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Prince Ettoras

Chapter 3

Ettoras sat on the crown of the waterfall, letting the cold foam rush around him as tightened his wings and concentrated on the water. He was a handsome young male, with the brilliant red fur of a fox and the sort of square jaw one might only see on a dog. His muzzle was also too large for a fox, and he always stood a head taller than the many foxes who lived on S'pru. He was considered a giant by most, and there were many who addressed him as Great Prince because he was literally _great._His tail was not the puff of a fox but the comb of a dog, and though his fur had the red sheen of his mother's, there were black spots along his belly and inner thighs. His paws, his feet, and the tip of his tail were black. And his eyes were of two different colors: one blue as the sky and one golden as the sun.

He was Prince Ettoras of S'pru, twenty years old, worshipped on high as a god, the winged heir of the known world, and yet he was barred from ever crossing the bridge of light. From the high vantage point of the waterfall, he could see the bridge reaching down to Aonre, a bar of gold, ever shimmering across the stars. Only foxes could cross the bridge of light to enter S'pru, as the atmosphere of S'pru was poison to the creatures the foxes called "dog lords." And though S'pru had existed for almost more than twenty years, foxes still came everyday to live in the light of a new goddess.

After having grown up on the fox-dominated world of S'pru, Ettoras found it hard to believe that foxes were subjugated and oppressed down on Aonre. But many foxes who had come from the other world assured him that it was true, even while those foxes who had grown up on S'pru laughed at the elders and called them mad. Ettoras didn't know anyone his age who believed the stories, but they nonetheless filled him with a curiosity he could not ignore. His mother refused to speak of his father or how he came to be, but some part of him knew that wherever his father was, he was probably down on Aonre and he was probably a dog. If Ettoras could prove that his father was a dog, he could finally understand himself and why he was so different from the foxes who worshipped him.

In the world of S'pru, foxes lived in sparkling white homes and crystal towers that rose to the azure sky. Bridges of light connected the towers, under which little rivers flowed to foaming seas. Golden fields of flowers stretched away to eternity under the pink sky, and sometimes the clouds passed so low, the foxes were able to ride on them.

Ettoras was the only one on S'pru with wings, large and overshadowing, a brilliant and beautiful gold. He and his mother lived in a floating crystal palace that rotated slowly in the sky. When Azrian desired to judge those who had done wrong, a stair of light would descend to the earth, and the foxes would ascend to stand before their goddess.

The foxes called Ettoras their prince, but they told him he was more than a prince: he was their god. They worshipped him with offerings of their finest crops. They danced in the moonlight in his name, and their song reached him through the water as he sat in the palace beside its many pools.

Many fathers offered Ettoras their virgin daughters, though his mother had forbidden him to actually take them. Azrian feared that a god coupling with a mortal would mean the mortal's death. Certain circumstances had to be met for a mortal to survive being taken by a god, and Azrian gently explained to Ettoras that none of the young foxes on S'pru met the criteria.

"Am I to always be alone then?" Ettoras asked his mother. He could hear the smile in his mother's voice when she answered from her throne, "There are other ways, my son, to know the warmth of a lover's arms. Are you willing to possess another to know that warmth?"

Ettoras didn't think he was willing to possess someone just to have sex, and he wasn't even sure he knew how. He didn't have magic and never had. But the foxes of S'pru fought tooth and nail to appease him, bowing to him in the hope that he would possess them as they lay with their wives.

Ettoras didn't understand why creatures more powerful than him were worshipping him as their god. All the foxes of S'pru had magic, but he had none. In the beginning, his mother believed magic was something that would develop, something he should not force. She told him that one day he would cast fire from his paws, he would summon the water with a glance. But he was twenty now, and while he could fly like a bird, he still couldn't cast enough fire to light a candle.

But his dreams were always strange, full of whispers and wonders. If he went near water, the whispers intensified. Sometimes he looked in the water, and he saw images there, and he knew he was casting magic, but he wasn't sure how. Afraid it would stop happening, he told no one about it. Not even his mother. Azrian didn't know where he was even now. She was busy holding an audience, and he had taken the opportunity to slip away and attempt his magic again. If he just stared at the water long enough . . . he might see something. He might see _her._Sometimes when he looked into the water, he saw a white vixen looking back at him with dark eyes brown as the richest soil. She was sad but beautiful, forlorn but singing, her voice echoing through the water to caress his lonely heart. And somehow, he knew she was on Aonre. If only she would cross the bridge of light. If only she would come to him, she would never be forlorn again.

Ettoras sat with crossed legs and peered hard into the water. His reflection peered back: a red dog-fox with a golden mane and large golden wings, wrapped in a spotless white robe that fell to his knees. He stared harder at the water, ignoring the bubbling frustration at the back of his mind. Nothing was happening. Why was nothing happening? It had always worked before! Eventually, he saw an image in the water and he brightened . . . only to slump when he realized the reflection was being cast by someone behind him.

"Kay!" Ettoras shouted irritably as a foot came down on his reflection. His reflection dissolved and water splashed him in the face. He looked through the wet tendrils that draped in his face at the pretty vixen who stood grinning over him.

Like Ettoras, Kayya was a young fox who had never known Aonre but had grown up on S'pru, unwilling to believe that a place like Aonre could really exist. She and the other young foxes viewed Ettoras not as their god but as their peer - a very _handsome_peer who many of them wanted to deflower. The girls often teased Ettoras by lifting their skirts and bending over to show the tight lips bulging between their thighs. Some of the boys had even grabbed his penis from behind and massaged it until he escaped in a flurry of feathers. They wanted to know what it was like to become one with a god, and because they had spent their entire lives playing with Ettoras and tickling him and chasing him, they were unafraid of the gentle giant and made their desires known.

Ettoras found himself closest to Kayya simply because she showed no real desire for him. Her name in the language of the foxes meant "playful one," and all she had ever wanted to do since they were small was play. According to fox tradition, they were well past the age when they should have married. And yet, Kayya clung defiantly to her adolescence, stubbornly refusing to release the freedom of irresponsibility that youth afford her. She had no children to care for, no husband to answer to, and she preferred it that way - and defiantly told her parents as much each time they reminded her of her duty as their eldest child.

For there were many males who wanted Kayya's paw. Ettoras thought it wasn't surprising: Kayya was very beautiful. She was small and curvy, and the more the years passed, the curvier she became. With full breasts and round hips, thick soft thighs, and a slender belly, she drew the eyes of males everywhere she went. Her fur was red, her paws and feet were white, as was the tip of her tail, and she wore her long white mane lose and flowing wild to the small of her back. Her white robes and gowns were always simple and never formfitting, but her scent was heavenly, and Ettoras had a good idea exactly what was under Kayya's dresses. Once when they were playing at the beach, she fell in the water and came up drenched, and her white gown clung translucent to her body. He had seen her nipples jutting through, the swell of her high breasts, the cleft of her sex, and he had gotten hard. Seeing his arousal, they both became flustered and embarrassed, and even though he shielded her with his wings and hid her from the other boys, she insisted on going home. So he flew her. And it was the most intense flight he'd ever had in his young life. By the time they arrived at her home, they were both embarrassed and very uncomfortable. She ran in the house without looking at him or even saying goodbye, and he could hear her mother lecturing her for having ruined her new dress. The next day, they met again as usual, but they never spoke a word of what had happened. And they hadn't ever since. It had been a year.

Kayya was dressed even now in a white gown, long and frothing at the hem like sea foam. Everyone in S'pru wore white and gold in some zealous attempt to please Azrian, who loved the style. Kayya's dress had only one strap across the left shoulder, to which a pink flower had been pinned. Her other shoulder was naked, and behind it, her long white mane tumbled on the breeze. She was still grinning, her coal-black eyes crinkling up as she stood with one paw on her round hip. There was a slit up her gown that revealed her shapely leg, and such a thing made Ettoras pause. Virgins were not allowed to wear such provocative dresses - not unless a husband had been chosen for them. Ettoras looked at Kayya and realized she was actually dressed up: her mane was partially gathered into a bun while the rest was hanging down. A flower was pressed behind her ear, and her fingers sparkled with rings, her ankles sparkled with anklets. It seemed Kayya's parents had finally made good on their threats of marrying her off. But if that was true, why was she smiling?

Ettoras got to his feet and pushed the wet tendrils from his eyes. Kayya seemed to shrink a little in his shadow. She had told him once before that his height had always consumed her. She looked away nervously when Ettoras tried to catch her eye.

"What's going on?" Ettoras wondered, wringing the water from his tail. "You look . . . different."

Kayya rubbed her arm. "Is . . . is it a bad different?"

"No, no - I meant . . ." Ettoras glanced over her curves and swallowed hard. "You look very nice."

Kayya laughed sadly. She cleared her throat awkwardly and bowed her head, the way foxes always bowed when they came to the palace. "You are twenty, Great Prince. The t-time has come."

Ettoras stared at her. She had never called him by a title a day in her life. And she was growing more nervous by the minute. She licked her lips and stammered anxiously, "I have been s-sent to . . ." Ettoras watched in disbelief as Kayya sank to her knees. She leaned forward until her head was bowed over his feet, and the shallow water rushed around her tightly pressed thighs as she whispered to it, "The time has come for you to accept your first offering."

Ettoras scowled. "What? No! Kay - get up!"

". . . I c-can't," she whispered shakily. "I'm s-supposed to . . ."

"Give yourself to me?!" Ettoras cried in disbelief. "No! Get up - I command it!"

"Great P-Prince . . ."

"Stop calling me that!" Ettoras shouted. He felt a pang of guilt when Kayya sniffed and began to cry. But he was not angry with her. He was angry with his mother. Without another word, he turned and swept away into the sky, leaving Kayya to kneel in the shallows as his feathers settled over her.

The floating crystal palace where Ettoras and his mother lived was not far. In fact, it was said to rest at the center of S'pru's sky, viewable from every vantage point, from every direction, though those who lived from very far away believed they were seeing a reflection and not the actual palace itself. The foxes called it the CrystalPalace, for it was made of a clear blue crystal found no where else in S'pru.

Before long, Ettoras arrived at the palace to find the golden stair had retracted. Good, he thought as he sped through the archway and landed deftly on the polished floor. That meant his mother's audiences were over. She would be free for him to yell at her.

The vast palace was empty, as it was always empty. Pools of water lined the floors, wrapped in the tight golden mosaics of little stones, and from the water, songs of praise echoed from S'pru. The halls were dazzling and the light always blinding, falling in dust-moted streams through the air. The light was coming from Azrian. Indeed, she was so bright that Ettoras had never seen his mother's face. For all he knew, the goddess of S'pru and the Second Light wasn't even a fox. She had always been a vague silhouette, a white outline, from which golden light shimmered like a diamond held aloft in the sun.

Ettoras couldn't remember Azrian kissing him or touching him and wondered if she was even able to. When he was a little child, he was raised by two foxes who were summoned to live with him in the floating palace and to care for him in the ways Azrian could not. One of the foxes had a home in one of the villages. She was forty years old, a vixen who had breastfed Ettoras when he was a cub. Her name was Nerayn, a beautiful black fox who had worshipped Maret whilst living on Aonre.

Ettoras' other caretaker was very old, a male fox who had passed on only the year before. He was Nerayn's father and had been very kind and wise, a priest of Maret during his time on Aonre. Ettoras remembered yelling in tears at Azrian, begging her to bring Ecna back. But Azrian lamented that it was not her place to disturb the balances of nature. Even the Second Light couldn't do that.

Azrian was still shining on her throne when Ettoras entered the room. The throne had always sat on a white dais, but Ettoras knew it had recently been lifted even higher: the more the years went by, the less mortals could withstand Azrian's presence. A shallow pool of water stood in the floor at the foot of her throne, and those supplicants who came to her had to stand in the water in order to address her without bleeding from their ears.

Ettoras found it baffling that he had to stand in the water as well. Everyone told him he was a god, and yet getting the least bit close to his mother seemed to endanger him like everyone else. As he stormed into the throne room, he was still careful to splash to an angry stop in the water before the throne. Azrian's white silhouette shifted with light, and he could feel her sadness and guilt in the silence that followed. Ettoras was so angry, he didn't think he could speak.

"My son," Azrian said apologetically, soothingly. "I know why you have come. Please . . . before you . . ."

"How could you?" Ettoras demanded. He glared at the blinding light that shifted on the throne. "Kayya is my best friend. One of my only real friends! And you let her parents give her to me as a sacrifice!"

"My son . . ."

"She could die if she had sex with me!" Ettoras exploded, chest heaving. His eyes flashed as he stood tensely in the water, his golden wings tight to his muscular back, his rippling belly tightening with every bellowed word. His eyes narrowed. "Isn't that what you always told me? Or was that a lie?"

There was a long pause, until at last, Azrian whispered in a voice broken with hurt, ". . . how could you think I would lie to you?"

Ettoras swallowed guiltily and tried to calm his thundering heart. He could feel her sadness curling up inside him and hated it. "I don't know," he admitted. "But that's the problem, Mother. I don't know anything. You keep everything from me. I'm not immortal like you, am I?" No answer. "Am I!" he shouted angrily.

"No," Azrian said at last. "I don't believe you are."

Ettoras sighed miserably. He slumped to his knees in the water and bowed his head, letting his golden mane tumble forward around him. "I knew it."

"But I thought you might be," Azrian said, her whisper echoing down from the throne to caress his flattened ears. "For the longest time."

Ettoras closed his eyes and allowed himself to bathe in the warmth of her light. Her light was tingling through his fur, stroking him, soothing him. It was the closest thing to being in her arms he would ever know. He relished in every warm caress, every stroke on his mane, every touch on his cheek. He could feel her love like a blanket wrapped tight around him, and he wondered if every worshipper felt her love this way or if these gentle caresses . . . were only for him.

"I had my suspicions from the moment you were born, and to be safe, I kept you at a distance. When I finally realized you were not immortal," Azrian continued gently, "I knew I could not condemn you to a life alone in this empty palace. I want you to know love and companionship, my son. I want you to have cubs and grow old with your mate. I want you to leave the CrystalPalace."

Ettoras lifted his head. "What?"

"Yes," Azrian repeated sadly. "Leave here and live a mortal life. The life you deserve. Kayya shall be your wife. Not your offering. I chose her because . . . I thought you loved her."

Ettoras smiled sadly and felt the guilt wash over him. He had come here yelling at her, hating her, and she had only done what she thought would make him happy. But he frowned as he realized what leaving the palace would mean. "But, Mother . . . I can't leave you here alone."

"I am a goddess, my son," Azrian answered, her sad and girlish laugh echoing across the surface of the water until it rippled around Ettoras. She always had to project her voice through the water. If he heard her voice directly from her mouth, it would shatter him to a thousand pieces.

"To be a goddess," Azrian whispered, "is to be alone."

"No," Ettoras insisted. "Where is my father? Why aren't you with him? Tell me that!"

"Ettoras . . ."

"Tell me the truth!" he begged. He heard the goddess sigh, and the sound sent his mane rippling back from his face. "He's on Aonre, isn't he?" he asked suspiciously. "What happened? Why are you apart from him? Maybe I could help!"

"Goodbye, my son," was Azrian's soft response. "I will be watching over you."

Ettoras opened his mouth to protest, but he blinked and found himself back at the waterfall.