14 April 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2342: The Empress' Bath

This post was inspired by today's 5-minute writing prompt in the Freewriters Community - Bathtub of Tears

Enjoy !

Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio

Ambassador Lord Harstein of Magoran had been waiting for an audience three days in this suite. He'd been given the best food, servants waiting on him hand and foot, but he still felt like a prisoner not a visiting dignitary.

Finally, a senior official, in a crimson robe with broad double golden border came to him.

"Her Imperial Majesty Empress Damadia of the eternal Janarian Empire will see you now. She is taking her bath, but has found time to fit you into her diary. Be honoured. Follow me."

Lord Harstein followed the robed courtier through sumptuous while marble and black granite corridors to the Empress' quarters. It was slightly unorthodox, he thought, but he was visiting a distant foreign empire, and their customs were not those of his homeland.

At the door, he was gestured to go inside, and found himself alone with the Empress.

She was indeed sitting in a bath, a massive structure carved from a single huge hunk of jasper. It was filled to near the top, and steaming.

"Ahhh, Ambassador..." the Empress drawled. She was a strikingly handsome woman, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties, but her face had an arrogance to it, the haughty twist of a woman who had never been denied a single thing.

"You'll have to forgive me; I bathe every day, but today is a special day. Once a month I give my skin a very special spa day. A saline bath, but a special one. It is a bathtub of tears."

Lord Harstein stared in blank incomprehension. "But your excellency... the tears.. how do you get them ?"

The Empress laughed. It was a musical sound, but her answer chilled the Ambassador to his core.

"Oh, it's simple Ambassador. Slaves, prisoners and peasants, of which we have plenty. We slaughter their children and loved ones before their eyes. It only takes one or two thousand to fill the bath for me."