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A Little Less Counselor, A Little More Concubine 9

For fyacin_tia

By Draconicon

On Restriction as he was, Fyacin was not a pleased lion. He had a hunk of skymetal all but fused to his groin, and it made it so that his shaft could not rise, could not be revealed in all its glory. The steel itself was hardly ugly, as it had been crafted by someone that knew what he was doing, but to have it there at all was an insult to all that he held dear. The lion's mood had been dropped right into the depths of his soul, and only the sheer indignity at all that had happened to him kept him from being depressed about it all.

The lion strolled naked into the palace, his eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look to his sides as he passed by old advisors and the nobles that were taking the season within the palace rather than out at their own estates. Let them look, he felt. Let them look and see that he had survived all that the other advisors had thrown at him, all their sabotage, all their petty jealousies. He had survived it, and he would better them before the day was done.

His indignation carried him through the hallways with nary a comment from the others within them, only the eyes of those that were blessed with seeing something that they normally would never have the right to take in. The sight of a lion, naked, his balls swaying slowly from side to side, and his rump -

Fyacin almost lost his next step along the wood-paneled floors as he remembered just what had happened to his rump, and he gritted his teeth as he kept walking regardless. The slow sway, sway, sway of his rump reminded him of the greater heft that it had, the softer cushion that it had taken on.

This is their fault. Somehow, this is their fault...

The counselor snorted softly, forcing himself to slow as he passed by the balconies that overlooked the many gardens at the core of the palace. As much as the anger was keeping him from sinking into a state of depression and sadness, he knew that he needed to clear his head. He needed to think clearly, or the hybrid and the dragoness would be able to take him by surprise. He must be a hunter, not their prey.

So, he slowed down, then stopped, leaning forward over one of the railings that looked down at the gardens. The Petal Garden, he realized, where servants stood atop the separating walls to swing petals down on those that lingered below. It was like a pink snow, falling and seasoning the air with the gentle scent of roses. Yes, roses, today, though it had been other scents in the past.

The lion took a deep breath of it, and it calmed him. He was able to close his eyes and think.

There was no point in rushing down the halls and confronting the other advisors. The Emperor's counselors would be quick to defend each other as they always did, and that meant that they would be ready for him to come storming in and demanding explanations. They would tease him, torment him, remind him of his current Restricted status. Instead, he had to be clever. He had to find them one at a time...

Kisari, first...

Alys, for all her faults, had confronted him. They had sparred, and while she had cheated - yes, cheated, for all that her strategy had worked - she had been up front with her difficulties. Kisari had not, and he imagined that she had been the one to cause this trouble. She was the sort; she always spoke of being one with the creatures of the depth. Slimy things, they were, slippery, and never easy to find when you wanted to.

But he could find her.

He smiled, even as he shifted his stance a bit and felt the cage shift with him. Yes. He would find her.

A little rope, a little cloth...a few little ribbons...

Fyacin's hunt was more successful than he had anticipated. As he was Restricted, it meant that he had no chance to dress in garments that were stealthier than his fur, but the dragoness had forgotten one great rule.

Always look up.

The lion hummed to himself as he delicately plucked the tranquilizer dart from her neck, shaking his head as he did so. She was unconscious, but groaning, as he had expected. The drug had not been enough to really do more than knock her out for a few minutes. Anything stronger risked messing with her mind, and he was on thin ice with the Emperor as it was. Risking one of the other Counselors would hardly go well for him.

But he was quick, regardless. They were in the gardens near to the center of the palace, away from the balconies that allowed for easy viewing. This one was the Garden of the Noonday Moon, and it was deliberately kept shrouded in darkness, with a simple pool off-center to the rest of the garden. Shaded trees rose high, and the miniscule amounts of light that filled the garden came from tiny candles in the trees that imitated the glowing insects of the lower lands.

As he laid Kisari against one of the three boulders that surrounded the lake and served as places to sit, he took the rope and ribbons and began tying her up. Her ankles, first, tying them against one another in a double-knot, going so far as to thread the ribbons through the rope and down to her toes, pulling her feet up so that running would be difficult for her.

Then her arms, of course, pulling them behind her back, running a rope around her wrists, tying them together before pulling them around either side of her hands, creating an elaborate loop that would keep her from shredding the rope easily. Between her wings, around her neck in a half-choker, and then down between her breasts along the top of her robe. There, and down, between her legs, then back up around the base of her tail. It finished in a long loop that would induce certain pleasures if she were to struggle.

He imagined that she would appreciate the irony.

He had barely managed to finish looping several ribbons around her horns when her eyelids flickered. Fyacin smiled, taking a step back, sitting down on the boulder adjacent to hers. The low light favored his eyes to an extent, though with her ease with the dim and dark, perhaps not as much as with most species.

The blue-scaled dragoness, her head fins shimmering as she slowly woke - much as a dog's might have done as they came out of a deep sleep - groaned softly to herself. Her rounded, plump body swayed slightly as she tried and failed to move, and he saw the stiffness to her body that showed her shock. One eye opened, and it met his. Kisari sighed.

"I suppose this was to be expected."

"It was you, or Alys."

"And you are far more afraid of her than me."

"Fear? How dare you suggest such a thing. It's merely respect."

"Yes, respecting the fact that she would give you a black eye for this, or worse."

"Hmmph. As if she could catch a cat of my skill twice."

"This would be the seventh time, actually," the dragoness muttered, trying to pull on her ropes - "Ah!"

"Indeed. I wouldn't pull on those too much, unless you want the guards to come and hear one of the un-shamed Counselors gasping as if her Emperor was with her right now."

"I have no shame."

"Oh, I'm sure you have one little bit of shame left, or you would have called for them already."

Kisari groaned.

"You always did have to be top cat, didn't you?"

"I am good at what I do; there is no reason for me to accept anything less than the greatest of adoration and acknowledgement."

"Except when you deliberately steal attention from other people. You never were anything less than greedy for everything the Emperor had to offer."

"Why share what I don't have to?" Fyacin asked, looking down at his nails in his own vain way. "If you wanted to have his attentions, as well, you should have improved your game."

"You broke with tradition. You started this."

"And perhaps I should finish this. After all, that sounded very like a confession."

Kisari sighed, shaking her head, only to grunt slightly at the sudden tightness of the ropes. He imagined it was quite hard for her to think when she was tied up like that; she had always been more of a woman of motion than Alys, and considering that every motion brought a sharp shock of pleasure in that get-up, focus would be hard to come by. Fyacin couldn't help but allow himself a small smirk, shaking his head.

"You will find it very hard to form lies while you're distracted by that."

"Who says that I would lie?"

"You've certainly told me no truths."

"Hmmph."

"I know that one of you - perhaps both - have done something to me. I don't know how, when, or why, but I know it was at least instructed by one of you. Are you so jealous of my magnificence that this was the only way that you could bring me down?"

The dragoness rolled her eyes again, and Fyacin grumbled.

"You could at least attempt to take this interrogation seriously."

"Seriously? Kitten, you have done little more than brag this entire time. And rather horribly, I would add."

"You think that I don't deserve it?"

"A portion, perhaps. But more than that, no."

Fyacin sat up in a huff, his dignity and indolent pose forgotten in the space of a second. His claws showed as he clenched his fingers, his mane rising ever so slightly as he glared at the dragoness.

"You've tried to bring me low for my success! That alone gives my every boast validity."

"No. We had other reasons. Just as we had other reasons to remind the Emperor to keep you alive...though you are seriously making me question them now."

"Hmmph. You say that like I should thank you."

"You should, unless you wanted to die."

The lion opened his mouth, then closed it again. For all that he was fuming again, he knew that she was right about that much. The Emperor had had every right to see him dead, to have his execution ordered and carried out. Yet, that fate had been stayed, and he was still alive, though...annoyingly hampered in many ways.

He shifted his position again, trying to get more comfortable with the cage around his sheath and rapidly finding out that that wasn't possible. Kisari groaned as she gradually dragged herself into an upright position, hissing softly as she did. The way that the ropes pulled and twisted about her chest and groin, he imagined that she was being made to grind on them like a prostitute caught with the wrong client. She shifted left, right, left again until she was properly upright, her curves lifted up by her ropes.

"You do not understand. Even now, humbled as you are, you do not understand."

"Hmmph. I gave the Emperor what he needed. I told him how to avoid the worst of the war. Neither of you had any ideas."

"Who is to say that we didn't? But you broke with the tradition, giving him instructions -"

"No man may instruct the Emperor."

"Yet, you did, with your 'advice.' You told him a way forward when we could not. You made it so that he could only listen to one voice, rather than many."

"And does that matter, if the one voice is right?"

"It matters when the one voice is wrong, and eventually, one voice always will be."

Kisari shook her head, trying to flex her legs. She cocked her head to the side, lifting both her feet at once. She pointed her toes slightly, straining against the ribbons that pinned them in such an awkward position.

"I'm more used to the Emperor doing this than anyone else..."

"He ties you up?" Fyacin asked.

"He's quite fond of a bound woman...and he is quite the artist with the ropes that he keeps beneath the bed."

"He's never used those on me."

"I imagine that you have never let him; you were always one to set your own pace, rather than let someone else take the lead."

"I have..."

Fyacin bit his lip. He had done enough defending himself, and he was no closer to an answer than he had been at the start of the interrogation. He still didn't know why they had done this to him, or how. All he had gotten out of it was confirmation that the other two Counselors were responsible for his strange changes, and that they were likely going to make it worse before they made it better.

Shaking his head, he slid off his rock, taking hold of the sea dragoness's rope. He pulled on it, leaving her gasping as it likely dragged right between her legs, right over her sex.

"Tell me this. Why did you keep me alive?"

"Hmmph. Because one voice can be right, too...and you were right with your advice. You may be right again. But you must learn -"

"I must learn? I'm good enough to have earned my place. You...you're the ones that have to learn how to accept that. Have a good swim."

He pushed her into the water. She was a sea dragoness, so there was no risk of her drowning, but at the very least, she'd have a very sensual swim before someone came along to fish her out of the water. Fyacin shook his head, putting her behind him as he turned towards the wall. Climbing up to the top, he followed the walls between the gardens, meandering as he tried to decide what to do next. He could go after Alys, see if she had anything to say...or he could go right to the top.

The End

Summary: Fyacin tries to drag answers out of Kisari about why he has been treated the way that he has, but she drives him absolutely nuts.

Tags: M/F, bondage, rope, grinding, teasing, interrogation, fantasy, mysticism, palace, lion, dragoness, insecurity, series,