Chapter Text
The Prince Regent
By PEJA
"Highness?"
Blair's delicate fingers strummed his lute's strings in a mournful melody, not looking up.
"Highness, please." Simon said again, louder this time.
"Leave me." Blair said, his attention never wavering.
"Very well." Simon waved a hand toward the big man, bound and gagged and held in place by two burly guards. "Execute the beast."
The music stopped. Blair swung his legs off the arm of his plush throne and sat up straight. "Belay that."
Hiding a sad smile with a downcast glance, Simon said, "But Highness...."
"What is this all about?" Blair snapped, his blue eyes glowing with suppressed rage. "What is that..." He waved a fine boned hand toward the prisoner. "...That filthy hu-man doing here?"
"The creature was captured on the northern edge of our territory, Highness," Simon said. "The providence mayor thought it would make an excellent gift for you. Tribute, Highness."
"A hu-man?" Blair roared, a mystical wind swirling the young prince's flowing curls "I am given a....a hu-man as tribute?"
Tag-gart has always been an arrogant bastard, Highness. It is why you favor him."
Blair's smile didn't reach his tortured eyes. "You may be right." He set his lute on a nearby table and glided down the four steps of his raised throne. "It is....suffiencently restrained?"
"Yes, Highness. You are in no danger."
Blair wandered around the bound man, cataloging the broad shoulders, the tapered waist and bulging muscles in tightly tied arms and legs. "The hu-mans? They are all shorn like this one?" he asked, touching the buzz cut wheat hair.
The captive jerked away, earning a fisted blow to his face by one of the guards. The man fell heavily and curled into a protective ball on the carpeted floor.
"Stop." Blair roared, halting the guard mid-swing in a brutal kick.
"Highness?" Simon said.
"Is this how my tribute is treated?" Blair snarled, hunkering down to turn the human gently so he could examine the damage done. "Gods....." he croaked, seeing for the first time the battered features. "This creature has been brutalized. Who did this?"
"The hu-man was not receptive to his capture, Highness." The second guard said. "It had to be violently subdued."
"And this..." Blair waved a had at the man huddled at his feet. "This is the end result?
Simon shrugged. "It's only a hu-man. Tag-gart thought you might be amused in extracting revenge for the death of you betrothed on this creature."
Blair jerked to his feet, the cyclonic winds of his anger whipping around the throne room. "You would have me torture this beast for what others of it's kind did? You dishonor Maya with the mere mention of this idea."
Simon bowed low. "Apologies, Highness."
Blair nodded once and turned back to the injured human.
He reached out a hand toward the beast. The human's blue eyes widened and he quivered, but held his ground. There was courage in the face of fear in this one. Admirable in one of this creatures kind.
Blair said, traced a cut, thick with caked blood, over the beast's high forehead. "Send for the healer?"
"Highness?"
"The healer. Send for the Queen Mother now, advisor. Then leave me with my new....pet."
"Highness, you can not keep it alive."
Blair rocketed to his feet, the winds back stronger than ever. "You dare tell me what I can and can not do?"
"No, Highness," Simon denied. "I would never..."
"Right. Do as I command, advisor. Bring the Queen Mother to me. Now."
TBC