Queen of Their Colony (Kindred Tales)

“Look at me!” she exclaimed, staring at herself in the mirror. “I knew that horrid Mistress Terra was just trying to frighten me. Look at me—I’m so young!”

“But now you’re younger than me!” Dahlia exclaimed. “You look more like my little sister than my mother!”

“So I do!” Mistress Bodikin preened in front of the viewer, admiring her firm neck which no longer sagged into a double chin. “Just look at me—why, I don’t look a day over twenty! Maybe even nineteen!”

“It’s not fair!” Dahlia shouted. “Now I’ll never get my inheritance! I’ve been waiting for you to die for years, you old hag, and now you never will!”

“That’s just too bad, isn’t it?” Mistress Bodikin sniffed. “You know, now that I’m young again, I think I might go down to the Insemination Center and try for a different heir. You’ve turned out rather disappointing, Dahlia, my dear. Honestly, I think I could do much better. I’m going to get pregnant again and disinherit you.”

“You can’t disinherit me just because you’re young now! I want to be younger, too!” Dahlia shrieked.

Reaching over, she grabbed the golden chalice of the Kat-sat-Suum which still sloshed with the rainwater liquor.

“What? No! Stop, Dahlia—I forbid it!” Mistress Bodikin shouted.

But it was too late—Dahlia had tipped the golden chalice up and was draining it dry, guzzling the liquor like she was in a bar and people were shouting, “Chug! Chug!” in her ear.

The moment she finished drinking, she threw down the golden chalice, which landed with a metallic clang on the marble floor.

“There! Oh, I can feel it!” she exclaimed, just like her mother had. “I can feel it happening! I can feel it making me younger and prettier than you!” she told Mistress Bodikin.

But Terra didn’t think that was exactly what was happening.

Dahlia’s features were changing—that was true—but not for the better. She wasn’t looking younger or prettier at all. Instead, her features seemed to be twisting and contorting themselves in some very strange ways. Her nose suddenly grew twice as big and developed a hump in the middle. Her eyes grew smaller and closer together, so that she looked like she was squinting, and she developed an extremely hairy unibrow. Her skin began to sag and her hair began to go gray and get thinner and thinner and then the most enormous wart Terra had ever seen popped out on her chin.

“Oh my God,” she whispered in awe. “She looks like a witch!”

“Like the Wicked Witch of the West, perhaps?” Tem suggested.

“Maybe,” Rive allowed thoughtfully.

“She looks fuckin’ wrong,” V’rone growled.

And clearly, he wasn’t the only one who thought so. The servants and guards were murmuring and pointing, whispering with wide eyes as they watched their Mistresses change.

“What? What is it?” Dahlia demanded.

She stopped feeling her face and looked in the viewer instead. What she saw drew a long shriek from her lips.

“What is this? What did you do to me? What did you do?” she screamed at her mother.

But Mistress Bodikin had problems of her own because she was still growing younger.

As Terra dragged her eyes away from Dahlia, she saw that Mistress Bodikin looked no older than fifteen now. Then she was a gangly twelve-year-old and then ten and then five—a little girl sitting in an enormous brocade dress that was many sizes too big for her. The tall peacock-blue wig she’d been wearing fell off her head and the little girl began to wail.

But before she could even get out a good cry, Mistress Bodikin de-aged again. Or maybe she youthened—Terra wasn’t sure what the right word was. But anyway, a moment later, there was nothing but a squalling infant lying in a puddle of brocade. And then, even the infant was gone.

“What has happened to her? What has happened to Mistress Bodikin?” one of the guards cried. “Quick—we must find her!”

Two guards rushed forward and grabbed the dress and wig, shaking them as though their missing Mistress might fall out on the ground like loose change.

But all that was left, when the golden throne was cleared, was a puddle of sticky white stuff right in the center of the red velvet cushion the Yonnie Mistress had been sitting on.

One of the guards stuck his fingers in the white goo and pulled them back at once. Grimacing, he wiped his fingers on the side of his uniform trousers.

“It’s jizz!” he exclaimed, in a low, disgusted voice. “Nothing but a puddle of jizz!”

“Oh my God!” Terra whispered, as she finally realized what had happened. “She de-aged all the way back to the beginning!”

“There’s nothing left of her but the seed and egg which formed her in the first place,” Rive said gravely.

“Seriously?” V’rone craned his neck to see. “You’re sayin’ Mistress Bodikin’s nothing but a puddle of cum?”

“That’s what it looks like,” Tem murmured. “But I’m not sure if her daughter isn’t in for a worse fate.”