Sablesword
TMF Master
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OK, this is a case of blatant begging for ego-boo. I'm a little less than half-way done with this story, and I need people to tell me it's worth finishing. I'm sorry to be such a whining leech about it... but not sorry enough to stop 
Anyway, it's another story in my "centaur tickling" series:
Adoria's Interrogation, part 1
by Sablesword
Adoria walked beside her oxcart, her almost-black hair falling in a braid down her back. The bright sun had lightly tanned her white skin, and dust from the road covered her legs and sandaled feet.
She was on the middle stretch of the seven-mile road between the human port town of Halipodes and the border of the centaur Land. This stretch of the ancient road was open and forlorn, with great flat rocks on either side, too low to hide bandits. The greatest danger normally came from the vipers that basked on the rocks or, sometimes, in the road itself.
Adoria heard a hiss. The oxen stopped, and she did as well, looking around. She heard a male voice, close by: "My Lady, please! She is known; she will be missed." But Adoria couldn't see anyone.
Another voice, high pitched and harsh: "I want her. I will have her."
Then Adoria saw the gray rock just ahead turn into fog, and vanish. The hole left behind had crude stairs, and a woman climbing up them. Behind the woman Adoria saw Henus of Iba, a man she knew and distrusted. But the woman wasn't a woman. Female, yes, but her face... her hair...
Adoria felt cold and faint. The female stepped forward, smiling a horrible smile. Henus clapped his hands over his ears, but Adoria couldn't move as the female began to speak the grating hissing words of compulsion spell. Then the world when white, and silent.
Adoria shivered, despite the hot sun. She stood alone again, beside her oxcart, with the big gray stone back in place just as if it had been there for ages. She wanted to think that Henus and... that female were hallucinations brought on by sunstroke, but she knew better. Unfortunately, there were no physical signs of anything unnatural. None that she could see with a quick glance, anyway, and she didn't want to stay and search. She clicked at the oxen and moved on.
As she walked, she tried to form a plan. She would tell Timon, or one of the other centaur guards, just as soon as she reached the border post. Except - she couldn't. Even the thought of talking about what she had seen had heard seemed to turn her tongue into stone. Back into stone. She couldn't even speak of it here, with none but herself and the dumb oxen to listen. She tried, and her felt like a stone in her mouth.
She threw her will against the compulsion, again and again. Each time with the same result: She could not speak of what she had seen. She could not speak of it. An idea came to her, and she dug among the packages in the oxcart. She brought out a tally tablet and a stylus, and her fingers felt like stone as well. She couldn't write out a warning, either.
It was so frustrating. The centaurs were her friends, had been her friends ever since she had first come here with Uncle Zorian on a trading expedition. The two of them were among the few human merchants willing to abide by the centaur Law. That willingness had earned them friendship and prosperity, in their trading with the centaurs, and now all that was threatened. The centaurs themselves were threatened by what she had seen, and she could not make herself talk about it.
But maybe the centaurs could make her talk.
Adoria stopped and stood in the middle of the road, considering the idea. That... female had woven her compulsions well. Adoria couldn't make herself speak of her, or hint at her existence, or even think of what she was. But if the information were to be forced from her, by merciless torment, the compulsion wouldn't block that. It didn't extend that far.
Smiling thinly, Adoria put the tally board and stylus back into the cart. Then she pulled out her pass tokens and used a convenient rock to smash them into fragments.
"Ho, there, you strange female flatfooter!" Timon grinned down at Adoria, his weathered face as old as her father's. "Aren't you a little short, even for an amazon?" Most of the flatfoot - human - females that the centaurs saw did come from the amazon queendoms, Adoria knew, and most amazons were taller than her - but still shorter than the average centaur.
"Silly stud," Adoria answered the centaur guard in kind. "I was only gone four days. You've been drinking too much of that strange Meadsian wine, if you've forgotten me already."
"Drink that stuff? It's only good for killing lice." His grin softened into a smile. "Welcome back, Adoria."
"Thank you," Adoria said, "but, uh, I lost my pass tokens." The centaur's gaze on her sharpened, and she went on to say "I know I had them when I left Halipodes - I specifically checked. But now I can't find them; they're not here where I put them, and not anywhere else I've looked."
"What's this?" another centaur asked. Idalia, trotting over, was shorter and younger than Timon but taller than Adoria. She wore a blouse covering her top, unlike Timon who was nude except for his weapon-baldric. "I though you just had your tokens renewed a week ago."
"Yes, just a few days before I left for Halipodes," Adoria said. "And they should still have three weeks to go. But I can't find them now." She shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to go through the ordeal of getting a new set."
Idalia stepped up to the cart and began to look through its contents. "Don't give up so quickly," she said, sounding for a moment just like Adoria's mother. She was a dozen years too young for that, but still old enough to pose as an older sister, or maybe an aunt. Except for the part about being a centaur rather than a human, of course.
Adoria moved in to help with the search, concealing her knowledge of its futility. Timon watched over their shoulders. After the better part of an hour, the female centaur conceded defeat: "They really are gone. I'll take you to the stocks, then."
"I'll watch the oxen," Timon offered, and the three of them unharnessed the beasts. Then Adoria removed her sandals and handed them to Idalia.
"I submit myself to the law and custom of the Kentaros," the human woman said formally.
Idalia tucked the sandals into her belt-harness, and moved next to the cart. "Climb on," she said. Adoria climbed up on the cart, and then onto the female centaur's back.
"Women!" Timon snorted at the sight. Male centaurs considered it humiliating to be ridden by a human.
"Men!" Idalia snorted back as she started off. Female centaurs considered the male attitude to be silly.
Idalia's ambling gait was smooth and quick, making the trip to the stocks a short one. Adoria knew that there were actually two sets of stocks, one for amazons and other females entering the centaur Land, and another for male strangers. Adoria was much more familiar with this border's female set: Stocks made to imprison both single victims and groups of up to four, a 'witch's lover' - a fat log with straps to hold down the victim while her feet stuck out past the end, a pair of tables where the victims would lie on their bellies with their knees bent and feet stuck up in the air, and posts to which victims could be tied while kneeling. There was also the usual sundial, and the usual sign on which the Prophesy was painted. "Alja Kentaros mor kental velator velex bartaros mel Uru, nor Kentaros yonvel morkap i patalos." it said in the curlicue script that the centaurs used: "If the Kentaros should ever fail to visit merciless torment on foreigners who enter the Land, then will the Kentaros suffer betrayal and ruination." But the centaurs were not an evil people, and so the torment they used was a tickle-torment, applied to the soft flat human feet that centaurs found fascinating.
None of the stocks or other restraints were in use at that moment, but a male centaur waited in the shade of the old oak tree. Adoria recognized him as Timon's son Vanko.
"Ho, Vanko," Idalia called. "I bring you another flatfoot foreigner."
"Adoria?" Vanko looked puzzled. "I thought your monthly pass tokens were good for another three weeks yet."
"Yes, but I lost them," Adoria explained.
Vanko gaze sharpened, much as his father's had. "Oh ho, so you've come to take your medicine, have you?" He shook his head. "But seriously, you should be more careful about such things."
"I was careful," Adoria said, and it was even true. She had very carefully smashed up her pass tokens.
"Well, I think it's the post for you, this time," Vanko said, pointing. Idalia stepped helpfully over to the indicated post, and Adoria crawled from her back onto the wooden platform set midway up. This put Adoria at a convenient height for Vanko to do his work.
Adoria adjusted the old fleece lying on the platform and knelt on it, facing and wrapping her arms around the heavy, well-polished post. Vanko stepped forward to fasten her in place with leather straps, while Idalia set Adoria's sandals down on the ground beside the platform.
"I'll come back for you when you're finished," she said.
"Thank you," Adoria said, her cheek pressed against the post. Vanko raised his own hand in acknowledgement, and Idalia trotted off. Adoria had heard that Idalia herself was an excellent tickler - Uncle Zorian had often spoken of her skills with fond exasperation - but she only tickled men. The centaurs had a custom, stronger than even their law, that only male centaurs would tickle female victims, and vice versa.
After finishing with the straps that bound Adoria's wrists, Vanko placed a wooden block under her ankles, raising them slightly. He secured them with another leather strap, and used a thong to tie her large toes, as well. Stepping back to the oak tree, he returned with a bucket of water and a dipper. Adoria drank, knowing the importance of not letting her throat go dry.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to enjoy this, Adoria," Vanko said after she had finished drinking. "You have the most interesting tickle-responses." Vanko, Adoria knew, had the tickling skill that his father claimed to lack. "But are you really sure you've lost your pass tokens?"
"I'm sure." She smiled. "Do your worst." And question me while you're at it. But she couldn't make herself say that; the compulsion wouldn't let her.
"Oh, I will," Vanko said. The centaur stepped around the platform. Adoria heard and felt water splash over her bare and helpless feet, and then a stiff-bristled brush, briskly applied. Adoria squealed. It tickled! She knew that it wasn't part of the tickle-torment, that her session hadn't begun yet. But it still tickled! "You know I haven't begun yet," Vanko chided her, echoing her thoughts.
"I- I know," Adoria gasped as he stopped scrubbing and splashed more water over her bare feet.
Vanko chuckled, then went over to the sundial to adjust a gnomen. He returned with a box of implements, and pulled one out. Bound as she was, Adoria couldn't see what it was. But a moment later she could feel it: A drying cloth, with Vanko's fingers behind it poking and stroking the soles of her feet and the spaces between her toes.
"I think seven parts out of every eight of you flatfooters laugh during the pre-wash," Vanko commented as his fingers tickled Adoria through the cloth. "I should keep a tally." Adoria was giggling too hard to answer that. "On the other hand," the centaur went on from behind her. "This drying is a part of your tickle-session. Don't you think it's clever to combine them like this?"
"Hahaha heeheehee yes haha hee yes yes! Heeheeheehee," Adoria managed to say. She pulled against her bonds, knowing it was useless but unable to keep herself from trying to escape.
"You're just saying that to lull me," Vanko said. "It won't work." He set the cloth aside and began to tickle directly with his fingers, running them first down Adoria's right sole, and then down her left. Laughter poured out of Adoria as she felt him paying special attention to her insteps.
Keep talking! Ask more questions! Adoria thought. But Vanko didn't say anything more. He just gave an occasional happy hum as he continued to tickle Adoria's vulnerable soles. He started using a dull-pronged wooden fork, alternating it with his fingertips as he inflicted more tickling on Adoria. More giggling and laughter poured from Adoria as the tickle-sensations sank into her soles. Into her insteps and the balls of her feet and her heels and the pads of her toes...
Now Vanko applied the preternaturally soft and tickle-inducing feather of a vos-hawk. Adoria squirmed wildly in attempts to escape that she knew were useless but that she could not help making. Her feet seemed to grow, her soles seeming to become incredibly huge as all her attention became focused on the gentle, irresistible teasing that her centaur friend and tormentor applied.
The tickling paused. Adoria gasped for breath and blinked tears from her eyes. Another centaur, one that Adoria recognized as Rodas, was bringing in two amazons that Adoria didn't recognize. They had their wrists lashed behind their backs, and they looked rather sullen. Their blonde hair was frazzled and their weapons, of course, had been taken from them. Skirmishers or scouts who had crossed the border and then been caught, then. Rodas made the first one sit in one of the two-victim stocks, but the second one put up a struggle when it came to her turn. Vanko waited to see if his colleague needed help, but gray-haired Rodas had not only a centaur's size and strength but also years of experience in using his horse-half against struggling humans. The second amazon was soon forced into the stocks as well, and then the footgear of both female warriors were removed and their ankles were locked in place.
At this point the second amazon swore at Rodas, and at centaurs in general, in great and lengthy detail. The first amazon, Adoria noticed, was reading the sign. Adoria saw her lips move.
"Virgins," Vanko commented, provoking a new string of curses from the second amazon. He meant that the amazons had not suffered the centaur's tickle-torment before, not that they were virgin's in the usual sense. "I'll help you with them once I finish with Adoria," he told Rodas.
"No hurry," Rodas said. He went over to the sundial and held his hands apart, signaling the time remaining on the sundial. Vanko went around behind Adoria again, and Rodas returned to the two captive amazons.
"Please," the first amazon whimpered - the one who had read the sign.
"Virgins," Rodas said. Then Adoria was unable to follow any further byplay because Vanko had started tickling her soles once more.
Once more Adoria burst into laughter as the irresistible tickle-sensations soaked into her helpless feet. Once more Vanko combined his fingers, the wooden fork, and the vos-hawk feather in a gentle, merciless torment that made Adoria squirm and giggle uncontrollably. The tickling again danced all over her soles, over her insteps and heels, between her toes, over the balls of her feet...
But Vanko did not ask her any questions. Adoria considered begging, offering to tell him anything he might want to know. Usually, a victim did better by not pleading for mercy or begging for the tickling to stop. It didn't do you any good, and the centaurs had more respect for you if you didn't. Uncle Zorian had told her that, and various centaurs had confirmed it in various conversations later. But this was a special case. Adoria had to get Vanko to start questioning her.
Only the compulsion wouldn't let her even hint that she had any secrets to hide. She could beg for Vanko to stop, but not offer any reason why. Besides, she wasn't sure she really wanted this honey-sweet tickling to stop. Even though she was struggling mightily - and futilely - to avoid it.
And then Adoria became unable to think about the matter coherently - or to think about anything coherently. Vanko had increased the tempo for the final minutes of tickling, and the tickle sensations expanded to fill Adoria's entire world. There was only the tickling of her soles, and the teasing touch along her insteps, and that squirming sensation running between her toes. Laughter poured from Adoria as if from a fountain. Sharp light strokes teased her feet. An unbearable feather-softness made her squirm and squeal. Then wiggling fingers again, all over her soles. Moving rapidly, as the tickling went on and on and on...
The tickling finally stopped. The session was over. Vanko undid the straps holding Adoria helplessly in place, and Idalia was there as well, helping her down from the platform. As Adoria sat and pulled her sandals back on, she heard, for the first time in what seemed like eons, laughter that was not her own. Vanko and Rodas were scrubbing the amazon's feet, and the amazons were squealing with laughter in response.
Idalia handed Adoria a new set of pass tokens. "Vanko left these for you," the female centaur said. "This time be more careful with them, all right?"
"All right," Adoria answered. But she knew she's have to 'lose' them again, and suffer another tickle-session in consequence. And she'd have to make a better plan; somehow she had to get her centaur friends to start asking her questions.
To be continued...
Author's er, "middleword": As you have noticed by now, I've taken the "tickling interrogation" idea and given it a twisted twist. Sorry to those who were looking forward to a tickle-interrogation told straight, but I find such stories to be both too mean and too cliche for me to enjoy them. So I've taken a victim/protagonist who has to be tickled until she spills the secrets and, well, see above for what I've done with the concept. And here's a hearty neener neener to the shaggy old chestnut of "Talk, or I will continue to tickle you mercilessly!" "No! Please! Stop! I'll talk! I'll talk!"
Anyway, it's another story in my "centaur tickling" series:
Adoria's Interrogation, part 1
by Sablesword
Adoria walked beside her oxcart, her almost-black hair falling in a braid down her back. The bright sun had lightly tanned her white skin, and dust from the road covered her legs and sandaled feet.
She was on the middle stretch of the seven-mile road between the human port town of Halipodes and the border of the centaur Land. This stretch of the ancient road was open and forlorn, with great flat rocks on either side, too low to hide bandits. The greatest danger normally came from the vipers that basked on the rocks or, sometimes, in the road itself.
Adoria heard a hiss. The oxen stopped, and she did as well, looking around. She heard a male voice, close by: "My Lady, please! She is known; she will be missed." But Adoria couldn't see anyone.
Another voice, high pitched and harsh: "I want her. I will have her."
Then Adoria saw the gray rock just ahead turn into fog, and vanish. The hole left behind had crude stairs, and a woman climbing up them. Behind the woman Adoria saw Henus of Iba, a man she knew and distrusted. But the woman wasn't a woman. Female, yes, but her face... her hair...
Adoria felt cold and faint. The female stepped forward, smiling a horrible smile. Henus clapped his hands over his ears, but Adoria couldn't move as the female began to speak the grating hissing words of compulsion spell. Then the world when white, and silent.
#
Adoria shivered, despite the hot sun. She stood alone again, beside her oxcart, with the big gray stone back in place just as if it had been there for ages. She wanted to think that Henus and... that female were hallucinations brought on by sunstroke, but she knew better. Unfortunately, there were no physical signs of anything unnatural. None that she could see with a quick glance, anyway, and she didn't want to stay and search. She clicked at the oxen and moved on.
As she walked, she tried to form a plan. She would tell Timon, or one of the other centaur guards, just as soon as she reached the border post. Except - she couldn't. Even the thought of talking about what she had seen had heard seemed to turn her tongue into stone. Back into stone. She couldn't even speak of it here, with none but herself and the dumb oxen to listen. She tried, and her felt like a stone in her mouth.
She threw her will against the compulsion, again and again. Each time with the same result: She could not speak of what she had seen. She could not speak of it. An idea came to her, and she dug among the packages in the oxcart. She brought out a tally tablet and a stylus, and her fingers felt like stone as well. She couldn't write out a warning, either.
It was so frustrating. The centaurs were her friends, had been her friends ever since she had first come here with Uncle Zorian on a trading expedition. The two of them were among the few human merchants willing to abide by the centaur Law. That willingness had earned them friendship and prosperity, in their trading with the centaurs, and now all that was threatened. The centaurs themselves were threatened by what she had seen, and she could not make herself talk about it.
But maybe the centaurs could make her talk.
Adoria stopped and stood in the middle of the road, considering the idea. That... female had woven her compulsions well. Adoria couldn't make herself speak of her, or hint at her existence, or even think of what she was. But if the information were to be forced from her, by merciless torment, the compulsion wouldn't block that. It didn't extend that far.
Smiling thinly, Adoria put the tally board and stylus back into the cart. Then she pulled out her pass tokens and used a convenient rock to smash them into fragments.
#
"Ho, there, you strange female flatfooter!" Timon grinned down at Adoria, his weathered face as old as her father's. "Aren't you a little short, even for an amazon?" Most of the flatfoot - human - females that the centaurs saw did come from the amazon queendoms, Adoria knew, and most amazons were taller than her - but still shorter than the average centaur.
"Silly stud," Adoria answered the centaur guard in kind. "I was only gone four days. You've been drinking too much of that strange Meadsian wine, if you've forgotten me already."
"Drink that stuff? It's only good for killing lice." His grin softened into a smile. "Welcome back, Adoria."
"Thank you," Adoria said, "but, uh, I lost my pass tokens." The centaur's gaze on her sharpened, and she went on to say "I know I had them when I left Halipodes - I specifically checked. But now I can't find them; they're not here where I put them, and not anywhere else I've looked."
"What's this?" another centaur asked. Idalia, trotting over, was shorter and younger than Timon but taller than Adoria. She wore a blouse covering her top, unlike Timon who was nude except for his weapon-baldric. "I though you just had your tokens renewed a week ago."
"Yes, just a few days before I left for Halipodes," Adoria said. "And they should still have three weeks to go. But I can't find them now." She shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to go through the ordeal of getting a new set."
Idalia stepped up to the cart and began to look through its contents. "Don't give up so quickly," she said, sounding for a moment just like Adoria's mother. She was a dozen years too young for that, but still old enough to pose as an older sister, or maybe an aunt. Except for the part about being a centaur rather than a human, of course.
Adoria moved in to help with the search, concealing her knowledge of its futility. Timon watched over their shoulders. After the better part of an hour, the female centaur conceded defeat: "They really are gone. I'll take you to the stocks, then."
"I'll watch the oxen," Timon offered, and the three of them unharnessed the beasts. Then Adoria removed her sandals and handed them to Idalia.
"I submit myself to the law and custom of the Kentaros," the human woman said formally.
Idalia tucked the sandals into her belt-harness, and moved next to the cart. "Climb on," she said. Adoria climbed up on the cart, and then onto the female centaur's back.
"Women!" Timon snorted at the sight. Male centaurs considered it humiliating to be ridden by a human.
"Men!" Idalia snorted back as she started off. Female centaurs considered the male attitude to be silly.
Idalia's ambling gait was smooth and quick, making the trip to the stocks a short one. Adoria knew that there were actually two sets of stocks, one for amazons and other females entering the centaur Land, and another for male strangers. Adoria was much more familiar with this border's female set: Stocks made to imprison both single victims and groups of up to four, a 'witch's lover' - a fat log with straps to hold down the victim while her feet stuck out past the end, a pair of tables where the victims would lie on their bellies with their knees bent and feet stuck up in the air, and posts to which victims could be tied while kneeling. There was also the usual sundial, and the usual sign on which the Prophesy was painted. "Alja Kentaros mor kental velator velex bartaros mel Uru, nor Kentaros yonvel morkap i patalos." it said in the curlicue script that the centaurs used: "If the Kentaros should ever fail to visit merciless torment on foreigners who enter the Land, then will the Kentaros suffer betrayal and ruination." But the centaurs were not an evil people, and so the torment they used was a tickle-torment, applied to the soft flat human feet that centaurs found fascinating.
None of the stocks or other restraints were in use at that moment, but a male centaur waited in the shade of the old oak tree. Adoria recognized him as Timon's son Vanko.
"Ho, Vanko," Idalia called. "I bring you another flatfoot foreigner."
"Adoria?" Vanko looked puzzled. "I thought your monthly pass tokens were good for another three weeks yet."
"Yes, but I lost them," Adoria explained.
Vanko gaze sharpened, much as his father's had. "Oh ho, so you've come to take your medicine, have you?" He shook his head. "But seriously, you should be more careful about such things."
"I was careful," Adoria said, and it was even true. She had very carefully smashed up her pass tokens.
"Well, I think it's the post for you, this time," Vanko said, pointing. Idalia stepped helpfully over to the indicated post, and Adoria crawled from her back onto the wooden platform set midway up. This put Adoria at a convenient height for Vanko to do his work.
Adoria adjusted the old fleece lying on the platform and knelt on it, facing and wrapping her arms around the heavy, well-polished post. Vanko stepped forward to fasten her in place with leather straps, while Idalia set Adoria's sandals down on the ground beside the platform.
"I'll come back for you when you're finished," she said.
"Thank you," Adoria said, her cheek pressed against the post. Vanko raised his own hand in acknowledgement, and Idalia trotted off. Adoria had heard that Idalia herself was an excellent tickler - Uncle Zorian had often spoken of her skills with fond exasperation - but she only tickled men. The centaurs had a custom, stronger than even their law, that only male centaurs would tickle female victims, and vice versa.
After finishing with the straps that bound Adoria's wrists, Vanko placed a wooden block under her ankles, raising them slightly. He secured them with another leather strap, and used a thong to tie her large toes, as well. Stepping back to the oak tree, he returned with a bucket of water and a dipper. Adoria drank, knowing the importance of not letting her throat go dry.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to enjoy this, Adoria," Vanko said after she had finished drinking. "You have the most interesting tickle-responses." Vanko, Adoria knew, had the tickling skill that his father claimed to lack. "But are you really sure you've lost your pass tokens?"
"I'm sure." She smiled. "Do your worst." And question me while you're at it. But she couldn't make herself say that; the compulsion wouldn't let her.
"Oh, I will," Vanko said. The centaur stepped around the platform. Adoria heard and felt water splash over her bare and helpless feet, and then a stiff-bristled brush, briskly applied. Adoria squealed. It tickled! She knew that it wasn't part of the tickle-torment, that her session hadn't begun yet. But it still tickled! "You know I haven't begun yet," Vanko chided her, echoing her thoughts.
"I- I know," Adoria gasped as he stopped scrubbing and splashed more water over her bare feet.
Vanko chuckled, then went over to the sundial to adjust a gnomen. He returned with a box of implements, and pulled one out. Bound as she was, Adoria couldn't see what it was. But a moment later she could feel it: A drying cloth, with Vanko's fingers behind it poking and stroking the soles of her feet and the spaces between her toes.
"I think seven parts out of every eight of you flatfooters laugh during the pre-wash," Vanko commented as his fingers tickled Adoria through the cloth. "I should keep a tally." Adoria was giggling too hard to answer that. "On the other hand," the centaur went on from behind her. "This drying is a part of your tickle-session. Don't you think it's clever to combine them like this?"
"Hahaha heeheehee yes haha hee yes yes! Heeheeheehee," Adoria managed to say. She pulled against her bonds, knowing it was useless but unable to keep herself from trying to escape.
"You're just saying that to lull me," Vanko said. "It won't work." He set the cloth aside and began to tickle directly with his fingers, running them first down Adoria's right sole, and then down her left. Laughter poured out of Adoria as she felt him paying special attention to her insteps.
Keep talking! Ask more questions! Adoria thought. But Vanko didn't say anything more. He just gave an occasional happy hum as he continued to tickle Adoria's vulnerable soles. He started using a dull-pronged wooden fork, alternating it with his fingertips as he inflicted more tickling on Adoria. More giggling and laughter poured from Adoria as the tickle-sensations sank into her soles. Into her insteps and the balls of her feet and her heels and the pads of her toes...
Now Vanko applied the preternaturally soft and tickle-inducing feather of a vos-hawk. Adoria squirmed wildly in attempts to escape that she knew were useless but that she could not help making. Her feet seemed to grow, her soles seeming to become incredibly huge as all her attention became focused on the gentle, irresistible teasing that her centaur friend and tormentor applied.
The tickling paused. Adoria gasped for breath and blinked tears from her eyes. Another centaur, one that Adoria recognized as Rodas, was bringing in two amazons that Adoria didn't recognize. They had their wrists lashed behind their backs, and they looked rather sullen. Their blonde hair was frazzled and their weapons, of course, had been taken from them. Skirmishers or scouts who had crossed the border and then been caught, then. Rodas made the first one sit in one of the two-victim stocks, but the second one put up a struggle when it came to her turn. Vanko waited to see if his colleague needed help, but gray-haired Rodas had not only a centaur's size and strength but also years of experience in using his horse-half against struggling humans. The second amazon was soon forced into the stocks as well, and then the footgear of both female warriors were removed and their ankles were locked in place.
At this point the second amazon swore at Rodas, and at centaurs in general, in great and lengthy detail. The first amazon, Adoria noticed, was reading the sign. Adoria saw her lips move.
"Virgins," Vanko commented, provoking a new string of curses from the second amazon. He meant that the amazons had not suffered the centaur's tickle-torment before, not that they were virgin's in the usual sense. "I'll help you with them once I finish with Adoria," he told Rodas.
"No hurry," Rodas said. He went over to the sundial and held his hands apart, signaling the time remaining on the sundial. Vanko went around behind Adoria again, and Rodas returned to the two captive amazons.
"Please," the first amazon whimpered - the one who had read the sign.
"Virgins," Rodas said. Then Adoria was unable to follow any further byplay because Vanko had started tickling her soles once more.
Once more Adoria burst into laughter as the irresistible tickle-sensations soaked into her helpless feet. Once more Vanko combined his fingers, the wooden fork, and the vos-hawk feather in a gentle, merciless torment that made Adoria squirm and giggle uncontrollably. The tickling again danced all over her soles, over her insteps and heels, between her toes, over the balls of her feet...
But Vanko did not ask her any questions. Adoria considered begging, offering to tell him anything he might want to know. Usually, a victim did better by not pleading for mercy or begging for the tickling to stop. It didn't do you any good, and the centaurs had more respect for you if you didn't. Uncle Zorian had told her that, and various centaurs had confirmed it in various conversations later. But this was a special case. Adoria had to get Vanko to start questioning her.
Only the compulsion wouldn't let her even hint that she had any secrets to hide. She could beg for Vanko to stop, but not offer any reason why. Besides, she wasn't sure she really wanted this honey-sweet tickling to stop. Even though she was struggling mightily - and futilely - to avoid it.
And then Adoria became unable to think about the matter coherently - or to think about anything coherently. Vanko had increased the tempo for the final minutes of tickling, and the tickle sensations expanded to fill Adoria's entire world. There was only the tickling of her soles, and the teasing touch along her insteps, and that squirming sensation running between her toes. Laughter poured from Adoria as if from a fountain. Sharp light strokes teased her feet. An unbearable feather-softness made her squirm and squeal. Then wiggling fingers again, all over her soles. Moving rapidly, as the tickling went on and on and on...
The tickling finally stopped. The session was over. Vanko undid the straps holding Adoria helplessly in place, and Idalia was there as well, helping her down from the platform. As Adoria sat and pulled her sandals back on, she heard, for the first time in what seemed like eons, laughter that was not her own. Vanko and Rodas were scrubbing the amazon's feet, and the amazons were squealing with laughter in response.
Idalia handed Adoria a new set of pass tokens. "Vanko left these for you," the female centaur said. "This time be more careful with them, all right?"
"All right," Adoria answered. But she knew she's have to 'lose' them again, and suffer another tickle-session in consequence. And she'd have to make a better plan; somehow she had to get her centaur friends to start asking her questions.
To be continued...
Author's er, "middleword": As you have noticed by now, I've taken the "tickling interrogation" idea and given it a twisted twist. Sorry to those who were looking forward to a tickle-interrogation told straight, but I find such stories to be both too mean and too cliche for me to enjoy them. So I've taken a victim/protagonist who has to be tickled until she spills the secrets and, well, see above for what I've done with the concept. And here's a hearty neener neener to the shaggy old chestnut of "Talk, or I will continue to tickle you mercilessly!" "No! Please! Stop! I'll talk! I'll talk!"
