Present 74 Posted August 17, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted August 17, 2019 (edited) This is a collaboration I did with the talented LivingInfinite. He's done the honor of creating many drawings to accompany the story, which are spoilered next to where they appear in the text. Make sure to check him out at http://pixiv.me/livinginfinite (or if you just want to see the drawings). (The story takes place in the same universe as March of the Valkyries. Consider reading it first, it's sort of a prequel to this one.) “How much longer remains for us to travel?” “The Third Corps rest twenty-three kilometers to our north. They have received your order to remain still for three days. Should misfortune not befall our journey, we will arrive at noon tomorrow.” “Then let us dawdle no longer. Where are we to go?” “Certainly, your majesty. We shall go now in this direction.” Queen Ulrika the First of Scandia, regal and resplendent in an officer’s uniform, led her servant through the long grass. The queen’s stride necessitated in Iris a hurried pace matched easily by the plodding, unburdened horses she led. Perhaps walking was indeed invigorating, as Ulrika had declared, but she wished now for a respite from her sore muscles more than any invigoration. How intractable the queen was in these times, allowing the two powerful and prized stallions to be led with naught more than clothes on their backs. Of the four, the brown Arabian was perhaps the most acquainted with the surrounding lands. He was a war-horse, an ex-regular in the Gothian army whose care was bestowed upon the Scandians after a crushing battle at Mistelfeld. The green peaks enveloping the party were where he once grazed, the rapid streams in the dense forests where he once drank. Gothia’s winds, rushing cold and fast in the deep Visigoth valleys, rustled his mane as they had since he was a colt. What an idyllic scene it must have been to the stallion, who could not have known that he, in nominal terms, had still not yet returned to his homeland. For his new master, the queen who had brought him back to his pastoral valleys, had made the lands behind her Scandian soil. Eleven years of victory and conquest under Ulrika’s reign had brought her Northern empire to the peak of its power, possessing as it did now a dominion exceeding that of Gustav IV’s and an exorbitant wealth not seen since Harald II. Her march had not stopped at the lands lost in the Twelve Years’ War, for she had taken it upon herself to exact from her adversaries the vengeance Scandia’s royalty had long promised and failed to achieve. The Livonian Federation had been dismantled and existed now only as Scandian tributaries, bestowing wheat from its fertile fields upon the soldiers who were now bringing upon the Gothian Empire a similar fate. Four years of the Second Strelizian War released the once-mighty empire’s final vassals to Ulrika, who hesitated not one second in leading her Grand Army to breach the citadel of Greater Gothia. The conqueress now trod upon the Gothian heartland’s soil. An extraordinary mythos had burgeoned around the Virago Queen, whose continued presence on the battlefield broke enemy morale and reinforced her troops’ unyielding bravery even in the face of certain death. The veneration of her subjects manifested in their insistence she be referred to as Ulrika the Great, while her foes decried the Scandian monarch as a harpy of death and subjugation. But while Ulrika’s unassailable bravery in the fray made her distinct from the tradition of Scandian nobility preferring to dictate battle from afar, her tenuous control over herself while in the throes of war remained an accursed vestige of her genteel lineage. Though she would never dare to voice her thoughts, Iris could not help but ponder if the burden of bloodshed upon heart and mind had made worse the queen’s already poor continence. At any rate, it was a notion that Ulrika’s pride in herself compelled a wholehearted rejection of. She was still reaching ever-greater glory for her country and her reign, marching as she was now closer and closer to the Gothian nobility in their capital. For all of the nation’s great populations crammed into the sooty cities of industry, the countryside offered a solace of tranquility devoid of cacophonies of modernity. But free it was not of the heavens’ bellows, crashing down upon the valley in a peal of thunder echoing all around the Baden peaks. The sudden clap would prove enough of a shock to Ulrika for her to momentarily lose herself in battle-tempered trauma, and allow into her diaper’s clean padding her hot urine and a malodorous load. Only with considerable effort did could she gather enough composure to get a hold on herself, but by which point the sodden padding between her thighs and sticky mess at her rear told Ulrika her accident had been quite considerable. But Iris and her equine companion seemed entirely unperturbed by the thunder, as revealed to the queen in a quick backwards glance. Though Iris had at least suspected, from Ulrika’s reaction and blush, her secret, to make mention of needing a change to her collected servant would be a wound to Ulrika’s pride – and so she walked onwards at a steady tempo, with a blush of secret humiliation upon her face and a soiled diaper tucked discreetly under her clean clothes. She scowled at having wet herself at something so minute, something that should have under no circumstance scared her to that degree. Had it not been for Saalfeld… Adamant she was in her own strength and ability, Ulrika could not help but feel a twinge of displeasure at retaining still her personal failings despite all which she had achieved. She had become the Virago Queen and Ulrika the Great, but could not prove herself more continent than when she had been Princess Elisabeta. A preservation of her image in war was beyond a matter of her vanity—it was a powerful instrument of propaganda serving Scandian interests in the minds of both her subjects and foes. It was to Ulrika’s great displeasure that the achievement of those ends involved at times a sacrifice of her own dignity. As with all things relating to Ulrika’s personal matters, long-suffering Iris had endured much vexation before her mistress could be convinced of a need to wear protection in the days after encountering a clash. The queen had never but begrudgingly accepted the circumstance, and continued to profess to Iris the reservations she had about wearing a diaper she could not remove to relieve herself. But in light of her queen’s tendency to wet herself at even mild impetus, the servant found that such a situation presented itself quite rarely indeed. Not an hour had passed since thunder had coursed through the clouded valley when the sun peeked furtively out of the gloomy clouds. All the valley basked in its warming rays lifting the mild morning dew off long blades of grass. Such was the duality of the Gothian sky. A mild humid heat began to wash over heavily-dressed Ulrika; with sweat beading on her brow she instructed Iris to lead them into the forested trough. Their slow descent on the rocky terrain brought the sounds of life closer with each step, a symphony of birdsong and stirring fauna. A restless doe trotted half a league away, crunching on the layer of leaves below her hooves. Unbeknownst to her, she was being tracked – watched in the sights of a Weiss hunting rifle. The rifle’s bark scattered all life unlucky enough to have their peace intruded by the shot, sending legions of rodents scampering and bringing flocks of birds to the skies. Magnified as it was by the shape and depth of the valley, the shot would register within Ulrika as a phantom of the ruthless bullets hurled towards her at Saalfeld, that great fight whose recent memory still lurked inside her soul. Indeed, the discharged rifle was of the same manufacture as the one which had downed countless Scandians in their campaign in Gothia. It impressed within Ulrika’s subconscious that she was being assassinated, but the cohesion of the thought was lost in its journey to register as a sheer reflex-inducing terror. The queen spat a curse and staggered to the side with the momentum of her weight, leaping for cover behind the muscular flanks of her horse and eliciting from the beast a startled whinny. Her arms shot up in defense of her head and heart, and brushed on it way her shotgun’s roost across her breast. Adrenaline overcame fear enough for her to bring forth the weapon to return fire. Engrossed as she had been on escaping death and now returning fire, Ulrika stood unaware that the unadulterated terror had cost her what control she had over herself. The second deadly shot never came. But of course. The sound was too distant to have been a messenger of grave danger. Only as her fear subsided did she notice the increased bulk of the sodden padding between her legs, and the sensation in her bowels indicating that she had again emptied herself into her diaper. That she had voided enough in her earlier accident to avoid spilling the full contents of her bladder into the already soiled diaper was only a small mercy. Ulrika could feel against her nether regions now the mass of heavily soaked padding; and while her clothes remained clean it was quite clear that the same would not be true if she were to be overcome by fear again. The sight of Iris cowering teary-eyed behind her horse was enough consolation for Ulrika, but she still could not help but blush deeply when she opened her mouth. “Iris…” “Oh-, Y-Your Majesty, s-shall we stop for a brief respite from travel?” The servant’s voice was still quavering from fear, but irritatingly her dress seemed to remain clean. “Certainly, you must be fatigued. Before you rest, I ask that you … aid me with my personal matters.” “Of course. Ah– if I may, I shall mention that my supply of your, ah, u-undergarments, has become rather lessened.” Iris let a pause hang, then quickly stammered, “But please trust that I may find more.” In spite of herself, it was annoyance and not embarrassment that fell into Ulrika’s voice.“I understand. But assist me now nevertheless.” Iris needed only nod in confirmation. The less words to be said the better. The servant carefully tied the horses to a nearby tree before she went to attend to Ulrika, who glanced suspiciously around the forest for prying eyes. To quell the queen’s concerns, Iris led her behind a sturdy oak growing against a steep dirt bank, a pocket of nature shielded from the sun and eyes in two directions. She begun by undoing Ulrika’s pants and undressing the queen just enough to expose the evidently used diaper at her crotch. Experience had made Iris’s touch gentle and delicate, all for Ulrika to divest her attention away from the humiliation. She did not look once at her mistress’s face as she removed the diaper and cleaned Ulrika’s skin, the weight of the used padding revealing just how much she had needed the protection. It took naught more than two minutes for Iris to finish wrapping the queen in a clean diaper and dress her again, by which time the embarrassment had too receded from her cheeks. With the hot sun now high in the sky, Ulrika chose to mount her horse and ride in the shade of the valley’s tall pines. The horses, hemmed in by the tall pines and dense underbrush, could not unleash their mighty gallop here, and so carried their riders in a lively trot past rushing creeks and fallen logs. Each passed landmark prompted Iris to consult her map and compass, and adjust just enough their course to carry onwards to nightfall’s destination. There were no roads and no trails here in the countryside; a land seemingly devoid of all human imprint where one could hide and never be found. Ulrika relaxed her still-tense mind from the thought of the hunter, and let the horse’s steady gait while the hours away against the backdrop of a peaceful alpine forest. As the afternoon unraveled and the journey grew long, the Baden Valley scenery gently rolled by and changed remarkably little. Only when the horses suddenly stopped and whinnied were the two travelers broken out of their dreamlike trance. Curiously, they could spot nothing amiss within the heavily wooded vicinity which could have brought their stallions to a halt. In an abdication of her fruitless search, Ulrika knit her eyebrows and picked up the reins, preparing to spur on the disconcerted steed, when a furious howl abruptly shattered the silence of the forest. The savage cry startled all who it struck, and Ulrika’s heart jumped in her chest and her body stiffened, allowing for a moment an errant stream of piss to escape and absorb into her waiting diaper. Her regal white mount neighed and staggered, tugging upon the reins his rider still held in hand. But a temperament bred for calm under the utmost stress would prevail, and so when the scarlet fox leapt out from behind the trees he merely snorted and pawed the ground, waiting dutifully for the leather reins’ next instruction. Ulrika, however, had understood what the horse could not – those bulging eyes and the foam at the mouth, the convulsions and the erratic dash – a mad beast, a rabid beast! With not an ounce of restraint or reason in its mind, the snarling foxed twisted and contorted, and bolted towards the first creature it could see with salivating jaws ready to sink their teeth into soft flesh. Though small the fox was, the sight of its rabid dash towards its quarry would easily make Ulrika’s blood run cold. And in an instant it had found her again – the still-festering apparitions at Saalfeld, the apparition haunting her nights – those demons of death and terror, lurking always deep within her heart. It was too soon to forget, too living a memory to suppress; she had emerged victorious from the battle of ereyesterday but her nerves had been shot. So consumed was Ulrika was by the awakened terror of human carnage that she could not find it in her to scream or draw her weapon, and with her muscles paralyzed by fear she failed also to inhibit the torrent of hot urine that rushed freely from her bladder or the load squishing out of her slackened bowels. Her extremities became less and less material and dangled weightless, useless at her sides; all the queen could feel now was her heart exploding in her chest and the hot piss pooling at her crotch before it could soak into the drenched padding. But without ally in grave peril she was not, for her white Scandian horse had too realized the scope of the danger. Retaining still a clear and sharpened mind, the great beast bucked and leapt gracefully out of harm’s way, and upon impact with the earth broke into a gallop in tandem with his Arabian brethren. The horse’s loud neigh and powerful stride would be a strange reassurance proving enough for her to regain some sense, and though her chest still pounded with a bursting heart the ferocity of battle was beginning to take hold of her temples. The fox was behind, screeching a pitiful wail of desperation and confusion, and wildly running still in a chase for something, anything, though it did not even know what it was chasing for. A long-awaited demise, albeit delivered without intention of mercy, came from the left barrel of Ulrika’s Seidel shotgun in an impeccable Parthian shot. When the fox had collapsed on the ground and the blood began to paint its matted fur a sanguine red, Ulrika turned herself back around and pulled on her horse’s reins, abruptly ceasing his free and wild gallop. Iris’ Arabian followed suit. The encounter had not taken more than a minute, but to Ulrika it had felt as though half her life was stolen away. What a calamity this was. It had merely been a fox – and even instilled with all the madness in the world could not have been any match for Ulrika. But in the circumstances of today… and though I could at least kill the fox with due competence… how hampering was the residue of warfare on her soul, slowing her, dulling her, filling her with undue fear. Her assailant indeed lay dead behind her, but left her to contend with the sensation of sitting in padding wet with her own pee and a disgusting mess that the saddle squished against her backside. More than anything, she felt quite disgusted with the spectacle. There were people afoot here, hunters or farmers perhaps, murmuring among themselves while casting glances over the strange outsider in their lands. Ulrika glanced quickly at her backside to ensure her secret remained hidden, and though it wasn’t particularly reasonable for her diaper to have leaked she still felt a bout of relief at finding her clothes dry. Still, there hung over Ulrika an undeniable embarrassment of being seen while having soiled herself. To further the queen’s disconcertion, Iris again retained great composure despite all which had just occurred. Had she seen not the fox’s raving madness? The queen had begun riding again at a slow trot, and so Iris picked up heir reins also to follow. Only after about two minutes did the queen stop her steed and cast a long, suspicious stare behind her. Iris balked slightly before realizing she was not the subject of her mistress’s misgivings. She had a mind to ask Ulrika for what she wished for, but the sight of the queen’s twisted expression and crimson blush bade her to keep silence. It had also the effect of telling her precisely what would be requested of her. “Iris!” The servant jumped a bit at the anger with which her mistress spoke. “Yes?” “Ach … were you been injured by that vile, rabid creature? You must know how dangerous it is to be bitten by mad beasts!” As she spoke, the edge of her voice dulled. “Oh… I had not even noticed! Then I am sincerely grateful for your valorous deed!” Iris needed not feign her surprise. And Ulrika’s shot was indeed fantastic. “Is that so? Well, shall we rest for a while then? Just to steady ourselves.” “Certainly, ah, well, will you need me from anything then?” She tried dearly to speak with discretion. “If you may.” The flatness of Ulrika’s response told Iris of her success in tact, though of course she could not let her relief show on her face. As before, she retrieved another one of Ulrika’s diapers from the bag slung across the Arabian’s haunches. For not one second did she let the gentle grace in her movement falter as she cleaned and changed Ulrika. When all was said and done she quickly turned heel and climbed upon her Gothian horse, and waited earnestly for sight of the queen’s stallion to lead them forwards in travel. Where the tall peaks separating Gothia from its vassals begin to fall away, there lies kissed by the sun swathes of the continent’s most fertile, most bountiful farmland. The autumn’s great harvests of wheat nourished the all lands’ children, garnished by the vineyards’ delectable wines and the breweries’ stout ales. The grazing bovine herds and fattened pigs in their pens completed the bucolic beauty. How pitiful it was for such a prosperous realm to fall so unceremoniously before frozen, lifeless Scandia! The cornucopia waited at the mouth of the valley, deceiving close, tantalizing travelers with the promise that it lay not but a few paces away. But the lands were wily, for the valley rolled gently and gradually, concealing the vast distances of travel that remained in the endless valley before Gothia’s breadbasket. The sun drew lower in the sky sending its light dancing around the tops of the highest peaks, and withdrew its beating heat from the valley floor to be cooled by emerging evening breezes. It was Ulrika who first noticed the rushing wind sifting through the valley’s dense trees and realized the waning of the day. Hours and countless kilometers had gone by since her encounter with the fox. Having not left the forest of the valley floor, she had yet to be enticed by vistas of the Gothian hinterland, and was fast tiring of the beautiful but monotonous woodlands. She pulled sharply upon her white horse’s reins and swung her body off the saddle in one graceful motion, obliging Iris to quickly follow suit and begin leading both horses on foot. The servant consulted her map and compass for the umpteenth time, and when satisfied in the slight detour Ulrika had chosen to take, looked up to follow her out of the woods. Undeniable was the Baden Valley’s beauty, but its gentle inclines did not endear the Scandian queen to the lands now in her possession. All the noble blood in the world could not teach her to cherish the world’s natural grandeur through the eyes of an aristocrat. Though Iris was enraptured by the beauty her homeland so dearly lacked, Ulrika remained markedly unimpressed by how effortless a climb on the Gothian slopes felt. The leisurely stroll was barely less monotonous than a ride through the forest, but demure Iris had broken her usual silence to insist that they stay upon the hillside. She would stop to rest several times during their walk, but Ulrika felt throughout not even the slightest hint of exhaustion or exertion. There was in her body no savory ache nor biting soreness to test her endurance, and in light of her muscles’ ambivalence Ulrika’s senses were drawn to her gradually filling bladder. She cursed herself for having put on her last diaper, for she could not remove it even to relieve herself without putting it to waste. All she could do now was squeeze her legs together and try to relieve the mounting pressure. A hot dryness had formed in the back of Ulrika’s mouth, inviting her to take a swig from her canteen to slake off the thirst. She obliged and brought the jug to her lips, pouring forth the cool, pure water she had collected earlier from a rushing stream. But gulping the refreshing drink down into her stomach proved too much for her burdened bladder, which flinched and released, allowing its full contents to flow unrestrained into the waiting padding. Ulrika recoiled instantly and jammed a hand into her crotch to try and stem the torrent of hot piss, but her efforts proved futile; her diaper slowly expanded and warmed with her own pee for what felt like an agonizing eternity. When she had finally regained control of herself, she found that the bulk of sodden padding was pressing against her. In all other circumstances, she would have asked Iris for a change – but to do so now would mean traveling the remainder of the day without any protection. And recollecting all which had happened prompted Ulrika to quickly discard the idea. There was no alternative, then; despite everything, she would have to travel onwards in the diaper she had wet. Dusk had replaced afternoon by the time Iris and Ulrika exited the Baden Valley and arrived in the fertile fields. Gothia’s breadbasket was still a rustic and backwards plain, a far cry from the great feats of industrialization achieved in Aldenburg or Mülheim. Few people occupied the vast tracts of land, and what little made it their home lived in old-fashioned accommodations reminiscent of a bygone century. Separating each family from the next were vast fields of wheat and rye, stretching as far as the eye could see. Skipped as the countryside was by the new development of railroads, the Gothian peasants lived insular lives within their little farmhouses. Though the backwater’s houses was a far cry from the great palaces of Gothia and Scandia, for the weary travelers it was the best accommodation for miles around. Even deep in the lands of a warring state, the rural poor would not refuse a few guilders to quarter an enemy officer. Armed with the wealth of the Scandian crown, Ulrika could afford to be discerning when finding a bed for a night; and though she usually refrained from being particular she had today a pressing need for diapers to scavenge. Though she was in no position to refuse whatever she found, she hoped that industrialized Gothia would see their denizens at least buying disposable diapers for their infants. In rural Gothia, however, finding a house that housed a child was proving a long and arduous task. Frustratingly, there was not a map or guide for the region, and the tall crop combined with the fading light had made navigation itself a challenging procedure. To find a house at all was a small miracle, and to find one that served Ulrika’s needs seemed nigh impossible. Light was fading quickly from the fields; and though the queen was unbothered by the darkness she wished for a place to relieve her churning bowels. The rations of salted beef had not agreed with her today. With no end to the long search in sight, she made the conscious choice to void only a bit of her mess into the diaper’s thick padding. As soon as she felt the mush escape her, she instantly regretted her infantile act. Now she could not even remove her diaper until she had something clean to change into. Endlessly they searched as the hours ticked by and the sun receded to leave the valley in the throes of dusk. They mounted their horses to hasten their progress and discovered that they had only become disoriented faster. Many times Iris would note in dismay that they had only gone in circles. And all throughout, Ulrika found that voiding herself earlier had done little to lessen the bully beef grumbling in her stomach and coagulating in her bowels. She pressed Iris into the role of sole navigator, and concentrated hard on bearing down upon her abdomen, trying with all her might to avoid another accident. But it all came to no avail when her stomach suddenly lurched as she prowled the fields and forced from Ulrika’s bowels the contents she had so desperately tried to hold in. It was the second such incident that she had the displeasure of enduring today, and the mortification of wetting herself earlier paled in comparison to the absolute disgust she felt now. Her position on the saddle had the effect of pressing the foul mush up against her as soon as it escaped her, filling her entire diaper and backside with her waste. The diaper filled and strained to keep contained all of the queen’s accident, before the mass of the expulsion overwhelmed the leg gathers and allowed some to leak past her padding and into the back of her pants. Though she was already struggling with the pounding ache in her bowels, it was impossible for Ulrika to not notice instantly her diaper’s failure. Revulsion and shock swept over her, turning her face beet-red in chagrin. She could no longer maintain a pretense in front of Iris. The servant took not much longer to discover her mistress’s lapse in continence. She made no comment upon seeing the stain on the back of Ulrika’s pants. Driven by a mixture of fear and embarrassment, and without making a ripple in the awkward atmosphere, she silently hastened her pace in looking for a place to stay the night. The queen rode wordlessly behind her, shifting her weight constantly to lessen the discomfort she was in. Her great impatience for finding a place to stay had been supplemented by a crushing fear at being seen in her soiled state. But time would prove a harsh mistress and drag on for an unbearable eternity, punctuated occasionally by the discovery of another farmhouse only to find it without young children. Ulrika rode in the shadow of Iris, trying the best she could to keep as far away from prying eyes as possible. Night had almost completed its succession of day when Iris heard suddenly, from the barely-illuminated farmhouse she was riding towards, the cry of a young child. There could be the night’s stay! She cracked the reins across the Arabian, urging it into a canter, but the queen did not follow with the same vigor. Sensing quickly her mistake, she slowed her horse down to a slow trot. But Ulrika was ahead of her, having already dismounted and continued inconspicuously on foot. Iris followed in turn, and for the remainder of the distance to the farmhouse led her horse behind her. When she had reached her destination, she tied the beast to a fence and knocked upon the heavy oak door. Though she saw through the windows shadows move behind candlelight, the ruddy-cheeked boy who greeted at her at the door still took her by surprise. “Hiya, whaddya want?” He spoke through grating and tonal voice, and had the vernacular of the country dialect. Though she had years of learning with the language, Iris could only just understand the child. “May I speak to your parents, little one?” Her Gothian was the precise and careful speech of one who learned through books. It marked her as not only an intellectual, but also a foreigner in these lands. “They went out to tha market. A’hm the only one ‘round. Watcha need, auntie? Who’re you anyway? Are you one of them bandits? You don’t look one!” All the words tumbled out of his mouth and mixed together. Coarse as he was, Iris could not help but find the jovial child endearing. “We’re only travelers from a faraway land. We’ve no place to stay tonight. If you wish, I can reward you for helping us.” She held open a hand, revealing three shimmering gold pieces. The child’s eyes went huge. “Wow! Please-please-please stay here! I’ll letcha you my mama’s room! Howd’ja get the gold? Are you a king? Are you a prince?” He stared at Iris with scrutiny. Now Iris couldn’t help but laugh. “Where I come from the gold grows on trees. But where I come from is a secret!” The boy pondered her words for a moment, and apparently satisfied, took the coins and opened the door. Ulrika had been ignored completely by the child, now showing Iris around the house, and she was relieved for it. She prayed that the odor of her accident and the stain on her pants would be go unnoticed. Luck would finally be on her side, however, as the musk of open bedpans and livestock pervaded the entire house. Her attention was torn quickly to the sounds of a young child’s unintelligible speech, and she realized then that in the room across from her was the farmhouse’s only other denizen. It was a young girl, a young girl who walked steadily upon her two feet but spoke slowly and with considerable labor. She was dressed in a simple and rough dress made of a single piece of faded grey cloth, and walked over to speak to Ulrika in the Gothian that she did not understand a word of. Before the child could become frustrated at the strange newcomer who understood nothing and spoke nothing, she was scooped up quickly by her older brother and taken into another room. Taking care to stay out of sight, Ulrika watched from behind a doorframe as the boy placed her sister upon the bed and changed her diaper. She waited until the child had left the room and scampered downstairs, and called loudly in Scandian for her servant to come quickly. Iris, understanding fully Ulrika’s predicament, hesitated not for a second in responding to the request. With a wet sponge and several rags, she gently cleaned off Ulrika and peeled from her the soiled clothing to wash. Night had fallen, and the travelers would take the initiative to pad downstairs for a cold bath the kitchen’s metal tub. With both children in the house asleep, they could relax and indulge in the house’s greatest luxury. When satisfied with the bath, both women changed themselves into their silken nightgowns. Iris slipped into a pair of simple cotton panties, and produced from a bag several baby diapers she had taken from the daughter’s bedroom. She prepared from the kitchen a corrugated washboard to wash the queen’s uniform in, only looking up from her work to see Ulrika walk upstairs with the diapers in hand. By the dim glow of candlelight, the queen entered and locked the door of her room, and when sure of her absolute privacy looked carefully over the diapers to discern how she could fit them over herself. While they were certainly preferable to the prospect of wetting herself without protection, Ulrika found baby diapers to be always tight-fitting and exceedingly uncomfortable around her hips and crotch. Much to Ulrika’s displeasure, the diaper she squeezed around her waist now would prove no different. Worse still, wearing the infantile undergarment inspired no confidence – the thin padding, meant for children, would no doubt fail at containing any of the queen’s accidents. All the pillaged diapers provided to her was a small safeguard, an interim for minor leaks before she could procure another package of her personal protection. With brief consideration of her bedwetting and how unacceptably small the child’s diaper was, Ulrika decided then to put on over the diaper she wore a second pair of the padded undergarments, and hoped for the best as she lay herself down upon the bed to sleep. Though she gazed through eyes clouded by the dense fog, Ulrika found in her heart the stirring of pride upon inspecting her Grand Army at arms and ready for their trial. Upon the field were regiment upon orderly regiment of blue-coated infantry, marching in step and unison to the beat of the battle-drums, bayonets at the ready and with hearts full of valor beating in their chests. Forwards, forwards they marched, advancing in an ever-quickening tempo, pouring from their chests the gallant Northern battle-cry. The methodical march of man was drowned out by the furious flight of cavalry, galloping without fear or question into the guns of the enemy. A thousand brandished cuirassiers’ sabers sliced through the fine mist. All the worlds’ chaos was gone, drowned out by the great roar of wind rushing past. Orange turned the sky, illuminated by the fire spat from countless muzzles and penetrating deep into the murky heavens; and the infinite fury of battle collapsed back upon itself as it fell down to the earth below, finally striking Ulrika as nothing more than a drop of light bouncing daintily off her weapon’s polished brass. The gates of Hell had opened and smeared the dewy hills with a plague of black-coated Gothian soldiers, congealing and converging in the haze into one great being before the order of battle forced them apart. They were the spawn of the perfidious rogues who a century earlier had crippled and torn apart the Scandian empire and doomed to a frozen exile all which had remained. But that had been when Scandia was weak and Gothia was strong; now Scandia was mighty and poised to bring upon the invaders’ homelands a long-promised retribution. You may fight like lions and die as free men, but you will not change the fate that awaits your lands. Nearer and nearer the Gothians drew, their curses and epithets sounding louder, their gunfire bursting brighter and the hail of bullets growing thicker. They were drawn as moths are to a flame towards the flanking light infantry, and in droves fell upon their knees to fire upon the charging Scandians. Ten thousand rounds of fire coalesced into one roar sweeping from their divisions across the grassy plains, cracking violently over each Scandian horse and rider as the first bullets began striking the earth. The loosened ground began splashing up in little fountains, glanced by the flying lead; closer and tighter the pattern drew, so Ulrika gritted her teeth and pulled with all her strength to turn herself away, further from the guns, further from the storms of death. And the bullets fell away from her, and there was for a moment a blessed peace, before the second volley started in earnest and though the reverberating roar fell farther away the merciless bullets bracketed her closer than they had before. Ulrika’s head was torn apart by a thousand impulses and her breath snared deep within her chest, and the horse was crying for want of clear instruction as she desperately whipped the beast back and forth in an effort to throw off their aim. She was in the depths of a terror and turmoil that slowly sapped the strength from her tightly-clenched body, allowing to trickle from her crotch a weak but consistent trickle of piss to be absorbed by her diaper before she could even notice. Faster, faster she charged her horse to run, only half a league onwards, fifteen, ten seconds to safety. But the third withering volley never came, its expected roar replaced by frantic screams of sudden melee and disorganized gunfire. The Scandian cuiraissiers had arrived, charging with gleaming swords into the distracted infantry regiments, slashing, cutting with impunity. Lulled away from the cover of their heavy guns by the Scandians’ charge, the black-coated mob found itself without defense from the cavalry eviscerating their ranks. The feint had been successful beyond expectations, though Ulrika was already too far away to appreciate the victory, riding still at a breakneck pace until she had crested the hill’s ridge into the Scandian infantry’s ranks. Only then did she grant herself a respite, unwinding her body slowly from the tight clench of a fight for survival. Though terrifying it was to be the defenseless lure in the order of battle, the losses on her regiment had been quite minimal; nary more than a handful Scandians would emerge bleeding from Gothian fire. There would be a brief calm to be enjoyed now, a fleeting moment for the injured to be rescued and the disarmed to be requisitioned by their comrades on foot. Ulrika felt herself for wounds, and realized suddenly that the padding between her legs had grown quite warm and damp against her crotch. Her bladder felt empty. I must have wet myself without noticing. Blind to the battlefield from the low ground they sheltered in, Ulrika’s light cavalry could not but wait for the bugle’s call for them to ride again into the fray. The horses trotted indignantly at being denied the excitement of battle; their riders mentally braced for facing the next gauntlet. One, two unbearable minutes drew by, before over the hill came the clarion signal, urging the division into another perilous struggle against their own demises. No time to think, no time to hesitate; there was but one task at hand to be faithfully executed. It was a strategy whose creation Ulrika herself had overseen, and now as she loaded the gleaming brass shells into her shotgun and spurred her horse to carry herself into the enemy lines, a strategy that she would become component of. Cheers and hurrahs from the hunkered infantry carried her into battle, their voices an ardent reminder of her duty still as the Scandian idol. The two opposing forces had taken sides around the hilly battlefield, their ground demarcated by the fire of heavy cannon denying enemy advances into their lands. Both Scandian and Gothian ranks dispersed in the face of shell bursting with enough strength to wholly eviscerate a platoon. A stalemate began to coalesce over the battlefield – a stalemate that attacking Scandia had not the ability to weather. Now, the Grand Army’s spearhead could only be sharpened again by the light cavalry. Though her horse could run without fear of enemy fire in the depression, Ulrika also found herself unable to discern when her comrades’ lines ended and her enemies’ started. Scandian cries melded into foreign barks as she pushed deeper into the enemy’s ranks, but she did dared not to strike upon them until she could hear their artillery’s thundering fire. Each shot was louder and more violent than the rest, until she could feel in her bones the earth tremble from under her horse’s flying hooves. She was upon their cannon now, and a burst of fire that could pierce the heavens thundered to her right, the sheer might of its great bellow slamming into her as something tangible and forcing from her quivering bladder the last few drops of urine that she had not already lost. And then she could hear through the deafening ringing in her ears the artillery’s violence fade further and further away; they were behind the Gothian spearhead now. Five seconds, four seconds, three, two, one. Ulrika pulled sharply upon the right reign, and with a neigh her horse obliged to bound over the gentle slope, taking her in an instant into a sea of black-coated Gothian soldiers. They were to her right, to her front, surrounding her but outmatched entirely by the Scandians descending suddenly upon their ranks. Ulrika placed in both hands her Seidel and aimed quickly at the dense crowd. There was no need to identify a single target before she pulled the heavy trigger, for the Gothians had assembled so tightly that the heavy lead shells were practically guaranteed to find a mark. Again and again the twin-barreled shotgun sent its tumbling projectiles into the Gothians, who in their haste to arm and return fire had abandoned the cannon, but were nevertheless cut down in droves before they could shoot back at their assailants. Not once did Ulrika slow her horse’s breakneck gallop, nor had she the mind to consider where in the battlefield she had plunged, so entirely fixated as she was upon the blistering rampage representing all that she could do to ward off her death. Load, aim, kill, load, aim, kill. To relent was to die. To fight so viciously upon horseback was a singular experience in its cocktail of pure adrenaline and terror. It was difficult to note even the most prominent of events, no matter how close they may have occurred. But though the world had folded and collapsed down into horse and rider, it was becoming impossible to ignore the physical exertion and pain that was beginning to surface. How long have I fought – how much longer will I fight? Fatigue was dripping its venom into Ulrika’s absolute focus, melting away its layers, averting her eyes from their duties and forcing her to witness the carnage around her. A flash of black, darker than the depths of night, and there it was, the Gothian cavalry had arrived, chasing the raiders with great swords at the ready. Now the world was being pulled apart, revealing its horrors for all to see; Ulrika twisted her body around and aimed quickly at the charging soldier upon his powerful black horse, and hesitated not a second to shoot behind her, allowing the pursuing soldier to fall into the tumbling leaden shells. She would not wait to see the spray of blood choke the cries of man and beast, for she had spurred her horse in a bid to escape, and with her heart snared by terror dared not look back upon the black-coated divisions. Faster, faster she pleaded her horse to run, and pressed herself lower and lower until her chest was touching his mane, but the ruthless shouts behind her still would not cease, pulling with greater and greater strength upon her mind to look behind, to find what would become of her. The pressure mounted upon her until it became unbearable, and finally look she did, and saw all which she had dreaded made manifest; her comrades had vanished and been replaced by a hundred, a thousand soldiers in black upon horses of the same shade, screaming in Gothian and slashing their glinting swords, pushing their horses faster and faster, drawing nearer and nearer to the sprinting white horse. All the blood in Ulrika’s body had been drawn into her pounding heart, and she could feel naught but the scream in her chest, pounding against her ribs and threatening to tear her wide open. Her continence disintegrated in absolute terror, releasing from her emptied bladder only drops of piss; the same mercy could not be afforded to her bowels, churning and emptying a volume of mess into the padding where it, pressed against the lurching saddle, was squished all across her backside. But Ulrika noticed not at all that she had just messed herself, so consumed as she was by the death encroaching steadily upon her. She tore her eyes away to desperately find an escape, but all there was ahead were the Gothians, a sea of them to both her sides, marching in unison like toy soldiers closer and closer until the path in front was closed, and then slowly, mechanically, lifting their rifles all at once to fire an infinite volley. Then at her right there was the black horse again, and she glanced over to find in horror that it was the horseman she had shot earlier, returned now in flesh and blood, lifting over his head a curved sword shimmering and dancing from a light she could not see. She squeezed her eyes shut, but could see still, in perfect clarity, the blade fall towards her, ready to cleave her apart, and in that moment she understood perfectly that she was to die. Valhalla… My blood? Something was clinging to her, something liquid. She lying upon her back, but could not recall what had put her there. Gone was the great cacophony of the battlefield. Ulrika slowly forced open her bleary eyes. A room, an unfamiliar room, but empty and peaceful nonetheless. There was no gunfire, no horseman, no sword, no Valhalla. It was Saalfeld again – that battle which stalked her still in her dreams and haunted her waking moments. It was her victory, but how utterly horrific it had been, trapping her divisions in a wild, defenseless escape before throwing her back to live it all over again. And how viciously those Gothians had fought for their fatherland, retreating not one step back, caring not even for their own lives, fighting and dying until the rivers ran red with their blood. To decimate all twenty thousand of their ranks took near all of the day, in which time their maneuvers trapped her within the butchery and forced her into struggle after bloody struggle. They had denied her all opportunity to retreat and change, and their relentless assaults did not fail to elicit from her several more accidents, each time further wearing away her fortitude to the point that she had soiled herself at the Scandian cannon-fire behind her. By the time she could accept the surrender her diaper had failed to contain all her mess, and the evidence for her fear had leaked past onto her thighs. That was quite possibly the most terrifying aspect of it all – how close she had come to losing completely her soldiers’ faith and enemies’ fear. The umbrage lingered even after she had changed, accentuated by her frustration of having helplessly messed herself at a shock so minute, as if she was again a princess who had never seen warfare. But she was not on the fields of Saalberg, and it was not her blood that clung wetly to her thighs. In a quickly cooling puddle around her, soaking into the rough sheets of the Gothian farmhouse, was her own pee, spilled in her sleep from the thin padding tightly wrapped around her crotch. With her eyes open now, she quickly found that even wearing the two diapers had helped little against her bedwetting; her face grew hot at the prospect of having to hide from the child her soaked sheets. A foul odor made its presence known to the humiliated queen as well, and she realized with defeat that the diaper had been ineffective at containing not just her urine. With a sigh of defeat, Ulrika propped herself up, taking care and caution taken to not spill out any more of her accident from the ill-fitting infant’s garment. She had no mind to take the soiled diapers off as underwear, opting instead to simply tear apart their elastic sides and throw them down into an empty chamber pot. Oh, what to do now. She could not call for Iris, nor could she possible leave her room dressed like this. But in her soiled state she had no desire to dress in anything. All there was to do was drape a towel around her, as a makeshift shawl, and tiptoe to Iris’ room while praying that the children had not awakened. Mercifully, her humiliation was seen by nobody during her brief walk down the hall. Iris, always the diligent domestic, wasted no time in helping Ulrika with the situation she had long foreseen. With quick and gentle movements, she cleaned off the queen’s soiled body and stretched over her muscled body another baby diaper. Over the infantile garment were the pants she had laundered yesterday, and the rest of her full officers’ uniform. Not until the queen’s attire was complete did Iris even take the time to don her own simple dress. Without taking even a second’s rest, she then moved over to Ulrika’s room and stripped the bed of its sheets, bringing them downstairs to launder again. She let the soiled cloth soak in sudsy water while she prepared a breakfast of bread from the house mixed with the rations brought along for the journey. Ulrika needed not lift a finger for the entire ordeal, and ate her meal in silence against the still-dark sky. The countryside’s denizens slept soundly in their beds, but within the tranquil farmlands there was prowling already a roving band of disheveled men, armed to the teeth with knives and guns taken from abandoned armories all along the war’s former front. Queen Ulrika’s wars had brought upon their world a great turbulence, and robbed them of any scrupulous means in their increasingly impoverished lands. They had not been the most conscientious of men prior to the unrest, but now, driven by pure desperation, they had become true outlaws who robbed and killed without remorse if only to survive another day. All the king’s horses and soldiers were fighting and dying at the hands of the Scandian invaders, leaving the lands’ population without recourse against the plundering rogues’ reign of terror. Fearsome as they might have been, the bandits acted at least with no semblance of stealth. Their drunken shouts and swears traveled far and wide around the tranquil farmland, revealing to all precisely where they were and where they were to go. The older brother of the farmhouse had awoken now, and could hear with perfect clarity the ringing vulgarities. He turned to Iris with fear etched upon his face. “It’s the outlaws, they’re comin’ fer us!”. It was an impassioned whisper. Iris hesitated a moment before deciding to relay the message to Ulrika. But the proud queen, oblivious to the region’s anarchic descent, chose not to heed the warning. She cut down Gothia’s soldiers like rye on the battlefield; what possibly could some “bandits” inflict upon her? A quick wave of the hand was all the dismissal Iris needed to see, and so she, against her own instincts, made up her mind to stay by her mistress’s side. Though the boy was perplexed by the travelers’ fearlessness, he too decided that he would stay, and see for himself how the strangers would defeat the rogues. The voices drew nearer, clearer, until Iris and the boy both could discern the words that melded together into one rambling, drunken slur. Iris felt a fear drip slowly into her heart, with each Gothian curse exacerbating further her apprehension at remaining so vulnerable to attack. She dearly wanted to hide now, but her unwavering faith in her queen kept her from running and hiding. Ulrika for her part could comprehend none of the foreign language, and so maintained throughout her resolute lack of fear at the prospect of facing a pack of drunkards. Their voices were at the house’s doorstep now, and yet Ulrika still did not bring out her Seidel. She placed her hand upon the table, ready to rise and confront the intruders should they try to enter the house. But though she had no expectation of courtesy from the strangers, the violence with which the door was broken open with struck her as a great shock. “Yer money or yer life! Choose wiselay’!” It was a tall, bearded man who bellowed the threat into the kitchen, but he was flanked on his sides by three burly men no less terrifying than he was. In his calloused hands was a heavy wooden pistol, and he pointed the gun towards each one of the three figures he saw in the room. His finger was fully wrapped around the trigger. When the barrel fell upon the farmer’s son his mouth curled tightly into a smile. “Ah, wa’s this?” In an instant, the small child was in his choking grasp. The gun was gone, replaced by a knife, and he held the glinting blade to the boy’s soft throat. “Ya don’t wantcha boy ta die, do ya? Do ever’ahthing I say, then!” How Ulrika had utterly misjudged the situation. Now she was completely and utterly awash with only the thought of her impending death. She had faced foes more determined to kill her, but all of them were purged completely from her memory. Her hands acted on raw instinct now, clutching the Seidel and almost bringing it against her enemy before a shard of fear cut their strength and sent the gun clattering to the floor. Her arms were trembling like leaves when she brought them up over her head in surrender. Tears of defeat and fear flowed freely from her eyes, as did a torrent of urine from her crotch. A putrid mush from her rear came tumbling next, and both could only be contained by the baby diaper for mere moments before they overflowed the thin padding and leaked past her thighs. The bandits were still screaming, still yelling wildly at her with words she could not understand, and growing more and more angered at her while she could only stand helplessly while voiding herself messily into her pants. And then there was an arm at her neck – this is the end – but no, it was the arm of a woman, followed by a flurry of rapid, panicked Gothian. Iris. She choked back a sob of gratitude; and was struck suddenly by the realization that she was still emptying herself in fear. Though her pants were thoroughly soaked and soiled already, she made still the great effort to regain what remained of her potty control. “An’ who ah’ ya?! Why’s yer friend wearin’ that?! She’s not fuckin’ army, is she?” The bearded man held his blade up against the child’s next, eliciting from the boy tears of fear in a silent plead for help. “Ans’wa me!” “Please… please… we’re Scandians, and we’ve got the money you need! Don’t hurt us, we can give you what you want! Money, land, we can make sure you live well!” Iris had wet herself in fear in well, and the soaked fabric of her dress and panties clung wetly to her as she pleaded with the bandit. “Just… just don’t hurt us… please!”. The bandits’ leader laughed at seeing the wet patch on the front of Iris’ skirt, but turned his attention quickly to Ulrika. “Scandia, Scandia! Where hav ah’ seen her befo’ah! Nah, me eyes don’t lie ta me!” He turned again to Iris. “Tha’s, tha’s yer queen!” Iris held up her hands. “No, no! You’re mistaken! She’s just an officer! She -” Her pleas were cut by the rogue roughly shoving her aside and fixating his burning stare solely upon Ulrika. The boy was thrown bodily upon the ground, and before he could escape, picked up by the collar and placed in a choke by one of the waiting associates. All the rooms’ eyes fell upon the queen now, and the uproarious leader was first to notice the stain on Ulrika’s pants. He threw his head back and laughed again, echoed this time by all his cronies as soon as they saw for themselves. “An’ I thought it was tha’ boy who made tha’ stink! But it wa’ her! Tha queen of Scandia!” His pistol had reemerged now, and he pointed it directly at Iris’ head. “Now girlie, why don’cha give yer queen a new pair of pants?” He grabbed the clothes at Ulrika’s stomach and with a herculean swipe tore them right open, and then with a shove knocked her over and splayed her flat against the ground. Iris was utterly taken aback by the request, but the gun’s cold metal against her cranium was more than enough to jolt her into immediate action. She crouched down swiftly and tearfully reiterated to Ulrika what she had been forced to do. The queen was shattered beyond resistance now and gave no words to answer, but even in the dark of early morning Iris could see her mistress’s face turn crimson red. Ulrika’s body hung limp as Iris pulled down her pants to reveal the soiled diaper, filled to its capacity with piss and a solid mess that had both overflowed the padding. Iris could not even bring herself to face the bandits’ derision as she pulled the useless diaper off Ulrika’s body and slid underneath Ulrika’s soiled rear a clean one. “Tha hell? Wha’s this? Ya call ya’self the queen of Scandia? Yer a baby, a baby who still piddles in ha’ diapers!” He was almost screaming with laughter now” A voice rang out behind him. “You’ve got it wrong, that ain’t no queen! Ain’t they say, that the queen’s a monster, killin’ all the army’s soldiers? I don’t see no monsters here!” The bearded bandit turned with anger. “I kno’ a queen when ah see one! Ya look at those clothes!” Now he pushed Iris aside, and strode forward to tower over Ulrika, lying on the ground wearing a diaper for all the world to see. “Ah you a queen?” He drew his gun again. Ulrika had understood none of the exchange, and found herself suddenly starting down the barrel of a screaming assailant's gun. All she could think was that Iris’s negotiations had failed, and now she was ripe for the grave. She had not even in her body the energy to scream in terror, nor fight a final dying battle; paralyzed by fear, she could only think of the cruel fate that followed such an ignominious death. What little remained in her bladder and bowels came unconsciously tumbling out of her and into her diaper, staining the front of the white padding yellow with her urine and forming a bulge of mess in the back, all in full view of the bandit. She could hear more voices now. Were they Scandian voices? Am I already killed? “Nah, she ain’t no queen! Someone’s comin’! Let’s get outta here!” The pistol in front of her suddenly disappeared. There was to her left Iris’s impassioned pleas, a clinking of coins, more Gothian yells, and then a brief, fleeting moment of absolute silence. Then she could hear again the Scandian shouts in the distance, and felt upon the back of her neck Iris’s arms cradling her head. Slowly, slowly she found herself again. There had been no killing blow. She lived still in the realm of mortals, in the farmhouse in the heart of Gothia, in the kitchen where besides her sat Iris and a distraught young boy. How resilient children were – though his red face was streaked with tears he had swallowed his sobs and sat stoically by, absorbing in silence what had just happened. Ulrika wiped her eyes with her own sleeves and let out a long, quaking breath, and realized for the first time that her diaper was soiled with her cowardice. Her face turned hot upon seeing the dazed boy’s confused stare, and she averted her eyes when finding the child’s clothing unsullied despite all he had seen. She propped herself up with her hands, into a sitting position, and wiped the tears from her eyes, to see Iris’s face fill with elation and relief. The servant grabbed her mistress’s hands, and without even pulling up her pants to cover her soiled diaper, led Ulrika upstairs into her room, where she could hide from the foraging men and women of the Scandian Grand Army’s Third Corps. Edited August 17, 2019 by Present (see edit history) Ajax7408, FUBOT, DsGSilver and 10 others 13 Quote Link to comment
Linkx 306 Posted August 17, 2019 Share Posted August 17, 2019 It's a mastapeece. LivingInfinite and DsGSilver 2 Quote Link to comment
Melificentfan 1,215 Posted August 17, 2019 ✨ Legendary Member Share Posted August 17, 2019 That was a fabulous story LivingInfinite 1 Quote Link to comment
Downjacket 162 Posted August 17, 2019 Share Posted August 17, 2019 That was amazing! Both story and artwork is top notch. Is Ulrika based on Karl XII of Sweden? LivingInfinite 1 Quote Link to comment
LivingInfinite 712 Posted August 17, 2019 Share Posted August 17, 2019 2 hours ago, Downjacket said: Is Ulrika based on Karl XII of Sweden? Someone's paying attention Downjacket 1 Quote Link to comment
diokno44x 163 Posted August 17, 2019 Share Posted August 17, 2019 30 minutes ago, LivingInfinite said: Someone's paying attention Did I hear Carolus Rex? Also this is a wonderful art set, and story LivingInfinite 1 Quote Link to comment
Downjacket 162 Posted August 18, 2019 Share Posted August 18, 2019 Will you continue this story? I want to know what happens next! Quote Link to comment
Present 74 Posted August 18, 2019 Author Share Posted August 18, 2019 5 hours ago, Downjacket said: Will you continue this story? I want to know what happens next! methinks it's too good a setting to not write more about ・ω・ Quote Link to comment
Bedwettingchik12 322 Posted August 19, 2019 Share Posted August 19, 2019 Fantastic!! LivingInfinite 1 Quote Link to comment
69important420 18 Posted August 20, 2019 Share Posted August 20, 2019 Amazing as always. Glad to see LivingInfinite back in action!! LivingInfinite 1 Quote Link to comment
rfthawne 67 Posted August 24, 2019 Share Posted August 24, 2019 Will there be more stories based on some of the other characters from March of the Valkyries? They were all really well written (including the ones in this story). Quote Link to comment
FUBOT 102 Posted August 28, 2019 Share Posted August 28, 2019 The art is amazing, excellent work all around. LivingInfinite 1 Quote Link to comment
DsGSilver 782 Posted August 28, 2019 Share Posted August 28, 2019 I kept forgetting to comment on this, but this is a landmark piece of omo fiction. LivingInfinite 1 Quote Link to comment
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