Chapter Text
It was a dragon who conquered the known universe. Or unified it, depending on who you ask. But if one honestly believes that, then it benefits them to do so or they’re stupid in some capacity, doesn’t matter which. It should not be a matter of opinion, the facts are there. The Empire is a regime which won’t hurt anyone to contemplate as long as they don’t think about how it got made. The peoples of Earth spread out across the galaxy as an ununified swarm, and then lost all contact with each other. Then, a dragon, the first dragon, came out of nowhere from Earth, and kickstarted a new golden age, one we enjoy now. It’s just that not everyone initially wanted to be part of that golden age.
You can’t attest to the why’s of it all. The how’s, maybe, that’s easy, it’s just history, and not even the kind that gets rewritten. It’s a topic that a lot of people wind up asking you about. And that makes sense. That dragon was your grandfather.
“Would you like anything else, sir?” The servant asks you, bowing deeply at you beside your seat. You look across the long dining table set out before you, its surface a sea of empty plates and bowls. What amounts to an entire meal for a humanoid is merely a bite for you; what’s a feast fit for ten men is a snack for you. Even still, you’ve eaten to excess: your stomach ambiently burbles around its feast, which has packed it full, round, and taut. It actively churns and squeezes around the hundreds of pounds of food stuffed inside, groaning and singing its satisfaction all the while as its enzymes slowly turn its contents into a thick nutrient mush. And yet? You’re still hungry.
You glance over to the servant, her head still bowed, eyes closed in reverence of the dragon she serves. The thought crosses your mind. But you don’t obey it. “That will be all. I’ll be off to my chambers now.”
“Very well, your Excellency.”
You slink off of your seat, a very glorified couch, and begin the prowl from the dining hall to your bedchambers, enjoying the shifting of the weight in your belly. You change your posture, raising your head up high to do away with your prowling and exchanging it for a more dignified gait, one that lets your food-laden belly sway in time with your steps. You can’t help but to smile. At least a shitty day can be topped off by a nice, satisfying meal. Your room isn’t far… right next to the dining hall, as a matter of fact. It is, after all, your personal dining hall.
Your smile fades a bit as you push past the towering double doors, wrought with great stature not just to show off, but in anticipation for a much larger dragon than you, one who has yet to grow to match that stature. The ceilings are so tall that, if the fancy struck, you could fly in these bedchambers. You slip onto your bed, a large, canopied affair likewise made for a dragon several times your size, the sheets already made neatly for you, not by you. More servants follow you inside as you lay on the bed, but you wave them off with a wing. You lay your head down as soon as they depart.
Today was not the best of days. By your standards, at least. You’ve never had a day that a nice little treat couldn’t fix. The scoop of vanilla ice cream that was just part of your meal, for instance: a simple, basic pleasure which honestly doesn’t amount to much. If the remedy to your bad days can be so cheap, then the overall measure of your hardships must amount to next to nothing. Not like you didn’t already know that. This is just a reminder. Your life is easy. Your grandfather did all of the work, and you reap the benefits, none of them earned by you.
You crawl off the bed and meander to the end of the room opposite the doors, where you sit down. There, the room-length, shielded window stands, looking out into the vastness of space, just as it usually does. A large, deep blue planet, dominated by its own oceans, takes up the left half of the view, the sun obscured behind it, far away. The stars tell the same story as they had last night and the planet does roughly the same. The Battle Fortress has been docked in the planet’s orbit for about a handful of days now. Vonvoth is its name. The planet’s name, that is.
As for the Battle Fortress itself, it’s named the Ragamuffin. It’s the largest space-faring craft in existence, to your knowledge, and was your grandfather’s own portable home, headquarters, and fortress for his Last Crusade. A sense of humor was perhaps one of your grandfather’s greatest aspects, besides the intellect, creativity, and sheer cosmic and magical power, of course. The Ragamuffin is more than just a space-faring fortress, of course. It’s larger than a hive city, home to millions of people. As such, it’s essentially a flying metropolis in addition to being a fortress with enough guns and armor to at least be the center of any space battle it might find itself in, as well as host an entire navy’s worth of starships in its ports.
The Battle Fortress was, of course, given to you through no merit of your own except your blood. One might expect that it would be given to your father, but he’s far too busy leading and managing the Empire back on Earth, a task you do not envy. Your grandfather didn’t do too much after the Last Crusade. Most who make it their goal to know the details say that he was less of a person and more of a ‘force,’ something from beyond the bounds of flesh who held the power to enact the change it wanted, the way it wanted it. It created a body with which it could interact with the physical world, and then set off to do its thing. It created magic, faster than light travel, simply ‘turned off’ the relativity of space and time because it didn’t suit it, and conquered the universe because doing so did.
He created an identity for himself, of course. He created life from nothing but his will. Dragons. He himself was the first and only at the time, so he created more. He made dragons to govern the various stretches of the galaxy he had so newly conquered. As for your father, he created him similarly asexually by drawing in enough energy to create a star, a star which he then molded into your father. Raised him. Then, your grandfather saw fit to disappear. Some say he’s still with us, overlooking the Empire, answering prayers. There may be merit to that, but it hardly matters to you.
Your father is basically your grandfather’s clone. Not basically, literally. An exact copy, through and through, only with less grand cosmic power. But still enough to duplicate what your grandfather did, reproducing a clone of himself asexually. That’s you, naturally. Heir to a galactic empire, and not necessarily happy for it.
You’re sure you would come off as ungrateful to whomever you told this to, if ever you lacked the sense enough to tell it to anyone else. You have everything. Why would you complain? Because you didn’t earn it. And there’s nothing left for you to earn. Except maybe—
Your phone rings. You reach into the pocket of your hoodie, which has been forcibly cropped up by your belly. The name on the phone brings you dread. Regardless, you answer it.
“Mierius,” you greet. “Must be important, if you’re calling so late. I know you wouldn’t call me for pleasure’s sake.”
“No Ash, I would not,” he says. He is one of few people who refer to you by such a casual name, and somehow the only person you’d prefer wouldn’t do so. “You cannot keep ignoring this. It has come to a head.”
“Has it really, now?” You ask, running a hand over the smooth scales of your belly, the scales stretched over your meal, gentle and soft to the touch yet hardier than any mortal-made metal. If nothing else, your grandfather had taste; he left you a body you can appreciate: the subtle and fine constellations peppering your scales, for instance. “Remind me again what exactly the issue is? I can’t help but to forget precisely what it is.” You haven’t forgotten. You have photographic memory. Another gift from your grandfather.
“You know exactly what it is! Vonvoth’s planetary governor wants to meet you again, and your continued reluctance reflects poorly on not just you, but your father as well. The situation with the protestors—”
“That dragon is a vile creature, Mierius,” you interject. “More vile than you, an accomplishment I didn’t think possible. I do not intend to meet with him until I can source a suitable replacement for him. If anyone reflects poorly on anything, it is him, who reflects poorly on my grandfather’s Empire. An entire planet’s population-worth of people—billions of lives and minds—now think less of the Empire’s governance thanks to him. If I meet him before I replace him, I cannot guarantee that it will go well for anybody involved. Except perhaps myself.”
“You need not belittle a chosen dragon of—”
“He is not a chosen anything, Mierius. My grandfather did not choose him, he is the son of several generations following the dragon he actually chose, something which wasn’t entirely intended, mind you. He is a wastrel, a profligate scoundrel whose problems he created himself and could be solved without a second thought by anyone with half a brain. The people he governs live on a beautiful world, leading lives of poverty in which they are starving, and lack healthcare, among numerous other things which could be solved with ease using competent management. He petitions the greater Empire at large for aid which he would not need if he weren’t a corrupt, negligent blunt, but receives nonetheless, and then he promptly wastes it all on himself. This entire endeavor is a waste of time.”
Respect. That’s something you could earn. The Empire worships your grandfather as a god, something he never had to ask for or even encourage. Your father, as his son, and acting Emperor, is treated much the same. And yet you don’t receive the same treatment, not by people such as Mierius or the planetary governor, at least. You are quite literally a copy of the very being they worship, and yet it seems to be lost on them. You have no doubt that it’s because you’re young. You only stand at five feet tall at the shoulder, and seven or so at eye level if you keep your head up. Dragons grow larger as they age, so compared to elder dragons like Mierius, or the planetary governor, you are… small. You have twenty years under your belt, and they have hundreds. That likely helps the disrespect as well.
“Besides,” you continue. “You act as though he’s a Sector Governor. Doubtless I needn’t remind you that he’s a mere planetary governor, and I’m the Prince of the Empire. In light of how baseless his position in the argument is, and comparing our titles, I can hardly imagine why you seem so eager to take his side over mine.” You of course can easily imagine why he takes the governor’s position on the matter over yours. “He should be glad that I’m condescending to be here at all. This matter is below my pay grade; at the end of the day, I’m not here for him, I’m here for his people. They’re why I’m here, and they’re who I’m here to help. Those protestors? The unrest? They are not the issue, they are a symptom. He is the issue. I will solve the issue.”
Mierius is silent for a moment. “And where, exactly, do you plan on finding a replacement for him?”
“Let me worry about that, Mierius. Or better yet, get off your ass and start worrying about it alongside me. If you cannot find the heart to do so, find someone lower down the chain who can. I am going to bed. We may reconvene in the morning. My conference room, at dawn. Be there.” In accordance with the fact that you consider the matter to be final, you hang up on him, then immediately begin dialing in another contact. It takes a moment before she picks up, but she does.
“H-Hello?” She answers, her voice small and nervous. “Your excellency?”
“Please, Floyd, call me Ash. There are people I would prefer not call me by my nickname, but you are not one of them. I have need of you.”
“Anything! Say the jump and I’ll say—uh, I’m your ‘How High.’ Yeah. You know.”
“Governor Aranzeto. I need to replace him. I need you to get me a list of potential replacements. Start with the other members of the Vonvoth family line. Don’t let anyone know you’re looking, if you can manage it.”
“Yes sir! Just—when would you like this report?”
“As fast as you can manage it. Before dawn, if possible.”
“Good! Great! You’ll be glad to be told—or know—sir, that I was already looking into it. I had a feeling you might want something like this.” You can almost hear the clack of a keyboard on the other end of the line, and even the shuffling of pages.
“Wonderful. I appreciate you, Floyd. I’ll see you in the conference room five minutes past the dawn.”
“Got it, sir. Thank you, sir.”
You hang up and slip the phone back into your pocket, keen on sleeping off your meal. You make your way over to your bed and make good on that keen interest, curling up around your belly. Then you think better of it. You have a reputation to uphold, after all. You spread out your wings and roll onto your back, belly up. It’s a mark of confidence, sleeping with what should be your most vulnerable part exposed: a full belly which also shows success. These are primitive things which even an animal could understand. So, if any animal somehow finds itself in your room (or more likely, an assassin), they may think twice. Even if you would probably notice them no matter what.
Come morning, the bountifully full belly from last night is no longer so bountifully full. You glance down at it to find it lithe and sleek. You put it into overdrive last night. After all, if you’re to be meeting with Mierius, then you can’t go looking like a glutton unless you either want to make a point or you want him to chastise you for it.
The window’s blinds have automatically shuttered down, projecting an image of the morning on the steep alps and lush, grassy valleys of Yocarro Prima’s Streelea region. It’s still early, however, earlier than your servants usually wake you. You don’t waste time, hopping off your bed and throwing off your hoodie into a nearby hamper-shute as you make your way into the bathroom.
You shower. You brush your teeth. Your favorite part of the day, considering you get a free pass to look at yourself for about two minutes. You know you’re egotistical, but you’re a dragon, and you’re beautiful; there’s no helping it. Most dragons are capable of simple cleaning magic. There’s a spell which can clean a square foot of area, and it’s quite literally the simplest of spells. By all rights, you should be using that. But your grandfather gave himself (and therefore you) hands on his wings for a reason, so damn it all, you’ll use them.
Said wings are essentially massive arms with sails attached behind them. There’s fur on the top, and scales on the bottom, making them look like a big cloak. They have structure, but they wouldn’t work nearly as well without magic, which thankfully came packaged in. When all is said and done, it helps to have an extra set of hands. All dragons have dexterous forepaws fit with opposable thumbs, but most of you still use them for locomotion, so having an extra set can truly be a dragonsend, pun intended. When you’re using your forepaws for hands, you can use your wings for locomotion; when you’re using your wings for hands, your forepaws can be used for locomotion. These wings are a symbol (quite literally, they’re the emblem of the Empire) of who you are, and the legacy you represent. Besides yourself, your father, and your grandfather, no other dragon has wings like these. An entire, accurate map of the Empire across the stars shines on the underside of your wings, systems connected by routes of passage, constellations linked, dot by dot. When your grandfather was undergoing his Crusade, his wings acted as a mark of progress, a literal medal for each star system. You don’t quite get to earn your stars the same way that he did, but despite your personal grievances, they make for quite the fantastic spectacle.
Of course, they’re far from the only stars on your body. You’re covered in them, it’s just that they’re more subtle. Your scales are a deep purplish, bluish black, like the backdrop of space, and they’re covered in fine, subtle sparkles, each one a star. That’s what the majority of your body looks like, except the bottoms of your paws, which are golden… and the same goes for your more fleshy bits, like your lips.
You finish brushing your teeth and look into the mirror. Staring back at you is a handsome, gorgeous dragon. He flashes a smile as charming as the stars, and turns around to show off his flanks. He lifts his thick, heavy tail, revealing a set of haunches that would make anyone jealous, and a winking, golden asshole which, if one were trailing their kisses down from, would lead them to the taint, and a nice, heavy set of swinging, star-spangled balls. Your grandfather may have chosen to reproduce asexually, but that doesn’t mean he was a prude.
You recenter yourself, so full of ambient confidence that you’re sure you’ll start leaking it out somehow. You move with haste out of the bathroom and cut your way through your room and into your closet. What you wear today will be important. You need to look dignified when dealing with Mierius, yet can’t wear something so cumbersome that you’ll regret wearing it when on the town. Most of your robes drag and are liable to trip you if every step isn’t taken into consideration. That’s intentional, so that you’re walking with purpose no matter what you’re doing. Despite this, most of these said robes also manage to be rather skimpy, by dragon standards, showing off many a scale and edging close to many a tender area, teasing them to the outside world.
You put on rings, first and foremost. One for each digit on your forepaws, and only one decorating a solitary toe on either of your hindpaws. It’s more tasteful that way; no need to put on every toe. Then, you put on your belly dress. It’s what one might expect: skimpy, wrought in white silk, and fashioned in such a way as to show off your belly, as well as most of your body, really only serving to cover your shoulders and privates. It comes with a matching blindfold, on which is a symbol depicting a golden eye. It’s as close to ‘traditional wear’ as you can get regarding your bloodline. Your grandfather wore a blindfold often, as does your father, and sometimes, you happen to do the same. You have plenty of ways of seeing, after all, eyes being the weakest of the options. Hearing paints a picture in three hundred and sixty degrees, as does smell, and the mind can see things the rest never could. A golden coronet is the final touch, stretching between your horns like a gilded spider-web.
With a spell to enhance your scent, you leave out your bedroom doors, walking with purpose despite your particular choice of clothing not strictly forcing you to. You’ve gotten your morning routine down to a science. You need to take particular care in your appearance, not just for your own pleasure. If you don’t, then the likes of Mierius will notice and they will chastise. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone else, as it would seem most would be eager to kiss the soles of your paws after a day of walking. Some people just can’t be pleased. Why do you still try anyway?
The conference room is more of a hall, and with that being said, it’s more of a throne room than anything that could be described with ‘conference,’ but in the schematics, that’s what it’s called. At the very end of the hall is a vertical relief mural stretching to the ceiling, depicting your grandfather in gold. At its base is a throne, raised up upon steps, facing down a long purple carpet flanked by pillars all the way to the end of the hall. You waltz down to the hall before the throne, and sit before it, lowering your head in the presence of your grandfather’s image. He sat upon that throne regularly, once. It’s magic. Only those of his blood can sit upon it without incredible, blackout-inducing pain, and the seat resizes to fit those who can sit upon it. You climb on, and lay on your side, one arm hanging down, the other serving to prop you up on the armrest, and your tail hanging over the side of the other.
Then, you wait. You wait, staring down the length of the hall at the doors on the other end, anticipating their movement. Perhaps you arrived a little early. It was Mierius who told you once that ‘to be on time is to be late, and to be early is to be on time.’ You told him to be here at dawn, which on any space-faring vessel is standardized as being six in the morning. Your internal clock tells you that six in the morning was a minute ago. And your internal clock is never wrong.
Three more minutes pass before you’re greeted by Mierius’ presence. You smell him before you see him. Dragons are immortal creatures who ordinarily don’t age. However, it is evident that some do. The popular idea throughout the Empire is that only dragons pure of heart age well, and those who lack such a thing just age. Mierius is of the latter sort, a wrinkled and lanky dragon covered in leathery hide; fat which would otherwise pad him nicely instead desperately clings to his form as if lacking structure, leaving him flabby instead of soft; a frill running down the center of his head is tattered and frayed, and his muzzle, from his eyes to his nose to his lips, can only be described as curmudgeonly. The notion is false, of course. Oldness isn't inherently ugly, and goodness isn't tied to prettiness, nor does evil dictate ugliness. If there's an explanation for why some dragons age and some don't, then you don't know it. Mierius just looks like that. Truth be told, if he weren't such a villain in your life, you'd never think twice about how he looks. Still, as an elder dragon, he’s rather large, roughly three times your size.
He shoulders one of the doors open in a way that does incidentally make him look like he's on death's door, a scowl on his muzzle as he eyes you on the throne. With his little remaining politesse, he closes the door behind him.
“You’re late,” you announce.
“Indeed, I did not sleep well,” he says as he hobbles down the hall towards you. “I was kept up deep into the night by the secretary governor’s incessant calling.”
“I would have supposed it was a lapse in your lack of conscience.” Once he reaches you, you lift the forepaw which you left hanging, holding it up to Mierius. Carefully, he leans down and gently kisses the ring on your index finger. His breath is rancid. He lifts his head up, and you continue. “I suppose that you did little else last night, then.”
“And I suppose that you slept like a mountain, likewise accomplishing nothing except being some sort of obstinate obstacle to some.”
“Oh, that’s true enough, I slept well and I did nothing. But she did plenty.”
At the end of the hall, Floyd squeezes into the room using a much more mortal-sized door built into one of the doors. She’s a wolf form, though skinny, small and meek enough that one could be forgiven for thinking she’s some form of dog instead. Behind the full-moon glasses is a muzzle full of uncertainty; clutched in her arms is a folio of various data-pads and even more analog documents. She hurries down the hall (which makes for a slightly comical sight for how prolonged her journey is) and bows deeply before you, then does as Mierius did, kissing the ring on your finger.
“You’re right on time, Floyd, here exactly when I want you. No need for pleasantries, let’s not waste time.”
“Right! Yes sir, I found some—no, I found several, actually, candidates, that is. I did like you asked me to and started with the Vonvoth family line.” She fumbles with the hoard of documents tucked in her arms, beginning to pull them out.
“If I recall correctly,” Mierius interrupts. “Did Aranzeto not eat his father?”
“He did,” Floyd answers. “But not his mother. She lives a few systems over, in Coth Z.” She walks up to you and hands you a data-pad with the dragoness’ information displayed on it, knowing full-well that you can still see it despite the blindfold. “She actually ruled Vonvoth for longer than both Aranzeto and his father combined, but retired to Coth Z of her own volition, leaving her duties to her husband.”
“Her record?” You ask, looking at the dragoness’ photo. Blue-scaled, and stern in the face. She looks serious. Imposing enough to get people to listen to her well.
“Just, ah—just fine. Nothing special. She didn’t start this, if that’s what you’re asking. She didn’t do anything special, but she didn’t start any problems, either.”
“Besides leaving the seat of governorship to her husband, it would seem,” you say. “I would wager that we might not be here if she had stayed. But I suppose that depends on whether or not her husband was ‘weaker’ than her in any way.”
“Well, people seem to feel that way, your e-excellency,” Floyd says. “I found plenty of articles—some opinion pieces—and most if not all of them thought he was a bit of a, er… ‘lame duck.’ Nobody fussed when Aranzeto ate him. Some people actually celebrated.”
“I suppose that we have a start, either way. Simonetharfel is on the list, then,” you say, handing the data-pad back to Floyd.
“I’m sure she’ll be glad to leave her retirement and relaxation to toil at a job she very willingly left,” Mierius says.
“She was never expected to leave, just as how those in the line before her weren’t expected to leave either. If she didn’t want to return, she should have left her post in better claws. Besides, she’s only at the top of our list because she’s the only one on the list so far. She’s far away and her willingness isn’t ideal, so she’s not preferable. Let’s see the rest.”
Floyd resumes her exposition, eagerly going over a bevy of candidates she’s discovered both in her own time and by your command. Information is her passion. When she was young, she caught a memetic virus which irreversibly altered her brain to seek out knowledge. It’s pathological, she is compelled to acquire as much information as she can. A data-addict. It makes her easily distractible, but she’s learned to direct her fixations towards ends which align with your goals. Hence, she already had a list of fifty candidates lined up before you had even asked her to find them.
Of course, an excess of anything can be tiring or aggravating, if not dangerous, so after the thirteenth candidate she lists, you politely ask her to reign in her onslaught of information and relegate it to the most promising and interesting of the bunch.
“Oh! O-Okay, your excellency! I… I do have this one… it’s purely theoretical. Conspiratorial, even! It’s out there.”
“Well? Let’s hear it, girl,” Mierius demands.
“Yes! Well, it actually has to do with the Vonvoth Resistance. I know that I’ve been talking your ears off, so I’ll—I’ll be real brief about it. Aranzeto is confirmed to have had an ill—illegitimate daughter. Not ill, just illegitimate. Officially, she’s not been seen in the palace for years, but everywhere you look, there are little hints. Hints that she’s the one leading the rebellion.”
You eye the data-pad in her hands. Well, as best you can with a blindfold on. “Let me see.”
She hands the pad to you. “The last known official location’s right there. The protest. And of course, the Resistance is skilled, er, competent enough that I couldn’t find much information on them without going down there myself, so I can’t really tell you where you’ll find her, not exactly.”
“I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that,” you mumble, handing the data-pad to her. “I would like to meet with her myself, so I think I shall. Floyd? I want a collection of all of the leads you have which might bring me closer to the Resistance’s base of operations.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Mierius, have them get my shuttle ready. Not the fancy one, the wartime one. With the stealth capabilities.”
“Ashardalon, I do not think that this is—”
“Keep the governor busy while I’m at it,” you say, interrupting Mierius. “It would only make things annoying for me, if he were to know that I’m going planet-side not to speak with him, but his opposition.”
“Annoying? Annoying? It would be catastrophic!” Mierius all but shrieks, his breathing growing a little haggard. “You should not risk antagonizing a planetary governor like—”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Mierius asks with venom.
You shrug your wings. “What danger could I possibly find in him? Or going planet-side? I am heir to the Empire, it’s my people down there. They worship my bloodline as gods. If I go down there, I will see things done. So I will go. Do you… not want this problem to be solved?”
Mierius frowns with a grimace. He opens his muzzle to speak, but you interrupt him again.
“Forget that. It was wrong of me to implicate you in any potential… well, you know.” You give Mierius a sly smile. “We’re done here. You’re dismissed.”
“Very well,” Mierius says, turning towards the end of the hall, seemingly eager to leave.
“Mierius, aren’t you forgetting something?” You ask. You have plans, after all, and for them to come to fruition, you can't have him leaving just yet.
He turns to face you, and you raise your forepaw. Kissing the ring in greeting is required, but sometimes, one’s expected to kiss it in farewell, if the mood hits you. He huffs through his nose, and retraces his steps, leaning down to kiss it. Just as his muzzle draws near, you pull it away, holding your paw close to your chest.
“Ah, ah! Not with how you behave.” You place your forepaw down, folding it neatly over the other, and grin as you lift your hindpaw, drawing his eye to it.
His jaw droops open just a bit as he eyes it in disbelief, studying the soft sole, a countershade color against the rest of your darker scales. The ring there is silver, to contrast against the gold in your color palette, and a large, circular ruby fits snug into the band. You curl your toes so that he can see the top of it.
“Is that hesitation I sense, Mierius? You know what? I won’t even entertain that thought process. I know you’ll show your dedication to the Empire.”
Mierius swallows, realizing there isn’t a world where he can disobey you without some form of consequence. Slowly, still showing hesitation, he draws closer until his lips brush against the top of your paw. They barely make contact, but he seems to think it’s enough, so he begins to pull away.
“Excuse me?” You say. “Let’s try that again, with passion. If a priest were in here, they’d be screaming at you. After that, I imagine they’d show you how it’s done. You love the Empire, correct?”
“I do. I was born dedicated to it, as all dragons are, and I’ve spent my life staying true to that dedication.”
“Then show it.”
With reluctance, Mierius leans in and gives the ring a proper kiss, averting his gaze as he does so. “There.”
“No. I know you don’t think that measly ring is the Empire.” You press your foot against his lips and splay your toes. “Worship.”
Mierius’ eyes burn with ire as he looks past your paw at you, gritting his teeth. And yet, he relents. He casts his gaze pack down at your paw, and gives it a peck. He looks back up at you for approval. You give him no indication of satisfaction, so he continues.
“You’ve kissed a dragoness before, haven’t you? Loved her with all your heart? Or perhaps another male, if that’s your fancy? The Empire desires more than you ever gave them. So make love to it. If I were you, I would suspect that your life depends on it.”
You hear Mierius’ old, rattling heart skip a beat, but his muzzle puts on a good show of obedience without fear as he settles into his place, making out with your paw: tenderly kissing it, licking it, nuzzling it. He carefully holds it in both paws as he works.
“Ohh, that’s it, old man,” you say, closing your eyes and relaxing, stretching a bit. “Just like that. You’ve been chatty lately. That can be useful. The Empire should be questioned and corrected when wrong, nobody is right in all their given affairs. But if your complaints have nothing to contribute… then the Empire will dispose of you. You know I have the authority to do whatever I wish with you. I could fire you, certainly. It’s clear that you don’t respect me. I would be well within my rights. But I still keep you around. Right now, the only reason that I do such a thing is because I plan to have the satisfaction of eating you. Look at me.”
Mierius didn’t need you to tell him to look at you. The threat stops him in his tracks, and he looks up at you with fear.
“If you don’t start behaving yourself by the time the governor is dealt with, you can look forward to the rest of eternity as something greater: padding on my hips. Continue to disrespect me, and you can be certain of that. Don’t worry if that’s what happens—I’ll think of you. Technically. When I admire my hips, or my ass? I suppose I'll be thinking of you. I might even let you choose what part of my body your soul will be absorbed into. Either way, I will make sure to digest you slowly.” With that, you push his muzzle away with your paw, causing him to stumble back a few steps. He looks at you with evident disbelief. You roll your forepaw over your lithe and empty belly, and it responds with a groan. “Likely, I’ll choose for you. Perhaps my stomach. That way, you can feel my hunger for the rest of eternity. You both complain in roughly equal measures, after all.” You give him a smile. “You two are both dismissed.”
They both stand there for a moment, stunned. You wipe your hindpaw off on the floor.
“Well? Mierius, you have a job to do! I didn’t peg you as the sort who’d want to be eaten, though I understand if you have less qualms about being eaten by me in particular.”
The old dragon manages to catch his senses, shaking his head and turning back around to walk down the hall. Floyd stays until he’s gone.
“Was, uh… was that—did he—did you need to do that?” She asks.
“No, I never need to do anything. That’s my issue, I suppose,” you say, slinking off the throne. “My life is easy, I don’t need to threaten Mierius. He disrespects me, yes, but if I wanted to go the clean, easy way, I would simply say the word and boot him off the seat of my advisor. But I want to see what he does. You wanna make a bet?”
“O-On what, sir?”