A/N:
Here we are with another story! I've had this one rattling around for a while, so I decided to finish it and post. I may come back to it. I may not. I'm undecided. If you want to voice your opinion, check out the poll I just created. It's a new thing I'm trying out to get more active feedback. I know I have a ton of active projects, but I can't help it. Have a read and let me know what you think! Constructive feedback is always welcome.
Once upon a time, there was physics. Advanced mathematics was also a thing—as were technology and material science. Once upon a time, great cities thrived and the denizens of the world reached to the stars, grasping a destiny beyond the scope of their planet of their birth. Research stations floated while satellites dotted the skies, and the world grew into the realm of imagination.
Also, once upon a time, there was magic. Sorcery and spellcasting were the stuff of day-to-day life. Wizards advised, artificers crafted, sorcerers plied their trades, and hedge witches peddled. Arcane formulae supported and eased lives, while healers wielded curative techniques to save them.
Once upon The Golden Age, magical research and technological development worked in tandem to carry Mammalia to colonize the moon, plumb the depths of the seas, and extend lives to centuries. All species of mortal, magical, bestial and elemental varieties—including the primordial peoples and the Fae themselves—lived unified under The Council of Royals and the Pax Auream held sway over the layered realms, overseen by the ancient dragon clans and balanced by their chosen archons.
Once upon a time.
The stuff of fairy tales and legends.
Now, there were still physics and mathematics and magic was still studied. The colony that had once proudly occupied the moon was abandoned. The research stations were gone and the deep-sea outposts were memories. The Pax was over, as was the glory. The ancient techne and deep secrets of the arcane were lost. Few remembered the Pax and its glories, and only a few of them did so without bitterness.
Every race lost in the Fall. Every species suffered, from the highest of the dragons to the lowest houses of the common mammal. Life was shorter and harder, but it went on. Birth and death, gain and loss, joy and suffering.
Crime and punishment.
In a cage was a rabbit. The cage was dragon forged Blacksteel—the strongest material available since the Fall—and it was reinforced by every spell the conclave of wizards could apply to it. It was suspended by a single chain, ten paces by pachyderm standard from any walls and equidistant from ceiling and floor. That placed it seven full height-spans from either, as their occupant reckoned such things. The architects of the prison assured the Royal House that it was easily too far for even the most able rabbit to jump safely. No one was comforted by the assertion.
The rabbit wore a contraption affectionately referred to as her muffler. It was effectively a muzzle and collar that were designed to insulate everything from her cheekbones to her collar bones. She was told it was enough to contain her. There were no locks, or seams; nothing but drow silk and spells to silence her. A tawdry waste, she thought, but most of her thoughts were wastes anymore.
She was bored.
The loudspeaker sounded a tone and a static-riddled voice boomed, "Prisoner 4148524-02 will face the front of her cell."
Something was up. It wasn't meal time yet, and there was no reason for her to be addressed. However, it wasn't worth the effort to get up either. She wasn't about to move until the Warden coughed up a reason for her to bother.
"Prisoner 4148524-02 will face the front of her cell."
The rabbit blinked, but otherwise didn't move.
A minor scuffle sounded from the speakers, earning a twitch of an otherwise impassive ear. When a voice again emanated from the PA system, it had changed. Gone was the gruffly commanding burr of the prison Warden. It was replaced by a mellow voice that sounded both droll and teasing.
"Judy, would you do me the courtesy of saying hello?"
That got prisoner 4148524-02 to roll over, more living liquid than rabbit and sluggishly peer out of her excessively ventilated home. What she saw brought a languorous smile to her covered face.
That insane fox was standing there. Right in the middle of the prison. Somehow on the outside of the bars and un-manacled. He was just the same despite their four years separated by spell reinforced steel and the law. Easy smile, feverbright emerald eyes, and the hint of flames that never left his ears. Everything, from his immaculate grey silk suit and dark green cravat to the smooth silver disk hanging around his neck, was just as she had last seen him, when the judge had sentenced them to their prisons.
The hum of her appreciation reduced her muffler to dust.
They'd nearly caused a riot that day getting one last kiss before they allowed the bailiffs and attendant officers to drag them apart. Not that the officials could have forced them any faster. They could have rutted on the judge's bench and no one could have stopped them, but that would be repeating themselves. They did so hate the boredom of repetition.
"Good morning, Slick. It's been a while."
The moment her muffler had failed alarms had sounded in the helmets of every guard in the facility. The safety features designed to mitigate the effects of her voice engaged in the room, walls, corridors, and defensive gear of the guards, protecting them. Two guards fainted before she'd finished her first sentence. The rest tapped emergency reserves and hunkered down, hoping to endure.
His ears sparked and eyes glinted. "Three years, eight months, one week, two days, eleven hours, twenty-six minutes, and four seconds since our eyes last me. It's night, by the way."
Judy hummed in amusement. "Not that you were counting."
"Not that I was counting." He smiled.
"Hmmm…" She rolled onto her back, spinning her legs overhead and using the momentum to pull herself into a sitting position with her head in her paw. "What brings you here, baby? Don't we have some time left on our sentences?"
He glanced at his bare wrist. "About 196 years each, but things change."
"Did you tinker with the judicial system again?" she inquired airily.
"Boring," Nick commented as he checked his claws, making Judy grin. "We've been selected to serve the kingdom."
"Us," she replied mockingly. "Serve?"
Judy's musical laughter tinkled through the huge, open space. Most of the guards swayed slightly, trying to fight off the effects. She breathed deeply and slipped over to the bars, dangling her feet out into the void.
"So which brain-damaged political nitwit thought that was a good idea?"
His smile deepened. "Your brother-in-law."
"Jack?!" Now Judy's laughter boomed and rattled off the chamber walls and the warder guards either flopped to their knees or engaged the counter magic mechanisms in their helmets. "Poor little Jackie... What does he want?"
"Just a little help with a foreign power," the fox replied airily. "Apparently, there are a few trouble makers in the Deep Combes that need our special attention."
Judy giggled and hopped to her feet as though weightless. Spinning her paws through the air, she seemed to pluck a thread from nothing. An elegant, whip-like flick of her wrist later, and three bars fell from the wall of her cell. She dropped a loop of her thread over a remaining stub on the cage floor and dropped into space.
Seconds later, her descent ended and the thread vanished. As she approached her fox, she allowed herself to take her time; all the better for him. She did so adore how he looked at her. After four years, the hunger in his gaze and the heat beating off him were ample reminders of both why they were together and why they had let themselves be parted.
As she got close, she lifted a paw to his lapels and pulled him down for a kiss that would have scorched the mind from anyone else.
The kiss ended and she purred, "I am such a lucky doe to have such a hot husband."
Nick's grin thrilled her. It had reduced even the strongest and best trained warriors to tears, but to her it was a delight.
"Sing for me, sweetheart," he whispered in her ear.
Judy took a long breath and started humming a love song from her childhood. It was one she had adored as a kit, and it had shaped her first imaginings of love. She found it ironic and fitting that it had, in its own way, come true.
Nick's chuckling got him a raised eyebrow, but she didn't stop humming. "Who ever would have thought that I'd end up being the beauty in this relationship..."
Judy smiled and let the word words of the song grace her lips. What guards and warders were still struggling to function fell to unconsciousness, their safety measures and defenses shattering.
Nick spun on his toes and offered his paw in a low, courtly bow. "May I have this dance, m'lady?"
Judy felt the love and power in her flow and a tidal wave poured from her lips. She swept herself into her mate's blazing grip and they spun into the first steps of a grand waltz. Together they danced in a straight line towards the evening light, leaving insensate mammals and crumbled walls in their wake.
Once upon a time, Captain Judith Hopps had proudly served the kingdom as a field auditor for the Artifacts & Relic Assessor's Office of the Royal Treasury. She and her partner—Commander Nicolas Wilde, formerly of the Naval Intelligence Bureau—were among the most effective teams the Treasury had. Their recovery and acquisition records were top notch and their careers, the pinnacle of professional desirability.
Once upon a time, they were career-focused specialists.
Now, they were the stuff of legends.