apart. A score of female voices were raised in exultant, jubilant celebration, their savagery sending daggers of ice through Pietro as he wondered if it would be his turn one day.

The dismembered and disembowelled remains of the torso slammed into the doors, spilling out into the antechamber where the males could see the twisted lump of meat and bone on display. The doors did not open wide enough, but Pietro thought he saw a spider the size of a warhorse at the far end of the chamber, probably the elf’s killer if his eyes did not deceive him.

The females started streaming out of the chamber, their make-up running with sweat and blue blood. On some the blood splattered them like rain, while others had taken to rubbing it all over themselves and a few even had rivulets of the stuff running from their mouths indicating that they had probably been gnawing on the missing limbs from the corpse. They all had mad looks in their eyes and were panting heavily and they immediately began to pair off with their escorts, dragging them away.

Cherach was one of the last ones out, her head and hair blue with blood indicating she had probably been at the heart of the disembowelment. Flecks of dried drool and semen ran from the corners of her black lips.

Yet she was the only one scowling and when she reached Pietro she just said angrily, “Come,” before grabbing him by the left hand and hauling him away.

It looked like she wanted to take him to a private place for what was to happen next.

---

Who guessed mating habits of spiders?

[Sidewinder]

Wow. That's fucked up. Pietro will probably kill-- will kill-- for a chance to get the fuck out of Cherach's homeland.

By the way, considering the importance the various cultures place on color, how are human albinos viewed? As monsters? Children of the gods? Very pale humans?

[LadyTevar]

Oh. My.

but was the Queen transformed into the spider that killed him, or was the spider already there? It does explain the yellow in the eyes of the SpiderKin, if they normally use captured elves for that.

[Academia Nut]

Hence why I answered Tarrant that Pietro would definitely lead a trade mission back if he didn't try to lead a crusade of extermination instead.

And the elves explain the blue flecks, not the yellow ones, as the elf palette is basically blue and white. The colours of ice and air.

[LadyTevar]

So... there's another race, who's colors are yellow and something?

This will be interesting..

[Academia Nut]

From what has been seen, the spider kin know of four other races, as evidenced by the four pots of pigments Cherach got out and the fact that only she was wearing all four. Her mother has flecks of yellow and blue in her irises, indicating recent ancestry (within two to three generations back) with other races, but wears three colours, showing that she has another one buried deeper in the family tree.

The colours are:

Red- Humans.

Blue- elves.

Yellow- unknown.

Green- unknown.

Also, in case it wasn't quite clear, Cherach has the most complex skin patterns naturally, but she isn't allowed to wear more complex make-up on official occasions due to reasons of rank.

[LadyTevar]

The colors are based on Blood, aren't they.

Red human blood.
Blue elf blood.

[Academia Nut]

I'm still undecided on that actually, although there does exist green blood in nature (unoxygenated anyway), but I'm trying to work out if I could somehow get a good reason for a yellow(ish) blood. If not then the yellow guys will share a blood colour with another group, but they have a damn good claim to the colour anyway.

[LadyTevar]

We still don't know who found Pietro in the first place. He/she spoke human before Pietro passed out, and obviously sold Pietro to the SpiderKin before he woke.

[Academia Nut]

Yes... yes... we still have to find out who found Pietro in that cave after the fight. The identity is certainly unknown and important and not a plot hole at all...

*shifty eyes*

You heard nothing!

Actually, that was a plot hole until you mentioned it, but fortunately another plot point will neatly cover that up. Yes...

[LadyTevar]

You mean I actually caught you in a mistake?

[Academia Nut]

As I am of the Bob Ross school of creativity, no, you merely pointed out that I had had a happy little accident.

Incidentally, if they played Bob Ross at dentist's offices, we wouldn't need painkillers. Man was awesome but holy shit is he like Valium in human form.

[Junghalli]

I'm still undecided on that actually, although there does exist green blood in nature (unoxygenated anyway), but I'm trying to work out if I could somehow get a good reason for a yellow(ish) blood. If not then the yellow guys will share a blood colour with another group, but they have a damn good claim to the colour anyway.

Coboglobin (cobalt-based blood) might be dark yellow when deoxygenated. It would be clear or pinkish in the arteries and dark yellow or amber in the veins.

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/blood.html

Blue blood might be copper based. Hemocyanin is blue in the arteries and clear in the veins.

[Academia Nut]

Yeah, I knew about hemocyanin from before. The elves have it.

Coboglobin? Perfect.

Ah SDN, where killing cat girls has been industrialized.

[Junghalli]

Hemocyanin is only 1/4 as efficient as hemoglobin, so you may want to keep this in mind when designing them. Although I suppose they might have adaptations similar to humans living in high altitudes: they simply have four times as much hemocyanin as we have hemoglobin.

[Academia Nut]

Yes, I know that the reason hemoglobin is so widespread is because it is so efficient. There are however two things to point out:

a.) The elves were cursed by the Deathlord to be unable to bear the touch of iron. While not quite flick iron filings at them and they keel over, hemoglobin and other iron bearing compounds is toxic to elves if it gets in their blood

b.) Inefficiencies are partially compensated by having more, and partially by magic. At a certain point the fantastic does take over, such as the fact that elves can walk around naked in -40 degree weather

[Singular Quartet]

Yes, I know that the reason hemoglobin is so widespread is because it is so efficient. There are however two things to point out:

a.) The elves were cursed by the Deathlord to be unable to bear the touch of iron. While not quite flick iron filings at them and they keel over, hemoglobin and other iron bearing compounds is toxic to elves if it gets in their blood

b.) Inefficiencies are partially compensated by having more, and partially by magic. At a certain point the fantastic does take over, such as the fact that elves can walk around naked in -40 degree weather

Actually, there are humans who can climb Everestt without a shirt on, and run in the artic circle without shoes. I wish I had the other links to the story, rather than the ones I've found, there was a really good one I recall coming across...

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Dutch_Icem ... 82007.html

[Academia Nut]

Interesting, although the article does say that the guy will be wearing clothes while resting. The elves in this story are pretty much immune to temperatures between -50 and 50 C and can comfortably get by between -60 and 80 C without additional protective measures. There are very good reasons for this, relating to several other aspects of what they can do.

The out of universe one is that I'm sort of deconstructing the whole idea that elves seem to be allergic to clothes in many fantasy settings.

[Darth Smiley]

Of course, in other fantasy settings, a given elf's allergy to cloths is directly proportional to how hot the elf in question is .

Still, I smelled a deconstruction when I started reading this. I would like to see where you are going with it.