Princess Asperia petted my head idly as she started off into space with a thoughtful expression.

“Now, nice as it is to relax in bed with a cute girl, I can’t really laze around here idly forever… you want to come with me to my late night court?” I blinked a couple of times.

“...isn’t that a very, I don’t know, cloak and mask thing? I might mess that up, subterfuge is not my strong point.”

“Masks aren’t mandatory for night court, no. And you’re thinking of ‘night court’, which is not to be confused with ‘day court’ or ‘late night court’. ‘Late night court’ is just me and some of the girls hanging out and discussing business and fucking.”

“...when do you sleep?”

The Princess leaned in next to my head and whispered conspiratorially, “I don’t. I just lie around when I want to conserve energy.”

I blinked a few times. I wasn’t aware of any sort of spell that allowed for that, but the amount of magic I didn’t understand was pretty large. “That sounds very useful if you want to get lots of politics done and still have some free time.”

“I don’t tend to separate politics and pleasure-- inefficient, really, don’t you think? There’ll be plenty of time to relax once I’ve won.”

“...won’t your late night court talk about, I don’t know, mean stuff? Or things I won’t want to know?”

“...mean stuff?” I flushed.

“...assassinations or whatever.”

“Ah, right… I guess you’re almost as purehearted as your mistress, thanks to those mind blocks she put in you. Is it nice, to be a dumb little pet?” I looked away, somewhere between flustered and upset.

“...um... sometimes, yeah?” She laughed, and scritched under my chin.

“I do have a little charm I can put on your collar which will make you incapable of understanding any words… if you think that all our serious business might be too tough for your cute little mind, you can put it on. You can just cuddle in my lap as my cute lap dog.” My tail started wagging… I guess there wasn’t much point in pretending I wasn’t interested. If I knew someone was going to be assassinated, I’d probably want to save them if they were even a little innocent. It was easier not to know.

“...um, okay!”

She kissed my lips as she gently pushed me off of her, leaving a lingering caress on my hip as she pulled back, and practically dived into her pile of treasure, pulling out a little charm in the shape of a little golden songbird with red eyes.

“Okay, here you go~” She clipped it onto the front of my collar, and her mouth moved again, but it just sounded like something hard to place, but very pleasant… perhaps somewhere between birdsong and a small waterfall. Soothing.

She clipped a leash to my collar as well, which Mistress had never done, and beckoned me to follow her… which I did, entirely naked. You’d think that being lead by a naked Princess wearing only a tiara would make being lead by the collar on a leash less embarrassing, but she was absolutely unashamed of her body, and somehow the shame I felt of being naked as I passed by everyone only made me more embarrassed… but in a way that was getting me very wet.

She took me to a large room which was somewhere between spa and bath-house, and sprawled among a huge pile of cushions, then gently pulled me down with a soft pull of the leash, and I obediently crawled into her lap.

There were so many beautiful women around, in various states of undress… this was probably the room we had first entered her harem through, I realized, although that time I was so focused on the women I noted little else of the surroundings.

I looked around with interest, and everyone who paid attention to me seemed friendly… actually, a few girls came up and petted my head, their voices like babbling streams, while the Princess petted everywhere else on my body, and I writhed and moaned against her wordlessly… or, if I was saying words, they were beyond my comprehension, at least.

I watched, but without words, I couldn’t really sense where the line between pleasure and business was… was the girl cuddling up to her side at one moment and giving her little licks and kisses to her neck and whispering into her ear saying little endearments, or passing her information, or both? I had no idea.

The other women fucked just as shamelessly, too… I saw Valentine entirely naked and fingering two women sitting beside her. She looked over to me with a peaceful smile, and I thought that for sure she had found her place… talking of assassinations and the like probably wouldn’t bother her, of course, as long as she didn’t seem to be involved.

As her attention moved on and she started making out with one of one of the women next to her, wait, that was definitely Velt, yes, but… hmm. I realized she knew that me and Mistress had swapped bodies, and I had no idea if she had told Princess. The aforementioned princess noted my tension, and said soft flowing words into my ears as she rubbed my clit and pinched my nipple, causing me to cum in her lap and lose track of my thought process as she looked to one of her other followers and talked, pleasuring me all the while.

Another girl with red hair and a gentle smile whose voice sounded like some sort of vicious rapids or blackbird cuddled up to my side, and started joining in on pleasuring me too, and I was soon paying very little attention to anything except the Princess’s and the new arrival’s pleasuring of me, cumming again and again, until I was exhausted and panting and staring into space.

Their touches of me became more general, and as I started to look around again, I realized that Mistress was sitting next to Princess now, her eyes flickering to me and a gentle smile forming on her lips as she looked down at me. She reached down to pet my head, and I nuzzled into it, focusing up on her eyes… but she seemed genuinely pleased with me. Of course, her acting skills went far beyond my skills at reading people. After a few more words, she cuddled me into her lap, and I sat there, nuzzling softly against her increasingly rounded chest as she chatted with Princess saying words I didn’t understand.

Exhausted and filled with pleasure and feeling safe again for the moment in Mistress’s arms, I yawned and let my eyes close. It had been a long day.

I awoke in bed with light coming in through the windows once again, and Mistress spooning me from behind, her soft flesh naked against mine. She stroked my belly gently as I yawned, and said, “Did you enjoy yourself, Sasha?” There was something dangerous about the tone of her voice.

“I… it wasn’t my fault, Mistress! I told her I wasn’t allowed, but she threatened to do even more if I didn’t acquiesce.” She rubbed my clit and I squirmed, it was still a little reddened and sensitive from all the stimulation I got last night.

“No, you did the right move. I’m not mad at that at all… but how could you ask her to put that charm on you? You could’ve gotten more information for us.” Right, now it was ‘us’, of course.

“She offered, and… Mistress, if I had heard the wrong thing, I would’ve tried to stop it, even if there had been almost zero chance of success. You know how I was with Valentine.”

“And yet you acquiesce easily enough when it’s yourself on the line…” She pinched my clit, and I cried out, trying to hold my trembling body still so I didn’t cause more sensation to myself.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Mistress!” She paused at that, and slowly released my clit, kissing the back of my neck.

“I suppose you wouldn’t. You’re too naive to try to do anything, really. Since you can’t seem to keep yourself safe, and enjoy her company so much, I’m going to leave you here while I do a few things to prove myself to Princess Asperia.”

I tried to turn around, only for Mistress to grab my arm. “...you’re leaving me alone here? Am I going to be safe?”

“I won’t be gone for long. And Princess Asperia wouldn’t kill you out of hand or anything, which means neither will her foolishly loyal underlings. You’re probably just a useful hostage, in her eyes, until I’ve proven my loyalty, but don’t tell her that… I of course acted grateful for a safe place to put my slave when I embarked on a dangerous mission.” I bit my lip. Despite being such a jerk to me...

“...what if you die?”

“Then you’ll be Princess Asperia’s, I suppose. Prove your usefulness to her, or she’ll sell you off… but she always sells girls who don’t work out for her to nice places, so not proving your worth is probably fine too.”

“...you aren’t afraid of death?”

“...no. I’ve removed that quality from myself for now. But if I do die, make sure you never get Null cast on your head again.” I swallowed and nodded slightly. After a long moment.

“...why are you doing this, Sasha? Couldn’t we just go somewhere and live freely?”

She gripped my throat softly.

“Never call me that.”

I nodded.

“As for why… you know how miserable you are being forced to be a slave girl?” Well, a few parts had been enjoyable, but… the powerlessness, not so fun….

“Um, mostly, yeah…”

“And you know you have it very very easy compared to most slaves?” I thought she was exaggerating a little, but still, I had to admit, overall I had it easier...

“...yes?”

“So what do our lives and happiness matter compared to the thousands upon thousands of slaves who suffer every day?”

“...that… there is that, but… there must be another way…?”

“This is the best one I have right now. Now, you’re going to remain loyal to me until you’re absolutely sure I’m dead, understand?” I nodded. I couldn’t really imagine putting her into more danger when she wasn’t around to remind me how much of a jerk she’d been being recently.

“Good girl.” She petted my side softly.

“While you’re here, your tasks are to portray yourself as perfectly loyal to me, portray yourself as perfectly loyal to Princess Asperia, and to learn everything about her that you can.” I furrowed my brow a little.

“Don’t those three… conflict a little?”

“People are inherently contradictory beings. Don’t worry about it. I can put you under a few spells, if you’d rather.” I genuinely considered this for a moment… but how much of my mind was I going to trade away in return for making it easy for myself?

“...No, I think I can do it.”

“Good girl.” This time my traitorous tail thwapped softly against her leg. I wondered if I was submissive, or if this body had learned to be submissive so thoroughly that it was affecting me, or if animalfolk were naturally submissive. Her grip on my throat, which I had almost forgotten about, tightened, and she hissed in my ear.

“I don’t care what else you think, but animalfolk are not naturally submissive. That is a mistake that not only makes me angry, but will get you killed.” She could easily throw me in a month of solitary. Maybe she would, just so I wouldn’t forget her.

“Yes, Mistress!” Mistress, at least, easily proved that all animalfolk were not naturally submissive… or something else, but I quickly diverted my mind from thinking about that.

Her grip relaxed on my throat, and her hand moved down, stroked my collarbone, chest, groped my breast softly.

“As long as you remain loyal to me, I will always come and rescue you, no matter what the situation… but if you don’t, I will come back and take you as well, and the torture you experience will be far beyond your mind can currently comprehend. Think of me as your goddess-- you just have to be utterly loyal to me, and you’ll be fine.“

...Did she steal that line from Valentine? She sighed.

“...okay, yes, I stole that idea from Valentine. It’s not the exact same line, though.”

I turned, and she let me this time, and looked into her eyes.

“Will you give me my body back and let me go on the mission instead?” She leaned in to kiss my nose as she stroked my cheek.

“This is my body now, Sasha. And do you think you can put up with doing in my place all the horrible things I must do when you can’t even listen to Princess Asperia’s Late Night Court?”

“...I don’t like the idea of you doing horrible things.”

“I know.”

“And how can I trust you’ll come back to me when you’ve already betrayed my trust?”

She sighed a long, elaborate sigh.

“Are you still going on about that, Sasha?”

“It literally happened tonight!”

“It’s the next morning now.”

“It literally happened yesterday!”

“Just… go back to sleep, Sasha. I’ll be back by your side soon enough.”

My eyes started to flutter closed as she leaned in to kiss me.