Abbernathy and Magick's End |Trilogy Now Complete!

(28) - Cat and Mouse -

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NO MATTER how many times he took on his Aelurian form, and prowled the palace's battlements, and wore the kingdom's crown–heavy, so heavy, it flattened him - and barked commands that the other Moonborns had no choice but to obey, he felt trapped.

Trapped in skin that wasn't his, between walls that sought to squeeze him until he burst, given a crown that would, at any moment, slip over his eyes and slide down his muzzle and sink its metallic teeth into his neck, emptying him of everything.

Lucy was an imprint of himself when he paraded around as King Lucian Dinn' Aelurus, goddess-blessed, heir apparent to the Crescent Moon, his original left somewhere back in Exul.

His tail slapped the ground, his fur damp and stuck in clumps despite several attempts to tame it with a comb. Much to his lament, it would not cooperate, adding to a growing list of things that refused to obey him. The Moonborns sought to further strain relations between the Cloudians and Aelurus by delaying food distribution. The hungry Cloudians made angry, open threats - that if Lucy didn't deliver on his promises, the Cloude would be forced to expand beyond the sands, easily toppling the fragile peace established between the two races.

And all this, he had to contend with, while propaganda flooded the streets of Darkmoore, the common folk up in arms over the realm's latest residents. They were starting to believe the Cloudians and Shadlings 'invaders' here to take what was rightfully theirs.

Not a night passed where Lucy didn't go to bed exhausted. All he wanted was peace and a glass of wine, and Aelurus refused him both.

He tsked, scraping his claws over the railing. Beneath him, Darkmoore slumbered, snuggled in the twisted arms of the Great Tree.

"Your highness."

He draped himself over the railing, his muscles having given up on holding him straight. "You don't happen to have a bottle of wine hidden beneath your tunic, do you?" he sighed. "Or perhaps some magicked so as to be discreetly concealed in one's pocket?" Fur scrunched over his eyes as he shot Margo a hopeful, mostly desperate glance over his shoulder.

A smile stretched across her face, though she shook her head. If he could have sunken further, without fully tipping over the railing and plunging to his death, he would have.

"No wine." She sidled up to him. "Wouldn't want to invite the wrath of the royal advisor down upon me."

"Ah, yes." Lucy inhaled, the cold air stinging his chest. Thank the gods for his fur, or he'd be a pile of shivering, prickled, red, albeit still incredibly handsome, flesh. But the cold, he'd been told, was good as it signaled magick's full recovery.

"Reven's little declaration. What a villain, taking away my wine." He turned over, flopping against the railing, his ears slightly drooped. "He gives one decree, and they all fall over themselves trying to carry it out. I'm supposed to be king. I wear the crown; I sit in that uncomfortable menace of a chair."

"But it is for, his majesty," she started, her shoulders held back, chin aimed at the moon. She clasped her hands at the small of her back, perfecting Reven's dignified, haughty posture. Even her whiskers held themselves with Reven-levels of smugness. "To better help him work."

Lucy sighed again. "You even have his voice down."

She shrugged. "Lots of time to practice."

Lucy's gaze drifted off Margo and across Darkmoore. Somewhere out there, there must be a tavern beyond Reven's control, or some common folk with a cellar stocked full of sweet red eager to sell it all to a hooded, mystery figure.