Universe: Set in a cross between the comic and the animated show.
Cedric looked at the silver sash in his left hand and then to the gold one in his right. He held each one against his waist as he gazed in the mirror, trying to determine which was more appropriate.
Miranda groaned and snarled, "Pick one, and let's go. You've stalled long enough."
Cedric wrinkled his nose and said, "Please, Miranda, I'm trying to concentrate."
The young woman stamped her feet and turned to the door.
"You can be late for the funeral," she said. "I prefer not to be chastised and then beaten by Prince Phobos for being late to a ceremony for one of his favorites."
Cedric shuddered.
Favorite… Yes, Dr. Jonathan Ludmoore had been a favorite. He was certainly not the favorite, and he did not deserve a ceremony of this pomp-itude, especially since there wasn't even a body over which to mourn! Why, for all any member of the Prince's forces knew, the blackguard shape-shifting dragon bastard had, of his own will, abandoned their cause as soon as he had reached Earth. The bastard!
"Gold." Silver would have still been questionable to wear to a Meridian funeral, but gold? Oh, what devil dared to wear a gold sash with a spring-green ensemble to such a somber time?
Cedric was such a devil, and he was going dressed as he pleased to Ludmoore's funeral. Because a pox on that ass-kissing, arrogant, bold, unforgivable, little fire-breather!
As he strutted out of his chamber, Miranda shot him a deadpan gaze. His brazenness guaranteed that a second funeral was guaranteed in the near-future.
Black was a joyous color for Prince Phobos, and so, it only made sense that the funeral chamber was decked in white with yellow trimming everything. It reminded him of his mother, his sickeningly saccharine mother, whom like Death was a dreaded and loathed thing. Even some of his precious roses and his precious Whisperers had been blanched by him or blanched themselves for the occasion.
As nobles, trusted by the Prince, entered with somber string instruments playing, Cedric dashed to one of the tables. Wine and water were offered to the guests (of which there were few given how selective Phobos was).
"Get back here!" hissed Miranda.
"I need to dab my eyes."
Miranda rolled her eyes. Oh! Of course! Because he obviously couldn't muster enough grief for his competitor. By the Great Weaver! If that scaly drama king made a spectacle of himself to cover up his disdain for Ludmoore, then if Phobos didn't have him flogged for being a nuisance, then she was certainly going to -
"His Most Esteemed Highness, Phobos!"
Stepping quickly off the white carpet (seriously? The Prince had a white carpet laid?), the shape-shifter bowed before her master as he stepped forth.
"My deepest condolences, my Prince," she said.
Tiny pulses of electricity danced on her head as he laid a hand upon her. She gazed up and - oh, Weaver… His eyes were red. As in, he had just finished sobbing and/or yelling incoherent. Oh, gods… Oh, gods! Well, seeing Prince Phobos was an unnatural and unsettling sight.
"My Prince…"
Miranda leaned to glimpse at Cedric, he too sniffling and watery-eyed. Phobos leaned beside his other favorite and hooked arms with him. As they walked toward the altar, with its towering marble statue of a ferocious dragon, Miranda shook her head and followed them to the front.
Sitting beside Cedric, she whispered, "Looks like you're lucky. He's too grief-stricken to scold you for wearing that."
Cedric pinched her, and she scooted away.
The officiant, a beastly man with a head like a black stag and fiery-red goatee, shambled up to the altar beside the Prince. Lifting his hands to the small crowd, each member stood, and then he turned to the great statue.
"A grrreat asset to the Phobian Empire has been lost," boomed the officiant, like a Hurkscootle bull. "Mightiest of all alchemists; bane of those disgusting Loyalists, those rebel scum; he whose wings peeled the flesh from men's bones; he whose breath turned those bones to ash and dust, Ludmoore Jonathan, son of the great alchemist Ludmoore Glædwine and Her Most Fearsome Esclarmonde, who was the Red Bane of Knights."
Dear eight-legged divinities, thought Miranda, who in the hell had gave that man so many damned titles?
"Our dearrrest Jonathan was lost to that most dessspicable world, that world where the undesired babe was spirited to. That foul world that has swallowed up our beloved and most dreaded alchemist without a trace. He perished in the night by some unknown force, save what his Passling servants could report: that some Light - o! a thousand curses upon the Light! - appeared in his laboratory as he was close to finding the undesired babe and returning her here to be properly reared for a higher purpose - our majestic Prince's purpose!"
All the while, Cedric rolled the eyes in his mind. What a crock! The fool probably tried to execute a spell that was well beyond his control, and KABOOM! No more Jonathan…
Hell, if Cedric were lucky, the bastard 'spirited' himself to Kandrakar. Oh! How appropriate!
"And now, His Most Awesome Highness shall give his eulogy."
Cedric sniffled and dabbed the corner of an eye as the Prince faced the crowd. Though he had no heart for Jonathan, his chest jumped at the sight of his master with a face so unearthly pale, even for him. Coupled with his white robes, he resembled a saint of Kandrakar (but a thousand times more stunning, if he did not say so himself).
"I do not claim to have a warm heart," he began with his normal coolness. "I do not enjoy what passion turns men and women into, either loving or furious, for I enjoy my slow heart and my cool head. Yet Jonathan… Jonathan… I permitted him to be fiery. After all, he had red dragon's blood running through his veins, and I am fond of beasts when they are their natural selves.
"Jonathan came to me foremost for business, for military matters. And with his presence, the tides turned against my mother's Loyalists. In dread, they turned from the spells that he unleashed, and - if he had to - they turned from him when he transformed into the great red death, though honestly, he preferred not to. He knew that his head was in a better place when he walked in his Escanor form, and in that form, with that mind, he impressed me most.
"All of you know who my favorites are, though I prefer not to call them that but show them how I appreciate their service and loyalty to me. Each of my most worthy confidants hold an individual place in my heart, standing on equal ground but for different reasons. This is why no one can replace them - you know who you are - and I would be lost if I lost another one of you, for you have made my sitting upon the throne possible."
As he delivered this third part of his speech, Cedric's face flushed, and his shoulders began to sink. What a fool he had been! All those times that he had let that little wyrm get under his skin!
Miranda watched Cedric out of the corner of her eye, certain that both men would end up bawling (and then, with the ceremony closed, sleep together in the Prince's chamber).
"If only Jonathan's spirit could hear me, for I did not tell him enough how much he was beloved by me. For as I have said, I am not a man of passion, but he? His fire would leap upon me and set me ablaze" -
Cedric stiffened.
- "with every public victory" -
All right, that was all right.
- "and every private word that he whispered so tenderly upon my ears."
Not all right.
Then the Prince turned to the massive statue and laid his hand upon the beast's snout.
"Farewell, my red-hot heart! No longer may I solve with you, the salt to my aqua, but I shall not forget those times. I shall not forget you, my spirit."
The salt to my aqua? Miranda raised a brow at the rather odd metaphor, but Cedric, being learned in alchemy, knew exactly what the Prince meant.
So much for being the favorite among the favorites…
As he sat beside his adviser, Prince Phobos rested his head against one of Cedric's shoulder. The shape-shifter summoned all the will power he could to not shift in the middle of the funeral.
That slimy, acidic, foul-smelling, arrogant, pompous, braggart of a bastard! Cedric was supposed to be the only one with the privilege to have lain with the Prince. By the gods! Phobos despised the touch other people. Even shaking hands made him recoil, but sleep with him? As in kissing and groping and… and… well, more than that? Jonathan slept with his Prince?
His Prince! Cedric's Prince! Oh, sure the other servants would slip and say "my Prince," but they way in which they said it - it had no meaning - not that kind of meaning -
If he weren't already dead, I'd kill that son of a bitch-dragon.
"Cedric?"
The shape-shifter hissed as he looked to his right. With two glasses of red wine in hand, Miranda offered him the first, and he gulped it down, barely disturbing Phobos.
Miranda sighed quietly. This was going to be a long damned funeral.