Chapter 7
“Do you love me?” asked The Bitch Queen.
Ruff imagined the correct response. It would be a resounding yes, but it wouldn’t come across so plain and usual. He would first address her stature; though mentioning nothing of her contrast as she sat upon the throne looking down upon her subjects almost vanishing under the great wooden arms that stuck out high into the air that somehow still heightened the minacity of her tiny canine form like a flake of dry skin amidst the flow of thick lush black hair. She was entirely visible whilst being seemingly lost. A thousand hounds’ eyes fell upon none but her; completely besotted by the ferocity of her desire.
He would tell her that she was the spark within a fire, the breath of life within a beating heart, the dancing string within an entire universe or the magnificence within the obviousness of potential.
He would say that even as the largest tree hath been judged by the sweetness of its berry, her kingdom was not drawn upon the size of her limbs but of the size of her bark.
Around him, snarling beasts closed in, their snouts low to the ground, saliva pouring onto the cold floor, their bloodshot eyes shooting up towards his trembling frame that lay low to the ground, shaking like a sapling in the eye of a hurricane.
“Speak, or I shall feed your heart to the boars” spoke The Bitch Queen.
It didn’t matter what he said, their fate was sealed. His salvation was in the hands of the young boy and the untrustworthy girl and he couldn’t lie.
“I love the humans,” he said.
The room erupted in deprecated howling and imperious snarls from the gallery of the court.
“You will love me or you will die,” she said.
“Nothing is deserving of love which is unwilling to love. I will love you if you love me in return and if you love me, you will let my friends go” replied Ruff.
The Bitch Queen sank into her crown and sang out the venom inside of her through a low growl that resonated inside the golden crown and cast high into the court, deafening the obedient soul of every hound, building in volume and building in hate until finally, the bitch threw her tiny pointed face through the peaks of the crown and yapped loud and piercingly to the gallery, screaming her despise and contempt upon one and all.
If one should disobey, then everyone should suffer.
“You love those things, those humans? How could you love something that does not love itself? How could you love something so unreal, so unnatural?” The Bitch Queen yelled to Ruff.
The guard hounds encircled him and as they did so, The Bitch Queen signalled to her right where; from a dark crest against a stone wall, came a large shadow into the flickering light of the court. The shadow walked menacingly and uniformly towards Ruff, carrying in its grasp something that sang of horrendous sharpness as it grinded against the cold concrete floor.
Ruff kept his eyes tuned to the queen’s throne as the great shadow drenched his own and towered over him, the coldness of the thing in its grasp brushed against his inner ear as his every sense then devised him to abeyance.
“What are you and your humans doing in my kingdom?” she said.
“We are looking only for passage. I travel with the humans. We are running from a danger” said Ruff.
“You travel with the humans? You’re following a human? Have you no education at all? Ladies and gentlemen the dog is now shopping for fleas. What is wrong with you? Are you taking drugs?” asked The Bitch Queen in mocking concern.
“He’s possessed” yelled a voice from within the court.
“Banish him” yelled another.
“Burn him at the steak” yelled more.
“Hang the witch” yelled a croaking voice in the back of the gallery.
The Bitch Queen stepped out from within the crown and into the full light of the court. She was a Chihuahua, a tiny body; miniscule and almost comical against the force of her bark, were it not that an entire kingdom was inspired by the insanity dressed in her every bidding and drunk on her want to be loved.
“Why don’t you love me? Am I not beautiful? Am I not powerful? What is wrong with you? You are strange” she said scornfully.
The Bitch Queen lifted her chest high and pointed her little snout to the ceiling and marched back and forth across the grand throne fit for a human king. The gallery watched in awe and their hearts fluttered as they followed their queen in boisterous admiration; cheering and howling as she pranced to and fro.
“Open the pit” she screamed.
Immediately, a large chain pulled and a huge wheel turned and near the centre of the court, the floor parted like the opening of a monstrous steel mouth.
The sound was horrendous like a blunt drill boring through rotten teeth as the metal turned and the floor peeled open exposing a dark depth where swimming in the vacuity below was the sound of murder; horrific beasts if one could imagine the worst, crawling over one another, driven by the scent of fresh meat garnished in fear.
“Let me show you how my people love me,” she said to Ruff who was still tied to the floor by his growing fright.
“Who in this court hath loved me more than I love myself?” she asked to the gallery.
The court erupted once more in howling; this time of acceptance, obedience and desire. Every hound wished to be before her feet; to be seen amongst the pack and to have their heart in her mouth.
In the back of the room, a large Shepherd stepped forward and under guard, marched with his head low but his heart swelling with pride towards the open cavity in the floor. The Shepherd stopped at the tip of a large metal tooth sticking out from a perfect circle where below him, murder hungered for his love.
“Love has no condition” she screamed to Ruff.
He said nothing.
“Do you love me without condition?” she screamed to the Shepherd.
“Yes, my queen” The Shepherd replied.
“Then prove it,” she said.
The Shepherd looked to her for a moment, just to grace himself with her image. He then; without a second’s thought, dove into the darkness and lay down with murder. He didn’t scream and he didn’t yelp. Murder had its way with him as he was given unto his queen’s love and she sat on her throne; unmoved and unaffected.
“That is love. Would your humans die for you?” she said coolly.
“And if he didn’t jump, would his love still be without condition? His love is a condition. It is a condition of his fear. His fear of you, his fear of dying alone; his fear of living alone. He doesn’t love you, he loves the idea of you and that is enough to quell his fear of himself. Nobody in this court loves you; your voice is just louder than the shrill of fright that echoes inside their conscious minds. They warm to your oppression. They have learned to empathize with your aberration, but they do not love you. Not in the way you would like to conceive. Everything has its balance. Unconditional love is not without condition” said Ruff.
“Let me create a condition for you. Guards, prepare another hunt. We will let the mongrel here pick who shall run; the little boy or the fair skinned girl. Prepare the humans” she ordered.
The guards marched Ruff away out of the court as the gallery hissed and spat in his direction. He kept his sight to the floor and focused only on the boy as the menacing Doberman’s ushered him back out through the passageway towards the prison. The Bitch Queen was taken away on a carriage by a pack of Huskies to her royal chambers where there waited a dark intriguing shadow at the end of the room where in its centre sat a large white bathtub filled with red blood.
The Bitch Queen ordered her escort off as she slowly crept up to the bathtub braising the edges of the red liquid with her tongue and shivering in delight as the virgin blood trickled down the back of her throat.
“He shouldn’t be here. They are trouble. They bring trouble with them. My queen, I must insist that you let them go; not for their sake but for our own” said The Intriguing Figure at the back of the room.
“Nobody leaves my kingdom and nobody shall resist my cha
rm,” she said, lowering herself into the bathtub; her tiny body vanishing in the dark red liquid.
As she lowered her body completely into the blood of human children, she felt a wave of electricity flow through her entire being but as it did, her skin shuddered as if tiny insects were scuttling just under the fine hairs.
It wasn’t working.
“This blood, it’s not pure enough,” she said.
“My queen, the humans are infected. Their blood is impure, it is uncoupled from nature” said The Intriguing Figure.
“What does that mean?” she said.
“If we do not find a pure human soon, your heart will age,” it said.
“I cannot die, I am The Bitch Queen, I am a god” she screamed in disbelief.
“As long as the blood in which you bathe is of a pure human heart then you will remain beautiful, but the humans are ending soon and with them, your throne,” said The Intriguing Figure.
“That cannot be. Surely there must be something we can do; we can breed them. What do we do? I must be beautiful” said The Bitch Queen childishly.
“If they die, you die, your kingdom dies. If we let nature have its way, all life will come to an end” it said.