Cultists summon their goddess. Hilarity ensues.
guest story by zyzzyva
tags: nsfw
artwork by CorruptiveSpirit
The cult had long since stopped trying to shut Emily up and were now just proceeding with the ritual, ignoring her screams. The altar’s surface was oriented and tilted so that the entire cult could get a good look at the bound, naked body of the sacrificial vessel, and Emily could have looked back at them if she wasn’t blindfolded. Instead she just screamed into her gag, helplessly and hopelessly, in the futile hope that someone would hear her and come rescue her. The ritual had been going on for most of an hour now, and no one had heard. Emily kept screaming anyways.
The chanting reached a crescendo and the leader of the cult opened a small metal cage by the side of the room, pulled out a dove. The animal struggled almost as much as Emily, although its wings had been clipped and its struggles were equally fruitless. The leader brought it over to the altar, pulled a sharp, steel kitchen knife from the folds of his robes, and slit the animal’s neck over Emily’s. The cultists, their ritual complete, went silent; the only noise was Emily, her desperate cries for help redoubled as hot, wet blood spattered on her body. It ran down her chest, between her breasts, across her stomach; a little of it pooled in her navel. A single bead of blood made it down, around the curve of her belly, into the swirl of soft brown hair between her legs.
Emily stopped screaming immediately.
The leader took a step back, let the bird’s corpse fall to the floor from his limp fingers. The blood vanished as if Emily’s skin soaked it up; she began to writhe in the bonds, twisting her body and limbs as far as they could move. The ropes began to warp, braided nylon fraying into each component strand somehow without ceasing to bind her; Emily’s motion slowed and narrowed in scope as the bindings became tighter, holding her down more securely. Emily began to wail, an entirely different kind of noise than the terrified sobbing she had engaged in since she awoke on the altar; it was the moaning of a woman being pushed towards an orgiastic release. Beneath her, the granite of the altar bubbled and flowed like candlewax, carrying her spreadeagled arms and legs with it.
The tiny strands of rope slithered across her and changed; they were silver now, chains of hair-fine links running all over her body. They were as closely woven as fishnet, but held the body beneath so tightly it could not even tremble. Each tiny segment gleamed in the flickering light of the chamber. The altar had reformed itself into a throne of seamless black obsidian, her arms resting comfortably on its arms, every inch down to her fingertips and toes as tightly bound as her body. Only her head was still free and as the blindfold and gag boiled off her face into nothingness, she threw it back and screamed again, loudly, as ecstasy rocked her. But it did not rock her body: the chains would not allow her body to move.
After a moment she stopped, and licked her lips. There was a period of silence while the bound, enthroned woman looked over the room and the cultists in it.
“You’ve made, I think, three big mistakes.”
No sound from anyone else in the room.
“First, you summoned a goddess in an attempt to use her for wealth and power and all of that petty crap. Propitiate, sure. Supplicate, even, ok. But use? That’s a really, really dumb idea.”
Someone towards the back of the room had enough presence of mind to try and stifle their whimper.
“Second. You picked the Chained Queen to summon, because—let me guess—you figured that a goddess who’s already bound and helpless might be more amenable to your idiot plan. It’s like you’ve never even heard of aspects or attributes.” The Chained Queen is restrained. The Chained Queen is controlled. The Chained Queen is restraint. The Chained Queen is control. Those things are inseparable. To the goddess, they’re not even distinct.
It gave her some very specific tools for dealing with mortals, though. Bonds ripped out of the concrete floor of the chamber, enfolded each and every individual. She noted three of them that did not try to resist being pulled to their knees and held there. Smart ones.
“And the third reason…” She knew what these idiots were thinking: they were going off of that disaster of a Latin translation that Stanislaus Poloniae scraped together, the same as the last band of over-ambitious fools to summon the Chained Queen had. The one that mistranslated “virgin” for “pure-hearted.” The one that had “sacrifice” instead of “beloved gift.”
The one that said “possessed” where it should have said “imbued.”
Emily, the Chained Queen, smiled out at the people who had kidnapped and abused her, and tried to destroy her to produce a deity. They’d gotten the deity, but Emily was not submerged. She smiled with the serene confidence of a goddess who knows that not a one of them will do such things to anyone else ever again, because she will ensure it. “The third reason, I think I’m going to demonstrate to you all, personally.”
Author’s Note: This one’s mostly just here because I like the imagery. Role-reversal, empowerment, assholes getting their comeuppance are all great; but I also just like the image of a person being absolutely, helplessly restrained, but so completely in control that everyone around obeys her without thought or hesitation, just from her pure force of will. Mmmmm.
Note From Devi: Additionally, the artwork was commissioned from CorruptiveSpirit! You can follow her on Twitter and DeviantArt, or support her on Patreon!