War Has Come While Night Hath Fallen Over Our Faire Kingdom –

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Chapter 12: Going the Distance; From the Cradle to the Grave

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Based on Anime Network old slogan, no sense to it, but hell. Nice opening? Find out!

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His emotional state as a pregnant concubine could not have been the thing to break him. Richard knew it would not, so his eyes went for a small drawer in his room, his king's room that had not been moved from the wall. In it was a scroll and with it, a vile of some strong toxic matter he could tamper with. To kill this king's love of his false devotion. Once he died, the rest would be freed. He'd not tried it yet, so it had to be done, by tonight…

A dual partnership, in hell.

/

Richard tip toed in the night towards the king's room. His doctors had explained how his damned body needed to confront his, feelings…. yet this was an act. Nothing more, as the door was not even knocked upon. The king slept upon his matted furs with the well built, half-clad man there lying; his chest was bare, yet the furs covered his loins as if he were only resting and not far into his deepest nightmares.

The man had a hand over top his eyes, his distress of being less than amused with the witches, quite telling, as Richard could have grinned by how the man was without him in that bed. The boy just realized, that he could push that power play in his favor. His body was the key, and yet it was unlikely to be believed should he fail here tonight.

The vile was tucked away in a secret place on the boy's person. He peeked over side the bed before climbing onto it gingerly, his fingers laced in the furs as Richard let his hormones work against the bilious nausea still signaling 'pain' aloud in his belly. As well as the king's next heir.

He would never see the light, never the day.

The king's one eye had almost started to open, but not before the boy used his hands to undo the ties where the furs covered the elder's cloth below them. "Sire, I've come to know of us. I want this…" He said in an un - rehearsed, sultry voice. Selene's sisters had touched, teased and spoken, so much that Richard could now weaponize that form of a siren's coo. Hands moving smoothly over the man's hardening piece, the boy went to work and popped the vile to his fingers open at the cork. This one could stun, then he could go in for the kill properly. No rejection, no subjugations.

"You're up late….my pet." The man sighed as Richard smiled and chuckled lightly as any "whore" would be allowed.

Play him over, get that solid poison to taint his only power.

"I missed you, my body is hot for what we had….I'm so sorry, will you n –

"You're allowed by the doctor's want of a healthy specimen." The man said back, calmly, moving to slide his arm behind his head as Richard let his wetted, clear coated fingers dance across flesh and something harder than his own displaced cock. He so missed being considered anything else, in fact…

The vile had a twin that he had used to coat his own hole and bits. A barrier against what he'd take as the by moved and climbed up onto the king's chest to ride them both back to bed, a death most preferred as he began his descent upon the man's cock with a single push downwards. The lengthy stretch pushed out into his still somewhat misshapen stomach, while the king allowed his own fingers to sooth across the minor bulge with a longing vision of their future together. "A pity, I rather enjoyed the state you were in before. Though unfortunate, it was only temporary. The real event with you by my arm, will be ever better…don't you think so, my pet?"

"Not, a pet….!" The boy held himself up before coming down to the root of the king's cock, his strands sweating already as his king used one hand to brush them back, the other, to tug the boy up and then strike him down as their tempo gradually increased upon each nameless panting thrust.

The bouncing brat felt slick, ever - tight as if he could not let go. The man's heart was definitely in for it, yet…he moved a hand to his brow, then it began. The dizzying toxic hold as he managed to cough onto his pillow.

Blood.

The boy kept going. The king was close. This false king could not rise up or push off the younger man as he just went on to find his euphoric drop, the high of this victory as the king kept coughing red specks until they grew thicker, into unsightly clots.

"Sire? Are you not enjoying the company…of your queen?"

"Q…." The man gripped the boy's hands as he saw the fluid being not of his, or of the teenager's. Fury was left in that squinting one eye as the man tried to avoid speckling his undeserved prize with red flecks, he knew something and it was dire at this point.

All up until the burning in his cock felt like hot coals to his balls, the boy only making it worse as he whooped higher and took what was now his.

The man had to dominate; it was his right! Slade started to try as he did, to turn this guilt around. A lack, therefore, as an… assassination attempt.

"You…. are far ruthless, Wayne could never understand this, Richard…. you are now, just as I. Like me…. well, done…."

The man shut his eye, but not before the boy's climax…... flopped at those words. A……. murderer? Like his keeper?? The boy scrambled off and dug out the other vile, fingers fumbling in the dim light of the bedroom. He applied the antidote to the king's drooping cock, and then to his lips he added a bit. Just a bit to administer it. A way to get it in, so it wouldn't miss…

As a prince to his future betrothed in reversal, Richard swept across the king's large lips to additionally distribute the antidote. By way of lip – service.

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Forever breaking his own oath, the king that night tackled him upon rising.

The bruises not as severe, yet the tear to his hole was just as wide as the stricken teenager's own clouded blue sights. If ever he were to die in the arms of the enemy, at least he would never be alone as the king again brought the boy to climax the next day before lunch.

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In the castle; when Prince Timothy had first come to be called a son of King Wayne, he'd asked the eldest son Richard for a story before bed. Not at all a job for the eldest boy once at fifteen, yet he'd relented as Richard told mystifying tales of owls and fairy queens and sly animals from faraway lands filled with joy and celebration.

~ Why is our city not as in those stories that you tell? ~

The question of a child, only ten, and not exactly a fan of bedtime stories. Yet, Richard was depended upon when he was not learning the diplomatic methods and theories his father used to subjugate his enemies. ~ The bat god does not give joy, for to endure is the greatest thanks from our Lord of Gothl'e...~

Then, he realized upon waking to the sounds of a scramble only that night of his arrest…. that the Bat had strayed, and that it never intended to hold any value to the current rulers or their people, as the city was then that night set up into a sea of flame.

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Timothy was no beggar, yet he wasn't a thief either. For the time the delusion had hit him, it had not been a dream at all. Yet the Bat God, telling him to find his father and stop the alliance of foes at the capital.

However, the little prince was a hungry thing, a glutton. As the cooks could satisfy not the boy's appetite whilst he studied up in his room on the history of many lands.

That, had included Defencia. A war torn once – blessed state, yet the new king did not wish to live as a nomad. He was in it for the crown and the desecration of that prior king's rule. To shut it back into the books as time had never intended, so the Bat god must have sent his burning man to tell the prince. He was not wrong, to be able to endure, was the greatest gift he had ever received in silence.

To endure too, meant to eat his fill. Right there by the cart of a peddler in the streets, the ragged child saw a fresh red, juicy apple just within reach.

He could not be caught, yet he could make it a distraction to getting to the next town, unnoticed by the people.

Timothy was not only wise, but far from that of a sage's truth. He looked to the space and all of its niceties before he'd formulated a plan.

The changing of the gate's guards would be coming soon. In that hour, he'd have to be quick. He saw cobbles coming loose from the street and took a few while the population squandered or thrived. He would make it look as if there was a reason to run to the stones, the flying target being the ground as he took to finding that apple or three.

Tim's stomach curdled at the thought of taking for the sake of an animal's logic, yet he was indebted to his father, not to Prince Richard. The teenager had no means of escape from the tyrant lord…it made his throat bitter at the taste, yet Timothy had his plan. Eat, find a way to the next town by how he'd memorized that mad he'd handed to his siblings. The desert was last and foremost, the most formidable place. He had to build himself a few side –

The cart wasn't enough. Tim looked again. A cart of grain, and….

Cattle. Oxen.

He could manage both just fine, as one of the guards had yawned, the merchants singing out their goods to be the very "freshest." Tim had his doubts on the fish merchant's stock, however. They looked at him with their dead eyes as he troubled himself to withhold a mocking gag. A hand over his nose, the odor could be no worse than the sexual tension arising inside the castle as he complicated things with the abuse of his olfactory senses.

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Within this lord's keep, were two rather wicked worlds apart. One of greed, and the other, a spite that was far before her own coming to this plane.

"Lady Kom'ra!"

The whine of a man twice her size and age had the groaning warrior; black violent hair and eyes, a dress that was low cut and not against her culture's standards. Or, a gem placed across her chest that seemed to make her posture took angrier and red – hot. The one to call her was Lady Kom'ra's partner. A criminal, thief and murderer turned nobleman. Named, Sion.

"Lord Sion…We have discussed this –

"I must tell you the wonderful news, nay! Don't be so bashful….a queen to be such as ye?"

She would drag his heart out later. The woman, without a doubt DID, want to hear what Sion had to say…

"Do tell…. What…is this "news" that your spies have brought to us?"

"There is activity in the slums, more than usual." The man's wily grin was due to a mask he'd used to keep himself formidable. He'd heard it was all the rage in Defencia this month. Black, a skull of death to tell the world what he was to them, or would soon be after the signing of their fellow crooked was done. "Should I send my soldiers to flush out the ones bent to destroy, even if they fail it could have consequences with the king." She waltzed over and circled the Lord's seat. "Nay, there is no need." He put up his palm, not at all worried about the man holding the Wayne heirs hostage. "The ones I have sent to infiltrate the group of what we suspect to be hidden rebels, shall see to their downfall first."

"As for my sibling…." The heat in Kom'ra's hands started to ignite as Sion was not used to such an unearthen magic granted by dragons to this, tricky witch. "That daughter of X' al is quite a feeble warrior. I chose to let her find me. My power, and with the "Gem of Cha – kraana" enhancing it ten – fold, shall allow me to harness the fire of one – hundred fire breathing beasts!!"

She shot her fire at a painting that Sion had rather admired, despite the cost it took to acquire such goods. Now, it was absolutely worthless as a pile of ash, as he turned to the future queen of the Tammeret and made a new proposal. "We have now not only the rebels, but what if you were to target someone of an even greater presence to this war?"

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No less than sooner they had spoken, Sion received the news he'd so wished to torment with anyone who would listen.

The main guard from the gate to last see the events came in, melon apple seeds across his and their own armor as if a prank had been pulled just in time to swap hours. " What??" Sion's mask nearly slid from his face as he stomped over to the buffoon, now wearing a melon's offspring down the streets – as if to be wed!

"You…… had best explain what THIS ," He plucked a seed from the guard's armor to wave it in the kneeling man's face. "IS. And WHY, you are in fact covered in produce ??"

Unlike Kom'ra', Lord Sion hated anything ugly or weak for the eyes. This, was a way he had been named the "Skinner Man" amid the people, now the "King of False Skins" as he pulled out a sharp knife meant to skin a wild boar after a chase to its burrow.

"S – sir…there was a young boy – b - boys, he, he flew through the air…pelted the soldiers with large stones…I could not see where he –

"Who? A child did this to you? CHILDREN?" The lord's ecstatic laughter was wild, before his mask returned to the face of not comedy, but an unwarranted tragedy that had to happen. "You were usurped and interrupted by a child, a child ! One of twice your wit. So, I NOW…want you to bow your neck for me." Sion cocked his head, nudging for the guard to obey this time.

"But –

" NOW."

The armored man took off his helmet, the grates still were covered in the last tasty thing he would ever taste, as the guard's neck; now bared, was soon lifted by a stray hand and the lord began to carve away the bleeding pulp that was the now dying, guard's skin from his horrified face. "I must capture every moment, record it like a book. Well?" Grinning, the false lord looked to his hopefully impressed partner.

Kom'ra scoffed, seeing as barbarians to the low lands were surely new to this community. In her realm, there was no such style of fighting to be had, not unless you yourself wished to die. "You take, and nothing is to be done of it –

"Not AT ALL true, my Queen…" Sion smiled and swiped the blood away from his hands, not having a drop fall onto his white robes as he left the dead man to be swept aside and buried with the others, that had not followed his orders. The screams circled the halls as other assassins took to skinning the guards' faces. A job for a bite to eat was their motto.

"The only face I would never, ever touch…is just as much… equally it is beauty, unsurpassed." He fell to one knee, Kom'ra's eyes bright as the man pulled a small box that was encrusted in fae – realm jewels to flicker before the future queen of a fallen empire. "My lovely Lady Kom'ra, would you; whence this farce is done, the rebels kept silent in my mines, will you…be by my side, and rule?"

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Tim moved with his goods down a main passage that was furthest from the lord's main towering defenses. He had no need to leave until a new plan had formed. With his goods and quite a few pieces of clothing in the messy destruction of the square, Timothy thought himself very wise and grinned at his collection. In the pile was a bag meant to carry only what he could. The rest could be donated to those that could not eat as he had. Maybe, a do – gooder was all he could be for the sake of taking from those not yet deserving…

~Two wrongs cannot fortify a whole truth. ~

Alfred, their dear companion in the castle had been wrong, though. Two wrongs could feed a family of four. Two wrongs could make him….invisible, as well as seen and respected.

Yet to tell others of what his intention ever was. To gather soldiers out of serfs and the suffering. Could he?

Tim was only a boy, he had no such logic in lengthy talk and transforming himself to bring peace – not as his father, nor the youthful charms of Richard. The cheeriness of Stefania, the fiery welcome of Jason….

Well, as long as they fought for the same curse to be broken, he would gladly scale mountains to understand the Bat god's message.

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Jason looked overhead the roof tops, the pubs becoming a regular spot to save face. Arte came alongside to join him and they spoke of boar hunting, sword play and…. their roles in this new society. Arte told the sixteen-year-old prince that she was a warrior long before. That her ancestors all bore the mark to stop and start an ambush. To free the fallen and weak, while Jason spoke of how he was never allowed to participate in any such meetings with his father when he had last come of age. Richard was the only soul given this privalege, even as Tim stole a glance with his useful finds and treasures. He had a magic spyglass that could see through any doorway. And a map….

"That map." Jason bit his lip, legs swinging off the side of the stone and clay structure, " It would have been handy to carry. It can also detect others nearby if used by a master magi. We had no such luck, yet the sage's blood in my brother was renounced when he entered father's line. He no longer may have such keepsakes of his old life before."

"You were adopted, all of you?"

"There was one, a babe born out of wedlock." Jason tried to keep mum, yet this could be his way to finally gain an army. "The child is too small to wear a crown, so my brother Richard would have..." Jason's fists clutched his sides of the rooftop, Arte wondering with her two green if she had no right to pry. "What was he to you, as a brother…"

"He was, blatantly," Jason tried to find any words to describe his doormat of a child trickster…his brother, a concubine? Was his curse to last and kill him off??

Tears fell as Arte placed a hand to Jason's clammy ones. "We will do what we can. The people of this city are not fond of stories without happy ends." She smiled warmly in reassurance to the blubbering, hot headed prince. All a front, as he allowed his head to drop and those tears to lightly trickle down. A reminder of what was at stake. Family, and one thing more.

His honor. And, the throne. Should Richard fail to come to his senses.

….

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Aright!! So? Dick can't kill his king; he can't even kill himself. Poor baby…. Tim is on a holy mission from the bat god and we get a glimpse at what the named city is – Kom'ra is Blackfire, and the jewel is from episode "betrothed." It has a different name here, as the skinner maniac Sionas is Harley Quinn's film version, pretty much. Any questions; oh! And Alfred is a half fae inhabitant like Selene and her sisters. So is Paam by the way. The Great Fowl is the enemy of the Bat God so what will happen? Will Jason get his uprising? Find out!!