Elf and Orc

Well, they finally had caught her.

Slavers and hunters had gone after her band before, and always they had managed to avoid the slave-hunters. Sometimes they had even turned the tables, taking captives themselves, to torment and then sell. But this last orcish hunter was craftier than the others. Over the weeks he had trapped her band-sisters, one by one, taking them away to be sold at auction. Perhaps it had been a mistake to burn down his cabin and steal his horses, provoking him into a slave-hunt.

Or perhaps not. She had grown to admire him over the course of the hunt, as he had taken her band-sisters until she was the last one left. He was hardy, and resourceful, and knew the forest as well as any wood-elf. His hair was as black as a high-elf’s skin, but his own skin was unnaturally pale. Not the nut-brown of a wood-elf like herself, or even the tanned-leather-brown of the few humans she had seen. Rather it was the color of dried grass, under the green clothing he always wore.

He moved easily despite her weight on his shoulder, wrapped in the net that had finally trapped her. His hands were strong, with blunt, clean nails rather than the claws she had expected. No, she could not regret the way her band had provoked this hunt. They had gambled, and their opponent had won fairly. She would not begrudge him his victory, no matter how complete.

Reaching the clearing where his rebuilt cabin stood, he set her down and drew his knife. He had already taken her own knives from her, of course. He cut away the net, then her clothing, and finally her moccasins, leaving her nude on the grass. “Crawl on your belly to the post, for chaining,” he ordered her.

She disobeyed, rising to her knees before him, lowering her head and extending her crossed wrists. “Master. I submit myself to you.” She had dreamed, occasionally, of a strong Master taking her as his pleasure-slave. She hadn’t dreamed that her master would be an orc - not until the last hunt had begun.

He laughed bitterly. “No elf would submit to an orc. Not even a wood-elf. Your band-sisters were annoyed enough at having to acknowledge me as their captor - and were glad enough when I sold them to that slaver. That high-and-mighty elven slaver. You mock me, elf-maid.”

“No, master,” she said. “Please.” Silence stretched, and she began to tremble.

“Very well then, elf-slave,” he said at last. “On your belly, hands behind your back for binding. I accept your submission, until I can prove it false. And may the High Ones have mercy on you when I do.”

“Yes, master,” she breathed, obeying him. His strong hands tied her wrists with a length of slavers’ rope.

“Your skin is nearly as dark as a high elf’s,” he said, running his hands lightly over it. “If that’s not just dirt. And your hair is filthy.”

“It’s dyed, master.”

He ran his fingers through it. “So it is. You’ll need a bath before you can be sold. And food; I can see your ribs under the dirt.” Picking her up lightly, he took her to the wooden platform of his outdoor shower bath, and leashed her with another length of slaver’s rope. “Stay there,” he ordered. “If you’ve moved when I return, I will switch you.”

Tears sprang to her eyes as she awaited his return. The fates were cruel to her, to make her fall in love with an orc. Her band-sisters would be sold in the City by now, sold to the ebony-skinned lords of the high elves, masters who would put them in silver collars and have them trained in the arts of love and obedience. As for herself, she had delayed her capture for as long as she could, knowing it was futile in the end. But she hadn’t expected this to happen. Worse, she hadn’t expected her captor to treat her merely as a captor, spurning her submission. She wanted to fling herself flat on the wooden planks, sobbing, but she couldn’t. Her leash was too short. She had to kneel and await the return of her master.

He returned soon enough, coming out of his rebuilt cabin with a bundle: Soap, a towel, combs, brushes and other oddments, and a switch. “Do you see this switch, elf-maid?” he asked.

“Yes, master!”

“Your skin is too delicate and dark for a proper whip, or even for a broad-fingered slave lash.” He set the switch aside. “I will not switch you now, but I will use it if you are the least bit disobedient. Or if it amuses me. Do you understand, elf-maid?”

“Yes, master!”

“Good.” He reached over her head to drench her with sun-warmed water, then began to apply the soap. It took time to clean the dirt from her skin, and the brown dye from her hair. His hands were not rough, but they were very firm, and she shivered at their casual, irresistible strength. They could punish her terribly if he chose to do so. But they didn’t - yet. They just woke a desire that grew in her belly.

He drenched her with more water, rinsing the soap and dirt away, then sat to comb her hair. It felt different, now that it had been cleaned. Longer, and more feminine. He toweled her dry, and brushed her hair so that it fell behind her ears and down her back. He picked up a bead collar and ordered her “Kneel very straight and still, elf-maid.” She obeyed, closing her eyes. He removed the leash from her neck, and collared her.

“Do you fear me, elf-maid?” he asked.

“Yes master. No master. A little.” Her eyes were still closed, and she felt confused, but she answered as honestly as she could.

He chuckled, and picked up something. “Look at yourself, elf-maid.”

She opened her eyes and looked in the mirror he held. Even with the dirt removed, her skin was still darker than that of most wood elves, if not the perfect jet black of a high elf. Her ears were large and pointed, in contrast to the human-like ears of her orcish master, and her features were elven-sharp. Her eyes were bright blue, and her now-clean hair a paler, sky-blue. The collar around her throat was a string of beads, large and colorful. It was a capture-collar; the shape and color of the beads coded the identity of the hunter who had caught her.

He took the mirror away. “You are too skinny; you had been starving yourself when you were trying to avoid me. We will have to feed you well, before you are fit for sale. But first...” He grinned, showing yellow teeth that made his white fangs stand out in contrast, took her, and used her, exercising his capture rights on her.

He then took her into his cabin to feed her. “I can count your ribs, and you need to build up your strength if you are to properly please your master.” He sat on the low platform holding his sleeping furs and made her kneel at his feet. She ate from his hands, her own wrists still bound behind her, daintily at first, and then eagerly, licking his fingers. She willed and wished that her master would accept her.

“What’s your name, elf-slave?” he asked, when she had finished.

“Nibelle, if it pleases master. I am called Nibelle.” Then she shrank from him as a glint of anger came into his yellow-brown eyes. “Forgive me master,” she whispered.

“You have no name,” he told her. “You are a nameless elf-slave. You have no name unless your master gives you one.”

“Forgive me master,” she repeated, as he reached for the switch. “Your poor, nameless elf-slave begs for mercy!” He switched her, stinging her rear and the soles of her feet. The blows stung, unpleasant but not unbearable, but the switching punished her well for the humiliation of it burned. “Mercy, master!” she cried, and squirmed on her belly to kiss his feet.

“Huh,“ he grunted, apparently satisfied. But that night she slept in a slave sack. It was warm, and soft enough, - and lonely. Her hands, tied to her waist, balled into tiny frustrated fists as she looked at her master on his sleeping furs and wished that she were with him.

She slept in the slave sack for the next several nights. Each morning, her master would release her from the sack and make her dance outside, on the dew-wet grass until she drooped with fatigue. Then he would feed her and chain her, and leave to hunt and trap for the day.

The chain between her wrist-shackles was a long one, and would not have interfered much with her duties of cleaning the small cabin if it weren’t for the heavy iron weight it threaded through. The chain between her ankles was shorter, hobbling her steps. With both chains locked on her she could walk slowly, with mincing steps, while carrying the iron weight in both hands, but most of the time she spent sitting, crawling, and kneeling, with the iron weight resting on the floor.

In the evening, her master would return, and she would crawl on her belly to kiss his feet. “I submit myself, master,” she’d say.

“Huh,” he’d answer. “You pretend well, elf-slave. But no elf would truly submit to an orc. Not even a wood elf.” Still, he would unchain and feed her, tying her wrists behind her and making her eat from his hands.

He also made frequent use of his capture rights on her, and on occasion he would switch her - punishing her for some small infraction, teaching her her slavery. And each night, he would tie her again in the slave sack while he stretched on his sleeping furs.

After a fortnight of captivity, she could feel her strength building. It was still only a fraction of her master’s strength, of course. He could easily defeat with one arm any effort she made with her own two. But she could dance for longer periods each morning before her fatigue showed and he ordered her to stop.

One day, her morning dances were interrupted by three riders on horseback. They were high-elves from the City: Tall and ebony-skinned, with white hair and pale blue eyes. Her own skin would have turned pale, when she saw them, if its nut-brown color would have allowed it. As it was, she felt the blood rush from her face, and she knelt, bowing her head.

Two of them were guardsmen, and the third was a Lady, richly dressed and elegant on her horse. She looked on the naked elf-slave and snorted, and a nod sent one of her guardsmen forward.

“Greetings, Hunter,” the guardsman said.

“Guardsman,” her orcish master returned a respectful nod.

“My Lady wishes to purchase your captive.” He pulled out a purse, and the elf-slave shuddered. Better to be a wine slave, available for the use of all the wine-shop’s patrons, than to belong to a Lady of the City. A wine slave had a hard life, but she might hope to be purchased if she caught the fancy of a master. And a master could be kind, even to a lowly wood-elf slave, if the slave were perfectly obedient and sufficiently pleasing. A Lady, however, could never be pleased, no matter how perfectly her slave-maid obeyed.

The orcish master did not move as the purse landed heavily at his feet. He looked up at the mounted guardsman for a long moment, then scooped up the purse and tossed it back.

“This captive is not yet ready for sale,” he said. “She’s still too skinny, and still needs training.” He smiled, showing his yellow teeth. “I would not wish to cheat your Lady by selling her a maiden who would faint at every little thing.”

“I see.” The guardsman looked down on the kneeling elf-slave, and a smile flickered on his own face. “And I do not blame you for wanting to exercise your capture-rights before putting her on the block.”

“But I have exercised my capture rights,” her master said. “Many times. It is part of her training, you see.” The Lady, sitting a short distance away, snorted again and jerked her head to call her guardsman back.

The guardsman drew his horse around. “I see,” he repeated, and raised his hand in salute. “I wish you well, Hunter.”

The orc returned the salute. “I wish you well, Guardsman.” The three mounted figures rode off. Once they were gone, the orc cracked his whip over the wood-elf’s head. “Dance, elf-slave,” he commanded. “You are not yet finished, this morning. Dance!“ He cracked the whip again, and she sprang to her feet.

“Yes master!“ she cried as she began to dance again. “Thank you master!“

“Huh,“ he grunted, and cracked the whip a third time. “Be glad I was in a good mood! Keep dancing!”

She danced to the occasional cracks of his whip until he ordered her to stop. Then she dropped to her knees before him and extended her arms, wrists crossed. “I submit myself, master,” she gasped as she tried to control her breathing.

“Are you still pretending, elf-slave?” he asked. “Confess now, and I’ll show you mercy. But if I ever prove your submission false, I will sell you to a Lady.”

“No master,” she gasped. “Your lowly captive truly submits to you. Truly!”

“We shall see,” he said.

A few days later, he returned early from his hunting, bringing a brace of ducks and ordering her to roast them. For this, he allowed her to wear an apron, the first clothing that he had permitted her since her capture.

“Thank you, master,” she said as he tied the apron strings behind her.

“Your dainty dark skin will need protection from the fire,” he told her. “And to keep you from becoming too proud...” He locked bells on her left wrist and right ankle, brass slave-bells that would announce her lowly status with ever move she made. She turned to look at him in silence when he finished. He leered at her, and reached out.

“Oh!” she cried when he pinched her, and jumped back with a tingling of bells.

A grin split his broad, sallow face. “Bring beer,” he ordered. “Then get to work, lazy elf-slave.”

“Yes master!” she cried as she hurried to obey.

He sat on the sleeping furs, taking an occasional pull at his beer as he watched her work. The delicious smells of roast duck, wild rice, and wild berries filled the small cabin. As his curt orders, she prepared biscuits as well, and set out the human-produced butter and honey. When all was ready, she set it out on a tray and presented it to him. “A nameless elf-slave hopes that she pleases her master,” she said.

He smiled at the food, and then at her. “You didn’t poison this meal, did you?” he asked.

“No master!” she denied, shaking her head.

“But you did think about it, eh?”

She hesitated. “Yes, master,” she admitted. She dared not lie, not to him.

“Well, then.” He took the tray from her. “Hands behind!” he ordered, then bound her wrists. Once she was secured, they ate, with him feeding her from each dish before eating it himself. “You cooked this well,” he told her. “But if you poisoned it, you will suffer as well. Besides, you are still a little too skinny.”

Afterwards, he cleaned his hands, and her face. “It was delicious,” he told her as he freed her wrists. “And it seems that you didn’t poison it after all. Now: Strip!” She stripped off the apron. “The hair-band as well.” She removed the ribbon that had tied her hair out of the way while she cooked. He sat back on his sleeping furs, watching her as she knelt before him, naked except for the string of beads that made up her capture-collar. A smile flickered on his face. “You are not as bony as you were at first,” he said at last. “And your hair is better, too.” He reached out to stroke the sky-blue hair that fell down her back. It had been brushed twice each day: Sometimes he would brush it while she knelt with her hands bound before her, and sometimes he would have her brush it herself, while he stood over her with the switch.

He tweaked her ear. “Your ears are just as pointed as ever, elf-slave. And you did consider poisoning me. Onto the sleeping furs, elf-slave!” he ordered.

“Master?” she asked, puzzled by the order.

“Must I repeat an order?”

“No master!” Hurriedly she crawled onto the sleeping furs.

“On your back,” he said. He tied her limbs with slavers’ rope; each to a different corner of the frame that held his sleeping furs. He then grinned as he looked down upon, and produced a feather from the recently-eaten ducks.

“Oh!” She could not remove her eyes from the feather. He might do anything he wished, of course, since he was her captor and her master. And tied as she was - tied by his hands - she felt enormously vulnerable and helpless as she watched him twirl the feather.

“You have lied to me, elf-slave, by pretending to submit to me - an orc.”

“No master!”

“And you have considered poisoning me.”

She couldn’t answer that. She had considered poisoning him, if only because it had occurred to her that he would suspect it.

“An inquisition is in order,” he told her. “I will have the truth from you, elf-slave, if it takes all night.” He fetched a small sandglass from the cooking gear. “You will suffer the gentlest torment for one turn of the glass. If you speak during that time, you will suffer for another turn. And another after that, if you continue to speak. After that, you will be permitted to answer my questions. Truthfully. Do you understand, little elf-slave?”

She nodded, fearful of speaking.

“Good,” he said, and set the sandglass down out of her sight. He then took up the feather, and began to tease her brown skin with its soft tip. She writhed under its gentle touch, clamping her teeth and pressing her lips together. “I will not count moans and screams as speaking,” he informed her. “As long as there are not words in them.”

“Oh, oh, oh, eeek!” she cried, released by this tiny mercy as he moved the feather across the beauties of her body. She squirmed and pulled at the ropes holding her in place, but he had tied her well, and there was no escape. It was, as he had promised, the gentlest of torments; a soft, sweet agony made of a pleasure too intense to bear, and it was irresistible.

After an endless time, he turned the sandglass and asked: “Is the little elf-slave well tormented?” He did not stop applying the tip of the feather.

“Yes, yes, master!” she cried. “Your elf-slave is well tormented. Oh!” She giggled as he applied the feather to the sole of her left foot.

“Tell me then,” he said, transferring his attentions to her right foot. “Why did you consider poisoning me?“

“Oh, eek - I guessed you would suspect it, master,” she gasped. “And then I - and then I couldn’t help to think it. Please, master, it’s the truth! It’s the truth!”

“Yes it is,” he agreed, running the feather up her leg. “You squirm well, elf-slave. And you speak truth. It is hard for a naked elf-slave to lie, when she is under torment. So tell me then: Are you mocking me by pretending to submit?” He held the feather before her heaving breasts and belly, ready to apply at an instants notice.

“No master! I submit to you! Your elf-slave really and truly submits to you! Please, master! Eeek!”

He applied the feather once more to that lovely brown wood-elf body, making her writhe and squeal, squirm and giggle, with an occasional “please master!” He paused to turn the sandglass, and told her. “Do not speak until the sand runs out. And then when you do speak, you will say: ‘I mocked you, my captor.’ Do you understand?” She nodded, and then began to squirm, scream, and giggle as he once again applied the gentlest torment.

“Now say it!“ he ordered at last, when the sands ran out. She shook her head, and he continued to touch her with the feather. “Say it!” he repeated, and again she refused. He responded by applying the feather with fiendish ingenuity. “Say it!” he ordered for the third time, and she could no longer resist.

“I mocked you my captor,” she said, and the words sounded like blocks of wood in her own pointed ears. She couldn’t imagine what they sounded like in his. He stood above her, no longer applying the feather, and his pale orcish face had pain in it. “I love you master,” she whispered. “I love you.“

He smiled at her. Then he threw down the feather and stomped angrily from the cabin. “No elf would ever submit to an orc!“ she heard him shout, before the silence fell again.

She lay alone in the cabin, hot and helpless. She was a slave, and she ached with her need for her master. She could not free herself from her bonds, but would have to wait, naked and vulnerable, until he released her.

After an endless time he returned, carrying a chain with a single fetter on the end. He smiled at her as his hands, orc-pale and masculine, sampled her body. The slave-fires within her flared up again, and she arched her body, straining to touch him.

He padlocked the chain to his sleeping platform, then undid the ropes holding her captive. “Ankle,“ he commanded. She looked at him, not daring to believe, then hurriedly extended an ankle to be locked in his fetter. This went beyond capture rights. By fettering her to his own bed, with iron, he was claiming her for his own.

He lay down on the sleeping furs beside her, and she immediately tried to kiss him, to please him with her hands and lips and the rest of her body. He chuckled. “You have more eagerness than skill, little elf-slave,” he said. “But you will learn.” He sampled her body as she pressed it on him. “You will learn, and I will give you a name so that I may teach you more quickly. Elf-slave: You are Nibelle.”

“Nibelle thanks her master.”

“Now please me, Nibelle, as best you can tonight.“

“I will, master,” she said. And she did.

(The End)