Weekly #3 (Draupnir 1.1) (Patreon)

Toybox: Draupnir

Prologue:

The ring, when worn, changes the wearer. It is called the King’s Ring, because it has been worn by great kings real and fabled throughout history. Its polished golden surface is etched with divine runes that shift and fade. They cannot be read, but they can be known by the way they alter the wearers body. The one with the ring rules and is given what is required to rule. They are endowed with charisma, with power and with a mighty cock, and they are given eight silver rings to build their harem with.

These eight rings are Bride’s Rings. Those offered a Bride’s Ring cannot refuse it, and once they put it on they are bound as if by marriage to the King. They must honor and obey them with their bodies and with their hearts, and like the King, they are changed to better provide for the one they serve.

The Bride honors their King through pleasure and through love, and even hatred is not enough to undo this. Those Brides who hate their King will know their King intimately, and while they will not forget their hate, they will forgive it and set it aside in the face of the joy they must bring and the joy they themselves will be brought.

Further, all commands given by the King must be adhered to. Once given a ring, the Bride will follow commands both willingly and with enthusiasm, and all who see the Bride will know them for what they are. They are people no longer and are instead the property of the King whom they serve. That is the power of the rings and the price that must be paid, and the reward is the thoughtless joy that is found in their service and in their commitment to their King.

The King rules and the Bride follows. That is the Covenant, and through history is has been. Though the ring has been lost, it will now be found by a middle-aged man named Benjamin Wright. He is a doughy man in his forties with thinning hair and a failing marriage, and it is in these circumstances that he will wear the ring and learn its purpose. If you will join me now, let us watch.

Chapter One:

Benjamin stared speechlessly at the ring in his hand. It was tarnished gold that he had worked hard back to a polish, and it radiated an unnatural warmth when touched. It felt to him like a promise made that would be kept only to the one who wore it, and though he did not understand what that meant, he did understand that it meant something.

Yesterday, Benjamin had found out that his wife, Kayla, was cheating on him. Benjamin and Kayla had been married for over twenty years and had two daughters: Violet and Eleanor. Lately, their marriage had felt distant, even estranged, though Benjamin had not known why. All he knew was that he missed his wife as he knew her, and that he didn’t know if it was possible to get her back.

Now he knew, and he did not like the answer that he found. When his wife was home, she was always on her phone. When she was not home, she was impossible to contact. Benjamin had used her momentary distraction to learn why and found sweet nothings sent to someone else. It was a coworker that Benjamin hardly knew, and it was a woman.

That was how he ended up alone in his bedroom, seated on his marital bed with tears in his eyes and an empty suitcase at his back as he contemplated this harsh truth. His wife was about to tell him. Eleanor was a senior in high school, and Kayla had been committed enough to stay with Benjamin until her daughter’s graduation. After that, their marriage would be over, and Benjamin would be alone.

He turned the ring over in his fingers. It was warm and when he wasn’t looking at it, he swore that he saw a blinding golden script written in light that flashed across the surface. It was a promise that he did not understand and one that he did not know where it would end. Like wedding vows, it was a commitment given and taken toward an unknowable future and with unknowable consequences.

Once, Benjamin had loved his wife, but he didn’t think he loved her anymore. Even before her infidelity, he had seen and felt them growing apart as a couple. They had separate lives as some couples do, but it had not been healthy, and clearly the two of them did not come back home to each other in an abstract and romantic sense.

A vow, he thought to himself as he held the ring pinched between his fingers, and he began to weep. It didn’t matter to him how far apart he and his wife had become. They had promised each other something which could not be so easily forgotten or undone, and yet she had completely shattered it with a few words that she texted to another woman. It hurt so much that he wanted to rip his own heart out.

The ring’s script flashed again, and Benjamin wondered if that was the promise. The ring was clearly otherworldly and even magical. He wondered if he could put on the ring and feel nothing, or if he put it on and could not remove it without taking his own life. He wondered if that would hurt less than suicide typically did. In that moment, he imagined that anything would hurt less than he hurt.

“I hate her,” he cried, and though he had tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he didn’t really hate her. It was not hatred he felt. It was loss and it was mourning. He was mourning the marriage he thought he had with the woman he once knew and loved. Whoever he was married to now was a different person, and he didn’t hate her because Benjamin didn’t have it in his heart to hate a stranger.

He put the ring on his right ring finger and stood to pack, but he did not get far before collapsing again. Eventually, he ended up in bed weeping, and then he fell asleep. His wife woke him up later with a look of genuine concern, and his first thoughts were to apologize and beg her to change her mind, but she didn’t even know.

“Ben?” She felt his forehead, and her pretty face crinkled with worry. “Are you okay?”

Benjamin stared at her. She looked so very much like the wife he had loved, but she was older now. She was tall and slender, and she was very pretty, though she had gray hairs. He rubbed his eyes and nodded. “I’m fine,” he whispered.

“Are you sure? You look like you’ve been crying.” She looked at the suitcase, but she didn’t say anything.

“I’m sure,” he croaked. “Who’s turn to make supper?”

“I sent Violet out for pizza. We’re doing a movie night.”

Benjamin gave her a tired smile, and the ring on his right ring finger felt natural there and warm. “That sounds nice. I’ll be down in a bit.”

“Okay,” she said, and she rose from the bed and went to the door. She stopped at the door and looked at him over her shoulder. “Benjamin, are you sure you’re okay? You know you can tell me anything.”

Not anything, he thought, and he was still smiling, but inside he hurt again. “I know,” he said. “Save me three slices of pepperoni. You know how Ellie gets.”

That made Kayla smile a real, rich, pretty smile. “I will do my best,” she said, and she left the room and him behind.

Benjamin didn’t feel different until morning. All night, his wife worried about him, and so did his daughters. They shared a bed, but they slept with their backs to one another. It didn’t used to bother him, but now Benjamin knew better. This time, as he slept, he found himself having strange, wild dreams. He saw a billowing gray cloak, and a steeple gray hat, and he saw an old man giving up an eye to drink from a fountain and learn its secrets. He saw a body hanging from a tree with its side split, and he saw eighteen runes learned for the price of a sacrifice given of oneself to oneself.

When he woke up, he was different. He had the same thinning brown hair, and he had the same caramel eyes. He had the same portly belly and bad back, but he was different all the same. He looked at himself in the mirror, and he almost smiled, and then he went to piss in the toilet and had the shock of his life.

“Holy shit!”

“What,” called his wife through the bathroom door as she was getting dressed for the morning. Benjamin was staring down his fat body and couldn’t believe what he saw. He went to the mirror to get a better look and gaped. His wife knocked at the door. “Benjamin, are you okay?”

“I’m…fine,” said Benjamin, but he didn’t have the words. His dick was gone and replaced by another dick. It was a bigger dick, possibly even a better dick, and a pair of enormous testicles sized to match. He hefted it, and he stared.

“Ben? You’re acting strange.”

“Leg cramp,” he said, and he went back to the toilet and lugged his heavy dick with him. He pissed, and that felt different, too. “It’s getting better. I’ll be out soon.”

“Don’t talk to me while you’re peeing,” she told him, and he could see her scrunched face in his mind’s eye as she spoke. Loud enough for him to hear, she whispered, “Men.” She often did that when he was being crass. Now, knowing what he knew, it hit differently.

He finished pissing and shook himself off, and he yanked his briefs up and stared at himself in the mirror. It seemed impossible to him that he had not noticed before, and yet somehow he looked normal with the biggest dick he had ever seen even including in pornography. He smiled at his reflection, and when his reflection smiled back, he knew it was real and he knew it was him.

When he left the bathroom, he was disappointed to see his wife ignoring him. She hardly looked at him anymore regardless, and he wondered when she started hating his body. Even with his big dick, he felt suddenly self-conscious, and he snuck by her as she entered the bathroom and hoped she didn’t see his new dick because he realized it would just raise questions that he didn’t have the answers to.

He changed, and he smiled again as he tucked his oversized manhood into his briefs. He pulled pants on and tucked in his shirt after he buttoned it. Once he was dressed, he did his belt and tied his shoes, and he stared down his body and past his portly belly. He couldn’t see his bulge, but he felt confident that it was there.

“Benjamin?”

He followed Kayla’s voice to the bedroom and smiled when he saw her standing over the bed. She was wearing a colorful skirt and matching blouse. The blouse was tucked in and tied neatly in the front. She had her glasses on, and her hair was in a simple ponytail. She was a teacher, and she always dressed like she was going to work. It was part of what charmed him about her when they first met. Kayla was a natural girl next door. In his eyes, she was the perfect wife material.

“Yes?”

“What are these rings,” she asked, and she lifted a handful of shiny, polished silver rings that looked very much like the golden one he had put on the day before only different in color.

Benjamin did a double take and hid his golden ring self-consciously. “Rings,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “Where did they come from?”

“I…found them?” He rushed over and took them from her. There were more in the bed that he scooped up and slipped into his pocket. He counted seven in total, and he was shocked when his wife picked up the eighth. At the back of his head, he heard a whisper, and the ring on his finger warmed. Those were the Bride’s Rings, the whispers told him, and he was the King.

Kayla held the Bride’s Ring pinched between her fingers and squinted her blue eyes at it. “It’s very pretty,” she said.

“It is,” he said, and he snatched it from her.

“Hey!”

“Sorry,” he said, and he pocketed the ring. “They’re filthy,” he told her. “I found them on the street yesterday, and I think that might have been what made me feel so off last night. They need to be washed.”

“That’s not how sickness works, and you know it,” she said, and she frowned at him. She crossed her arms, too, and Benjamin was keenly aware of how her shapely, womanly form moved and shifted. His dick throbbed, and he thought about returning the ring, but he didn’t know why. His wife had already made him a vow before, and she was betraying that. He pulled his hand out his pocket, and his wife tsked. “You’re being strange, Benjamin Wright.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, and he endured her glare a moment longer before she passed him to enter the closet again and grab her shoes.

Benjamin took that time to escape into the hall and pulled out his rings again. He counted them and found eight in total. Eight Bride’s Rings beget by the King’s Ring. They were each vows to be taken and commitments yet unmade, but once worn they could not be removed. He could give one to his wife, and she would honor and obey, but he did not know if she deserved it.

“Dad?”

Benjamin jumped and stuffed his hands into his pockets as he turned. His daughter, Violet, was standing in the hall and looking at him with the same sort of concern that her mother had only a day before. “Vi!!”

Violet’s concern turned to an uncertain smile as she greeted him with a hug that morning. Violet had his hair color but had her mother’s hair. She was tall like her mother, too, and she was very pretty. Her skin was a soft, Irish pink and her hips wide and womanly, but her bust was small. Normally, Benjamin wouldn’t look at his daughter’s bust, but he couldn’t help himself this morning. He pulled his eyes away, and her smile had gone while the confusion remained. “You…Uh…You okay, dad?”

“I’m…fine,” he said. He felt sweaty and rubbed his hands on his pants. The rings in his pocket were almost buzzing for him to pull them out and offer them. “I’m fine.”

“Kay,” she said. She gave him another curious smile. “Mind moving? You’re…kind of just standing in front my door.”

“I am?” Benjamin turned and saw his daughter’s door, and he laughed. “I am! Hahahahahahahaha!” He stopped abruptly and left.

Violet stayed in the hallway and stared at her father as he went down the hall and then down the stairs. She sighed. “What a weirdo.” She opened the door and stepped on something, and then she lifted her foot and squinted at what she found on the floor. “What is this?” She bent down and picked it up. “…A ring?”