Adult-FanFiction.org : Books

.Gothic Horror comes to Brobdingrag	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 2356 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift. Any resemblance to person(s) living or dead is purely coincidental.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
Terr hulked behind Moralee's place near the head of the table. She was in the place of honor at the right hand of their hostess, Gigispellt, Duchess of Lake Deepdark. The chair had been removed, so he could better serve her during the meal.
Many a servant had been relieved by Terr's insistence on being the one who tended to his employer. Early in her tour of Brobdingrag, a groom trying to nervously ladle a course into her itsy tiny bowl had ended up covering her in chilled potato soup.
She'd laughed it off, but the Baron hadn't. Rumors of the man's dark fate covered the island faster than the wind. They often conflicted, but they were all bad.
Now they just presented Terr with a serving and made their escape.
They were between courses when the Duchess began her attack. "So, little Moralee, I understand you were discovered in a splacknuck cage." The entire table froze, listening carefully for the Englishman response. Terr grit his teeth.
"Well, yes, that's true, "Moralee agreed. She sipped from her thimble and took a deep breath. "Actually, I am discovering in the harbor by a man that throwing me in a spannuck cage."
"Ah," the Duchess accepted the correction. "It must have been very uncomfortable."
"Yeah," the human replied. She shuddered at the memory of meal time fights, night time fights, traveling fights and evening rapes. "That describing it."
"And no one noticed your situation, poor little thing," she said sympathetically.
"Not until I figuring out the word for Englishman," Moralee agreed. "Then men at the bar are knowing me and rescuing me."
"Yes, yes," her hostess nodded. "Labels are so useful for the lower classes."
Terrpragoh, who'd been among those lower classmen that are rescuing...that RESCUED the new Marchessa, let the insult slide over him. It wouldn't do to stuff her face into roasted boar they were bringing into the room.
But the insult to Moralee hurt. She seemed to be completely unaware of the series of cutting remarks, though she did glance around the table when some of the other guests tittered or giggled.
Terr was fuming and thinking of taking Lady Gigispell's eyes out with a spoon when he realized that Gabbishella was nearby. He relaxed in an instant. Gabby knew what was going on, though spoons seemed rather tame for the vampire. But she could explain the problem to Moralee. And plan a...response, he chose to call it.
The thought was so happy he unconsciously smiled. Gigi took it as a sign that he approved of her insults and pressed on.
-----------
Two hours later, the assembled progressed to the ballroom for dancing. Terr handed Moralee over carefully to her maid for the rest of the evening.
He stayed near, but he no longer had to put up with the crème of society. He found a chair near the dining hall and sank down into it. And listened for any excitement.
--------
Mitzi finally brought her Lady back to their rooms. Terr loomed behind her, already a familiar presence for all of them.
She set Moira down by the dollhouse as Terr bolted the door, then went on to her own bedchamber. Moira watched her go.
The maid had never spoken ill of Terr or, apparently, spread gossip about the time that Moira and Terr were left alone in the bedroom.
Her eyes wrinkled in suspicion as she recalled gossip spread by certain wardroom stewards on one or two commands. "People just aren’t that loyal," she muttered.
There was a chill at her back. "They are if you warp their minds with the power of the vampire," Gabby hissed.
"Did you hypnotize my maid!?"
"Darling," Gabby said, stepping into view, "what I do is like hypnotizing the same way a battleship is like a coast guard cutter. Turn."
Moira turned and allowed her friend to start removing the layers of dress. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with mind control," she said.
"You have a maid that's well compensated for having one of the most desirable jobs in her peer group. You never beat her, Terr never rapes her, I never bit her." She eased the corset off of the girl's torso. She also stopped lecturing while Moira took a couple of deep breaths.
"The fact that she's permanently loyal to the promise she'd already given you is not your problem, Moira."
"Oh? What problem do I have?"
"The bitch," Terr and Gabrielle said in chorus.
Moira ducked into her bedroom and slipped out of her dress. She changed into something like jeans and a t-shirt. As best the Royal tailors could approximate her best attempts to describe them. Then she walked out to rejoin her friends.
"Who do you mean?" she asked.
Terr leaned down. "The Duchess. I don't know why she has it in for you so badly, but she does."
"Wait," Gabby said. "You walk funny. Are the pants still stiff?"
"Like sail canvas," Moira said, but waving it off as unimportant. "What did the Duchess do?"
"We can talk and fix at the same time," Gabby said. "Off with the pants, lady."
"No, I'm fine, I-" Fire glinted in the vampire's eyes. Moira recalled that Gabby was seldom faced with disobedience. The fact that she hadn't been grabbed and stripped forcibly was a sign of their friendship. But it was clear Gabby was restraining herself, and only barely. She undid the buckles on the fly and slid the stiff garments off.
Gabby gave the pants to Terr and took the t-shirt in hand. Moira stood there in her underwear and watched the two of them pinch and squeeze her clothes carefully.
"The Duchess," Gabby lectured, "would fit well in any French city. The giants have a way of talking that pushes innuendo and accusation across, though the actual content is innocuous."
"What? What did she accuse me of?" Moira asked. "And when?"
"The entire dinner conversation!" Terr said. He glanced at the pants. "I think I'd break the buckles," he said. Gabby nodded and took them back. She tossed the shirt to Moira.
In moments, the vampire's strength had given the shirt's fabric a 'worn' feel. Soft and beaten to hell. Or beaten to death, probably a better metaphor. The former Navy officer slid it on with a happy sigh. "Okay, but all we talked about was stuff that happened. Right?"
"Good point," Gabby said. Moira didn't miss Terr's double-take when his girlfriend gave in so quickly It would have been hard to miss, what with his head being the size of the water tower at her last base.
"You were a carrier pilot, right?" Gabby went on.
"Yeah," Moira said suspiciously.
"Probably not a lot of women on a carrier." She seemed to ask it offhand, as she caressed the fabric around the fly.
"No. Well, there are quite a few, but not a big proportion."
"So... You spent a lot of time around... Quite a few men."
"Pretty much," she agreed.
"So you had plenty of opportunities to get your fill of seamen."
"HEY!"
"What? What did I say?" Gabby bat her eyes, the very picture of innocence. "Men on ships are seamen, no? And you met a lot of them."
"It's just... You know what that sounded like!"
"And that's what the other diners heard tonight. Accusations that you're no better than a nasty little vermin. That you're indistinguishable from Neanderthals. And that only the lower orders of society have been fooled."
"That bitch," Moira muttered. It was like being a cadet all over again. All these games, and no one telling you the rules. She absently accepted her trousers. They felt like they'd been stone-washed in the last few minutes and slid on like blue clouds.
"Thanks, guys, these are great."
"All part of the service, milady," Terr said, knuckling his forelock.
"I'm milady," Gabby said. "She's Moira."
"I hold you both in equal respect," Terr said. "Although I fear you quite a bit more."
"As do I," Moira said.
"As it should be," Gabby sniffed. "So. What are you going to do about the bitchy one?"
"Well, a blanket party is probably out of the question. But how does this sound?"
-----------
Gigispellt, Duchess of Lake Deepdark, took a final look in the mirror. "Hair, jewelry, dress, skin, rouge and nails," she said. "All far too perfect for the guest I'm honoring."
"Well, you're not doing it for her, darling," Baroness Deflaiette said from her seat on the couch. "The Queen commands you make the little bitch welcome. So you dress for the Queen's commands. And we attend to honor the Queen, not Little Miss Englishman's."
"Quite right," Gigi said with a nod. "Now, let's..." She was interrupted by a rather sharp snapping sound. She spun, looking for the source. Flaie shook her head. "Sesslatite!"
When the maid entered, they asked if she'd heard the noise. "Yes, ma'am, it sounded like a splacknuck trap going off."
"Splacknuck trap!" the scandalized Duchess shrieked. "We don't have splacknucks in the castle! MUCH less in my rooms!"
"Of course not, ma'am. I don't know how it could have gotten in here." She called a few more maids in to search. It was found under the bed. A scrap of food had been caught under the teeth, but whoever had set it had escaped.
"Oh, dear," Flaie said sympathetically. "Do you need some trappers?"
"I think we're quite able to handle an incursion of vermin," Gigi said frostily. Then she smiled and pointed to the scrap.   "We just won't invite these vermin to the dance after they've dined."
Flaie shared her laugh. "That's the spirit, darling. They can't all be the Queen's favorite, can they?"
They held arms together and went down to dinner. The staff tore the room up, looking for more traps and the splacknuck that set it off.
----------
Gigi was confident about her skills as a hostess. Her table offered some of the best delicacies the nation offered, prepared by the best cooks in a hundred strada.
The same table was seated with what might have been the perfect assortment of guests for any gathering without an actual Royal in attendance. Landed gentry interspersed with members of the rising business class; some of the idle artists; and no less that two decorated members of the military.
If there was anything she wanted to accomplish at this week of dinners, she had invited a perfect crew to attempt any intellectual undertaking.
Mostly what she had selected them for was their contacts, though. When she demonstrated the foolishness of making a peer out of a jumped up mouse, these people would ensure that word got to all levels of society within a fortnight.
She glanced up as that Terrpragoh stablehand carried his 'mistress' in. Speaking of 'jumped up.' Well. All the levels of society that mattered was probably a better way to put it.
They had the string quintet's contribution to the evening, then went in to the dining hall. She made sure to draw attention to the fuss made over seating the Marchessa properly.
Then the first course was served. She chose the perfect moment to discuss the little woman's marriage prospects and opened her mouth.
To be interrupted.
"So, Duchess," Moralee called out. "How many spannucks are you owning, now?"
"What?" She didn't miss the looks of surprised surmise running up and down the table. "I don't own ANY of those sodding... I mean, we don't typically find splacknucks in this district." She smiled. "Present company excepted, of course."
"Oh, no offense taking," the tiny bitch said cheerfully.
"Yes, well-"
"It's just, you are being SO VERY interest in my time among the spannucks at dinner."
"I wouldn’t say...."
"Wanting to know about their looks, their lives..." Gigi tried to form a proper riposte. "Their sexual practices."
The assembly tittered over their hand broths. Gigi fumed, though she had to acknowledge that the delivery was exquisitely well timed. Well, you never get better sparring against a weaker opponent. She opened her mouth to cut the Englishman woman off at the knees.
And squealed.
"Milady?" Fraie inquired. Gigi waved her off. There was no way she was going to admit right now that she'd felt a splacknuck run across her shoe.
"It just seeming to me," Moralee went on, "that if you that interest in spannuck sex, you in perfect position to build up the collection."
The Duchess laughed lightly. A small dismissive sound to show her disdain for the suggestion.
That's the point where she felt move. She looked down to see a small, dirty splacknuck tugging on the tines of her glazing fork. It was a female, more comely than the usual. NOT that she saw them often enough to judge what was normal!
Eyes up and down the table snapped around. No one saw the little thieving beast, hidden by her cake-basket. But no one missed the fact that her dismissive laughter turned a shade nervous towards the end. What conclusions they drew were entirely inaccurate.
She yanked her hand back and the blonde splacknuck tittered in victory...and disappeared.
The Marchessa was going on and on about how liberal her home nation was for sexual deviations. Something about don't ask, don't judge. It was hard to follow both her accent and her limited vocabulary.
The chef escorted the roasted boar out and presented it for her inspection. She nodded gracefully, always aware of her duties as hostess. He nodded and began carving.
She got the attention of a steward and asked for a replacement glazing fork. He apologized for not providing one and ran guiltily to the silverware alcove. "No, no," she said. "I just dropped it."
He replaced her fork and fell to his knees, searching for the 'dropped' utensil. It was, of course, nowhere to be seen. "Spannucks are attracting to shiny things," the little bitch said, loud and clear over the silence as diners waited their pork.
"We don't have splacknucks!" Gigi hissed.
"I... I never am saying you are?" she replied, the very look of innocence. "I asking if you did, I saying you certainly could..." Gigi glanced up but there was no smirk on her man's face. If she was being set-up there should have been.
The Duchess turned away from the man who'd successfully lied to Royal Auditors, confident that her higher breeding would have let her detect falsehoods among the lower orders.
She raised her voice to tell the story of how this particular boar had come to be chosen for the meal. It was a funny story, and she'd rehearsed it. The Englishman listened, apparently attentively. No more interruptions about watching vermin mate.
Then there was a metallic snap. A footman instantly traced the source and pulled back the curtains. There was revealed a damned splacknuck trap. With a glazing fork twisted in the teeth.
-----------
"So another seven traps went off in one or another guest room!" Mitzi reported. She could always be counted on for the latest gossip.
She carefully shampooed her lady's hair as the little woman soaked in her little bath. Terr was off somewhere, doing whatever handymen did when they weren't being handy. Such as making ten splacknuck traps in one night.
Moira relaxed and let herself be pampered. It was a victory celebration, and she was no less proud than she had been for her win at Tailhook.
Wait. "Seven?"
"Yes, milady."
"So, seven in guest rooms, one in the dining hall, one in the Duchess' rooms, that's nine."
"Oh, that's the funny bit," Mitzi said.   She used an eyedropper to rinse. "There was a tenth trap, in the Bishop's room. They found it when they heard all the rumors. But it never went off."
"Oh." Well, ninety percent wasn't bad, though- "What is being funny?"
"It was torn apart. Violently. They say it looked like it had snapped shut on an elephant! And pissed her off. Bits were thrown so hard they became embedded in the mortar of the wall!"
"Ah." Sounds like Gabby had been a little inattentive. Well, she wouldn't have taken a mere mousetrap seriously, not as a threat to one of the noble Undead. Even if it was the size of an Abrams tank.
Until it went off and closed on her arm or leg or something. Then she'd have killed it. Moira smiled and sank down in her tub. "And everyone is being keeping it quiet, right?"
"Oh, no, ma'am." Last rinse done, she prepared the soft, fluffy handkerchief to dry the human off when she decided to climb out of the tub. "People are already writing letters home, so they don't forget any of the details before they leave."
She looked left and right, though the room was clearly empty, and leaned down close. "All I really know, ma'am, is that last night, everyone was talking about how you were...despoiled by the splacknucks. Tonight, no one even remembers that topic.
"However you managed it, lewwtentan, I'm very, very glad you did." She leaned down the last few inches and kissed the top of Moira's wet head. Then she reared up and took a step back. "Begging your pardon, Marchessa, for taking such a liberty. But we... The whole staff, milady, we're quite proud of you. There was no call for such... And we were all worried, see... But no one knew how..."
She swallowed and stood up straight. "We're very proud of you. The Duchess was wrong to underestimate you, miss. We really should have known better."
"Thankings," Moira said softly. "And... Telling the staff thankings for me, please?"
"With pleasure, milady."
"I, uh, I can getting into my nightshirt by myself, Mitzi. You, uh, you taking the night off."
"Yes, ma'am!"
She was out the door in moments. There had been a period where she protested for form's sake. Moira had finally convinced her that 'you can go' meant 'get out.' It wasn't a test of loyalty or protocol.
The water cooled and she eventually got out. Gabby came up behind her as she was drying off.
"That was a very effective plan, Miss Lee," she said.
"And very ably carried out, Miss Splacknuck." The dirt was gone and clothing restored. And there was no sign of a premature trapping malfunction. Moira decided to let that one slide. She wrapped her arms around her friend and thanked her.
Gabby stiffened at the touch, then relaxed a tiny bit. "I just did it for the look on her face," she said with a snifft.
"Sure," Moira agreed. "Sure."
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

.Gothic Horror comes to Brobdingrag