One, death does not exist. Girls live for thousands of years until they retire under the Sacred Temple to work on projects nobody understands. They cannot be destroyed by age, accident, or attack.
Two, boys do not exist. Each of the five nations has its own kind of conception ritual it uses to spawn newborns, and monsters proliferate in their own ways.
And three, every girl has an innate Urge to humiliate others. This Urge is usually kept in check: Maybe a neighbourhood comes together for a messy ritual or a couple of girls dare each other into a naked walk in the swamp.
But every so often, a girl is born whose drive to humiliate exceeds what even this world can handle.
Such a birth led to The Original War, the last true conflict to plague the world. The Original War ended two thousand years ago, but its outcome shapes everything even to this day.
Today, Astra of the Kissborn, a hero of the Original War, and her daughter, Ciel, visit Jouette and her friends aboard the Great Skyship to teach them the story of the War, which started with Astra’s own first humiliation…
The doorbell rang as soon as my finger touched it, and with that, a deluge of thick slime cascaded down upon me. As soon as it did, I looked up and a second wave of the slime hit my face. It slowly seeped through my previously spotless dress, but I merely smiled. Such things stopped being embarrassing centuries ago, and now only the pleasurable touch of the substance remained. I turned and looked at my daughter who stood beside me.
Luna was also a target of the slime but it bounced harmlessly off the shimmering barrier around her body. “Mom,” she laughed, “didn’t you say you had good reflexes?”
I grumbled, “you don’t get to say anything, dear. Not until you stop hiding behind that.”
“Sorry, mom,” she chuckled, “but I prefer to stay clean, thank you very much.”
The door opened. Jouette — with a smirk on her face —, Daina and Alrae were already inside, waiting for me to arrive and begin telling my story.
Between fits of laughter, Luna straightened herself up and gave her best impression of an official voice, though it still came out as more cute than anything else. “I present… (chuckle)… the venerable Astra of the Kissborn, our shining light, a saviour of the world and the best mom. May her hair be ever covered in goo.”
“We can certainly arrange that last part,” said Jouette and upended a prepared bucket of translucent goo over my hair. It stuck there, and on my cheeks and shoulders.
I grabbed a handful of the goo from her body and flung it back in Jouette’s face, “now if you’re done disrespecting a guest many times your age, who came all the way to your Skyship in spite of her fear of heights, just to tell you a story as you requested it, shall we move on? In fact, now that I think about, I have no idea why I even consented to this.”
Jouette winced and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Astra. We love to see you here, and we appreciate you coming here very much.”
I nodded but also took the opportunity to move the slime and goo from my body onto Jouette. The girl didn’t resist.
We moved into the apartment’s living room, where all the other girls were already sitting around the table, with dozens upon dozens of pies, cakes and buckets of various substances scattered throughout the room. All three of them wore full clothing and they were looking at me with great anticipation.
I quickly checked that all windows were securely closed and locked and then sat down, too, right into a cream cake prepared on my chair. For my dress, not designed for mess, this was already too much and a hole tore in its bottom part. The hole tore also through my panties and I felt the cake crawl between my buttcheeks. I gasped. “Jouette!”
“Sorry!” she answered, amused. “I promise that’s the last prank for now. We’ll let you tell us a couple of chapters before we mess you up further.”
“And I’ll be looking forward to it,” Luna clapped her hands. Her chair had also had a cake but Luna’s sanctity barrier had safely pushed it aside. “To both the story, and my mom getting slimed.”
I ensured I was positioned such that the hole in my dress couldn’t be seen by my daughter. I knew I was being silly. Over the years, I had lost my sense of shame almost completely, and Luna, while still protected by a Barrier, was hardly an innocent little girl nor would this be the first time she would see messy naked girls. But there is still something embarrassing about being seen humiliated in front of your daughter.
And then all eyes were on me.
“Strip,” I said.
There was a silence. Probably the girls thought I made a pause for dramatic effect or that it was the name of the first chapter. But no.
“That was a command. Over the course of this story, I will have you do things and I expect you to obey, and I will do things to you and I expect you to not resist. If you’re not willing to strip now, then leave this room. Likewise, if you’re not willing to commit to obeying other commands I’ll make while I tell this story, then also leave now. Luna, you don’t need to obey the commands though you can if you wish.”
“But why strip?” asked Jouette.
“Trust me, Jouette. You will understand everything later. But I cannot tell you beforehand and you must obey to listen to the story. Think of it as a favor done for a venerable saviour of the world if you must. Now everyone, strip down to your underwear. And no swimsuits, either! I want to see you all just in your bras, panties and socks.”
Oh, the looks on their faces!
Luna was giggling, ready for a spectacle safe behind her shimmering shield. Jouette’s eyes were blank as if she still couldn’t process what was being asked of her. Daina was already pulling her shirt over her head. And Alrae was silently looking into her own lap, her face quickly turning crimson. Even I had to smile, such a colorful group of characters it was. “The sooner you’re naked, the sooner I’ll start, girls.”
Daina was first to throw away all of her clothes. Turns out she didn’t even wear a bra, but she wasn’t embarrassed at all showing her round breasts to everyone. Jouette stripped with grace and placed all of her clothes on one tidy pile. Alrae required some additional prodding before she revealed her own chest.
Her breasts were… small, even for a skygirl, and I instinctually wanted very much to comfort her, but that would defeat the point of the exercice. I could feel the fear and uncertainty in the girls’ eyes, even in Daina’s.
They were half-naked, and the clothing they had was thin, white, silky — weak. A spray of water would wet it all. The slightest mess could tear it down. They were vulnerable.
They were scared. Forced to play a game to which they didn’t know the rules, knowing they asked for a terrible story. Afraid. As they should be, if they wanted to understand what the story would be about. If they were to understand it as truth rather than an incomprehensible account of a legendary era.
“Daina, you were supposed to keep your bra,” I said, and made a quick motion with my hand. A film of green goo materialized in front of her and clamped down onto Daina’s breasts.
“Ouch!” she cried, “what is this?”
The green goo expanded in size and weight and assumed the shape of a strapless bra but kept shifting, slowly but constantly around the sensitive skin of her breasts. “Skirtslime. It holds forever. It will never dry, or drop, or dilute. It will always move and shift, ever so slightly so your breasts are never quite at peace. And it will play. At times you least expect it, the Skirtslime will contract and squeeze, or suck or tickle, try as it can to give you pleasure.”
“What?!” shouted all three skygirls. Daina in particular had a look of pure horror on her face.
“Well, that’s what would have happened before the Original War. These days, you can get rid of it with a Recall. And of course, I’ll remove it when I finish the story. Are you ready to listen?”
And the three half-naked skygirls nodded, a little calmer, and I began.
~
The Original War started, and ended, two thousand years ago. It was the greatest and most difficult conflict I have ever experienced. Ancients in the Sacred Temple speak of even older wars but thankfully I have not seen them. I have been there since the beginning of the war, and I was there when it ended, always seemingly in the most interesting theater.
For us, the kissborn, it was already a time of uncertainty. The kitchen storms swept through the lands, bringing stinking mud, heavy snow and sticky slime wherever they appeared, ruining our crops and destroying our towns. And the tensions with the other nations have never been higher.
(“Um, excuse me,” asked Jouette, “how old are you, exactly?”
“Impertinent youngster!” I cursed her. I made a gesture and a moist cake appeared in front of that girl and crashed into her sorry face. At the same time I made frozen ice-cream appear in her panties and her bra. “You will keep it there until it melts,” I ordered, “that will teach you to be more polite next time. But I will tell you that I am just over two thousand years old. I was twenty-seven when the War began.”)
As I said, those were difficult times.
So it seemed a lucky break when one day, the princess of the kissborn announced that a friendly competition would take place between us and the slimeborn, to form friendships among girls of our two nations and to deescalate the tensions.
The competition was to be a knowledge contest. Each nation would supply one team. Questions, curated by a committee with members from both nations, would be posed to the competing teams. A team that failed to answer a question correctly would be humiliated and punished by the opposing team, in a manner that was left unspecified in the rules.
That was the point. The nations wanted to see whether, if given the chance, the girls would absolutely destroy their opponents or whether they would offer them mercy.
Even I had thought that it was a great idea: right until the point when I was told that I would be on the kissborn team…