Chapter Eleven: A Diagnosis

King Phoebus of the Cat Kingdom paced back and forth, temporarily distracted from the death sentence that had been hanging over his head for nearly a week. He had to keep restraining himself from bursting through the red curtain that separated him from his beautiful wife. He had to keep reminding himself that it would be a bad idea to distract the nice doctors that were trying to fix Haru's problem for her.

Another hour passed before the stunning brunette calmly stepped out of the secluded wing, looking perfect as usual. He swung one arm around her waist and used one paw on her cheek so he could kiss her again, purring in a rusty manner as he pressed her tiny body against his. Once he finished, the king grinned at his queen, brushing a few of her hairs away from that wonderful face.

"Well, Sugar Buns? Did they find the problem?"

She sniffed a little strangely, but then pointed at the curtain invitingly. He took a step forward, but then she wiggled free from his grasp, and started walking away from him again.

"Hey, wait! Don't you want to go in with me?" he called after her. The slim woman looked over one of her shoulders, and shook her head very pointedly before turning a corner.

He sighed, making a mental note to try understanding why his wife was always in a foul mood as he stepped through the red curtain. The three latest doctors were huddled tightly together in a deep conversation, but then looked up in fear as the king sprawled himself across a couch.

"So tell me, babes. Can you restore my wife's voice?"

A red longhair nervously shook his head.

"I'm afraid not, your Majesty. It's the strangest thing we've ever seen. According to our charts of the inside of her throat, it looks like her vocal chords had never been able to work and she had never been able to speak. But, everyone knows, she could scream quite loud before you married her."

The king winced at the memory, and waved his paw around dismissively, since it was only a repeat of what all the other doctors had been saying.

"You three know that wasn't the main reason why I've been ordering doctors to come here. Can you fix my wife's other problem?"

"She doesn't have a problem!" a short black hair insisted. "We've used every trick we know, but there isn't a way around it. The queen is completely capable of becoming a mother in the near future. There's something else going wrong in this matter."

The king stood up and kicked a table off its legs angrily.

"Like what?! I've been very constant with my attentions to her person! It was only a week until my first wife was expecting, so how come my second wife hasn't given me a single kitten in our almost eight years of marriage?!"

A tortoiseshell held up his clipboard, so that his head would be protected if the king decided to attack him.

"You were a younger cat back then, my king! Have you thought about the possibility that you might be too old to father children on your wife?"

The king roared at the terrible thought.

"I am not too old to become a father again! I've still got what it takes! Haru must have a kitten of her own, and quick!"

"But why?" the red doctor asked, cowering behind a wall. "You already have an heir, one with heirs of his own."

The king growled at these simpletons. Did they honestly expect him to leave the kingdom to his traitorous son? No, and to leave it to his grandkittens would be just as unacceptable, since they sided with their parents in every possible thing.

No. His heir would be Haru's offspring. She had learned well that he always got what he wanted, and although she was rarely in a good mood, she never denied him his rights as her husband.

What fools. Why in the Cat Kingdom would he keep a rebellious son that didn't know his place as the next ruler when he could start again from scratch with Haru's kittens? Oh, what beautiful offspring they could have, once this little problem was taken care of. And who knew just how long he had to live, before his children decided to kill him?

The black hair was almost glaring at his monarch.

"Okay, let's try a different approach. What if your body's suffering from an imbalance that is making it impossible for the queen to conceive?"

"Imbalance?!" the king shrieked. "How dare you call me imbalanced?!"

"DO YOU WANT TO BE A FATHER OR NOT??!!"

The king stopped ranting, not expecting the tortoiseshell to have such a powerful voice. The fairly young doctor was panting heavily.

"Oh, to have the queen's lungs… Majesty, it comes down to a very simple question. Do you want to be a father?"

"Of course!"

"Well, if you want another kitten, you will have to let us check what's going on inside your body. The queen's perfectly fit, and it's only logical to check you as well. If you don't let us see what's going on inside you, then we might as well leave right now, and you can kiss that litter goodbye. We're the last doctors in the Cat Kingdom that have tried to fix the queen, so you're pretty much stuck with us if you want another kitten of your own."

The king flinched.

"The very last?" he asked. The doctors nodded.

"Yep. You'd have to wait three years at the very least, so that all the students learning our craft can finish their education. But they would just tell you the same thing that we have. Take it or leave it, your Majesty."

The king thought about it. How soon did the seer mean by 'soon'? How much time did he really have to work with, before someone tried to kill him? A month? A day?

Or… an hour? He really wanted to leave Haru with something to remember him by, since she was indifferent to all the jewels and clothes that he showered on her (sometimes even tearing the dresses apart so she can use them in her quilts, before Natori suggested that he start just giving her fabric).What a difficult woman, that girl was. A kitten of her very own would more than likely sweeten his wife's disposition, since it had done the same to Princess Yuki.

He sighed angrily and sat on their table.

"All right, let's get this over with."

Knowing that the sentence would be the closest thing they were going to get to an apology, the doctors sighed, and began their work.

First, they looked into his muscle tissue. A bit worn, not exercised enough, about average for a cat the king's age. His blood was also clear, moving sluggishly through his veins.

But, when they started looking at organs, the powders began to misbehave, swirling around in ways the doctors had never seen before. The king grimaced as the pastel clouds around him dissolved into a black ash that stank bitterly of acid. When they tried again with the potions, they turned black almost before leaving the bottles.

When all of the equipment was in ruins, the eldest doctor adjusted his glasses fearfully.

"Your Majesty, I believe we have a diagnosis."

"What is it? Is it bad?" the king asked worriedly.

"Oh my, yes. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do for you, your Majesty."

The king stood up and grabbed the black hair by the neck.

"What's wrong?!" he demanded. The cat in his paw began to shake.

"The reactions mean that you will be dead soon."

"I already knew that! Wait, what does spilling my blood have to do with the reactions?"

The tortoiseshell began squeaking the inevitable conclusion.

"The fact of the matter is, your Majesty, there is an unbreakable spell on you. There's a powerful magician out there somewhere that doesn't want you to procreate. The… curse, you could call it, centered in your reproductive organ, but it's spreading to the rest of your body. Whether you like it or not, whether someone tries to kill you or not, your days are numbered. I give it another two weeks before your body will stop functioning altogether, and you will die a slow and painful death."

ooOoo

For those who don't know, a tortoiseshell is a species of cat. Just to avoid confusion.