The iron rack held their bodies in cold, unyielding embrace.
Elsa and Amilia knelt facing each other, their knees resting on thin leather cushions. They were so close that they could hear each other’s breath—yet they could never see one another. Slave blindfolds covered their eyes completely, shutting out even the faintest ray of light.
The iron rack held them from behind, fixing their limbs in place. Their arms were pulled back and bound to their own ankles. Cold steel plates pressed against their spines, forcing their torsos into a rigid arch. Their knees rested on thin leather cushions, thighs spread wide. Their entire bodies were locked into an unmoving, bowed shape by the iron frame.
And yet, their hair had been carefully groomed. It lay smooth and lustrous, just as it had on the morning of their capture all those years ago. Even their crowns remained upon their heads—the Thorned Crown of the Imareich Queen, and the Flame Crown of the Princess. The goblins had not taken them. Or rather, they had deliberately left them there. In this sunless dungeon, upon this iron rack, those crowns served as the cruelest of ironies.
Elsa’s crimson eyes were hidden beneath the blindfold, so do Amilia’s mismatched eyes. They could see nothing. Not each other’s faces. Not each other’s tears. Not the red marks left upon their skin by feathers and fingernails.
No one spoke. There was no need to speak.
Upon this rack, words had long lost all meaning.
They did not know who knelt before them.
Five years. Voices had been worn strange by endless laughter and screaming. The dungeon’s mildew had erased all scent. All they could sense was another kneeling figure, another body trapped in steel and rope. Who was it? A former subject? A fellow captive queen from a neighboring land? Or a complete stranger? They did not know. They no longer bothered to wonder. Because it did not matter.
What mattered was this: they knew what awaited them.
brushes. Fingertips. The endless, ceaseless tickling. No death. No fainting. No true end. Every breath was a preparation for the next convulsion. Every blindfolded second was a silent countdown in the dark. They did not know who knelt across from them. But they knew that in a few seconds—or a few minutes—that rough, scaled hand would reach out, and the torment would begin again.
Their bodies tensed at the same moment. Not fear. Something deeper than fear. Instinct carved into muscle by memory.
No one spoke. There was no need to ask each other's names. On this torture rack, names and the past seemed to have lost all meaning—except to amuse the goblins even more.
The laughter exploded.
It was uncontrolled, boiling over like scalding water.
The brush tip fell.
First, the left. Elsa’s nipple was touched by that soft yet deadly tip—gently? No. Not gently. It was a slow, syrupy, serpentine caress, soaked with the potion. The moment the liquid touched her skin, it began its work, driven at once into the most sensitive nerve endings. Tickle. It amplified tenfold, a hundredfold tickling. Her body snapped upward in a violent arch, the iron frame screeching in protest. Laughter gushed from her mouth, mixed with saliva and tears, like a bellows being crushed.
“Hahahaha—no, no—haaaaa—!”
Then the right. The brush fell upon Amilia’s nipple almost in the same breath.
Her eyes flew wide beneath the blindfold. The potion seeped into every pore, every nerve ending screaming. Her toes curled and splayed frantically. Her soles kicked helplessly in the air—as if trying to crush something, but there was nothing to crush. Only the tickling. Only that endless, spreading tickling, crawling from her nipples through her whole body, like ten thousand ants burrowing.
“Ahahahaha! Stop—ha—please—ahahahaha—!”
She didn’t even know what she had screamed. Her voice was already shredded by laughter.
They knelt facing each other, their arched bodies convulsing, writhing, bouncing on the iron rack. They could not see each other. But they could hear. Each other’s laughter. Each other’s cries. And the wet, tiny sound of the brushes stirring in the potion bottle.
The goblins laughed. And so did they. But one side laughed in pleasure. The other laughed in hell.
They had long realized the truth. They were no longer queens. No longer knights. No longer even “people.” They were the goblins’ tickle toys. Living, laughing, crying, convulsing playthings—nothing more.
But realizing was one thing. Accepting was another.
That deep, bone-rooted pride—the dignity that refused to die—stabbed their hearts like a needle every time the laughter erupted. You shouldn’t be laughing, the needle whispered. You were the pride of the kingdom. Unbeatable knights on the battlefield. Crowned rulers. How can you laugh like a madwoman because of a brush, a drop of potion, a mere tickle?
And yet, they laughed. They laughed wildly, hysterically, until their abs ached, until tears streamed down their faces, until saliva dripped from their chins, until even breathing became a luxury.
In the brief gaps between outbursts, Elsa’s eyes trembled in despair beneath the blindfold. Inside her head, she screamed: Stop… please stop… let me die… just let me die… But all that came from her throat was “Hahaha”—a hollow sound, as if echoing the goblins’ mockery.
Amilia tried to bite her lip—no, she attempted to bite it. But the moment the tickling exploded from her nipples, her lips sprang open, and laughter flooded out like a broken dam.
They wanted to die. Truly, deeply, wanted to die.
But the goblins wouldn’t let them. The tickle torture wouldn’t let them. The potion only made them more ticklish. The brush only made them wilder. The iron rack only forced their bodies into tighter arches.
So they had no choice but to accept, one half laughing like a maniac, the other half sobbing silently. And neither half could stop.
The laughter rose again. The goblins laughed too. The dungeon air grew damp and hot, thick with the smell of tickling.
“Kill you?”
The goblin’s voice was light. Casual. As if asking what was for dinner.
For a moment, Elsa’s laughter caught in her throat. Not from fear. From sheer absurdity. Her crimson pupils contracted sharply beneath the blindfold. Her chest still heaved from the tickling that had barely faded, her breaths short and ragged.
“No.”
The goblin lifted the brush from the potion bottle. Viscous liquid dripped from its tip as he waved it slowly before her face.
“You know what you were sentenced to. Tickled till death. No pardon. No mercy.”
He grinned, revealing crooked, yellow-black teeth.
“Why would I let you die so soon?”
The brush descended—slowly, deliberately. It did not touch her. It hovered less than an inch from her nipple. The cold scent of the potion invaded her nose. Cold slithered across her skin like a snake. Her body reacted before her mind could form a thought—abdominals locked, thighs clenched and released on their own, and from deep in her throat came a strangled whimper, half sob, half plea.
Kill me. Please, just kill me.
But the moment she opened her lips, laughter spilled out. Not because she was laughing. Because her body was laughing. Five years. Five endless years of tickle torture carved into her spine like a reflex. The brush hadn’t even touched her yet, and her body had already surrendered.
The goblin watched her with satisfaction.
“See? You’re laughing too.”
Elsa could not bite her lip. The corners of her mouth tore upward on their own, forcing laughter through her teeth, dragging tears and saliva along with it. Her pride lay like a sheet of glass stomped again and again—nothing left but sharp shards, and every laugh drove the shards deeper.
She wanted to die. But she knew she wouldn’t. Tickled till death—but “till death” was only a direction, not a destination. She would be tickled forever, infinitely, without end.
The brush tip finally fell.
The laughter exploded once more.
It was no longer just the nipples.
Their waists and abdomens fell. Their feet fell.
Fingers. Brushes. And even tongues—goblins lunged at once, like beasts tearing apart a single prey. Elsa and Amilia knelt facing each other, their arched bodies shredded in the same instant.
A hand seized Elsa’s side. Rough fingers dug into her taut abdominal muscles, scratching without rhythm, without mercy. That patch of skin—cultivated over years of torture—ignited like oil touched by flame. Tickling exploded from every pore. She laughed wildly, trying to twist away, but the iron rack locked her limbs in place. All she could do was convulse—abs jumping, thighs clenching and releasing, toes curling and uncurling in frantic spasms.
Then her feet.
Another goblin crouched at her soles. First, a brush. The potion-soaked tip traced her arch—left to right, heel to toe. The tickling shot up her calves like lightning, through her thighs, into her spine, into her brain. Her laughter climbed an octave, teetering on the edge of a scream. Then the brush was tossed aside. A tongue. A rough, wet, burning tongue pressed against her sole.
“Hahahaha—no, don’t lick—hahahaha—!”
Elsa’s head snapped backward. Her crimson pupils, hidden behind the blindfold, lost all focus. The tongue was worse than the brush. The brush was dead. The tongue was alive—it swirled, it circled, it found every hidden weak spot with precision, and then licked again and again, tirelessly.
Across from her, Amilia drowned in the same hell.
Her eyes stared blankly into the darkness. Fingers clawed at her waist and belly. A brush teased her nipple. Her feet—one foot under a brush, the other under a tongue. The goblins even slowed their pace deliberately, letting every inch of her skin savor the slimy, sticky, maddening tickling.
“Hahahahaha! Stop—please—hahahaha—!”
She tried to say stop. But the laughter shredded every syllable.
Brushes. Hands. Tongues. Not a single pause. Their bodies writhed, arched, bounced, and convulsed on the iron racks. The racks creaked in protest, but the creaking was drowned out by the laughter—wet, scorching, tear-soaked, saliva-drenched laughter that filled the entire dungeon.
Pride had been ground to dust. Dignity had been licked clean. They were no longer queens. No longer knights. No longer even people with names. They were two pieces of meat being devoured by the tickling—meat that laughed, cried, convulsed, and lost control.
And the goblins were still laughing.
The tongues kept licking. The fingers kept scratching. The brushes kept circling.
As if without end.
She did not know how long had passed.
The tickling stopped. The fingers, the brushes, the tongues—all withdrew at once. The laughter echoed in the damp air for another two or three seconds, then collapsed into ragged heaving, coughing, retching. Elsa’s body still convulsed. Her abdominal muscles twitched and jumped like a fish thrown onto dry land. Her chest, her sides, the soles of her feet—all soaked through with a sticky mess of potion, saliva, sweat, and tears that clung to her skin.
Then the blindfold was removed.
Rough leather tore away from her face. Light stabbed in like a blade—though the dungeon held only a few dim oil lamps. After so long in darkness, that faint light was blinding. Elsa’s crimson pupils contracted sharply. Tears and discharge blurred her vision. She blinked frantically. The world shifted from a shapeless white blur to outlines, then colors, then forms.
Someone knelt across from her.
A gaunt, pale, wet face. Grey-blue eyes—no. One green. One red. Tangled blond hair, and tilted upon it a small silver tiara of stars and a crescent moon. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Amilia.
Her daughter.
Five years. Finally, she saw her face. Not the fierce, beautiful sixteen-year-old knight she remembered. A young woman hollowed out by five years of tickling torture—sunken eyes, prominent cheekbones, lips crusted with scabs from her own biting. Dried and still-drying tear tracks on her cheeks. Her nipples still trembling faintly from the recent assault.
Amilia was looking at her too.
Her mismatched eyes blinked violently in the dim light, pupils shrinking and swelling. She saw the red eyes. She saw the impossibly long dark hair spilling over shoulders and steel plate. She saw the thorn-patterned tiara with its dark red gems. Her lips began to tremble.
“……Mother?”
Her voice was thin as a spider’s thread about to break.
Elsa wanted to say yes. Wanted to say it’s me. Wanted to say Amilia. But when she opened her mouth, only a hoarse, broken wheeze came out. Then the tears came—not the reflexive tears forced out by the tickling, but hot tears, a mother’s tears.
They knelt facing each other, less than an arm’s length apart. Still bound hand and foot to the iron rack. Still arched. Still unable to embrace. But at last, they could see each other.
Tickling came again. This time, it started from the soles of their feet.
The brush tip pressed without warning against Elsa’s arch, freshly dipped in cold potion, tracing slowly—left to right—like a snail crawling across her skin. Her body stiffened for a heartbeat, and then the laughter exploded.
“Hahahahaha! Ahaha—!”
She tried to think. Tried to glance at her daughter across from her. But the tickling flooded her brain like molten lava, burning every thought to ash. Every inch of her sole screamed. Nerves lit up like fuses, racing up her ankles, calves, knees, thighs—into her chest, her throat, and out as laughter.
Her body thrashed on the iron rack. Her arched abdomen convulsed violently. Her thighs clenched and parted. Her toes curled so tightly they seemed about to snap. Tears and saliva flew into the air.
Then the goblin spoke.
“Look. Look at her.”
A rough hand seized her chin, forced her face forward, forced her to look across.
She saw Amilia.
Her daughter was laughing too. Convulsing. Thrashing. A goblin’s brush attacked her soles as well—but worse. Both feet at once. Two brushes. One left to right, the other right to left, crossing in slow, torturous circles. Amilia’s eyes had lost all focus. The green and the red were like shattered glass beads, tears flooding out, gluing strands of disheveled red hair to her cheeks.
Her mouth was wide open. Her laughter came out sharp and broken, like shredded silk. Saliva dripped from the corner of her lips, pulling long, transparent strings.
That was her daughter. The girl who once stood on the battlefield, longsword in hand, her gaze harder than steel.
Now she was a fish on a live wire.
Elsa wanted to close her eyes. But the goblin’s fingers locked her jaw. She could not look down. Could not turn away. Could not escape. Her crimson eyes were forced open, forced to witness her daughter’s ugliest, most out of control, most desperate state.
“Hahahahaha—!” Amilia’s laughter pitched even higher, nearly a scream. Her body arched violently backward, then collapsed like a punctured bellows—but the brushes on her soles never stopped, and she snapped upright again.
Elsa knew she looked just as ugly from across.
Her last scrap of dignity shattered in that moment. Not because of the tickling. Because her daughter was watching. Her own daughter was watching her drool, roll her eyes back, laugh like a mindless beast.
“Ahahahaha—! Don’t—look—hahahaha—!”
She didn’t even know what she was screaming. Don’t look? Don’t look at her? Or don’t let her daughter see herself? Or just pure, meaningless, laugh-shredded howling?
The goblins laughed. They deliberately slowed one brush, creating a small gap in the laughter—just enough for mother and daughter to hear each other’s broken, sob-wet gasps.
“Well? Quite a sight, isn’t it?”
No one answered. Only laughter.
The brush tips sped up again. The soles burned again. And together, they were thrown back into that endless hell, drowning in each other’s gaze—falling, without a trace of dignity, into pure, total slavery to the laughter.
“Hahahaha—hyaaaa—it tickles so much hahaha—!”
Elsa’s voice tore through the dungeon’s silence. Five years of conditioning carved into her marrow, laughing for her.
“Stop! Mercy, please—hahaha—!”
Begging. She knew it might not work. But the goblins had trained her deliberately—sometimes, “mercy” really made the brushes pause, the tongues withdraw, the fingers leave her sides. Not out of pity. As training. Like tossing a scrap of meat to a dog so it would wag its tail harder. Her mouth no longer obeyed her. Those words rolled out of her throat automatically, like a wind up toy.
“Hahahahaha! Aaaah—my feet, my soles—stop it hahaha—!”
The brush raced back and forth across her arch. Not circling. Sweeping. Left to right, right to left, fast as raindrops. The potion had already been absorbed, but the tickling was still fermenting, still swelling.
Her abs convulsed wildly. Her thighs clenched and parted, parted and clenched. Her toes curled so tight her nails bit into her flesh. Her tiara slipped to her temple, hanging askew.
A goblin walked over, unhurried, and reached out to straighten her thorn patterned tiara. Not gentle. Humiliation. Like arranging a precious ornament, forcing her to wear that symbol of identity—the small crown of dark red gems—even in her most pathetic moment. Refined, dignified, absurd. Elsa’s face twisted in wild laughter, tears and saliva flying, while the little crown was meticulously straightened on her head. Laughter and crown, distortion and dignity, existing in her at the same time.
The goblin stepped back, tilted his head to admire his work, and nodded with satisfaction.
Across from her, Amilia drowned in the same hell.
“Ahahahaha! No—no more—hahahaha—!”
Her eyes rolled back, showing only white. Tears sprayed from her eyes, plastering strands of red hair to her cheeks in wet lines. Her laughter was higher, sharper, more shattered—like breaking glass.
“Mercy, hahaha—please, I’m begging you—hahaha—!”
Begging. Exactly the same. She knew it might not help, but sometimes it did. That “sometimes” was a single straw, keeping her from ever giving up completely. That was what the goblins wanted—to keep her forever hoping, forever hanging by that thread, forever begging, forever surrendering.
A goblin came to her side and, with the same gesture, straightened the Flame Tiara that had slipped over her ear.
It was a delicate crown shaped like leaping flames, made of red gold and set with fire red gems. It should have sat on the princess’s head, matching her red hair, proud as true fire. Now it was pressed neatly back onto her disheveled red hair, glaringly out of place. The goblin’s movements were light, meticulous, as if adjusting a bride’s veil.
Then he actually stopped his brush.
The tickling vanished from Amilia’s soles for a heartbeat. Her laughter immediately dropped in volume, turning into ragged heaves and sobs. She gulped air greedily. Her mismatched eyes briefly regained focus, looking at the goblin.
“Th thank you…” The word even escaped her lips.
The goblin grinned. Then another hand reached in, swapping the brush for a softer one, dipping it fresh in the potion, and touching it to her nipple.
The laughter exploded again, louder than before.
“Hahaha——hahaha—!”
She had no strength to be angry. The next wave of tickling had already drowned her.
Both of them saw the other’s tiara straightened. The thorned tiara and the Flame Tiara—delicate, dignified, absurd, cruel—sitting straight on their sweat and tear soaked red hair.
Brushes. Hands. Tongues. Still going.
“Hahahahaha—!”
“It tickles so much hahahaha—!”
“Mercy, hahaha—please—!”
Mother and daughter’s laughter shook the whole dungeon. They laughed wildly, desperately, occasionally granted a single second of respite, then pushed back into an even deeper hell.
The goblins stood with arms crossed, heads tilted, admiring the two crowns that would never fall, and beneath them, the two beautiful, twisted faces that would never stop laughing.
When the tickling stopped again, they no longer had the strength to laugh. Or to cry. Their bodies still twitched unconsciously—abs jumping, toes curling occasionally, like the legs of a frog after electrocution. But the laughter had died. Only ragged, wheezing breaths remained.
The blindfolds were not put back on.
The goblins made sure they could see each other.
Elsa lifted her heavy eyelids. Her crimson pupils struggled to focus. Across from her, Amilia hung her head. Her red hair fell like tattered brocade, covering most of her face. Her body still trembled faintly.
It was still beautiful. Skin carefully maintained by the goblins. Delicate features. But her mismatched eyes were completely empty.
Elsa knew her own eyes must look the same.
Because they no longer had any will to resist.
Dignity, pride, will—had been devoured by the tickling. Feathers. Brushes. Fingers. Tongues. Again and again. Day after day. Year after year. They had once been the sharpest swords of the kingdom. But even the sharpest sword, when used as a tickling stick for five years, loses its edge.
Amilia looked at her mother. Her lips moved, but no sound came. Not because she lacked strength. Because she no longer knew what to say. Begging? She had said it ten thousand times. Comfort? She didn’t believe it herself. The words between mother and daughter—the warm, private words that belonged only to them—had long been shattered by laughter.
They simply looked at each other. Two beautiful, red-haired women, kneeling on iron racks, like porcelain dolls that had been broken and glued back together.
Elsa’s tears fell silently. Not because of the tickling. Not because of pain. Because she realized that she no longer had the strength to cry for her daughter. The tears just flowed—like a broken faucet, with no feeling behind them.
The goblin walked between them, crouched down, tilted his head, and admired their expressions.
“Well? You don’t feel like resisting anymore, do you?”
No one answered.
“Figured. Five years. About time you got used to it.”
He reached out, brushing the red hair from Amilia’s face with his rough fingers, revealing her green eye. She did not flinch. Not because she was brave. Because she no longer had the will to flinch.
Elsa watched. In her crimson pupils, her daughter’s hollow green eye was reflected.
She remembered, suddenly, from many years ago. That green eye had shone like a jewel.
Now that green eye was right in front of her, less than an arm’s length away. And there was nothing in it.
Elsa finally closed her eyes.
The goblin picked up the brush, dipped it fresh in the potion, and traced it lightly across their soles. Both their bodies convulsed at once. Laughter rose from their throats—but the laughter was empty too. No thrashing. No writhing. Just their bodies laughing, like machines turned on by a switch.
The slave documents of the two