Dream I (Part I)
Written: 9/5/13 9:23 am
Warning: Careful Mention of sexual abuse to minor, Kidnapping of sorts, Murder, Underage relationship (by modern day line of thought), Medieval Standards

The god Nemo had a kingdom right by the sea where he would rule over the domain of the land and the ocean, and it was well known as a land of richness and plenty, both in trade and in advancements and the arts. When he announced the arrival of a daughter, he insisted that she reap the benefits of the kingdom, and be advanced with all knowledge that could be provided.

Many came and offered to tutor the young princess, but they failed in their tests, or left from some far-away land never to return. When her favorite tutor, Finitevus, left without a word, Nemo impulsively decided that she would have no more teachings. The princess cried and kicked her door for days.

Four long years passed before Finitevus returned, which was something no other scholar or researcher had done before. He met the young princess, now almost 9 years old, and though he had a sword at his hip and a shield strapped to his back, and the dusts of his travels settled on his fur, she jumped down from the tree she was climbing and demanded a story of him.

"What sort of story?"

"Something about your adventures!" She had never seen the world outside the castle walls, and this led to a greater curiosity of it than anything else. He unpacked the shield and the bag and showed her what he had brought along from his adventures, from wandering through the lands to the east where the grains they cooked were white and sticky, from his journey to the cold lands, where the fish did not have rainbow scales, and the water froze so thickly you could walk on it and make houses out of it, from his journeys on the seas, an entirely different ocean so peaceful and then so threatening, and how he made it to the country out to the bottom of the world, and climbed a silken rope up to the sky palace, where their king challenged him to three tests before welcoming him to their home.

The princess soaked it all in rapturously, legs spread in the tall grass, and Finitevus teased her that she had still not taken to panties like he'd asked her to.

"Yes, I have a story for you," he murmured, as she remarked of her father. "A story of a kingdom near our own, like our own, with a king like yours, and a princess about your age. He brought her knights to protect her, knights from his own council, nobles from his high table, only the best from the lands, and he charged them that not one hair on her head would be harmed.

"But he was a jealous and wicked king, and because the queen was no more, because the labour was more than she could sustain, he saw his wife in the princess. And because he saw how beautiful his daughter was, he thought that everyone else would too. All those loyal knights and nobles.. he gave them tasks to draw water from the Well of Souls, or bring him the head of the snake-locked prince from the far seas, or to bring back the shield that matched his sword." This, he drew from its scabbard and laid out on his lap, gloriously gold-hued, with a pattern of stars and runes along its center.

"The king was soon bereft of his knights and his nobles, all dead or long gone in exile, but he considered it a fair trade to keep his daughter to himself. Whenever they were alone, he engaged in all manner of depravity with her, touching her about the skirts and.... that sort of thing." He coughed.

"Like putting his dinkle in her?" The princess asked innocently, trying to keep up.

Finitevus nodded gravely. "Our Lady Aurora did not approve of such things. Children are very special to her, and the loss of this one's childhood was a heavy blow to her constitution. She made the knights and the nobles aware of what sacrilege was afoot in those lands, and they left their tasks to come make things right. The king received them well and then left them dead, all drowned or hacked apart or poisoned. So when she called to me, she appealed to my craftiness, and urged me not to make the same mistakes. What do you think, Ocea?"

She fisted a bundle of her skirts in each fist, mouth set in a firm pout. "He should have his head cut off!"

He nodded once, and helped her to her feet. "Would you like to help me then? I think it's only fair for you to take part in this, since you have endured such..."

They sat on the granite steps of the king's bedroom, overlooking the sea, after it was over. Her pretty dress the colour of sea foam and shell and seaweed was spattered with blood, and her scholar's shield was streaked with it. "We need to leave now," Finitevus told her gently. "There is a ship waiting for us down in the harbor."

He showed her the little dresses he'd found for her in the lands he'd traveled to, and helped her with the complicated buttons on the prettiest scarlet silk from the lands east. The shield was secured on his back again, and sword carefully cleaned before they set out. She took his hand, or the first two fingers of it, and smiled at him trustingly.

Only once the ship had set out did he allow her to explore, which was altogether reasonable, as she'd never seen a boat before, outside of glimpses from her windows. But in the evenings, she came to him for the simple meal they shared, and for another story before he would tuck her into bed. She'd ask for stories about his adventures and the people he met in those four long years, and what kinds of things he'd seen, and if she might one day see them too. He tried his best to keep up with everything she asked about, but she was a quick study and deeply curious about the world around her.

"How did you get the shield?" She asked finally.

"It was originally a gift from your father to the prince of the sky kingdom. An emblem of... peace, or something like that. Made from the very same material as his sword here." He paused for a moment to consider how to construct the next sentences. "The prince was not to allow that shield out of his hands. It would be like breaking the trust. When I told him what was going on in your kingdom... it was freely given. He told me that he could not accept such a duplicitous gift when peace was so outwardly, and the turmoil was within. He could only accept it if it was returned with the king's blood on it."

"Oh." She thought for a moment. "Is that where we're headed?"

"It's the only kingdom far away enough where the population is dominantly Echidna. They will be looking for us, and a bespectacled scholar and a little girl would be fairly easy to find if we were, say, living with the Atuntu." He grinned again. "I think you'll like the prince. He's a little rough around the edges, but he would welcome you warmly."

Ocea sprawled out in her cot and considered this. "Do I hafta marry him?"

Finitevus sputtered. "What gives you that impression?"

"The story books say that princesses hafta marry princes." That seemed a sufficient source of information for the little dear.

"You don't have to marry anyone you don't want to," he assured her. "Alternatively, in their kingdom, royalty has married commoners, foreigners, elevated nobles, magicians... They're rather progressive on their stances there. There... there have been marriages between men, and between women, between former slave and master -- I believe there was particular controversy over the marriage of, oh, what was his name--- King Tobor and his long-time love Moritori, and that was only because his son refused to call the new mate 'father'.

"I believe the age of consent in their country is related to the first blood from passing an egg, or, erm, probably about fifteen for the males. That's younger than most countries allow, save for perhaps Navida, where they are matured at eight to ten years..." He frowned at how easily he got off-track. "Again, they're a fairly progressive country, and this is for your own protection as much as for your own interests. In our own kingdom, it would be considered more..."

Finitevus looked uncomfortable while she blinked and stared on happily. "Barbaric," was the final term. She didn't ask much more after that.

The princess and the scholar-warrior were well-received in the sky kingdom, carried up by two giant peacocks to meet with the prince personally, and he accepted the stained shield with words of respect for Ocea's great courage. They were invited to stay in his palace as honoured guests, and contribute their talents to the land. Finitevus gave his services as a tutor not only to the princess, but to the palace as a whole, leading the same standard of educations and research as had been promoted in the sea kingdom. As for the princess, she delighted in wearing various shades of red like the colour of her father's blood, like the scarlet silks she had been given, and running around barefoot in the dirt and the grass with the other children.

Five years passed in this manner while the sea kingdom descended into chaos. Finitevus did not have to play god-killer in this safe haven, and paid more attention to the burgeoning adolescence of his ward, whose quills grew long and lustrous, and yet who remained small and pre-pubescent while her peers filled out. The prince commented lightly on how good the sun and the air was for her, and how she had an affinity for wearing her skirts as high as she could to scamper through meadows and over hills. Any attempts her tutor made to convince her to be more ladylike were as easily shrugged away as the beams of sunlight.

~~~

She was thirteen, and she would be fourteen, and already Soosan, a friend, had a husband and a child in her stomach. Ocea was more in love than she'd ever been (since Duncan had played the touch-tag with her and had smiled at her), and this was a serious love that she was certain would never abate, so she went to her tutor and confessed herself with the expectation that they could marry and have children like Soosan. She was reminded, once again, that the law of the land required her blood to make anything legal, and that no feelings mattered unless this was the case.

It was only when she'd reached her room and pulled the dresser in front of the door to block all unwanted guests that she realised that it was not a complete rejection, and she reveled in the notion for a week.

But then she was fourteen, and soon would be fifteen, and she had not yet borne an egg, and she feared that she never would. She could not wait until fifteen with the remainder of her peers, and she would be the only girl from the castle who had not yet taken a mate. It would be more embarrassment than she could live with, and although she persisted in begging and pleading at Finitevus, he remained on that stubborn proclamation of first blood, even though she was sure he would tire of it, or her, by this point.

The healer who felt her stomach and measured her hips said that she was not bearing eggs, would probably not have eggs, and while she waited vainly for her body to prove that wrong, the date steadily moved forward to her fifteenth year. She could no longer wait for what might never happen, so she bought a vial of chicken blood and readied herself.

"I have had my first blood," she announced to Finitevus, skirts clutched up anxiously. "We can be together now?" He let her into his room gently and sat her on the bed while she drew her skirts up even higher in hopes of mating. The sticky slick of blood between her thighs was examined carefully, a long moment of tension, before he smiled in obvious relief.

"Yes. Let me clean you first." The washcloth was cool against her as he worked it out of her fur with the utmost of tenderness, dabbing up into the light pink zone that she was eternally relieved to have remembered to bloody as well. She spread her legs for him compliantly as the cloth stained redder and redder with the happy deception, and her whole being shuddered with anticipation.

"If you lie back, princess, I will attend to you." He undid each and every button from her dress, and then stood to pull off his jerkin and fetch the aloe made for his wounds. She laid watching him while he rubbed his hips into his hand, and dabbed the aloe on the protrusion. Ocea vaguely wondered if he'd hurt himself, as it was very pink, but then he swept his fingers inside her cloaca, readying her, and she could barely think for all the new sensations that overwhelmed her. An impulsive kiss to that very spot resulted in knees crushing into his head, and a flurry of apologies from both parties.

Only when he was certain that she was comfortable and responsive did he take to the bed as well, moving in so gently and carefully that the princess was dazed with love all over again, and was happily reassured that a little lying never hurt anything. Her scholar was so concerned for the events of her childhood that he took all cautions, and they mated beautifically.

But as their love and their desire swelled in their hearts, Finitevus was confronted with something unexpected, something none of Ocea's story books could have offered. "Ocea," he fidgeted, and withdrew. "You lied about the egg, did you not?" Her thighs quivered, and she begged him back between them, but all he would do was rub one affectionately.

"I love you," she repeated softly, as many times as was needed to make him understand.

"You cannot bear eggs." He paused, and smiled, incredulous. "Certainly not with that." The princess, indignant of any distractions or complications, reached to examine and assure, and found herself enjoying a new height of bliss with a warbled cry of confusion and pleasure in equal share. It really was not fair, she thought, trying to get her reasoning back. Princesses did not suddenly become princes. It just wasn't done. Especially not when she was going to have everything.

Finitevus cleaned her up indulgently and she shrugged her dress back on, looking put out. "We will need to see the prince," he laughed, brushing her mane out for such council.

"Why would he need to know? Does this often happen?? If so, I don't much like this kingdom!" Arms folded across her flat chest, she pouted at her would-be love while he tucked himself back in and tried to clothe himself for audience with royalty. It did not have the same effect it normally did, for he ignored her in favour of donning jewelry and quibbling about how dark or casual his clothing ought to be.

"I thought that our kind host should know of this development, since he took such an interest in your well-being." He fussed with how many bangles he should wear, and then offered some masculine set of clothing which she immediately dismissed. "And that I am now, myself, a liar for informing him that there was no other man in my life."

"Scoundrel!" She kicked him in the shins while he held the door open for her, and then resorted to silent treatment as they proceeded through the halls.

"It certainly makes all of this easier," he teased, more out of the knowledge finally setting in than anything. "Although we will need to wait that year for this kingdom's definition of your consenting age... I have taught you well if you thought you could lie to get what you wanted!!" He shook his head and muttered on about beautiful lies and treachery while they requested audience from the prince.

End Dream I