The Storyteller
Locke couldn't imagine why he was down here. The dungeons, of all places. If it weren't for the fact that he was in love with the servant girl, Caitlin, he wouldn't be humouring her by playing this game. She had hid his sword- the one his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday somewhere in the palace, and now he had to find it, following a trail of clues she had left behind. The most recent being an out of place set of manacles he had found in the stables under a pile of hay. So, the dungeons it was. Although Locke knew that there was no place in the entire keep that was off limits to him, he knew that his father would not like it. It was not a very princely activity to mingle with cutthroats and thieves.
But then it wasn't exactly very regal of him to be sleeping with a kitchen maid either, so there.
Locke found it hard to imagine that Caitlin had gone through here alone. The long corridor lined with prison cells were alive with the sounds of pleas from the inmates, their filthy, grubby hands sticking out for, what was it? Food? Freedom?
"Is the pretty little prince looking for a good time? I bet the brothels don't satisfy you, because what you really need is a nice, juicy-
Locke winced and walked on past the large bear of a man, forcibly not paying attention to the rest of the sentence. Despicable, he thought. If he were any less merciful he would call the guards now to kill him in his cell. Only then they would give him the 'we told you so', look, having been told to stay put when they had offered to escort him down here.
The last thing he needed was company, especially when he had a feeling that when he found whatever cell Caitlin was hiding in with his sword, she would probably not have her clothes on. It was fortunate that he was a prince, then, for he knew that the guards would not have so easily given him the bundle of keys dangling at his belt if it weren't for his status.
How that girl had managed to set this up, Locke wondered if he'd ever know.
Having walked past all of the cells on the first floor block, he continued descending one floor lower, admiring Caitlin's bravery as he did so. It was well known that the lower the floor you were imprisoned in, the greater your crime. And so it was that Locke divested himself of the company of thieves and robbers to start consorting with rapists and murderers. But he found no Caitlin on that floor either, and was thus forced to descend even lower.
This took him to a floor which was, in comparison to the other ones he had passed- deathly silent. There was no noise coming from the mostly empty cell blocks. The doors were cast iron and sealed with only small slots to slip food trays through. And even then, most of the cells he peered through were empty, which probably accounted for the silence.
'Caitlin must be here then,' he thought to himself. 'Clever girl picked us a place we could be all by ourselves.'
In the dim light of the passageway, a thin shaft of white light emanated from one of the doors near the end of the hallway. Peering through, Locke saw, to his surprise, a carpet and a four post bed of which bore almost equal comparison to the rooms of the higher floors of the palace. How had Caitlin managed to set this up?
It took him a while to fumble for the keys in the darkness, but after a while he managed to find the keys to not one, but three different locks before pushing the door open confidently, ready to claim his prize.
"A bit early for lunch, isn't it?"
Locke gasped with surprise at the source of the deep, powerful voice from the other side of the room. Seated at a writing desk, dressed in fine black silk robes was the huge form of a minotaur.
The brown furred bull looked over his shoulder to regard his visitor, raising an eyebrow to register his surprise at seeing a completely unexpected person. Yet it didn't seem to bother him as he turned back to the task at hand- he was apparently writing something, armed with a quill, ink, and a thick stack of paper. "Who are you?" he grunted simply. "If you're a new guard, my lunch is due a lot later than this."
Locke somehow couldn't find the words to answer the question. Up till this very day, he hadn't seen a real, live minotaur before. Sure, his father spoke of a war fought by his father before him against them, but they were supposed to be extinct now. Yet here was one, in their own dungeons, sitting there like he owned the place.
"I'm not a guard," he finally managed to say. "I am Prince Locke Gavaranth. I would have you tell me your name."
Mentioning his name seemed to finally draw the creature's interest, and the busy scribbling hand at the desk finally stopped moving. The minotaur looked over his shoulder again, this time a look of real surprise as he stood up slowly. "You don't say?" he repeated, sounding a little amused. "What business does royalty have down here?"
"I would have you address me as 'My Lord'," Locke said, somehow finding courage now. This creature, no matter how large and threatening it looked from afar, seemed to be humanlike in all other aspects which were no physical. And though he felt that he should exercise more caution in dealing with a prisoner who wasn't even shackled, the creature would be foolish to attack him in his own castle.
"I'm sorry, Prince, but I would not be able to do that," the minotaur laughed, turning around to face him. "For you see, I am, or well, was, the King of my people. So perhaps you should be addressing me with more respect."
Locke was about to argue when the minotaur cut him off, "But I have no use for titles, so I would prefer it if you would address me on a first person basis, and allow me to do the same on your behalf. You may call me Beren."
"Hardly a regal name," Locke said pointedly.
"You wouldn't be able to pronounce my real one," Beren replied plainly. "Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of having you down here?"
"It's a long story which I have no desire to tell you for the moment," Locke replied quickly. He was much more interested in what was happening now than anything else. Caitlin would wait just a little longer. "I would prefer if you tell me what you are doing here. No one has ever mentioned you before."
The minotaur chuckled. "That would be because your father would have to deal with a lot of angry peasants if they knew he was keeping a live minotaur imprisoned underneath his castle. A lot of people are still angry over the war that happened all those years ago. If they knew I was here, they would be calling for my blood."
"So why is he keeping you alive here then?" Locke pressed further.
"I don't think your father really cares about what goes on down here," Beren explained.
"When I was brought in here, he was hardly even your age."
Locke's eyes widened. "But that makes you-
"I'm more than 200 years old now," Beren said with a slight smile. "Yes, I'm an old bull, but we minotaurs have very long lifespans. Your grandfather knew that, and decided to milk it for all it was worth."
"My grandfather was a great man," Locke said defensively.
"Oh no, I'm not denying that," the bull chuckled. "He was a superb tactician, and an even better general. He kept me down here when I was first captured to use me as a hostage to prevent my kind from assaulting the castle. Although, after the war, that purpose really isn't valid anymore seeing that all the rest of my kind is extinct."
"Extinct?" Locke couldn't tell if what he felt was relief or pity. Truth be told, the size and bulk of this creature before him scared him. A whole invading army of them must have been the stuff nightmares were made of. But on the other hand, there was a distant look in the bull's eyes as he said the word. Perhaps that was the reason he was spared execution? Because his grandfather had felt pity for him too?
"So now I live down here," the minotaur continued. "I'm still a prisoner, though there's hardly any worth keeping me alive apart from the scared notions of some generals up there who believe that my people are biding time for a second invasion, in which my neck can be put on the chopping board again."
"Wow..." Locke murmured. He stayed there, staring at the beast without saying anything for a while before he found his tongue, recollecting himself. "Well, you shouldn't have waged war on us to begin with."
"That I shouldn't have," the minotaur concurred. Almost too easily. Perhaps all those years down here had changed him.
"But what do you do down here anyway?" Locke asked.
Beren glanced over at the desk. "Oh, I write. I'm recollecting a story they used to tell back in my city when I was a child. Despite my war-mongering image out there, I have quite the passion for art. Do you have the time to spare to hear about it? You could close the door and come in, I could show you what I have done so far."
Locke, still standing at the doorway suddenly realized that he was holding the door open for a prisoner. And now there was the suggestion of coming in and closing the door behind him.
Seeing the look of suspicion on his face, the minotaur sighed and said, "If I had wanted to escape, I would have charged past you already. Plus, where would I go? The city outside the palace is a place where they would stone me to death just by having me show my face."
Beren had a point, Locke realized. And so he let his curiosity get the better of him and took the bull's invitation to come inside the lavishly decorated cell. As he saw more of it the moment he closed the door, the more he realized that the bull had been treated more than kindly down here. Most of the furniture, the dressers, the lanterns that hung from the ceiling, the carpets- they were all items that would've looked at home in a bedroom belonging to royalty. Truly, if the past kings had seen it fit to bestow such luxuries on a prisoner, the prisoner would have to be someone important, and also someone who they didn't consider too much of a hated enemy.
Locke found a large armchair with soft red cushions to sit in, facing the minotaur as he returned to his working desk, picking up some of the papers he had been scribbling on and looking through them, as though searching for the first page. As he searched, flipping through the papers, he paced around the room, moving in circles around Locke, muttering impatiently. As he passed, Locke got a faint whiff of something in the air- a kind of musk the heavily reminded him of the stables, although not as strong. It wasn't a completely offensive scent, but it made him uncomfortable somewhat. Although, to be polite, he refrained from saying anything. Perhaps it was just the way their kind of was meant to smell.
"Ah! There it is," Beren said finally, picking out one piece of paper before sitting back on his bed, facing Locke. "It's a story from a long time ago, Locke. Long before our kinds were at war. It's about a human named Narsa and his servant, a minotaur named Tiberius. "
"Your kind once served mine?" Locke asked.
"You could say that," Beren said. "But Narsa and Tiberius were not just master and servant. They were friends. And they were on a quest, up North, past the boundaries of the known kingdom your father rules today."
"Isn't that place a frozen wasteland?" Locke asked curiously. "What business could they have had there?"
"They were going to slay a dragon," the minotaur said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Dragons, now?" Locke said, sounding a little amused. But then again, he hadn't believed that minotaurs really existed until now, so he decided that he could suspend his disbelief for now. It was just a story, anyhow.
"Oh, no, it wasn't just any dragon," Beren said gravely. "It was Kalgrath, the Dragon King. Back then, his kind ruled over the land with such tyranny that both minotaurs and humans had little to fear from each other. The threat we posed to each other back then can be considered insignificant compared to the idea of a horde of dragons sweeping out of the sky, turning whole cities to ash whenever we failed to pay tribute."
"What kind of tribute?" Locke asked.
"Sacrifices, of course," Beren said. "And that was why these two were on this quest. Narsa's lover had been forcibly taken from him by everyone in the village to be given away as a sacrifice. An although they knew that it was too late to save her the moment they saw the Dragon King fly her away in his claws, they wanted revenge."
"But what chance did they hope to stand against dragons by themselves?" Locke questioned. It seemed hard to imagine a human and a minotaur being able to accomplish much by themselves.
"Oh, you would be surprised," Beren smiled knowingly.
"So tell me then, how did they kill Kalgrath?" Locke pressed on.
"Patience, my young friend. I did not say that they succeeded in killing Kalgrath," Beren pointed out.
"Then this story can't really be that great," Locke decided.
"Again, I would reserve judgment until the whole story is told. The bulk of the story is the journey up North, and that is where I would say the story's greatest value is."
Locke sighed, rolling his eyes. "Fine, then tell me of the journey," he said. Although he really wasn't interested in what mountains the two would have to climb, or what obstacles they would have had, he realized that the minotaur wouldn't just give away the ending anyway. It was something that he would just have to endure.
And so, Beren began his story. It was a very slow one, much to Locke's disdain at first. Beren wanted to begin from how the two main characters had met before telling of the journey itself. Still Locke's impatience gradually melted away as Beren continued telling his tale. The minotaur seemed to come to life with a kind of fire in his eyes as he told the story, standing and making gestures to emulate the characters sometimes. The warm, majestic tone of his voice was also pleasant to listen to, giving the whole experience of just sitting there and listening for Locke a kind of power he had never felt before. Locke had seen his father invite a few storytellers into the court a few times, but none, he decided, were as talented as Beren. The minotaur was so talented that there were parts in the story where he would stop and sing, playing a set of pan pipes he produced from the drawer to show the songs that Tiberius played when the two of them stopped to rest.
"...but I think we should probably stop the story here," Beren said finally. "You've been down here for quite a while, Locke. Any longer and you will be missed up there."
"But your story is not yet finished!" Locke protested.
"We can continue it some other time," Beren insisted. "That is, if you want to come down here and visit me again."
"It's not you I want to visit," Locke said with a sly grin. "I just want to know the rest of the story."
"Then you shall have it. Return tomorrow night and I shall continue," Beren said.
Locke left the dungeon feeling more than a little anxious. Beren had left the story at a point where Narsa and Tiberius were about to get eaten by a giant serpent. As he went up the stairs and made his way back to the main hall of the palace, he wondered how the two would get out of the situation.
And that was when he bumped into Caitlin.
"Locke!" she gasped, looking more than a little worried. "Where have you been?"
Locke had completely forgot about the game he had been playing with Caitlin until just now. Upon remembering, he realized that he should have felt a little angry with her for making him go down to the dungeons for her silly little game. But then again, if she hadn't started it, he would never had met the minotaur.
"Playing your game, of course. I found the manacles in the stables and followed it down to the dungeons. I found nothing there, of course. Were you trying to lead me to a dead end?" Locke asked.
Caitlin's eyes widened. "Those...weren't the clues, Locke," she said. And although she looked surprised, she looked a bit amused. "You were meant to find the rose that would have taken you to the gardens."
"But what were manacles doing in..." Locke's voice trailed off.
"The Stablemaster...Derrik, he sometimes brings women from the brothel to the stable.
The manacles are some sort of disgusting amusement he indulges in," Caitlin explained.
"Spare me the details," Locke sighed. "Just...where is my sword, then?"
"In your room. I left it there after I waited in the garden for you to show up but you never came," Caitlin said. A slight grin appeared on her face as she leaned in and whispered,
"But in case you can't find it, perhaps I should follow you back to your room? There's another sword I might be able to help you find..."
The places where her hand touched made up his mind for him. And so Locke brought her back to his room, and spent the night impaling her with the other sword she promised to find. He slept alone, however, as she had to creep back into the servants quarters to avoid arousing suspicion. In his bed, he slept and dreamt of the story Beren had told him.
He dreamt that he was Narsa, and that he had been the one who had conned the troll guarding the bridge into letting them pass. He had been the one to lure the bandits chasing them into a trap he set up.
Since he had never met any other minotaur before, in his dream, Tiberius looked a lot like Beren.
The next day, instead of looking for Caitlin immediately after breakfast like he always did, Locke made his way down to the dungeons again, sitting down in the same armchair as the old bull continued his story. Again, a few hours passed before the minotaur would end the story, again at a cliffhanger, and Locke would have to return feeling anxious to know what would happen next.
Things would continue in this fashion for the next few days. More and more, Locke would find himself so captivated by the story that his dreams grew more and more vivid. More and more, he found that he lost track of time whenever he went down into the dungeons to visit Beren, who he was eventually not afraid to call a friend. He was spending more and more time with the old bull, not only for the stories, but also to talk about other things as well. Like his worries about ascending to the throne and his relationship with Caitlin. He found the minotaur to be just as good a listener as he was a storyteller. And although the minotaur hadn't suggested spending less time with Caitlin because of the implications on his status, it was a side effect of Locke's continuously long visits anyway. Caitlin hadn't been able to do anything about it- not knowing about Locke's whereabouts most of the time herself, and also not being able to ask for she had no right to do so.
Beren's stories made Locke wonder, sometimes, if the war a long time ago had been a good decision. Humans stood to gain so much more from the minotaurs in peace.
"Where were we yesterday? Oh, yes, Narsa and Tiberius were crossing through a cave to pass under the Stoneclaw Mountains. As usual, Narsa was carrying the equipment-
-Wait, what?" Locke interrupted. "I thought Tiberius was the one who usually did that. Wasn't he Narsa's servant?"
Beren raised an eyebrow, looking quite surprised. "Oh, no my boy, you have it all wrong. Have you forgotten that it was the other way around?"
"No, no...I'm quite sure... or well, I think I am," Locke muttered. At this point, Beren had stood up and was now standing in front of him, his arms folded across his shoulders with an impatient look on his face.
"I'm the one telling the story, aren't I?" Beren said, his deep voice sounding quite imposing. "Narsa was Tiberius' servant."
Somehow, Locke decided against arguing. Besides, Beren had a point, he thought to himself. He did wonder how he could have misremembered such an important detail, but it was a worry that quickly brushed aside as Beren continued the story. For the following week, the story continued on with Beren making more and more changes to the story. At first, Locke spoke up whenever it happened, but eventually, he began to accept these changes as truth. Narsa's character seemed to grow more and more submissive when he used to be the person in command. Tiberius' character on the other hand, who was at first supposed to be the stronger, less intelligent person of the two now seemed to be growing more in intelligence, solving most of the problems they ran across.
These changes invaded Locke's dreams as well. And in them he found himself eventually calling Tiberius 'Master', looking up to the minotaur with respect and admiration.
"Today, Locke, is where my story ends," Beren said one day as Locke came in, taking his usual place at the armchair.
"But how?" Locke gasped. "They haven't even met the dragon yet. They're still trapped on the mountain in the middle of a snowstorm."
"For this part of the story, Locke, I'm going to need your help to tell it. I'm going to show you what happened in their tent that night that made them turn back," Beren said.
"What do you need me to do?" Locke asked.
"I need you to first kneel on the floor," Beren stated simply.
Hesitating at first, Locke eventually did as he was told, eager to find out what would happen next.
Beren stood before Locke, looking down on him as a King looking down at a faithful subject. Kneeling with his head bowed, Locke imagined that this was what Narsa probably did as a sign of respect for his Master.
That was when Beren pulled off the black robes he had been wearing, revealing his stark naked form to the kneeling prince before him.
Just as the prince was about to recoil with surprise, the bull reached forward and grabbed the human's face with both hands, pulling it forcibly towards his giant cock. Any attempts that the prince would have made to escape were smothered as his face was pressed against the minotaur's member, having it rubbed against his nose. The scent of the minotaur's musk, of which he had only been getting traces of for the past few weeks now hit him in full force like a tidal wave, drowning his senses as they trailed into his body and set his soul on fire. His hands, which had been flailing about when his face had been first grabbed eventually fell limply to his sides as he began breathing in the musky scent of the bull's member, taking it deeper and deeper into him.
"Yesss boy...submit. For now, you will be Narsa, and I will be Tiberius. Can you do that?" Beren asked.
The prince's face was pulled away from the bull's crotch, an expression of untold bliss written all over it. He could only slur a simple 'Yes' in response to the minotaur's order.
"What does Narsa call Tiberius?" Beren coaxed.
"...Master," Locke breathed.
"Good, now undress, my good servant. For the cold grows more powerful and we must press our bodies together for warmth," Beren said.
A slight look of confusion appeared on Locke's face. "But I can't...-"
"You will, slave," Beren growled.
And although Locke's thoughts were warring inside his head, somehow his hands clumsily fumbled for his buttons as he took off all his clothes.
Beren looked at the display before him with a slight grin on his face. Although the boy was trying to resist, it would be a matter of time before that resistance was gone completely. If he had tried this earlier, he would have failed, but the past two weeks the boy had spent in his company, breathing in his pheromones had eventually numbed his will somewhat. Today was the day Beren would finish the job. And although his main motives were purely political, it didn't hurt that the boy had a beautiful body that he wouldn't mind ravaging again and again. It had, after all, been a long while since he'd had a good fuck.
Beren lay down on his four post bed, before calling Locke over. The dazed human staggered into bed with the minotaur, lying on his side with his back leaning against the minotaur's chest. It felt oddly calming, somehow, Locke realized as he felt the warmth emanating from the minotaur's chest. And although it felt a bit odd when the minotaur draped a hand around him possessively and began whispering words he could not understand in his ear, it was a pleasant sensation all the same, being this close to such perfection. He breathed in the bull's musk, and the odor in his breath, letting it wash through him completely.
And then he felt the bull's erect member poking at his backside.
This drew a reflex response from the prince as he immediately pulled away, looking more than a little shocked.
"Master, you forget yourself!" he gasped. "It is forbidden for two males to have such feelings for each other. I understand if what we're doing is to survive the cold but-
-Narsa, would you really question me?" Beren asked softly. "You know that I know better than you. I am a minotaur, and you are just a human. I am smarter than you, older than you, and so I know more. The rules forbidding us from being together are rules made by humans. Why should they matter? My rules allow us to be together. Allows me to show you, make you feel things you never have before. And I can tell, by the growing problem between your thighs, that you want this too. So come back here, Narsa, and lay in my arms."
Every time Locke tried to think of a reason not to, he came up blank. Mostly because he knew that what Beren was saying was true. He would no more. He was smarter than him.
Better than him. He was just a slave.
And so he returned back into bed, back into the minotaur's embrace as the minotaur pressed their lips together in a rough, dominating kiss. Locke opened his mouth almost immediately and allowed the minotaur's tongue to crash into his. He moaned helplessly as Beren's hands trailed all over his body, ruthlessly, possessively, setting fire to every nerve it touched. Eventually the minotaur rolled over so that he was lying on his back with the human prince sitting on him, laying against his strong, firm chest.
"Our water ran out yesterday, Narsa, and you look thirsty," the minotaur said, putting on an expression of fake concern.
Beren raised his arms, exposing his armpits as a strong odor was released into the air.
"My armpits are ripe with sweat. Drink from them, slave. And give me a tongue bath while you're at it."
Narsa proceeded to do as he was told, pressing his face into the minotaur's left armpit. He took a deep breath, loving the scent that was becoming more and more of an addiction before he started licking. Timidly, at first, but as he felt his master encouragingly pressing his face even deeper with one hand, and stroking his back lovingly with the other, he allowed the animal inside him to take over, straining furiously to get every last drop. And once he had his fill of both armpits, he proceeded to explore the rest of the minotaur's perfect body with his tongue, revelling in every line and crevice where there was sweat. He paid special attention to the minotaur's perfect abs, thanking his master silently for the opportunity to inspect such perfection up close.
He finished by licking in between the master's thighs, knowing not to touch his master's glorious tool until commanded to do so. Still he looked at it adoringly, the ball sac enlarged and heavy with potent bullseed and knew that he would just die if he didn't get to worship it soon. At this point, the scent of bull musk had completely overwhelmed him, drowning out the whole world around them. To him, the minotaur's giant, perfect body was his world, and that giant, dripping cock where he would pay his tribute to his muscle god. Locke had ceased to exist. Narsa had too. There was now only a slave, looking up into the eyes of his master.
"Still thirsty, slave?" the minotaur laughed. "Well, I am a kind master. You may come and take me with your mouth."
Locke's face came alive with joy. Slowly, he lowered his mouth onto the minotaur's member, taking it slowly into his mouth as he savored the scent that he desired most. It was hard to accommodate, but he somehow managed, eventually, loving the feel of flesh in his throat with his nose buried in bovine pubic hair.
Again, the master's soft, gentle yet firm hands on his face coaxed him to start licking and suckling, no longer like a person desperate to live, but now with the slow, loving pace of an entranced disciple, wanting every minute to last. Beren hummed one of the tunes from the pan pipes as Locke sucked, he coaxed Locke once in a while to bob his head up and down, giving tips once in a while which the boy absorbed like a ready sponge.
"Yess...this is the education your kind has been in such desperate need of, Locke. You have no idea what you set in motion since the day you came in here and breathed in my musk. Now be a good little slave and get ready to drink every last drop."
As Locke's started suckling with increased fervor, Beren's grip tightened and he began thrusting wildly into Locke's mouth. And before long, Locke earned his milky reward, his senses going into overdrive as the insides of his mouth were splattered with a healthy dose of cum, which he happily drank down. It was the sheer volume that he was unprepared for, however, and soon dribbles of it ran down his chin as the orgasm subsided.
As the master let him raise his head, a look of unrivalled bliss on his face, he nuzzled softly at the minotaur's great hands before asking for permission to stroke himself off, since he was now painfully close to release.
"No, Locke," the minotaur said in the same deep voice. "Come forth and lay on me."
Locke didn't complain, doing as he was told as he again found himself lying on his back on the minotaur's chest, rising and falling slowly in a rhythm that he found oddly relaxing.
The minotaur reached around with both hands and grasped his tiny member, stroking it lovingly as the human moaned and gasped, helpless in his master's clutches.
"My little puppet, don't ever think that I don't love you back," the minotaur whispered.
And that was when Locke found release- the bull aiming his cock so that the jets of his own cum splattered on his face, mixing with the bullseed that was already there.
"Thank you, master," Locke whispered as he started to doze off.
"You're welcome."
Three weeks later
It had been one week since the King had died, and the nation was still in mourning. Although Locke's coronation had been earlier this morning, it had been a sombre occasion. Finally able to shake off the Kingsguard, he managed to make his way down into the dungeon, having to disguise himself first with the aid of a cloak.
"Hello there, my King, what brings you down here?" a warm voice greeted him as he entered that same cell.
"Please, Master, don't call me that. When I am with you, you are the King," Locke said.
The minotaur was already naked, lying down on the bed with the pan pipes in his hands.
"Well then, if you insist," he chuckled. "Have you dispatched the messenger yet?"
"I have," Locke said. "He does not know the contents of it, nor will he until it is too late, I gather. Will he be killed?"
"Perhaps not. My kind are not that cruel. Perhaps he'll be kept as a pet like you. But the important thing is that the rest of my kind know of the shift in the balance of power. They will be coming soon, Locke, and we will open the gates for them."
Locke grinned. His master looked pleased.
"Now," the minotaur said, sitting up. "Come, Narsa, and impale thyself upon Tiberius' spear."