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KOOPALINGS: THE TEENAGE YEARS

by Eightane

CHAPTER XIII: BLOOD AND HONEY

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All appeared fuzzy, even the pair of orange shapes at the windowsill. Ludwig faced this alone; first waking up, the ceiling, the white walls of this clinical chamber weren't so warm or compelling. He strained to clear his vision; the male koopa entered and wasn't paid much mind. Ludwig knew the aqua-blue of a nurse's scrubs, but his stomach leapt to a degree, not out of pain but on the cusp of 'eureka'.

"It's a butterfly, isn't it?"

The nurse looked up from the cart he'd rolled in, first to the eldest prince, then to where he'd parsed his discovery. Level, professional tones ensued. "Indeed. A northern swallowtail, they're thick this year. I blame the wet spring."

"Ye-hnngh..." Ludwig bent up to rub his leg, the vessel of his agony.

The nurse sped uncannily over and caught his arm at the wrist. "Let's try to keep from that. I know it's a hard sell, but you can't help it by movement. Broken bones need a lack of that."

"R-really, I've heard that before." Ludwig chuckled, being a figurative soldier. "It's a knee-jerk thing, I von't repeat it."

"I believe you. Now, we have anaesthetic on the way, and I brought a cocktail at the King's request." Ludwig almost laughed louder. "We'll have you mended faster than that swallowtail can glide down and hit a flower." The man was calming, clearly experienced; maybe a bit fancy, but that couldn't start to bother Ludwig. Bedside manner meant a lot, since it's not like he'd been in this pinch before. He was handed the drink glass, its brew the hue and flavour of lime. The orange wings twinkled in his blurry peripheral, headed out and to a plant-based meal, true to the nurse's word. Ludwig felt lower to have missed watching it straight-on... A healthy swig made this a little less important.

The nurse made friendly. "Now I've tended businessmen before, and old women. A prince would be lower-maintenance. That's not a joke."

Ludwig almost made the faux-pas of snorting in the glass's contents. It had been a day of near-misses, alright. "So ze anaesthesia's brought in by ano'zer, eh? How long do you guess I'll wait?"

"Not more than five or ten, and that's conservative. It's all been expedited." He interpreted that Ludwig wanted that above all. "I'll roll this out, there's a button on your bed if you should need-"

"-No-... I mean, unless you've others to check on." Ludwig leaned half up, and kept this pose a moment. "Zere vas a criminal once, condemned, who said en-route to ze gallows... "Nothing vill happen until I get zere."

The nurse's mouth turned up, its pockmarked side where an vice like cigarettes, ugly for his line of work, fouled his private life. Openness became no formality. "But that man didn't live to tell, right? So it's a mouthy guard we have to thank for the quote?"

"Or if prisons keep parrots." They shared enjoyment; the nurse's gloved hand slapped his knee. Ludwig stared upwards now, his vision strong enough to read the brown field of a ceiling's water damage. He decided to be frank. "I doubt you can tell me zis, but who's in charge of your funding?"

The nurse led into another subject with haste; at this time he pulled up a stool from the near wall, sitting legs-close. "You're right, I'm not over finance. And forgive me if I gawk at your hair." He had, in fact, been doing some of that. "Every picture they print of you's got that. It's an honour, in person."

"You admire it, eh?" Ludwig's ego was a burner, and the mention was a match held to it. "Think of hairstylers, not genetics. At seven in ze morning it's a different animal."

The nurse grew more casual. "Like what's on the side of a highway?"

As they indulged chatter, another winged being flew by the windowsill. A bottlefly had come, as a child might think to see the commotion. These more mature heads just observed a pest, harnless enough but not rightly condusive to cleanliness. The nurse koopa stepped over, scaring it off before closing that breezeway. Ludwig noted his trousers weren't the most snug of garments waistline-wise. The nurse stepped back, bent down and hiked his nose, helping his eyes to watch the bug dart above this tenth-story medic's-branch. He spoke a share of criticism. "We work neither high nor low. It's good for access, but God bless our patients with vertigo."

"Doc... Or nurse, excuse zat..." Ludwig turned a smidge red, realizing he still mixed up the two periodically. "Does my wife know?"

"Oh, I'm certain." The career-man had a look the prince couldn't place. "I regret if she doesn't reach here before you're out. The distance from... Your loft, is it? And signing in here, clearing security... I sympathize with her the same as you. It's only timing, and temporary."

"... Terrific... But, natural..." Ludwig had nary a dense moment. His way to ignore this came next. "So, nurse... Is it like zey say, your peers enter ze field for ze love of it?" The man's brow wrinkled; he strove to clear up the open-endedness. "To help people. So much zat you can stomach what many can't."

The nurse's scalp relaxed, same as his single loose nod. "You refer to the gruesome side. Well I'm not a surgeon, I don't invade things. I would have nightmares, I won't lie about it. But I have seen... I can't name cases or patients, but there are days." The nurse had it out with his inner self; to be starstruck, with the Koopaling he idolized. His oaths crumbled in sway, but he knew how not to fully break them: vague swaths, oral brushstrokes. "On occassion I've left a patient in triage, they might be conscious, even speaking, and when I come back they're deceased." He saw the prince's fright; he resolved this. "Only the very old or ill. And that's the low point, much more often it's the antsy or uncooperative that test me. We take pledges. I'd rather have a patient lose their cool than their breath, or similar." His thumbs he twiddled. "You build walls some ways, and others you make sure to knock down. If I had to say there's one thing they don't put in the books at university, but they tell you often anyway-"

Luckily his point was fleshed-out; another bescrubbed male entered, with the gear for nitrous oxide, the sedative. "Looks like you'll be out of here in a jiffy. Get ready for the best microsurgery for that pesky splintering," he kept right on assuringly, "And for your dearest to be around. I think I do feel more compassion her way, she'll see how groggy you come out of it." He took a liberty, rapping his knuckles silk-soft on Ludwig's arm. The prince nodded, heard him reiterate where the call button was, while having a few silent questions of this nurse's 'team'. Again, no worries over that, since Morton was who he was. Vision went fuzzy again without the need for alertness. The anaesthesiologist prepped... Questions were asked of his weight, his medical history, allergies... He handled each one, more in-tune with the stain above, and then the window. A cloud puffed high over the far-off mountains... Cotton-white, it was a baby thunderhead. Someone would get rain. The man he'd just talked to might know, he would have to be in-tune with where his patients lived, their regions. A world of knowledge, responsibilities... Not as if Ludwig himself had none, or wouldn't one day have thousands more, but of a different breed. The mask went over his face, a dull plastic. He counted down from 100 as told. At 98, he thought of jogging around, visiting rooms in those such scrubs, trusted with health and life. At 95, his shrinking thoughts traced survival, toiling away to eat, to have subsistence. There was a link from working for need, one's own, to working for needs outside of him... Others, and what they can't do for themselves. This marked the thought that closed his mind, taken under, in the bosom of artificial sleep.

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"AGHHFuck-"

A more sober Roy would 'get' that he sprained his ankle; not even on the stairs, but in his janky shuffle. Simple pain - dulled by the fumes inhaled - had nothing to stop him. Neither did the soldiers, or maids, all the faces around him pallid from work. They couldn't do enough, quick enough. for all the tension of impending war to blow over. Roy unwittingly became the face of their troubles; a man whose impediments he self-created, strutting privelege by their noses, as aloof of this divide as of their discontent. Some took it worse than others, true, but none of them would preach his deserving it. Ladies in gingham carried trays of swill and gruel for their own kind. Boys as young as eight had backpacks of swords, pistols, some even bearing the brand of a certain mouse, outlines of a face fallen out of favour and existence. These would be delivered to the men, the platoons with the life expectancy of a snowflake... Maybe weeks, maybe minutes. Preteens had no right to be built like oxen from carting bringers of death... Black metal and chrome, whose rigid ways would outlast even their greatest, luckiest wielder. Weapons outlived their people... And the people would fall, each and every head, before the royals felt the pinch.

"Don't curse." An older man, with a pearl-white beard and more wrinkles than sense, stepped out from walls' worth of servants. Five feet from the addled prince but may as well be in his face. "My nephew's just over there, ladling out the soup. I'm raising him right, don't show him that language."

When Roy's head swiveled, it was coldly slow; all else of his body stayed put, though quakily. "Y-you lost yrr mind, geezer? Listen-"... He stood high and straight, turned to this senior who dared to critique. He repeated one word, in his state. "Listen, you don't even start. I know. I know what I am, and you're not." Little sense could be made of this, save for inside Roy's brain. It had been to say he had some matters of his own, what they didn't know he suffered through. They couldn't know, but nonetheless he couldn't tell them.

And the fogey came right out with why he didn't fear. "You see me, whelp? Count the lines on my cheeks. If I had smooth contours, I'd have more to make me mind my tongue." His voice brought out the rasp of many decades, the most of all the castle's incumbents. "When you reach my number, you'll have my eyes. And you will, even when you're the one who lives by the pipe. You won't care about riches, and I don't either-"

"SHADDUP!!" Roy's ankle did his mood no favours. "Keep it inside, you can do that too..." A few of their poor 'audience' had stopped to watch; a few of those turned a blink or a jutted jaw, getting some subtle meaning from the ramblings. Roy had to wind it up like a jerk, however. "It ain't like you got years left to stifle it..."

This tipped the old man over a precipice. He came out swinging, his wiry arm stiff and putting flaps of skin in the air, wobbling loose. Roy had the kind of integrity that ran his own mouth but wouldn't stoop to clocking the feeblest man around. He stepped back to dodge; in his condition, the legs failed him, and he tripped to the carpet, a *WHOMP* sound when the back met the burbur. The start of antsy laughs ended when the twenty-ish turtles responsible remembered themselves. He still heard, and could've gone off like a bomb, but for a younger female, one who scolded the scene, and not towards Roy's correction.

"Matthew..." She cupped her fingers over his arm; fair, smooth scales fit gentle atop his worn surface. "... We support you. But don't blame the baby if the bathwater scalds him."

His beard moved a bit, up with his thin, dry lips. Roy had leaned up to see the peasant wouldn't likely be any more trouble. But embarrassed, he couldn't let it all go. Ego was salvaged. "Damn right... Or darn right, man. That sound better to you and the kid?" The experience was sobering him... Still more heads flocked around, and most observed the woman, her diplomacy.

She drew a hand up the old koopa's shoulder. His sweetening, plus her will to do so at all, said she knew him. "We have work to do, and I'm sure he does. Some things stay secret and they have to. Let him go. We're in this together."

Her effect was profound, for so little said. He cooled, his bushy eyebrows drew up on their inner, tendriled flanks... But another young one, male and armoured, came up to involve himself. Roy stood while this other one crashed their moment. "Yes. We're in this, you and I. But where does a spoiled dick fit in?"

Her chin and eyes dipped down to the side. The old man's ire reheated, with a new target. "No language around my nephew, whippet! "

"The hell does it matter? Is he even here anymore? He prob'ly scampered off when Prince Crackhead here started strutting his peacock feathers!" This army man, in the greys of a front-lineman, had even less cause to worry for his mouth than one dying of age.

The old man didn't sympathize. "You're doing the same, and changing nothing!" The old man, truly at-odds with containing himself now, spat on the ground. "I want the best for my family. What do you want? "

"To live to have my own! " The soldier stepped up, nearly bumping chestplate on the decrepit koopa's ribcage. The lass tried to step in; another koopa pulled her back, sensing the worst. The armoured one had been insulted. "And who can do that when we drop dead for someone else!? I'm in the 103rd infantry-"

"That was MY division, sonny! " The elder knocked his own chest on the iron plate; he made known who the soldier tooled with, and what was to come of it. "You're going into it, I've come out! I fought, I lost my share of faith! " His eyes glazed, a moisture forming over cataracts. "You have guides today we didn't. You'll see the enemy, but you'll end them. Not their animals, their children..."

"Is Bowser to thank for that, you think!?" The soldier pressed into the old one; some started to step out and intervene, others held them back. Something urged them this way... Pushed them to keep it organic, and play this out. Some servant's eyes glowed with an energy; macabre, even thirsty for the fire to go higher. Soldier-koopa barked at the senior like a child. "Has he brought us utopia? Bastard king of fucking around, while we do without!?"

He would've been gut-checked by Roy, if the prince had heard... Hadn't reached in his jeans pocket, pulled out two long, thin pills. Double-dose pain meds, opiates. They went down his throat while the soldier jumped figuratively down Matthew's.

"Show. Me. The scars from YOUR battles. Put your money where your grimy mouth is, 'cuz I've already been there. I sneaked into a Toadstool camp, the jackass had his wife and child there, what kind of people do that?" The soldier was half on-topic; taxed by all the negatives in a tried soul. Roy jerked his head, voluntarily; he cleared it for the same kind of schauddenfreud as the cerfs around them. The man's tale went darker. "They live like beasts. And when the fungus-fuck woke up, and his woman did too, I put 'em down... Before she could scream, I had to keep from that!! "

The young female weeped. A woman with a few years on her held her, patted her back. Whispers arose in the crowd. Some were hurt, still others were horrible. Heartless. Roy felt the first of an easy high while the atmosphere went poisonous. The old man boiled behind tears. "I don't fight you on that! War isn't decent, but we fight for peace here! I've worn the shield, let me ask for decency for mine, and fight what matters!"

"YOU don't fight SHIT!! " The soldier did the unthinkable: hands like a minotaur's batted down the old man, hard as a shove could be. Screams came from all corners. Women slugged his shoulders, barely yanked back into the rabble. Matthew hit the ground; a dire wheeze, and fluttering eyes. He wasn't fine.

Roy stood in place; a man in pressed clothes parted the crowd, a man of medicine. He bent down, asked Matthew to breathe. Everything after was inaudible. The decibels went higher, voices everywhere panicking. Arguments budded off. Before anyone knew, another shouting match, and physical contact. Boys opposed boys, giving in to their low control and petty differences. Men bickered and went nose-to-nose. It spiraled into bedlam. The man tending Matthew went pale; the old man's lungs quit moving. Roy's psyche pieced out only snippets, half a phrase at intervals from any which way.

"Go kiss his damn feet then!-"

"Stay back! Oh GOD!!-- Give him air!-"

"What's the difference, he does what he wants!-"

"I'LL FUCKIN' KILL YOU!!!-"

"She can't deal! She lost her son-"

"Stop! Please, STOP!!-"

"We're expendable! All of us!-"

"Ghhhnrkk-m-myneck-hhgkk-"

"AHHHHHH!!!-"

Roy poured sweat down his face; their panic became his, in his stupor. He sidestepped a plain-clothes man who jabbed another gent's nose, drawing instant bloodspray. A kid ran behind his knees, testing his balance. He hollered, unheard among the riot; he'd gone claustrophobic. His shoes danced around those fighting, or pleading, or falling. Some on the floor coughed and sputtered; more than one inspired shrieks as they expired. Roy's vision went red; capillaries throbbed in his eyes, and a swamp rose through his collar. Violence entrapped him. Death showed itself, and only by grace of God or luck did he slip through and head for safety. No one stopped the melèe. Stone floors stained red, and wails of widows - and widowers - announced the first casualties.

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Wendy took a right; a sterilized koopa rolled a wheeled machine past. She hooked a left, and a PA threw up his hands, almost shoulder-checked by accident. Another left, and she was close. Third door on the right, Number 203. Her hand wrapped the door; its painted nails helped her pivot, like they pulled her in. Stooped over her brother was a comforting figure; in her most muted dress, Esmerelda spoke tidbits to her groom, as sweet as he was loud in dozing.

The princess strolled up, tapped her sis-in-law on the elbow. Esmerelda squealed, jumped and went close to falling backward.

"Oooh, sorry. I'm so sorry, I-... You alright?"

Esmerelda blinked, more towards the floor. A thimble's worth of spit she swallowed. Heart's rhythm calmed down. "-Fine. No need to apologize. I'm on pins and needles, you understand."

"I certainly do." Wendy pulled up a stool, the same one as a nurse they'd not met. Her first order of business, an arm around the queen-to-be. Their cheeks touched, their temples also. Strands of hair were moved asunder, nothing they could care about now. "You been here long?"

"Three minutes, and around one-half again. I've been counting." Wendy heard this and felt more concern. Esmerelda'd never hit this level of quiet acceptance... Defense mechanisms came in many forms. "He'll go in six more minutes from now. They tell me it's a foolproof procedure, all the strides we've made in technology... All the best for him. I'm unworthy."

"What about you?... And you're so not." Wendy swatted down both points in as many sentences. She squeezed tighter, and relented, but didn't move off the frame of her company. "He's been through the worst of it. From now it's a fluffy walk through Sky Land. And you're the better half of the best of the best-"

"Don't say that-" Esmerelda cracked, a minute shred away from loudly. They watched Ludwig stir beneath them; their hearts leapt. They would try and keep it together now.

Wendy dipped down; her hand wiped the tear that messed her sister-in-law's face. She refused to laugh when her hand came away with beige powder, and the fancy femme's cheek went a little discoloured. "I know. I know." A decade-younger Wendy would deny this compassion; time and need flattered her. On her jeans she subtly wiped off cosmetics. "Try for me, okay? He's brave, he's a little messed up, he's getting better. He's the perfect man, right?"

Esmerelda giggled; Wendy's ploy worked. She went a little further. "It's not the worst romp a married guy can have. Call me wrong there."

"I'll call you a witch." Ludwig's bride wouldn't swap that 'w' for 'b', but humour didn't suffer. Wendy hoped she wouldn't devolve into sorrow when this wound down; she wasn't wrong there either. A creature of elegance stooped higher, less 'defeated' by the chest of her mate. "He's sedated, and it's uncanny. At 3 in the morning I'd hear this exactly."

"He's a lumberjack, alright." The turn of phrase confused Esmerelda, 'til she remembered the idiom, 'sawing logs'. Her smile was meek, real, maybe prurient.

Ludwig shifted in bed again; his feet dragged a bit of the thin, scratchy sheet down towards them. Ludwig's bareness was exposed to the base of lean pecs. Wendy saw a little more smile on a reserved belle. The latter spoke, but not about this change. "If I asked you something, would you mind?... I'm saying it might be long-winded to answer... I assume."

"Sweetheart, never. Would I mind." Wendy spoke from truth and heart. "Strictly for you. Go right ahead, I'll be your chatterbox."

Esmerelda thought blessings upon her legal sister, and Wendy's ways to keep her leisure. So infectious, and Ludwig's wife talked without half the cares of when she'd first come. "What would you do? Not in my shoes, but, well, in his. And I don't say it like what's the wisest course. But if you... Since you know him like you do, what do you see him doing? When he wakes up, when all these happenings are further along... I wish I knew what he'll think. And if he does anything, I want inside the logic."

Wendy sighed... This much she should've predicted. Her hand closed over Esmerelda's. "Girl, I've never been psychic. Some things I won't know any better than you, and that's pretty much one." This truth didn't help; Wendy then appealed to a distraught friend. "Look at me. Now, listen. He gets a cast, he's not going off somewhere even if he was Van Damme or something, and heaven knows nyet on that. Life - your life - won't change that much."

Esmerelda's lip trembled. "You misinterpret me." She decided to rephrase. "It's more along the lines of... Where to turn up. When he's pushed into something, and I know how life will with that. I want to head it off, as a part of it."

"You are a part of it, you know he loves you. He'll tell you, and help you, he's good for that." Wendy hoped it didn't take being more synonical; she was fresh-squeezed out of ways to explain.

"Well, Wendy..." Her skin flushed with colour, her lashes stood out like curtains, over light in her eyes, mostly nervous. Some things may never feel 'right' to ask the born nobles. "... If your Morie went through hades, and he was to come out of it and make sense of a lot, in some circles, what if you could be strength?" Her arms tensed; she couldn't have said why. "I've known my share of men. They put all their trust in plans. He'll wake up, and this soon have notions and a direction. Give it a few hours more, a directive."

This was fortunate: Wendy seeing what may be the breeziest thought to squash. "And they jump right in whether we stop them or support them or distract them or let it ride. You can be that fantasy genie if you wanna, doing his wishes before he knows 'em. Living the Stepford-wife sheen, where it's all hunky-dory and he's a brick wall that stuff just folds to, 'cause he's got you. Just tell me here and now, how long could it hold out? Sweetie, you're a person. You have energy that's tapped. And when it's cashed out he'll still be strong as he was when you said your vows, able as much as on your wedding night." She chuckled; Esmerelda had more colour. "He knows you and he'd know if all the sudden you tried way too hard."

"I wouldn't burn out. I don't - I don't work the fields, and I could..." Esmerelda petered out. Frazzled to the core; and how could she rebuff Wendy's logic, if already threadbare and reaching. She nodded, face parallel with the floor a yard below. Spots hit its flecked tile; Wendy hugged her again as the tears had a brief return, noiseless and depressurizing. Ludwig stirred, but snored on; his mate soaked her tears into a napkin, bleached linen. She laughed through a groan; mascara joined the eye moisture uninvited. Staying bent down, she dabbed this and let Wendy know the pipe dreams were done. "He married me, not Wonder Woman."

"You are a wonder. He doesn't need it to melt in its own polish."

Esmerelda's teeth showed nicely her resignation. "Morton survived what bested him, this kin won't do badly."

"Heh, it's hardly the same..." Wendy finished her thought, one half-developed. She's been reminded. "I wish he was here. He should be here."

"-Oh Wendy, don't blame him. I - please pardon me." A sparrow flew by the window, unseen. "It's not mine to say. I feel for him, though."

"We do." A little of a latent temper met Wendy's lips. It contained itself. "... And I see it. He's precious. But he could be that and be here, so I don't go thinking." An intern had walked in, checking the window, the bed, bringing sheets; if Wendy'd wanted to say more, she wouldn't flippantly now, around this young, a-bit-strapping boy teen. Her hands rest between her knees.

Esmerelda sat much the same. "It can't be long. You can go elsewhere if you want, why waste away in the waiting room. I'll keep you abreast of everything."

A word among those - and the ladies standing up, hugging, kissing each's cheek, had the intern's attention. He wouldn't have talked otherwise. "They'll be in for him in a minute. They'll move you out, I heard you guessed that. Anything I can get you lovelies?"

Wendy, and Ludwig's bride, shook their heads and bright-shined hair. But Esmerelda's mouth made an 'O', preeminent to any sound, and her feet tipped her just a mite up and forward. From gathering parts of a question to letting it spill. "... Have you heard from Morton? Morton Koopa Junior, or the second, I forget his legal suffix-"

"I know which one, m'am." He smirked. "No, he's not contacted the office here. Does he know you're here, and Sir Ludwig too?"

"No, I just thought..." Esmerelda stomped one heel. "I don't know what I thought."

"Easy on yourself." Wendy reminded her, calm and yet firm.

A figure emerged in the hallway, at the open door. It stepped in, and a doctor filled its clothes. In white jacket, he said a quick "Morning, I"ll be with you shortly" and faced down the intern. He tried to be discreet, whispering in the lackey's ear, not bending mouth in by it. This agency was imperfect; Wendy caught on, and discreetly waited 'til the intern left for other rooms and duties.

Her impressions went to the doc. "Must've been about something outside, huh?"

He'd knelt by Ludwig's head, stethoscope to his lungs. It moved to the prince's heart, no sign of worries either time, but the man didn't take the question casually. "It's the business of my help and I. You're fine, as much as our trooper here."

"Is that... Condescention I heard?" Wendy's eyes looked just a bit like fire, hot as the ruby stick that shaded her lips. Hers was a fair, soft-edge rancor. "Bad move, Doogie."

He went still, looking up at her. It wasn't fear he wore. "M'am, Lady, I did say it's business. If you're to know, you will when it's in letter of our policy." This man might be among those with a grudge; the two females both had an inkling of what for.

Wendy's heel, patent-yellow, stood her in a pose like she could grind it through the floor. He'd get one last chance. "Do you like working? Licensed?"

He looked a second time, but now would expose some sweat at his collar. Two quick queries had said a mouthful. He stood, hung the stethoscope on his pocket, walked 'chill' to Wendy though fazed within. "It's news. But I'd been told not to say until Ludwig was in surgery. This order is from your brother."

"..."

"Iggy. Sir Iggy." The word seemed to challenge him, bitter coming out.

She cared a little more than none. Not enough for passivity. "So we wouldn't freak, yeah. He should know me better, and now you do." She held out a hand, fingers curling together toward her... The 'cough it up' expressive.

The doctor chewed some words, emasculated - in his view - and cornered. "There's a checkpoint on the highway towards the mountain pass, Bowser's installation. They made a call some time ago, they might have spotted Morton and Mario."

Esmerelda could pass out. Shock alone was to thank for her not flipping like Iggy hadn't wanted. Wendy, stone-stiff on her feet, fared the same. Then exploded, whisperlike. It was the quietest anyone could grab him by jacket and pull him. "That. Is not a secret. You're not in your country clubhouse. Every detail, NOW."

He would go on to say the time and exact coordinates. Curtly, he would opine that a renegade shouldn't last against their military. And would even start to praise the soldiers above the King, saying they work and give of themselves, before a princess's fist went upside his ear.

Wendy was outta there. Before the doctor stood up again, before he noticed the blood, before Esmerelda knew which way was which. He looked at the remaining female, accusations seen through his glares to her. She - with the singular act of slitting her eyes, cheeks gone puffy - told he should mind his work, and not a damn bit of where Wendy's shoes took her martial law.

Ludwig was wheeled in behind her. She went first into the surgery room. She thought of Wendy; God or Pope as her witness, no one would kick her out.

They checked the heir's pupils: Catatonic, how they needed him. Five in masks and gloves made the incisions.

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Skies were grey over the engine's rattle. Getting darker, and pistons fired faster, clocking at 130, passing that line. Wind whipped Tom's hair. He couldn't look straight-on, it blew bitingly; looking back was worse, though, courtesy of their navigator. Mario hunted a foe in its architect's form; the castle was in view, closer every minute. Mountains receded behind them. 'So long,' Tom thought of their first prerogative. It died, and Mario's plots lived, whatsoever they may be.

Morton tried some kidding, to deflect the chills and waves of sweat from just being *this* close. He even spun them for the short plumber's benefit. "Scenic tour, eh? If real taxis drove this well I might actually use one." His laugh was brash, fake, and not doing the job; Mario's bloodshot view didn't falter, nor his fists unfurl. Those hands were weapons... The white gloves might as well be gun cozies. One even had a stain, too particularly red. Morton's gulp wet a dry, dry throat.

Tom got in on the 'fun' from the driver's seat, no matter his tire-smoking. "You're in luck, man- eh, sir. I've never met the King, there's a waiting list so long-"

"I'm-a not your friend." Mario reminded them, so deadpan it could make a flower wilt. He reached up; Morton flinched, but the Italian had just gone to scratch his neck. Neither koopa wanted more to hear, but that they received. "When we arrive, he'll get me aloe. Or if your-a plants can soothe and don't-a poison me like your life."

So the vigilante had sunburn? Morton was impressed, an evil-playing-good done in by exposure. It had been days, then, since Mario's marooned himself here. Pity didn't enter his heart; he knew this blowhard, and if there'd been an icepick in the backseat it would be through his neck ten minutes ago. Tom's headlights went on; ahead of them were high clouds, a wall of whale-grey. Ten minutes wasn't long for this to come up in the atmosphere; derecho's often started just like this.

Even the spicy muse of doom had to comment. "Your sun is-a strong. Of course your storms are stronger."

Morton, in blocking out the fear, said a dense rebuttal. "Wicked every-which-way, eh?"

He bit his own lip, so hard that it chunked off skin. The flakes went down his tongue; the sickened prince swallowed it. Mario could choose to put his lights out; this was very on-the-table.

The plumber wasn't thrilled, certainly. "You like-a to think. Be quiet, son of misery."

This came across like taunts of a trained assassain. Morton heeded them. He almost yelped, when the car jumped; Tom had been unable to avoid a small branch blown over the road. Drivers were prolific on the opposite way; he couldn't swerve to manoever. He jerked the wheel straight, and Mario grew testy.

"You wreck this car, I give you the blackness. And I drive Morton and his-a dead chum to the keep." Honestly, Morton never heard it this bad from the enemy. Urine ran down near to his dick; he forced it back, to not piss his pants in terror. His heart he felt faster than the wind; the latter had cooled, just outside the edge. Visibility dropped in front of them; headlights were all on coming back their way. Mario saw this, and kicked the hell out of Tom's seat.

He explained himself. "I forgot, I'll move the top now!" He reached for the 'convert' button; thirty seconds would elapse before the cab was enclosed again. Ten seconds, and the rain already started. Morton's few hairs held onto the massive drops, swole fat from being blown high into the clouds and down. The wind would be a nightmare added to theirs.

Mario wiped rain from his 'stache... They were sealed in, and the wind quieted. He made sounds... Morton's ears picked up what wasn't threats, or broiling anything. In the sideview mirror, the capped one permeated them with melody. He sang... A low, lumbering tone, in his language, made to be as dour and cold as a folk-ditty wasn't written for. A war chant? A ballad, or just a tune to focus him? Not knowing, having to question, Morton's blood ran icy. Tom twisted the wheel; two branches lay across the yellow line. It bounced them, and knocked the prince's head on sideglass. He recoiled; Mario's 'music break' dabbed in a slow snicker. Morton swallowed his pride and protests.

He did have things else for Mario, diplomatically. "Yeah, this road's some long drivel, sing if you want. I won't judge-"

Tom swatted his leg, and rather hard I might add. Morton yelled in a whisper. "It's to break the ice. You wanna get us killed? "

"You can't punch through that ice. You'll get us killed. Get casual and stay there." Tom's hardline preaching had a way with Morton, and, well, anyone.

Mario didn't catch onto this, but if he had the difference might be nixed. His song ended; he had things to contribute. "Morton. Has it been fun?"

"E-eh?" It felt like a spider crawling up his lumbars, his processing the question.

"These years. The better-a part of fifteen." Now, his accent rolled over them like boulders. The bullshit he'd seen, barrels' worth of it. These items he'd now be open about. "God only knows what-a that skinflint Koopa does for-a you that he won't do for the men I have-a to saw through." The fact Mario meant that figuratively, evident to Morton, was a scare in itself. "I'm sent out to a thriving hell where even the sun's hotter. I-a maim, I murder just to get close. You get set up with wands or-a cars or-a the gimmick of the day, so when you win and I'm-a sent back, I have to retry. You make-a me kill more. Blood is on-a your hands..." Red capillaries, like roads, webbed his sleep-deprived glower. Morton's body temp felt half its norm, as the plumber capped his soapboxing. "... So excuse-a this wet blanket, myself."

Morton had arguments for all those. He knew war is horror. He knew what it meant to protect a nation and with it your own place. He, a man of bred and groomed standing, could wipe the floor with this appointed schlub. But the dumpy one's looks deceived. He knew when not to be contentious; didn't learn it from his father, but it now served him well. Silence fell over the car, save for the engine and wheel-to-road hum.

To their right, hillsides with red-roofed bungalows made up suburbs of the estate-city, a center whose highest point had the castle dug in. Sun shone far outside their rainstorm; the brown turrets and closer, larger homes were bright in this. From a mile closer - and over top of them - it came down in sheets. Bright white flashed over the bluffs leftward; a bolt's apex went above the tree line. Gusts enveloped them, swallowed the route in turbulence. They drove over a rattling; someone's license plate had come free from the other way. They were headed into worse... Three hearts beat faster. Tom's fingers tapped on the wheel, not surrendering grip but a far cry from durable. They came up on a gap to the left, a low 'pass' by a valley. What should appear but a sapling, uprooted, flung to the wet lanes by none other than wind. Morton pointed, Tom screamed, the wheel jerked. Mario's arms planted hands like roots on the door frame and seatback. He would not be taken out by surprise; upper lip and its moustache were stiff as their chrome rental.

It missed the front; sliding under them, it caught the back. Rear tires hopped without hydraulics. The slam back on the blacktop whipped the prince's neck; he held it in light pain, no more than infant-strength whiplash. Tom looked back, a short gesture on account of storm and traffic; he saw the tree roll in a ditch, leaves and debris by that waterway, and closer-in, a human threat who didn't budge an inch when they avoided catastrophe.

He had the instinct to say it anyway. "You alright?"

"Eyes on-a the road, you're not family." He spoke it flat, while a colour appeared by his nose. He'd recovered before Tom looked; the jump put his honker on Morton's seatback, it drew blood. The Koopaling still rubbed his neck when he looked back, terrified of what he'd see. And he was right to be; Mario's blue gaze went down, not a hair on his head moving, where the red trail went from nostril to 'stache. He held his fist to it, wiping clean. But the fist didn't lower, or smear on anything, clothes nor car. It went to his lips; behind this screen, the tongue came out, and he licked the wasted blood.

Morton had never fainted, but his white face threatened to. His hand put Tom's in a death grip across the console. "Get us out of here. Get us there fast. I don't wanna puke, he'll see it."

Mario had no comment, for this or for the taste of iron in his rich stain. It would be like licking metal, from this vibrant hardscrabble 'saint'. Air moved his moustache, a breath out, too slow for noise. All the moving his body didn't do now, his mind's train made up for, more swirling than the gusts around them. A tree stood in a clearing twenty yards out, until a white bolt struck and fried it. Fire in the rain, and shrieks from Morton. Tom swerved when the prince's arm jabbed his; Mario came so close to grabbing his head two-fisted and bending that neck the rest of the way. That he didn't sealed the coming fate: The thickest blinding bolt found its mark on a roadside poplar. It was felled over the lanes, ten feet from a race-speed roadster. Prospects of stopping in time were laughable. They couldn't hear the bumper twist, the engine block's sick crunch; not nearly enough time before the end of it.

Tom first knew his nose burned. Then his eyes. What he saw were grey mounds, formless, growing like clouds. The cabin filled with smoke. Like a snail, his bloody arm slipped over Morton's, alive but blank. Above his wheezing chest, the brain sat out cold, knocked unconscious. He heard nothing from behind, and felt the same. He couldn't worry for the notorious, that fatso he couldn't hope to see in this brown fog. He wrapped four fingers around Morton's wrist, and his teeth gritted. Ligaments were torn. He made himself grab, and with the other arm leaned over his love and picked him up. If he didn't, their death was then and there. It woke Morton - halfway, a good amount with a new concussion - to hear screams from Tom, who choked on his red puddle in one punctured lung. The man dragged him over armrests, gearshift, past all that split the right from left. Pain was like a full-body migraine, but now it went easier. He fell into shock, still operating, pulling them out the door that by luck was broke open on-impact. How it was crushed while they were spared, he might think back on another day. Now, he thought nothing. He toppled next to Morton, mouth down, barely up over the water on flooded grass. They were a pile of limbs; torrents fell on their sprawled backs, blood washed down off Tom's shirt but didn't stop it staining. Neither saw more than the blackness behind out-cold eyelids. They saw nothing when the right rear door opened, and Mario, overalls in shreds, limped out and found balance. The walk improved; despite soaked shoes, clothes in ribbons and his mentalities, the hobble fixed itself. Cuts and slices from the crash got softer, lighter. A glow started; around a red hat turning white, and blue denim turning crimson, the man who walked with fire in his gut and veins steamed like an iron off the drops hitting him.

Straight for the castle, sopping through a field. Lightning wouldn't touch him, burning instead the green weeds around the man who burned more under his footprints.

****************************************************************************

Wendy sprinted, squawling, out the front gate. She needed her car, and to forget what she pushed through to get here. The faces on the stone floors... Empty, lifeless, young and old... In peace AND war, just as damaging. She had to find Morton, save him, while he wasn't like the rioters. Peril wouldn't finish him. He would not be gone. She would force out the pictures inside her, of the old lady koopa... Her caved-in cheek, a body bereft of mind, of anything... Her companions for this ride out were the tears on her blouse collar.

****************************************************************************

He might actually pull it together. Lemmy might cease trembling, running slideshows inside him of the bullet fired. A little time eased the burden, and Triclyde's center head covered what this didn't. "And when you can't kill on principal, you will BE the victim. The first dead are those who hesitate-"

"The first dead..." He leaned up to Triclyde's left head, brazenly, on the way to kneel down and stoop on tiptoes next to a his butt-sitting bro. "... Are more a matter of fortune. And if you're picked off, you won't usually feel a thing, you never hear which one's got your name on it. If you're not, and so many aren't-" Lemmy watched him, drowsy-faced from the expended tears and calming; he looked wiser than his lesser years. "-You get on with it and show what you're made of."

Piquing the 'west' head and its brain had been wise in itself; this third of the general looked down warily but contained. "Not a bad platitude, prince. If you're naive, it's less-so."

Larry never looked more honest, body towards Lemmy but head towards 'Clyde. "I'd tell you the shit I've seen in my days, if we had time. What I've done out there. Where I've made waves."

"So I've read." It was maybe a jab, maybe just the truth. "Your waves might carry us through, so stick to them. And-" He leaned down, and the other heads, east and center, lolled more at their necks, not even half as impressed. The first one still didn't sound all that patient. "-You can start right now, you're up. Prove your worth."

Lemmy's eyes, drying, grew again as they caught on. Larry stood up, and only this kept his arm from being grabbed by Lemmy. The skater missed, and the *thud* from this got the others' attention, even the shaky, solo guard at his wall-borne place, who wiped sweat and stressed to hear what was said. He made nothing out; Larry himself, tens of times closer, barely picked up the faint appeal. "No. Larry, there's other ways, there have to be." His goal was clear.

Triclyde's east browline headbutted his. Larry said half of "What the fuck", and moved half a step to almost clock the snake for doing this, but un-ignorant of what would happen he stopped. The general had saw, and center-head flicked its tongue. "That's right, don't even dare. Because he's dead-wrong. If you can't fire, you can't fight."

Larry's anger placed itself into purpose... He looked once to Lemmy, calming him by this alone, but then to Triclyde with mettle. "I can do both. While I smoke a Camel, and sing, on the shitter."

Again, Triclyde's right head was pacified, and left was roused nicely. "That sounds like a 'try me', soldier. What a coincidence."

"You don't have to clue me in." He had reached down now, toward Lemmy's hand where the gun lay warm... Its holder clasped, and at first refused to part with it, body drawn in like a ball, shaking head towards Larry and begging with his eyes. The kind of look Larry gave him - cheeks rigid, stare soft - begged for trust. It was given, and Larry pulled the weapon gently from a man with trauma.

Now became the time for Larry to come up, tall and straight; face down the guard, imagine him as otherwise, 'project' something onto him. In his mind's eye, while he exhaled, a blue hood and pair of thick, ugly glasses did the trick. Nerves were on edge, but hands were steady. His arm came up like a plank, unbent. The grip-handle was hot, Lemmy's body temp lingered. Smoke had quit from the end of the barrel, but was soon to start again. Triclyde faced down Lemmy with left-and-right; center head paid attention to where the young prince pointed it. The distant guard shook like his ex-associate.

Triclyde had more to say with this one, quietly; more belief was placed on such a street-rat-noble. "Lock your elbow. Track a bit below the nose, if you're off by a hair it won't miss, it's still a kill-shot. Forget the recoil, anticipating'll screw you up. Steady..." The right head looked far too fine with this to Lemmy; colour hadn't come back to him, and the center head almost looked... Famished. Like something would soon fix that. Larry's chin dipped; one eye he closed, one arm he held like a barrier for weakness. It held the gun, it touched the trigger, and before Lemmy might butt-in twice, he squeezed.

The same noise, rattling all ears. Lemmy's face scrunched, blood sprayed this second plane of the wallpaper. Only now the skater's hands had to go on his ears, and Larry almost dropped the gun. The guard screamed; his hand held an ear too, the one no longer there but come-to-rest on the corner moulding, where a bullet shot it off. In agony, mutilated, very much alive. Triclyde didn't wait a second more to vocalize. "FUCK!! I CAN'T EVEN with that SHIT, you BLEW OFF HIS LOBE!!" The sir's middle-head blew globs of spit, going off like a true officer. "WHERE'D you learn SHIT you fuck-up, WHAT kinda shot was that BULL!!? "

Larry's nose wrinkled once. He drew another breath, in, then out. His arm went even straighter, but moving all along with the flailing koopa meters-off from them. Lemmy still held the noise out, as one shot, then two, then up to a fourth all discharged from Larry's iron. All four strayed nowhere, and juggled the guard's brow like a ball on a pivot. The legs couldn't fold before four holes blasted through skull. But fold they did, even cracking on the way down, sprained, never to heal or move.

Larry's wrist throbbed; it took the brunt of recoil in a two-second barrage. The gun came down, in dry fingers. Triclyde's center head looked ready to jump and pat a prince's back. Kills in the old west weren't portrayed as that hardline.

The mind was grey. Larry struggled to fence out everything; guilt was oncoming. Pulse would not come down from its thumping. To do this took a mountain of disconnect... Good for the kingdom, bad for what filled him, he could pull this off

Triclyde went off with his impressions. "Well, well. Consider that atonement, you have a chance like I didn't think. Bravo, soldier." This was what passed for excited respect, from such a stripe-bearer. The left head looked off; red was on so much of the guard's scales, down his nose, the cooling hide. The general's middle mouth encouraged, with limits. "Our top-brass has started off that strong, you remember that. But mark my words, it's what you can't lose. Onto the next one." His fangs all swung toward Lemmy, benign, expectant. "On your feet, boy. The second's never bad as the first, and that's ALL the coddling you'll get." His look went strict; praise for Larry was traded with the step at hand. He thumped the floor with his tail, twice; the door opened, and two elite troopas would goosestep around them. Heavy plating, no expressions. Harder hearts, and in their arms the sub-machine guns they'd brought in were handed off to Triclyde, one in his left lips by the weapon's midpoint, one in his right. Larry may've surprised him just before, but now was his talent, twenty polished pounds held by the teeth. Three whole seconds Lemmy forgot the gore. Larry knew to take on, and when the other 'holding' neck went low, presenting it to skater-prince, the quiver of Lemmy's relented to grab what he would have to.

It sure wasn't a sidearm. Lemmy held it out, horizontal; running fingers underneath it, feeling out what should've shocked him, while Triclyde briefed. "These don't function as lay-low-and-plan-it. And those guards are not pawns. They're moving targets. You will not get to set it up." Had he arms, they would surely be behind him, diligently. "Nothing else to say."

And Lemmy needed no more. From his sitting, knees up, he let the gun fall vertical, in one hand, his other pushing off the floor. He was purely stable, smooth in rising, voluntarily. There weren't other options. He would do what it took, but from his mind, the phrases just poured out his lips. "I can... It's not up in the air... No mercy..." The more he talked, the more he was talked into it. They, the new guards, went just as far out. But one could laugh at their actions; sprinting, ducking, holding up fake pistols, not even 'firing' their gloved fingers. Meant to illustrate the dodge-and-strafe realities outside, coming out more as a mimed two-man show about agents. Even Triclyde saw the levity, and certainly cared jack-shit for the bodies, cracking wise. "Yes, they're less like magic beasts or conjurers than dinner theatre, but we don't pay 'em for drama class. It gets across the point. Lemmy..." The east head tilted. "... Create it, and go."

Lemmy understood. He thought of Larry and how he'd done it. He thought of how his strength compared. Variables, left and right, and the patterns of those troopas, where they accidentally cycled. The mistakes there were the chances. He even knew Triclyde knew this... And with few words, he stood about to fire, to spray the two with what amounted to practice, with consequences...

... Larry put a hand up, toward his level gun. Two fingers touched the barrel's side, and stayed. Primarily support, but even now, divided. "Pressure's good, man. It shows you what you're made of. It's why you're gonna pull this off, and everything after. Wendy will live, and Iggy, and Dad, and Ludwig. His bride. The castle staff. Hell, the hawks that hunt on the back lawn." Lemmy didn't crack a smile. Larry slipped the fingers down off the barrel, tapping once. "Even Roy's dippy ass. He'll be a 'made man' like on the mob flicks, and you will've made him-"

"Time, flunkie!" Triclyde's center head coughed. "A.K.A. what there's little of! "

"I got it, general," The youngest came back, semi-respectful. "I know what works for me and mine." He spoke close to Lemmy, nose brushing the boarder's bangs. "Hear me. I'm your game, about to flood out of you. I'm your balls, swingin' fierce and ready to fuck shit up." Lemmy perked up; each second his lips were thinner, eyes more intense. Severity of focus jumped, as Larry hyped him; he stood on toes, leaning in, swaying once toward Lemmy, a prizefighter's weave. "So wear me proud, I'm your new lease on death and I'm bringin' that to the magic men!! "

A laugh, brave and caustic, spilled from Lemmy. Triclyde pulled his brother back, to start blessing him out for the floor show. He didn't get to, though, since Blazing lead spat from Lemmy's gun in short-order. Hard to make out the separate bullets' sound in their enclosed chamber; they were just that fast. And so was Lemmy, hitting the guards at the point they crossed sidewise. Mowing them down, in spite of armour, of motion, an amateur hand, nothing saved the steelclad sacrifices. They died like wretches; Lemmy's heart heaved, almost giving in to grief... But from a point inside somewhere, the notion of them looking older... Sinister... Being sorcerers rather than infantry... He had flipped his own interior switch. As this gun smoked - and steamed, hot as it made even vapor in air - the silver plates on two bodies were basted in the same rich red as their late-great predecessors. Lemmy's face had feelings which no man could read, even Larry, who crept up to Lemmy's side, pale from shock. He first wanted to squint, and see better the full 'canvas' of what looked like mercenary's work. Still pale, but grinning, he muttered to a brother. "Fuck, you're ready..." He turned back toward Triclyde, whose high, haughty stance had been proven as approval. The General said nothing, only heard his shining review. "He's there, snake. It doesn't come more real."

"Fine, if you can run a freight train when you only know the gas pedal." His left head, curiously, started this; insulted, perhaps. "Don't patronize anyone or me. And that's right, I'm separate, just like why you're gonna drop and give thirty." Larry's grin died less glorious than four men, and lent a sigh to his diving down on all-fours. Triclyde loomed above his push-ups. "Show 'snake' your strength, terrapin." Left-and-right head twisted their necks, framing Lemmy. "He is onto something, halfway. You did what few can, even after rigorous guiding. Could be that your sibling's street-eyes are wise, and you won't need shepherding... Or, it could be that adrenaline spoke more than the facts, being how you can't think it'll go like that. You've shown you can hold a gun, and use it. The legions are the tests. Your body count." Triclyde, while Larry shook a bit on his last set of ten, slithered over to Lemmy. The machine gun lay low, hot to the touch. One sizzle from this to the snake's tail when he reached for it, and his own balls were crazy-tangible. "I don't even sigh for that pain, I know what's worse-" He kinked-up his body at its middle; thick, irregular skin covered where the red scales met white frontal ones, a scar. He announced it. "-For six years, since a Mushroom rebel clocked me at the border. It sears you when it passes through. Can you strategize? Or are you simple?" He could've let this play out in Lemmy's mind, but wanted to give it one last nudge. "Will you plan to cause this, or is it your fate?"

Cerebral, the snake officer thought he'd been. Cocksure, like the service taught him. And Lemmy's eyes did delve more into a turn, a diagonal sink, adding up all the knowns they couldn't train him for. Accounting for the unknowns. Larry had risen; this junior prince panted, as Lemmy took one chasm of a deep breath. It flew out of him in words; Triclyde stood back and heard every one of the statements made for him.

"Fate's gonna be in a theater seat watching me work. I come from stock like you don't know, we fold about as often as we apologize. And I'm NOT sorry I'll be murdering those geeks." He lifted one arm straight, and threw the gun vertical, grabbing it on the far end. Smoke escaped between his fingers; a twitch in his lip was all the pain he showed. "I don't expect life without a scratch, like bein' a master schemer means I'm untouchable. I'll fuckin'-sure-plan, but I'll use everything I have, and find, at my disposal, to dispose of 'em. If I get back without a nick, whoo-hoo, but if I'm winged by a gaping wound you'll know I held it over some wand-rubbin' wuss while I strangled him. He'll die tasting my blood. Blue blood."

He opened his hand; the gun's end fell. He closed the palm again, and it lay back where his hold had been, near the trigger. Not even watching to calculate, eyes were on Triclyde all the while. He'd planned for gravity.

And the snake honcho had never stood straighter, the center head making three in unison to marvel. The west mouth pontificated. "Lemmy Koopa, how I'm surprised right now I wish came daily. Your way, it bears some..." The snake fought for what to say; this alone had Larry fist-pump, toward himself discreetly. "... Had I a rum-'n'-coke, I'd make a toast. To good health and a soldier of fortune." He clinked the west-and-center head, then east-and-center, then brought the 'ends' to meet. Larry didn't forecast there'd be humour in their trainer's heart; he bit his fist to not laugh. Lemmy couldn't find it funny; raising his gun to his chest, presenting it, he put himself in serious shoes. The mind would stay on-point. It would prop up the heart, or wall it off, however dark he would go to face the Ancient Ones, unravel them. Exterminate the bastards. Do Larry proud, do Bowser proud, give them a future. He thought, like Larry had, of Roy; crashing in, heading out toward things or places unsaid. Even that display was worth a chance at redemption...

... Triclyde posed himself to bark at them more. The gun was hoisted up, and Lemmy took potshots at the limp soldiers, the point on their helmets, their fingers. Gruesome goals with snake-yelled time limits. Triclyde did what he must, grooming accuracy, speed, on a budget not of money but lives. His men had value, so long as war threatened. The deadliest hour would be worst to lose them. In reserve, tens of thousands of heads, hundreds of elite men, and now two nobles. Not another damn one to spare.

****************************************************************************

The flashes of white spread through clouds far-off... Bowser watched with a cocksure smile the fingers of lightning, down from early clouds. Some village of poor bastards were socked in... Not him, nor the luxuries he rued more in these such times. The sitting room's velvet chair would hold him longer than the fifteen minutes he'd lain and pressed its pillowy curves. The mojito next to its leg would be emptied, more than the two-thirds gone and in his green gut. And the door behind him - sturdy, of chestnut, painted in white and purple, one sight few servants were welcome to see - would click shut, after he knew who'd sashayed into his life today.

"Hold it." He spoke urgently, and she froze, balanced on her high pumps. He didn't, however, mean her to stop; his arm lifted, and a thick, high-class hand gestured her to shrink their distance. "Your name, I want to hear you. You can multi-task, right?"

"I prefer to. It's Micah." She got that across well enough; her dulcet tones and delivery nailed her as a woman with more than a month or two in this field. The blue pumps clacked on a hardwood floor, cherry veneer, smooth enough to skate on socks. Not that she wore those, her nude feet slipped snug in the patent-leather. And not that Bowser did himself, his pedicured, moist digits by the air of a 'lookout' patio, far enough from its open pad with his plush seat and without a trace of clothes. He faced out; the chair did, and copied a renaissance sofa's bends up. So when she met him on these grounds she would only see when she might also... Touch.

"You impress me." That she did, now at the break of sunlight just a foot in from the patio archway. Halfway up the castle, where outsiders assumed he plotted wars, something else came to bear with this confident lass. She overflowed with curls, the brown of hazelnuts curtaining a kind face, pointed nose, a look of venerable 'knowledge'. A dutchess wrapped with fur, shoulders gone among the stoat and fox pelts. Checkered gingham gave life to her blouse, and the depravedly-short skirt. She had flair, poise and savvy, three decades in the making. He leaned up, and from his head peeking back, she was already there. Her had went to his cheek, open and down his chin, some stubble, caressing. He wrenched back, though very much gently for him. "Others might take to that. And my help bows first."

She raised her eyelashes; about all the reaction, while she wisely curtsied, and even by this flattered herself. Skirt fabric ruffled as she went low, skin showed a little higher. He forgot the offense. "Come closer. I feel a certain... Familiarity with you." She knew not how to perceive this; he knew nothing inside her, but wished to. This she had known, for all the pomp and circumstance they poured over it when sending her up. She'd handled it by a mantra; repeating in her mind that every girl had a first night with him. Reputations, more his than anyone's, meant yes. Every girl. And her ways, the fashion and fair skin, assets and ass, pushed her fast to the front of the line.

She walked around, slow by the couch's head and his, every step in those shoes music to the king. Her collar had a blue band; a line of stripes before the checker, same azure as her heels, or the hue of her lips, exotic. His wrist passed hers on the way to caressing her, on those milky limbs, bare straight from her underarm. His rub was more a precursor. "You remind me of crushed berries. Like a summer harvest, where sight and smell intermarry." He was only passable with sweet talk... Not many expected more. She giggled, and hid her face in a palm. 'So she's the sort without gloves', he thought. 'Splendid... I was tiring of the socialite-sets. Mine should be organic.' Stacking her up, exploring her surface, he wanted more. "What might a darling like you do for her overseer?"

She had new colour in her cheeks, but leaned in. Her chest squeezed, popping even more than the triple E's had on-point-of-order. His toes twitched, and fingers went up under her blouse-shoulder, degrading her. The legs were together, long and flawless on his escort, but to his randy heart they wouldn't be for long. His palm's scales felt around, further from her arm, more personal in its coordinates. Soon it might graze the side - ever so softly - of one large, perky teat. She saw, of course, what this transcribed to... His hips, the space between with its tube of flesh, less a hanging, snakelike green than a state of straight, tall, narrow might. Blood of a king flowed and filled its growing purpose... Two of his teeth peeked out like kernels of pearled corn, the most gangrenous smile, and she'd long-since lost the spark to be disquieted for it. His hand she permitted, into her top, while she grabbed its tail. His grope left her high portions, to be the third hand on that shirttail, taking it up and over in a third the time she would, or would want. Quickly, almost forcefully-disrobed, and his claws stayed in and innocent, save for one: the thumb that hooked her bra strap, on the dècolletage. Nail ivory won the battle, snapping the cotton brace. Pounds' worth of supple flesh spilled out of the cups. His eyes had a hobby for the next hour, or more, should he choose.

He spoke; but romance would be undercut, his touch all over the bounty of this new girl. Stars were in his eyes, or something the size of areolas he praised most heartily. "Flower of dawn... Is it that goddesses like you always come in the morning, or that I'm just the pendulum to make that so..." His trifling joke - only helped by his inflection - pinned his lust as in power. She would 'work' this, setting down with her knee by his ear. He stood at full size; she slid down, his ego rigid while she scooted so teasingly on, hogging small shares of the couch. Behind his scalp, her behind, what he guessed to be as round and ripe as any peach, and as succulent. He would nose it, press in a breathing snout where its feminine curves beckoned him; but only when what hovered there now, deep, sweet and half-wet, had been surveyed, and tested. And tongued, and for her moaning warmup, eaten.

This 'fruit' she held above, in the light, practiced at prodding johns. Chivalry in his eyes were the dabs he put to it, tongue tapping on the gorgeous lips, slipping a mouth's moisture down her rosebud, getting coo's that were bankable. She held together, breasts dangling, clapping maybe twice as he put that tongue further, thrusting up with that chin to-wit, thrusting the air as well with timely, ready meat. He held it high with one mitt, the other on her gam, close to rough in its gliding. She saw every inch; he would suffice, and no other opinion did she feel. The foreact was nice - he'd be a nobleman more thoughtful than their average - and her submission wound through his claims.

"Ohhh-Ohh-hhh-"

"Have you seen a place like this, goddess... My pet, has any man shown you the world..." He flicked, rolled his tongue through her canal.

"OOO-hh... Ooooo...h-HAHH-" Her squeak was that of a woman overcome. Walls of her parted box clasped him, clenched by her joy. Bliss, verily, with also thoughts that a monarch, a man of influence would dedicate himself and yet play to his favour... Her blue lips sparkled by the open view; breasts swayed in the gentle air, his lips on a pair of hers, tasting sweet young juice.

His eyes frequented her core; up from the 'V', up the hairless, narrow waist, the wind he felt was off her bust. He thought of having horns above them, face between, all while he ate even finer candy. She gave moans from his dessert; looked down to his staff and truly ogled. The mouth on her pussy, in its lubricant, became an impure smile. "Talk... Reveal to me your wants..." He twisted and curled that tongue straight up in sugarlike glaze. "Sensitivities..."

She forgave, by necessity, how he pledge-drove such a romantic start. She had those lips wide, the vivid facial pair and the luscious other. Speech rolled out her like a flowery cascade, bosom heaving as her cervix ached for him. "H-hhigh, your highness... Please, my lord... With your... Hhhaah-" A wench in her thirties, sounding young as eighteen when he stimulated. She needed it hard, crushing her, and 'it' was nothing near his teeth. He drew back; draped the dribbling taste on her labia, dragging it like spider's silk. He lay low, and she crawled, her unblemished skin on its way down a man's red trail to find cock. Breasts like gallon jugs passed his neck, his moobs, the muffin-girth at his navel. He growled with pleasure, erect and energetic, knowing he'd tear into this succulence. She said more, along the lines of desire. "Inside... Pound me... Like your best..." She didn't go with 'first'... Being veteran here meant knowing bad blood rest with some men and their starting days.

He paid her choice handsomely; the ass, two pillows of fertile beauty, lay in his view by her hair. They became a fulcrum; she lifted herself, hair spilling all by her chest, out of all-fours and turned-180 up to cowgirl-pose. She lay just below him; sausage rubbed on her frontside, by her own dainty hands, holding its heat and length to her bare, waxed tunnel. A wet garage to park his stiff, hairy ride, the red curls like flames licking up its vein-map. Her face, wanton and stern like wilder porn starlets, welcomed him authentically. "... Beat it up, sire..." She licked one finger, tracing his corona, the underedge of a killer head. She didn't say it brought to mind a Goomba; but one more thing came from her pouty act, to the ears of a snarling man, breath steamy, ferocious more and more. "Tell me your favourite... The best tits... Her blossom... I'll get wetter..." A boost: enacted lesbianism. Paradise for the majority of johns; he didn't stand in the minority, either. And his inches would stand, twice-hard as his shell, as she raised forward and sat on. Around his tool her lips uncoupled; he had growled before, but now vibes even shook the sofa legs, his dick inside a 'goddess' who helped herself, dove into it.

His nose let white puffs, hot as her pussy. The king already leaked inside, his prostate's clear gift meeting a sweet slick. All the way, invading her, shoving up in that lust-sea while she bent knees to assist. She squealed a little, quite into how hard this king could get. He hit deep, laying back, evil in how rough he ravaged her, bounced her whole body. And he heard her request. He knew she meant to imagine other women, eroticize those he'd fucked. The many before her; the raven-haired or blonde, the skinny or thick, hazel-eyed, olive-skinned, too many to choose. He'd go dishonestly; he'd name the traits of his liking, put together some memories. She'd be given a construct, his optimal. He dug in with scorching, swamped cock, and started building. "She had hair the deepest chocolate, and black... Two tones..." HE roared, eyes on her pussy, sticking it, toying with it. Working in like well-oiled machine.

Fiery pubes were in steady view; she DID feel moist from thighs to cervix. Her long lashes batted, up by her arched brows, so easy to place as anxious for more. He murmured some to the sky-blue sparkles of her eye shadow, but most to the open box, the walls that swallowed length just like it force-fed into them. "Her eyes... Bluer than your lids, you Venus..." He struggled, not to just howl bass and demolish her snatch. He didn't lose it, didn't holler like a beast. He moved like one, but lied on, baited her to flow with sweets. "She wore red... And slinked out of it..." He thought of shining things remembered. "She'd wear brass like golden jewels... The simplest garb, a miracle on her..." His concubine mewled, neck jellied and tits knocking, but he wanted dirtier. His mind went south. "She wanted it behind... I wrecked her ass right up its fat and cleft to that cherry..." She moaned; surely, though, behind the whore's arousal she noted he was rare for not calling it a black cherry. Uncommon, not unheard of, and she pleaded while he plunged. Her squeals wouldn't quit, and he laid out the details, true and false in their aspects. "Called my name like I'm God... Nngh... NNGHH... She... tweaked her own teats... Twisted them for her FUCKing king! " He hit to max-pace now; she fondled herself, thinking of a surely-blessed female who took it anally and abused her wild self.

A slut's juice wet the king down to his balls; he half-invented, half-recalled more to drive her up the wall. "She could snap an axe handle... Strong as hell while I crushed it... RRGH!!..." He smacked her childbearing hips. She looked ready to claw something, so engulfed in the tight-bitch-tale and how he deep-dicked the dugout. His hands cruised, lecherous, gropes aplenty when he wasn't slapping her the same place as Mystery-Miss. Booty flesh jiggled, and he squirmed within his thrusts, driving that snake. He got to where memories took over the fibs; she heard it shift over, still massaging her breasts, not far from her first orgasm. "Back was sturdy as a horse! " He bellowed, sweaty on his nakedness, the chin, armpits, gut, all in his damp heat-shed. "Rode me until her legs gave out, her cheeks went rosey! I saw my sneer in her neck droplets! " She yelped, her hazel mane alive with body, sweeping shoulders. Her dripping lotus he loved and torpedoed, reimbursed by her frame, running it hard.

Musk wafted out from his red patches, too soaked with it to quarantine the smells. A burst of white would be their guest in so little time... He buckled down, ramming her so strong his veins hogged size on the way to going off. She kept to herself the thoughts massing by his narrative; nothing cut-and-dry. "She... Took... My... Swimmers... And blared... For more!! "

He had it on the brain like a snapshot, the ass of yesteryear, his spoiling it. Micah, this nightingale in starlight, sank and bounced her way to being four-hundredth. That many minus-one had come before her, so literally, juice on his gun, Triggered to barrage her it hit that mark; his tailed soldiers made a break for it. No condom, zero-reducing his swelled height; some in the closer, bigger houses even heard the roar from their estates, but not the squirt, a batch of pearl slung in that quench-cove. He saw his own meat all in her, the fresh dominion for load after load. Chilled bass in his roars, satisfied, he saw her eyes roll back, squeals get even pitchier. She followed him to climax; the questions could wait. Perhaps forever...

... It would have to've been proper, a thing irrepairably not the case. She 'got there' by the picture she had of those jugs other-lass must've brought to him, and his power didn't hurt; knocking it home in her cozy, and the spacious arched room for indiscretions. Infidelities, not so much; unless a woman had romance outside this single king, he stole snatch with a clear conscience.

His nipples, and hers, flushed like their features. He entertained the memories within now, or most of them; others he valiantly blocked out, a fair amount perturbed that they'd even 'shown up' in this mental reel-to-reel. Cock veins bulged like arteries, seed was soon to pass through the head, and he growled like the shockwave came exquisite or bittersweet. One of those two, she surmised, at the boiling point below and with legs shaking more and more frequent. The king, the man injecting, noticed. "Yeesss, a wild one when she pulls into the station... She'd be the second..."

No thoughts of his kingdom while he bent up, curling he came so well. Seven burdens weren't possible to be invoked now, any one of them. His therapy, the forgetting was total. Not complete, though, since hours were to go for the fee he'd pay out. Ten thousand was a pittance for her quality, chump change.

He had cracks in the slacking yowls; a fact or two tried to bring in sadness. He barred it, never faltering, not staving off some slideshow of bereaved teens. They didn't bother him, as stated; they weren't the reason he went irregular a moment. Recovery, and seconds, ensued. Sounds of thunder and of passions interspersed.

***********************************************************

Today a serpent was impressed. Easy going, to advance these mercenaries two. They debunked old wisdom in droves; that privelege was a handicap, and the ideas tethered to that. He could be fatherly, not always curt and worn down. Citizens made any kind of soldier, from perceptive and accurate to bumbling. He grew fascinated, stuck on where this pair would go, released into the far and grey. The general could abound with optimism, ways they only wished to feel. Time would tell all; the prevalent aire was that this might be their main scourge.

A skater and a wreck in reform. Together, the barycenters of their chance to go on.

To be continued...