Bittersweet
The dawning sun poured through the castle window in a torrent of liquid gold. It fell onto a perfect expanse of toned belly, broad hips and full breasts that were capped with glorious pink tips. As the day aged forward, the light moved up the languid body that lay on the bed.
It brought light to a swan-like neck adorned by a simple golden choker, and continued on to reveal a beautiful, ageless face that was framed in a flowing mass of multi-coloured hair that shifted about in the woman’s sleep until it could only be called a mane.
That length of hair flowed alongside the perfect body of the woman, but while the body might have been perfect, it was not flawless. A stub of a horn barely stood out on her forehead, while the ragged remains of two wings emerged from her back, and her wrists and ankles bore fading scars from tightly closed manacles worn for a long time.
All in all, the marks of trials past only served to make the woman more attractive, for they showed that she was not some lifeless statue, but a living, breathing, woman of flesh and blood. A woman who had fears, desires, and passions.
The sun continued to warm her, and as she grew hotter the woman stirred in her slumber. The sun climbed, and as it did, its heat finally forced the woman to open her eyes. Taking in her surroundings, she rose with the flowing grace of someone who knew their body and was comfortable in it.
A pitcher of water left out served to quench her thirst, and as she swallowed she felt the muscles of her throat working against the inner surface of the gold circle around her neck. It reminded her of her other thirst. A thirst that only he could quench.
A slim alabaster hand involuntarily slid down the woman’s stomach, gliding toward her treasure. The woman stopped herself with a snort of amusement and looked around the room. It was different than what she had been used to for many, many, years.
Instead of the trappings of the rank and station she had risen to, this bedroom was nearly stark in its functional simplicity. A dresser, for her few items of clothing. A bed for her to lay and sleep on. A simple night table, that held a few things, like her water pitcher.
Stretching, the maned woman ran her fingers through her hair before bringing them back down to touch the gold at her throat. She wondered if this would be all she would be permitted to wear today. It bid to be a hot day, and he had said more than once that he disliked clothes hiding her body from his gaze.
Something, deep in her core, reacted as she recalled him. Of his dark, brooding air. Of his strengths and the passions that he chose to vent upon her body. Of how he had used that strength to reave and slay his way through an army of caribou for one purpose.
To take her for himself.
There was a gentle knock on the door of her room, followed by a slip of paper pushed underneath. The woman stood immediately, gracefully, moving over with the training born of the station she’d once held. She knew what the paper would likely hold, and there was a shiver within her body in anticipation of what she would be told to wear today.
Wear the periwinkle one. And nothing else. You are to meet me on the terrace in fifteen minutes for breakfast. Fix your hair, or I won’t be as accommodating as last time.
Moving to the dresser, she opened the top drawer and was greeted by the filmy gowns that were now her attire. They were the barest ideas of the sheerest Grecian tunics, long and flowing as though they had been made from the finest of Egyptian cottons. And they were all translucent to boot, highlighting what he wanted to see and shyly hiding what he didn’t. Yet.
There was little time to dawdle in sentimental thoughts however, and the clock was ticking. Pulling the periwinkle tunic from the drawer, she easily slipped it over her head since the ties on the shoulders were already in place. It was simple to shift to the nightstand and brush out the evening’s snarls from her hair, taming it to shining glory and leaving the strands free, since he liked to pull on them to bring her to his heel.
She slipped out of her room almost as easily as she had slipped on the tunic, a small matter of turning the handle.
With the ease of long familiarity she made her way through the halls of the mighty castle, pausing for a brief moment at the doorway that led out to the terrace. A moment spent in quiet composure, hand pressed against her stomach in anticipation and preparation, and then she stepped out into the sun, and his presence enveloped her in the same way it always did. With both fear and anticipation of what was to come.
“Sit,” he commanded, his voice a firm basso rumble that set her heart quivering. In automatic reflex she moved a few quick steps to kneel just behind and to one side of his right heel, hair pooling around her ankles.
“Not there,” he growled, and the woman’s already white skin turned deathly pale at the thought of having made a misstep already. “Today, you will sit in the chair. Across from me.”
“Yes, my Lord,” the woman replied, meekly and with her head bowed.
“Did I give you permission to speak?” Again, the basso growl, but with a tinge of amusement. At least the woman hoped it was amusement. Almost, she replied back to the man at the table, stopping herself just in time. Instead she shook her head in acknowledgement of the rebuke and sat herself in the appointed place.
“So, it appears you are able to obey simple orders,” he commented, buttering a slice of toast with a knife. He noted that the woman had not made any attempt to help herself to the food arranged on the table, and made a pleased noise.
“Tell me,” he demanded, in a simple, calm, voice. “What were the commands I gave you this morning? Repeat them to me.”
“That I was to fix my hair,” the woman responded, keeping her eyes focused on her lap. “That I was to wear my periwinkle tunic, and to meet you here in fifteen minutes.”
“Can you tell me what is wrong with what you just said to me?” the man replied, drawing out the words in an easy, lazy, tone. The woman had enough experience with her Lord however, to recognize the hidden edge in them. Like a knife wrapped in a sheet of ebony silk.
Frantically, the woman raced her mind back and forth through the words she had spoken moments ago. Try as she might she couldn’t find what she had said wrong. The words were exactly what she had been told to do, and said with no hint of the arrogance and superiority her Lord had enjoyed breaking her of.
“I’m sorry,” the woman ventured, trying to quell the shaking of her legs. “I don’t know.”
“You. Don’t. Know,” replied her Lord, and the woman again felt her throat work against her tight collar as she gulped in fear. “Then allow me to instruct you. Would that be acceptable to you?”
The woman felt her stomach clench and she gasped slightly as the man rose from his chair. The movements of his dark skin and hair reminding her of a hunting panther. With deceptive casualness he came around the table until he was standing behind the woman.
“Celestia, I thought I had taught you better than this,” the man commented, and the woman felt one of her Lord’s hands grip her hair as he wrapped a long lock of it in his fist.
“Please,” Celestia begged, as she felt the edge of the man’s knife begin to slide up and down her throat. Not cutting, but enough to tell her she should not move. “Please, my Lord. Instruct me. I beg you.”
“You said that I had commanded you to wear your tunic,” her Lord growled as the fist tightened with sudden speed to pull her head back. “You own NOTHING. The tunics in that room belong to me! The bed belongs to me. The drapes, the sheets, everything.”
“Please… my Lord,” Celestia gasped, feeling the knife strop along the curve of her outward bowed throat.
“Do you know what else in that room belongs to me?” the man asked, pausing the knife so that it rested along the underside of her jaw. “Redeem yourself, if you can. Tell me what else in that room belongs to me?”
“I do, my Lord,” Celestia gasped out, desperate to appease the man who held her in an iron grip. “I do!”
“So you do,” the man said, and Celestia heard the knife clatter to the floor as the man tossed it to one side. “It pleases me that you are at least able to remember that simple fact.”
Celestia had thought he was going to let go of her hair and command her to her feet. Instead the sudden velvet texture of his tongue against her throat had her pulse hammering along faster than when the kiss of steel was touching it. Of course, he must have used his butter knife to threaten her life with. Or he decided he wanted his former queen on toast today. It was hard to say with him, at best he was enigmatic, and at worst the only one to ever truly break her down to the simple being she’d become.
He took his time, savoring the taste of butter on her smooth skin, while the quiver in her body betrayed the inner workings of her arousal. Abruptly, he let her go, dropping the hair from his fist and calmly walking away from her. He’d decided he wanted to finish his breakfast, and enjoy his little slave later. Breakfast was the fuel of champions after all, and he hated to do his pleasurable work on an empty stomach.
“Eat.” The command was easily spoken, almost lazily.
In a near frantic motion Celestia pulled herself back into place and paid attention to the food before them. Using the best of her manners, she showed impeccable behavior for the rest of the meal.
“Have you finished eating, Celestia?” her dark Lord asked eventually, his own food finished, but knowing that he was hungry for something more satisfying.
“Yes, my Lord,” Celestia answered, in a meek and humble voice as she kept her eyes downcast and her hands folded in her lap.
“Tell me, what day is it today?” the man commanded her, waving in a team of waiting servants.
On bare and silent feet, five young women in the prime of life swept in, and began removing the remains of the meal with silent efficiency. Each woman was resplendently beautiful in her own way. One poised and elegant, the second soft and gentle, the body of the third was strong and vital. The fourth woman had a lean, athletic body and the last’s was lush and full.
Each woman wore only a golden collar and a web of light chains that had been woven about their bodies. Each of them made a point of locking eyes with Celestia for a split second, giving their former ruler an encouraging smile as they did so.
“Is it that time of the month already?” Celestia asked, tilting her head toward the five as they filed out of the room a bare minute later. “Is that why you brought them here, to rub my face in my defeat?”
“No, Celestia,” her Lord replied, mild annoyance in his voice. “I brought them here to show you that I keep my word. They are healthy and cared for, their wounds of body and mind healed or healing.”
“But they are in chains!” Celestia protested, feeling some of her old fire come back to her.
“They are mine,” he said simply, and rising from the table he began to slowly pull off his shirt.
Celestia could not stop herself from watching the bottom edge of the garment rise up from over a flat stomach and muscular chest. She bit her lip, as her Lord turned and tossed his top over the balcony, the ebon planes of his muscles rippling and flowing with dynamic action.
Celestia knew what was going to happen on this terrace. It was a scene her and her Lord had played out once a month, every month for the past year. She feared this day each month. Feared it, dreaded its coming, and Harmony help her, craved and desired it just as much. Even now, she could feel herself growing hotter and wetter in anticipation.
“They are my friends!” Celestia stated hotly, knowing it would arouse the ire of her Lord.
“We had this discussion earlier Celestia,” her Lord replied, opening a small chest that had been left by a wall with slightly more force than was necessary. “They are mine. Through right of rescue, and of conquest. I have healed their minds and bodies of what the caribou did to them. Just as I have with you.”
The man stood up from the chest with several items of black leather in his hands, and Celestia felt her heat rise up a notch as she recognized them. A rope, to bind her with. A whip, to chastise her. A collar, to command her. A harness gag, to control her head and mouth. A leash, to compel her obedience.
“Is that your plan?” Celestia yelled at her Lord. “To beat me and bind me to your will. Like Dainn did? Do you think following in his footsteps will make you more of a dominant male than he was, somehow?”
Even as she screamed the words, standing up from the table, Celestia felt herself of two minds. Part of her felt like the sun goddess of old. Powerful and vital, full of hot fury toward any mortal who would dare touch the sun. The other part of her was rocked back in shocked astonishment at her audacity and rudeness to the man who had become her Lord.
“Dainn was an idiot,” her Lord pronounced, setting down the items from the chest to one side as he began to remove his footwear. “Dominance is more than simply beating a female into submission. Any strong enough idiot can force a mare to his will with his fists.”
“Then why do we go through this every month?” Celestia demanded, trying to keep the heat from her face as her Lord pulled off his breeches to reveal his lean and powerful legs. “Aren’t you doing what Dainn did?”
”Dominance is binding someone in place with a look. It is flaying them with a word, and enslaving them with nothing more than force of personality,” the man stood up, his long body now only covered by the dark mane of night black curls that cascaded down his back. “We fight because that is where our natures reveal themselves. You fight to free yourself. I fight to keep you mine.”
“The same rules as before?” Celestia asked, keeping her eyes above the dark rod of rulership that lay between her Lord’s thighs.
“Yes. No magic, and no weapons,” her Lord stated, moving away from the items of bondage and toward the door of the terrace. “Save what is already here. The winner is the one who can make the other submit to them. Unless you would like to save time and kneel before me right now?”
“Dog,” Celestia cursed, pulling free the slim gold circle from around her throat. “I will not be your collared slave mare.”
“I put that on you, because it pleased me to do so. I have no true need to collar you,” King Sombra explained. “I am your collar, and one whose embrace is inescapable.”
“NEVER!” Celestia shouted, launching herself at the dark unicorn with a flying kick that was as powerful as it was graceful.
Sombra ducked low under the kick, letting Celestia pass over him, except for taking the opportunity to let his fingers slide along her legs in a gliding caress.
“Bastard!” Celestia cursed, whirling around to continue her attack.
Over the next few minutes a pattern emerged. Celestia would attack the dark lord of the Crystal Empire, and in response he would dodge or deflect her blows while sneaking in a caress, or a grope, or a squeeze. Each time his hand would remain on her a moment longer or probe a little deeper.
“Stop that!” Celestia demanded at last, breast heaving and face flushed.
“Submit,” Sombra commanded, eyes boring into hers with a length of chain in his hands. “Kneel.”
“No,” was Celestia’s only reply and she moved in close to throw a flurry of punches.
This time, however, Sombra chose to simply accept the blows, only blocking those that were aimed at his face. Celestia had mostly recovered from her time enslaved by the caribou, and her punches carried most of her old strength. Certainly enough to make her dark Lord grunt and wince from the impacts.
However, Celestia was not the mare she used to be, and she began to tire. Sombra seized the opportunity, grabbing Celestia’s wrist and spinning her around, pulling her back against his front.
“Submit, Celestia,” Sombra said directly into her ear. “Kneel, my Conquered Sun.”
“I... “ Celestia began, feeling the hard body against her back. The lean, easy strength he was using to hold her against him made her knees quiver. The scent of his masculinity, raised up by their struggle, enticed her and made her head swim. Rather than struggle against his hold, she found herself leaning back against him.
“Shhh,” Sombra soothed, using his free hand to loop the chain around Celestia’s throat as a collar.
The touch of the cold metal against the hot flesh of her neck galvanized Celestia back out of the submissive daze she had been falling into. She threw herself forward, only to be brought up short by the leash her Lord had fastened to the now choking chain around her throat.
“Bastard, let me go!” Celestia managed to choke out, trying to get some slack from the strangling chain about her airway.
Sombra’s only response was to pull back on the leash even tighter, drawing Celestia back against him and cutting off her air completely. Celestia gasped for breath in desperation, pawing at her throat and barely noticing her captor quickly drawing a web of straps over her head. It wasn't until Sombra wedged the steel ring into her mouth that he finally released the leash, and allowed his Conquered Sun to breathe again.
"Ahhhh Gckh," Celestia gasped, as she inhaled fresh air and discovered that her mouth was now wedged open by the leather wrapped steel ring. A perfect frame for her king to insert his masterpiece.
"Oh Celestia," Sombra purred, the echo of his voice matching the sudden clenching of her womb. "I do so look forward to these moments when I remind you that I am not only the master of Equestria, but your master as well."
Inexorably, Celestia found herself being pulled down to her knees. She tried to resist her return to being the sexual plaything of her dark Lord, but in truth she had come to love these denigrating sessions outside of her gilded cage that always left her in a twitching puddle.
She went to her knees at Sombra’s feet, her tongue poking out beyond the confines of the ring gag. The very image of an Ahegao poster, her cheeks flushed red, her breathing heavy. Even though her arms and legs were still unbound, her resistance was mainly for show at this point and both of them knew it.
Celestia lifted her eyes from the ground and she saw it, looming in her vision. Thick, throbbing and waiting for her lips to caress it as tenderly as any lover. She wanted to feel him on her tongue desperately, but the shreds of her pride demanded that she turn her head aside. That he force her to take him into her mouth, even if it meant he would beat her ass, until it was as red as the sun had been the day he’d killed Dainn and conquered Equestria.
That was her true desire.
Her Lord did not disappoint her. Using the harness of her gag to control her head, Sombra forced Celestia to look again at his rigid manhood. It stood there, strong and powerful, demanding her attention and her obedience. Unable to resist the siren submissive call within her, Celestia leaned forward, and drew her tongue up the length of his shaft.
The taste of his flesh, seasoned by his conquering musk, was everything she remembered and hoped for. She followed up her first lick with a second, sliding her tongue along the side of his shaft. Her Lord gave her leash some slack, and a pleased murmur as he felt the soft warmth of her wet tongue along his cock.
Celestia continued to service her Lord. Running her forced open lips along the sides of that glorious dark pole, and gently cupping his balls with one hand she drew more pleased sounds from her master. The sound of Sombra’s pleasure triggered a burning of pleasure within the captive princess. She knew what was happening, and it excited her.
Daring greatly, Celestia positioned her mouth over the tip of Sombra’s cock, and slowly brought it over her tongue. With the gag in place she couldn’t close her lips to give him a true erotic kiss, but she could improvise with the undulations of her tongue as the metal framed him in her mouth. A wicked trick, one she’d been practicing when she had the opportunity during the monthly trial. Celestia anticipated a hand pushing her away, the stinging slap of rebuke painting her cheek as red as the wine she’d drank with breakfast.
“Taking our duel to another level, are we?” Sombra growled, and Celestia could feel her Lord’s glutes clench as a pulse ran along the length that lay on her tongue. If only she could push him that last fraction she could claim victory, despite her captive condition. She knew that if she could just get a little further, suck a little harder, she’d have the edge on this little fight.
He refused make it that easy with such an obvious weakness, however. Pulling slowly backwards, he removed himself from her devious pried open mouth, and sorcerous tongue. She leaned after him, greedy with the opportunity that had presented itself to her. Not just to get him off and tease herself, but also that by swallowing every last drop of his seed she could bring him to his knees. Once he was on his knees, she could sit on his face and ride him until she came, until he was begging to take her body and enable her the winner.
All she’d have to do is slip the chain from her throat and onto his, yank the leash, and then ride him like he was one of her proud stallions and a sweaty and exhausted mess at her feet. From there, she would be in control. Not him. Celestia’s plotting was interrupted by a sudden invasion in her mouth, Sombra having recalculated the situation, and testing the both of them by simply thrusting himself back into the inviting hole before him.
“Grlk,” Celestia protested, trying to pull her head back but her Lord held her skull in place as solidly as if his arms were iron bars instead of flesh and blood.
“A cunning stratagem, my delightful slave,” Sombra stated, a pleased smirk on his face. “Even now, you still try to control, to command, to dominate. It pleases me that you still struggle against me, but ultimately, I am your master.”
With aching, deliberate slowness the ruler of Equestria pulled his rod free of Celestia’s mouth, only to slide it back in with equal deliberation. Celestia tried to work the magic of her tongue on Sombra again, but he confunded her by pulling back out only to slam his length fully into her gaping maw.
Her ability to breathe was completely cut off by the girth of her Lord in her mouth and down her throat. He held himself there, slowly suffocating her as she flailed helplessly, trying to get air, trying to push him away, trying to bite through the steel ring that held her mouth open.
Celestia’s struggles excited her Lord, and if anything the cock lodged into her became even thicker and more turgid as he felt flesh flail around his conquering manhood. Sombra’s goal however, was domination rather than assassination and he finally pulled himself back enough to allow his slave some literal breathing room.
Celestia gasped in a breath, and then a second, before her Lord shoved himself back in and cut off her air once more. Celestia controlled herself better this time, but still had to gasp for air when the pressure came off again. Over and over the cycle repeated itself, with Sombra face-fucking Celestia into oral submission and as it went on, she began to hear a rhythmic build up of Sombra’s pleased sounds and her own gasps for oxygen.
He’s playing me, like an instrument, came the thought unbidden in her mind. He’s making me be the background music to my own subjugation and enslavement.
The thought filled her mind, covering her other racing thoughts like a warm blanket, smothering them into silence. She was his now. As she always had been, as she always would be, and the understanding of what she was meant to be in this time and place caused the fire within her become a raging inferno.
She stopped fighting her Lord and instead of vainly attempting to push him away, instead reached up to caress and gently fondle his balls. She helped to guide his cock into her now welcoming mouth and throat, while stroking away at the inside of her Lord’s thighs with a free hand.
Sombra continued to ravage his captive’s mouth and throat, but now in a gentler, more controlled way. He went no less deep into her, still controlling her very ability to live with nothing more than his manhood, but each push was smoother and gave her a split second to relax her throat.
Her Lord continued to pump himself into her mouth, and each thrust seem to push her mind deeper into a lust filled haze. She wanted him. He had driven her down to the point where all she could see, taste and smell was her Lord, and her now dripping sex ached for him.
Sombra pulled back one last time and saw that his Conquered Sun’s eyes had gone from pleading to lust-glazed, and the moans that danced in his ears were no longer cries of outrage or complaint, but expressions of desire and anticipation.
“Yes, this is how you should always be,” he growled, hunger for her in his voice. “At my feet, aching for my touch and bound to my will.”
“Yield,” Sombra demanded, one more time and the submissive bow of Celestia’s head was as natural as breathing.
“At last,” was all Sombra added as he stepped behind his slave, and tearing off her flimsy gown he used it to bind her arms into a single long column.
Celestia felt him then. Felt him begin to impale her, as his cock stretched her wide. This was what she had known was going to happen, from the very first moment she had awoken. She had known that once more he was going to lay claim to her, his prize.
She had known it, feared it, and gods help her, wanted it. She wanted him in her until his pounding staff beat anything resembling thought from her mind. She wanted him to drive himself into her the way he had driven his sword into Dainn and his sons. Hard, fast, and without a shred of pity or mercy. To conquer her, body, mind, and soul. Owned utterly and completely.
The way his cock slid up to the hilt within her stoked the flames of her inner inferno, and she began to writhe against him. While her arms were bound behind her back she could still move her hips, so she began to grind against him as he took more and more of her for himself. Sombra was unable to resist the groan that tore from his throat in that moment, the little minx had stepped up her game this time.
“Peath,” Celestia begged, rolling her hips in time with her Lord’s thrust. “Peath.”
It was the begging that pushed Sombra over the edge. His slave, his conquest, pleading for him to fill her, making her need known in the most primal of ways, that destroyed Sombra’s cool composure. It tore away the veneer of civilization from the cold and calculating king, replacing it with the primal need of a stallion to mount and claim his chosen mare.
Of course he would oblige his Conquered Sun by giving her what she begged for. He was nothing if not a generous ruler over Equestria, so he began to thrust harder and faster against her. Celestia moaned for all she was worth, the sounds almost echoing from the pleasure that crashed within her like an ocean wave. Her noises goaded him further, pushing the line beyond pure need into something more feral. Her Lord began to growl, initially under his breath but as he struggled to hold back release it grew in volume and intensity.
His nails dug into her skin while he held her, body jolting from pounding into her with powerful thrusts that were becoming more and more desperate. Sombra could feel his thighs trembling while the sensation within him became more and more pronounced. He couldn’t hold back from spilling his seed within her too much longer, and Celestia seemed to sense this. The little vixen continued to beg and plead with him, breasts bouncing invitingly while she all but knocked him off his feet compensating with his thrusts by balancing on the balls of her feet.
Her Lord held back for as long as possible, panting and groaning, before suddenly withdrawing almost completely out of her before slamming back to the hilt, his breath stopping while his body tensed for a few seconds. Celestia mewled, and then he came. Warbling out a cry, he began to fill her with hot, thick seed pumping from his cock to flood her passageway up to the womb.
Celestia’s body shuddered in response while she cried out, dropping her head to let it hang freely while they both tried to catch their breath.
Both of them spent a long minute like that, Celestia on all fours, head down and breasts swinging pendulously with each panted breath. Sombra, no less spent and barely standing, but drinking in the sight of this woman, this possession of his, that despite the trials and pains she had undergone, was still as vital and beautiful as the day they had first faced each other across naked swords.
Reaching down, Sombra undid the straps of the bridle that held Celestia’s ring gag in place, and gently tugged it free before ripping off her bonds and tossing both to one side. Celestia herself said nothing as she crawled across the floor to where her golden collar-like choker lay. Every part of her ached, but it was a bone deep ache that kept the warmth within her burning. Bending down, she grasped the metal circle between her teeth and crawled, animal-like, back to her Lord’s feet.
She sat there at his feet as best she could on her used and abused rear, fluids still leaking from her in abundance, looking up at the man whose conquest of her and Equestria had saved both. Her Lord’s eyes held hers in such an inescapable grip that it was a surprise to her when he gently pulled the choker from her mouth.
“Your slave, my Lord,” Celestia said, lowering her eyes as the silver strand of saliva on the choker briefly connected the two of them.
“Indeed,” Sombra replied, once more fastening the adornment around the neck of his property.
“It’s all this dehorned, plucked slut is good for,” Celestia replied, feeling the endorphins within her begin to fall away with the realization that she again had lost a chance to regain her kingdom.
“Celestia,” Sombra growled, lifting his slave’s chin and forcing her to look up at him. “One day, your body will be healed from what Dainn and his ilk did to you. And on that day I will give you a choice.”
“What sort of choice?” Celestia asked, hope warring with the soreness of her body.
“I will give you the choice between a collar and a crown,” Sombra stated, smiling ever so slightly. “Whichever of the two you choose, know that it will forever be bound to you.”
“After all this, you would be willing to let me and Equestria go?” Celestia asked, incredulous.
“No,” Sombra replied, and his smile was wide and sharp. “Equestria and you are mine. Now and forever. Your choice will either to be my queen or my slave. No other is worthy of me. Only you, my Conquered Sun. Only you.”
<fin>