Miss Golden Land Part 2

Princess Astrid Elvrina,

It was called the Heartbeat. The room where Elvrina kings and queens across time made the decisions that pumped life into the earth.

There was an archway of carved marble, decorated with bioluminescent vines. Gargoyles that could spring to life on command framed the entrance. It was a spacious room with floor to ceiling windows. In front of those windows, the lights of Alfheim sparkled and dazzled. Except for the red and orange ones. Those were the fires of orc effigies burned by a wrathful populace.

King Fenrisson stood with his blue eyes transfixed on the Queen Ariel Aqua Dome, the building itself forming the shape of a siren’s tail. His thin lips that rested above a granite chin produced a small smile.

At what he was smiling about his eldest daughter could not fathom.

The healing sorcerers preached visualization. Use the mind persistently to create a desirable reality. And so Astrid pictured a world and life where her sister, Tristabelle, was free from the orcs. But to think of that she had to think of her youngest sister in captivity. That was an image that accused her of failure. It was an image she wanted to shred with Pendulum, her mighty sword.

King Fenrisson shook his head, sending strands of molten silver flying about before they settled over his sheer unbuttoned shirt. His body was corded with muscle making him look even more robust than the perpetually young pure elves had any right to look.

Astrid spoke softly, “They say a kingdom without its bright eyes is blind.”

Her father didn’t speak for a very long time. When he did, he did not bother to look at Astrid, “Was that meant to be clever?”

Astrid cut in front of her father and the aqua dome. How stern a face he had. This couldn’t be the world he had in mind when he was a child, two brothers removed from the throne.

“Mother is sick.”

“Mothers worry.”

“And fathers act. Forgive me, father, but I do not see you acting.”

“Tristabelle often gets herself captured .”

Father was right. It wasn’t the first time Tristabelle had beencaptured, but this time mocked Astrid with a cynical cackle.

The King went on, “Your youngest sister is quite determined to be headstrong and foolish.”

Frustration steamed in Astrid like a witch’s hideous cauldron

“Orcs have captured her,” Astrid noted, strain heavy in her voice.

“Then she should consider herself lucky. My headstrong father burned with my elder brothers.”

The orcs lived underground—underground where screams were louder, where fires were hotter, where blades were sharper.

“You want to teach her a lesson, but this is not the proper class.”

“I decide that.”

Astrid repressed a frown. Her father was fond of hard lessons. Lessons that might leave scars were elves not so durable.

Tristabelle’s haughty nature put her in constant danger of her father’s lesson. Tonight the danger would be realized.

Astrid stomped to the door, catching herself between the gargoyles. She might need them.

“Where are you going?” The King asked, staring at one of the fires.

Astrid thought of her 14th birthday. When she claimed she did not fear death when her father took her to fight a troll with a poorly crafted spear.

“I am going to save my fucking sister.”

***

It did not smell.

Cristobal Schwanhild assured Krisdane and Tristabelle that the underground smelled of pig feces and blubber. But to Tristabelle it smelled rather plain. Perhaps this was added by the fact the goblin body in her cell had decomposed to remain only a skeleton.

Orcs were fond of snacking on goblins and imps, which witches claimed is what led to their ornery personality. Tristabelle was a lady with a lady’s personality and would not succumb to feasting on goblins no matter the instructions her stomach gave her.

That was why she spat back at the small for an orc monster who tried to feed her fried imp nose. With her wrists chained to the wall, she was at the mercy of the orcs’ service. It was a mercy and service she wanted nothing to do with.

The orc, not getting the hint, picked the morsel back up to refeed Tristabelle. Again he got a wad of spit in the eye. Though he didn’t mind as his unblinded eye could still soak in her busty bikini-clad body.

The orc Queen had been so fond of Tristabelle’s scantily clad appearance she ordered she remained in it as chained. Thus Tristabelle’s jumbos were almost entirely on display for every orc to see. And many orcs wanted to see the busty princess.

This one orc, who Tristabelle figured for a teenager, reached out for her left globe. He was expecting a handful of royal goodness. Instead, he got punted in the jaw by the princess.

“Hands to yourself, troglodyte!” Tristabelle snapped.

Her demand elicited immediate tears from the teenage orc. Orcs were known for their grand displays of emotion, unable to practice even basic emotional control.

“But, I want to touch pretty princess.” The orc blubbered.

“Well, too bad!” She snapped back as she ogled her massive tits.

Tristabelle heard drumming, a steady aggressive beat typical to orc music. The orcs did so love drumming, marking them perhaps as the instruments’ most talented players.

Her surroundings were marked by jagged walls whose stone was streaked with silver and bars she swore she could break through if only she could be free of her shackles.

“I shall not end my days molested and eaten like a common goblin.”

The orc didn’t care what she had to say. The goon just leered at knockers. The poor clod reached out to touch them but hurriedly drew his hand back at the flashing of her teeth.

Most supernaturals claimed lustier personalities than their human counterparts. The orcs were known for a rather remedial sort of lust for the flesh of the beautiful. Especially when that flesh was the flesh of a toned and fit elven woman. Given their existing lack of emotional control, a pretty woman or handsome male in the case of the females sent them into a whirlwind of erotic glee

It said that the original Lady Chevalthorn, the founder of the witch school by the same name, created a spell that subdued orcs by lulling them into a trance with visions of naked elven babes. If only Tristabelle had access to that famed witch, who passed centuries ago!

Like most of her spells, that spell had never been able to be replicated. Attempts to control orcs had been made over the years with varying success. A brothel in Alfheim boasted an orc whore who Tristabelle swore her brother Rodgir regularly visited, Clan Liselotte used orc guards for their jails much to the woe of inmates. Still, Clan Londoff found problems using them for their hockey team when their orc goalie ate a dwarven referee alive.

Tristabelle thought to the orc guards of Clan Liselotte, how she overhead one Hildegarde palace’s guards complain how easy it was to bribe and fool the orcs. With these orcs, it would be better to exert one’s words rather than one’s sword skills.

“Dear fellow, I do apologize for my rudeness.”

The orc blinked back his shock.

“Pretty princess say sorry?”

Tristabelle nodded then went on, “Let us be friends and make merry! Why I have never made an orc friend before.”

“Pretty princess and orc become friends?”

“I can only imagine the joys we might share. Me introducing you to the joys of thefudge brownie and you introducing me to the joy of errrm fudge goblin scrotum. Delightful!”

“Delightful?”

Tristabelle’s cupid bow lips formed a huge smile, “Delightful! I can just taste the deliciousness of the fudged scrotum. Can you not?”

“Me can!”

“Then you must free me so that we may properly hug. All friendships are cemented with a hug!”

“A hug?”

“Or in my brother Rodigr’s case three gold pieces and the absence of venereal disease. Now free me so that we may hug.”

The easily tricked orc unhooked a set of keys from a belt that contained a few pieces of skulls on it. After fumbling with the wrong key three times, he finally found the right one to unshackle the pretty princess.

This was to his suffering as Tristabelle rocked him in the nose with the hardest punch she could manage.

“Pretty princess hit me!” He wailed.

Tears streamed down the orcs face, falling into pools on the gnarled stone floor. There was no sympathy from Tristabelle, who went across his face with her elbow.

“Pretty princess keep hitting me!” He blubbered, eyes now red from crying.

Tristabelle didn’t want to summon Mistlewoe and end this lamentable orc’s life. There was no desire in her heart for killing such an outmatched foe. She knew her brothers wouldn’t have held such qualms. But Tristabelle was her own woman. A gentler woman.

A gentler woman who stomped the teenage orc in the testicles.

Three times.

But that was better than a sword through the bowels or through the eyes she surmised.

With her guard a quivering mound of tears and green flesh, Tristabelle took hold of his keys. It took her far less time than he to find the right key. With that key she unlocked the rickety doors that separated her from freedom.

Unfortunately, what now separated her from freedom was an arms folded Gretawuld and a retinue of guards.

***

One rarely wagered against King Fenrisson.

The King would level grossly punitive terms on the loser.

The risks often outweighed the reward.

But inspired by the tale of Alexander The Great and Bucephalus, a twelve year old Astrid had bet her father she could beat him in a Pegasus race. Victory would earn her a Pegasus, and a loss would ground her for life.

Queen Brunhilde told the King not to torment the poor girl, who only knew of Pegasus riding through the theories written by the late King Strahl Elvrina. But this was one of those lessons King Fenrisson was fond of teaching. However, on that bright sunny Autumn day, Astrid taught her father a valuable lesson in humility and Pegasus riding when she beat him in a race.

She soared out the sky stable behind Hildegarde palace on Bucci’s back. She couldn’t name him Bucephalus because she kept misspelling it. So Bucci it was. He was smaller than most Pegasus with a white coat, golden rings, and blue eyes that the peasants swore smoked. That earned Bucci the nickname Hel’s Vengeance, an ill fit for its docile personality.

A more whimsical rumor that circulated through the taverns was that Astrid’s saddle was blessed by Aphrodite and provided sexual jollity to the rider. That was far from true. Astrid was just sensitive to air turbulence and made the mistake of informing the wrong, i.e. Maggie, sister.

Astrid soared above Elvheim, the capital city of Golden Land. The city was vibrant, colorful, and loud. Most of the buildings were bulky and squared, punctuated by some form of ornamentation. There was the occasional moving advertisement, powered by aura stones, that Astrid enjoyed flying through.

The ride was bumpy, heaving Astrid up and down and maybe sort of kind of sending jolts of pleasure through her. In fact, Astrid stopped gritting her teeth in anger and started passing moans through her lips. As usual, the blasts of joy to her sex almost took her off the saddle they were so powerful.

That damn Maggie said Astrid provided the gods a peep show with the panting in pleasure, fondling herself, and wearing her “bikini barbarian” armor. Astrid was famed for wearing a corset that left her tatas overflowing out the top, with her panties cut into slits only covering the best part, while a g-string split her toned and muscular ass, and she wore heeled boots. Thus Maggie probably had a point.

King Fenrisson had castigated Lord Antigar Falk, who had sworn to oversee all the forts guarding the entryway to the underground. That was not entirely fair of the King, who had demanded the impossible. The orcs had several access ports they could sneak in and out of, oft aided by the trolls who enjoyed watching a society in turmoil.

Any society for that matter. Which meant Astrid might find a troll to grant her passage so long as it tossed the orcs’ existence into chaos.

Lord Antigar had communicated by a magic mirror that the Falks’ swords were sworn to punishing the orcs. But King Fenrisson ordered him to sheathe his blade and simply raise his shield unless he make a further fool of himself.

So Astrid took a totally not pleasurable ride to the Black Boa bridge, a bridge north of Alfheim. It was designed by a snake collecting dwarves to look like a boa constrictor. Passage over the bridge had been cut in recent elven years due to the closure of the Snake Pit MMA fighting arena that laid a few clicks down the road. The absence of passersby bred neglect in maintenance. Neglect in a bridge’s maintenance delivered a perfect home for a troll.

Idual “The Serpent Troll” had seized on the citizenry’s neglect

Trolls on average stood no higher than 3 feet tall, but Idul stood 3’4, a height he was proud of and enhanced even more with boots. No other troll wore boots! This was a troll who had achieved something! His brown hair was spiked in all directions, some falling to cover part of his enormous ears. His three fingers were picking through the remains of his dinner, a small deer.

“Idual.”

The troll sucked on a bone and paid the princess no mind.

That only etched a frown on Astrid’s face.

“A pity I will have to lose an arrow through your eye.”

The troll’s beady eyes blink backed shock, “A mean woman who deals only in misery! That is Princess Astrid.”

“Then we have something in common. You are a mean beast who deals only in misery.”

“Idual adds levity to Golden Land! Idual is a student of mischief.”

“You sell yourself short, Idual. You’re a master of mischief. You somehow used fire messages to convince Lord Falk that Brayburn Chevalthorn had insulted his daughter’s honor leading to a fight where Lord Folk took off Brayburn’s right hand.”

“Do not forget Idual launched a parade of chickens in Viblain under the Falk name to question Brayburn’s courage.”

Idual picked up a tankard of ale and chugged down to celebrate his masterful trolling.

Astrid gave a small smile, “It is precisely that dedication to trolling that makes me require your help.”

Idual picked his nose as trolls were wont to do when they were confused.

“My sister, Tristabelle, has been kidnapped by the orc queen, Gretawuld.”

Idual ate whatever he found in his nose as trolls were wont to do when they were deep in thought.

He spoke after licking his lips, “Gretawuld is dangerous business.”

“I know she is dangerous. But it is my job as a sister to fight for Tristabelle. I need your help to get her back. You know how to get to the orcs’ city, Ormr. You have been, have you not?”

“Idual has been and been punished!” He shifted about to showcase a scar that ran from his right shoulder blade all the way down to his tailbone. “Queen Gretawuld is a dangerous business. More dangerous than the King, Ormar.”

“I see you are scared,” Astrid noted, reaching out to pat Idual on the shoulder. “But do you not hunger for revenge? What you can do to the orcs is far greater than what anyone else can. They can fight anyone, steal anything, but frankly, they are not smart enough to counter the work of the master of mischief.”

“They hurt Idual.” The troll whined as he rubbed his eyes.

Trolls were not known for bravery. Quite the opposite. When faced with retaliation for their actions, they oft were reduced to tearful beggars, pleading for mercy. But Astrid could tell Idual had a certain sense of pride and a definite lack of humility.

“You can not let them bully you into cowardice. You must strike back. If you can not tame the orc aggression, you will gain a reputation. You will become a mockery amongst all the species of Golden Land. You will have destroyed yourself.”

Idual ate a particularly large bogger as he nodded thoughtfully, “Idual not wishing to be destroyed! Idual must become a legendary troll. He must, he must. One all species write about until forever! Idual help.”

Astrid’s wide lips formed a grand smile, and her purple eyes sparkled.