Councilwoman Zera's face remained unreadable for a moment before she leaned back and sat with her back straight.
Safatore eyed them all. It seemed they were going to have their eldest do all the talking. The fact that they brought up food meant there was going to be trouble, but he didn't know of what magnitude.
"What is the point of all this?"
His hand, matching the tan tone of his face, pointed to the steaming display of mouthwatering delicacies on the marble table.
The other council elders remained statuesque, their gazes locked onto the blue paladin. This was a unified and singular meeting to convey a message from all eight through one being. Aura was radiating and connecting them, barely visible, like heatwaves over a desert plain in the day. Zera, the only one responsive, parted her lips to address Safatore.
"The point, young Kraufford, is that you have any amount of meals you want, every day—are you aware that your citizens have been dying of starvation for the past three centuries, though? Every. Day."
His citizens...
His citizens.
His. Citizens.
Zera said his citizens. Safatore's stomach immediately went into knots and the temperature around the courtroom dropped several degrees. Why did the woman suddenly bring up such a political and diplomatic matter that didn't even involve him? Being the Crown Prince, that should—emphasis on should—have been his responsibility, but he technically was not alive three hundred years ago.
"Are you saying it's my fault?" He asked cautiously, his hands uncrossing and hanging loose at his sides.
"The people of Xander have been grieving for a long time, but the heir to the throne is right here!" Councilwoman Zera pointed directly at Safatore, her tone both accusatory and assertive.
Safatore narrowed his eyes. They called him over to present food to him, then they brought up the citizens of Xander who had been dormant for three hundred years, and now they casually mentioned his status as if he were some kind of awaited pillar of hope. It was strange, if he had ever seen anything quite so.
He tilted his head to the side and said:
"I do not wish to make assumptions about your words so please explain."
Councilwoman Zera continued:
"Safatore, have you ever cried?"
The question tackled Safatore unawares, the already cold temperature of the room dropping lower. What was that? First food, then status, then grief, now asking him if he ever cried?
He was sure there was a pattern, a very powerful and dangerous one, that he was unsure he wanted to see.
"There... are enough tears around already." He aligned his sights with the main speaker.
"Exactly," Councilwoman Zera smiled coldly. "Your citizens' tears fill our lakes and moats. But what if we told you that there was a way to end all this grief and these tears, your brothers and you?"
Safatore's heart skipped a beat, his hands suddenly feeling sweaty.
"The people don't know we exist!" He spoke without thinking, taking an involuntary step back.
"Then make yourselves known!" Zera exclaimed. "It's time your people met their king!"
And there it was, the blade Safatore had known was swinging for him. His tan face lost all color, his eyes wide with horror, and his jaw slack. He couldn't move; he could feel his hands getting clammy, but he couldn't understand how he had fallen into such an obvious trap. His long and pointy ears drooped and lowered, a clear sign of unexpected shock, and the feeling of being preyed upon engulfed him.
"Oh..."
(∩｀-´)⊃━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ. ε=ε=(っ* ´□` )っ
Saka stepped through the doors right as they fluttered open, carrying a restless April over his left shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
The girl writhed and wriggled on his shoulder, but she couldn't disrupt his balance anyway. She was only a spectator to her own helplessness when Saka aggressively threw her onto the bed. She groaned, squirming and fighting to free her bound limbs. Saka had used her excessively long hair to tie her hands behind her, one tail to bind her feet, and the other tail to gag her mouth.
She didn't know which was the most uncomfortable; the tail bindings, the hair bindings, or the fact that she was alone again with Saka in her sleep chambers.
"Don't get ahead of yourself," Saka grunted, an eyebrow twitching.
She flicked some of the loose hair out of her face and looked up at his irritated expression.
"Look, back in my dimension, there's a really popular saying that goes 'ask, and you shall receive'," she transferred the words via telepathy into his head.
Saka's expression hardened into annoyance.
"Shut up!" He grabbed her face by the cheeks, his face looming close to hers as he glared into her eyes. He wanted to squish those plump and freckled cheeks.
"Just...shut up. Damnit."
April looked into each of his gray eyes, taking in the shine of annoyance in them, and felt the trembling restraint in his fingers. She relaxed her body a little. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't harm her. Victory!
"Okay... Say I believe your claims of no desire for seasonal coitus," she spoke in her head, watching a thick and sculpted eyebrow of his rise. "Why did you bring me back to my room, though? What's the scheme?"
Saka's lips parted with a low growl. He searched the girl's eyes for a moment before pushing her face aside with a grunt. He walked a few feet off and ran a hand over his roughly coiffed white hair, the gray fingers of his left hand contrasting with the silvery locks of his long ponytail.
Even through the bond, April couldn't tell what he was thinking.
[I hate everyone and everything.]
"You're so damn annoying," Saka muttered.
Ah. So that's what he was thinking. April rolled her eyes but tensed up when he turned to face her again.
"What do you want from me?!" He asked, huffing in exasperation. There was a vein ticking on his cheek and his brow was tinted with a slight purplish hue.
April understood. He was frustrated. With her? Good!
"Context?" She narrowed her eyes at him.
"First of all!" Saka warped right into her face, pinching the tail wedged between her lips and making her whine, "Never ever fabricate tales about my actions or assume my intentions—"
"Geez Louise!"
"And second: never joke about rut season, never bring it up, and never think about it. If you do, I will very literally, not figuratively, rip your throat out. Got it?"
April shook her frantically.
"I asked if you got that!" Saka shouted, pinching her tail harder.
She squealed and nodded quickly. For some reason, she found the situation hilarious and chuckled to through the pain, although she was sure he heard her.
She just wanted to make him madder.
Saka shoved her back onto the bed and walked to a corner, pressing his forehead against the wall. He exhaled, groaning right after. An odd silence befell the room, April still bound and lying on the bed.
He looked funny.
"...So... gonna untie me or what?" She asked cautiously.
Saka slowly turned his face to look at her from the corner of his eye over his shoulder.
"You chased me around the castle, gagged me with my tail, it's sensitive and salty."
Saka watched her for a moment.
"Untie yourself," he scoffed, walking back to her quickly.
"I would, but you're walking at me with such determination," April thought quickly before she felt his hands sliding under her waist and backside. "Hey, watch it! What are you doing?!"
Saka lifted her off the bed and threw her over his shoulder with a single hand.
"I've had it with your annoying thoughts seeping into my mind. I need an expert."
April, carried like a weightless package, stiffened over his shoulder.
"Expert?! What expert?! You're not talking about your uncle Pluto, are you?!"
"It's Calypto! You rude little brat!" Saka, shouting, simultaneously brought his right hand down on April's butt, hard.
There was a loud resounding thwack that echoed in the room as Saka smacked her left buttock cheek. There was a split-second silence before a startled squeal slipped through April's tail and lips, her face turning crimson, her eyes tightly closed.
Saka marched out of the room angrily, a slight flush coating the back of his neck.
The bond didn't discriminate against his backside as well.
A few minutes later, Saka was parading through the hallways with a restrained April on his shoulder. April's line of sight was made up entirely of gold. It reminded her very much of the stark white chasm he carried her through, the same surly attitude and same carrying position.
She instantly felt annoyed. The first time, his hand had merely almost touched her bum, but now he smacked her. Hard. If there was one thing April was good at, it was not knowing when to quit.
That and the ability to annoy.
Saka's feet suddenly paused, as if hearing her thoughts, which he was, and he looked back, his hand resting on the small of the girl's back. April twisted her pelvis and forced all of her weight to carry her. She successfully slipped out of Saka's hold and landed on her back on the cool golden floor.
They grimaced at the same time, April's back arching off the floor.
"Ahh! Ah! Owie!"
"What the hell was that?" Saka barked at her, a vein ticking on his jaw.
April wiggled and shifted onto her knees. She flicked her excessive hair out of her eyes and looked at the pale elf over her shoulder. Her butt was suspended in the air. In her mind, she told the testy boy:
"Change of plans, I'm not going with you."
"You're just trying to be difficult on purpose," Saka growled, wiping a hand down his face and rolling his eyes past the heavens April was surprised they didn't remain stuck in his eyelids.
"You know me so well~," April responded and started crawling off like a worm, her chin and knees scraping across the floor.
Saka winced.
"..." He tilted his head, watching her. His expression turned blank. He walked over to the wiggling girl.
April felt a cold shadow loom over her, right before she felt a heavy weight slowly press down on her leg. She paused. Then the pain intensified and she felt a crushing pain spread from her calf to the rest of her leg. Gagged with her own tail, she couldn't scream, but she knew very well that Saka was stepping on her leg.
A long, high-pitched whine slipped between the flesh of her lips and her tail which was wedged between them.
"I don't know why, but stepping on you makes me feel better," Saka's voice grunted behind her.
April looked over her shoulder as the Heliomorphosis combatted the continuous pain. She gasped out:
"What? What kind of kink do you have? You're also hurting yourself, genius!"
"I know~" Saka murmured.
April's eyes widened. That was a response she was not expecting, not in a million years. Heck, that guy really must have been in rut.
"What are you doing?"
A third, soft and older voice suddenly broke through the awkward atmosphere. It was sweet and motherly. It only took April a moment to recognize it before Akka grabbed Saka by the ear, pinching and pulling him off the girl.
"Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow! My ear, my ear, my ear, MA EEEEAAAARRRR!" April screamed in her mind while Saka let out a guttural, canine-like whine, letting the woman pull him off with his ear.
"I go away for a little while and this is how you soul-bound children behave?"
"You're pinching my ear," Saka drawled.
Akka, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, deliberately tugged on the boy's white and pinkish earlobe.
Saka whined from the bottom of his belly like a restless dog, slouching over next to Akka.
April squirmed on the floor like a snake on a hot curb.