Love and hate for the last chapter. Lots of people suggesting that something happened to Nick in-between chapters, but I can assure you that's not the case. Hopefully this chapter will, first off make everyone feel a little better, and, secondly explain what's truly going on with Nick.
As I said before, the more comments, the better! Complain, suggest, recommend, congratulate, all things are needed! Without further ado, here's (the much happier) chapter 10!
"You wished to see me, my Emperor?" Nick courteously greeted with perked ears, his gaze flicking over the hunched, armored figure standing in the moonlight. He was surrounded by the Marshals of the Empire and the members of his court, all of whom turned to stare at him standing in the suite's candlelight from the marble patio they had gathered on. Their faces looked low-spirited as their conversations fizzled out, inviting a feeling of curiosity into his mind. Something serious had occurred over the course of the day, most of which he had busied himself training the lords' sons in ranged combat and downing cup after cup of Marshal Certus's delicious spring water.
"Leave us," The Emperor gruffly ordered, his back to everyone and his gloved paws resting on the balcony's stone railing as he faced the gently rolling hills beyond the palace walls. Nick could hear the struggle in his old voice, made worse by the cold still ailing his health. The foxes swarmed around him as they hurried off the balcony, each one staring at him seriously save for Marshal Certus, who greeted him with a warm nod. He brushed off the amiss looks and stalked in-between the members of the court with his chin high and paws behind his back.
"You two, stay," The Emperor grumbled to Marshal Fenus and Ambassador Dhani as they began to depart from his side, and they both exchanged a curious glance before stopping themselves. Nick sent them both a welcoming nod as he made his final approach onto the balcony, taking point only a few feet behind the Emperor, but all they did was stare at him coldly as if he had ruffled their fur.
"My Prince Piberius, what has become of Princess Hopps in recent days?" The Emperor intrusively asked, his neutral tone and only half-visible face refusing to reveal his true demeanor.
"Princess Hopps?" He repeated, frowning. What was the Emperor playing at? Surely one rabbit could not have caused all this commotion.
"I have not seen her in two days," He stoically admitted, playing along as he pointed his ears higher, infatuated by where the conversation was heading. The Emperor slowly nodded in response, only his blank muzzle visible behind the remainder of his face. For several seconds he remained silent, as if pondering on his answer, and Nick began to impatiently tap his foot against the marble floor. There were still a great many celebrations and meetings to organize for upcoming evenings. If all he and the Emperor were going to discuss was his betrothed, then-
Before he could finish that thought the Emperor's steel-plated paw was against the side of his face. It had come whirling towards him without any prior warning, catching him in his moment of weakness and landing an excruciating, bruising blow on his left eye that sent him reeling onto his side and barking in painful shock. He collapsed to the floor, his armor loudly crashing, and let loose an awful, vicious growl as he clutched his now bleeding eye and lurched his dazed gaze upwards to scour over the Emperor's snarling, murderous face.
"Kick him!" The fuming fox commanded, flicking one of his ears and lashing his tail towards Marshal Fenus, who turned to stare at him with wide, startled eyes.
"Hold-" Nick began, only now beginning to regain his thoughts after the blow, but Marshal Fenus delivered a light slam to his lower lorica segmentata with his steel boot. It was enough to force all the air out of his lungs, and he struggled for air as if a fish out of water while he curled his tail around his stomach and pulled his limbs towards him in a fetal position.
"Did I say to relent?" The Emperor sarcastically questioned, his deep, guttural growl enticing Nick to open his right eye and stare up at his merciless face while he pushed his left paw into his throbbing wound, trying to stop the blood escaping from it.
Marshal Fenus delivered another blow, this time much harder than before, and he growled and gritted his teeth as pain traveled outwards from his core, refusing to move his attention away from the Emperor. But the old fox only stared back spitefully as more and more blows rained down on him.
Eventually there came a point where the pain across his chassis became completely overwhelming, and he let his head fall to the ground with a thud and let loose a heavy groan. Every muscle in his body was screaming for the beating to stop, yet all he could do was roll further onto his side, trying to shield himself from further torment.
"Pull him to his feet," The Emperor ordered after a final gut kick from the Marshal, forcing a yap from him, and the short fox accompanied by Ambassador Dhani dragged him by his arms to weakly hang as he faced the Emperor, his paw weakly falling from his bleeding eye.
"Had you been any other mammal, I would have executed proper punishment for what you've done!" The Emperor threatened, his left paw gripping the railing to give his sick body more support while he belligerently pointed his gloved paw right at his face, extending a single, shining claw. "You don't deserve the name of Piberius, you tyrannical despot!"
"I deserve the name of Piberius as much as you deserve the name of Canus!" He viciously retorted, his vision beginning to shade red in both rage and the blood still seeping from his newfound wound. He thrashed against the paws holding him that only squeezed tighter in response, and he loudly growled as pain shot up the length of his shoulder and neck, undoubtedly his resealed slash being torn open again.
"I have brought peace onto the Empire and have secured it for years to come!"[1] He defensively rebuked, throwing his head towards the Emperor's equally fierce face as he snarled and lashed his tail back and forth.
"You have baselessly assaulted Princess Hopps!" The Emperor menacingly growled in reply, his voice dangerously quiet and his ears folded behind his lowered head.
"You have done what?" Ambassador Dhani exclaimed, disgusted, turning his wide eyes towards him with a horrified frown. Nick barely looked at the bengal fox, because a half instant later a painful jab landed in his mid left core and he whirled his gaze over to Marshal Fenus.
"Not even a rat of the Vermintide would be so cruel," The fennec harshly growled, but he stood his ground and growled back. What right did a commoner have to judge him? He was the Prince. His decisions had led them into a new age of prosperity - not some other fox's! If any mammal was to be the ax of justice, it should be himself!
"You have soiled the relationship between you and Princess Hopps," The Emperor hissed, his voice still as freezing yet flaming as an Arctic gale. "And it concerns me even more that you do not care of her whereabouts after days of disappearance, which, for your ungracious information, has been naught but in her suite, moping!"
"We are lucky that more mammals have not noticed," He gruffly continued, quieter and marginally calmer, the fur on the back of his neck flattening while he turned to lean over the balcony's railing with steady, prolonged breaths. "If the lords were not so focused on preparing the feast in honor of their departure then we would be dealing with an issue tenfold more serious. For now, only we along with the most disturbed and irritated King Hopps know of the true extent of your thoughtlessness. Our courts know the relationship between you and Princess Hopps is strained, but not the cause of which. You must not inform any other mammal as of why. If her brothers were to find out what has truly transpired, then-"
"-they would plot against my life, and peace would be thrown to the wind," Nick fiercely interrupted, beginning to struggle against the Marshal and Ambassador as the little fuel left within him burned despite the blood seeping down his face. "Why should I squabble over some plot against me? There were countless during the war, and each one was foiled! If they do rise up, then they will be punished for their disloyalty!"
The Emperor didn't speak at his threat, instead glancing over his shoulder with blank, calculating eyes that studied his face as if he were searching for something hidden on a map. Nick held steady, still struggling against the paws keeping him in place with ever weakening ferocity. Whatever the Emperor had to say didn't concern him in the slightest - he was the Prince! He did not have to heed warnings from anyone!
"Do you love Princess Hopps?" The Emperor suddenly pushed, his voice lacking any other emotion aside from raw curiosity. Nick felt a small wave of confusion consume his raging thoughts at the prying question and he momentarily stopped his writhing to stare into the green depths of the Emperor's eyes.
"I love her because I must," He answered, his deep voice revealing as little emotion as he could aside from frustration.
"When did you become so heartless," The Emperor sneered in reply, turning away, but Nick couldn't help but smile in defiance.
"Heartless?" He repeated, almost amused by the word, and he watched as the Emperor perked his ears at the sound of his sarcastic voice. "You mean calculating. It was revealed to me that if I let my affinity for Princess Hopps dictate my actions, as they had been, then I would lead the Empire down another path of destruction."
"Who told you that?" The Emperor intrusively barked, whirling his squinted vision over his shoulder to silently claw at his face.
"Doesn't matter," Nick strongly insisted, feeling the balance of power of their conversation shift towards him, and he presented a pride-filled, toothy smile to the world. "But I see that he was right. It is only I that can secure peace, not her. That is what must happen if we are to have peace."
"You are young and gullible," The Emperor scornfully commented, turning to stare at him with his paws crossed behind his back and his face a ghastly white from the moon rising directly overhead. He ordered the Marshal and Ambassador to release him with a curt nod, and as their grip weakened on his arms he shook them off, grunting when another pang of pain shot up his neck while he pressed his paw into his bleeding eye.
"Let this be a lesson," The tall fox threateningly finished, his quiet voice ripe with violence, but before Nick could put up a paw against him his tight, armored grip was around his neck, squeezing all the air out of him and forcing him to grasp his dirtied wrist guard with both his paws.
"You are your mother's son, but there is too much Tacitus in you," The tall, fuming fox pointedly hissed, squeezing even more blood from his wounds, yet all he could do was continue to struggle against him, his heart beginning to beat painfully while red once again consumed his vision. "Your father was a fair fox, but his dedication to establishing peace was his downfall. He scrounged for every bit of it he could through any means necessary; even if that meant hurting those closest to him. You would have been too young to remember what he did, and even in this day and age very few know the circumstances. He was his own downfall, in the end. And now you follow in his footsteps, a power-hungry mongrel. A shame on this species."
"The soldier who desires peace always chooses war," He finished, a deep, rough growl erupting from his chest. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, yes!" Nick choked out, each of his breaths struggling to make it past the Emperor's grip. He could barely think, but he could still feel the fires of rage pouring from his body along with more and more of his blood. He didn't want to fight back anymore. He couldn't fight back anymore.
The Emperor stared at him with a cross squint for a moment longer, tightening his grip even more in the second before he dropped him. Nick landed on his knees with a thud, bending over and drinking air like ale while he grabbed at his neck with his paws. Every bruise on his body was screaming for relief, and his eye and shoulder were still drooling out blood by the chalice, but he refused to ease his suffering. This darkness blurring his thoughts was departing at a rate quickening by the instant.
"How can I make all this right again?" He feebly asked, heavy pants still escaping from his broken spirit as he turned his trembling, desperate eyes up to stare at the back of the Emperor's head. "How can peace be obtained?"
"Have you not been listening?" The fox scorned, refusing to even glance at him as he stared at the fields beyond the railing. "You don't go searching for peace, peace searches for you. You must be open to it. Go. Mend the bond between you and Judith. Your love will be the lighthouse through the fog of troubles. That is, if your lust for authority doesn't further harm anyone."
Nick shot up to his feet instantly, something inside him incited by the Emperor's poetic remark and scathing comment. He pushed all the doubt and pain within him into the furthest recesses of his mind and pressed his shoulder plate into his wound with his right paw while his left pressured the gash in his eye.
"I will fix all this, my Emperor!" He wholeheartedly guaranteed, feeling pitiful energy filling his chest even under the watchful, vengeful gazes of Marshal Fenus and Ambassador Dhani. "I promise you!"
"Don't fix it," The coughing fox countered, sickness once again plaguing him as he peeked over his shoulder to send him a stoic glare. "Make it better."
Judy was too preoccupied to bother answering the few knocks at her suite's front door. She wasn't quite sure she even heard it above the continual misery of her existence. To her the noise was more fabricated than real, a trick of the mind to try and urge her out of bed. But she wouldn't take the bait, too sickened to raise her heavy head or limp arms off her white bedspread. She couldn't even stop the stinging tears drip, drip, drip down from her wide blank eyes and onto her cotton sheet as she mindlessly stared past her balcony and out into the cloudy night sky where the moon was just starting its inevitable descent back down to earth. Grief had consumed her entirely.
She had barely moved since her confrontation with the Prince had gone so horribly wrong. She had wallowed in this disdainful, repetitive environment she called her quarters for what seemed like an eternity. Her tear ducts had run until they were sore, then her voice had whined and whimpered until it was as unstable as a crackling fire. Misery, fury, ecstasy - all feelings had come and gone, leaving her a hollow shell of her former self filled to the brim with naught save sorrow and fear.
What was stopping Prince Piberius from finishing her off like a wounded prey? He could storm in at any second and rip her still beating heart from her chest - both literally and metaphorically. But instead he was keeping her in eternal limbo, having not had the pleasure of intruding into her domain, and she accepted the isolated position with zeal. If she were to ever see his face again...
Three loud knocks on her oaken bedroom door shook her from her doleful rumination, sending her head flying upwards and her suddenly startled gaze whirling around.
"Princess Hopps?" A cautious, vulpine voice worriedly started. At the sound Judy frantically scrambled to the furthest reaches of her mattress, pulling her bedsheets up towards her face as panic and terror consumed her entirely. It was him. What in all of the endless sky was he doing here? Had he come to cast wounds upon her even more egregiously than prior? She knew he had! He had arrived to finish the job he began in the ravine!
She couldn't help but distraughtly dart her eyes to the sheathed sword hanging on the waist of the manikin across from her mirror, adorned in her steel chassis and bracers, but within the same instant another three knocks drew her attention back towards the character behind the closed door.
"Princess Hopps," The Prince continued more urgently, and she ever-so-slightly lowered the white sheet from her muzzle and felt the fur flatten along the back of her neck as she homed in on his now more worried than cautious tone. "It is the Prince. Do you have a moment to talk?"
A moment to talk? She repeated internally, confounded and frightened by the phrase. As so he can scar me with his words again! I refuse to give in to such a lie!
Yet part of her believed his intentions were remotely different than before. Even with her rapid heartbeat echoing in them her stiff, folded ears could pick up the minuscule sounds of his tail swishing back and forth across the marble floor. He muttered curses to himself under his breath, barely audible but enough to stir interest within her. It was only when he sighed in defeat and turned away from the door that she was coaxed to speak up.
"Just a moment!" She hurriedly choked out, her voice quaky and more frightened than a virgin on her wedding night. She threw the messy sheets off herself as she catapulted across the floor, still listening to the Prince and the pleased sound he made with a single ear. Her stiff limbs hindered her quick, short movements as she cast another longing stare at the sword sheathed on the manikin now directly before her.
Now look at the situation you have placed yourself into! A voice from one of the many crevices of her mind hollered. He'll be here in seconds! What if you assumed his actions incorrectly? What happens when he attacks you? Do you have the strength to raise a sword against him?
She found she couldn't answer that final question. Though he hated her with all his heart she still adored the fox from that night in the balcony, the very same who accompanied her for dinner, who, somewhere underneath all the formality and rage of the mammal outside her bedroom door, was buried. She wouldn't dare hurt him, regardless of the gashes he inflicted upon her. Yet when push would come to shove, with her decisions called into question, what would come to pass?
"Just in case," She silently and shakily whispered to herself as she moved away from the manikin, dropping her paw into the top drawer of her bedside table. She pulled a raw, steel blade from it; a dagger she had taken from the palace's armory, a tool she had promised herself she would not wield unless in the most dire of circumstances.
She studied its glossy, smooth texture with her soft fingers as well as her prying eyes, not wanting to leave a parcel of it untouched before she stole it away underneath her two-piece white-lavender nightgown. There were so many emotions held within the blade, all of which were a reflection of her purple gaze.
"Enter," She flatly hailed, temporarily suppressing all of the sights and noises of the knife as she silently closed the drawer and hurried back to rest her rear on the foot of her bed, sliding the device handle first into her loose sleeve in the same moment she formally folded her paws on her lap.
Nick hardly heard her voice above the shouts within the confines of his mind. His ears still rung and bruises still pounded from the beating the Emperor had delivered upon him. The events of the early night had left him dazed yet determined, half-drained of his red life force, the feeling of shock draped over him only now beginning to subside.
I know what must be done. He frailly reassured himself with a deep breath, tainted by the smell of his own blood that blurred his sense of scent. Gathering his confidence over several strained moments and briefly overcoming the pounds and aches resonating from his head he cracked open the entrance and stepped into the cool moonlight that washed over him like water on stone. It had a healing factor, because as it drenched his facial fur he could feel the pain in his bruised eye begin to resign. Yet maybe that was more a result of his eye contact with the Princess than it was the dim, shadowing lighting.
"Thank you for letting me in," He amicably began, attempting to sound as sincere in voice as he did in thought while he studied her cold, resigned face with a transparent grimace. He would need to see her smile before he departed from her side.
Before she could utter a word in reply - that she had been too distraught by his presence to consider doing in the first place - he closed the door behind himself in a polite gesture and let his paws fall behind his back along with his now stationary tail.
He was dressed in a white doublet trimmed with lime strings and golden lining accompanied by an equally grandiloquent pair of trousers that went down to his bare feet. For Judy it was the first time beholding him in such extravagant clothing. It did not suit him.
"You wished to talk, my Prince?" She stoically recounted, holding his warm gaze and perked ears for but a moment before fear compelled her to bristle the lowest hairs on her flattened ears and dart her gaze to the floor in front of her. There was a sheath on his belt, and at its sight she couldn't help but think of the knife hidden in her sleeve. She did not understand the emotions behind his grin in the slightest, forcing her heart into her stomach.
"I do," Nick admitted with fabricated ardor, trying not to let the world see the disappointment appearing on his face at her abrupt turn towards the floor. His ears became a little limper at the sight of her startled gaze and the bristling fur along the back of her neck, but he didn't let that dissuade him from approaching her.
"May I sit?" He politely asked, casually striding up to the middle of the bed's foot and raising out a paw towards the untidy mass of sheets beside her. Judy barely glanced at the claws of his feet, unable to raise her eyes any higher in case he brought his paw down on her once again. He had been as friendly to her in past days as he was being now, and look at the trail that had led her down.
"You may," She reluctantly allowed, her petrified heart pounding another beat faster and her paw weakly grasping the knife's leather handle inside her sleeve as the Prince lowered to rest beside her, his curled tail no more than a few inches away from the folds of her gown.
They both sat in silence for, from an outsider's perspective, years, she too grasped by fear to do anything other than incessantly monitor the gentle rise and fall of the Prince's core out of the corner of her vision while Nick fiddled with his fingers with his perked ears and stoic gaze urgently sweeping the furniture of the room.
Apologizing for everything he had done to her was his highest priority. Yet, even though he was now in her presence, that possibility seemed so far to reach. It would ruffle his conscious for eternity if he openly expressed with regret with no prior plan of action, and with his recently sustained injuries he had not the time for any preparation whatsoever. This was a delicate moment not just for them, but for the peace between their species in addition, and he needed to treat it as such. Conversation was the first step towards a better relationship.
So why was he squandering time debating with no one save himself? He was the master of conversation! He could hold an audience with the Pawpacy[2] for days on end! All he required was a beachhead to launch from and all would be on its way, completely dependent on his guiding paw. And judging by the familiar woven book neatly resting atop the Princess's pine dresser his beachhead had been found.
"I see you have taken my suggestion to heart!" He merrily commented, standing and suppressing a flinch from the spikes of pain shooting out from his bruises and hurrying to the dresser's side with an eager stature before he picked up the thick, delicate red book in his velvet paws and thumbed through its age-old yellow pages. "'The Darkest of Nights' is not a novel to be taken lightly, yet you seem to have already completed it! Tell me, have you enjoyed its contents?"
"Yes, my Prince," Judy flatly answered, grasping the concealed knife marginally less tightly as the Prince turned away from her. Now that she had the time to study him without interruption or impropriety she noticed the aura surrounding him had changed considerably since their last fateful meeting - enough to almost entice her to lower her guard. Almost.
She was not the vacuous catch of the day. Though terror had seized her her inquisitive intuition lived on. That decision would lead only to a life of more suffering and scars. She knew how Prince Piberius's wheels turned. All this warmth was merely part of a ploy to advance his own well-being.
"What is your opinion of the last chapter?" Nick casually asked, the cool air and his smooth voice easing the stress between them - from his perspective at least. He flipped to the last few pages of smoldering literature and scoured the tempting passages with ears perked, listening for the Princess's voice.
"It was fitting," She lied with a monotonous tone, unwilling to adjust her uncomfortable pose in case he attacked in her moment of weakness. Her nose twitched when the Prince only nodded at her answer, still flicking through the pages of the book.
In truth the end of the romance had been exceptionally vehement, enough so to place the novel as a whole atop the shelf where she kept the books that stirred her interest beyond normal boundaries. Yet the passion within it only made her chest ache more than it was already. She knew she would never know what it would feel like to be loved, to harbor the fire within herself as it blossomed into a luscious rose. She was engaged to a mammal who felt not that for her but a different kind of fire altogether. She would remain complacent, forever stuck in his hellish, gruesome limbo.
Oh god... She thought, her eyes widening as her conscious shrunk.
Nick turned over his shoulder after several seconds of deep thought, briefly dead to the world around him whilst he mindlessly thumbed through page after page. The Princess's voice was still as chilling as it had been before, a fact that stirred something inconspicuous and suppressed within his chest to bleed with regret.
Use your charm, Nicholas! He optimistically urged himself as he returned the book to its rightful place on the wardrobe and began to unhurriedly meander towards the Princess with his paws behind his back. His attention directed at her was spurred to even greater heights when his attentive nose caught a fresh whiff of her scent floating in the air above the smell of his blood still clogging his senses, filling the room with nervousness and worry. It made him beam.
"So here we are again," He slyly and silently began, halting his advance when his muzzle was no more than a few inches away from her madly twitching nose and trembling ears. Her blind gaze was cast to her side, staring out past her balcony and into the night sky that was only now beginning to show the first signs of dawn. She seemed inattentive to everything except the panicked expression on her face, entirely preoccupied within the emotions whirling underneath her skull. It was almost as if they were back on the balcony. How quaint.
"You are in need to be wooed by yours truly," He wryly diagnosed, raising a paw out towards her right cheek with the intent of stroking it gently. "And luckily, you shall be."
He will always use you as nothing more than a tool. Judy told herself, her mind driven into a state of deep and silent hysteria and her heart pounding at the premise of living the remainder of her life with an unrequited affection plaguing her. You are solely a means to an end for him. You remember what he said - he despises you with every inch of his being! He scarred you before, and he will harm you again! It is only a matter of time before he strik-
In the instant the tips of the Prince's fingers touched her barren cheek she scrambled backwards, the world suddenly restored to its previous terror. She gripped the concealed knife tensely as she landed midway up the bed, but she did not reveal it, instead keeping it in her sleeve and sparing only curt breaths while surveiling the Prince's surprised expression and extended paw without a moment of ease. Every inch of her body was concurrently trembling and still, petrified by fear yet spurred on by the prospect of an attack. Her frenzied mind was blank other than an image of a bloodied bed with her body sprawled over it. That future was so close to reality. She had never been more frightened.
Nick reeled backwards at her sudden lurch, partially withdrawing his paw as his startled gaze connected with hers. It was swimming in more fear than a fish would swim in water. And now that his senses had been fully alerted he noticed the scent of, not just her, but the bed, the entire room, everything, was all of absolute dread - not childish nervousness, as he had thought before, but the fragrance one would smell in a prison cell of a tortured being. Yet that did not rise to the ice atop the mountain compared with what his keen eyes caught hidden in her sleeve.
It was only a flash of silver against her lavender blouse, but the sight of it for barely an instant was adequate to draw all the surviving warmth from his expression.
A... knife? He weakly identified in bewilderment, too stunned to prevent his ears from collapsing behind his head or to stop the throbbing torment quickly rising in his chest. She was going to stab me? But... but... but I wanted to apologize! I thought-
It was that word that brought his world crashing and burning down around him. Time slowed as he repeated it over and over and over, temporarily withdrawing his vision from the Princess to be replaced with nothing but the void of his mind.
Thought.
Only in the moments when his heart was most vulnerable did he see his mistakes. Over the weeks where he had been so focused on peace, trying to secure it for all mammals within the Empire, he was using exclusively his mind. But that had left an emptiness in his chest, an emptiness brought on by stress and frustration and a thousand other foul emotions and an emptiness he filled with violence. As his ideas thrived, his heart rotted, and he had taken it all out on the terrified rabbit cowering with a knife before him.
Did she believe I was plotting to kill her? He downheartedly pondered, horrified at the notion, but something deep within the Princess's eyes told him she would have killed him had the chance been available. The final strings of sanity that held him upright snapped as his eyes fell to the purple bruise on the side of her cheek. He had done that to her out of cold blood: out of an insatiable thirst for punishment. How could he have ruined something so innocent, so pure? It was not like him! Yet again, neither was he. Power had driven him over the edge.
Finally time resumed its normal pace, all the heart wrenching sounds and horrid smells of the room returning instantly, but all he could do was feebly smile as his pitiful gaze glossed over.
Judy instantly recognized that something about him was conflicting with the murderous tyrant her fearful mind had painted so vividly. In a single instant he had gone from looking stunned to entirely awful, his body limp and his expression so floundering in misery that for a moment she was worried she would soon be drowning in it as well.
It is but a trick. She frantically reassured, unwilling to loosen her grip on the knife in her sleeve and only half believing what she was telling herself. This is a rouse to lure you into the open! But he'd never cry, would he? He would not let himself... It is not like him...
Nick let the water building in his eyes begin to run down his cheeks in long trails, strained, sad wheezes beginning to force their way out of his chest shaking him as the Earth shakes mountains. He could only make out a mass of grey and lavender on the bed, a mass of grey and lavender so abused by him she was willing to end his life. He deserved nothing more.
"I'm sorry," He manage to choke out from his hysterically smiling muzzle, but his rasps were so disruptive that he was certain the Princess did not hear a word of his apology - not as though he could see her had she. Entirely miserable and losing the energy needed to properly function by the moment, all he did was slowly back away from her with trembling steps until he found his back against the room's stone wall. He slid down to his rear humiliated, his paws pressing into his eyes as he wept and the pain from his sore bruises only making his tears that more sour.
Judy watched him closely with a startled gaze, suddenly more terrified about his state of mind rather than what he was going to do to her. She had heard his voice, albeit barely, and those two words had shaken her to her quivering core. She doubted he would have even considered uttering that phrase but two days ago. The genuine sincerity of his voice was truly breathtaking, but in combination with the rawness and vulnerability of his weak wheezes and tears she suddenly found she could no longer retain her grip on the knife's handle, and she let it fall onto her bed while she cautiously scooted to its foot, all while never breaking her stare.
"My Prince Piberius," She reassuringly and bewilderingly started after what felt like a perpetuity of listening to him discretely weep, the pitiful sounds of which were beginning to draw out her more comforting instincts while sorrow pushed into her, but her words became jumbled in her throat and she very nearly jumped from her fur when the Prince whirled his fiery green gaze up to stare at her.
"Don't call me that name!" He venomously hissed, leaving her wide-eyed and limp eared with shock, yet almost as soon as the flames had risen in his gaze they were gone, replaced with his own shock and regret.
"I don't deserve it," He frailly elaborated, his sluggish gaze falling to the floor before his neck gave out. He caught his head in his paws, letting his palms slip into his sore eyes while the torrent of tears leaving them became even more catastrophic. Judy could only stare at him, dumbfounded.
"Prince Wilde," She heard herself breath, beginning to tremble under the weight of a thousand thoughts and hardly believing what she was saying.
"I'm so sorry," He feebly repeated, wheezes and whimpers racking his body like a gale against an isolated trunk. Judy straightened her ears, harking to every distressing whine and tortured tremor with a thoughtful and worried frown. Had she to watch him in this state for much longer...
"I- I... I-" Nick stuttered, his claws digging into his forehead as vexation and irritation poured over him. There was so much he wanted to say, but he had so little voice. He was as wordless as a newborn kit, still struggling for an ounce of speech. And he was so infuriated at himself for that. Had he been any stronger he would have torn his own ears off.
"There is no excuse for what I have done to you," He faintly decreed, his blood boiling as his tears ran thin, all drained onto his now damp white doublet. "All my life I have been surrounded by war. When Peace arrived I greeted her with my claws and permanently scarred her gentle face. I have tarnished all of this-"
He raised his paws from his eyes for barely an instant to motion to the tranquil room around them.
"-because I have let my lust for power compromise the name of peace. With what little remains of my honor I extend my deepest apologies for all I have ruined. I deserve not your forgiveness, or anything more from you, for that matter. I am no better than those brigands who attacked you, all due to the fact I am an incompetent villain!"
You are nothing but that! He hatefully screamed, conceding all other feelings to the self-fanned flames burning within him. A miscreant! Wrongdoer! Felon! You took something so perfect and tarnished it! Look at her face! Look what you have done to her!
Nick willingly obeyed, and through his fingers he peeked a sight of the Princess's face and the purple bruise across her right cheek. In the dim moonlight he caught sight of three red stripes across it, the places where his claws had torn at her flesh. He couldn't stand to look at the results of his actions for more than a few seconds, his fingers snapping his clouded vision shut as guilt beset every extremity of his body.
"Nicholas..." Judy lightly began, his hopeless expression prying at her ribs. Suddenly all she wished was to see him radiant again - to cast away this facade of sadness and guilt and to take on the face of the sarcastic, tender fox for whom her heart soared. She would forgive him for all his actions without a glance behind if that meant they could finally begin what she had hoped would come to pass for oh so long. If it meant that Prince Wilde would be here to stay...
"I cannot see you this way for a second longer," She softly confessed, her heart aching, her feet sliding down the foot of her bed, her burning body intent on embracing his. But she couldn't take but a pace before his paws were on his knees and his frowning, teary gaze focused on his legs.
You deserve punishment. He harshly insisted, his limp ears deaf to everything except his roaring blood and pounding breast. He wouldn't refuse what he warranted.
Holding his right paw out in front of him he studied it spitefully, the image of the Princess's ruined cheek flashing before his eyes. It was this paw that had caused so much harm to something so exquisite.
His eyes fell to his sword's handle, protruding from his sheath as if a reed in a river. It was tempting. His paw was so exposed, so vulnerable to being struck off...
"I abused you so very much," He flatly declared, gulping in misery as he unsheathed his short blade with his left paw and held the weapon in the air, his eyes scouring it relentlessly. He was leaning over the execution block, ready to receive his justified sentence.
Judy felt her spirits sink into an abyss when his ominous, glossed gaze connected with hers one final time while he raised his sword and held it against his right wrist.
"I deserve this," He dolefully reassured, the wretched feeling in his heart beating to a pulp as he looked at the tip of the blade pressed against his wrist. He took several deep, quick breaths, flexed his arm, and pushed with as much strength as he could conjure.
NO!
In a matter of instants Judy felt her paw flying back to the dagger she had left on the white sheets of the bed while her legs propelled herself forward. Every morsel of her body was spurred on by a panicked rush, her mind processing at such speeds that she hardly knew what her intent was until the blade of her dagger collided with the tip of Nicholas's sword, the hard strike sending it flying into the air in the moment before it pierced his flesh.
"You idiot fox!" She furiously snapped, throwing her knife across the room while his sword bounced away with loud clanks. Her flaming purple gaze was burning the fur on his confused, startled face, but she refused to soothe her affection-driven wrath.
"You would willingly slice off your own paw?" She fervidly growled, taking his limp paw he had been so close to severing in her grasp and holding it in front of his wide eyes that refused to leave her face. "Then what shall I take in its stead when we are married?"
"You did not allow me punishment," He tonelessly observed, shocked, searching her outraged expression from her twitching nose to her folded, bright red ears for the reason she denied him his justified retribution.
"Why?" He quietly pressed, perplexed yet unsure of how to feel.
"Because I forgive you!" She hissed, throwing his paw at the patches of white linen peeking from in between the green laces of his doublet and shaking her head back and forth with an intense scowl. "It is Prince Piberius who is to blame, not you! I love you, yet you would thoughtlessly-"
The air between her and Nicholas became as hot as the sun in the time it took a leaf to come to rest upon a stalk of grass. Both of them sent their ears rocketing upwards skittishly, their hearts lurching with them as a single unit hammering against their ribs at a thunderous rate. Their paws became damp with nervous sweat almost instantaneously, and their shocked, awkward eyes formed a motionless bond.
"Did... have..." Nick loosely stuttered, finding it almost impossible to formulate a mere word, let alone a sentence, with the tender thoughts sent by his heart to disrupt his mind. "Do my ears deceive me, or have you used the word..."
"Yes," She anxiously breathed, her voice afflicted by nervousness and insecurity. She had never uttered that phrase to any mammal outside of her blood. It racked her nerves, suddenly leaping to its inevitable conclusion, but to her it felt so very truthful. Yes, she loved him more than the air she breathed.
Nick had experienced this sudden and swift feeling of rapture before during lewd experiences with the unmarried vixens of the Empire, but never to this polar extreme, nor without any physicality whatsoever and a prior night of immense pain. He couldn't quite put into words what was happening to him, but he opened his mouth regardless, sneaking his paw to clutch the Princess's resting in her lap as his heart began to soar out of the pit it had dragged itself into.
"I think I love you too," He confessed, gently stroking the back of her paw with his thumb. Something passed over Judy at his reply, the tone of his voice stirring a feeling unearthed for the first time inside her torso. She nodded at him thankfully, still half stunned about what was happening.
The air was as still as a mountain lake, their eyes still glued to the other and their pawhold only becoming stronger. It was the final taste of the sweet calm before the inevitable frenetic storm.
Judy forced her muzzle into his, her tongue pushing through his lips and drawing out his enticing flavor. Her arms flew around his neck, firmly locking her in place. She rolled her body up against his, grinding against him lewdly as his strong paws made their embrace even more intimate by venturing into her nightgown to caress her inner thigh and tug at her short fluffy tail while his tickling tail curled tightly around her calf. She lustfully moaned at the touch and pushed her fur deeper against his, wrapping her legs around his waist as he began to grind his body back.
Their mouths were quickly becoming a field of battle, with their tongues as the wounded combatants. No matter how much she pushed her early advantage she was quickly losing the addictive sweetness of his teeth and lips, and eventually she was forced on the defensive by his overpowering tongue as the battle shifted into her own mouth. He forced his way into the far back of her mouth, almost pushing his long, slender tongue down her throat, but his excursion only sated her appetite for his savor and she shuddered with delight at the sudden flood of nothing but him.
She forced herself to crack open her eyes, relishing in the fact that the Prince's gaze was locked with hers desirously. She wanted him - all of him, from those captivating emeralds to his foxy tail - right here and right now, to make up for all the romance they had missed out on, and she wasn't afraid to send him that message with a groan and harsh tugs on his neck fur.
His paws stopped wandering, one of them grasping her partially-covered rear suggestively while the other slid up her spine, tickling her back fur and drawing another squeak from her lips. She pressed her hammering chest against him and rolled her tongue around her mouth in unison with his while he slid his back up the wall he was leaning on, shifting on his feet and gripping her tightly as they came to a trembling stand.
They swayed like a drunkard, her gown becoming as tight as a ship in a storm while sweat began to drench her fur in salacious thoughts, their steps heavy and slow as the bed crawled out of the edge of her gaze until it was right below her.
She disconnected from his body while his paws retreated from underneath her clothes, and she fell onto the mattress with a bounce, the Prince's lips following her down as her eyes flew shut. She backed away from the edge of the bed until she felt the soft touch of her silk pillow cases on the backs of her ears, her pace painfully slow as the Prince crawled on top of her, keeping up with her from above without daring to disrupt their drawn-out kiss.
It was only when they were both situated with several inches of air between them that their tongues returned to their now gasping mouths. Their hungry gazes reconnected as they struggled for air, yet before she was even halfway done panting she found her paws tugging at the laces on the Prince's doublet, hurriedly pulling them loose one by one as he awkwardly struggled to remove his trousers with a single paw, the other occupied keeping him above her.
She could hardly feel her numbed heart pounding by the time the last string on his doublet came loose, and she pulled it off him as he maneuvered his arms out of it while concurrently kicking off his dress pants, leaving him in alluringly loose white undergarments. Without a second thought she put her paws to work again, pulling his long undershirt off while he stripped himself of his pants. If she thought her body was hot underneath her light clothes then he was truly scorching, his orange and white fur flames and embers.
With his secondary layer of attire cast aside all that covered the Prince was a small pair of drawers that left very little to her lewd imagination. He was panting even harder and more frantically than before, his entire body exposed to her prying eyes that, no matter where they were staring at his magnificent form, were inevitably drawn to his groin.
The bulging apparatus beneath the thin cloth sheath was alluringly close. Never before had she seen another mammal nude, save for crude diagrams in her novels and the day after their first encounter that had left her with a vision of his rear lodged in her thoughts for most of the morning. It was such a massive leap to take to see him like that...
Her own groin was beginning to sop with sweat and other fluids while the Prince's musky scent continued to drive her insane. She wanted him to consummate their relationship now. She couldn't resist the urge for even a moment longer. With an inviting squeak she slipped her paw under her gown.
"Wait," Nick blurted out, grabbing her by the wrist as his body began to tremble out of nervousness. Her extraordinarily purple eyes flew up to his, intrigued and surprised by his outburst, and he tried to minimize the regret building up in his expression while he took her paw into his.
"I don't think we should do this," He remorsefully announced, slowly shaking his head, his heart pumping almost as quickly as the Princess's that he could feel pulsing from her palm. "My Judith, with all my heart I want to lay with you, but not now. It is too improper. I don't want our first time to be like... this."
"Do you trust me?" She suddenly queried, squeezing his large paw with both of hers as she raised it onto her chest and pulled it close to her heart. He frowned in confusion at her question, partially taken aback by it, but he answered without a second thought.
"With every ounce of my body, I do," He fervidly assured, lowering his muzzle ever closer to hers. She nodded at his answer, her face heating up in anticipation of what she was about to do. Before now she had never thought about doing something so primal, so savage, but if consummation was metaphorically off the table, then this was an equally pleasing substitute.
"Then hold still," She staunchly ordered, scooting her hips backwards so that she was sitting upright. She wrapped her small arms around his shoulder blades and pulled him closer to her, breathing on his neck fur shakily.
"What are you-" He inquisitively started, but she plunged her chin into his neck before he could finish. He gasped at the massaging touch, his frown fleeing as he was drowned in a fresh scent cascading off her. He felt his eyes widen at its unfamiliar yet instantly recognizable fragrance, and his already trembling limbs became as wobbly as a river's course as she pressed even deeper into him.
"Marking!" He managed to exclaim before his strength gave out, sending him falling onto his side in a state of utter bliss. He rolled as much as he could in the brief moments before he crashed chest-up onto the sheets, his head bouncing on the pillows as the Princess moved her paws onto his shoulders and rubbed her chin across his chest fur.
He pulled her close and arched his back, squeezing his eyes shut while a strained expression became entrenched onto his open muzzle. No mammal in their right mind would mark another, even if it was their partner! It was the taboo of civilized societies! A pointless act now that marriage was a viable option! Yet the way in which her scent flooded his fur, permanently entrenching itself into his coat, was so very seductive. He forced all his resistance into the deepest chasm of his soul and let her take complete control over him.
This fox... Was all Judy could think before her lustful urges silenced her while she streaked the Prince's shoulders and biceps with her overpowering scent. She kept her eyes closed so that she was able to roll her entire face across his soft belly fur, burying herself in it as if it was her den. She loved his scent, the delightfully sweet aroma that was quickly fading as her odor took its place on him to form a patchwork smell of both their bodies.
She moved her head downwards, rolling over the bulge in his groin tempestuously and drawing a whine from him before she pushed her cheek against his chest, stroking him up the full length of his torso. She wanted to keep this moment alive forever...
As she brought her chin across his neck again, though, he flinched and made a terrible whimpering sound. She pulled away from him instantly, her eyes wide and ears alerted. The moonlight must have been reflecting off a mirror because his fur was almost flaming, but her heart fell into her stomach as she finally took a long look over his completely revealed body.
The stab on his neck had opened again, revealing bright red blood that she had failed to notice while he had been towering over her. Yet as she went to stroke the wound none of the liquid stuck to her paw. It had been dried for some time. That wasn't but half of what caused her distress, because in the light she caught sight of multiple, strikingly purple bruises underneath his white fur. How she hadn't seen them as he hovered over her she hadn't the faintest idea.
"What..." She worriedly started, but her voice caught in her throat as her eyes returned to his. They were barely cracked open, opened just enough to reveal the euphoria he was experiencing, yet what caught her attention was the large, truly horrifying bruise across most of the left side of his face. In the previously dim light it had been hidden under his dark fur.
"The Emperor knocked some sense into me," He solemnly answered, anticipating her question from her appalled amethysts and suddenly shaken scent.
Panic flooded over her at his nonchalant response, her ears tucking against her gown while her breathing became deep and heavy, seeded with outrage. How could the Emperor stand to do this to his own blood? It was a heinous, horrendous act! He deserved a trial for such a crime! She'd have his-
"Calm yourself, my Judith!" Nick assertively soothed, the violent frown on the Princess's face causing discomfort to flower within him. He gently rested his palms on her cheeks as darkness returned to the room, pulling her eyes back down to him as they calmed, and he comforted her further by gently rubbing her chin with his tail.
"I needed that message," He softly revealed, stroking her face with a loving beam. It took Judy another second to smile back. Now wasn't the time for such angry thoughts, and if Nicholas was certain that the injuries he suffered were a benefit then she would contain her discontent. She would do anything for him.
"I think it is your turn," She warmly announced, pushing her paws into his dense neck fur as she rolled beside him. He perked his ears as his paws fell to either side of her head, his whole body turning over at once so that he was above her as if she was a quarry and he a hunter. Passion was once again flooding his chest, his smile fading into an expression of desire as he moved his paws down to her staggeringly damp dress and began to tug. Her craving expression brought on by his fingers as they stroked against her groin only sent him deeper into madness.
She didn't need a valid reason to strip her upper body of her lavender blouse. With both her paws she grabbed its silk hem and drew it up over her, the heat trapped under it spilling into the air along with the powerful stench of her excitement. She wanted him to mark her as fervently as she had him. She wanted to be no-one's except his. Judging by those breathtakingly green eyes of his, her wish was his command.
A few more tugs at her dress and one final pull of her blouse was the effort needed to leave her all but nude, her only garment a small pair of sopping blue panties. The fur on her chest speedily raised up and down as she watched the Prince's astonished eyes scour over her entire body, yet she couldn't restrain her paws from limply laying on opposite ends of the pillow supporting her or halt her knees from curving inward. Every inch of her was trembling, and as Nicholas leaned towards her face and pressed his torso against hers she felt him doing the same.
"Judith" He ecstatically breathed, wrapping his arms around her compact body. His desperate gaze only made her hotter.
"Nicholas," She breathed back, her paws around his neck as the full weight of his body pressed down on her. She plunged her muzzle into his again, the two of them sharing an impassioned kiss that quickly deteriorated into him rolling his face up against hers. She squeaked in delight, pulling him closer to the point where she could feel their furs beginning to knot.
"Don't ever stop!" She choked out as his head traveled across her chest, leaving a strong trail of his smell. He paused for a half second, raising his devious eyes to stare at her with an accompanying grin.
"Not until I have made sure the world knows that you. Are. Mine," He wryly growled, rubbing the underside of his muzzle against her covered groin.
By the time they fell asleep against one another their bodies were as soaked as if they had been submerged in a river and left to dry on the sand. The first rays of dawn light illuminated their romantic, intimate, and jaded embrace.
[1] - I really wanted to write "I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire!" here but then I'd have to put in Obi Wan saying "Your new Empire?"
[2] - Papacy
Dawwwwww...
Rewritten 6/30/17