The Ticklish Joy Bringer

You had never been bad before, that you knew of.

You had never done anything wrong before.

At least not to anyone’s harm.

You had always strived to do good, to be good.

You were always extremely nice to everyone.

At least you thought you were.

You certainly didn’t dislike anyone or want anyone’s harm.

You did what you could to help everyone in the village.

You picked Mr. Thomson’s carrots for him when he had thrown out his back that one weekend.

You helped pick flowers for the Saffron Festival earlier that spring.

You made Mrs. Washam a pot of soup when little Jenny had gotten sick over the long cold. 

You even did your best to comfort the children when the village had fallen under the direct command of General Talius and all those new people came to live in Vayewood. 

You were open and welcoming to them, even if their ways were a bit strange.

You disregarded all the mean things that had been said about the general. 

Sure, he never looked like a ‘nice’ person, rather scary and harsh at times, but you weren’t one to rush to judgement on first glance.

You stood up for him, giving him a glowing chance in the face of all those that worried about the new leader. 

Even when you were the only one, and everyone else spoke meanly of him and his past deeds, you did the right thing in standing up for him, even though no one seemed to listen or take you seriously.

You hoped that the Vayewood villagers would also give him a chance.

You hoped that they would give him the benefit of the doubt and disregard all those nasty rumors and welcome him as you had.

And even though that wasn’t really what happened, you still did your best to enforce a shining outlook toward the new leader and the future of the village.

You tried just as hard to welcome all of the newcomers that General Talius had come with as well.

Even though they too were a little rowdy, and maybe a bit mean and rude, you stood by them as potential friends and new neighbors.

General Talius especially liked the people he came with, much more than those that had already lived there, but that was to be expected.

Even though some of them did accidentally start a fire that burned most of Elder Harriet’s farm and some of the newcomer boys took part in stomping all over Lady Jansen’s gourd yield, you still tried to make amends.

General Talius didn’t seem all too concerned with such matters, which seemed kind of odd.

The old village leader took great care and pride in the lives of the quaint and tightly-knit community.

The new village leader seemed much more apathetic. 

You tried to explain to the new villagers that the village needs food and livestock for happy and healthy living, and that such structures should be protected, not damaged.

But they didn’t seem interested.

You tried to explain to your fellow villagers that the newcomers shouldn’t be shunned and should be welcomed and taught your ways of doing things.

But they seemed set in their assumptions.

You even went to General Talius to try and talk to him about your concerns and offer what little resources you could to help keep the peace.

He didn’t seem to care.

Day after day, the general brought in more new villagers from all over that didn’t seem to honor or respect the way of life in Vayewood. 

They were loud, brought in funny smelling teas, and some even had taken to pushing around the old villagers.

Others seemed to have been given some of the houses and shops by the command of the general, forcing their livelihoods out onto the street with next to nothing.

You did what I could to still help people while trying to keep the peace, but the workload became harder and more demanding.

No one seemed to take your advice seriously, calling it naive and childish.

That was until one day, when General Talius reached out to you specifically. 

You again voiced your concerns of the state of communication and camaraderie within the village, as many of the newcomers had overrun the lives and homes of the old.

You expressed that you just want everyone to get along and work together. 

The general smiled at you, the first time you had ever seen him smile at all.

After months of adjustments and pleading and things getting worse and worse, you finally heard it.

The general agreed with you.

He too voiced concerns of the old and new villagers not getting along.

And, to your surprise, he told you that he had a plan for something that would bring everyone together, but that he would need your help to enact it.

Your heart soared.

You bounced up and down excitedly, ready to do anything and everything necessary to make everyone happy with the changes.

The general came forth and handed you a piece of paper.

On it, a strange contraption had been drawn out.

It seemed to be a seat of some kind, maybe even a chair, but much more fortified.

The seat itself seemed to be connected to a set of stocks in the front and was designed to fit into a sort of foundation as a fixture. 

The drawn design came accompanied by numerical measurements already taken into account.

On the side of the paper, a list of materials had also been written out.

You studied the paper for a moment, trying to figure out what it was or how it would help boost village morale. 

You dared to ask the man those very questions.

“Don’t you worry about it,” the general said with a smile. “Can you make this?”

You had always dabbled in making and inventing new things, but you knew you certainly weren’t the best for the job.

Luckily, you know who, in the village, might be.

With a smile, you tell the general this.

“I don’t know much about tools or making things, sir,” you say, “but I know who can and I’d be happy to help out! I can even go collect these supplies for you!”

The general’s smile widened.

He nodded and dismissed you with the paper, sending you out to go get everything and everyone you would need for such an important job.

You glowed at such a task, an opportunity to make your village a nicer and more peaceful place again.

You raced off to start on your very important job. 

You hurried in gathering the materials.

You borrowed your father’s tools to shop and carve the planks of wood into the correct shapes.

You spoke with Old Mr. Belton about molding the iron for all the necessary brackets and joints. 

You were able to use Mrs. Lydia’s cart to go and fetch the stone and clay needed for the foundation.

You even had just enough time left in the day to move the flowers from the communal garden in the center of the village square.

The job took about one day to collect and assemble all the right materials and two days to put it all together where it needed to be.

The wooden planks are thick and include two pairs of grooves, just as the plans had drawn out.

The iron brackets and frame holds the device together quite well.

The stone set keeps the contraption in place in the center of the village, more open and visible than anything else in Vayewood.

As you finish, you take a step back and admire your hard work.

You look upon the heavy set of seated stocks in the middle of your village, sure that the general’s plan would surely work.

You don’t know exactly how, but you are confident that such an installation will make the village a more lively and peaceful place. 

Somehow.

You wipe the seat from your forehead.

You inspect your work, alongside all of the kindly and familiar villagers who helped.

You make sure the device works as it should, lifting the stockade up and down.

You see to it that there is no warbling in the joint, that the contraption is as sturdy and strong as it possibly could be.

You imagine that the general will be quite pleased.

He may even see it as a gesture of comradery and talk to all of his people about being kinder to those that had always lived here.

You smile proudly at your work and put in the finishing touches, replanting the flowers in soil patches around the base of the stocks.

General Talius approaches you shortly after.

You look up to see him smiling down at you.

“Well done, I must say,” he says, the corners of his lips quite lifted.

He stands with his hands on his hips.

More of his people, some of them soldiers in the new guard, stand behind him also appreciating the work you’ve done.

You smile back.

“Thank you, sir!” you say proudly. “I really do hope this works! I just want everyone to be kind to one another and get along again.”

“And I think this will certainly do just that,” General Talius says. “Might want to test it first, just to make sure it works as intended.”

“Oh, I’ve tested it, sir,” you say. “All brackets are perfectly lined up. Took me several tries to get it right, and I kind of cut my fingers a little, but it’s all worth it to see everyone happy!” 

General Talius shakes his head.

“I mean… why don’t you be the first in the seat?” he asks. “You know, just to make sure it does, in fact, work as it’s supposed to.”

You turn to the device and then back to the general.

You smile and nod.

“Yes, sir!” you say. “Happy to help!”

The general watches as you climb up onto the seat.

It isn’t especially comfortable, but you nestle in quickly.

The general smirks back at you.

“Hands and feet,” he says, opening the stocks.

You place your ankles into the grooves of the device, shifting side to side to get more comfortable.

You place your wrists into the grooves as well, your body slumped forward.

The general carefully closes the stocks around them, closing the latch you made to keep both planks together.

One of his men hands him a thick key lock, of which he immediately places into the latch and closes shut.

You wriggle in place.

You feel the craftsmanship in your inability to escape or wiggle free. 

More and more you twist and squirm side to side, only to realize that you are, in fact, trapped within the stocks you made.

“See?” you ask, smiling. “I promise, I was extra careful when making everything just as you had said.”

“I see, I see,” the general says. 

His friends snicker behind him.

“Thank you again for this,” the general says. “This was a little something that I employed for the last village that I oversaw, something to keep nearly everyone occupied and content.”

He squeezes at your shoes, lifting them with ease from your feet. 

He sets the pair down beside the base of the contraption.

You feel a cool rush of air whisk across your bare soles and toes. 

You wiggle them in place, still feeling just how effectively trapped they are within the wooden planks that you helped assemble. 

Your heart flutters a bit with confusion, curiosity, then worry.

Still you smile and look back at the man.

“What was?” you ask. “And why’d you take my shoes, Mr. General Sir?” 

“They have to be off for the plan to work,” the general says. 

He turns to two of the men standing behind him and nods in your direction.

“Show them when I mean,” he says.

You watch as the two men come closer, each wearing grins of their own. 

They approach your hands and bare feet sticking out of the other side of the reinforced planks. 

They each lift a hand to your soles, warm and tender after a hard day’s work.

Their rough, callus fingers begin lightly scribbling against the plush bottoms of your feet, fully exposed and 

Your confusions come to a sharp rise as a squeak rushes up and out of your throat.

Your body clenches, your face contorting into a tight smile, as giggles quickly begin surfacing to the men’s teasing skittering against your feet.

“Aaaahhheeeehhhhhheheheheheee!! Heeheheheheeey!!” you yelp. “It tickleeeesssshahahhahah!” 

The men snicker and chuckle among themselves.

Five fingers dance and scratch freely up and down each of your bare feet.

The general simply stands back and watches.

“As it should,” he says. “You see, I’ve found a great way to ‘keep peace’ is to assign someone to be the village ‘joy bringer’, a most important role in every village that I oversee. And now, for this village, that role has been given to you. Congratulations.”

The men scribble and scratch up and down both of your tender, ticklish soles.

Each little swipe of their fingers sends bursts of tickles exploding up from your feet and echoing out through your entire body.

Your feet flail in place, but the men keep up with them well.

You squirm in your seat, unable to free yourself from the device that you made.

Sharp bursts of squeaks and yelps come through a fluttering and endless stream of giggles as the tickles become more and more potent with each second of taunting exposure.

“Eeeeeekkkhhehehhahahahahahahahaaa!! Nhahahahahaaaoooo!! I’m sooooohhahahah ticklishhhhhahahaha!!!” you cry out.

Several villagers begin to take notice of the commotion.

They come out of their huts and inch down the road, curious as to what was happening at the village square. 

The men raise both of their hands to tickle your feet, sending twenty scribbling fingers out to tease your delicate soles with a barrage of mad tickles.

You buck and scream with laughter where you sit. 

Your face burns.

Tears begin beading in your cheeks.

The tickles jolt through your senses like hundreds of little sparks per second. 

“Neeeaaaaahhhhahhahahahahahaaa!!! Ohhhhhnoooohhahhahahahahahahaaaaa!!” you giggle and squeal as your feet remain captive victim to the men’s scribbling fingers.

As more people begin gravitating toward the village square, more congregate to observe your ticklish ordeal.

They watch on with amused grins and hopeful chatter. 

The general turns away from you to address them directly.

“People of Vayewood,” the general says loudly. “My latest gift to you all, in hopes of promoting peace among the sudden changes, is this, the village joy bringer! Here, they shall remain for you to all tickle to your heart's content, in hopes that their beautiful laughter will serve as a constant reminder to be joyful.”

The people seem to connect with General Talius’s announcement.

More come out of their homes and stores to circle around the village square stockade.

As you continue to squeal and laugh, they too join in with their own chuckles of amusement.

They smile and comment about just how ticklish you are.

They express how they too would ‘like a turn’. 

Through teary eyes, you look around and see smiling faces all around you.

All the while, the fingers continue dancing and scribbling all over both of your trapped, ticklish feet.

“Geeeeeaaaaaahhhhahahahahahahaaaaa!!” you laugh. 

You buck in your seat.

You squeal and shout.

You knew faintly what it felt like to be tickled, but never to this extent, constantly and unable to get out.

And now you face a whole crowd of people who all want their share of your laughter.

The men get in a few more seconds of tickling your soles before the general calls them away.

They pull back, leaving you gasping and red-faced.

“Who’s next?” the general asks the crowd. “Don’t be shy now, this is my gift to you. Our little helper here was adamant about wanting to bring peace and happiness to you all. As such, they and their ticklish feet are now all of yours to enjoy for as long and as much as you like!” 

You don’t remember agreeing to something like this, though it does seem like something you would do to make people happy.

The crowd considers what the general said with mumbling murmurs. 

As the general and his men retreat back to the main hall, a pair of kids run up to the end of the stocks.

You know them to be the Cobbler siblings, Richie and Lorie.

The pair had somewhat a reputation for making mischief around the village while their father worked during the day. 

They snicker at you as they run up, their hands already positioned to tickle your helpless feet.

You shake your head for a moment, still catching your breath, but find yourself quickly plunged back into an assault of ticklish laughter as their skittering fingers make hungry contact with your soles. 

“Neeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhahahahahahahaaa!!” you wail out loud in bellowing laughter as more scribbling fingers rush across both of your ticklish feet at once.

You sway side to side in the seat.

Your body pulls at the stocks, unable to free yourself from the general’s design and your tireless toil.

More people show up to watch your ticklish exploitation, laughing and mocking all of your explosive reactions.

The siblings also chitter to your laughter, their fingers rushing madly up and down both of your ticklish feet while you can only squirm uselessly in place.

“Hah hah, tickle tickle!” Richie says and repeats several times.

“Awww, who’s a ticklish little baby?” Lorie taunts.

Their fingers skitter up from your heels to the bases of your toes and back down over and over again.

The sparkling ticklish sensation flushes through your body up from your incredibly sensitive feet.

It commands your body into a flurry, your arms and legs pulling wildly at the binds that keep them in place.

The perpetuity of the feeling begets a rushing shame and embarrassment from all the prying eyes enraptured by your ticklish display.

“Pleeeehahahahahahahahsssseeee!!! Nahahahahaaat my feeheeheheeheet!!” you beg.

Your cries only make the siblings more playful.

They dig their shallow nails into the plush and highly delicate surface of your soles.

With each scrape from their skinny fingers, bursts of ticklish irritation explode through your senses.

They laugh along with you, mocking you with their obvious entertainment.

“Ticklish feet, ticklish feet!” the two chanted as their fingers scurried wildly across both of your trapped soles.

Your laughter quickly fills the entire square.

You don’t know how it could possibly get louder.

It’s already attracted most of the people in the village to come and inspect the source.

Once there, they all seem to just stand around.

Many watch the display while some others talk over it.

They mumble about your apparent, and overwhelming, ticklishness.

They inch closer, eagerly awaiting their turn.

None of them, to your surprise, even make a single gesture about helping you.

“Staaahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!” you shriek as more fluttering tickles from your feet storm through your nerves.

The siblings just laugh.

For minutes on end, they freely dance all of their fingers up and down your ticklish soles.

Each touch erupts the delicate nerves within and the pair, working together, unleash dozens of scribbles seemingly every second.

After a while, Mrs. Christine Cobbler comes up to the stocks.

“Alright, that’s enough now,” she says, smiling warmly. 

You sigh as their fingers are drawn back, giving you a much needed moment to catch your breath.

“Let someone else have a turn now,” the woman says, your heart sinking a bit upon hearing it.

The children reluctantly agree, commenting how they could just come back the next day, and walk away with their mother.

As they do, another woman approaches the stockade.

It’s Mrs. Bethany Eris, a newcomer you had met not that long ago.

Mrs. Bethany was a kind woman, a middle-aged widow, who spun beautiful tapestries.

She smiles at you and plucks a stiff, black feather from her hair.

As she welcomes herself, she takes the feather and runs the razor-thin edge across the base of your toes.

The fibers stroke across the delicate skin, sending a sharp burst of tickles back through your senses.

“Eeeeeekkkkkknnneehehhahahaaa!” you clench and cry out.

The spectators watch on, chuckling and waiting to see just how Mrs. Bethany Eris would end up tickling your trapped and helpless feet.

“I do love a cute pair of ticklish tootsies,” Mrs. Eris says.

She strokes the feather back and forth, side to side.

The light and frail end scrapes across your sole, each flourishing touch casting bolts of ticklishness all through your foot.

You clench and squeal, your face deeply red as you feel the feather’s destructive kiss across your foot.

It never seems to leave, the woman gliding it side to side and up and down without ever letting the nimble fibers leave the supple and highly sensitive spots.

The longer the feather strokes, the more tickles you feel rushing through your body.

Flittering giggles quickly turn to sharp laughter. 

The tickles compound hurriedly until every little stroke of the feather sends your ticklish nerves into absolute hysteria.

“Naaaahhhhehehehehehehhahahahahahahaaa!! Nahahahahahaat the feeehehhahahahaather!!” you bellow.

You buck in your seat.

Through teary eyes, you see Mrs. Eris’s smile, backed by a sea of grins just waiting to have their turn at your ticklish feet. 

You wriggle and squirm, wondering if you could maybe wedge yourself out somehow.

But you know you can’t, or at least that you shouldn’t.

You stare around at all the smiles, you hear the laughter and the gaming comments.

You see, for the first time, old villagers and new villagers finally coming together.

They grin and bond over your ticklish display, over the installation that you helped the general make for your village.

As much as it tickles already, you feel the weight of responsibility on your shoulders, pressing you down into that chair.

You never imagined that such an endeavor would lead to something like this, but if it’s what brings everyone together…

“Gaaaaahhhhahahahahahahahaaaa!! Naahhahahahahaaaaoooo!! I’m too ticklisshhhhhhahahahahaa!!” you scream, to the delight of everyone listening.

“Yes, I can see that,” Mrs. Eris says.

She strokes the feather up and down one foot while raising her long and sturdy nails to the other.

A new, bursting wave of ticklishness overcomes you as five nails lightly scribbling across one foot sends screaming tickles all throughout the area.

The rising intensity leaves your senses erupting with maddening tickles.

The light, delicate scraping of one tool coupled with the skittering assault by the woman’s hand against your soft, helpless feet is more than enough to leave you shrieking where you sit, your frantic laughter merely an amusement for all those that came to watch and listen.

“Naaaaahahhhhhhehehahhahahahahaaaaaa!! Ohhhhh gaahahahahahahahaaaa!!!” you bellow.

You’ve never even fully imagined or considered tickling as intense as this.

You thrash in the stocks, your feet shifting side to side.

You curl your toes to better protect yourself, but your beaming ticklishness is far too reactive to give you any amount of relief.

You try harder and harder to pull your hands away, only to be reminded of the effectiveness of your own craftsmanship.

You can only sit, sit and endure the tickles against your exposed feet for the delight of the village. 

Even as you scream with laughter, and your face darkens with deep rouge, you still manage to see it as the general described it, a privilege and a much-needed service.

“Our leader couldn't have found a cuter joy bringer,” Mrs. Eris says. “I’ll be sure to come back at least once a day to pay this one a visit.”

The woman laughs and gets in a few more lingering seconds of tickling before finally pulling back.

She smirks proudly as she turns to face the crowd, leaving you fighting to catch your breath and placing the feather back into her hair.

Even without the tickles, your feet still tingle in the memory of her touch.

You suck down needful breaths, wondering when your duties as the village ‘joy bringer’ would go on for.

Brief dread sets in as you see the newcomer boys, the ones who had destroyed Lady’s Janson’s crops the day they had arrived, come running up to you.

You gaze back at the snickering faces of the three boys, you believe their names to be Conner, Scotty, and Pip. 

“Awww, someone got themselves made the new joy bringer,” Pip says.

“Let’s see just how much joy this one’s able to bring,” Conner adds.

Before you can say anything that might object, you feel another surge of scribbling fingers descend upon your vulnerable, bare soles.

The boys’ roughly playful touch greets your feet with a barrage of violent tickles.

The intensive rush hits your senses with a flurry of maddening stimulation, tingling surges screaming through your nerves up from your trapped soles.

Immediately, you let out a shrieking wail as your body tenses and you clench into a convulsing mass where you sit.

“Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhahahahahahahahahahaaa!! Nahahahhahahaaaooooo!! Stahahahahahaaaap!!!” you scream with ticklish laughter.

Your cries echo over the village square.

Your expressions fall only on those amused and entertained by your service.

You thrash in place, your explosive reactions being the target of the boys’ mischievous mocking.

“Ha ha, looks like someone’s got super ticklish feet!” Scotty teases.

“Oh yeah, we’re gonna have so much fun with this one!” Pip says.

Conner holds back one of your feet, keeping it painfully steady, while his fingers rake up and down your taut and delicate arch.

Pip scribbles all ten of his fingers up and down and all over your other sole, his skittering approach just as abrasive as his callous remarks and laughter.

Scotty stands by to give more teases and to step in when one of the boys wants to watch for a bit.

All the while, immeasurable tickles erupt through your senses.

You can only feel the tickles raging up from your frail and fragile soles.

You shake your head as tears fling from your eyes.

Sweat trickles down your neck and back. 

Your body fights back, pulling against the stocks holding your feet and hands, but to no useful degree.

Even in your breathless hysteria, you try to remain positive.

The people are being brought together, just like you wanted.

The villagers, both new and old, are sharing in something for once.

People can smile and laugh and remain engaged in something mutual.

It is, for what you can see, exactly what you wanted all along.

“Staaaahhahahahahahahahaaaaap!! It tickleeeeessshahahahahahahaaaa!!!” you squeal with gasping giggles.

“How about this?” Conner asks.

The boy grabs both of your big toes and holds them back, keeping your flailing feet nice and steady.

“Nice!” Pip says, as he and Scotty swoop into your immobilized feet with both hands out.

Twenty fingers return to your ticklish soles, scribbling furiously with the added effect of being able to access the entirety of both with ease.

Unable to move them as defensively as you had, you let out another piercing wail of giggling laughter.

Twenty shallow fingers scribble and scrape all over both of your ticklish soles.

The boys chuckle as Conner holds your feet steady for his mischievous friends to torment at their pace and leisure.

“GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAHhhahahahahahahahaaa!!! Naahahahahahahaaaaoooo!!!” you bellow.

The boys mock your laughter.

They make fun of you for all of your frantic expressions.

The audience you’ve acquired makes an amused note of your current state of ticklish hysteria, none of which seem interested in stopping the joy you’re entrusted to bring.

The boys scribble on menacingly, their fingers exploring every inch of your ticklish soles again and again.

You buck where you sit.

Your pull side to side.

As much as your body tries instinctively to free itself against the maddening onslaught of tickles, you do all that you can to hold out, bearing as much as you can the idea that it’s all meant for something good, something to help the entire village coexist in peace.

Hours go by on that first day.

The boys get called home for dinner and more villagers come to observe your ticklishness personally.

Some tickle for only a few minutes, their tickling more careful and driven more by curiosity than anything.

Others are far more invested in pushing your quickly dwindling limits.

You endured it all with gasping laughter and a fading disposition.

By nightfall, many villagers' fingers have gotten to know the ticklishness of your feet personally. 

You continue to sit, even after people have gone back to their homes and shops.

The night brings a solemn chill.

Crickets cry out in the flower patches and local groves.

You huff where you sit, still feeling the tingling of the tickles against your still-trapped soles.

As the last villager leaves you to remain in the stocks, you hear the footsteps of someone else approaching.

Your eyes waft and blink through the lingering exhaustion, your stomach aching from the hours of constant laughing.

You look up to see the grinning face of General Talius, staring down at you.

“You should be proud,” he says. “The joy bringer is a very serious position, one that I established myself.” 

You say nothing, your voice far too tired and hoarse to speak.

You see through wavering eyelids that the tall man before you carries a glass bottle in one hand.

“Every village I come to lead needs quelling from the locals,” he continues. “Something to keep them preoccupied. Happy. Content. That’s when I got the idea from someone just like you many years ago. They too wanted to bring peace to their home and an idea just clicked.”

The man comes around to the front of the stocks.

He stares down at your feet, blushing brightly and slumped inward, tired from hours of constant squirming.

“They were also really ticklish and really came to like their position as joy bringer,” General Talius continues. “Still does, I’d imagine. Since then, it’s been village after village implementing this very important position, one of the most valuable that I’ve ever employed.”

He pushes back one of your feet against the front face of the stocks. 

He sets down the glass bottle, takes a length of twine from his pocket, and begins running it around your big toe.

He pulls it back and weaves it through the hole of the stock, curling the twine up and around the top.

In a makeshift effort, he tightens the twine in a way that pulls and holds your big toe back against the face of the wood, keeping your foot still as your sole faces outward.

You wiggle your foot a bit, unsure if you’re unable to move it much at all from the sting or if you’re just that exhausted.

“And now, you get the privilege of being my newest joy bringer,” General Talius says as he begins tying back your other big toe.

As he finishes, he leans back to inspect his work.

You cannot move either foot much at all.

You already couldn’t free them from the stocks, but the twine makes it clear how little you’re even able to flail or protect your soles even in the slightest.

The general chuckles to himself. 

He bends down and picks up the glass bottle.

The bushes around the surrounding houses and in the nearby groves begin to rustle.

As you look to inspect, you can feel a gentle warmth being poured down your feet.

You jump a bit, as the ticklish barrage had made your feet quite sensitive, and look to see what it was.

The general carefully poured a thick and milky stream from the neck of the bottle down upon your feet.

The substance splaces up onto the tops of your feet, but was most concentrated around your toes as it dripped down the lengths of your soles.

The rustling around you begins to stir more.

You watch and feet the substance covering, several layers thick, all over your soles.

It manages to slip in between and underneath your toes.

Your feet squirm against it, but can do nothing against the ties holding them back against the wood.

“Wh… wha….?” you try to ask sleepily.

The general just chuckles.

“Remember, it is the duty of the joy bringer to make all the villagers happy,” General Talius says.

He empties the bottle, having coated both of your soles and toes in a thick layer of cream that drips down and onto the ground below you.

The man smiles and walks over to a nearby shop.

He drags over a wide square table, setting it down right in front of the stocks.

Figures begin emerging in the shadows of the bushes around you, converging around the device that you had helped create earlier that day. 

With the empty bottle in hand, the man flashes you one more grin.

“‘All’ of the villagers,” he says.

As he turns to walk back to his personal quarters, you hear a soft thump.

You look down at where your feet face helplessly outward from the stocks.

Your eyes widen as you see the hungry face of a black cat inspecting the scene.

Its nose twitches in the air just as another cat leaps from the ground and onto the table.

Both take quick note of your feet, smelling only the milky treat coating your delicate skin.

You feel the cream beginning to stick to your toes.

You give the general one last confused look, seeing neither him, or anyone else, anywhere nearby.

As you’ve only barely recovered from the ordeal of having your trapped feet tickled all day, the black cat walks up to your bound soles.

It sniffs for a moment, its nose lightly tapping against the base of your toes, before its rough, petite tongue begins to lap at the spot.

You clench, once again feeling the ticklish rush against your sensitive foot.

You let out a soft shriek before succumbing to a fit of rapid giggles. 

“Nooooeeeeeeeehhhhahahahahaheheheeheheee!!”

Your feet curl and pull against the twine holding them back, but can move in no great exaggeration, no useful degree that might deter the feline’s efforts.

The cat makes itself comfortable as its tongue focuses on a single spot, a space right at the bottom of your frail and ticklish toe stems.

The other cat approaches quickly after.

It too sniffs the other foot before starting to lap around your soft and taut arch.

Another burst of tickles floods through your senses.

The tickles of the tongues are minute, but quick and heavily concentrated.

A flurry of giggles rises up through your throat once more, growing ever more deeper the longer the tickles remain.

Your tired body struggles again.

Your squeal with tired fits of laughter as you pull weakly at the stocks holding you down.

“Ohhhgaaahahhahahahahahaaaaa!! Pleehehehehaase!! Nhahahahaaaooo more!!” you squeal.

The cats lick with no mind to your pleas and diminutive squirming. 

They lick hungrily, guided solely by the impulse to lap at a tasty treat with no regard to the tickles that each swipe of their tongue sends through your bound soles.

As you wriggle and shriek with more ticklish laughter, more cats begin appearing around the base of the stocks.

Your laughter calls to them much the same way as does the scent of the cream.

They jump up onto the table, eyeing down the morsels before them with peckish expressions.

Some ease in slowly, carefully, while others simply stay back and wait for their turn to lick.

You see their faces eagerly wanting nothing more than to lick at the cream draped across your immensely ticklish feet.

You shriek and laugh more and more with each darting graze of their tongues.

Their licks reach all around your toes, slipping in between to collect the cream having concentrated in those delicate crevasses.

Their licks traverse up and down your soles, each completely apathetic to your cries of laughter.

You thrash in place as the tickles, once again, consume your feet, ushered only by the feverish need of all the cats to enjoy a delicious lap of milk.

You gasp through your laughter, feeling only the tickles that pulse through your trapped feet and the helplessness of being unable to stop them.

It falls within that first night that this is your position now, the bringer of joy, even to the animals that inhabit the village.

Even as you groan through your laughter.

Even as the tickles command your senses and leave you gasping for air.

Even as you know that the next day will bring much the same, followed by the next and then the next.

You keep, in the front of your mind, the gleaming thought that you do play an important part in the harmony of your home.

That this,

Even if you never imagined it,

Even as your crying laughter echoes through the streets and calls out in the night,

Is what you asked for.