{"sf1_id":2138334,"sf2_id":"RnoXEvD1","title":"The Bounty - Prologue","author":"TheGreatShackque","words":883,"posted_at":"2024-05-23T06:22:38.000Z","tags":["Action","Dark","Gay","Male/Male","NSFW","Romance","Series","Steampunk","Story","Story Progression","Story Series","Suggestive"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/2138334-the-bounty-prologue","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/RnoXEvD1","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/a7/f4/a7f479b4-1356-400e-87e1-5992def85a4e","description":"In a grim-lit country such as The Old Westmeister, where steam and gears slowly rust in the mist of a dying world, the once-life of man and machine starts to stop in a halt when the sun died and remained to stop shining. Morality is no more.   \n  \nIn this world, Wojtek Zuev, a Gizmovilian lynx captain of the Wolfhound pirate syndicate, remains to survive off of scraps and skins in order to survive and let his men thrive through this dastardly environment. But when he was given a contract by the Duke of Prestoria to avenge the royal's murdered son, things took a turn when he encountered a beautiful, kleptomaniac wolf by the name of Mortiz Vincent.   \n  \nWhere their love is a forbidden fruit that would be pruned off of the society they were born in, \"The Bounty\" unravels a Victorian industry in an alternate world, where the two star-crossed rivals encounter many difficult, life-threatening choices, followed by famine, repression, and an inevitable evil that haunts them in this adventure.","content":"_'I had the same dream again.'_\n\nThis was the first page of Mortiz Vincent \"Journal O'Conscience.\"\n\nHe was skeptical on picking up his quill and exalting his nightly dreams onto paper, but this specific dream kept on sustaining his sleep over and over again. As the lupine tried to escape the potential calamity by focusing on the soft rocking motion of the anchored boat, thoughts of guilt remained to softly stroke down against his spine; sending his back into a shivering chill in which he could not thaw off even in the hottest depths of hell.\n\nIn histories of witnessing deaths and executions in the main square of Prestoria, one certain fatality was enough to frame a nightmare for Vincent.\n\n_'It keeps coming back. Where I was there again. In the alleyroad between Fern and The Great Oakley, with rain pouring. Everything felt the same: Same pants. Same cape. Same hunger.'_\n\n_'Same feeling of despair. Of Life.. or of Death.. It came forth,'_\n\nThe lupine paused for a moment, experiencing a small, unsettling thump\u0026nbsp;which slightly rocked the boat in an abnormal pace. Reverberating into the empty, shallow cabin, Mortiz\u0026nbsp;was convinced that an uninvited guest had\u0026nbsp;set foot onto the Ol' Bessie. However, there weren't\u0026nbsp;any consecutive footsteps which had followed after. Gently setting his quill down onto the table, the lupine languidly approached the door which was exiting the Bessie's cabin, his hands reaching towards where his kukri knife was sheathed against his belt.\u0026nbsp;\n\nHe never desired to kill.\u0026nbsp;But in the Old Westmeister, murder was inevitable.\u0026nbsp;\n\nHis breath quickened, each step deliberately being quieter than the last one. From the round, translucent window attached to the door, there bestowed a dark silhouette- looming beyond the dimmed lanterns outside of the cabin.\u0026nbsp;  \n  \nWith his hands scratching against the surface of his sheathed knife, the lupine jerked his hand towards the door with a mighty swing.\u0026nbsp;\n\nThank God, it was nothing.\u0026nbsp;  \n  \nThere were no souls which lingered beyond the deck, except for\u0026nbsp;voices of men\u0026nbsp;chanting throughout the nights in a drunken disarray, their booming voices filling the empty night.\n\nSinking back into his seat with a relieved sigh, Vincent softly\u0026nbsp;dipped the tip of the quill onto the pen sack, continuing his exalt.\u0026nbsp;\n\nEven if he was content that there wasn't anyone to shank, the clarity of his mind\u0026nbsp;would inevitably\u0026nbsp;end as the lupine\u0026nbsp;delved into his journal once more; the\u0026nbsp;dark witchery of his own guilt etching into the thin paper. His palms were moist of his own sweat, unable to keep a stabilized control over\u0026nbsp;his writing.\u0026nbsp;\n\n_'And I see him in the corner.'_\n\n_'His eyes wept no tears: so lifeless, so tired, and so dead. It were eyes which\u0026nbsp;voided of life, that I was convinced it was gauged out of his skull with a blade. It was a dastardly sight to see.'\u0026nbsp;_\n\n_'His royal\u0026nbsp;blood poured forth, his crimson torrent splotching down onto the gaps of the cobblestone floor from\u0026nbsp;the\u0026nbsp;slit of his gaping\u0026nbsp;neck. It bled so much.. So much that it refused\u0026nbsp;dissolve into the rainwater on the floor. My shoes and my cloak still.. Splotched in the same hue. All was red.\u0026nbsp;Everything. Was. Red.'_\n\n_'His arm stretched towards me, leaving nothing but a finger which pointed towards me. It now knows what I did. It knows my intentions. Even if he could not grab me with his cold, ghastly paws, I began to feel my throat tightening\u0026nbsp;against its boney textures; claws keen enough to rip my fur like a scroll while his phantomness\u0026nbsp;dug into me.'_\n\n_'My knees crumbled onto the blood-stained ground.. And he drew closer.. And closer. The gaping\u0026nbsp;space between his eyes were made of fifty other eyes: each of them blinking on their own like\u0026nbsp;they were moving with sentience.'_\n\n_'As he drew closer.. At arms length.. His mouth opened, but he didn't seem to stop opening them. His lower jaws stretching, popping out of the socket where his face belonged.. The flesh of his face starting to stretch, almost ripping apart what was left of his cheeks. He wasn't a wolf anymore. It was a monster.'_\n\n_'And I heard its screech. Its voice ever so ghoulish, it was enough to make any ears bleed.'\u0026nbsp;_\n\n_'As its face lunges towards me for its final sustenance, I could hear it shriek.. Breathlessly..'_\n\n_' **YOU. SHALL. PERISH.'\u0026nbsp;** \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;_\n\nWhen Mortiz had placed a period after the word 'PERISH,' his ears met another unfamiliar sound. Two firm footsteps, planting itself on the wooden planks which echoed outside of the cabin.\u0026nbsp;\n\nThis time, footsteps followed the abrupt sound, which started to trail towards the cabin.\u0026nbsp;\n\nThe wolf\u0026nbsp;heard a sudden click.. Followed by\u0026nbsp;a small\u0026nbsp;_clink\u0026nbsp;_sound that reminded Vincent of a lock of a pistol.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\n\nVincent, out of shock, sprang up from his seat. His mere\u0026nbsp;diligence was enough to shake the table upon his reckless impact.\u0026nbsp;\n\nAs he slowly approached the door, it seemed like the silhouette that he previously saw started to grow towards the window of the cabin.\u0026nbsp;\n\nThe sounds of the\u0026nbsp;footsteps had\u0026nbsp;inched closer and closer to the room, just like Mortiz's hand towards his kukri's sheathe. His breathe, audible, was uncontrolled. His hands, tightened\u0026nbsp;against the handle of his blade, also uncontrolled.\u0026nbsp;\n\nAs Mortiz Vincent\u0026nbsp;focused on the potential disaster bestowed in front of him, he did not realize that the ink sac for his quill had spilled over, and bled over his journal.\u0026nbsp;\n\nPrologue End.","series":{"name":"The Bounty - Old Westmeister","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/2139488-the-bounty-chapter-1-the-proposal.json"}}