FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Maybe Tomorrow

The Story Of Kimmi - pt. 1

by Dissident Love

copyright 2012

may god have mercy

on your soul

if you try to pilfer this

Part 1: In The Beginning...

Prologue

Tiny particles of ice were whipped into a frenzy by the treacherous high-mountain winds, whistling between the jagged outcroppings of granite and seemingly cutting through hir thick fur and chilling hir to the bone.

Shi remembered thinking as a kit that the lives of those little snowflakes must have been remarkable. Given that the temperatures at these elevations never managed to rise above freezing and the weather patterns that continually seemed to swirl around the frosty peaks, might it be possible that each unique little water crystal could exist for years, decades, centuries, drifting and hopping from precipice to precipice? A few months in a snowdrift here, a week floating high among the clouds, a few quiet days drifting back down again in an infrequent sunbeam, and then a screaming hurricane to send it soaring back up? It had been unfathomable, as nearly everything else was, and strangely romantic.

Shi shivered and pulled hir tattered robes tighter around hir body. Gods, shi thought, was I really that stupid?

Shi took another few steps, four broad and shaggy paws bunched up close as shi navigated the narrow ledge. To hir left, a vertical sheet of scoured stone that might as well be a mile high, and to hir right, a dropoff that might as well go on forever. One loose rock, one mis-step, and shi would surely find out. Hir right hindleg occasionally waved weakly above that abyss, and shi was reminded not to put any weight on it.

The only saving grace of the bitter chill, shi thought sourly, was that at least it numbed the pain. The black arrow still protruded from hir thigh, dried blood caking hir fur, but shi was only aware of a distant, indistinct throb, as though it were someone else's problem.

Shi shivered, cursed under hir breath yet again, and took another few shuffling steps. "Just keep walking," shi chanted, a ward against the elements, "just keep walking."

One year, that was all it had been. One year before, shi had never had any worries beyond boredom and the possibility of overeating. Shi'd had all the warm downy blankets shi could have ever wanted and more, a huge bed that even hir enormous body couldn't completely conquer, and a seemingly endless stream of books from the Royal Library. Hir life had been rich, full, dull and utterly exasperating.

Shi'd longed for the exotic lands shi'd seen in those books, the infinitely varied landscapes of foreign nations, the interesting new people, the exciting adventures, the boundless horizons of complete freedom.

And now, not for the first time, shi just wanted hir comfy bed back.

Chapter 1

- - - - -

The Bedchamber Of Shame

Hir Royal Grace, The Princess Kimmi awoke to the sound of tiny, nervous knocks at hir chamber door. Shi shifted slightly, buried beneath a mountain of plush silken blankets, and peeked one eye blearily out. As shi had thought, it didn't just feel early; it was early. There was a warm orange glow beyond hir purple curtains, but not nearly enough for the sun to have actually risen above the horizon.

"Bloody hell," shi muttered, retreating further into the depths of hir warm, protective shell. "S'too early. G'way."

There was a pause, and then the nervous knocking resumed, each little rap seemingly apologizing for the one before it. Shi sighed, mounded bedspreads rising and falling. "Too early," shi called out, unable to keep the annoyance from hir melodious voice. "Go away."

Shi could make out the hushed tones of frantically whispered conversation from beyond the immense wooden door; no doubt the housemaids were seeking guidance from above, at least in the metaphorical sense. The Mistress of the Kitchens would be hundreds of feet below them, commanding the legions of maids and servants that kept the castle in working order.

A decision was evidently reached, though, and there was another pitter-patter of ladylike knuckles. "My lady," a voice called tremulously, "it is the wish of your father the King that you be awoken and prepared for the day." The unknown housemaid spoke those four vital words, 'your father the King' with such alacrity they could have been one single fearful syllable.

Kimmi rolled over, causing a landslide of fabric that could easily have upholstered a dozen homes in the city below. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," shi groused, twisting hir body around awkwardly, searching for the edge of the bed. One questing paw eventually succeeded, and shi humped hir body in a very un-ladylike fashion towards it, trying to work the kinks out of hir back.

Today of all days, shi thought. You have to pick TODAY to subject me to this.

Shi rolled onto the floor, well-worn marble completely hidden from view by the motley assortment of rugs and carpets liberated from other portions of the castle, and stretched. The great huskytaur's fur was a monochromatic rainbow, fading from an incandescent silvery underfluff to midnight black along hir spine. Shi was clad in only a light pink chemise that barely covered hir upper torso and did absolutely nothing to hide the curves beneath. Shi shook hir hindhips, tail swishing audibly, and wondered if shi should throw something over hir hindquarters.

"Nah," shi decided, glancing back and smirking. "If you gotta go, go with a smile."

Kimmi padded over to the door and flipped the huge cast-iron latch open. Technically, shi knew that there was a similar latch on the other side, and an equally impressive lock to go with it, and the Mistress of Kitchens was the only one that was supposed to posses the key to it, but the last few years had operated quite well with the understanding that if Kimmi didn't try to escape, no-one would try to stop hir. The inside latch didn't have a lock, but shi could easily just ram one of the fire-pokers through the hasp if shi wanted hir privacy.

Shi took a deep breath, straining the lacing on hir chemise, and tried to look fierce. It was too early to work up a proper ferocity, but shi wouldn't have any problem feigning royal indignation. Shi was absolutely full to the brim with that before the sun was up. Shi ruffled hir hands through hir raven tresses, streaked through with delicate lines of silver, and bared hir fangs in anticipation.

Shi gripped the handle and pulled hard, the enormous door shifting like a wooden tsunami. Normally it would be the work of several housemaids pushing from the other side, now that the proper armed guard composed of the King's Own Protectors had been retired in favor of slightly more pressing military matters. Even now it seemed as through three of the demure maids, dressed in simple brown and grey woolens with little white bonnets, had been preparing to open the door on their own, while the fourth was frozen mid-knock.

"_ WHAT!? _" Kimmi barked, looming head and shoulders above the assembled maids.

The three to hir left clutched their hands to their chests and backed away, though their attention was focused entirely upon the fourth. She was a lapine, petite but possessed of that unmistakable roundness of hip that Kimmi found shi rather enjoyed. Her eyes had gone as large as saucers, her whiskers drooped as though weighted, and her bonnet twitched backwards as her ears struggled to flee. She took a single breath, squeaked once, and fainted.

Kimmi leaned forwards to peer at the prone bunny over hir expansive bust, and then cast a sidelong glance at the other maids. "Was that really necessary?" shi asked.

Three hearty gales of laughter was all the reply shi needed, and all shi received. Kimmi carefully backed up while the chortling maids picked up their fallen companion and carefully brought her inside. The princess couldn't keep the grin off of hir own muzzle, though, sniggering to hirself as shi shut and latched the door.

Hir room was, shi had been assured, enormous. It comprised a significant vertical portion of the Tower of Heavenly Peace, one of the two great spires that capped the royal castle, and except for the small spiraling staircase shi had the entire floor to hirself. It was wide enough that if shi stood by one wall and yipped, shi could just make out the echo bounced back at hir from the opposite wall. Arranged along the exterior masonry were two huge fireplaces, a makeshift dressing chamber big enough for fifty housemaids, a bath that required a full day to fill with hot water, several tables piled high with books (hir father had denied hir request for actual bookshelves on the basis that shi shouldn't have TOO many books around), and heaps of pillows which served little purpose other than to allow hir and the maids to lounge.

Hir bed, composed of eight large mattresses stitched together, framed by four massive posts and topped with a couple hundred square feet of rich purple velvet, dominated the center of the room. Kimmi waddled backwards until hir tail detected it, and flumphed comfortably back onto it, rolling onto hir side and stretching again. "New girl?"

"Yes'm," giggled Luria, the senior housemaid. The sleek white poodle was slightly taller than the others, though that meant she could bump her head against Kimmi's breasts rather than simply walking beneath them. "She's been working the ambassadorial chambers for the past year, and it was decided that she should be promoted to your personal harem."

"Luria!"

"I meant 'court'," Luria continued with a straight face. Mise and Norah, both of a feline persuasion and skilled at avoiding revealing whether or not they really were sisters, giggled. "We thought this would be the best way for her to meet you."

"I hope I didn't kill her," Kimmi sighed, rolling onto hir back, four huge paws paddling uselessly at the air. "Remember Shina's first time? Poor girl woke up screaming."

"If I recall, ma'am," Luria said, propping up the bunny's head with a small pink pillow, "Shina walked in on you taking a bath. And then you stood up, and, if I may be so bold, ma'am, there's not enough bubbles in the world."

Kimmi snorted, and the felines giggled again. "Oh, you two hush," shi admonished, but hir heart wasn't in it. "Honestly, you're going to give her a complex."

"It's not our fault you decided to wear a handkerchief for a blouse, ma'am." Luria finished making the unconscious girl comfortable and straightened. "She should count herself lucky you weren't facing away from her."

Kimmi twisted to glance awkwardly betwixt hir hindlegs. The weight was considerable, and the silvery fur fairly glowed gold in the early morning sunlight. "Why?" shi asked innocently.

Luria rolled her eyes, and gestured to the door. "Whatever. Mise, Norah, could you please get hir majesty's breakfast? The one you left out in the antechamber?"

The girls both slumped meekly and moved to the door, grumbling under their breath and clearly blaming the other for the oversight. Kimmi giggled again, watching them struggle with the huge oak door, dart through, and bring back the two trolleys so loaded with foodstuffs they were starting to bow under the weight. They maneuvered them expertly around the heavy rumpled rugs, coming to rest near the sunward window and transferring the plates to the sturdy table there.

"I can get those," Kimmi started to say, rolling hir bulk upright once more.

Luria slapped hir paw admonishingly. "No you can't," the maid said sternly, exerting that strange authority that servants very occasionally have over royalty. "It wouldn't be proper."

"Slapping me is?"

"It was a corrective measure," the poodle said primly, her demeanor far more regal than the lounging princess. "Now please, if you don't mind, you must eat. You have a big day ahead of you."

"I do?"

Luria rolled her eyes. "Don't start this nonsense," she sighed, once again fanning at the unconscious new girl. "You know what tonight is!"

"I do?" Kimmi was paddling languidly at the air, tail swishing, head hanging over the edge of the bed, improbably capacious bosom coming to rest almost at hir chin.

Luria, though, had seen Kimmi in positions more compromising than this, and was not overly affected. Her ivory white fur was pinking at the ears, though; she wasn't made of stone, after all. "Your obtuseness is unbecoming of your heritage, Princess," Luria said, somehow managing to make the honorific sound slightly insulting.

"My heritage is unbecoming of my birthright," Kimmi corrected sourly, hir mood sullied. Shi flopped unceremoniously onto all fours and padded towards hir breakfast, not really interested in joking around with hir only friends anymore. That, and hir stomach was growling so loudly shi could feel it in hir toes.

Luria eyed the statuesque taur appraisingly, but she couldn't deny the unfortunate truth to that statement. Nine foot tall if shi was an inch to the tops of hir tufted ears, more than twelve long in the body. Quite a bit more, if you counted hir impressively bushy tail, and more still if you included the gravity-defying forward projection of hir overly-healthy bosom. The housemaid would be quite generous to call herself five and a half feet tall, and she was considered a 'good size'.

"You'll win them over," she said softly, watching the king-sized princess tuck into hir breakfast with an extremely healthy appetite.

Kimmi scoffed, spraying toast crumbs. "Do you really believe that?"

She swallowed, watching the new housemaid come around. "You convinced us," she said simply, knowing full well that befriending a small squadron of peasants, even peasants who worked dutifully beneath the royal court, was far different from befriending the court itself.

"And how long did that take?"

Luria said nothing, but Mise and Norah perked up. "We've been your ladies for less than a year," they said, so close to unison that it might have been one voice. They stood proudly, twin grins glowing in the pre-dawn light, and Norah was not shy about letting her gaze wander to Kimmi's rump, and the capacious landscape beneath.

The princess smirked. "So lock me in a room for a year with the assembled Lords and Ladies of Umbrage, the chief barons and the Publicans, maybe the Holy Sisters, and see where we're at? Could work, could work. Or, and this is key, I could publicly abdicate my crown and let His Royal Highness smuggle an heir in through the side door."

The housemaids blinked and scuffed their feet, except for the one slowly rousing from the couch, who was moaning. Kimmi's eyes softened, hir ears drooped, but shi didn't amend hir words. Shi chewed carefully, in silence, while Luria moved to block the enormous taur from the bunny's sight.

"Eone," she said gently, twitching the bunny's ears. "Are you ok?"

Eone's vision swam, but the last few moments before her untimely collapse came rushing back. She sat bolt upright, clutching wildly at her skirts. "Beast!" she cried, pulling her legs onto the couch as though something might reach out from beneath to devour her.

Luria rolled her eyes. "No," she said carefully, "not a beast. That was Hir Royal Grace."

The lapine was aghast. "Impossible! She-"

"-has been kept in secrecy and security in the Tower of Heavenly Peace since hir birth, as a safeguard to the sanctity of the Crown," she recited blandly. "But surely you heard the rumors that shi was also being kept out of the public eye for... other reasons."

Eone replayed the last few sentences in her mind, noting a slight difference in pronunciation. "She... shi... is... deformed?" she asked slowly, and Luria had to admire the way that the new recruit seemed to be trying to suck all offense from that word.

"Let's stick with different," Luria smiled, straightening and moving slightly to the side. "I'm sorry we played that little trick on you, but... well, that was how we all met hir. And now it's your turn. Eone of Chandelier, meet Hir Royal Grace The Princess Kimmi."

Kimmi smiled and waved, swallowing a small plate of large sausages. "Gmd mrmning."

Eone's knuckles gripped her skirts with such force everyone could hear them pop. "Eee," she replied, eyes enormous.

"See? She's fine."

Kimmi shrugged. It doesn't make much of a difference, one way or the other, shi thought. Maybe it'll leave her with some stories to tell her grandchildren someday. The princess was a little saddened that, with a new recruit hanging around all day, shi wouldn't be able to enjoy hirself too much, but the prospect of the night's events were making it hard to feel too strongly about anything.

Luria was conferring carefully with the frantic new housemaid. Mise and Norah were dragging a heavy lacquered chest over to the bed, the solid oak box large enough to fit the both of them inside. The majestic huskytaur had managed to excavate the top layers of hir breakfast and was now investigating the lower levels of pancakes and sliced berries. "Ngyam giff... er... one second..." Shi swallowed, and continued. "I guess tonight's the night."

They all knew it was. Everyone in the palatial castle knew it was. Every lord and lady and person of slight importance knew it. The cabbage farmers a half-day's ride from the capital knew it, although they were slightly less preoccupied by it. And Kimmi, well, Kimmi's entire life, hir entire reason for life was the culmination of the night's events.

Hir muzzle twisted distastefully, and it had nothing to do with the delicious food. "What a reason," shi muttered. "Better to have thrown me out with the trash."

"You spoke, Your Grace?" Luria said, perking up.

"Nothing."

"As you wish."

The felines had managed to get the great trunk lid open and were busy removing the bed's mountain of blankets, replacing it with a mountain of silk brocade, lace and pearls. The tinkling and rattling of jewels bespoke a gown worth more than most nobles could claim to be, and shi knew all too well just how many seamstresses had worked how many months to create that fashionable monstrosity.

It had been constructed in parts, sometimes without the royal seamstresses knowing just what they were creating, and the more trusted housemaidens had been charged with assembling it, piece by piece, fitting it to Kimmi's spectacular proportions. Shi had swished around in the skirts several times, Luria and her team chasing hir with mouthfuls of pins and spindles of thread, and shi had enjoyed testing the durability of the bodice and petticoats, filling to capacity and beyond. Luria just thanked hir for revealing the weak spots and set about mending them, which only infuriated the young royal.

"Hey, now, I don't need that until later," shi protested, moving hir haunches away from it as though it might explode.

"Your Grace, we need to make all of the final measurements and adjustments now. It's very likely that you've, ah... grown since the last time we made alterations."

Shi glanced down at hir expansive crumb-covered bosom, unconsciously wiggling hir rump and feeling the immense bulk sway back and forth. "I f'pofe," shi mumbled, nibbling hir toast. "But mow?"

"Soon," Luria said gently while Eone rocked back and forth, trying to come to terms with her new station in life.

Kimmi scooted sideways a little bit and opened the ornate stained-glass windowpanes, revealing the heavy iron bars and the seemingly endless eastern landscapes of the Kingdom. The sun was peeking properly above the horizon now, spreading a golden ocean of light across the distant farms, the creeping forests that skirted the tilled lands and crept cautiously up the mountains, and the bluish-purple peaks surrounding them all. Shi could see hundreds of birds twirling and cavorting in the thermals, dancing like motes of dust.

"It's my last day as myself," shi said hollowly. "Do we have to rush it?"

Luria's curly ears drooped beneath her peaked bonnet. "You'll still be Hir Grace tomorrow morning, and we'll still be here with you breakfast," she reassured the vast huskytaur.

"It won't be the same." Shi wrinkled hir nose, blinking away a tear.

Shi stood there at the window, an oval break in the impenetrable stonework that comprised the outer wall of the castle, an opening barely wide enough to let a housemaiden through, to say nothing of the great sovereign-to-be. Such a vast world out there, so much bigger than hir one-room existence. It was only during the last several weeks that the stairwell connecting hir room to the great parochial chamber at it's base had been widened sufficiently to allow hir to, at long last, descend.

It was a long way down...

Shi twitched when a familiar palm stroked hir barrel. Shi twisted, arms instinctively rising to brace hir bosom, and looked down at Luria's open, friendly face. "It will be whatever you want it to be," she said.

And in spite of herself, Kimmi smiled. Four huge fluffy paws performed a complex dance as the dauphine turned, bent and embraced one of hir closest, and indeed only, friends.

"Thank you," shi said, voice hitching slightly.

Luria hugged back, hir arms not even making it around those chemise-straining breasts. "And no, we don't have to do it right now. I'm sure we have enough time for... a story?"

"Yay!"

"Or... fencing practice?"

"Yay!!"

"Or... pillowfight?"

Kimmi's head drew back, a devilish glint in hir eye. "New girl is on my team?"

"I'm sure she wouldn't have it any other way."

"Eee?"

Chapter 2

- - - - -

The Grand Unveiling

Down in the vast expanses of the castle's cellars, referred to as the Shurlee's Kingdom in hushed, half-joking tones, the army of royal servants had been working tirelessly for days on end, preparing for the Premiere. The servants, in truth, outnumbered the ranks of the Imperial Army, but it was always an assumed fact that the housemaidens and footboys just sort of kept out of sight and out of mind of the truly important people.

The Mistress of the Kitchens was the final word and law among those employed by the crown. She could, it was widely believed by the more intelligent and thoughtful sort of noble, mount a successful coup, were she ever in the mood to do it. With but a simple request, the sort of request that carried more weight than an official order, she could command the servants of any House, and of course she was the eventual terminus of any and all gossip pertaining to the entitled owners of those Houses.

Scandalous liaisons? Oh, you bet. Hushed-up murders of overly ambitious young dukes? More often than you might think. Illicit babies whisked away to the borders of the Empire and beyond? They practically had to queue to get out of town.

But right now, the major issues pressing on Mistress Shurlee's mind were, comparatively, quite mundane.

"The ice chamber?" she hissed.

"Nearly exhausted, Mistress! 'Tis the middle of summer! Her Highness has been going through two blocks a night to keep her bedchambers-"

The bulky bear, not even as tall as most housemaids but easily as wide as any two of them, glowered up at the delicate minkgirl. She was only the bearer of the bad news, not the cause, but Mistress Shurlee found that flaying the messenger created an atmosphere where problems were usually avoided entirely so that no-one would ever have to be the messenger. This problem was not insurmountable, but it was just another frustration added to a day that would prove to be full of them.

"The next shipment is not due for four days," the ursine matron growled, her voluminous robes and skirts quivering. An arsenal of forks, spoons, and yes, knives, hung from the simple knotted rope around her waist, and they rattled together, a symphony of suppressed anger. "We have more than eight hundred guests being entertained within the castle walls tonight, and it's going to take every chip and flake of ice we have to keep them, and the food, from bursting into flame. Yes?"

"Yes, Mistress!" the young mink nodded, not sure exactly what she was agreeing too.

"Then, when the Queen needs a block for her bedchamber, what shall I tell her?"

The maid's jaw worked. "We-" she started, paused, swallowed, went briefly cross-eyed, and tried again. "We will still have barrels of cold water left over from the Premiere, mistress, and we could use those, if we were careful! We could use a misting device to keep her chambers cool, and... and..."

The maid went silent. That was her entire plan! The Mistress of the Kitchens had heard it all, but was still just... staring! What more did she want?! The mink's lip started to wobble.

At great length, Mistress Shurlee barked, "Go!"

The maid nearly burst into grateful tears, bowing apologetically and scampering, backwards, out of the narrow, dark stone corridor. The Mistress just rolled her eyes, spun with a rattle of well-worn utensils, and stalked back into the larger of the three kitchens, the crucible of her authority.

Normally all eyes would flash over to the roly-poly Mistress when she entered, but right now they were already whipped into such a panic that when a coq-au-vin exploded as it was doused with brandy, no-one even blinked.

The Premiere was, theoretically, less than an hour away. There would be hours of mingling and flowery speeches and important handshakes and crucial, furtive backroom plotting. The rise and fall of miniature empires would be decided this night, and the unveiling of the mysterious royal dauphine would be merely the cherry on top, at least to some.

Many of the housemaids and footboys were familiar with the Princess, although only a handful had seen hir directly, and those few lucky girls had been sworn to secrecy. Even so, it was rumored that while the heir to the throne was undoubtedly unusual and perhaps deformed, shi was also sweet and kind and gentle and, to a certain point of view, almost impossibly exotic. Over the last sixteen years, rumors and innuendo had filtered through the castle and out into the Empire at large, where the legends had grown and mutated until most people's expectations couldn't possibly be further from the already-fantastical truth. Such is the way of secrets.

Lined up outside the kitchens in the spiderweb of broad, arched corridors, dozens upon dozens of trays were loaded with food. Many were heated with slow-burning oil lamps, many were cooled with blocks of ice, and all were covered with gleaming silver platters, waiting for the order to be trundled out and positioned with the skill of a master tactician around the colossal Crown Hall.

Mistress Shurlee nodded curtly. Her troops would work until their hands and feet fell off, and none needed any word from her to know their missions.

Still...

"Mij! Do you honestly expect those to be presentable in that condition?!"

A young saucier nearly pulled a muscle, whipping his head around in terror. Before him, an enormous pyramid of mixed red and black berries was being carefully glazed, gleaming like jewels in the bright kitchen. Mistress Shurlee thought they looked quite inviting.

"Mistress! I... the glaze... I will even it out momentarily, I still have most of a pint left!"

"Do so!" She stalked off, brushing her hands together vigorously and eying her domain critically. Keep them on their toes, she thought, keep them on their toes.

---

"Keep on your toes, Your Grace, please!"

Kimmi pouted, thumping hir fists against hir sides and groaning. "I AM keeping on my toes! You're not working fast enough!"

Near the top of the Crown Hall was a buttressed balcony with room for fifty nobles, positioned to overlook the entire tiered chamber and be eminently visible to all. It could only be accessed by a white marble antechamber, and right now that antechamber could only be accessed by a recently-added passageway that led to the Tower of Heavenly Peace. The regular entry, a grand staircase climbing up from the Hall below, had been temporarily walled off for, Kimmi was assured, 'security purposes'.

The antechamber was abuzz with activity, Hir Royal Grace Princess Kimmi standing at the middle of a grey-clothed tornado. Ten housemaids, hir entire personal regiment, darted around hir expansive body, stitching here, hemming there, restoring fallen pears elsewhere. Some were pulling fine brushes through hir fur, some were spritzing hir with perfume, and one or two were feeding hir delicate hors d'oevres.

Luria rolled out from underneath Kimmi's skirts, her body flat and resting on a short wheeled trolley. "Kimmi, are you doing that on purpose?"

"What?"

"Everytime I fix a seam under here, you... you flex, or something, and rip it elsewhere!"

"You're fiddling with some very sensitive areas," the princess said hotly. "I think I've been a paragon of self-restraint!"

"Well, just... stop it, for a minute! Try not to think about it."

Kimmi snorted. "If you had a little poodle stuffed into your underwear, would you find it easy to ignore?"

Luria sighed. "Just try, please. I don't want to end up crushed." With a final deep breath, she rolled back beneath the great huskytaur, trying herself not to think about just what incredible and inviting portions of canine anatomy she was dealing with. On any other night, by this hour, Kimmi would already be sprawled out on hir bed, two or three housemaids stroking and caressing and educating the young royal on the nature of intimacy. Today, though, Kimmi had not been able to find the time for any fun, and shi was feeling quite pent-up.

"You owe me," shi called out, moving hir hindleg to bump one immense, fluffy orb against the hidden poodlegirl. Luria yelped out from the depths of hir undergarments, and Kimmi grinned, the other maids laughing with mixed mirth and envy.

Kimmi glanced back at the walled-off exit, trying not to let hir regal, if adolescent, facade slip. That had been a little bit... surprising. Over the years, working with some of the housemaids, shi had put together a fairly decent map of the castle, particularly the areas around hir tower, but that wall was definitely unexpected. It was fresh mortar, shi discovered, filling the room with a moist, earthen smell, but the blocks were very large. The recently-added staircase leading up to hir own chamber had several smaller offshoots for the maids to navigate, but shi doubted shi could squeeze through them at all, if all else failed.

It had been very strange, passing through the heavy arched stonework, feeling unfamiliar flagstones beneath hir paws, walking down those broad steps. Shi had snuck down the steps a few times before, in hir childhood, or sometimes accompanied by nervously giggling housemaids wanting to show hir what lay beyond hir one-room empire, but they had always ended up at the heavy iron-barred portcullis that was only large enough to let through a trolley.

Earlier that very day, though, coming down those steps and seeing the iron bars gone, little glistening nubs where they had been unbolted from their massive framework, shi had been initially unable to pass. Shi had stopped dead, half a dozen housemaids pushing on hir and trying to force hir through; for the longest time Kimmi had resisted as though they had been trying to push hir off of the roof. The room beyond was foreign, alien, more mysterious than even the lands beyond the Gate. Hir first hesitant step had nearly caused hir breakfast to come up.

Hands held on either side by wide-eyed and reassuring maids, though, Kimmi had eventually overcome hir terror and made it through to the recently-modified antechamber, where hir lunch had already been waiting, along with another half-dozen girls armed with an arsenal of sewing equipment. Shi swiftly acclimated hirself to hir new environs, though, and before long was joking and giggling with hir friends, wondering just what the night would bring, and thinking about the endless uncertainties of tomorrow.

Shi was very carefully NOT, however, thinking about why the King and Queen would have ordered that staircase blocked off. Shi supposed if they were going to come up to see hir privately, they could navigate the other passages, but then again why would they start now? If shi got the chance to speak to them this night, shi would certainly have to mention... no, stop it, stop it, shi ordered hirself. Don't think about that. They had their chance. You know what you have to do.

One of hir many sets of interlocking corsetry suddenly drew tight against some sensitive areas, smooshing hir nethers against hir belly. Shi gasped, but exhaled slightly and tried to draw in hir tummy to allow Luria to tighten them still further, which shi obligingly did. There was a frantic flurry of knotting fingers, and then the poodle emerged, rolling swiftly. "Ok, that should be it. Your Grace, if you would be so kind as to... ah... inhale?"

As one, the assembled housemaids took a step backwards, a few of the more cautious ones hiding behind someone taller or a nearby piece of elegant marble statuary. Kimmi cocked hir head and rolled hir eyes, sticking hir tongue out at the senior maid. "Are you sure? Will you have time to fix everything?"

"Just get it over with," Luria said, a trifle uncertainly.

The princess wriggled hir hips, padded side to side for a moment, and squared hir shoulders. "As you wish, ma'am," shi said wryly. Hir muzzle parted, shi licked hir lips, and drew breath.

The sound was incredible, both the sheer volume as well as the subtle chorus of creaks and groans and plinks. Hir bodice swelled and strained, multiple interlocking lacework drawing bowstring-tight; silvery cleavage billowed forth, rising dramatically to hir collarbones and then, impressively, still higher. Hir flanks expanded as hir tauric body inflated as well, and shi was acutely aware of the lack of available space between hir hindpaws, hir thighs being pried apart, but...

... but when shi exhaled gratefully, the spectacular and intricate dress remained intact. Kimmi was ashamed that hir first reaction was disappointment, but when the housemaids started clapping and hugging eachother shi had to join in, impressed at their skill. Luria was sagging against the far wall, relief plain on her face.

"Thank you so much," the princess said thickly, bending down to hug hir entourage. Each hug seemed to last longer than the previous one, slender anthro bodies snuggling warmly against hir vast bosom, and shi was positive that some of the girls were getting back in line for seconds.

"You're worth it," Luria said.

Kimmi blushed. "Well, that, and I'm assuming you were all ordered to do this under pain of death, or something."

The housemaids exchanged glances. "Uhm," one of them said, a petite but curvy doe that Kimmi privately referred to as 'Rumpy', "not quite death, but there were some definite mentions of 'get hir in that dress or you start eating your meals from the midden'."

Kimmi winced. "Sorry."

Luria tried to hide hir smile. Technically, her job these last few years had been to manage Hir Grace, as well as the small army of housemaids that handled hir every need. Chief among those responsibilities had been to educate hir regarding Royal behaviour, deportment, history and rights, in accordance with several aged and incredibly stuffy tomes from the Royal Library. Normally an appropriately-trained tutor would be selected from the University, but the aura of secrecy surrounding the heir had made that impossible.

Luria had tried, at first, explaining to the young dauphine that a proper Royal shouldn't be concerned with the feelings of the peasantry, but after seeing that enormous hangdog expression, she had been unable to go through with it. As a result, Kimmi had enjoyed a perhaps less-than-standard Royal education.

"Don't be sorry for being yourself," Luria said, voice thick with pride.

Rumpy disengaged from her third hug, ears whirring like hummingbird wings, and moved over to the enormous purple drapes that separated the antechamber from the huge balcony that overlooked the assembled nobility below. She poked her head through briefly, and emerged to say, "Gosh, there's a lot of nobs down there!"

"Largest landowner in Avola," Luria snapped.

"Lord Shatford Ellis, Lady Diedre Ellis, Patrician of the Avola Plains and Protectorate of Heaven's Gate," Kimmi replied promptly.

"Coat of arms?"

"Azure and emerald cross, boughs of cabbage and wheat interwoven, medallions of sword, shield, rose and eye."

"Weapons of the Elite Imperial Guards."

"Partizan, longsword, shortsword, swordbreaker, cleaver, mace, shield."

"The Guardhome of Heaven's Gate fully rotates its garrison every... what?"

"Thirteen days."

"Bec-"

"Because extended contact with the undevout tribes beyond the Gate can cause irrationality and dissent." Luria smiled, and Kimmi just arched an eyebrow. "Good enough?"

"That'll do, Your Grace. That'll do."

"Good. Now who's hiding the sausage rolls?"

---

It was certainly a well-appointed affair, Lord Byron Chesterwick had to admit, nibbling on some sort of mushy canape on a cracker. Everywhere he turned there was another table loaded with culinary delights that he had long since grown bored of, another serving girl with a tray of drinks he never grew bored of, or for that matter just another eye-catching serving girl. He flashed his most charming smile at several, which at his age consisted of trying to look warm and non-threatening. His cherubic raccoon features made that quite easy, although his over-abundance of middle-aged plushness was making it harder and harder to take the flirting to the next stage.

"The next stage is private," he was murmuring into the shell-pink ear of one such maid, a buxom vixen whose name he had missed. "My wife always takes the official stage home early, so I'm always sure to arrange for... comfortable transportation."

The vixen giggled and blushed, plucking at the bodice of her formal dresses. The maids normally wore sturdy, reliable, easily-cleaned robes and blouses, but when the palace was entertaining the upper crusts of society, it often improved the mood considerably to add some lace, some silks, and some flesh. "I don't know, we're not supposed to..." she trailed off, tumbling a few drops of wine between her breasts with well-practiced clumsiness.

Lord Chesterwick's eyes were bright and quick, and the droplets did not escape his notice. He openly admired the view for a few seconds, nodding appreciatively before taking the offending drink from her tray and downing half of it in one swig. "Well, my dear," he murmured, staring off into the distance and trying to look as though he were not paying her any special attention at all, "there's several supposed things that one is not supposed to do, but you have to ask yourself: why not?"

He casually placed a coin on her tray, and smiled warmly at her again. "If you see my glass empty, please... remember me."

The vixen stared at the heavy gold coin, the unmistakable thump music to her ears. That's three for tonight, she thought, giggling gratefully and sauntering off to replenish her tray. But which one? Lord Chesterwick seems like the most pleasant, but he looks like my uncle. Lord Mackelroy is certainly a strapping man, but I've heard some unpleasant rumors, and Lady Zoelly kept licking her teeth. What's up with that?

Lord Chesterwick watched her go, confident in his abilities to win the young lady over. He nibbled the rest of his canape and scanned the room, looking for his wife. As expected, young Lady Chesterwick, a striking figure of a woman wearing a dress that left very, very little to the imagination while still managing to keep her golden leopard fur covered, was leaning over a serving table and giving a nervous young footboy a whispered education that was making his tail curl. Lord Chesterwick just chuckled, and wished her luck.

He was navigating over to the table from whence came the unmistakable smells of honeyed tarts when there was, over and above and cutting through the din, a gentle ringing of silver on crystal. Silence spread like ripples in a pond until the only sound was a smattering of cleared throats, glasses and mugs being settled onto trays and the brief final whispers of Lady Chesterwick propositioning someone half her age.

"Thank you," came the smooth, regal voice from above. The king spoke calmly and evenly, as though the packed room of the empire's wealthiest socialites were slightly less boring than speaking to the Royal Meteorologist about the precise windspeed coming from the east. He was a tall, well-built, even handsome example of huskykind, wearing a simple but incredibly expensive outfit of white and purple, with gold trim. Always the gold trim, the King sighed inwardly. Why did everything need gold trim? Fortunately his crown didn't have any gold trim; even the queen understood that gold trim on gold was too far. "And welcome to our home."

There was a smattering of polite applause. The king turned and smiled a small smile to his wife, resplendent in a considerably fancier gown of purple and red, her own silver crown glittering like starlight. She was also a husky, as all of the royal family had been for four generations. Officially, there had been a transfer of power long ago, an event involving the king's great grandfather, the previous patriarchal lineage of wolves, and a brief, bloody period of negotiation. Unofficially, one noble family had finally decided that the unceasing policies of taxation and metropolitan aggrandizement were perhaps not in the public's best interests, and had decided to circumvent the democratic method for a short while.

The history books tried to play the events straight, but it was generally agreed that the current state was preferable, if only because no-one was entirely positive what the alternative was.

"I hope you have all enjoyed yourselves thus far," he continued, gesturing with his own champagne flute. "This is a celebration, after all! Lord and Lady Ellis, I appreciate your making the long journey all the way from the Gate, given the foreboding inclement weather. Patrician Mishral, pleased you could find the time."

He dutifully mentioned a few other notable guests, something he always despised but he knew all too well that it did very well for his position to have those with the slightly more applicable levels of power be shown the proper attention. A Lord might outrank and overpower a Patrician, and a Patrician might be able to squeeze a Lord to do his bidding, and the both of them might spend a truly alarming amount of time deciding the best way to go about these activities, but the King merely had to wake up and continue to be King.

But the King, well... even the King needed allies.

"This evening is a very special moment in the great and storied history of our nation," he said, his voice rising slightly, drawing upon his theatrical reserves. "Many years have we waited, many nights have we worried... how often have we dreamed of this night? More than I care to share, I must say. It is a moment of great import, for our family, for our Empire, and for you, its loyal citizens."

A hushed, slightly uncomfortable susurration wafted through the crowd; no-one spoke, but there were unmistakable shifts in stance and mood. Oh, the loyal citizens knew rightly what the night would bring, at least in the broad strokes. The heir to the throne would be unveiled, after years of almost unprecedented secrecy. Lords and Patricians and the like wouldn't deign to stoop to rumors and gossip and innuendo, but there had been certain... logical suppositions regarding the nature of the future regent.

Lord Chesterwick had always assumed the heir to be a boy, lame and likely feeble. Ages ago in, what was it, Year 183 in the Seventh Reign, there had been a delightful lad crowned King. A pleasure to talk to, beloved by the people, without an angry bone in his body. Well into his senior years, however, the King had been unable to count to ten with both paws up, had occasionally requested that he be brought eggs so he could attempt to hatch them, and eventually met his untimely death by leaping from the Tower of Heavenly Peace in an effort to fly south for the winter. A noble goal, to be sure, but for a tiger it was perhaps unwise.

"Shhhh!" Rumpy said, waving her paws frantically. "I can't hear what the King is saying! Oh, something about continuing a noble lineage now. I think you're up soon, Your Grace."

The housemaids were all crowded around the drapes, peeking through the folds while trying to avoid being spotted from below. Kimmi wished shi could peek as well, but given the shortness of hir neck and the rather dramatically-buttressed swell of hir bosom, shi would be nearly a foot short even getting hir nose against the curtains. "My father is down there?" shi asked, trying to sound merely interested but unable to keep the manic anxiety from hir voice.

"Your mother, too," Luria said carefully, squeezing the princess's enormous paw. "They've been waiting for so long."

"Yes, I'm sure they have," Kimmi said, a little more harshly than shi'd intended.

"Tonight-"

"Tonight," the huge huskytaur said, rolling right over the poodle's words, "there's going to be a lot of very, very surprised people down there."

"Shh!" The maids were all waving hir down now. "They're talking about your birth!"

Kimmi crab-walked in a short arc, forcing several girls out of hir way as surely as a ship's prow parted the waves. Hir flanks were stopped short by the huge round columns bordering the curtain, but shi found shi could lean sideways and at least get one ear up against the fabric.

"... a blessing. A blessing upon our family, and our kingdom, of that we were sure, but there were some things we knew that such a youngling simply could not be prepared for. Chief among those, we knew that our fair land was as unready for our child, as our child was unready for the land."

There was a heaved sigh, a sound very unbecoming of a King addressing his most senior and influential subjects. "You have all, no doubt, discussed the nature of the heir. I have heard mention of lameness... of feebleness... of deformity." A strange white noise rose, crested and receded, as of a wave breaking against an unseen sandbar. "Yes, yes, I know you have spoken of it. Please do not take me for fool enough not to know what passes between the lips of my... closest friends."

Kimmi chuckled. Hir heart hovered above a yawning chasm of emotion, and shi could not tell just what lay at the bottom, what feelings had eroded away the bedrock. Did shi love them? Hate them? Fear them? How would shi react? How would they react? How would everyone ELSE down there react? Shi had a brief mental image of tomatoes flying through the air, splattering against hir fancy dress, and shi stomped it down.

"We do not harbor any illusions that some of you may, perhaps, take more time to get used to this than others. Some may have more difficulty than others, and some... and I'm sure you'll know who you are... may never. It is our wish, though, our simple and humble and fond wish, that you will recognize the authority of the Crown, the power of the Throne and the blood of the King."

After those final words, Kimmi fancied shi could have heard a pin drop. It wasn't threatening, exactly, but it certainly wasn't pleading for open-mindedness in the conventional sense. Shi had spent an enormous amount of time these last few weeks reading the convoluted and barely-legible tomes that delineated the Rule of Blood, the ancient laws that laid the foundations for the sanctity of the Crown. Shi was, being of sound mind and sound body, indisputably the heir, despite hir appearance, but shi knew that hir appearance would be the crux of the matter. Shi sighed, silks creaking and groaning. Several maids inched away, just in case a stitch exploded.

Don't be swayed, shi thought, teeth clenched. They're calling for reason and acceptance? My mother and my father are demanding patience and loyalty, when they locked me in a giant cell in the tallest tower and never came to see me ONCE?

"Kimmi," Luria whispered, standing on her tippytoes. "Pssst."

The princess could feel the tugging on hir arm, and shi looked down to see the chief housemaid staring wide-eyed at hir, with several other girls looking very nervous.

"You're growling," she whispered.

Kimmi opened hir mouth to protest, but shi knew shi had been. Over the years, particularly since puberty had attacked hir body like the legions of Hell itself, shi had become very good at controlling hir thoughts, cutting off unfortunate avenues before they could lead anywhere truly unpleasant. Shi could go weeks, even months, without completing one single conscious musing about the nature of hir incarceration and the environment that had required it. Shi had hir books, shi had hir four huge, narrow windows, and shi had a bevy of good, true friends.

Shi didn't have a family, but there was no point being greedy.

"Ladies and gentlemen, lords and ladies, Your Holiness..."

Not only was hir arm being yanked on now, but shi could feel little hard shoes banging against hir shins. "Kimmi! Snap out of it," Luria hissed, wondering if she had to resort to pinching. "Listen to the King! It's your time!"

"Do you really think that?" shi said hollowly, eyes huge and despairing.

One final kick slammed against hir ankle and the great princess hopped in shock. Shi stared incredulously at the poodlegirl, and saw nothing but faith, friendship and forgiveness.

"It's your time," she said again, with lead-lined finality.

Kimmi kept staring, mind whirling, jaw working, wanting to rebuff the uppity maid for speaking to a royal in such a manner, wanting to pick her up and squeeze her and cuddle her, wanting to charge back up the stairs, lock hir door behind hir and stay in hir tower forever. Shi had planned out this night in such detail, taken such precautions, made such careful arrangements, and now it was all shi could do not to scream.

But solid, stable, sensible Luria won out, and for that Kimmi knew there was no way shi could ever properly repay her.

"Thank you," shi whimpered, squaring hir shoulders and carefully padding sideways to fully face the curtains, and the impending terror that lay beyond.

Down below, though still high above the gathered masses of the nation's elite, the King and Queen, clutching wetly at eachother's hands behind their robes, turned to face the grand and imposing balcony. "Our daughter," he intoned, heart shuddering to a stop even as his wife's seemed to be trying to escape, "Hir Grace, The Princess Kimmi."

The violet curtains swished and pressed outwards. With terrible slowness they parted, revealing the silk-wrapped and steel-boned prow of Kimmi's improbably abundant bosom. For a moment, that was all that could be seen, and a hundred pairs of eyes widened, reactions meandering between shock, awe, and stunned appreciation.

Another step and hir whole front appeared, clearly towering above the marble balustrade, the tips of hir ears brushing the apex of the arched portal. There were gasps from below, particularly from the males and more open-minded females, when they realized that the great and terrible cloistered heir to the throne was, in fact, jaw-droppingly attractive. Hir back was straight and strong, hir eyes huge and clear, and hir face perfectly sculpted and indisputably pretty (although it was only those towards the back of the hall that could see the entirely of hir face beyond the swell of hir breasts). In a moment fears were banished, rumors were disregarded and a smattering of applause started, quickly spreading.

And then Kimmi took another step, and another, and the curtains swung shut behind hir again, the full length of hir luxuriously-attired hindbody brought completely to bear. Hir tail swished nervously back and forth, but shi held hir head high. Shi looked down at the crowd, tilting hir body slightly in order to see more than half of them, and hir stomach lurched. Had the Hall been a bottomless pit, shi didn't think shi could have seen a less inviting sight.

The applause trickled to a numbed, nerveless halt. Incredulous but appealing gazes became tinged with horror. Someone, a noble lady from the looks of her svelte blood-red dress, dropped her champagne glass, a tiny crystalline explosion. No-one moved. A large man exhaled, unable to halt his gasp any longer. A quavering, ululating squeal pierced the silence, but petered out into nothingness when it became clear no-one else was joining in. Behind one of the serving tables, one of the attendees, Kimmi was unsure as to their gender, quietly threw up.

The eyes became hard, but none of them, not a one, could match theirs to Kimmi's diamond-cut glare. Shi stared down at them, the culmination of a decade's night terrors all brought together. Shi stood before them, above them, pinned by their dawning realization, and shi could have given up. Shi could have screamed and charged out. Shi really could have locked hirself back in hir room. There was every possibility that things might go on as before, with hir maids bring hir food, the King and Queen ruling and trying for another heir, and the nobles carrying on as before.

One hind leg wiggled and inched backwards, ready to run, but finding that it was companionless, settled down.

"Thank you, Your Highnesses. Father. Mother." Their faces were inscrutable, but shi supposed they'd had a lot more warning than the others. They've had even longer to prepare for this night than Kimmi had; the young dauphine hadn't properly learned hir royal rank or the reason for hir sequestration until shi had been six. "Good evening to you all."

Shi took a deep breath, and another woman screamed; she was quickly shushed. "I know," the Princess went on, "that this will not be easy for you. I know it's not going to be easy for me."

Understatement, shi thought. Shi had been politely requested to put some words together for the occasion, but to keep it short. This would be a very brief Premiere, and shi would be ushered quickly back to hir room in order to let the ruling classes digest the news.

Shi smirked. It seemed fitting that the freak's first official act as a debutante Princess would be royal disobedience.

"You're standing down there, looking up at me, and I know what you're thinking. I may have been locked in the tallest tower in the land with no-one but the sun and the moon and the wind and the rain for my friends, but I have read and I have learned. I know the histories. I know the Regent's Proclamation. I know the lineages and patronage of most in this room, perhaps better than some of you do. Going back five generations, how many of your ancestors were brigands? Cutthroats? Warlords?"

The King's muzzle pulled back to reveal two rows of immaculate pearly teeth, while the Queen's look of haughty reproach could have killed a housemaid at twenty paces.

"Bandits in the cellar, yes. Intermarriages. Alliances. Plots and treaties and treason. The histories are remarkably explicit." Kimmi smiled faintly, blood pounding in hir ears, feeling like a boulder tumbling down a mountain, unable to stop even if shi wanted to. No-one would dare stop me now, shi knew. I can go as long as I want. But I shouldn't need to. Oh, please, let this be swift...

"And the chronicles of each of your houses individually are even more spectacular. You all seem to revel in the ingloriousness of your forebears, lauding their capacious greed and unstoppable desire for power. I have a stack of tomes next to my bed, taller than myself, for when feel the need for a chill tale before bed."

Shi swept hir eyes back and forth, pleased to see them listening, really listening, to hir words. It was more than shi could have hoped for.

"But in spite of all that," shi said, voice softening slightly, unable to hold back the wave of emotions as shi would have been unable to hold back the march of a glacier, "you all stare up at me in horror, because I have the gall, the presumption, the impudence to flaunt my appearance. You all might have malicious ancestors, but none of them, not a one, has ever had four legs." Hir hindbody shifted around, drawing parallel to the balustrade, eliciting more gasps of repugnance.

"A taur. A taur, as heir to the throne. A taur as your sovereign. A taur as Queen."

Someone, perhaps the same person, was sick again. Heads were shaking back and forth; they could have been denying hir words, or merely denying hir existence. Shi didn't know and shi didn't care. Hir mother was gesturing wildly at someone shi couldn't see, but shi knew that very soon shi would be escorted from the balcony, and hir fate would be out of hir hands.

Kimmi didn't care. From behind hir, shi could hear through the drapes, three simple words that filled hir with strength. "You did it," Luria was chanting, scarcely a whisper, over and over like a mantra.

And to think, Kimmi thought with a hint of true amusement, they haven't even seen what's under my skirt!

Shi reached hir hands back slowly, feeling along the furrowed lines of hir dresses, ready to give the nobs a show they'd never forget, when the ceiling above hir fell in.

The roof of the Great Hall was a miracle of marble domework, scalloped and curved a hundred feet above the floor, with a strip of venerable stained glass running the full length of the room. Above the Princess, though, there was only timeworn mortar, colored by centuries of repainting, and carefully-cut blocks, many of which were thudding around hir hard enough to rattle hir teeth. One glanced hir hip and shi yowled, dancing sideways.

A cloud of choking dust rose around hir, obscuring hir vision but not muting the rumbling cacophony in the slightest. Shi coughed, wincing when a dark shape streaked past in the fog and shattered on the stone floor below. I hope that didn't hit anyone!

Shi gripped the balustrade and shuffled sideways, seeking the safety of the curtains and the antechamber, when a cold, hard and incredibly sharp-ridged hand closed around hir neck. "Not so fast, Princess," said a smooth voice, close to hir ear. "You and me, we're going to be... very close."

A strength shi was powerless to resist dragged hir forwards, hir forelegs skidding on the balcony stones. The cloud was dispersing now, while down below the nobles were scattering for the exits. At least they were until they saw something even more attention-getting than the Royal Premiere or the unveiling of a mindless, bestial heir to the throne.

They were bearing witness to a kidnapping.

Kimmi was by any metric a towering example of womanhood, but the winged figure that gripped hir neck was considerably taller. While Kimmi was sturdily-built, though, with a thick and luxuriant layer of fluff, the whipcord-lean, copper-hued draconian seemed almost gangly by comparison. One flex of those long, knobby fingers banished any thoughts he might be a weakling. He was wearing little beyond a heavy leather belt and a black loincloth, but hanging off of that belt was a small, clanking arsenal of bladed weapons.

The rawboned assailant straightened to his full height, puffed out his chest and spread his wings dramatically, drinking in the shocked screams from below. "I'm not one for big speeches," he said, gesturing grandly with his free hand and grinning like the Devil's own fool, "so I'll just say... thanks."

He crouched, his wings rising to such a voluminous expanse that they nearly brushed the edges of the hole he had created. Barely giving hir enough time to squeak he released Kimmi's neck, but that arm slid down hir back and hooked in painfully below hir bosom, drawing hir close.

Time seemed to slow, the air thickened, the entire world holding its breath. Kimmi wasn't sure if shi should try to fight and struggle, or hold on for dear life when it became apparent that the intruder intended to leave the way he arrived.

Those broad shoulders strained, the arm around hir body squeezed like a vise, and those leathery wings drove downwards hard enough to blow all of the settling dust back into the air. Hir stomach lurched as shi was dragged upwards, paws waving furiously and uselessly at nothing as they rocketed straight up through the hole.

It was a very short rocket ride, though. When his wings were clear of the collapsed section, the draconian pumped a few more times, gained another couple feet of altitude, and then veered sharply down and to the left. He landed hard, one wing crumpling against Kimmi's hindbody, and the princess yelped when shi thumped hard onto all four paws.

"Bloody hell," the draconian muttered, rubbing his shoulder, "how much do you weigh?!"

Kimmi kicked him sourly, inching away from the still-crumbling hole. "How dare you!"

The surreality of the scene had finally worn off, and there were shouts and screams from the Great Hall. Kimmi could just make out the sound of hir father, bellowing orders to the Captain of the Guard, and from what shi knew of the Captain, very little time would be wasted. "If you can't carry me, you're never going to escape!" shi hissed.

"I accept your challenge!" the coppery kidnapper proclaimed. In a flash Kimmi found hirself mounted, long reptilian legs straddling hir barrel, steel-tight arms gripping just below hir corsets again. "I apologize for the undignified position, but..."

"Wha-" shi started to say, but was cut off abruptly when he heaved with all of his might, sturdy wings beating at the air even as he kicked off. Their second powered flight was shorter than the first, but when his legs tightened around hir barrel shi knew that ascension wasn't the plan.

"Don't look down," he whispered into hir ear, his chest pressed against hir back.

The full visual impact of hir predicament drove any thoughts of struggling from hir mind. The peak of the Great Hall loomed over the bulk of the palace, only surpassed by a handful of towers and turrets, and the palace itself was situated on an ancient granite escarpment just to the north of the city proper. From hir four windows in the Tower, shi had pieced together a mental picture of what the world looked like, with a little help from sketches provided by the housemaids.

From here, though, with the entire world painted in hues of gold by the setting sun, shi realized just what a poor, paltry likeness shi had envisioned.

"Wow," shi breathed, forgetting for a moment that shi was still mid-peril.

Just a moment, though.

Shi looked down.

"Eep."

The pair were hurtling forward with breathtaking speed, the wind whipping at hir skirts, but it was also obvious that they were descending as well. The draconian was breathing hard against hir silvery hair, the effort of keeping them aloft and gliding quite apparent. The Tower Of Learned Words whizzed past on the right, and the Patron's Hall loomed on their left. Less and less of the city became visible as they arced downwards, the high palatial fortifications rising to meet them.

"You'll... you'll never... make it..." shi gasped, the wind yanking the words out of hir mouth, his grip making it difficult to breathe. "We're dropping... too fast..."

"I've never failed a mission yet," he grunted, tightening around hir still further. He beat his wings again and again, each flap like the beating of many small drums. Their path was considerably rougher now, jostling them up and down, but still the crenelated wall seemed to be insurmountable. "I'm not about to start now."

"Still... dropping..."

"Shut up, Your Grace!"

Moving along the top of the wall, closing from either side, Kimmi could just make out half a dozen armed guards. The wall was incredibly expansive, more than two miles long surrounding the palace compound, so each fortified tower contained its own garrison. Word had gotten out quickly, though, and Kimmi knew there'd be more very, very soon.

"I don't think you have enough-"

And that was when Princess Kimmi slammed bosom-first into the solid stone allure, steel boning and tough silk cords snapping under the strain. Hir breath was blasted out of hir and shi cried out in pain when hir body crumpled, piling up against the crenelations. Hir draconian abductor himself became a victim of simple physics, and was catapulted over hir body and sent tumbling beyond the edge of the wall.

Legs kicking feebly, shi woozily got to hir feet, assessing all of the aches and pains that hir body fought to bring to hir attention. Armor rattled as the palace guard closed in, and shi was holding up hir hands to reassure them that shi was okay when shi caught sight of the landscape below hir. Shi froze, gripping the crenelations, captivated by hir first real view of the city, or at the very least hir first view while not psychotically panicking.

"Gosh," shi breathed, seeing the city spreading out below hir and around hir. The palace walls dropped away nearly two hundred feet below hir, but whereas the palace had originally been constructed with a wide moat and wrought-iron skirting spikes, generations of relative peace and prosperity and the inevitable march of progress had slowly replaced the outer defenses with mansions and rich green parkland. Shi was close enough to see people, real actual people walking around. Shi waved, wondering if anyone could see hir, and if they could if they would know who shi was.

Beyond those stately manors there were wide boulevards, shops and markets, entire neighborhoods with their own identities. Shi fancied shi could see a school, a huge monastic brick building surrounded by strangely out-of-place playgrounds. There were swings, and slides, even a carousel. Shi blinked away a tear, imagining all the normal kits playing gaily in between learning their letters and numbers.

"Halt!" shouted one of the approaching guards, resplendent in his dress armor for the night's special occasion. "Stop in the name of the King!"

Kimmi was drinking in the sights of the lush late-summer fields beyond the low, colorful city walls, and didn't notice the palace guards approaching, and certainly didn't notice them stopping in a defensive posture a dozen paces to either side of hir. The stone walkway was just wide enough for hir to stand, or for two of the heavily-armed sentries to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

"It's so beautiful," shi breathed, enjoying the freedom hir heavily-damaged corsets allowed hir. "I can't believe you get to do this every day!"

"I said... halt..." one of the guards commanded, voice tinged with confusion. They approached from either direction, one hand on their sheathed swords, the other outstretched in what was perhaps supposed to be a reassuring manner. "That's it... that's a good girl..."

"What?" shi asked, cocking hir head, but even as shi said it, shi knew.

Oh, gods, shi thought, stomach dropping straight down to the mansions below, they don't know what I look like. They think I'm the intruder!

Shi heard a scrape and looked behind hir, seeing the guards approaching. One of them held his lance vertically, but shi knew that, should shi charge, it would be dropped before shi could possibly change directions. By the time shi faced forwards again, a lance was already in position there as well.

"Cap'n," grunted a heavyset guard, "why's it wearin' a dress?"

Kimmi snorted. "I'm not an it, I'm your Princess," shi said, trying to keep the rancor out of hir voice. Getting angry wouldn't help matters right now.

As one, the approaching soldiers stopped. More than a few exchanged confused glances. Kimmi heard whispers. The lances wavered, the ingrained fear of offending royalty warring with their desire to capture the intruder, and finding only a colossal beast somehow trapped atop the palace walls they were unsure what to think.

"I heard the princess was deformed!"

"Could that really be it? Er... her?"

"Lower your lance! It looks like it could trample!"

"Stand ground! Await the Captain!"

Kimmi sagged. What had shi expected, really? Shi was the Princess, and shi could certainly wait for the Captain to appear. He had been at the Premiere, he had seen hir grand unveiling, and he would attest to hir identity. Then shi would be escorted back to the Great Hall, guided up to the freshly-opened stairwell, and brought back to hir room. Due to the kidnapping attempt, though, there would be no doubt that the bars on hir room would probably be thickened, if the windows weren't blocked up entirely. There would be armed guards. The housemaids might be kept out forever, replaced by burly, no-nonsense, no-humor soldiers trained to protect the grotesque regent.

Shi growled, a primal noise that started somewhere below hir lungs and manifested more as raw, seething hatred painted on hir face than as anything the soldiers could consciously hear. The strangely-garbed beast took a step forwards, and an entire tower patrol took a corresponding step back. Several lances wavered uncertainly.

"Sir, I think it's mad."

"Clearly a 'her', look at those cans!"

"Soldier! You're sick."

Shi clenched hir sizeable fists, and it didn't take a trained fighter to realize that someone of that readily-apparent size, making a noise like sandstone avalanche, would not be stopped very easily. The heavy steel lances would lethally penetrate any of those present, but compared to the princess's sheer bulk, it hardly seemed like a threat.

"I... will not... go back..." Kimmi started to say, not really expecting any of them to listen to hir words. Undoubtedly they would assume any recognizable speech coming from hir to be a clever trick, or some sort of magical dweomer. Most of the maids had.

The guards were left speechless and quite alone, though, when a copper-colored streak flashed by, huge leathery wings pumping like great bellows, arms and legs akimbo, whisking the princess off into the sunset and leaving only a salty stream of decidedly un-ladylike profanities in their wake.

Chapter 3

- - - - -

The Murk

The sun had set hours before, black-streaked clouds drifting weightily from the West, from the vast cold oceans that these days so rarely brought ships and traders. Not that there were many in Estragonia who would trade with foreigners, particularly uninvited foreigners, but some of Kimmi's fondest memories had involved peering through a pair of stolen spectacles and watching the three-masted ships sail out of the harbor. No, these days all the watery horizon brought were storms.

"It's not going to rain," Bister was saying, occasionally looking back to check on the princess's progress.

"Yes," shi said for the twentieth time, "it is. I grew up around here. I know the skies. I know the skies better than anyone else that I've met. I've made so many bets with the housemaids as to what the weather is going to be like, it's a wonder they even bother to read their Almanac anymore. They could just ask me. Ow."

"Log."

"Yes, thank you so very much for that ample warning. Gave me all the time I needed to step over that. Are you sure you can see where we're going?"

The draconian's neck swiveled completely around, which made Kimmi glad for the inky blackness. "Yes," he said simply, "I can."

Kimmi rubbed hir arms, trying to ward off the damp chill of the pre-rain twilight. "Well, you'd better," shi murmured. "Because I sure as hell don't know where we are."

"According to your maps, which I sincerely hope are accurate, we are about halfway through the region labeled simply as 'The Murk', approaching a gorge in the mountains that should allow us to get through to Syndian in two days. Maybe three." Bister faced forwards again, tail wavering back and forth, bumping against hir forepaws and guiding hir in the pitch darkness.

"Three days is too long," shi said anxiously. "My father's land is flat and fair, the cavalry can cut us off in half that time. Less! They'd never go through the Murk, it's... ow... it's swampy and unpredictable."

"You seem to be managing," the kidnapper said with a little chuckle.

Kimmi's huge paws were matted with mud and moss and other, far less pleasant substances, things that shi had only read about. It had all seemed so... so strange, so worldly, so romantic. Tumbling through unknown realms, living by hir wits and hir wiles, not knowing where shi would eat or sleep. Hir books had made it all sound so glorious.

Had shi ever experienced discomfort before? Actual physical vexation? Other than those supplied by hir own body, shi doubted it. If shi was cold, shi simply threw more wood on the fire, piled on more blankets and cuddled up with someone, or several someones. If shi was hot, shi opened all the windows, doffed hir clothes and sprawled out however hir body entreated. Hunger, exhaustion, even cuts and bruises... these were things that happened to other people.

"I feel repulsive," shi muttered through clenched teeth, feeling icy muck squirting between hir toes and pattering hir underbelly. Hir dress had doubled in weight, soaking up the various boggy juices, and shi had to periodically stop to shed another silken pearl-encrusted layer. "I miss my bath so, so much right now."

Bister laughed. "I saw your bath, Your Grace. Marble and gold frippery the likes of which I've never seen, not in a long while. I don't get much call for royal abductions, but for what was described to me as liberating a prisoner of tragic circumstance, I have to say that was the nicest cell I ever did see."

"Still a cell," shi groused, sinking up to hir knee and nearly toppling. Hir underfur was matted, thick with goo. It would take ages to clean, even with hir brushes. Well, shi thought, no time like the present for more bad news. "You stole me from my Premiere. My mother, my father... all of Estragonia's nobles. You got me out of the palace, you got me out of the city, and you even got me off of that wall, before they could... well, before I could... before someone did... something."

"I rather think I was protecting them, more than you." He paused. "Your Grace."

"Stop calling me that. Look, you may have done all that, and you might even get us to the border before they manage to trap you, but I need to know: did you bring my gear?"

Bister hardly faltered. "Your Grace, airspeed velocity was already at a bit of a premium, you may recall..."

Shi threw back hir head and groaned, wishing shi could see well enough to kick him. "Dammit! I thought you were the greatest thief in the world! That's certainly the way you described yourself. At great length, I might add."

"Hey," Bister snapped, frustration finally creeping into his voice, "there were some considerable extenuating circumstances, chief of which being you lying about your bloody weight!"

"I lied about nothing! I don't have a scale, so I had to measure myself using volumetric water displacement! In my, er... bath tub."

"Yes, I recall. 'One hundred and eighty-four gallons'. What is a gallon? Might as well have measured yourself in bushels of stardust! You then followed up with 'approximately the same as a large horse', which should have tipped me off to NOT take this job."

"Not my fault you don't know what a gallon is..."

"And whose fault is it you don't know what a horse is?"

They bickered half-heartedly for a while longer, but then Bister had to pop up above the treeline to survey their progress and Kimmi was left alone with hir thoughts. Growing up, the stories regarding the Murk had always been of the evil spirits variety, although occasionally tales involving evil elves and evil spiders and other, invariably evil, things would pop up. Shi'd never believed them, not seriously; the thought that something so dreadfully inappropriate would survive in hir father's realm for that long was simply too much to swallow. The Murk just seemed like a lot of trees, a lot of mud, and a lot of unpleasant revelations.

Bister had gotten hir payment, at least, which he explained was the only reason he had actually carried out their plan, but it had been a shaky couple of weeks. Communication between the lofty princess and the outside world was slow, arduous and risky at best, using the housemaids as intermediaries to send messages beyond the Gate, and having to smuggle out a small fortune worth of gold just to put the messages in the hands of those who could then put them into OTHER hands, and so on and so forth. Hir room had originally been appointed with a sizeable trove of precious metals and gems, and all that now remained were hir bath fixtures.

Four years, it had taken. Four years just to get a response from beyond the Gate, from the lands that shi had been assured were full of nothing but savages, heathens, cannibals and mystics. Shi had received many other parcels and contraband in that time, mostly books and maps from their neighbor to the East, a large nation known as Syndian, and shi had started to piece together that perhaps, just perhaps, hir own people had maybe gotten a few facts mixed up.

And then came that fateful evening just two years before when shi had been sitting by the westward window of hir cell, slumped against the white stone sill, chin propped up on hir blossoming but already unwieldy bosom, staring up at the stars, and a heavy black crossbow bolt had embedded itself into the weather-worn oak shutters. A bolt with a little note tied around it...

Bister dropped back down through the treetops, scattering leaves and indignant crows in all directions. "You're quite impressive," he said dryly, landing in the muck with such force he had to sink his claws into a tree to get his legs out. "This may be the first time I've ever been chased out of a country that I had such little desire to ever return to."

Kimmi's fur ruffled with instinctive patriotic fury. "How dare you-" shi snapped, before realizing that shi, too, was fleeing, and for far more thought-out reasons.

Shi unclenched hir fists, smoothed hir dresses as much as shi could, and tried to act casual. "It's still not a very nice thing to say," shi said primly. "Are we at least making progress?"

"That depends on your point of view."

"Meaning?"

"We're certainly closer to the mountains than we were before," he said with maddening calm, "but if you want to measure it against the distance we have yet to travel, then I think I'll have to revise our timeline up to... a week?"

Kimmi hissed, lashing out at a nearby whimpering yew and nearly toppling it. "That's not good enough, Bister," shi seethed, hir royal bearing returning in spite of the gunk. "We had a deal, and you have been paid very, very handsomely."

"Extenuating circumstances," he said again. "Had I known that the dear dauphine Hir Royal Grace The Eminent Princess Kimmi was the size of a modest fishing trawler and weighed more than some of the mountains we have to cross, I perhaps would not have-"

His clipped words hung unsaid in the air, as did he. He flapped swiftly up to a branch some distance from the ground, narrowly avoiding either having his windpipe snatched by a furious huskytaur or having his body crushed by hir heaving, enraged decolletage. "You wretch!" shi spat. "I knew this was a terrible idea. You weren't my only choice, you know! I had a small army prepared to kidnap me!"

Bister howled with laughter, no longer caring to conceal his location from any who might be closing in on them. "Wallis's Battalion? Oh, yes, I heard. He contacted me to ask if this could be considered a serious proposition, for although the epistle was accompanied by a solid gold hairbrush the size of a skillet, he had a hard time believing anyone could get IN to Estragonia, let alone out again with the heir to the throne." He winked, adding "No matter how many gilded beauty aids were sent."

Hir face fell slightly. It had indeed been Wallis, reputed to be one of the most dangerous groups of soldiers-for-hire in the lands beyond the Gate. When no-one else could help, and if you could find them, it was said they were the team to hire. Finding that hir pleas had been taken with such... flippancy, came as quite a blow. "You agreed," shi said again, looking for an angle.

"Mobility, my dear, mobility. Always the hallmark of my people." His wings unfurled, straining out a solid thirty feet to either side, driving the point home. "I can get in and out where other, larger, more well-armed groups cannot. I've never failed a kidnapping before, except for that regrettable incident with the Oxblood Quintuplets, and given your kingdom's small size, I had assumed-"

"'Small'?" shi echoed. "We number more than eighty thousand! Our banded militia directs more than ten thousand fists, our Imperial Cavalry commands eight hundred lances, our... our..."

Bister was simply staring at hir, patiently, waiting for hir to finish. Shi faltered and stopped mid-nationalistic rant.

"As I was saying," he carried on, "given your kingdom's small size, in spite of it's wildly disproportionate military conscription, it should have been no problem to get you beyond your borders well ahead of your pursuers, particularly since A, your cavalry does not have a winged regiment, and B, your xenophobic culture seems to have eschewed most common magics."

Hir jaw dropped, resting against the upthrust swell of hir bosom. Shi should have fired back, shi should have been able to draw upon any of the dozens of loyalist volumes shi had read during the long, lonely nights in hir room, shi should have been able to summon the fierce patriotic pride that shi sometimes confusingly felt.

But shi couldn't. Shi thought that perhaps the outside world had seemed impossibly big, given all that shi had read, given the phenomenal number of other peoples and places and languages shi had encountered in hir smuggled tomes, but perhaps it really was just that hir own country was... well, small. And isolated. And, yes, perhaps a little bit militant. But such a protectionist mindset was a natural consequence of ensuring the purity of the land against those beyond the... the...

Shi looked down at hirself, although in the near-blackness shi saw nothing but two huge dark grey globes against a coalsack backdrop, but shi could look back and see the faint outline of hir hindbody. "Purity," shi whispered.

"What was that?" Bister said with what had to be an insensitive level of good humor. "What did Your Grace say?"

The copper draconian's shoulders sagged slightly when shi did not reply, but instead simply carried on heading straight east, passing beneath his brush and trundling deeper into the Murk. He was momentarily sorry he had said some of those things (one or two of them, at the very least), but it was a big, harsh world, and if the princess was intending to become a part of it, shi had better learned to thicken hir skin.

He glanced once at the felled yew tree, and flashed some fang in the night. Or perhaps the world would just have to learn to get out of hir way.

"Wait up," he called, bounding from low branch to low branch and taking the point position once again. "My eyes are better in the dark, Your Grace."

"Hmmph."

It did rain, though Kimmi did not try to collect on whatever wager shi had been prepared to make. At first it was a mere drizzle, hardly more than a particularly moist fog after it had trickled and drained through the upper canopy. The wind picked up briefly and seemed to herald the true arrival of the weather, rain pouring and sluicing through the leaves and reminding hir of the enormous shower-barrel shi sometimes used to wash hir hair.

Bister was cursing the Estragonian weather a short time later when the downpour redoubled its efforts and seemed determined to drown them, either with the water itself or the adhesive, bottomless mudpits that the Murk was becoming.

But the redoubt princess was not letting it stop hir. Shi wasn't prepared to let anything stop hir. When one paw sank up to hir knee, the other three slapped and clawed madly until shi was free, leaving behind hir a sagging, soggy divot large enough to house a modest stage coach. When the rain blew sideways with such stinging force that shi was compelled to walk with hir eyes shut, shi simply shoved hir obstacles out of the way. Luckily, the mud had weakened the roots' hold on the earth, or so shi told hirself. Bister was silently counting the number of apparently well-anchored old-growth trees that shi simply toppled, rather than walking around them.

When dawn finally came, many exhausting hours later, Kimmi felt a dull glee that the light was streaming not just through the thick interwoven foliage above, but through the thinning tree trunks in the distance. We're almost to the edge, shi thought incredulously, bone-deep exhaustion warring with hir fierce desire to put as much distance as possible between hirself and hir paren... hir pursuers.

Bister walked with a spring in his step that made Kimmi want to smack him upside the head. "Would you look at that, Your Grace," he said, hopping onto a huge, gnarled root. "I do believe that's good old Lady Sun poking her shining face above yonder mountain-"

"Stuff it."

He grinned, but was careful to be safely positioned behind a tree when he did. They had made, in his estimation of the Murk's frustrating topography and the princess's delicate sensibilities, remarkable time. Shi might have cursed a streak across the forest that would take years to heal, shi might have trampled a boar that had not gotten out of hir way fast enough, shi might currently be dragging enough muddied linens to keep every laundress employed for a year, but he had to hand hir one small honor: shi had not stopped.

"And beyond the edge of yon wood," he expounded, tagging along behind hir now that shi could see well enough for hirself, "there should be some pleasant glens, little-used at this time of year, and a frolicking creek called Yippish-"

"Whippet Creek," shi said, too tired to put any venom in hir voice.

"Indeed, which downstream leads to a nice little hamlet whose chief export is, I believe, flowers from the glens and water from the creek and plump, apple-cheeked little kids who-"

"Do you plan to take me on a scenic guided tour of my own kingdom?" The light slowly became less diffuse, colorless washes of contrast slowly bleeding with yellow and gold. Kimmi rolled hir neck and twisted hir torso, feeling the bones crackle and creak. Shi was hungry, perhaps more hungry than shi had ever been. Shi hadn't eaten since the Premiere, housemaids feeding hir from a dozen trays, and shi had worked off all those little morsels and more.

"No, Your Grace, simply trying to prove to you that I do know what I am doing and where I am going, in spite of all the little... roadblocks that have sprung up along the way."

"If this is another crack about my weight," shi warned.

His hands rose immediately, palms out. "Not at all, simply... miscommunications. We've done all right, Your Grace. We've done all right."

Shi shook hir entire body, unfamiliar sensations inviting and horrifying at every turn. "Stop calling me that," shi muttered, padding off towards the clearing.

When they came close, though, Kimmi slowed, ears twitching. Whippet Glen was indeed a small, pleasant little town, considered a vacation locale by many of the upper crust who possessed luxurious little villas overlooking the tumbling currents of the creek. Little by comparison, that is; the homes within the village proper were barely larger than coach houses to the standard villas.

Whatever lay ahead, though, was not a pleasant glen, or a babbling brook, or even a small town. Shi held up hir hand, motioning for Bister to halt, which only made his grin widen. Quite the little commandante, he chuckled inwardly. He could hear the sounds, too, and his most recent pre-dawn aerial reconnoiter had revealed something unexpected, but perhaps helpful, under the right circumstances.

"Relax, Your Gr... just, relax," he said, alighting next to hir and patting hir shoulder reassuringly. "That's part of the plan."

"What plan?" shi hissed. "The plan, up until twelve hours ago, had been for you to fly me beyond the borders! How many plans have you got?"

"As many as I need, and up ahead here is what's known in mercenary circles as Plan B."

Shi glanced at the distant commotion. "How many people are involved with this plan? That doesn't exactly sound like a couple of farmers checking their crops, or whatever it's called."

"You just stay in the treeline, little miss, and keep heading northeast." He pointed, just in case shi was unclear as to which direction freedom lay, although the map burning in hir head was as clear as any that had ever been made.

"But-"

Bister cut hir off. "I've gotten you this far, haven't I?"

Kimmi looked back the way they had came. "You got me about two miles, and I seem to have covered the rest myself."

"Details," the copper draconian said dismissively. "You've paid me handsomely, and I will get you safely beyond the boundaries of your Empire, provided you occasionally stop acting like a spoiled brat and do what I say."

"Of all the-" shi sputtered, covering the distance between them with remarkable speed for a grrl of hir size, but he was already up and into the trees, moving swiftly through the twisted and tangled branches of the Murk. Shi marveled that someone with such long limbs and expansive wings could move with such grace and silence through such crowded confines.

Shi glanced at hir body, lifting one sturdy foreleg and examining hir underbelly. I wonder if I can learn how to do that, shi thought sadly. Shi could hardly get up to a proper trot without hir prominent attributes throwing hir balance off completely, although so far hir only proper practice had been jogging laps around hir tower chamber, and the brief short sprints between the cranberry bogs and the southern edge of the Murk.

Shi took half a dozen steps parallel to the edge of the wood, enjoying the luxury of being able to dodge the gnarled roots and logs and puddles. Bister was... well, he was gone, which he did periodically, but he always did come back. The metallic clanking and banging noises were still echoing all around hir, overlaid with strange half-heard mutterings.

Kimmi shook hir head, putting the thoughts out of hir mind. Shi was close to escaping, shi knew it. They could make it to the mountains that day, if they could make good time overland while keeping away from the roads, and once they were in the passes it would be easy enough to... well, it would be easy, wouldn't it? Mountains weren't that bad. They were steep, but they looked like nothing more than blue triangles with snow at the top. Roads used to twist their way through in a dozen locations, back in the day, before Estragonia cut itself off from the outside world. You can't erase a road, not really.

Shi was still trying to convince hirself of that when shi realized shi'd drifted close to the edge of the trees, no more than a dozen paces from waist-high golden grasses waving in the pre-dawn breeze. Strands of conversation filtered through, and shi fancied shi could make out actual words. It seemed to be idle chatter, the sorts that shi'd heard from the housemaids a million times, but the pitch was different, the tone, the laughter; it was deeper, melodious and brassy at the same time.

Boys, shi thought. A smaller but very assertive voice chimed in with, men!

Kimmi had been essentially raised by the housemaids, scarcely out of hir swaddling cloths when hir nursery was moved to the tower. The first time shi recalled seeing an actual male was when shi was seven, when shi had managed to dart through the still-opening door, underneath one of the food trolleys and out into the corridor, a youthful stab at excitement. Shi didn't get far, barely half a dozen steps down the long semicircular stairwell, far enough to see the landing below and the two strapping young heavily-armed men in their dress leathers.

The conversation that followed, between hirself and the chief housemistress at the time, had focused largely upon the various ways that the soldiers differed from the housemaids, with several colorful euphemisms and casual misdirections thrown in. Kimmi had been satisfied, more or less, but shi had the feeling there was more to it than was being let on.

It wasn't until years later that the exact means of creating NEW nobles and housemaids was properly explained, and certain unique aspects of hir physiology started to make more sense.

The men shi was seeing now, though, weren't smart, well-groomed young military officers, handpicked to guard the Princess, a respectable and very safe, boring position. No, these men were burly, scruffy, shirtless and sweaty, working in long rows and, yes, they seemed to be arranged along long heavy chains, one ankle bound by a slightly lighter metal leash to the main links. It looked like a very inefficient method to ensure that each shift reported for duty at the same time, but then shi remembered some of hir smuggled adventure stories, and comprehension dawned.

One row swung sledgehammers, one row swung pickaxes, and one row seemed to be doing nothing but walking back and forth, carrying rocks from one side of the scraped-out gulch to the other. Large boulders were being cracked by special unchained teams with sledges and pitons, though they were still obviously not there willingly; everyone bare from the waist up was being eyed, casually but grimly, by trim, well-groomed young men in red tunics, carrying loaded and primed crossbows.

"Prisoners?" shi murmured, trying to hide hir bulk behind a huge oak tree. No-one was watching the forest, which shi supposed made sense. There was maybe a hundred feet of open grass between hir and the chain gangs, and then the slowly-disintegrating scree pile. Shi gasped, though, when shi realized just how far off-course they had ended up during the all-night trek; maybe a mile beyond, the rough and rocky terrain sloped decidedly upwards into a low mound of foothills that butted up against the much steeper crags of the mountains.

Forget nightfall, shi thought excitedly. I could make it there by lunch!

If it weren't for the fact that a large, highly organized and well-trained military force, one particularly adept at catching escaped prisoners, was less than a stone's throw away, hir nagging voice of reason pointed out.

Shut up, shi commanded it.

That gave hir pause, though. Where was Bister?

Shi decided to move deeper into the Murk. No sense risking capture at this point. No doubt this group had heard about the kidnapping, and no doubt the area around the Murk would be considered the mostly likely location for the pair. Shi would keep heading North, wait for Bister, and make a break for the foothills when it was prudent.

Shi decided all this, but hir body decided to ignore this. Kimmi leaned against the oak, capacious bosom gently enfolding a remarkable quantity of tree trunk, and rest hir chin atop one breast, staring intently at the workers. There were a dozen species there, far more than those shi was used to seeing. Most of hir maids were canine, feline or lapine, though there were a handful of gentle does as well, but this group... goodness, it was incredible!

The young princess licked hir lips, watching one powerfully-built brown bear crushing rocks with angry blows of his hammer. Hir ears twitched when shi saw a pair of chestnut horses, possibly brothers by the looks of them, rolling cracked and uneven boulders across the rough field. Hir tail wagged when shi spied a long, lean leonine figure, strikingly black, swing his pickaxe with unexpected grace. Hir toes flexed, digging at the dirt, taking in the sights of jackals and hyenas, bulls and burros, mammoths and moose... mooses... meese...? What was the plural of that?

Kimmi shook hir head. Ponderings for another day. Besides, there was only the one moose, and shi was having a hard time prying hir gaze from his shoulders. Muscles rippled and bulged with every swing of his hammers, one in each fist, and shi longed to just... rub those shoulders. Shi didn't know why. They were just shoulders. Were people supposed to rub shoulders? Maybe after a long day of working in the quarry, he'd need a backrub. Maybe they all needed backrubs. Maybe shi could help...

Stop it, shi hissed to hirself, one paw already raised to walk around the tree. What are you doing?!

Shi blushed and forced the strange and exciting thoughts from hir mind, though it wasn't easy. They left behind an empty void and a gnawing hunger, as well as a strange tingling that started somewhere just below hir tail and seemed to be spreading through hir entire body, particularly those areas the housemaids referred to as hir 'blessings'.

"Just one?" shi whispered.

No.

"Awww."

Shi remained rooted to the tree, which was a small victory, shi decided, although shi couldn't bring hirself to retreat any further. A lifetime locked in a tower with a seemingly endless parade of cute and cuddly and quite affectionate housemaids had certainly had it's enjoyable moments, but hir brain was firing off signals like a mad alchemist with the hiccups and it was a struggle just to keep from screaming.

One fluffy paw had moved of it's own accord to hir abundantly-endowed chest and was delicately massaging that soft flesh when shi saw yet another type of prisoner, one that utterly dashed any enjoyable and tingle-inducing thoughts. He was a spotted leopard of some sort, burly and bulky and towering over all the prisoners around him. Heavy chains bound him to a collection of metal carts and buggies, all full to overflowing with rocks and boulders of all shapes and sizes. Despite the load, though, he moved with ease, all four legs plodding in a steady, tireless rhythm.

The taur was muzzled, both arms shackled to his waist, and stared with a placid lack of concern, simply walking wherever his accompanying guard directed. There was no sparkle to his eyes, no intelligence, no personality. Shi saw in those blank orbs the same disconcerting lack of awareness shi saw from some of the feral squirrels and ferrets that the housemaids occasionally brought in. They weren't stupid creatures, far from it, but shi knew that they weren't, well, people.

Taurs weren't, shi had been told. A strange and rare intermediate step between animals and anthros, taurs were generally used as pack beasts, hard working and strong, but incapable of even rudimentary speech. Most were captured and subjugated, lest they go through a stage sometimes referred to as 'manic aggression' and cause untold damage to populated areas.

Kimmi beheld that ramrod-straight back, proud shoulders and unconcerned expression, and was overwhelmed with a bizarre mixture of compassion and revulsion.

That's what they think I am, shi quavered. Just an animal.

"Bister, where are you?" shi seethed, desperate to be far away from the land of hir birth. The answer to that question came in the form of a reverberating metallic 'twang-g-g-g' that set hir teeth on edge, and the sound of something very heavy falling over somewhere in the distance. Shi peered over the heads of the prisoners to where a small and obviously temporary shanty town had been erected. There were a handful of guard-towers built out of huge, sturdy treetrunks, a couple long buildings that even hir limited experience could identify as bunkhouses, and two big, barn-like structures.

One of the barns was shaking back and forth as though trapped in an extremely localized hurricane.

The response from the guards was immediate. "Chains, DOWN!" one of the guards yelled, identifying himself as the superior officer, though Kimmi wasn't sure why that fact seemed so important. There were some confused mutterings and glances at the barn, but quick enough the prisoners dropped to their bellies, hands and feet outstretched in what had to be an often-practiced maneuver.

Half a dozen guards trained their crossbows on the prostrate inmates, ready to shoot anyone that moved, while the rest, no more than ten, sprinted off towards the shelters. "Get the tranks! Tranks! Medic!" the officer was shouting, being very careful to run but not be anywhere near the front of the group.

The tortured building gave a final groaning sigh, leaned far to the side, and then seemed to simply disintegrate into it's component pieces, lumber and thatch roofing tumbling in all directions. The heap did not settle, however; emerging throughout the debris were five or six more taurs, shrugging timbers aside as though they were merely an inconvenience. These were far from docile, though. Even at this distance, Kimmi could see just how agitated they were. One of them, a horsetaur perhaps bigger than Kimmi hirself, threw back his head and bellowed long and loud, a wordless exultation of anger and, perhaps, freedom.

"Rrrrrrr," shi growled, deep in hir throat, in sympathy. Bister, shi thought, what did you do?

"I have created a distraction," he said from a nearby branch.

"AUGH!" Kimmi replied. "Don't do that!"

The angry taurs were milling around now, trampling their former stable and generally ignoring the guards rushing towards them. Other guards were nervously peeking out of the smaller buildings, having heard the commotion and not wanting to become a target of retribution. They might be little more than animals, shi thought, but even animals could remember a face.

"So what do we do now?" shi continued crossly. "Just keep heading north? We could have avoided them."

"Avoided, perhaps. That lacks a certain elegance, though. And besides, crossing the mountains on foot is considerably easier, I find, when you have an army."

Shi blinked. "What are you getting at-" shi started, but was cut off when Bister raised his arm, a purloined crossbow held casually in one hand, and fired almost without looking.

"GRK!" screamed one of the nearby guards at discovering that his shoulder had inexplicably sprouted a Carvin Black #3 crossbow quarrel.

In one of hir stories, Kimmi thought, the convicts would have immediately sprung into action. Fifty men chained versus five, with an unknown assailant firing from the trees, would have inspired riotous chaos. Shi fancied some rough, bloodthirsty wolf would choke a particularly mean guard with his chains, muttering something short and pithy into the dying man's ear.

The reality was significantly less exciting. Several heads popped up, looking around in confusion, while the vast majority kept their eyes on the gravel.

"Was that supposed to do something?" shi asked, retreating behind the treetrunk as several pairs of angry, suspicious eyes suddenly focused on the edge of the woods. "They know we're here now!"

"And they know we're armed with their weapons," he said nonchalantly, "and we're firing from a defensible position, and they know they will be unable to pursue us without leaving their charges behind and... ah, there we go."

The guards had ordered the prisoners to stand and were rounding them up, prodding them with the crossbows and herding them towards the huge pile of boulders at the far end of the quarry. They stepped over dozens of fallen tools, one guard groaning and leaning on another for support.

"That's two weapons down, four aimed at the prisoners, and... ah-hah, yes, and the taurs are currently preparing to do what they do best. No offense intended and present company excepted, of course, Your Grace."

"Shove it," Kimmi snarled, watching the scene unfold. It wasn't nearly as hectic as shi'd imagined an assault on a prison work gang to be. In fact, except for the growling of the taurs, it was almost... organized. "How does this help us?"

"It helps us because I've just bribed a prison medic with several years wages worth of gold to replace the tranquilizer darts with something a little more memorable." Bister's smug grin was nearly splitting his long, scaly head in half. "We should probably keep moving, though."

Kimmi stared at hir coppery liberator. "This is what you do for work?"

He just shrugged. "It's not called work if you do what you love," he chuckled. "Let's just say that me and 'the natural way of things' have never exactly seen eye to eye."

"The what?"

"Later."

The pair started to pick their way north just as the sun started to peek above the not-so-distant mountaintops. The sounds of marching and shouting followed them, but it didn't seem like anything truly terrible was happening. "I don't think whatever you did worked," shi said, moving quicker now that shi could see, although shi still had to hop and step carefully to avoid banging anything sensitive.

"Patience," he said with maddening calm. Kimmi just snorted.

Peeking back through the trees, it looked as though the chain gang had indeed taken refuge behind one of the larger rock piles, and shi could just make out a few armed sentries peering alertly around it. "Are they going to come after us?"

"Not enough manpower, Your Grace, but undoubtedly dispatches have been sent to the nearest regiment, which in this land is not very far at all."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" shi asked archly.

"I mean, Your Grace, that for such a peaceful nation, you have a remarkably large number of armed outposts scattered through your quaint and idyllic countryside." Bister hopped down to ground level, wings flapping behind him like a cape.

Kimmi was all-too aware, after the previous night's conversations, just how Bister and an apparently sizeable chunk of the outside world saw Estragonia. Shi wanted to reply with something scathing, but was distracted by the realization that shi hadn't gotten those strange, tingly sensations from seeing this particular male.

He was handsome, shi supposed. He was tall, slightly taller than hirself, and definitely well-muscled. He wasn't wearing much, though his wings did a good job of covering him when he wanted it. Shi eyed the line of his wings, the light but steel-strong bones that supported them, and the hugely-developed flight muscles of his back and shoulders. Why don't I want to rub THOSE shoulders? Is it just because he kidnapped me, or is it because he's a sanctimonious mercenary who steals little girls for money?

Shi debated the use of the word 'little' for a moment, glanced at him again, and shrugged. They were nice shoulders, but all shi wanted to do to him was slap him upside the head. Weren't opposites supposed to attract? Several housemaids had said that. They were about as opposite as could be!

Weren't they?

The prisoners had certainly ignited some flames in hir loins, that was for sure. Shi was now absolutely certain what loins referred to, ample evidence having been provided. Perhaps they were a different kind of opposite: lawbreakers and brigands and... and... and whatever else people did to get sent to prison to spend their days breaking rocks. Maybe that was where the heavy stone blocks had come from that had sealed off the antechamber back at the palace, shi thought. Maybe I've been keeping prisoners gainfully employed for decades.

Well, not employed...

"Should we be cutting towards the hills?" shi asked now that the prisoners, and the armed guards, were the better part of a mile behind them.

"Not just yet," Bister said distractedly, head cocked to one side.

Kimmi's ears perked. "What is it?"

"Just checking on the plan."

"You still expect me to believe you have a plan?"

"No, but convincing you will be easy."

"Oh, really? What-"

The roar that swept through the trees flattened hir ears to hir head, stiff hairs rising on the back of hir neck as ancient instincts were triggered. Shi could just make out some other commotion, crashing and yelling and scraping noises, but over and above all of that was that singular chord of fury.

"That should just about do it," Bister said, breaking hard to the right and heading for the open golden fields. "Please leg it, Your Grace."

Shi reached back, gripped the fine, sturdy lacework of hir girdles and yanked hard, retightening them as much as shi could given their advanced state of wear. Shi squeaked, feeling whalebone and fine sprung steel clenching hard around hir nethers, the sheer bulk nearly forcing hir thighs apart, but at least now when shi hopped things mostly stayed put. "Right behind you," shi muttered, vowing never again to wear undergarments when this was over!

Bister had to slow his run down to what was, for him, a light jog to allow hir to catch up, but shi was still making better time than ever before. Exhausted muscles reminded hir that they were not going to put up with this forever, and hir stomach grumbled loud enough that shi thought it might compete with the enraged taurs back at camp, but shi ran nonetheless.

After two or three minutes, with the foothills seemingly no closer, shi panted to hir companion, "How... far?"

"Seven or eight miles," he said easily.

"Da... whew... Damn."

Bister occasionally hopped up a dozen paces into the air and scanned the surroundings, landing with a satisfied grunt. "Are they.... following us?" shi asked.

"Of course."

"What?!"

"According to plan, Your Grace."

"Your plans seem to involve greeting failure... with a smile!"

He grinned, scaly bifurcated tongue lolling. "It beats the alternative," he said, "but so far this mission has been an unbridled success."

"How... do you figure... THAT?!"

"You are free and, as yet, unbridled."

Hir glare could have melted true copper, but it just seemed to make Bister glow with satisfaction. I'm going to do SOMETHING to those shoulders when we stop, shi vowed grimly. I just don't know what it is yet!

Shi managed to accelerate, working hir swaying underparts into a more efficient rhythm and managing to avoid pulling a muscle in hir back when hir bosom began to bounce alarmingly. Bister was thoroughly enjoying the sight. "I am thinking, Your Grace, that your first mission upon finding yourself on the other side of yon mountains will be to consult a seamstress. Or two." He eyed hir critically. "And maybe a blacksmith."

"Can't you do... anything other... than mock?"

"I can recite all one hundred and seventeen verses of The Lives And Loves Of Lorde de Flure, Gourmand Of The Flesh," he responded airily.

Kimmi blinked. "Really?"

"I think you would particularly enjoy verses fifty-two through fifty-nine," he added. "Might give you a few pointers."

Shi glowered at him, but didn't rise to the bait. He's just doing this to annoy you, shi thought. You're a princess! You can put up with more than this.

"Not a princess anymore," shi muttered.

Bister just shrugged. "You don't NEED to be a princess for those, he just calls hir that as a sort of affectionate compliment."

Shi took a swipe at him, but he was far too nimble, and shi nearly ended up toppling hirself as a result. "Just shut up... and let me run... I don't want them to catch me when I'm so close!"

"But they must catch us."

"Why?!"

Behind them, from the direction of the formerly-orderly prison camp, a cloud of dust was rising. Kimmi could hear footsteps, heavy thundering beats that were drawing closer, accompanied by whoops and hollers of excitement. Shi half-expected to feel a crossbow bolt strike hir, and merely the thought of that sort of pain spurred hir on to greater speeds. The last time I got hurt, it was because I stubbed my toe on the bath!

Their pursuers gained swiftly, none of them nearly as encumbered as the bountifully-appointed huskytaur, and shi realized that it was not the guards that were chasing them; it was the prisoners, most of which were mounted atop the half-dozen freed taurs. Shi counted maybe twenty convicts in all, less than half of those that had been present. Several thoughts jumbled together. Were the rest captured? Shot? Too slow? Didn't want to escape? Why WOULDN'T you want to escape? Well, maybe they were only sentenced to a month and they had two days to go...

_"_And a good morning to you, sir!" bellowed the bulky lion charging at the head of the pack. "Thank you for your assistance!"

Kimmi was about to open hir mouth, lack of breath or no, when Bister replied. "You're very welcome! Call it a meeting of fortunes," he called as the escapees drew closer. Hidden from their view, though, the coppery mercenary was squeezing hir wrist, hard. "Thank you for rising to the occasion!"

Kimmi kept glancing behind hir, trying to keep an eye on all of the former prisoners, though shi wasn't entirely sure why. Surely they were unlikely to try to harm hir in any way, and they likely didn't know shi was the dauphine, but it seemed a strange predicament nonetheless. Many of the riders were staring openly at hir, myriad expressions too difficult to read, but the two major themes seemed to be interest and amusement. The taurs were all staring at hir, more inscrutable than the anthros.

Bister squeezed again and shi shook him free, nearly sending him tumbling. There were some chuckles from the crowd as they matched speeds, Kimmi now finding hirself running between the huge equitaur and a much more lithely-figured leopardtaur. Behind hir were two more taurs, a fox and a wolf, and both were eying hir posterior with much more intensity than shi was comfortable with.

Shi opened hir mouth to introduce hirself, but once again Bister cut hir off, more sharply this time. "I plan to be in those mountains by nightfall and beyond them by morning. Can you all keep up?"

The lion laughed, his long but dirty mane shaking raggedly in the breeze. "As if the hounds of Hell were after us," he said grandly. "Though I don't suppose you're packing any food?"

Bister just gestured to his loincloth. "Capacious though it may be," he said with a wink. "My taur carries little but the clothes on its back."

Its?!

Hir retort became an indignant yelp, Bister squeezing hir hand in what appeared to be a comforting gesture, but one claw sank into hir palm deep enough to draw blood. The message was clear, but shi did NOT have to like it.

"Quite the animal," the lion said approvingly, loping easily alongside. "Circus?"

Bister laughed. "The outfit worked for quite a while. Folks thought shi was belonged to the King, got me pretty far but, alas, not far enough. Bloody grrl's too big to fly, otherwise I'd be halfway across the world right now, with a nice tidy payday in my pocket."

Kimmi thought shi was going to burst a blood vessel. Shi longed, ached, to reach out and smack him upside the head to hard his horns ended up on his chin, but shi had to hold back. Animals didn't understand words, after all. Shi felt rather than saw the others forming a wedge behind hir, as though shi were the nominal leader of the beasts.

The lion just nodded. "Good catch, that one. Picked a hell of a place to try and pilfer, though! This land is... not hospitable ground."

"Learned my lesson," Bister said fervently. "Next time, I fly south for the winter."

The two shared a laugh, obviously of a similar kind, and Kimmi found hirself wondering just what the lion had done to wind up in an Estragonian prison detail. From the way he spoke, strangely accented vowels, thickly-rolled gutturals, he had to be from beyond the borders. Another mercenary?

Pushing those thoughts aside, though, were the returning tingles and half-hidden suggestions of thoroughly enjoyable dalliances. Shi glanced back and saw at least four of the taurs staring directly at hir, either hir tail or hir rump or hir still-bound but still-enormous sac, and a couple of their riders had joined in, too. Shi found hirself thinking about how the anthros legs worked to keep themselves upright, squeezing the taur's flanks, leaning forwards and gripping handfuls of fur. One of the riders reminded hir of a roly-poly coongirl housemaid shi'd had growing up, wonderfully rounded and squeezable, although this male was a short, squat black bear that looked as though he'd try to bite hir paw as soon as shake it.

That just caused the tingling to become more potent, and shi had to clench hir jaw to ignore it. Gods, shi thought, is this how EVERYONE feels?!

Shi found new energy, though shi didn't know if it sprung from being surrounded by former convicts or admiring stares. Regardless, the sensation of exhaustion slowly seeped from hir muscles and shi found hir strange, lopsided trot considerably easier to maintain. There still seemed to be no pursuit from the law, though given their course it made sense; as a rule, troops were loathe to enter the uncontrolled passes. Unpredictable weather, treacherous terrain and rumors of bandits usually acted as a far better deterrent to outsiders than even the strongest army.

And that was where they were going. Great.

Over the next several minutes shi inched closer and closer to Bister, listening to snippets of conversation from all around hir, trying to pick up on the hierarchy of the inmates and any other valuable information. Their general opinions towards the taurs were very much like the housemaids had for their feral pets, which was a little upsetting and a little saddening, but it reassured hir that at least they weren't cruelly-treated. Some of the inmates seemed to take pride in how well the taurs behaving, as apparently some of them were in charge of mucking out the stables and bringing them their food.

Is that what I have to look forward to on the outside? A bag of oats and a roast chicken every night, and clean hay if I'm lucky?

When shi was close enough, shi leaned out with as much animal grace as shi could muster and bit the copper draconian's tail.

Laughter erupted all around them as Bister leapt straight up and slowly, slowly flapped back down. The lion in particular was slapping his thigh as he ran, looking at Kimmi with new appreciation. "Spirited beast!" he crowed, patting hir flanks. "Best watch out with that one!"

Bister grimaced, his injured extremity curled around his waist. He glared at the well-paying princess, and just nodded. "Indeed."

Kimmi just winked.

All around them the slope was gradually increasing, and soon when shi looked back shi could see not just the looming wall of the Murk but was in fact looking down upon it. The swampy forest spread out like a dark stain on the landscape, and shi could just make out the fractured scrape of the quarry, and a few threadlike roads vanishing into the distance, dust clearly rising from many of them. The reinforcements were arriving, but far too late.

The foothills were no longer ahead of them; they were all around them. Jagged swaybacked mountains rose so sharply before them that the sun seemed to have set once again. Another hour at this pace and they would be well and truly into the worst of it. And it wasn't even lunch yet.

"Freedom," shi muttered under hir breath, not knowing what to expect and fearing the worst.