Story #124: The Futility of Force:

Story #124: The Futility of Force: (A sequel to Story #40: 'Strength Made Meaningless') (Content Tags: Messy diapers, enslavement, fantasy world, classism, humiliation, degradation, mild bondage, mild torture) The great Zanthen empire, a bedrock of arcane academia and refined culture, and also the biggest supplier of 'forced labor' this side of the continent. The Half-Moon clan had been their most recent acquisition, and could probably be seen as their most important one as well. Those barbarians had laid waste to countless settlements around the coast, and only an army such as the Zanthen had the means to contend with such brutes. King Argostle hadn't planned to make a move against the clan until the moment had been just right; as cruel as it may seem, there was strategy in allowing the barbarians to run wild for so long. It made it so much easier to take those conquered territories as new lands for the empire, without having to impact their own image by doing so by force. Those people became ecstatic to assimilate, so long as that meant protection and stability. If the king had acted earlier, then it was less likely that they would have been so willing to part with their autonomy. The Zanthen had continued to colonize, but now they could do so under the title of saviors. It had been all-in-all a perfect move. The kingdom had been expanded, their name praised, the savages defeated, and the survivors captured. For how powerful the Half-Moon were as warriors, they'd been completely outmatched by the numbers and power of the Zanthen forces. The king would keep some of them as forced conscripts, with magical binding to keep them in check, and some of the clan would be allowed to freely stay within the kingdom at the lowest caste, but many of the warriors would be sold off to neighboring kingdoms. Regulus, the chieftain of the Half-Moons, had piqued the interest of the king in particular. The most prudent option would have been to publicly execute him, as to destroy the morale of his clan, while representing a victory to the kingdom; instead, the king considered the utility of keeping him as a prisoner, to both keep his disparate tribe under check and to make use of his skills as a seasoned conqueror. Similarly, the young prince had deigned to keep the chieftain's son for some of the same reasons. Prince Celeste didn't have any need for the knowledge that the chieftain's son had, but he did see the value in using the little boy as a means to break the tribe. While the chieftain was to be kept as a prisoner and a slave, his son would be kept as a pet. And like any pet, the barbarian boy would need to be domesticated and housebroken; the young warrior would need to learn the value of obedience to his superiors, and it'd be a painful lesson indeed. The prince had already made sure that the other boy was to be in nappies, much like a pet chimpanzee, and he'd 'leashed' him with his magic to keep him from being able to fight or flee. Being royalty, Celeste already had a smug view of the world, where he thought himself to be better than those of common blood; but in the case of the barbarians, he saw them on a level even lower than that, as if they really were just animals to be put to work. "Do you have a name? Is that something your kind is capable of?" Had come his pompous voice, once he'd been walking his 'pet' back inside the castle, while the barbarian's nappy was full of his own dung. "Draz." The boy grumbled quietly as he crawled upon his hands and knees, the cloth garment around his waist sagging behind him with his own filth; flies buzzed around the fumes of his disgrace, adding insult to injury. "Hmm...Well, I'll have to think about what your new name will be. You can't have a pet without naming it." The prince tapped at his chin. "My name is Draz. Draz of the Half-moon. A warrior's name can not be changed." Draz seethed. "Can a warrior's nappy be changed? Because you smell something terrible. Perhaps that should be your name, hmm? Stinky?" Celeste laughed, keeping a hand on the ethereal chain that leashed to the barbarian's collar. Celeste had called upon a servant to do the dirty work of changing Draz, and he'd mentioned that the boy was also in need of being washed, as he was filthy. As much as the prince enjoyed keeping his pet in a dirty state, it simply wasn't becoming to have such a filthy vermin crawling around the castle. The servant had nodded their understanding, and after dealing with Draz's loaded nappy, the barbarian had been taken to the bathing room to be cleaned spotless. It'd made for a difficult task, since the half-moon clan wasn't known for regularly bathing. Aside from playing in the river or walking in the rain, Draz pretty much never cleaned the grime from his body, and he spent a lot of time getting dirty in the elements. It was actually respectable in his culture to be dirty, as it inferred that one was diligent and at one with nature. So to be scrubbed completely clean was yet another indignity; it was another dishonor being put onto him. After he'd been bathed, he was put into another thick nappy, and then led back out. Draz had obviously considered escape during his bath; the idea of fleeing while nude wasn't one that dissuaded him, as he had little shame over his body, but it was the lack of a formed strategy that stopped him. His people were in chains, the castle was unfamiliar, he was unarmed, and he had this magical collar around his neck. Trying to escape now, without any thought put into it, would almost assuredly end in failure. A failed escape attempt would also make it harder in the future to get a chance, since it'd put the castle on alert. He needed to take this more slowly and methodically than he was accustomed to, and that unfortunately meant that he'd have to rely more on his mind than his muscles, which wasn't something he was very good at. That also meant he'd be the pet of this pompous prince for the foreseeable future, for all the indignity that would cause. It made him genuinely wish that he was being treated as one of the imprisoned members of his clan, where at least he would be allowed to retain a shred of his pride and suffer in solidarity. The castle may provide creature comforts, but those were nothing to him if it meant to sacrifice the dignity that a future chieftain should have. As to be expected, Draz was led back to the prince's side. Not in the prince's personal quarters, but in what looked to be a grand archive of texts. Shelves neatly lined with countless tomes and texts that stretched throughout the entirety of the room. The half-moon clan had little use of such things, and only a small handful of their 'scholars' were literate to the point that they'd have a chance reading any of this. Draz himself wasn't literate past the crude, insular hieroglyphs that his tribe used; he could speak the common tongue of the continent, but reading or writing it was something that he was completely unable to do. At some point, he might have learned those basics, since it was a valuable skill for the leader to have, but that would have been years away. Their tribe valued strength above all else, and while the more intellectually curious and artistic were still appreciated for what they could do, even they were required to become skilled combatants. Draz, being the heir to the clan, had been put through brutal training from birth to earn the title that his blood reserved for him. He was only nine, which was probably only a little younger than Celeste was, but Draz was easily as strong as two or three adult men, and capable enough in combat to rival a small platoon alone. Which made this current state of affairs all the more abhorrent. Draz was being kept on a leash by a boy that he could slay with both hands tied behind his back. Without their precious magic and technology, the Zanthen would have been torn apart in mere minutes! "You look confused, my pet. This is a 'library', it is where us people sit to read 'books'. Do you know what a book is? Imagine if someone's words could be captured onto paper..." The prince's condescending tone was enough to boil the barbarian's blood. Draz hated being talked down to, especially by someone that he considered to be so weak and pathetic. "This is where your demon magic comes from, and those spark-sticks!" Celeste laughed at the outburst, "Yes, I suppose that you are right in a way. These books hold the combined knowledge of the entire continent; or at least what is curated to the royal archive as being most useful. Our empire has been scouring the lands for every scrap! You shouldn't act so sanctimonious about 'demon magic' though; your clan has some things that will find their place in this archive." It sounded so wrong! Pillaging should be about taking wealth and resources, not musty old scrolls and tomes! And what could his clan have that would fit these shelves? "My people are warriors, not poets." "Barbarian poetry? Spare me such a wretched thought of what *that* would be. No, my silly little pet. Have you ever considered what the runes on your weapons are? Or how extensively you have charted the stars? There's more to your filthy brood than just swords and sweat." Celeste tapped at a book on a table, "What you call the favor of the gods, is little more than powerful arcana being imbued into your weapons, just like the sort that we can glean from these texts. Just like the collar I put around your neck." The barbarian frowned and continued to glare in silence. This topic was altogether irrelevant to him, and in honesty, felt much more like an excuse for the prince to further boast about the conquest. "Now, now, don't sulk. I only say it as a compliment. Does it not feel good to know that you animals were able to contribute to the greatest empire on the planet? To be a tiny wheel in an enormous machine? From you personally though, there isn't much for you to offer, except perhaps manure for the fields with that nappy of yours." Celeste laughed again, but that died quickly when he realized that Draz wasn't responding. What fun was it to mock a statue? He clicked his tongue and approached his plaything with a stern demeanor, "Your lack of obedience is a real problem, barbarian. As is your general lack of respect for your betters." Still nothing in response, except for a steely-eyed stare. Draz refused to show this worm any reverence; he'd take the honor of execution before he'd allow himself to continue to be a toy for a spoiled brat like Celeste. "I gracefully decide not to muzzle you and you still refuse to speak when spoken to. You would have been better off never speaking in the first place; that way, I wouldn't have expected it of a lowly beast such as yourself." The prince stated, his tone shifting from amusement to irritation. Celeste always got whatever he desired, and people bent over backwards to accommodate his every whim; that was his birthright as prince! To have this feral child continue to deny him, to disrespect him, was an affront to everything he knew. The prince wouldn't stand for such insolence. "Last chance to speak up, boy. Use those words of yours to apologize; grovel at my boots for forgiveness, and I might be merciful enough to give it." Celeste growled, standing right in front of the padded warrior. Draz had no words, not when his words were what Celeste most wanted. Instead, he cocked his head back and spit right onto the boy's face. Celeste stood there in shock, and the sound of his guards unsheathing their blades could be heard throughout the library. The prince threw up a hand to quell their instinct, and took a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away the disrespect from his face. "I have a peculiar feeling that you don't understand your predicament, nor your new position. It is my fault, really. I shouldn't have expected that tiny, primitive brain of yours to easily retain any of what I've told you. Lucky for you, patience is an exalted virtue of royalty." Celeste raised his hand again and murmured some gibberish that Draz couldn't understand. As he performed the incantation, a crackling of electricity began to surround his arm and focus onto his palm, and then onto his outstretched finger. "Discipline is another virtue, and I'll be sure to strike enough into you, so that you come to understand its value. My first mistake was thinking I could reason with you like a person, when I should be training you like the pet that you are." Celeste moved his finger downward, the sparks surrounding it in a dense aura of lightning. Draz had little time to appreciate how stunning it looked, as the finger found its way prodding against his side. Being a child of combat, Draz was no stranger to pain. Being a half-moon warrior, pain had to become a minor nuisance, if not a masochistic pleasure. This however, was a pain that Draz had never encountered, and one that he couldn't be prepared for. Upon the jolt spreading throughout his body, he let out a pitiful shriek and fell to his knees. The sharp pain subsided briefly after he had fallen, reducing to an uncomfortable tingle throughout, but a spreading warmth around his groin spoke to another effect that the shock had. "Looks like my pet decided to piddle on the rug; good thing he's swaddled like a babe, hmm?" Draz quietly groaned, still in pain, but he cautiously looked down and saw the end of a yellow stain growing across the bulky garment around his waist. "Now, are you ready to apologize? For your rudeness? I take no pity on using my spell on you again, so think wisely." Celeste plainly told him, holding up his fingers as a threat. "...I have nothing to say to you." It was a bold move, but that didn't make it the right one. Refusing to swallow his pride in the face of certain torment, when his pride afforded him nothing but personal comfort, was beyond foolish. There was nothing to gain by being so hardheaded, and yet Draz still considered it a victory. "That's an improvement, to at least speak again. That isn't what I asked of you though. I told you to apologize, to grovel, and I still fully expect you to acknowledge my authority over you. Perhaps I need to increase the incentive." The electric current began to surround the prince's hand again, focusing onto his fingertips. Celeste was more aggressive this time, striking the barbarian in the gut with the voltage coursing through his fingers. Draz let out another noisy cry, his ego unable to prevent the biological reality of what such an attack would do to him. The boy could feel his muscles contract and spasm in wild intervals, and he fell onto his hands in agony. Much like the first attack had stimulated his bladder into emptying, the same was now being done to his bowels. Draz wouldn't have been able to stop it, even if he'd been aware that it was happening. A wet bout of wind broke against the bulky bulwark of his cloth nappy, as if to herald the advent of a cataclysm with trumpets. Without any active prompting from Draz himself, his gut was working against him, put completely in the control of the tyrannical tyke who had hurt him. A firm load snaked its way out, and then right behind it a mucky mire of magmatic mush exploded into the nappy like a cannonball into a wall, and the damage was comparable too. The garment bulged, swelled, and stained all in the matter of five seconds. "Another dung-pie in your nappy? So soon? I hesitate to say that you're even capable of being properly housebroken." Celeste smugly scoffed, looking down at the barbarian before him. "But that doesn't mean I'll give up. It just means that you will need a very firm hand to guide you. Now, after you finish soiling yourself, we can get back to that apology..."