A Tale of Ties and Binds - Epilogue

Epilogue

With the-former-queen-Astrid missing in slavery somewhere between Greece and Mesopotamia, Thessaly was without a queen. The Matriarchs of the Thessalian Households joined together to elect a new queen to fill the position. Due to her sense of duty, honour, and unwavering resilience in the face of greater odds, they chose Penelope of the Scylla to be their leader.

But Penelope didn’t want that level of responsibility, arguing that the throne belonged to someone who could nurture the realm, not simply lead it. She instead put forward Ellisia of the Thunderbolt’s name due to her relative purity in the war against Titania the Celt. After some rigorous persuasion, Ellisia was elected Queen of Thessaly. Her first decree as monarch was to instate Penelope of the Scylla as General of the Thessalian Army and Taker of Captives for as long as she is able to hold a whip, not taking no for an answer.

Between defending against invasions and launching her own, Penelope spent most of her time at the Scylla estate with Peitho of Athens, cultivating their love for one another and repairing the damage done during the war. One of the primary objectives for this task was finding and retrieving all the hostages who’d been taken during Titania’s reign and shipped away as one of her final orders, though this was met with varying success. With the use of her phallic slave, Logical Phallusy, Penelope was soon blessed with twin daughters. She named the smaller one Zia, after the Dacian who’d helped Penelope fight her war from afar. The larger twin she named Adara, after the Spartan princess who’d selflessly sacrificed her own freedom to save Greece.

The Scythian warmaiden, Xarthyrsi, never attacked the capital. Those who witnessed the barbarian horde said they made a sudden decision to turn around and march back north, most likely having realised that there was nobody left to pay them.

Lydia remained in Thessaly, chained and collared, under the close supervision of her older sister. With a new appreciation for the hardships of slavery, Penelope decided to allocate all the worst jobs at her estate to Lydia, giving the other slaves a respite from the disgraceful tasks of scrubbing and sweeping. Lydia did not enjoy her fall from power, much to the delight of everyone and especially Penelope. At night she was staked spread eagled on the floor of the kennels where she slept naked amongst the hounds.

Stripped of all she ever had and punished for her numerous crimes, Titania the Celt was also forced into slavery. Penelope was unsure what to do with Titania as nobody wanted to risk keeping such a dangerous woman in their household. It was Serena who eventually suggested the plan to have her older sister sent to Empress Sappho of Sparta. Serena had felt partly responsible for what happened to Princess Adara – enslaved by Xarthyrsi – and sleeping with horses somewhere in the northern steppes – and believed making a gift of Titania might help to heal the bond between Thessaly and Sparta. There was no doubt the Empress would not look kindly on the woman who’d threatened all of Greece.

As the new Matriarch of the Celtic Knot, the young Serena was in need of some guidance (not that she ever admitted it). Penelope asked her own current heiress, Daphne, to help Serena in any way that she could. Daphne, of course, was only too happy to oblige. When they weren’t bickering, they were whoring around the slave districts; and when they weren’t whoring, they were play fighting; and when they weren’t play fighting, they were wrapped up in each other’s knots. It was their unlikely relationship that forged an alliance between the Households of the Scylla and the Celtic Knot for many generations to come.