Chapter Text
It had been two days since her fate had been sealed. Two days since her mother Katherine had pronounced her guilty, named her a traitor to Kul Tiras, and had her sent off to the cells beneath Proudmoore Keep to await her fate.
Through it all, Jaina had tried to keep herself calm, and in control. She tried to tell herself that what she was doing was for the good of the Alliance, for the good of her people. She was willing to accept her mother’s judgment, the judgment of her people, all for a greater cause. It was worth it, she told herself. But each moment of isolation that past in the chilled cells beneath the Keep, was a moment in which cracks and chinks in her resolve began to form.
Oh, she knew she had made the right choice, there was no other way after all, but that thought alone did little more than to give herself something to grasp and hold onto as she awaited the inevitable. She was relatively certain that her mother truly wouldn’t put her to death over her actions all those years ago, she was still her mother after all, in spite of Katherine’s recent harsh statement to the contrary. She had to believe her mother wouldn’t go that far, but that knowledge only left the uncertainty of what it was exactly her mother would do to exact whatever justice, whatever revenge she felt was owed to her and to Kul Tiras.
Jaina was sure that leaving her alone and isolated for so long was likely intentional on her mother’s part. They probably intended to keep her all alone with nothing but wandering thoughts to keep herself occupied, thoughts that would almost certainly begin to conjure up all sorts of frightful horrors about what the future entailed. Horrors that would whittle away her resolve piece by piece until she was a quivering mess of a girl. She wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction, she told herself.
Unfortunately, in spite of her best efforts, Jaina found herself succumbing ever so slowly to the isolation and her thoughts. It was a faint relief when she heard the sounds of the thick doors at the end of the long corridors of cells opening just as the sun began to creep down over the thin strip of a barred window overhead. BY the time she heard the stomping of heavy booted feet marching down the stone steps, Jaina felt as if she was little more than a bundle of scattered, raw nerves. Was this her time, she wondered? Had her reckoning finally come?
The big burly guards said nothing as they threw open her small, narrow cell and seized her by the arms to drag her roughly back down the corridor towards the steps that led back up into the keep.
“Where-where are you taking me,” she demanded. There was no answer. “I demanded to know what’s going on!”
The only response she was given was an aggravated scowl thrown in her direction by the lead guard as she was dragged up the long dimly lit stairwell. Jaina began to struggle and resist, pulling and making attempts to free herself from the tight grip of the guards, but to no avail.
She shouted at them as they hauled her back up into the Keep proper, furiously informed them that regardless of anything else, she was still the daughter of Katherine Proudmoore. They had no right to treat her in such a fashion. But it mattered little. When she simply stopped and refused to move any further, the guards were less than pleased, but instead of saying something, anything to her at all, one of them simply snatched her up around the waist and hauled her over his shoulder and kept on his way.
It didn’t take the guards long to carry Jaina to their destination, they had walked at a brisk enough pace, barely paying attention to any and all of her protestations, all of her furious pounding on the guards back with angry fists. They ignored every thing, and treated her as if the only way she existed at all to them was as a duty to be performed and nothing more.
When they stopped, Jaina turned her head just in time to see the lead guard nod towards a pair of guards standing on either side of the large double doors that led into the Keeps’s Great Hall. Without another word, the burly man carrying her over his shoulder pushed forward through the doors and made his way into the great hall, Jaina secured and held firmly and tightly in place.
Jaina didn’t know what to expect once they entered the Great Hall proper, but she hadn’t thought she’d see so many people, commoner and noble alike lining the walls on either side of the long walkway leading up to the dais at the far end where Lady Katherine, her mother sat stone-faced and grim upon a worn and weathered throne.
She couldn’t begin to imagine what her mother had in store for her, but it was readily apparent that whatever it was, Katherine intended the whole of the court, the whole of Kul Tiras it seemed with as many people were assembled, to bear witness. That didn’t bode well for her, she thought. Was she going to again publicly disavow her own daughter before sending her off to her fate? Was she simply going to forgo waiting any longer and simply carry out the sentence right here and now? Jaina didn’t know. She wasn’t sure what her mother was going to do, but she had to hold onto the faint hope that her mother would see reason. If not, Jaina was ready to meet and accept her fate with all the grace she was able. Her cause was just. Pure. That was all she had left.
As the little procession made their way down the long walkway towards the dais, Jaina could hear the faint, hushed whispers of all those around her. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, and in her mind, it was probably better that way. She could only imagine what they were saying about her, what words they were using to describe her. She would have endured whatever she was given, but it would have likely been quite difficult to bear.
The guards roughly deposited Jaina down onto the floor in front of the dais with such lack of care that she nearly ended up toppled over and prostrated on the tile in front of her mother. She barely managed to keep her balance and remain on her feet, though it was an uncertain thing for a moment or two.
She turned her attentions, and her eyes to her mother as she straightened and smoothed out her dress, and was met with a cold, unpleasant gaze that held none of the motherly affection that Jaina remembered from her childhood. There was nothing in Katherine’s eyes but a cool and dispassionate gaze that held little, if any emotion at all. Had her mother truly given her up, Jaina wondered.
“Mother,” Jaina began.
Katherine cut her off from saying anything further with a sharp, imperious snap of her hand, and a dark, scowling glare that was so fierce that it took Jaina aback.
“Jaina Proudmoore,” Katherine began, her face twisting sourly for a brief moment at the mere mentioning of their shared blood. “You have been found guilty of treason. By both your actions and inactions, you have betrayed, and been found responsible for the murder and continued suffering of Kul Tiras and her people at the hands of her enemies. And sentence has been given. Death.”
“If that is-“
“Silence!” Katherine snapped, half rising from her seat in a rage.
She took a moment to collect herself, to seat herself back into the throne and calm the raging storm that was so evident in both her eyes and expression. When she finally spoke again, her voice was again cold, and lifeless. Dispassionate.
“Under the advisement of Lady Ashvane,” Katherine began. “We have decided to commute your sentence of death for your crimes.”
At the pronouncement, there was an angry, yet hushed murmur rippling through the assembled crowd. Jaina turned her head to survey the people surrounding her from either side, and it was just as she had suspected. There was not a single face in the crowd that seemed pleased with Katherine’s words. None save a single woman who crept up from the shadows to stand imperiously beside her mother. Jaina recognized her instantly, and yet found herself shaken slightly from the pleased, yet predatory look written across the woman’s face. Something was wrong, but she wasn’t quite sure what.
“Mother,” Jaina began.
Again Lady Katherine cut her off with a sharp wave of her hand a vicious scowl.
“If I have to remind to to keep silent again, you will be gagged,” Katherine snapped irritably.
Jaina nodded in acceptance. There was little else she could do. It was clear her mother would not, could not be swayed from whatever course she had decided on.
“I had thought to exile you to Fate’s End,” Katherine continued. “That would have been a permanent solution, as no one has ever returned from Fate’s End. But I have decided otherwise. Again, under advisement from Lady Ashvane.”
Jaina could only listen, and silently nod her head. She had much to say on the matter, particularly about Fate’s End, a place she had heard many stories of in the past, but she felt it prudent to remain silent as her mother had instructed. Considering her mother’s current demeanor and obvious mood, wouldn’t have likely boded well for her had she chosen otherwise. It was best to keep her thoughts to herself, she thought. The Alliance and her goals would be better served by not inflaming her mother’s ire, nor that of the Kul Tiran people, any more than she already had.
“Do not think however, that you have been spared the proper justice you so rightfully deserve,” Lady Katherine said. “At Lady Ashvane’s suggestion, I have decided that you shall serve your penance, and your people in another way. A harsh penance that will continue on and on without reprieve or end until I, and the people of Kul Tiras have decided that you have fully atoned for your crimes.”
The whispered murmurs all around her began again. They seemed as shocked and as confused as Jaina herself was. What did her mother mean? What thoughts had that woman, Lady Ashvane, wormed into her mother’s mind?
“It is commanded, that you will serve your penance at Lady Ashvane’s sole direction,” Katherine continued. “As after I have played my part, I want little to do with you unless strictly necessary.”
“Best not to delay,” Lady Ashvane nearly purred. “The people already grow restless for their justice, and their entertainment.”
Jaina turned her attention to the other woman and affixed her with a curious, if confused gaze. What did that mean, she wondered?
“Very well, Lady Ashvane,” Katherine said with an obvious hint of annoyance and frustration. “Let us begin then. Prepare her, and bring her to me.”
“What?” Jaina questioned.
No one answered her. At least not with words. Before she knew what was happening, the burly men who had taken her from her cell and led her to this place, had reappeared behind her, and roughly seized her at the shoulders.
“What are you doing?” Jaina demanded. “Unhand me?”
The men said nothing. Their actions spoke louder than words could ever have. It took a moment after the first loud, echoing tearing sound that rang out through the hall, for Jaina to realize what was happening. When she did, she let out a sharp cry of dismay and horror, and began struggling and fighting back against the guards who had begun to savagely tear her dress from her body.
No matter how hard she fought, it didn’t seem to matter. It made little to no difference to the men as they stripped her dress from her fragment by torn fragment, layer by layer, baring her body inch by inch and moment by moment. She could scarcely believe what was happening. Was her mother truly having her stripped of her clothing, here and in front of everybody? Surely not.
In a fury, Jaina lashed out at the men, intoning the words of arcane power that she had learned so long ago in Dalaran. Words that flowed from her memory to the tip of her tongue with a practiced, well used ease. Yet, there was nothing. Nothing came from the words, no flash of power, no freezing chill of ice letting loose from her outstretched hands. Nothing. She felt nothing.
“I wouldn’t bother with that,” Lady Ashvane said with an amused laugh tinting her voice. “We’ve taken steps to ensure that you cannot harm another soul with your sorceries.”
“No!” Jaina wailed in dismay.
She could hear the crowd’s sudden and growing excitement, she could feel the touch of every eye in the room focusing and bearing down upon her with an intensity that grew with every strip of clothing torn from her body. She twisted and struggled to free herself from the hands of the guards, cursed them with furious words, but it was of little help. Without her magic, there was nothing she could do to stop them. Nothing she could do to prevent them from swiftly, and gleefully stripping every scrap, every inch of clothing from her body and leaving her bared and on display for all in the Great Hall to see.
The crowd grew louder as Jaina, now fully naked and exposed to their eyes was drug from her place before the dais, and thrown down bodily to the floor at her mother’s feet. She could feel her skin heating and coloring, flushing in deep shame at some of the vile and cruel words she could very clearly hear being thrown at her from the crowd. From her own people.
“Mother!” Jaina said, frantically looking up at her mother with pleading eyes.
Her only answer was a sharp slap across her cheek from Lady Ashvane, and the the sharp pain of her mother reaching out and seizing her by the hair with a tight, yanking grip that propelled her forward.
“You will remain silent!” Lady Ashvane commanded. “Though likely not for long.”
She tried to struggle out of her mother’s grip, but Katherine seemed to have the strength empowered by pure fury and rage. Strength enough that caused a howl of pain and surprise to burst out from Jaina’s lips as she felt herself roughly pulled upward and placed over her mother’s lap where she was then firmly held in place.
No, Jaina thought in a panic. She couldn’t mean to-her own mother wasn’t going to do what she thought she was going to do? Here? In the Great Hall? In front of all these people? It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it.
It wasn’t until the first sharp, stinging slaps began to rain down in a merciless flurry against her bared bottom that the realization, and the despair at her predicament fully set in. Her mother didn’t bother with a slow build up, she had apparently decided to forgo any thoughts of mercy when it came to her daughter’s penance, her punishment before the whole of Kul Tiras.
The spanks delivered by her mother’s hand were cruel, and well aimed. Again and again her mother’s hand rose and fell with a vicious wickedness in both speed and force. Each cruel blow against Jaina’s bared bottom seemingly having enough force behind them to lurch her forward on her mother’s lap. The instant agony of each spank tearing teary-eyed wails from Jaina’s lips.
The heat in her backside was excruciating. Every strike blistering across her skin with such ferocity that burned through the whole of Jaina’s body to the very core of her. She found herself writhing, squirming back and forth over her mother’s lap in a vain attempt to escape the furious torrent of spanks being delivered to her bared and tender bottom by her mother’s hand.
Her hips bucked and swayed, rising and falling with each stinging jolt of pain tearing through her. She could hear the crack of each spank as it connected with her dancing bottom. She could feel the agonizing sting burning across her rapidly reddening flesh.
“You. Will. Suffer. For. Everything. You. Have. Done,” Katherine growled out, her hand viciously punctuating each and every word, every syllable with a merciless flat-handed spank down on her daughter’s bared and exposed bottom.
It was too much, Jaina thought as her body twitched and thrashed wildly over her mother’s lap. The pain, the humiliation of it all, it was all too much. She tried to hold back her tear-filled cries, the wailing sobs of agony, and the desperate pleas for mercy. But it was all for naught.
No matter what Jaina said or did, Katherine ruthlessly continued her assault on Jaina’s naked bottom. She’d concentrate on one area, sending stinging slap after slap all along a single point on Jaina’s jiggling bottom. She focused on the underside of each cheek first, delivering painful rapid-fire spanks over and over again until she was satisfied that each particular spot was the perfect shade of angry bright red and properly chastised, before moving on.
Inch by inch, Katherine covered the whole of Jaina’s naked bottom in bright red marks, spanking her daughter without mercy or reprieve until the whole of her backside was covered with the reddened imprints of her hand from top to bottom. Each cruel spank causing Jaina to twist and writhe her body in every direction in a vain attempt to escape, or at least mitigate the cruel abuse of her body.
But there was nothing she could do. She was trapped in her mother’s inescapable grip, powerless and wholly at the mercy of her mother as she delivered such a ferocious chastisement all along her bottom. The tears and choking sobs flowed freely from Jaina’s eyes, and her lips. She had thought she had endured and suffered through the worst of it, but it was not to be. A fact she became well aware of the moment Katherine began to deliver those horrible, agonizing and humiliating spanks down on the back of her legs and along both of her hips.
Jaina screamed in pain, wailed in dismay. Her mind a chaotic haze of thoughts and emotions that swirled around her in a violent storm-like cloud that she was unable to escape. It was hard to focus on anything, her thoughts too clouded by her misery and the suffering being visited upon her. But somewhere, somewhere in the back of her mind she was vaguely conscious of the cheers, and exited jeering of the crowd of people, both noble and commoner alike, as they witnessed her suffering, her shame, and humiliation.
They were enjoying it. Her own people were enjoying her debasement, her suffering. Not only enjoying it, they were crying out for more. They were cheering and calling for more suffering, more pain, and more humiliation to be visited upon her. In that moment, she felt lost, lost and alone. All of her hopes, all of her determination withered away leaving her with nothing to hold on to, nothing to shield herself from the agony and torment being rained down upon her bared bottom so cruelly.
In that moment, Jaina felt her will waver, and then break. She broke. All she could do from that moment on was lay across her mother’s lap in abject misery, sobbing and crying out rivers of tears as the burning pain of her mother’s punishing spanks rained down unceasing upon her bare bottom.
Then all at once, Jaina felt herself being lifted and pushed away from her mother’s lap. She wailed out in surprise as she was flung down to tumble bodily across the tile floor at her mother’s feet where she instantly, instinctively curled herself up into a tight ball, and wrapped her arms around herself to protect and seal herself away from the tormenting cruelties all around her as she lay there sobbing miserably.
“Show them,” she barely heard Lady Ashvane’s voice call out.
Thick, powerful hands wrapped around her wrists, pried her arms loose from around her waist, and roughly pulled her up against her will to her feet. The guards pinned her wrists together high enough above her head to force Jaina to dance up onto the very tips of her toes to keep herself steady. They spun her, kicked her legs apart and positioned her so that the whole of the assembled crowd in the Great Hall of Proudmoore Keep could easily see every flaming red, burning inch of her tortured backside in all its blistered glory.
The crowd cheered even more at the sight. She could hear them calling out for her to suffer more cruel indignities. The vile suggestions and demands for her treatment filling her with both dread and shame. The things they were demanding, what they were calling for, they were unspeakable. How could they not just want such depraved cruelties, but want them visited upon her?
At Lady Ashvane’s command, the guards turned her around to face the crowd, to display the fullness of her naked and exposed body. She could feel her heart racing, her chest heaving and her body beginning to thrash in a vain effort to cover and conceal herself from their cruel and depraved gazes. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore all the vile and debauched comments made towards her and her naked body. Some of the things they said, both men and women, were too much to even contemplate. Was this what her people wanted? To see her treated in such a fashion? Exposed and humiliated, shamed and put on display for their perverse pleasures?
When she began to hear calls from the crowd to open her up, Jaina struggled to close her legs, to preserve for herself some small amount of dignity. Just the thought alone was enough to fill her with a dread and a shame that filled her to near overflowing. Every time she tried however, Lady Ashvane would reach out and deliver sharp stinging spanks to the inside of her legs until she relented and allowed the guards again to force her legs apart.
“There’s no hiding anymore, Jaina” Lady Ashvane near purred. “You will suffer for your crimes. Every. Last. One. Until you have fully atoned. Until the people are satisfied. Until I am satisfied.”
Jaina couldn’t hold back the misery she felt within her, and it burst out of her with a torrent of tears and sobbing, gasping cries as she felt one of the guards reaching between her legs and parting her folds. The only thing she could think of was her mothers words to her before giving her a taste of what her suffering was going to entail. A harsh penance that will continue on and on without reprieve or end, words that now filled every fiber of her being. Every thought.
“This is just the beginning. Jaina,” she heard Lady Ashvane purr in her ear. “Only the beginning.”