Kaesme Kollodra once possessed an extensive collection of wines. She ordered bottles to be procured all around the elven realm and beyond — there were even exotic, fruity flavors of the Ssil. What she considered a crown jewel, however, was a case of eight bottles made from the rare ur-soltael grape and aged for seven years. It was sharp, dry, complex; it left a brilliant aftertaste and paired perfectly with thinly sliced roast beef. The bottles were so valuable she only opened them on special occasions, when celebrating an achievement or having high-ranking guests.
The ur-soltael grape grew only in the eastern province of Planelee. It was a beautiful land, if a bit barren; but then, winemakers said that barren earth is singularly the best for a proper grape. The wine seemed to prove their point.
The problem…
SMACK!
…was that the province of Planelee was once taken from the Orcs, to whom it used to be a place of some primitive cultish pilgrimage. Of course, they took it back during their recent resurgence. It was now named Urgaldar, and the Orcs shipped many slaves there to rebuild old forts and uncover old artifacts. And burn the wineries, of course. Kaesme’s collection was never to be replenished.
Not that it mattered to the woman, because…
SMACK!
…she wouldn’t have a chance to taste anything but acrid foot grime and sweat ever again.
“I can’t believe it”, Adrach’s voice reached her from above. She feverishly licked his broad grayish sole; it was covered with dust after he walked the halls of Ithlenhaur barefoot following his morning wash. Her mouth was full of gritty dirt, which she had so swallow. She felt congested; the back of her throat was slimy; her lips ached. Kaesme stretched out her raw tongue and dragged it along a faint ridge in the orc’s sole, collecting another portion of dirt. She…
SMACK!
The sole violently slapped her down. She hit the floor with her thigh, which was slowly turning into one giant bruise. Everything hurt.
She was even having a migraine because she barely slept: Adrach forced her to spend the night trying to clean his sandals from the grime accumulated in them, and she failed, for which he’s been berating her the entire morning. She didn’t understand what he wanted, it seemed to be impossible: how can a pair of elvish lips extract the old, stale grime from a leather insole? How is it possible? But Adrach seemingly wasn’t concerned; his only interest was in constantly keeping her occupied with something related to his massive feet. He took great pleasure in reminding the disgraced sorceress of her place.
She crawled back towards the foot and continued cleaning it. Above, Adrach chugged the fine wine which was like a light drink to him. He was going through the inventory lists, which really meant the lists of Kaesme’s students and attendants captured in the Tower. She suspected there were at least three hundred names on it, mostly bright young sorcerers, or, more precisely, sorceresses, because this was a dark elven institution and magic (like most sources of power) was largely reserved for the female sex in her culture. This made Adrach both angry and excited.
“It’s just a bunch of pathetic wenches”, he commented from above. She heard paper rustling. “Your species is deranged. Deformed. Women pulling the strings!” He made a *harr* sound that he made when he found something displeasing and…
SMACK!
…hit her again, sending her to the floor again. A thin streak of blood came out of her nose; she wiped it away and crawled back to keep at her work. She knew better than to stop. Adrach could and would stomp her guts out of her.
“To think your kind once dominated us”, he spoke again. “To think you strangled us, trampled over us! Harr!” She closed her eyes, expecting another SMACK, but it never came and she continued licking, hoping he would not notice a missed beat. There was a light spot on his foot now, glistening from her saliva. She wanted to vomit, but that, too was strictly forbidden until she could go to the toilet, which was twice a day.
“But you were weak”, he said, “of course, you were, you let women rule and even your men are like women. So now we trample over you. You will atone.”
She used to regard that rhetoric as posturing, but she’s since found Adrach to be incredibly honest and committed. Before he actually ordered her to lick his sandals clean, she thought it an empty threat because it seemed entirely impossible. But Adrach wasn’t seeking to make practical use of her; instead, he wanted to completely destroy anything that remained of her dignity. She realized far too late that the Orcs were hellbent on building a new world, and there wasn’t a lot of space in that world for elves.
Particularly, dark elves, whom the orcs despised the most.
“All of your kind, every single one”, he continued above, sometimes adding an audible gulp of wine. “Each name on this list and each name connected to this list, every self-absorbed dark elf bitch I find, will be where you are now. Hear that? I will take everything you were, woman, and I’ll destroy it and flatten it to what you are now. Khojer.”
SMACK!
She fell to the floor, yelping in pain, and the orc’s expansive sole followed her, fell on her, ground her into the stones. She cried out, her voice muffled by his coarse footflesh. She squirmed like a worm under that immense mountain of a foot, a gray-skinned bug so close to being squashed into paste. And a part of her wished for that; she *wanted* to die rather than suffer this humiliation. But…
Adrach momentarily lifted his foot, then lowered it back it a light slap. He repeated that a couple of times, then found her face with his toes, clamped down on her head. Her mouth and nose now pressed into the softer flesh there, Kaesme puckered her lips and kissed, and sniffed, and tried to use her tongue again. The toes flexed around her head and shoulders, painfully squishing her down; but then, he finally relented.
His foot went returned to a vertical position: resting on the round, hard heel, it presented her with a view of that meaty, muscular sole that has walked thousands of miles to arrive here, in Ithlenhaur, where it became her master and only concern. She swallowed, then forced her battered, bruised body back into an all-fours position and crawled over. Her lips parted, exposing the dirty pink tongue, and she started licking his heel, working hard to dislodge the tiny pieces of debris that got stuck to it.
“Your entire kind, woman,” he said above. “Orcish khojer now. Ours to rule. Ours to kill. That’s your place. One day, every elf will know nothing but Orcish feet. We will rise to greatness standing on your backs, as it should be. You will accept it.”
And, the scariest part was that he could he right. After all, it didn’t take much to bring the noble Kaesme to heel. He had her giving his feet a tongue bath in no time. She quickly got used to her new diet of sweat and grime. And he could do that to every elf out there. What chance did they stand? Her students, her bright students would be reduced to this, or worse; their incredible minds occupied with nothing but fear for their lives and shame as they would.
She hated it. With all her heart. She was a dark elven matron; she was responsible for them, she was used to being the powerful one. Hell, she knew what it feels like to have a tongue tracing your soles; she’d made lovers do that before. But it all seemed so distant. Useless dreams, fading memories. Adrach made her this, a khojer, and…
SMACK!
…from this point, it could only ever get worse.