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His regular massages weren't brightening up the cat as much as he would have hoped. Yes, the muscles were loose after he was done with him. He moved with more ease. But the black cat's overall mood didn't seem to be changing.

Today, as he started in on Mao, he surprised the king by unclasping his cloak. There was nothing sensual in the gesture. It was done with little fanfare. He simply did it and something that sounded like 'better grip' came out in a mumble.

Moving down onto his elbows in the usual position on the table, he slumped.

"Indeed," the king said as nonchalantly as he could muster.

But his stomach still fluttered.

Mao obviously found the attention, even before it had begun, lulling.

To keep his mind off of wanting his hands to roam to different places, the king asked what was probably too personal a question, but he went for it anyway. "Does your back hurt from losing your tail?"

The cat was not a natural bobtail.

An ear flicked towards him, and Mao only shifted enough for a small bit on the side of his eye to show, the clear orb sticking far out from the flat iris in profile like a snowglobe.

The smaller cat was putting the king in considerable suspense to wonder if he was going to get his head bitten off or simply left in the lurch by silence.

The cat had lost it while exiting the den of a dragon in an effort to escape a cave in. Even with his incredible power, he had not been able to avoid tragedy.

A boulder had crushed all the delicate white tailbones.

The king could only imagine that an injury like that could've pulled down on his spine, too, the moment it happened, dealing serious damage aside from just removing his counterbalance. Or Mao might've tugged upwards as a reflex to the pain, doing essentially the same thing.

Mao was still considering his question.

Recovering from such a traumatic stretching of vertebra, discs, and muscles might've taken a great deal of physical therapy to recover, even with magic healing mixed in. Although he knew the warrior Mao wouldn't appreciate it, pity welled up within him. After that surge of feelings, he found he was impressed at his tenacity, incredibly even more than he had been before he had stopped to think about it. Even if all that had happened was splintered tail bones, that would've taken no little surgical mastery to remove the pieces properly, and more or less completely relearning his many katas.

Just walking upright without a tail, when you were used to it being there, would be a process in itself.

Relearning every single one of his forms, a task so daunting and disheartening, the king could hardly imagine it.

Finally, the smaller cat answered. But no details. All he offered was, "It did, at first."

Brusque, to the point.

Now the curiosity in the big cat wedged itself even deeper. But it was clear he was already prying. Admitting defeat, he didn't needle him any further.

As if feeling too exposed by the admission, the cat quickly began prattling on about something unrelated. "Lesser wielders are fun to toy with. I can pick the most mundane things to brag about. Like, I have more lumbar vertebrae than some animals do. I mean I'm pretty sure it does give us cats more flexibility . . . ? But nothing to write home about, so-"

"Mao," the king interrupted gently, using his real name.

". . . yes?"

"Just so I'm clear," the lion dropped the royal 'we,' briefly, pressing down on either side of the smaller cat's spine with a fainter and fainter touch till he had reached the bottom of his ribcage, "should I not . . ." he tried not to grit his teeth at the unfairness of it, "go too low?"

"No." The answer came so quickly and forcefully that he found himself trying to parse whether it was from personal discomfort or real possibility of the king re-igniting some of the old injury. He burned to know these things. But he'd have to leave it for now. Even with his hackles not raised under the bigger paws, the warrior was giving off every other signal of 'Drop it.'

The cat resumed his aimless talking. That reassured the lion on one level, even though it left him wanting on another. "I even let some animals believe I have a tail. The cape tends to obscure the stump. Sometimes they never get a good enough look at me. They just assume."

"Moving too much in a blur, huh?" the king said warmly, and he enjoyed Mao's proud baritone chuckle much more than he should.

"In some ways, it's reassuring that they think I'm . . ." his head inclined slightly, ". . . normal."

The king caught all the sadness in the word, even if the samurai didn't project it very much.

"I want to be seen as just as capable as an average animal. Though. Sometimes I use a reveal at a crucial moment to throw an opponent off," Mao said wistfully.

"Oh ho, now my daring hero is a schemer?"

The muscles under him bunched.

"I was teasing, M-"

"I picked it up from an old partner, OK?" the black cat snapped. "She left a lot of fingerprints on me that I don't like . . ."

The king's gossip-geared mind immediately buzzed at that particular phrasing. Did he mean a fighting partner, or a loving one? Both? The king felt he had already used up Mao's incredibly small tolerance for personal questions this time around, so he filed it for later.

"While she wasn't a villainess," the cat shook his head, "nor close to it by any means, she certainly knew enough players who switched sides, or some that treated it like a revolving door," he said with disgust.

The king waited with anticipation for more. It sounded intriguing! But he didn't seem forthcoming, settling back into his place.

"Some villains insist on using the royal 'we' even though they're not royalty proper," Mao scoffed.

"I think I would be slightly offended if I heard anyone saying 'we,'" the king sniffed daintily.

Mao growled with relish. "If anyone who dared show their face around here insisted on it, I'd beat him until he relinquished your special address, Your Majesty." The vibration under his paws was delightful. It had him anticipating a purr, and in one way he wished the first thing he felt had been a purr, but eh. Such was life.

One where you were smitten with a spitfire kitten.

The king was very glad Mao was turned away from him at the moment because of the furious blush over the cat's . . . well, his sort of protectiveness. Maybe he should call the samurai 'his knight' rather than sheriff . . . that did have quite a ring to it.

Would the Easterner ever refer to him as 'daimyo'? the lion wondered, too. That's what the lords they served were called.

He searched his memories if any other languages had anything resembling his address to himself, but came up with nothing. Honorifics would hold the same weight as the royal 'we.'

"My current battle partner says, 'People have the right to pick their pronouns' and I always yell at him that's not the same thing at all!!" Mao was throwing himself into it now. "Sometimes I think I tolerate too much goofiness in him."

The king didn't quite know what to say to that. It seemed his own lightheartedness didn't bother the samurai, but then again they weren't battle partners, so maybe it would if they were. That hushed his blush and sent his thoughts dipping downwards.

A cabal of villains had shown up in the kingdom a few months before, and that was why the cat was here. He had thwarted their scheme to steal the Ruby, but in the process, the gem had been cracked. Even damaged, the presence of the gem still warded off bad things, just with lesser range and strength.

"You know, if you hadn't arrived to stop those ruffians," the king said, "this place would be overrun with far too many dragons for just you and your partner to handle."

Because the gem warded off dragons, the immediate wild territory had flourished with them.

If the protector gem had been taken away completely, the king might've needed to enlist help from surrounding kingdoms, some of which were far flung enough for him not to have visited in years. Just in case something else went amiss, he had feverishly drummed up friendly relations again with his contacts. They seemed unperturbed enough and not offended by his absence. But he did lie awake at night worrying about all of it sometimes.

Caught up in his own thoughts for the past few minutes, he hadn't noticed that the smaller cat had buried his head deeply into his arms.

"Sheriff?"

The smaller cat sobbed quietly, just once. The king's own breath caught in his throat, and he was torn on whether to withdraw his grasp, which he mentally thought would fit the situation better, or wrap his arms around his little chest, which he desperately wanted to do.

Mao made the decision for him. He stood roughly, and swiped at the big paws, prompting the king to drop his arms.

"I'm sorry," the king said again, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked about your tail- It's OK. Whatever you're feeling-"

"Why," the green eyes were glassy. But he did not give in to crying.

"Why . . . what?" I shouldn't have let my curiosity get the better of me, he thought to himself. "I hope you can look past an old lion's impudence," he implored sincerely.

"Why," Mao repeated faintly.

"I was only . . . well I'd like to tell you I was asking for safety reasons but that was unfortunately an afterthought, to be forthright with it-"

"Why . . ." Mao blinked.

Finally the king just shut his mouth. Sometimes silence was the better part of valor than continuing to babble.

"Why . . ." the black cat wrung his gloves, ears slowly and agonizingly going from vertical, to forty-five degrees, to ninety, and then even pressed down almost to his shoulders.

"Why aren't you angry at me?"

"Wh- what?"

Mao knelt and bowed, but in a way that was somehow more demeaning than his usual one. He visibly shook at the king's feet.

Now it was the king's turn to ask, "Why-" he tilted his head. "Why would I be angry at you?"

Seeing his form without the sweeping cape, and plainly displaying the severed tail, made sadness squeeze at the lion's heart. He didn't know what was going on, but he would make it right and he would reassure his . . . knight.

"I damaged the Ruby Pure Heart." His voice cracked. "I've completely ruined your peaceable kingdom that remained unchanged for so many generations of your glorious ancestors." That line coming from the normal Mao might've sounded a little bit pompous and overblown, but coming from this one, breathless, crushed by guilt, it came across as reverent and respectful as the little cat would always intend it to be.

"Oh Mao," the king said sweetly, "Is that what's been weighing on your heart? Why your usual spunk has sputtered," he lilted.

He was met by a disbelieving look at his flippancy.

Time for that hug, reservations be dashed.

He easily lifted the small cat up to his feet. In a reversal, the king knelt. "My dear sheriff, you didn't do anything wrong. You didn't mean to."

"B-but-" he stammered out- "I should've grilled those stupid villains. I should've found out more. I hadn't been to this part of the world . . . I didn't know to be careful and expect a concealment spell, so nobody would hit anything important. I was so caught up in glory I wasn't thinking about knowing how it all worked- the magic they were after I mean- I'd have known- I should've- I should've-"

"No," the king wrapped his arms around him and murmured in his ear. "You're fine. Everything's fine. I promise. I'm not harboring some secret grudge against you either, if that's what you think. Some aristocracy can be sweet but duplicitous, I know firsthand and-"

At that the little cat in his grasp gave a small gasp of relief, and sagged into his chest. "Th-thank you my liege. Your benevolence truly knows no bounds and I'm so, so glad the songs the citizens sing about it are so, so, wonderfully true," he choked out, "I kept doubting . . . I thought m-maybe they exaggerated or just use rose-tinted glasses so much like they do with everything but . . . you really . . ." he hugged the older, bigger cat with his steely strength.

His arms barely even rounded half of the barrel-chested lion.

As if just realizing it, Mao hastily added, "Your Majesty, don't kneel to me, that's not proper! Well I mean maybe this isn't either, but you . . ."

The king chuckled, cutting him off. "Oh you, don't be silly."

He pulled back to see Mao's thin, strained smile.

The idea that he had been privately terrified all this time that the king hated him . . . Maybe other finicky nobles or royals had turned on him after being nice before. Yes, the king could put on airs and get along with people he despised with the best of them should his political position require it, but this . . . it was simply awful. It definitely called for more praise, not that the king needed much prompting for that. "You do such a splendid job rescuing everyone! They just don't know how to act around you because we used not to tell many stories of warriors or battles. The legends about all of us were of a tranquil, impossibly pristine place. And we lived up to it. I'm sorry they don't appreciate you enough. They-" he suppressed a small growl- "They're ungrateful."

"Sometimes," Mao shrugged, but the king could tell it bothered him.. "Yes, visitors do pay me a lot more respect."

On his many travails over the decade or more, he must've had people falling at his feet! Adjusting to a place where everyone saw him every day and took him for granted . . . it made the king both irritated and a little dejected. Maybe Mao didn't like it here. Maybe this wasn't . . . maybe this wasn't the place for him.

"Ironic, isn't it, that your strength is what caused this situation."

The cat tilted his head, again very cute even though he wasn't doing it for that reason. "No, you've got it wrong Your Majesty, it wasn't my weapon that damaged it."

"What do you remember about the battle?"

"They had that big, rolling wooden thing . . . It was kind of like a ship, except it had big steel wheels. They must've been using some new technology from further West, with steam power. They had canons mounted on it. I should've made it a priority to take them out. But instead, my partner and I 'borded' the 'ship' and started fighting them hand to hand."

The lion wondered if the clan's magic could transfer memories so he could experience the battle for himself, via the cat's mind. He'd heard legends of such, in his many historical readings, but he wasn't sure if they were true or not. In any case, it was not something you could do immediately upon meeting someone. You had to get to know each other first.

The idea of going on adventures from the safety of his own home was exciting.

Like the new projector invention he had heard about, it could be like using the cat's mind as a screen.

"If I had disabled the canons, they wouldn't have cracked the Ruby."

The king tittered, paw to his mouth. "Oh ho ho, my dear sheriff. A simple impact couldn't possibly do THAT to such a mystical-magnitude artifact! I interviewed many people about the incident. You were slammed against the Ruby. It's your magic that packed such a wallop!"

The samurai's reaction was immediate, and even more devastated than before.

How could he not know this?

A creature of his size couldn't send monstrous behemoths careening through the sky on sheer brute physical force. Even a non-magical elephant could only knock around smaller dragons. The magical, many-times-multiplied strength, he thought it would be obvious, radiated around the cat. The king didn't have the gift of magic, as Mao's clan did, but he was educated. He knew plenty.

"Mao," the king said seriously, "Now I know you'd prefer that not be part of the story people told about you. But trust me, I've hob knobbed with the greatest sorcerers in many lands- Chamile is nice and all but she's nothing compared to them- and I tell you, those circles would be downright awed at the ability to crack the legendary Ruby Pure Heart. Without even trying!! Is it unfortunate your power resulted in this? Sure. But in a certain way, it's also darned impressive."

He could tell that Mao was going to have to take some time to process this revelation. Utter shock rooted him in place. Then, redoubled guilt plainly splashed across his face. Pride trailed in last, but the other two still warred for a space.