Waters of Prosperity, Chapter 3

“Ah, he’s awake!” said a sweet voice soon after Omid became aware of a feeling of weightlessness. He stirred and moaned as his body ached. He became aware of a very clear line, somewhere around his neck, of vastly different sensations on his skin. Ahh, he was in a bath, of course.
With great effort Omid opened his eyes. This was the royal bath. The girl who had spoken was on her knees at the side of the pool, and had apparently been keeping watch so his head didn’t slip under the surface. He groaned some more.
“Off! Off with you!” came the snap of an authoritative voice. The servant girl retreated, and the sound of naked feet on the bathroom’s tiles told Omid of the voice’s owner’s rapid approach. The steps stopped and he closed his eyes again. There was a rustling and soon his head was lifted by soft hands to rest in a lap. There was a strong scent of rose water. Then Shara spoke.
“They assured me that you didn’t suffer any real damage from what happened” she said, her voice taking on a lecturing tone.
“They assured me you’d have been fine even if we’d come a little later, that the cold wouldn’t have killed you. That most of what you’re going through now is because you tried to break out using ma…” her voice trailed off when she remembered the different doctrines of his faith, “…m-mighty miracles. That is, they said, that if you’d just stayed asleep in your bed, you’d be better off now” she blathered on.
Impotent rage welled inside Omid. What manner of man was he if he simply stayed in bed and waited to be rescued?
Of course he said nothing. There was no use trying to argue with Shara over such things. As a man he was, in her mind, a helpless child or a pet incapable of independent thought or action. The bitch was condescending by her very nature. And was stroking his cheek with one of those soft, delicate hands of hers.
“What I’m trying to say is, you shouldn’t put yourself in harm’s way like that. I know it must have been scary for you, all alone in there, not knowing what was happening, but you know we’ll always take care of you, right?”
Did she think she was a mother speaking to a child of five?
“Omid…”
He begrudgingly opened his eyes to look at the hated figure. There was a wetness in those reddish eyes. It was not impossible to imagine the tears forming dew-drops on those long, volumous lashes. Her lips were thin and her makeup made them lilac. It was almost as if she tried to mock him by imitating the only lips he’d ever want to kiss. Her bare shoulders and barely covered bosom heaved at her erratic breathing as she held back sobs. Damned fiend was trying to manipulate him.
“T-the hathorites assured me you’ll be fine. Really. They said a couple of hours will get the colour back the way it should be”
Wait, what as she rambling on about? What colour?
She pushed his head back down into her lap when he tried to lift it up and look at himself.
“Please don’t push yourself. It’s nothing. Really. Don’t look!”
She pressed his head down more heavily this time. What was she hiding from him? His own body? He was sore, to be certain, all over, in fact, but surely there couldn’t…
“Whaah?” he tried to ask.
She pressed her fingers on his lips.
“Hush now, baby, don’t push yourself”
Anger welled up in Omid’s heart again. How DARE she treat him like this? Call him a baby? Had he only the strength to…
He simply sighed heavily.
“You’re fine. Really. Please try to relax” she kept on blabbering. Eugh.
Omid swallowed, and then managed some words.
“Whah hahpnd?”
“Dear?” Shara asked, not understanding.
“What hapnd!” he snapped.
A frowned appeared on her face, and the worried sadness was replaced with a determined look. She almost looked like there was yet some warrior’s blood in her veins not yet dampened by the generations of decadence.
“We were attacked” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Who?” Omid managed.
“We don’t know. They appeared in the dark of the night and then there was that frost. We…” she hesitated, then shook her head.
“Never you mind. Just rest for now” she said, petting his hair. If only he could have, Omid would have caught her by the throat and made her talk. The royal palace had been attacked just like that! There was so much ground to cover between any enemy nations and this place that simply sneaking here would have been impossible. The Dragoons would have taken down anyone approaching by sky, the Sandworms dwelled in the deep desert and made any passing armies stop in their tracks, there were so many cities and villages and army encampments that no-one could bring troops in for a sneak attack. This was obvious enough, leaving only two possibilities, and these two did not exclude one another; internal enemies and magic. Omid shuddered to think of the latter, but it was quite obvious magic had been involved. God did not create such blocks of ice out of thin air to punish the wicked. Fire and brimstone raining from the Heavens was what the Most High did. But ice? Ice was a thing of darkness.
Fine then. If Shara refused to tell him, he’d just ask the guards about what had happened. They would be more forthcoming. The men who worked here appreciated him more than they did the bloodhound named as the captain of the guard, most likely because he appreciated them more than she did. The state of a guardsman’s genitalia was not something the captain should be inspecting with such regularity. Wait…
“How many?” he asked, and felt Shara flinch at the question.
“How many?!” he repeated.
“None…” she whispered uncertainly. What nonsense was this woman letting out of her mouth now?
“None? None at all? What do you mean, woman?” he snapped, feeling new strength reserves opening up at his indignation.
“None have died, Omid, and that is the truth!” she said gripping his head more tightly to prevent him from getting up.
“How is that possible? What of the enemy?”
“None of them, either”
“W-whah?”
The tension that had gripped his body and allowed him to attempt getting up was loosened and he fell back into a completely flaccid state. This was all just some jest. Dark arts had been used against the royal palace in the middle of the night, enemies had attacked, and yet neither friend nor foe had been slain? Who could believe such a thing?
Of course, he was in a bath now, and the Pharaoh herself was there with him. If the situation were truly dire, this would not be possible. Then… they had captives?
“Do we… prsnrs?” he mumbled.
“No” she said flatly.
“Hgh?”
“Omid, dear, please stop. You’re working yourself up unnecessarily! All will be well, no, all is well! Really!” she protested.
With a heavy sigh he closed his eyes. There was no point to any of this.

After Omid had visibly relaxed, Shara allowed the servant girl who had been tending to him previously come back and he could hear the Pharaoh’s footsteps as she returned to lounge somewhere. This was good an opportunity as any.
Without warning the servant, Omid opened his eyes and darted up, lifting his shoulders and head to see what was happening with his body.
All he saw was white. For a moment he worried he’d gone blind, but then he saw the sealing as the servant pulled his head into her lap.
“Master Omid, you mustn’t do that” she rebuked him gently.
“M-milk?” he asked, flabbergasted, and saw the servant girl blush.
“O-oh my! I’m only an initiate…” she mumbled, trying to hide her face. Omid realized the daft girl thought he asked to drink hers. The pagans were depraved beyond any decency.
“No… me!” he tried.
“You wish to be milked, Master Omid?”
Grrh!
“You will keep your hands off of his member or spend the night in the Khepri Pit, girl” Shara snapped.
“Yes Your Radiance” she said in a hurry.
Radiance… such a word to use! The Pharaohs traced their line back to some ancient pagan goddess of the Sun. It would have been quite ridiculous if the damn creature didn’t visit the temple four times a year.
“I… I’m… IN… milk?” he finally articulated.
“Yes Master”
“Why?”
“Headpriestess of Hathor ordered it as your treatment, Master” she explained, a certain awe in her voice when she spoke of the cow goddess’ highest servant.
“The priestesses donated the milk themselves!” she said happily, and Omid suddenly felt sullied and defiled in more ways than he could possibly have imagined was possible. Certainly he’d seen the women of the palace partake in such baths before, Shara especially enjoyed them as she claimed it maintained her youthful looks, but for him to be submerged in milk that came from the teats of some abominable heathens! They might as well have buried him in a heap of dung up to his neck! He felt nauseous. And strong. This newfound outrage gave him the strength to lift his hand up from the pool and… see it was blue.
The hand submerged again, and he found himself pressed even more tightly against the soft thighs of the servant.
“W-whahh?”
“Your Radiance, he was…”
“I can tell, stupid girl! Off, off with you! Get out!” Shara snapped as she rushed in. The servant ran out.
“Whahh heh?” Omid’s tongue couldn’t quite wrap itself around the words.
“Side effects. Don’t worry, we rubbed cream on your face so it’s fine” she explained, lying down so as to hold his head to her bosom.
“B-blue?” Omid said in a shock. He didn’t understand. Why?
“Yes. From the cold. Your body was… in a bad shape. You shouldn’t have used that stuff.  Your stash has been confiscated. We’ll give it to you in small doses whenever you want to use it, of course, but…”
The rest of her words were completely lost on him. Omid had needed that spice to bear his imprisonment here. He’d needed it.

After a while had passed, the milk began to get colder, and servants came into gather it up into jugs. The drainage system left Omid’d body uncovered for a brief moment, and then he saw just how awful a shape his body really was in. Different hues of grey and blue all over, some spots worse off than others. It looked almost like parts of him were thawing, really. He was almost willing to have the fresh, warm milk poured over him now.
Then the priestesses entered and began to fill the pool, making him feel disgusted to the point he’d have preferred the blueness to this.

There was music after that. The harps and flutes were quite soothing, even when played by such as these pagans, and Omid drifted into sleep again. When he woke up, there was gruel to be eaten. He didn’t dare ask if there was anything that originated in a Monster in it, and simply allowed it to be fed to him as he tried to leave his body and enter into a world of higher thinking and virtuous philosophy. He failed.
The milk was not changed again. Rather, after the pool was drained, Omid was wrapped in hot linens as if he were a mummy a transported very carefully to a warmer room, the antechamber to the sauna, where he was laid on a slab meant for massages.
It was then that the priestesses of Hathor began to giggle and prattle on about things that bear not repeating. They unwrapped the linens and told him to relax. This was not difficult, as he was far too tired to not relax. A cloth was left to cover his privates – an unusual show of tact from the fiends – and then they began to pour some kind of lotion on to their hands and his body. It was icky and felt warmer than it should.
Shara was in the room, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings. Ah yes, the cloth covering him made sense now. She didn’t want anyone touching him where he “belonged” to her. A favour of sorts, but for all the wrong reasons.

The massage began. The impudent, soft hands of the Cows began to rub on his blue and grey body, and as they did, they spread the lotion, whatever it was. This made him feel warmer than the milk ever had. He did not want to know it was.
“This is actually made with Anubis butter, don’t you know Master Omid?” blurted out an impudent wench. Such inconceivable impudence! And this stuff had come from…?
Omid groaned. Why was he being tormented in this manner?
“It’s very good for conducting the heat, isn’t it Master Omid? You should be feeling it already!” prattled on another wench, this one with a chipped horn. He’d seen this one before, that horn was a very distinctive feature. She’d been nursing one of the guards when he was off-duty. Or so they claimed. He’d have checked it, but the captain of the guard had told him to stop being such a busy-body. A frightening beast this one was. As none of them tried particularly hard to hide their bodies, the muscle on hers was quite prominently visible. Years of service to the goddess of fertility and health had rounded her up some, but it was quite clear this had once been a more violent, more feral creature. There were even faded scars in some places if you looked hard enough, not that Omid would ever do such a thing.
“You know, we had to give you some herbs so you wouldn’t be hurt by the cold, but once this starts to really seep in, you’ll feel a, you know? What’s that when you sleep on your leg and then it goes numb and when you get off it and it starts to feel again?” asked one of the more amply curved ones with blonde hair reminiscent of the northerners Omid had sometimes seen.
“Tingling?” responded a human initiate who stood by with a jar of the lotion, ready to help her seniors in the cult of the Cow minister more of the vile ooze on to Omid’s body.
“Yeah, that’s it, that’s the stuff! You’ll tingle all over Master Omid! You might, what’s that with the needles?” the same dumb one sought aid again.
“Prick?” suggested the human girl.
“Oh no, we can’t touch him there at all” said one of the priestesses.
“Well whatever it is, you’ll be feeling lots of it” concluded the dumb one, and then they kept on gossiping with one another over meaningless things. Omid found himself flabbergasted at their ability to completely ignore the fact that not so long ago the royal palace had been assaulted and frozen. It was downright unnatural for them to be so cheerful in the face of such things!
And then he began to feel things.

At first, a pleasant warmness had spread over his skin where the fiends had touched him, and that had been fine. Then it had begun to spread into his flesh, and that had done two things. First of all, the soreness he had been feeling was amplified. Secondly, whatever the herbs they had given him had been, they had stopped working. He was chilled to the bone, and his genitalia were downright unbearable. He gasped for breath and felt the air grow cold in his lungs. He shouldn’t be alive! This kind of sensation should be impossible!
The priestesses saw his reaction and restrained his limbs down to the slab with leather straps. Even in his weakened state, he found the mad strength to try and flail about at what he was feeling.
Of course it wasn’t the cold at the core that was the worst part. Oh no, his skin felt a tingling, ticklish sensation which made him think of ants crawling all over him, and he couldn’t scratch because of the restraints. If he could have, he might well have torn his skin bloody. That aside, last but not least, there were the needle pricks into his flesh.
As the warm ointment seeped in, his flesh came alive. The lack of feeling was replaced with an egregious contrast between the living, feeling and warm body, and the frozen, almost dead flesh. It was as if he was on the one hand holding his naked skin against ice, and on the other against a hot iron. The feeling continued to spread as the Cow priestesses massaged him, and their movements got rougher and stronger, hurting his sore muscles. Had he not been a great warrior, he’d have cried out loud… er.
Like a leg that has fallen asleep starts to hurt and then feel better, so too did Omid’s body. Once the heat had spread enough into his muscles, they began to tingle like his skin had, but his skin no longer itched and tingled. The sharp, stabbing pain moved on to his bones, of course, and this was worse than anything he’d experienced before, and he lost consciousness from it.

When Omid came to, it was all over. He was in a soft bed, covered by a warm, thick blanket, and his limbs were free to move. The massage had even done away with some of the soreness, and he could actually elevate himself to a more seated position. He became aware of a sensation he didn’t want to accept, and chose to ignore it, instead paying attention to his surroundings. The royal bedchamber, it looked like. This was technically his marital bed. He’d avoided the room of course, with its many mirrors and sensual veils and nude statues. There were more censers here than there were sources of light. The incense that Shara burned was always soothing and smooth in smell, intoxicating and arousing in effect. Even now he could tell the stuff was working its foul, dark magic, and making impure thoughts spread in his mind, his loins, his… his crotch was still frozen stiff by God’s grace!
“The sleeper awakes” said Shara’s voice matter-of-factly. She’d been standing by a pillar that depicted in painting a variety of depraved acts committed by men and Anubi. The Chief Scribe claimed it was a treatise on the nature of social contracts, but it looked like pornography to Omid.
Shara took an ominous step closer to him. She was still dressed in very loose lingerie that looked like a cloth so thin it might as well be transparent had been artfully wrapped around her without tightening it in any way. Her sweat and her other fluids had made it even more of a see-through affair. There was a jar on the night table.
“Why am I here?” Omid demanded. He had a bad feeling, but he wanted confirmation from her before he’d give up hope completely.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked, crossing her arms. Omid couldn’t help but notice her arms were thicker and better formed than his were. But it was not the flesh were the warrior resided, it was in the heart.
“I couldn’t let the Hathorites touch my husband where he’s truly mine” she said, her eyes half-closed, her voice smooth and quiet, but somehow hard as iron. There was no negotiating Omid’s situation, or the future that awaited him.
Shara opened the jar and took some of the lotion on her hands.
“It really is warm…” she pondered as she rubbed it all over her hands, making wet, sloshing sounds. It was quite vulgar, really.
“Ahh, that’s nice!” she said with a smile, looking at her hands in amazement. “I wonder if it could warm up my feet, too. They get so cold sometimes…”
She took more lotion, sat down on the bed and applied it to her feet.
“Mmhm, that’s nice! I can feel it seep in, oh, that tingling is the best!” she said while arching her back and stretching out. This display was something most people in the world would never see from her. The Pharaoh’s dignity was carefully preserved before her subjects as well as foreign dignitaries, and seeing her like this was reserved only for those closest to her, such as Omid.
Suddenly Shara turned to face him, with a thoughtful look on her face. She stroked her shin as she threw the covers aside and looked with concern at his shrivelled genitalia, the same familiar blue and grey in tint as his body had been until recently.
“I wonder…” she said, then turned to face him completely while leaning back. She spread her legs so he had a clear, unobstructed view of her crotch, which was sopping wet by this point thanks to the aphrodisiac incense.
“No reaction at all?” she asked, disappointed. For some reason Omid felt a great shame at this. Not because of her impudent eyes were eyeing up his body as it were a piece of meat at a butcher shop, but because as a man, he should have been able to present any woman with an impressive… manhood.
“Oh well. Let’s see if I can’t help you with that” she said with a giggle, then lifted one leg straight up and rubbing more lotion on it. Omid had a bad feeling about this.