[Arrive, Object]
[Arrive, Object]
The Slutty Princess
Cormac, Ronan and the Princess were having breakfast at their inn in the common room.
Cormac asked “What made you suspicious of the pontifex maximus?”
“Honestly it was something you said when we first met. ‘the priests always said it was necessary not gratuitous nudity.’ that sounds like something you’d say to deflect. Why bring up ‘gratuitous’ at all. Then when I got here I noticed something else, all of Vesta’s virgins are exceedingly beautiful and all are very richly endowed with much larger than average breasts.”
Ronan asked. “How is that suspicious, couldn’t that just be chance.”
“More of a preference than chance. Why would a Virgin goddess care about an acolytes breast size she wouldn’t. However a priest with a penchant for large bouncing breasts would pass through those women and burn alive those that didn’t measure up to his over size desire. He also seemed to like blondes with blue or green eyes as well. That’s a little more evidence Cormac can present to the judge when his case comes up.”
“What are your plans now princess?”
“I have a king to overthrow and a kingdom to rule, and I’d kill for a spa day. Cormac I could really use your help after the trial is done please come to Harrowell. I’m going to need honest government ministers.”
“What.” Ronan sputtered.
“You heard me. King to overthrow, kingdom to rule.”
“Just how do you plan to do that princess?”
“I’m not sure yet, I’ll need to gather some help. I was hoping the man I’ve been dating might help brainstorm and I surely can’t do it alone. I’ll need to gather followers who support me”
“Will the princess continue ‘dating’ this man if he agrees to help?”
“Oh yes the princess discovered last night that she truly enjoyed ‘dating’, and if the man she’s been dating agrees to help she might agree to multiple ‘dates’ daily. Sometimes even plan ‘special dates’ trying out new things that the man she’s dating has enjoyed in the past, but they haven’t done yet together. She hopes he has the appetite to try ‘dates’ he’s never tried before.”
“Well I think I can help with that, just let me check with Loki.”
“I think we all learned that Loki is no more real than Vesta. The gods are a tool used to subdue the masses and I’m not going to let the masses be subdued anymore.”
“Careful princess, you’ve seen my powers.”
“Yes and they are very nice illusion spells, but you didn’t get them from Loki. Someone taught them to you. Cormac, did you ever get anything for all your prayers besides glowing armor?”
“No not really, except the warhorse sometimes sped up for a few minutes while I glowed. I didn’t get more powerful or gain any magic or healing effect for that matter.”
“Ronan who taught you the ‘prayers’ you say to activate a spell.”
“It was a former Loki paladin.”
“So he taught you three spells and said they were from Loki. But Ronan you never actually saw or heard from Loki did you?”
“No princess, I didn’t.”
“So you were tricked by the last paladin. He must have been good to get you. Did he tell you to never reveal the prayers to a non-believer? Thus proving that it was a spell not a prayer. Teach me your least used illusion. If an atheist can perform the spell that will prove that it’s a spell not a divine miracle granted by Loki.”
Ronan whispered in the princess’s ear.
“Is there anything I need to do with my hands or think about as I recite the spell?”
“No I just say the prayer then concentrate where I want the voice to go, sound like and the contents.”
From a far corner of the room behind Cormac came a voice “where I want the voice to go, sound like and the contents.”
“Spell not miracle, Ronan sorry to burst your bubble. You were conned or the former paladin was conned and truly believed everything he taught you. But don’t waste any more time praying to non-existent gods.”
“So I suppose that means I’m not getting a new virgin everyday for the rest of eternity.”
“No sorry Cormac, but look on the bright side you don’t have to wait to die to experience sex for the first time. If I were you I’d look for someone with more experience, not less. If you wanted to get really good at fighting you wouldn’t go and have a fight with someone who’d never been in a fight before. No, someone with more experience can teach you to ‘thrust and parry’ with the best of them. The less experience the more fumbling around and less thrusting, I’m just starting at this myself, but I’m pretty sure you want more thrusting and parrying and less fumbling. Maybe look up one of Vesta’s virgins who didn’t live up to their vows.”
“Look at this the ‘Slutty Princess’ giving out relationship advice.”
“Do you think I’m wrong? Seems to me you told me you weren’t interested in virgins, were you lying?”
“You know I’m not, you little minx. I’d like to kill that dragon, for giving you that ring.”
“It’s worked more in your favor than against you.”
“Well what’s our first move?”
“I need to get to Redhollow Vale.”
“Why go there?”
“I need help from the woman who caused all this trouble to start with.”
***
Ronan and the princess got a coach later that day. They’d traveled all night long and took a break for breakfast and to change horses and arrive in Redhollow Vale late that day.
“So I don’t really understand why we need her.”
“Ronan we’ve been over this, there is no reason to be jealous. When I was in school, I was curious. Em can be very persuasive when she puts her mind to it. Besides she owes me so who better to get to help us.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Lie”
“Damn Dragon.”
Honestly she was a little worried about this meeting as well. Em always had Maria wrapped around her little finger. But she was with Ronan now, so maybe that would take a little pressure off this meeting. Besides, she needed Em’s powers of persuasion if she ever expected to pry the throne away from her father and brothers.
“Don’t blame the dragon, he’s not the one who lied.”
“Yes princess, but I enjoy lying. It's gotten me quite a way in life and the truth has often caused more trouble than lying ever would.”
“Well there is no reason to argue about it now. We didn’t travel all this way to not talk to her.”
“Come on get our things and I’ll ask about an inn. If you’re mad at me I can get two rooms so you don’t have to talk to me.”
“No, I never said I was mad, princess you still haven’t explained what your relationship to this woman was.”
“Let’s talk about it later Ronan, I don’t want to have this discussion in the dusty streets.”
Ronan went and got the bags, Maria got instructions to a decent inn within easy walking distance. Soon they were checking into their room and Maria couldn’t put off the conversation any longer.
“Ronan, remember how I told you the story about the dragon and how a girl had tricked me, telling me that girls didn’t count, it was only men. Well the girl who tricked me was Em, the woman we’re here to see.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well because I expected a reaction like this. Look, we haven't seen each other since school, we didn’t keep in touch. I need a walk after sitting so long in the coach. Come on, let's go down to ask the innkeeper directions to her business, it’s late so I’m sure they’re closed. We’ll take a walk to find out where the place is and when they open tomorrow we can return. Then we can come back and have a nice supper and if you’ve forgiven me, take me on a ‘date’. What do you say?”
“Hm, a walk with you does sound nice and a ‘date’ sounds even nicer.”
“Truth.”
They got directions from the innkeeper, walked over to her office to see if the hours were posted. They weren’t and they’d both calmed down from our early discussion so walked back to the inn, had a decent meal and went on their ‘date’ which relaxed them both.
The following morning Maria found herself wrapped in Ronan’s arms when she woke. Both of them were in a better mood than the day before. She loved laying in his arms but the nervousness was starting to return. Better to get up, get moving and get this over with.
“Come on sleepy head, let’s get this over with, and get some breakfast, I’m starving.”
“It must have been all the exercise you got last night princess, I never realized you were quite so flexible.”
“Well I make an effort to stretch daily, I can see I’ll need to do more exercise to increase my stamina.
***
They had their breakfast and walked to Em’s office. Lights were on, staff and what looked like a whole room of artists. They walked in and a lone woman sat at a high desk near the door.
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“Can I help you?”
“Yes we’d like to see Emille Reid please, my name's Maria, we went to school together.”
“Okay, let me see if she’s in yet. Please take a seat over here, and I’ll be right back.”
She came back a moment later. The woman beckoned for them to follow her. Emilie ‘Em’ Reid had dirty blond hair, she wore a tight red dress that showed plenty of cleavage, with a black jacket. Em saw Maria and hurried towards them. Grabbing Maria in a hug while looking Ronan up and down.
“Please come into my office, would you like tea or water or anything.”
“No thanks Em, we just had breakfast, this is my friend Ronan.”
Ronan looked at Maria, a little annoyed. But turned and smiled at Em
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Em. Maria told me very nice things about you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Ronan. Please sit down both of you. What brings you to Redhollow?”
“We’re here to see you. I’m going to overthrow my father and take his throne.”
“Right, look at you. You’re not the meek little mouse you were in school. What spurred the big change?”
“Well I thought I was about to be burned by a pillar of flame, because someone had assured me that girls do not count. When in fact I learned that girls do very much count.”
“That was the information that I had available at the time, it might have been a little dated. Besides I thought we as a society had moved past the patriarchal imposed purity into a more enlightened era. Where a woman could do anything that a man can do.”
“Em is that really the best apology you can come up with, a dragon wanted to bite my head off and a Vesta paladin offered to prove it by having me immolated by a pillar of fire.”
“I thought you were an atheist, how could you buy into that anti feminist crud the Vesta virgins spew.”
“I had a fire breathing dragon on one side and a glowing paladin on the other, talk about rock and a hard place. But you can make it up to me, come with me to Harrowell and handle all my public relations. I didn’t always present my best side to the public. I need to change public perception about myself and while at the same time lowering the favorability of the king.”
“Maria, the easiest way to get the public to like you is to act like you are one of them. But you always had a stick up your butt and your nose in the air, the girls at school gave you the nickname the ice queen for a reason I’m the only person in the school you had any kind of relationship with and half the time I hated you. That night you threw the plate at the footman because your cake was dry, really sealed your fate with the other girls. Some of those girl’s fathers were footmen. What did you expect?”
“That was the day in the lavatory when five or six of the girls turned on me. Saying they were glad that they weren’t princesses because the only thing a princess was good for was having an old man’s babies. A princess is really nothing more than a breeding cow for the old men of the kingdom. How gross it must be to have an old man paw at a young girl's body. So when I sat down to eat the cake, it tasted like dust in my mouth, because deep down I knew that those girls were right. I’d seen it done to all my sisters before me, just exactly like they’d said.”
“I’m sorry Maria, I never knew.”
“Lie”
“Excuse me?”
“That was a lie that you never knew.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Another Lie, oh god you knew all along and that was the night you took my virginity, did you have the whole thing planned out?”
“No”
“Another Lie”
Ronan said. “Look Emille, no matter how good a liar you are, you’re not going to slip even the smallest white lie past the princess. So you’d better quit trying, you're just digging yourself in deeper.”
“Ok you want the truth, yes I knew. You’d said something hurtful to me and I wanted to get back at you. So I told those girls just what to say to hurt you as badly as you’d hurt me. But for the life of me I don’t remember what it was you said to me that’d hurt me so deeply. So yes I did something crappy to you when I was young. So for my part I’m sorry.”
“What about when you seduced me that night, was that part of the plan to get back at me?”
“No it wasn’t Maria, you have to believe me, that is not something I would ever do.”
“Truth. Fine then I’m sorry for the things I’ve done in the past to hurt you.”
Ronan said. “So I guess a three way is out of the question, Yeah?”
Maria and Em laughed and a little of the tension left the room.
Em said. “I like him.”
“Yeah he kind of grows on you and he saved my life twice.”
“So will you help us, I need to change my image and you are just the person to do it.”
“I’d do it just to show how great I am at my job but I can't. I've already promised a client that I’d have an exclusive sculptor, sculpt a magical statue of the client and I can’t get the sculptor motivated to start. If you help me get him to sculpt, I’ll try and help you.”
“Okay, we’ll go talk to him to see what we can do.”
“Before you go, do you have a nickname people call you or Ronan do you have something you call her a term of endearment.”
“They’re actually the same, the dragon christened her ‘the slutty princess’ and someti…”
“That’s enough Ronan.”
“Princess, you certainly seemed to like it when I said that to you last night.”
“I’m not going to sit here and get teased, by you two most of all. I only got classified like that because of the one time I’d been with Em and the dragon ‘needed a virgin’ so was mad and slut shamed me.”
They both laughed.
Em said. “That nickname makes you more relatable and I’ll need to do a little research but I have a feeling that you might garner a lot more support from the common people and you’d lose some of the most conservative people, but I’m pretty sure you’d come out way ahead.”
Ronan and the princess headed to the sculptor’s studio. It was a large barn of a building with doors the size of those she was used to at her castle. They went inside and saw a huge hunk of white stone, twice their height and width.
“Hello, Hello Bethany Turner are you here?”
“Yes, I’m here but I’m not taking any commissions at this time.”
“We’re here for Miss Reid, she said that you need to start the commission that you already have.”
“Well I already said that I'm just not inspired, the client is going to have to wait until I’m inspired. That’s just how art is.”
“Well, sometimes you can spark the imagination with a pair of random words or a picture might do it, some people even use tarot cards. Have you tried any of those methods?”
“No I haven’t, but I already know what I want to sculpt, I want to do a statue of my girlfriend running naked holding a torch in one outstretched arm.”
“Then use that as the motivation to start the already commissioned piece. Once you finish that you’ll be free to sculpt your girlfriend. Sooner started sooner done as they say.”
“I don’t want to sculpt a fat old mage in the nude, that is not something anyone would want to do.”
“Miss Reid said it was to be a magical statue. Do you supply the magic as well as the sculpting?”
“No, the mage supplies the magic once the statue is complete.”
“What can we do to help?”
“Nothing unless you can sculpt.”
“Well you know princess, I thought that sculptor in Penham had some fine work in his studio, we’ll just have to commission him to do a nude statue of you, in six months when you are the queen.” said Ronan
The princess caught on fast.
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll do a good enough job and at least he was working on his sculpting while we were there. Sorry to bother you Bethany and good luck with the mage.”
“Wait, just wait. Let me grab my sketch pad. Just sit on that stool and take off your top and turn to the left. A little more, just a tiny bit more. Okay just hold that pose”
For fifteen minutes, the sculptor sketched away then she handed the finished sketch to Ronan while Maria got dressed. Roan was impressed with the skill and particularly like the pose.
“How much do you want for for the drawing Bethany?”
“No, nothing, it's proof of my skill, I sculpt even better. If you get the old mage, I’ll start if you both stay and watch. To be honest I’m nervous being around a naked man, all alone.”
Bethany gave them directions to Mage Matthew Fontaine’s dwelling. Ronan and Maria went to his home.
“Hello Mage Fontaine, I’m Maria. The sculptor sent me. She’s ready to begin the sculpture.”
“Hi Maria, I’m Matt Fontaine, just call me Matt.”
“Okay Matt, nice to meet you. Could you possibly come now, Bethany is quite a good artist but like all good artists is a bit temperamental.”
“I’ve never actually seen any of her work, Emillie Reid recommended her. I hope she has something I can see before we begin.”
Ronan pulled out the sketch that Bethany had done earlier.
“Matt, I’m Ronan. Bethany produced this sketch in fifteen or twenty minutes, just before we came to get you.”
“The Slutty Princess, that’s beautiful work, and you say she did this in just fifteen or twenty minutes. Maria could you turn to the left a little, I’d like to see your profile and compare it to the sketch. A little more to the left, yep right there. Yes Bethany is quite skilled. I hope she sculpts as well as she draws. I don’t understand the title though, that doesn’t look slutty at all, very classy looking if you ask me.”
“That’s just my friend's way of making fun of me, Matt. Don’t take anything he says seriously.”
Soon they were back at Bethany’s studio and Bethany had donned a leather apron, to protect herself from flying rock chips. Maria introduced Matt to Bethany.
“Matt, what sort of pose were you thinking of.”
“How long will it take?”
“Well I’m a fast rough cutter.”
“The rough cut is the only part you actually have to pose for, then I do fine work from a sketch I’ll also make this afternoon. The whole statue will be delivered to your door in three weeks.”
“Can you make me a statue of the Slutty Princess in place of sculpting me. I’ll pay you the same fee and also pay Maria a modeling fee if she agrees to model.”
“Now wait just a minute, I never agreed, I’m just supposed to help Bethany get started.”
“Yes and her sketch of you is inspiring, let’s leave it up to Bethany. Bethany, would you rather sculpt an old mage or a Queen to be?”
“Honestly Maria is more inspiring. Sorry but I’d have to choose her.”
“Well I never agreed to posing, so I’m sorry but I’ll have to decline.”
“Excuse me Matt, Maria is going to attempt a bloodless coup in her kingdom, do you have a magic item, or spell that might be of use to her in liu of money as a modeling fee?” asked Ronan.
“Hmmm, let me think, I don’t do weapons, but you said bloodless so weapons are out. I think I do. I have recording stones. I use them for a todo list for my shopping, I can be a little absent minded at times. If you recorded something and wanted to play it back for someone. Record the person you want to replace bad mouthing an ally, play that back for the ally. They’re down one ally. Maria, if you'll pose for a piece of fine art, I will give you a bag of ten record stones and show you how to operate them. What do you say?”
“I’ll do it but you have to wait outside, I’m not posing while you watch, you can look at the sketch and the rough cut before you give me the stones. Do we have a deal?”
“Sure, I wasn’t going to sit here and watch like some kind of pervert. I’ll go home and get the stones and be back here in a couple hours.”
“Maria, I’ll get you a cushion to sit on so that you’re not cold. You can take your clothes off. I'll give you a blanket to wrap her in every once in a while if she gets too cold, Ronan. Modeling is hard work, but I’m so glad you agreed to this Maria. I really feel inspired. I’ll be right back.”
A few hours later, a thoroughly cold and ill humored princess stood up and got dressed. Those stones better be crucial to this coup or she was going to kill Roan. Nothing he said was a lie but she could see how much he’d enjoyed the entire afternoon. If she was honest she was impressed with both the sketch and the rough cut, neither looked in the least bit suggestive nor pornographic.
Matt came back and highly approved of the work completed and thanked Maria for her time and explained in detail how to work the stones. Including erasing them so they could record something new.
That’s when Em showed up to see how Maria and Ronan were making out. She was very surprised to see Matt but relieved to hear that everything was resolved. Em promised to meet them in Harrowell in a few weeks with a full blown ad campaign ready to go.
While Maria fumed most of the afternoon as she sat naked modeling, she calmed down by the time they finished their supper and even agreed to a ‘date’ that evening. They planned to leave the following morning to collect another ally.
End Part 4
