FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Emperor Lorenus Adelin I was a grand title, but for the first three months of his reign, it was something of a struggle to live up to it. Calling in all the governors - or at least, their stand-ins, whatever the former Kgosi had allowed for the regional rulers of the different parts of the empire - to the palace had been the first step, and it had taken all of the first month to get them to come without an armed escort forcing them to leave their lands. They'd smelled weakness and had been all but determined to leave the Empire without the elephants forcing them to stay, and it had been touch and go for that full month to keep them from running off and leaving him with barely a third of the Empire's army to his name.

Now, of course, he had the five regions of the Empire completely subdued. Each one was assigned a governor that had been personally hypnotized by him, as well as carrying the ability to pass that around and the _cukani_supplies to drug any of the rebels that came near them. It wasn't going to be the best of Empires for a while, but at least he'd ensured that it would be stable, and that there'd be no rebellions against his rule. Regardless of their feelings about the snake lords of the north, they would come to accept him, one way or another.

Once that was nailed down, the second and third months were more finessing how the Empire was run. The Sizwe name remained, despite the fact that it was attached to the elephants, but in all other ways, Lorenus put his mind and efforts to work on finessing it.

The first thing that he did was change everyone from 'citizen' to 'slave.' It was easier to work with a population that understood that they were all the same, and easier still to bring people into an Empire if they weren't coming in as less than the people already in it. He kept himself as a non-slave, and made it very clear that the throne would never be held by a slave-ruler.

That said, he also built ways of earning one's way out of slavery. A successfully fought war, for example, would give a slave not just their 'freedom,' but a direct audience with the Emperor to be given their freedom, land, and new slaves themselves. And if that happened to involve some hypnosis from the Emperor in the process, ensuring that the newly landed nobility didn't end up fighting him and causing problems, then that was just a lovely little byproduct.

There were other ways of earning one's way out of slavery, of course: extended servitude, personal testimonials from whoring clients, and more were all accepted. However, everyone started on the bottom, and they had to earn their way forward. Slaves could pass on their progress towards freedom to their children, and free citizens could pass that on to their children, though not their grandchildren. Every other generation had to earn their way out of bondage again.

Not all of his changes were so large as that, but they all had sweeping effects. Mandatory military service, all officers personally trained by the throne, required oaths of loyalty, and more were pushed through, and due to the fact that all the high-ranking members of government were all but open slaves to him, it was easy to get what he wanted out of them. The changes were pushed through, and he spent as much of his time with his personal harem as he could, enjoying them while he had the chance before some crisis or other dragged him back to handling the world at large.

There was no shortage of those. A food shortage came in soon enough, considering that the army had been deployed against the monkeys and other primates and hadn't been in the field harvesting. Some of it had been salvaged, but a greater amount had been lost, leaving them with less than ideal rations for the capital. Lorenus had sent ambassadors to neighboring tribes, but he didn't hold out great hopes for that.

While he was still waiting to hear what they'd say back, he found out that there was a tribe of boas that were on the edge of the Empire, as well. They weren't looking to invade, but they had sent rather public messages that they expected full acceptance into the Empire, and special treatment besides. Just because they were snakes, as well, they expected him to give them a better status than the rest of the Empire.

He would have had them hypnotized and brought into his coils, but they were smart enough to stay on the edges of the Empire, never coming to him directly. It was frustrating, but for the moment, they were no more than an annoyance, a public relations issue that he would fix when the world stopped being so chaotic.

So went the first three months of his reign. At the start of the fourth, two things came due, one of them a great deal more problematic than the other.

#

"It's time for you to keep your promise."

It was the clearest sentence that he had heard from the monkey prince, and one that he had been fearing would come sooner than later. The naga paused in his reading, looking up from the missive that had come in from the sharks and orcas on the coast, and looked the monkey prince in the eye.

"Which promisssse issss that?"

"The one where you let me go."

That's what he had been afraid of. Lorenus looked down at the papers before him, then sighed, pushing the desk off to the side. Two elephant slaves came to retrieve it, carrying it to the far end of the throne room. With a gesture of his fingers, the emperor called the monkey prince forward, and Thulani approached from the base of the steps.

The prince was naked, of course. Everyone that entered the palace was stripped naked as soon as they were through the doors. Nobody was allowed clothing in the abode of the snake emperor. That said, there was little shame for the monkey in being naked. No matter how hard Lorenus had tried, Thulani had always resisted the reapplication of shame. There was something to the monkey that kept trying to make things more difficult for him, and the most that he had managed was a short-term irritation at the lack of clothing rather than genuine embarrassment at being exposed.

Even that wasn't there now. The only thing on Thulani's face was determination, and he knew that it was deserved, for once. He had given his word, much as he wished that he hadn't had to. The prince was a good hostage against further aggressions by the primates in the north, and he was loath to give that up.

"Musssst you?" he asked.

"Are you going back on your word?"

"I am asssking if you need to do thissss or if thisss issss jusssst another way to pissss me off."

"Fun as that is, yes. I do."

"...I ssssee."

"Are you going to keep your word, or not?"

"I have little choice in the matter. I gave it, and I sssshall keep it. But firsssst."

"...What?"

"Sssstep closssser. I will give you a...parting gift."

He knew that the monkey didn't trust him, and in truth, Thulani was right not to. The monkey was someone that fought hard for freedom, not just for himself, but for all those that lived in the plains and those that were threatened by the Empire. The more that he fought, the harder that it would be for the Empire to actually expand, and if he somehow found out how to train others to resist hypnosis like that, it would be genuinely dangerous to his expansionist plans.

But he had given his word, and if there was one thing that Lorenus needed, it was that reputation. If he did not have that, if he wasn't known for being able to honor his promises, then getting someone to come to the peace table was never going to happen. They'd fight to the death instead, and that would waste bodies, lives, and many different opportunities.

The thing was, while he wasn't able to hypnotize Thulani for long, he could do something else. Not hypnosis, but something that could be shared. It was worth a try, at the very least.

As the monkey looked him in the eyes, the only mortal aware of his powers that dared do that besides his father, Lorenus stared deep. He did not fall into the mind this time, but rather pushed something in. No changes were made, but...well, if one was to describe what it was like, it was akin to placing mirrors, mirrors with specific pictures to reflect at those that looked the monkey in the eye.

It took little more than thirty seconds, and by the time he was done, Thulani looked more suspicious than ever. He smiled, hissing softly.

"It issss done."

"What is?"

"The gift."

"...What did you do?"

"You need not know. You are free."

"..."

"Now flee, little prince. Flee to your people."

There were no further questions, no further stares. Thulani ran, not even bothering to cover himself, nor bothering to use the door. Instead, he ran for a window, flinging himself through it and dropping down to the streets below. Lorenus watched him for a time, seeing him fleeing down the stone streets, and wondered if the monkey had thought that he would order someone after him.

Then again, he had ordered him to flee. Perhaps it was understandable, after all.

Lose a hostage, gain a potential time bomb. We'll have to see how he develops...

At any rate, it would mean that there was no assassin hanging from the timbers looking for a chance to kill him. That, at least, was worth letting him leave. Whatever slight chance the monkey had to actually finish him off, the possibility of being assassinated was taken away by releasing him. He just hoped that he hadn't instigated a second war by releasing the prince back to his people.

He shook his head, turning back to the desk. He was about to wave for the elephants to bring it back to him when a crocodile entered the throne room. The scaly messenger bowed at the waist, standing up to reveal a pair of twin cocks standing proud.

"Beg pardon, Emperor, but a message has come from the north."

"From the monkeyssss, I asssssume."

"No, sir."

"No?"

"From further away than that, sir. From the desert lands."

From the desert? That meant that it came from home. Lorenus held out his tail for the message, and the crocodile laid it into his coils. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the naked courtier as he pulled it back to him.

His hands were shaking, though not entirely from fear. It was more in anticipation, excitement, and concern. He hadn't expected any sort of message acknowledging his rise to the throne, but that didn't mean that was what this was. It could be that his father had decided to send something more against the Sizwe, or perhaps this might be a notice of trade from the greater powers of the Snakelands. Perhaps there was a message from his father's superior, someone that believed that it was not in the best interests of the desert to have one of their better slave trainers banished to the outer lands.

He wouldn't know until he read it. Taking a deep breath, the naga gripped both ends of the scroll and pulled it open, keeping his eyes above the parchment, forcing himself not to look at the ink beneath.

A good thing that he did, too. There were no less than four text-traps that were laid along the first line, meant to snare the eye and trip different triggers. They would have been far less effective on him, due to the White-Out technique that he had developed for himself, but they still would have caused disorientation and worse. For someone that still had their mental chains at full strength, it would have snared them completely.

Tricky, tricky, he thought, letting the parchment dangle from one hand while licking the thumb of the other. He dragged it through the ink of the traps, smudging them and stripping them of their power. Very nicely done, though.

Carefully scanning the edge of the parchment for any other traps, he carefully unrolled it and began reading it properly.

My son,

_ _

_I've heard that you have become Emperor of the Sizwe. I knew that you were destined for great things, and it appears I was right. However, I cannot entirely allow you to eclipse your father, so I have sent you this little letter. _

If it happens that the traps work, then I have gained myself a puppet ruler over an entire land without having done anything myself. If it happens that you are as smart as I anticipate and have disarmed them, well, I know what I am facing.

_Of all my children, of all my heirs, you have always been the one that has been the most challenging, and despite our arguments and debates, the one that I have hoped would see the rightness of following in my slithering trail. You are a brilliant naga, and perhaps the only one that could figure out a way free of the binding chains of our family. But are you strong enough to face your father and win? Only time will tell, and unfortunately, such is the only way that you will truly succeed me. _

_Do I want you to win? Do I want you to lose? I'm not entirely sure. But we will see just how good you are shortly. _

_By the way, did you know that cukani can be rendered down to an ink that can be absorbed through scales? _

_ _

_Sincerely, _

_ _

Prince Adelin

"You...bassssstard!" Lorenus hissed, his cocks throbbing to full erection in seconds, his mind heating with the pleasure of the aphrodisiac. Oh, his father was going to pay for that one, and he'd make it good...just as soon as he cleared his mind with a proper orgy.

The End