5/28 After Lunch
Sylvanas was brusque when I spoke to her. She asked me to come to her throne room via teleportation, and when I arrived, she gave me a curt nod, then ordered all but a few of her deathguard out of the room. "I need to speak with the Stormwind Ambassador frankly. Our words shall not leave this room."
Obviously, her loyal bodyguards didn't like leaving her at all exposed, but they did as commanded. The moment they were gone, Sylvanas's entire demeanor shifted from imperious to submissive. Not flirtatiously; no, she was still all business, but she wasn't putting on a show for her uncaptured guards anymore. "What is your will?"
"First, I need to know what your own goals are. What is Undercity doing? You are my subjects now, and I need to know which of your wishes I will be supporting, which we need to adjust, and which you must desist from."
She nodded, "Of course. We have the general goal of reclaiming the territory of Lordaeron. We are facing large scale resistance from the Scourge and Scarlet Crusade to the east and the Alliance to the south. Lesser threats of note include the Worgen of Silverpine Forest and the Syndicate throughout old Alterac and Arathor." She proceeded to give me a general overview of the tactical situation in each region, including why they don't just pull out of each area.
In most cases, they didn't have much choice. Tirisfal didn't have much in the way of natural resources; most of Lorderon's quarries, mines, and logging operations were in the area now known as the Eastern Plaguelands. Written off as a loss for the foreseeable future, but fighting a war took resources, and the Forsaken were the only thing holding off an endless tide of zombies. The Scarlet Crusade and Argent Dawn would dispute that, but the Crusade didn't care about containment, and the Argent Dawn didn't not have enough manpower to do anything but containment and guerrilla warfare.
Silverpine provided for their lumber needs, and had a few mines; it was key to the war effort because it was reasonably under control and could provide the bare minimum to get by all on its own. Of course, there were also several small Alliance towns affiliated with Dalaran or exiled from Gilneas that didn't much care for their vitally challenged neighbors, and far more pressingly there were a substantial number of worgen running about, backed by an insane archmage. It was a mess, but they needed to make it work, so they did.
Alterac could provide them with the metals and stone they needed; as things stood, they mostly had to repurpose old ruins because they lacked raw materials to spare. Unfortunately, the kingdom of Alterac was taken over by a cabal of corrupt nobles and crime families known as The Syndicate. In addition to simply being in the way of the Forsaken, they maintained multiple orcish slave camps, they were one of the few groups that traded directly with the Scarlet Crusade, and they saw the un-blighted parts of Lordaeron as nothing but free real estate.
The Hillsbrad Foothills was a battlefield because it was Lorderon territory, and unfortunately the surviving human population had no interest in joining the Forsaken. To be fair to them, the Forsaken have not been particularly diplomatic about the whole thing; many influential voices among the free undead are entirely open to the idea of simply exterminating their former countrymen in Southshore. Sylvanas and the Royal Apothecary society were among them; I was not.
The Arathi Highlands were an incredibly rich land, the core of the greatest human empire in history. They had every resource that a grinding war machine could possibly need, and would very much like to keep them. The people of Stromgarde were not as great as they once were, essentially a vassal state of Stormwind at this point, but they were enough to hold off the forces Sylvanas could afford to spare so far from Undercity. Still, it was thanks to the efforts of the Black Bride's forces that the Forsaken didn't need to ship in far more from their allies in Kalimdor than they already did.
It was ugly. The Forsaken were the aggressors in many of these conflicts, but they were also desperate. The Scourge forces outnumbered them nearly ten to one, and they simply didn't have the resources necessary to hold the line, let alone advance, without expanding south. Trade with the human kingdoms would probably solve some of these problems, but neither side seemed particularly inclined to make the first move towards peaceful coexistence on any of these fronts.
I was probably going to have to brainwash some people in the name of logistics, and I told her as much.
"However, there are two things I will want from you. First, I wish to be trained in the physical and magical fighting styles you employ. The second is more personal; we can discuss it in private."
She looked me up and down. "I believe I can train you, if you command it, but understand that I do not coddle my students. You are sure?"
"Totally sure."
"Then we may begin now, if you wish. I have more liberty than I otherwise might while the city is in transition, though I only have three hours to spare today."
"I know how that feels. I won't keep you from your work." I leaned in close and whispered in her ear. "If your training frustrates me, then the solution will be simple. I'll take it out on you afterwards, in the bedroom."
She didn't quite smirk at that, but I got a sense of amusement and anticipation as she responded. "You will be put through your paces until you are a proper Ranger Lord."
"I'd better be. I can't just be having fun all the time."
Boy howdy, I did not just have fun. Sylvanas was borderline abusive in her training methods, and when she realized I was learning at an accelerated rate she took it as an opportunity to expedite the lesson, demanding far more from me and constantly ramping up the difficulty. By the end of the second hour, I was able to fire three arrows from my bow simultaneously, with almost no loss in accuracy.
The magical side of things was a little more difficult. Partly because she so heavily relied on her nature as a banshee to fuel certain tricks. Charm was a form of dominating magic derived from necromancy; it was essentially the same process that Abby employed to control the undead, adapted to the living. In other words, I'd need to learn reasonably advanced death magic, in addition to shadow magic, to learn how to use it efficiently. She explained the basics of it to me, but completely dismissed the idea of training me in necromancy herself. "You have many other thralls. If you don't have a necromancer already, get one. I have no time for games." That also eliminated black arrows from the curriculum; they were definitely necromancy as well.
Nothing was ever enough unless I was actively surpassing Sylvanas already, which I generally wasn't. I was slightly stronger than her in terms of a deadlift, but with Sylvanas's fighting style that would never matter. She was faster, more efficient with her movement, and more experienced than I was, by a substantial margin, and would probably be gaining in strength herself for the next week or so. After all, she became so overpowered during Shadowlands that it was the primary thing I knew about the expansion. Plus she was playable in multiple games, which would come with its own sets of unusual powers.
Essentially, she whipped my ass into shape constantly for two hours, pushing me far past the point of reason, using the logic that neither my body nor my mind were vulnerable to permanent injury, I had incredible stamina from being a hero, and my skills would grow faster if pushed to the limit. It was extremely unpleasant, but the results spoke for themselves. She had me spar with Nathanos near the end of the period, and I didn't embarrass myself. Oh, he still won every time, but I managed to get the odd hit in. A few days of this might be all I need, though for the moment she's extremely focused on the physical part of the skillset.
"Now then. I believe you had something to discuss with me in private, as well?" Sylvanas brusquely ended the training just as I was starting to show the first signs of fatigue. We had been training in a large cavern near the war quarter, with many people crowding around to watch the Banshee Queen personally training someone. I'd taken the form of a troll both to invite fewer questions from the Horde aligned forsaken, and for the small extra boost to stamina it would afford me.
The three of us were escorted all the way back to her chambers, where the door was locked behind us. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, but Nathanos's raspy voice commanding "present yourself for your king," followed by my drill instructor almost instantly transforming into a kneeling sex kitten in a negligée? That wasn't it. It instantly got my attention, though.
https://imgur.com/a/b4fGKEL
"I hope my instruction did not frustrate you, my king." Sylvanas purred in a voice that let me know that, if anything, she'd gone extra hard on me for the sake of being punished.
Nathanos growled, "no talking. There are much better things you could be doing with your mouth." With that, she nodded and began pulling my pants off. With her tongue and teeth, while maintaining eye contact with me. She'd been instructed to use her mouth, and she was taking that very literally.
It was incredibly hot, but the mostly-rotted corpse in the room was a little distracting. If he was getting off on this, I figured he should be able to enjoy it physically as well as mentally. I only knew one way to make that happen, and coincidentally it would also make this a bit more enjoyable for me. I looked at Nathanos and flipped him from male to female in my app. The change was immediate, drastic, and painful for theBlightcaller, but Nathanos is quick on the uptake. When Sylvanas paused to check on her lover, the newly feminine undead hissed through gritted teeth. "Did I tell you to stop? You still have work to do."
https://imgur.com/a/bP3Tgfw
As Sylvanas's head began bobbing up and down on my cock, Nathanos started to squirm as I playfully added a few extra rewards for obedience. Pleasure from directing others to please me, a powerful orgasm if I cum while someone she is commanding is servicing me, and negative emotion reduction for watching Sylvanas sexually please me.
I'm not actively into cuckholdry, but if that's already their dynamic I might as well double down, eh? I even kept Nathanos as a familiar, not forcing any attraction to me. I had enough hot women that wanted to sleep with me; a "lesbian" dominatrix that wanted her girlfriend to fuck me while she watched, feeling absolutely zero jealousy while she did? That was new and fun, and it was clear that Sylvanas had a whole persona that was just for sex; why not both of them? Nathanos could be his classic rotting corpse self outside of the bedroom, but while he's here I want him looking "her" best.
I had Sylvanas in every way I could think of, and every way Nathanos could think of too. She was by far the more creative of us. My owncontributions to "punishing" Sylvanas for doing the job I asked her to do largely ended in a good spanking. Sylvanas chanting a mantra about being nothing but a worthless animated fuckdoll meant for pleasure and obedience while I fucked her ass dry? That was apparently something the two of them had done in the past.