HOLY GOD. This chapter was truly a MONSTER of a write! I'm fairly certain that had I divided it into two different portions it'd still flow fine, but not this time! Lord above, though, this chapter did drain all my energy for a very long time. Hopefully you all will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

No more promises on release dates anymore - with University now in full swing, I can't really pinpoint when I'll have the time to sit down and write a paragraph or two, let alone thirty-something pages!

Regardless, the clock ticks ever closer to midnight...

Countdown until "The Event" - 3 Chapters

And I encourage you to leave a review, even if this was the most mundane thing you've ever read. Any and all feedback is beneficial for a writer!

Prince Gregory and Lucas kept at the King's sides, their steps as stiff and coordinated as their straightened ears and steady gazes, standing in stark contrast to their liege's pleasant demeanor.

"My Princes…" Nicholas impartially greeted, his low-hanging tail bristling and dumbfounded wariness rife in his tone. "It's a… surprise to see you!"

More like a horror! Judy silently hissed, her teeth grinding behind her clenching expression. She could hardly bring herself down the throne's steps to stand beside her betrothed without launching herself at the two well-dressed rabbits with her short claws extended. She could feel nothing but unrefined rage at the turmoil their paws had wreaked.

Even as the Prince's fluffed tail persuasively weaved around her ankle, her outrage only fumed to greater heights beneath her bristling fur and in the ever-reddening depths of her amethyst gaze.

"Had I known their return would be so timely I'd have announced it to your majesties," King Hopps went on merrily, acknowledging her vexation with a simple dismissive flick of his ear. "The fair Lord Younce, to whom I entrusted Prince Gregory and Lucas's reeducation in your absence, had apparently sent me a letter declaring them absolved of their crimes. I'm afraid the added precautions for your security, however, have lessened the speed of the Kingdom's courtiers."

"Not that that is any issue," He politely clarified, and he shuffled to his side and let his half-proud, half-ecstatic gaze address the Princes' warily rising stares. "I am merely thankful my son's minds are clean of their past strife."

Judy couldn't coax herself to share her father's sentiment, and judging by the wary, questionable glare her betrothed was sending the Princes neither could he. These two rabbits standing no more than a few feet before them and who shared her very blood, had tried and very nearly succeeded in assaulting – no, assassinating, her love. To even suggest that they and their compatriots had since changed their ways was as foolhardy as a mouse sailin-

"My most honorable Prince Wilde, I throw down a thousand writs of apology at your feet," Prince Lucas suddenly spoke, shattering the uneasy silence in the room and falling to a submissive kneel in front of Nicholas. The apology in his voice was shockingly believable, as was the almost pained look hidden in his blue eyes. "My actions on that awful day have marred my conscience ever since like a burdened ship upon crags. As honesty reigns in heaven I confess I have only realized the folly of my thoughts in recent nights, yet I can no longer spare myself from torment. Please, I beg of your forgiveness for the troubles my temper has wreaked."

Both Judy and Nicholas stood speechless for a long moment, their eyes wide and ears low as the reality of her brother's apology came crashing upon them. His genuine tone and sincere look of distress flattened Judy's fur and made her mind half-forget why she could stomach her anger at a mammal so truthful. That was, until Prince Gregory came to a kneel beside him.

"My Prince Wilde and Princess Hopps," The stone faced Prince aloofly started, his nose seeming to wrinkle distastefully as his head bowed. "My plots were the archaic tools of savages. Our enemies can no longer be drawn simply by the divides in species, but by the merit of the mammals therein. I express the deepest regret I can muster for not having realized this until my ignorance proved too great to be overcome."

Unlike his younger brother, Judy couldn't tell whether Prince Gregory's words were coming from a place of enlightenment or revenge. His amber gaze was ambiguous, and his stiff, vacant expression remained devoid of any sense of righteous regret. He was either an ally just as numb as before, or he was himself, and so long as he remained as such, so would Prince Lucas.

She felt her paws clench the longer she thought of that, not noticing the steel object Prince Gregory's left paw had covertly pulled from behind his waist until it glinted in the hollow midday light. At the glimpse of his rapier's metallic handle she let out the start of a furious snarl and tensed every muscle in her small body.

How dare he?! Judy murderously screamed, not hesitating for so much as a breath and preparing to lunge for the blade and wrestle him to the ground, but a velvet paw came flying around her side before she made so much as a peep.

Nicholas's pleading expression and his two wide, loving emeralds urged her to wait. She could hardly believe what he was asking her to do; to stand idly by and wait for the inevitable strike? Her banging chest was starting to burn, but she stood as still and stiff as a statue while Prince Gregory drew his rapier and dropped it down onto the stone floor.

The lonely handle bounced away without ever coming near them.

"I ask for forgiveness, both from you, as my blood, and from God above," Prince Gregory halfheartedly finished, keeping his unwavering glare locked with Judy's for a long instant before it fell back to the floor.

The silence that followed in the wake of the Prince's handle's clang was terribly tense. The very air was as still as the fox and rabbit that stood in it, deep in their thoughts.

It was Judy who turned to stare up at Nicholas's focused, distant expression first. If the decision to forgive rested in her paws, she found herself unsure as to whether she could ever trust, let alone absolve, the two rabbits bowing in front of her. How many times need she remind herself of the hardship they had caused; how close they'd driven her fox to utter misery? No, she couldn't forgive them for an act so foul; not when she doubted the truth of their apologies.

But, would it infuriate her father if she refused to grant them the absolution they asked? She was beginning to convince herself so...

Yet a quick glance towards his still beaming face made her reconsider.

He would wish for me to speak my mind. She uncertainly surmised, her frowning gaze falling to the floor as her teeth bit at the corner of her lip. But if he believes them to be worthy of return, then who am I to him but a fern to flames?

Once again, she reminded herself the decision did not lie in her's or the King's paws, but in the Prince's. Her brothers were not begging for her forgiveness, nor that of the Kingdom, but for his alone.

Judy watched with bated breath as his glossed eyes turned down to her with a small smirk and a careful squeeze of her paw. The tint of life in his deep, warm emeralds was reassuring enough for her for the moment, even if it did betray his decision, and she squeezed his paw back.

"We may have had our relationship start on the wrong side of the door, my Princes," Nicholas lightly quipped, his smile continuing to rise while a memory Judy could hardly comprehend flashed behind his face. "As it has been told to me, you've lost many of your brothers to foxkind. The war truly did place a terrible tax on both our species; your upbringing and attitude in such traumatic times is understandable. But now that you're of clearer minds, I can only hope we may work together as allies, so our descendants must never experience the losses that we have."

The effect Nicholas's word had on the Princes wasn't noticeable except for a gradual rise of their heads. Judy gulped down her dissent and folded her ears over her back as the two stony rabbits rose from their bows, neither of them having the courage to speak a word of thanks other than a silent murmur of appreciation.

"Oh, what a wonderful day it is to see my house of good spirit again!" King Hopps merrily chuckled, strolling over from where he'd watched their exchange with a thankful, resolute beam directed at Judy's incessantly twitching nose and the Prince's steady smile. "I will not add the trouble of having them settled to your duties, as busy as they are."

"I trust your quarters are prepared for your return?" Judy rigidly pressed, keeping her cool gaze locked with Prince Gregory's earthward-bound stare while her ears tilted towards Prince Lucas. She was harkening to hear the sincerity of their voices and shatter her belief of their disingenuous apologies, but it was her father that opened his mouth to reply.

"That is what I must deal with today," He nonchalantly answered, trying to facilitate her distrust with a slow, reassuring blink. "They still have a great fine to pay the Kingdom for their past disloyalty, among other duties."

"Then let us hope they'll have the coin for wedding doublets," Nicholas casually joked with a lighthearted swipe of his tail, yet Judy found herself unable to join in his merriment. The unadulterated look of malice and disgust hidden in Prince Gregory's half-sneering muzzle was enough to make her chest freeze like the northern ocean.

"Indeed," King Hopps laughed agreeably, though Judy hardly heard his lively voice.

For the rest of the day her thoughts were swarmed by apprehension. All throughout the midafternoon meetings with ministers and dignitaries the encounter with the Princes made her unable to focus for more than a few minutes at a time. The idea of the two bunnies once again sleeping under the same roof as she and Prince Wilde made her queasier than rabbit stew.

I cannot bring myself to believe them... She decidedly conceded with a curt exhale, the image of Prince Gregory's stare shooting into her thoughts and Marshal Fenus' daily report fading away to a mumble as her ears stiffly collapsed behind her skull. No matter how much I dread to utter it, they are plotting some atrocity…

Still, she kept her lips sealed until the sun had long since fallen behind the pine-swathed hills. Only when she and the Prince were alone on her suite's wide balcony, safely mute to the ears of any who had the gall to eavesdrop, did she dare to voice her discontent.

"You must agree with me, Nicholas," She pleaded, her purple eyes swimming in a concoction of fear and love as her paws clutched against his forearm resting on the cool marble railing. Nicholas's uncertain gaze was cast out to the distant clouds, his brow in a stressed furrow and his tail hanging low and motionless.

"I will admit, I'm… wary of their return," He heavily sighed, turning his doubtful, comforting face to meet the endless worry entrenched into her frowning stare. "I'm more driven by trust in your father's judgement than I am my own opinions; a fox then is not a fox now, in their eyes. But if the past is any indicator of the future, then I'm the stupidest of my kind, yet I won't rule out the hope of good intention. Not yet, anyways."

"My father can hardly say he knows my brothers as I do, Nicholas," Judy gently countered, her resolve only deepening as she pulled her right paw up to cup his soft cheek while the fingers on her left intertwined with his. "That is why I'm asking you to trust me. If so much as a traitorous hair remains on their pelts, then it will incite them to vengeful deeds. Have I ever told you of the time I duped Lucas into believing it would be night forever?"

Nicholas tossed his head in reply while his ears shot up from the sides of his skull. A sharp breeze swept around them as he leaned forward, interested, and Judy suppressed a shiver in the biting wind as she was taken back to that day.

"I was very young; maybe five," She unenthusiastically reflected, straining to pull details from the fuzzy colors flashing from her mind's eldest crevices, but she shook herself back to the moment when her betrothed's tail snaked up along her lower back. "Heh, I only remember so much as a bunny can."

"It was the heart of summer, and both Prince Lucas and I were running about in the gardens until he took a fall to his head. When he came to, he insisted all he could see was black, so I acted as though the sun had ceased from the sky. Needless to say, he was petrified, but once his sight returned he and Gregory stormed my study, blindfolded me, and challenged me to duel them both. Needless to say, they left me bruised and tearful."

"Yet today I saw in Prince Gregory the same vengeful spirits as I did then," Judy warily finished with a nerve-wracking gulp, her posture from ear tip to toe tip having grown a thousand times harder over her story's course, and her stony gaze rose from the black world beyond the Palace walls to meet her betrothed's thoughtful stare. "They are plotting some retribution, my Prince, even if my father has welcomed them home with open arms."

Judy felt both her paws tighten around Nicholas's as the supportive spark in his downcast emeralds faded. She could see he was working through her words like the gears of a clocktower, yet his silence only fueled the petrified ache deep in her chest. She felt blood rushing through her ears like a seaside flood while her nose relentlessly twitched at the end of her muzzle as she waited patiently for his reply.

"I… I don't know…" Nicholas wearily sighed, barely managing an exhausted shake of his head as his ears folded and his uncertain eyes locked with hers again. "Treason is a serious charge, Judith, and suspicion is hardly grounds for trial. Certus rots in chains only because of the evidence you gathered of his plot. If anything, the Princes only acted by what they'd been brought to believe, which, thank God, you haven't."

"They, of all mammals, deserve at the very least a chance at redemption," He unenthusiastically decided, and his gaze glossed over ashis face tensed. "In some way it is we who are indebted to them, for it was their assault that led you to Certus's courtier."

Judy could empathize with the Prince's reluctance, but his final sentence made her blood boil like it never had before. To even suggest that what her brothers had done was remotely excusable was the argument of insanity. They and their followers had tried to pierce his chest with sharpened swords and hearts of hate, or had he so conveniently forgotten that?!

"Never utter that again, idiotic fox!" She hissed furiously, jerking her paws away from his and shooting a step away from them with a vicious growl and a glare of crimson. "I am not indebted to their murderous intentions. On the grounds of your logic, I suppose I should thank you for sliding your claws across my cheek, since that, eventually, lead to Certus and the Nighthowlers? Huh? What say you?"

Nicholas had reeled back a step, his tail and ears straighter than rods of steel and the overwhelming fragrance of shock drowning his scent. It was the look of utter hurt in his glazed emeralds that shattered the furnace raging beneath her teal gown, and in a single instant she felt regret and horror shoot through her veins like barbed arrows.

"Nick!" Judy frantically spurted out, her heart burning with apology as she shot up against the creamy underside of his muzzle and wrapped her arms around his midsection tighter than his steel chest plate. "I- I didn't mean it! I-"

"I know," The Prince tenderly soothed, his paw dotingly cupping the back of her head while his tail encouragingly encircled her waist, and an instant's glance up at his wildly green gaze showed her the soft underbelly of his normally callused façade. "Merely… you just grew a little impassioned, fluff."

"Undoubtedly," She halfheartedly acknowledged, taking in deep breaths of his relaxing scent and grinding the side of her face into his soft neck fur, yet even that couldn't seem to rout the anxious frown from her forehead. "Maybe… maybe I'm just in need of rest. With the assassin, Certus, our wedding, and now this…"

"Sounds like the both of us could use another week in the mountains," Nicholas wryly snickered, his tail guiding her with him as he drew them towards the orange glow of her bedroom. All Judy did was roll her eyes in reply as she surrendered to his paws, following alongside his toxically buoyant spirit as the heat from her fireplace washed over her chilled dress.

"Maybe after we're married, sly fox," She warily remarked with a backpawed grin, not daring to break their pawhold nor to move her eyes from Nicholas's as she crawled onto her bed's ruffled white sheets. Her heart still thumped as though tomorrow were a fantasy, though she wasn't certain if it was the unrepressed worry from before or if the heat in her tail was driving it.

"You're not retiring to bed yet?" She asked curiously, sitting up on the bed with her ears high when Nicholas withdrew from their pawhold and strode towards her bedroom's doorway. He shook his head, sending her an apologetic glance as he stepped out into her suite's living space, leaving just his face and a paw in view.

"I've to study the new patrols the Marshal has implemented," He explained with a pointed flick of his ear, a sincere look of determination and regret radiating from his gaze as his claws tightened on the doorway's wooden frame. "I'll join you in a few minutes, so don't fall asleep just yet, Princess."

"You'll find me here," Judy tersely assured, sending him a final, understanding beam and a long blink. He grinned back thankfully and pulled the door shut with a quiet click; the last glimpse of him she caught was his foxy smile before she fell back onto her bed, her arms and legs sprawled out like a corpse and her unfocused eyes facing her room's dim stone ceiling.

Her chest hadn't ceased its threat to shatter as her gaze flickered over the mundane surface, and her nose began to twitch worriedly as her thoughts were drawn back to the two Princes resting no more than a few hundred feet from her.

He doesn't realize so great a danger sleeps under the same roof as him… Judy anxiously thought, rolling onto her side while her hard gaze stared out at the moonless, starless sky. Suddenly her legs were as restless as though it were midday, and she rolled off her mattress and strode into the cool night air, shivering as a brumal breeze sliced through her silken dress.

There must be some manner through which I can prove to Nicholas that my concern isn't misguided! She dourly protested, folding her arms on her balcony's marble railing while her intense gaze fell to the burrow below. I'm certain it isn't. Gregory and Lucas are planning some fresh attack or rouse; I swear it by my heart's beats!

"If only I'd the evidence to prove it so," She growled, discouraged. Her frowning amethysts fell earthward and her head hung limp in defeat, yet an instant later her entire body shot straight as a spark of knowledge lit above her ears.

When my suspicion of Certus flourished, did I sit idly by and let him plot his coup? Judy triumphantly thought, her eyes wide and her foot hastily thumping against the numbing floor while the foundations of a plan rose inside her mind. If I were to slip down to Gregory's quarters, just for a few minutes…

"Yes! That's it!" Judy shouted victoriously with a deep grin carved into her muzzle, her body bouncing in anticipation at the ploy she'd developed, but a muffled cough cut her joyous outcry short. Her ears fell stiffly behind her back as she silently sprinted to the corner of her balcony and peered through the candle-lit window just beyond the railing's edge.

Nicholas was leaning over her suite's long dining table, his rapt gaze hard at work sweeping over an expansive map sprawled atop it. Judy breathed a quick sigh of relief that he'd been deaf to her outburst, but a pang of guilt burrowed under her fur as she thought of the promise she'd made to wait for his return.

Yet, it was the bags under his eyes that betrayed his true intention for the evening and reassured her as much as a sight so unnerving could. It'd been impossible for her not to have noticed his tendency, in the days since their return, to refrain from sleep until the first rays of dawn's light. How could she, when the sheets around his invitingly cozy fur were as frosty as alpine dew? The search for the assassin was very nearly draining him to the point of exhaustion; why would she bother foolishly forcing another stress onto him.

"I'll only be gone but a few minutes," She resolvedly reassured herself, darting back indoors and hurrying to her rabbit-sized armor rack with a steadfast lag in her step. "Prince Gregory's suite is only a floor below. I'll gather the evidence of his and Lucas's disloyalty and return before the Prince has even noticed I've gone. And if they're as loyal as King Hopps believes, then my sleep will be all the deeper!"

Judy couldn't quite bring herself to believe that last assurance.

Her fitting steel cuirass was strapped onto her chest within a matter of seconds, and an instant later so were her arm and leg bracers. With a reluctant twitch of her ear she started to reach for her rapier, hanging delicately on a wall mount, only to retract her fingers the moment they glided across its polished grip.

It's only a precaution. She sternly reminded, drawing in a sharp, empowering breath before she snatched the weapon's belted scabbard and sheathed the blade. She seriously hoped she wouldn't have need of its polished edge tonight.

The final preparation of her departure was the simplest, yet Judy undertook it with the utmost care. The stunning circlet of lavender the Prince had crafted to sit atop her head with his own dexterous paws was just as breathtaking as when she'd first experienced its astonishing colors. Its pleasant smell had long since drowned out her own scent, and now as she gently held it in both her paws it suddenly occurred to her that it had acted as the perfect mask.

Judy cautiously placed the crown inside her oaken nightstand's drawer, ensuring that its vines wouldn't unravel onto the floor in an ugly mass, and slowly shut it away with the tips of her fingers.

Had the chilling breeze been stilled Judy would've thought herself to be standing where she had only a few weeks prior, although that warm night seemed a life long since past. With her toes dangling over the balcony's railing and her heart roaring like a torrential stream she could almost picture a shirtless fox standing on the balcony of his suite below, his disinterested gaze focused on nothing in particular.

How times have changed… Judy melancholically reflected, drawing in a brave breath and puffing out her chest as she stepped off the railing and into the night's cool embrace. Air whirled around her as she plummeted earthward, though this time she hadn't the friendly reminder there was a particular fox waiting to catch her below.

When her toes finally collided with the marble surface of her betrothed's balcony Judy forced herself into an abrupt forward roll that sent a blunt shock through her shoulders. She drew in a sharp, sour breath and glanced up at her suite so may feet above the one she kneeled on now, marveling at the distance between the two as the fear that'd momentarily stunned her mind faded.

Nicholas' suite only vaguely carried his signature vulpine scent, which was surprising given how often he'd visited since their return – that being hardly, except to fetch his armor and doublets. Tonight, however, it was certainly to her benefit, since there was not a single guard posted outside his door.

Judy kept herself swathed in shadows as she stalked down the maze of hallways, her ears high and head low, her feet only daring to take her forward when the air was still and darkness was at its thickest. At this late an hour the Palace's stone walls offered countless stretches of black, and only a few lone guardsmammals, more asleep than awake, patrolled the lifeless hallways. It was little more than a trivial chore to keep herself hidden from their view, and after one last dash she peered around a dark corner

A determined huff slipped past her muzzle when the familiar door to Gregory's suite came into view at the end of a long, featureless hallway. With a quick check over her shoulder she stood up from the shadows and hurried into the dim moonlight pouring in from the corridor's windows. Her footsteps were lighter than petals as she made her way to the bolted oaken door and pressed an ear against its keyhole.

There wasn't so much as a hint of a whisper from the other side. Judy cautiously pushed open the creaky door with painful precision, cracking it scarcely wide enough for her chest to squeeze through when she sucked in her gut and held her breath.

She paused when she was halfway through, her senses sweeping the room from its leftmost doorway to its rightmost window, both of which were locked shut. The stuffy air was heavy with dust and devoid of any incriminating scent, and aside from a few meagre chairs and tables Prince Gregory's quarters were as barren as the orderly hallways. The place had more in common with a looted tomb than royal chambers.

"What?" Judy quietly exclaimed in a mix of caution and bewilderment, her brow more bent than the sharpest of angles. She threw caution to the wind and pushed open the creaky door completely, ignoring the loud groans that echoed down the abandoned hallways as she walked into the empty room.

Inside there wasn't so much as a hair with Gregory's name on it, let alone a trace of his treason. An irked grumble began to rattle Judy's cuirass while the paw she'd rested on her rapier's handle clenched into a fist.

Evidently her father hadn't kept his word to see her brothers settled by this evening. What was she to do now?! Attempt the same stealth for a second night in a row, which would be all but impossible, or chew through her fingernails while she waited for the Princes to eventually rear their hea-

The distant approach of footsteps was faint, but it was without a doubt just that – an approach. It caught Judy with her guard down, and she reeled back from the doorway she'd foolishly kept wide open, the fur along the back of her neck bristling and her head tucked against her shoulders.

If she moved so much as an inch to her left she'd betray her presence to whomever was drawing closer; and judging by the volume of steps it was definitely more than a single mammal.

Great turnips! Judy frantically cursed, her mind falling into a wild panic as she scoured the room for a place to conceal herself. On this side of the door, though, there were only a few scattered chairs and a high red couch, all of which were too conspicuous to hide behind and too tall to cower under. She nearly forced herself over to the other side of the entryway, where a large chest had been invitingly kept with its lid unlatched, but her feet fell dead in their tracks only hairs from the door when a loud cough echoed from very close by.

Judy could feel the desperation of the moment clawing at her pelt, and with all reservations thrown out the window she forced herself towards the suite's balcony doors. With the haste of a hunted criminal she leapt over the marble railing, her pupils shrinking to peppercorns as she swayed in midair, her teal dress flapping in the bitter wind with only her paws keeping her from plummeting the hundreds of feet to the swift river far below.

No more than a few seconds after her leap of faith the footsteps stopped dead in their tracks, and Judy cautiously pulled her eyes up to the balcony's floor while her arms trembled under her own weigh.

To her dismay it wasn't two disgruntled rabbits that stood brooding in the suite's darkened light, but a pair of steel-clad foxes.

"You're hearing things, Grun," One of them mumbled, his accent so thick Judy could hardly comprehend him, and whatever his colleague sharply grumbled back was lost in translation. Growing more confident, she perked a single ear and tilted it in the direction of the foxes, who had begun to absentmindedly wander around the room's red couch with their swords thankfully sheathed.

"Must've been the wind," The other soldier admitted, landing a bored kick against the stone floor. "Don't want to stick around here too long, not unless I'd like to lose my paws to a charge of treason."

"Let's hope King Hopps knows his sons as well as I know cards," The first joked, rubbing his paws together uncomfortably as he made a move towards the balcony's open doors.

Judy ducked back under the railing as the two foxes came into the fresh air, her arms aching and breath bated as one of their muzzles peered over the balcony's edge only a few feet above her. His nose sniffed the air relentlessly, and as his lips drew back in a snarl Judy felt her body stiffen like ice.

"Nothing exciting ever happens nowadays," He growled, his overhanging paws clenched into fists, and Judy breathed a silent sigh of relief at his outburst. "Remember the war? So many victories, so much honor! Now all we partake in is patrols and training…"

"Better this than wasting away in some hamlet, I say," The other chuckled rather sarcastically. "At least have thanks that we aren't the poor souls who have to escort the most valiant Princes to their inn at this hour."

"Amen," The first fox snorted in agreement, and a comfortable quiet followed his voice.

So Gregory and Lucas shall sleep in the Burrow tonight? Judy reflectively surmised, enthusiasm beginning to rouse her senses while her foot eagerly thumped at the air. And by the sounds of events, they've only just departed! If I'm quick enough I may be able to catch them on their journey, and from then it is only a matter of time before they cast down their guard and spill their plans.

How fortune had smiled upon her this evening! Yet dangling here, pushed about by the constant breeze, the opportunity was as distant as a shimmering star.

Judy glanced about for a way to slip past the idle duo standing above her, gritting her teeth as she perilously stared down at the cliffs far below, yet there wasn't any path she could see that wouldn't either see her caught red-pawed or smashed red-skulled. That was, until she looked off towards the Palace's defenses.

With her jaw clenched tighter than burning coals Judy slowly shifted her grip on the balcony's floor, carefully sliding her paws along the smooth marble edge with her attention set on the Palace proper's sheer walls. A frightened grunt slipped from her jaw when her right paw slipped, leaving her thrashing about in the air for a breathless moment before she regained her grip on the slippery surface, but the fox above her only flicked a dismissive ear at her outburst.

Her forearms were screaming for rest by the time she had propped her legs around the balcony's underside supports, and as she regained her strength her paws clamored against the slim gaps left between the enormous stone slabs making up the Palace's outer wall hardly deep enough for her fingertips to squeeze into.

Judy could feel her petrified heart pounding against her ribs as her eyes gaped down at the river that'd catch – or rather end – her fall should her fingers fail her. She could only remain terrified for so long, though, and with a resolute, calming breath she shifted her weight from her legs curled around the balcony's stone supports and entirely onto the ends of her fingers. She bit her tongue to silence a sharp outcry at the awful feeling.

The Palace's defensive wall, linked to the corner of the Palace proper, was no more than a few dozen feet away from the balcony's reach, although with how tedious and leaden the going was it felt more like miles. Judy bared a painful snarl as her fingertips burned under the weight of her hanging body, her claws scraping along the gap between the slabs with ever-more erratic grabs.

You're nearly there, Judith! Push! She vehemently encouraged, clenching her eyes shut as her wrists began to tremble. Given the distant murmur of words the two guards had begun another exchange, and she spared a look over at their dim silhouettes with a faint hope rising in her chest. Maybe they were too involved in their conversation to notice her struggle.

Yet the hope perished mere moments later when the moon's ghostly glow peeked through a part in the blanket of clouds. It swept towards the Palace from the land beyond the hills on the river's opposite bank like a tidal wave of white. If it so much as brushed her, her teal dress and shining metals would shimmer like torches in the darkest of caverns.

She had to see herself off the exposed slab she clung to before they could do so.

A frantic panic flooded Judy's senses as her paws sped along the Palace's sheer wall in what she could only call a mad dash. She hadn't the time to turn back – not now! The only way was forward, towards the parapets of the Palace's defensive walls where she could hide herself 'til darkness returned!

Still, despite her hastened pace, when the sea of light engulfed the Palace she was still groping along its wall, and her heart sank to her feet when she saw the distance standing between her and cover.

In the moments before the two keen-eyed foxes inevitably caught sight of her, Judy swallowed all her fear of being caught and threw herself towards the Palace parapets. Blood was roaring in her ears, and for a terrifying moment she believed she'd made the wrong choice as the cliffs below hurdled towards her, but her right paw managed to catch a firm grip on the very edge of the fortification and with a massive heave she was hidden behind it.

The first breath she took back on solid ground was one of the – or dare she say, the – best she'd ever experienced, and for a few long seconds she leaned in the shadow of the parapet as her straining breaths eased and her racing heart slowed to a crawl.

When she had mustered enough strength to orientate her ears towards the balcony she'd escaped from she hearkened to hear the distant murmur, her heart momentarily forgetting to beat.

"Patrols… hate… Captain…death of us…"

'Thankful' hardly began to cover the gratitude Judy was experiencing. She'd managed to slip from under two of the keenest noses the world had ever manifested without either of them ever realizing she was there. Truly, if she'd the courage Nicholas would be the first to hear of her exploit.

"And at what cost?" She quietly murmured, glancing down at her stark red fingertips, yet she shook the numb sensation away and rose to a steady stand while the world descended once more into darkness. With as much effort as a snap of her fingers, the moon's glow was imprisoned behind impregnable clouds again.

And so she was once more on the move. This time, however, she ran on familiar ground, avoiding the familiar schedule of midnight patrols, and within minutes she was kneeling on the tile roof of the Palace's Western Gatehouse.

She kept her mouth clamped shut as she leaned over the edge, acutely aware that there was a watchful fox a mere foot below her while her eyes scanned the Burrow's streets sprawling into the distance for the glow of torches. It didn't take her long to locate orange specs against the canvas of black.

That's them. It must be. She decidedly declared, slowly tracing the flickering lights as they sparkled across the wide square at the foot of the Palace's defensive hill and turned into the windy streets. Judy tensed her muscles as she prepared to follow, huffing in amusement as she peered over the roof's edge. Compared to the cliffs, the drop onto the grassy slope below was little more than a fall out of bed.

When the guard lurking below opened his grey muzzle in a distracting yawn, Judy seized her chance to escape and dropped past his face, feeling the vague brush of his whiskers against her calf. She landed on the soft, damp ground soundlessly and hastened towards the wall of dark structures at the foot of the hill, not daring to cast so much as a hair behind her until she reached the shadowed haven.

Her breaths were quick and shallow, much like the small pools of muddy water she pounded across as she tracked the patrol she'd spotted from the walls through the tight, winding streets. Just as she predicted, there was a hint of rabbit mingled with the scents of a vulpine escort. The noxiously familiar smell only furthered her strides and hastened her already hurried pace.

A few turns more led her onto the Burrow's main westward road, entirely dark and absolutely deserted; with the singular exception of her quarry. Judy kept her movements silent and cautious as she followed the slow-moving escort, sticking to the shadows of doorways and alleys as she peered at the stoic faces of the soldiers and the glow of the torches they wielded.

She could only catch passing glimpses of her brothers, yet it was more than ample to see her face become ashen and force her paws into fists. They were just as deceitful as she could recount.

Haven't they the strength to raise their spirits from the dirt? She pushed, voice biting with wroth, darting around the wheel of a lifeless cart and staring through their guards at their dim, earthbound expressions, yet a low growl shook her chest when a voice answered back. Of course they haven't. Not until they've stolen themselves away from earshot of any sane mammal who would stand against their tyrannical plotting!

Judy traced their footsteps down the dead road from afar, deeming it unsafe to try and penetrate the barrier of torches surrounding the Princes with so many watchful eyes present. Not that she'd hear anything incriminating from their spiked tongues, anyway.

That part came when they turned down a tighter side street. A pair of foxes broke off from the guards escorting them to watch the unmarked entryway, and Judy had to dart up an uneven brick wall and hop from windowsill to windowsill just to peer down the cramped alley, all the while listening to the attentive sniffs of the foxes below.

A pawful of guards guided the Princes into the interior of an unassuming stone building that, were it not for the candlelight spilling from every window, she would've hardly recognized as an inn. Her straightened ears caught the sounds of them moving about inside for an instant before the inn's door slammed shut and the remainder of the escort filed back into the main street, taking the two foxes below her with them.

Once they'd disappeared back into the impenetrable night Judy inched around the corner again, her senses carefully surveying the unguarded doorway.

Walking in unannounced would be the suicide of secrecy. She pensively ventured, her brow furrowed and her mind hard at work devising a way to slip into the structure, yet her eyes shot up to the building's third-story window when a grey paw pushed it open amid the murmur of voices. Her jaw instinctively tightened at the development, and with an instantaneous skyward glance she resolved to scale the building she clung to.

I'm gradually becoming a squirrel. Judy unenthusiastically huffed as she pulled herself onto the structure's thatched roof, her body pressed flat against the uncomfortable material as she crawled to its edge and stared down into the inn.

The room's gold glow illuminated the half of her face she dared to raise above the roof's stagnant gutter. It was impossible to see anything beyond its immediate view; it certainly didn't help the inn was a fair story below her, too. For the time being, she was forced to stare at a flimsy wooden chair and an empty floor that occasionally betrayed a rabbit's shadow.

Reluctantly Judy leaned over the roof's edge, her paws clutching its gutter while her ears stood and tilted towards the thin opening in the window. Her view of the inside was just as narrow as it was before-

Wait. There. In the corner of what little she could see, against the green sheets of what she could only surmise was a bed, the leg of some rabbit was bobbing apprehensively. The red-dyed trousers instantly gave away the limb's owner.

Gregory.

Judy felt her face tense as her focus shifted to the room's murmur, her stiff ears straining to hear the hushed voices above the distant rush of the river.

"…impoverished. I suppose this room will do, for our short time, so long as our wardens respect our privacy."

"Ha. I suppose they will, won't they? These foxes have a knack for staying inside their borders, don't they?"

The first voice was that of Lucas, but the second she couldn't place a face to. Its squeaky pitch and blatantly resentful tone struck her nerves like a branch against a metal fence.

"Hush up, Harrot." The sharp snap came from a different, deeper source. "Lord knows you're too young to know when to hold your tongue."

"Your scowling is getting us nowhere." A mild voice interjected, and a shadow moved across the floor, stopping just before Gregory's leg. "Prince, what are we to do?"

"What are we to do?" Gregory darkly repeated, standing from his seat and strolling into view with his arms behind his back and his hard eyes staring into the alleyway's darkness.

Judy flinched back from the roof's rafter, fully aware that a slight glance up would be enough to see her through, yet she refused to so much as tilt her ears a hair behind her. No, she raised them even higher. This is what she had fought her way to hear, and she wouldn't let some trivial panic get the better of her.

Her chest was sour with angst and ire alike as she hearkened to hear Prince Gregory's reply, her blood as weighted as ingots of iron, yet her world was turned on its side when all he responded with was a fall of his brow and a slight sigh.

"Nothing," Was the extent of his disgraced answer.

"What?"

For an instant Judy thought it was her tongue that slipped, and she darted down with an anvil crushing her spine and her fur broiling with horror. But Prince Gregory's eyes swept over his shoulder, silently addressing some rabbit deeper in the room, and she breathed a curt breath as her bristling ears shot up again.

I am not so gullible to your deceiving facade. She defiantly growled, a throbbing fire still rending her ribs despite the cold press of doubt in the pit of her stomach. You think your sweet lies will fool me, Gregory?

"Your ears did not deceive you, Lord Harrot." Gregory sneered, the white of his teeth penetrating through his grey muzzle. "Nothing. Naught. Null."

"Gregory." The voice was Lucas's, as was the supportive grip on Gregory's shoulder. "I… you-"

"Have we not learned from our exile?" A low rumble shook Gregory as he shrugged off the paw, his eyes brimming like embers. "Every item we once possessed has been commandeered by the King. A reflective trip to the northern wastes was a sentence none of us deserved for the attempted murder of a prince."

"A fox." The deep voice corrected direly.

"The future mate of Princess Hopps." Gregory snapped back, storming over to stare out onto the alley once more, and though the disgust in his tone was undeniable it was accompanied by a twinge of anguish. "And my future brother-in-law."

"Though I can hardly tolerate his sight, Wilde and his kind are here until their pelts are entombed in marble." Prince Gregory yielded soberly, all the fight in his body disintegrating with his weary eyes and limp ears. "And I, for one, would prefer to rest rather than struggle against the inevitable."

A sour guilt had left Judy rooted to the spot, unable to move so much as a hair on her pelt from the silence that followed the Prince's surrender, but the unflinching sincerity of his amber gaze forced her to gulp down the awful taste and scurry along the roof. She climbed down to the darkness of the main road without a sound, and for what seemed like an age strode down it with steps more weighted than lead.

He's… honest.

Those two words were more difficult to utter than the most dishonest of wedding vows, and Judy could hardly fathom why.

Because your assumptions have panned out to gravel! She hissed at herself, leaning against a stone column and banging the back of her head against it with a vexed snarl. You had a lead when it came to Certus, at least! Here you've nothing; that is, except for an inn of regretful rabbits! What are you to do now, hmm? Go back to distrusting the Princes at every fair-intentioned turn they take? Or maybe you'd care to plot against them, silence their voices before they commit some 'treasonous' act?

In that instant Judy only found the will to hold her head in defeat, her body swamped by a thousand unceasing pikes of shame and guilt.

"What would Nicholas think of me…" She weakly asked, turning her distant vision up to the endless, black sky while her ears listened to the incessant flow of the midnight breeze.

"Ask."

The sole, hard word sent a jolt of fear shooting up her spine that made her pelt stand on end, and Judy whirled towards the voice that'd echoed from further down the dim road. Her paw fell to her rapier's handle and her legs tensed, every ounce of sense inside her preparing for a skirmish.

Yet all her strength disappeared when she made out the familiar silhouette of a fox slouched against a nearby storefront, and her heart stopped dead when she saw the crown of lavender clutched in his paws.

Never had Nick been so infuriated. Not when Certus had savagely thrown himself at the Princess, not in the aftermath of the calamity at Briarbend, not even in those burning days after he'd been abandoned in the Camhara's sandy dunes. No, he could forgive poor decisions and punish betrayal to his heart's content, but reckless, witless stunts were something that made his stomach writhe - more so now than ever.

Deep within, lurking in a remote crevice in his mind, Nick not only suspected but knew that the Princess would commit a rash act. Take the burden of a judge into her own paws, exact her own justice on the Princes the way she saw fit. Her scathing tirade earlier in the evening solely funneled towards him showed the true colors behind her piercing amethyst gaze clear as day, although he didn't wish to believe what he'd glimpsed.

He could hardly move his eyes from the lavender crown his paws clutched feebly; each fiber of his spirit was dragged down by ballasts of horror at its sight, too heavy for him to attempt anything else. If he hadn't spared a peek into her bedroom mere minutes ago, hadn't tracked her lavender-infused scent across walls and through alleyways to this dim, remote patch of the Burrow, then this would be his final reminder of her. Around any corner, in every shadow, an assassin could be lying in wait, fiddling with his venoms, biding his time to strike.

"Well." He demanded solemnly, managing a gulp while the breathing inferno beneath his steel armor forced his eyes and ears towards the small silhouette further down the pitch-black street.

He needn't the moon's light to read the speechless look on his Judith's face. Her wide, purple eyes, brimming with a sea of life, coupled with the soft, ashy fur that seemed to call out to him, begging to be brushed, and her pink, unceasingly twitchy nose – all he loved without remorse or regret.

Love. That single word made his fury all the greater.

"Well?" He repeated harshly, his snarling maw a virulent shade of white with his vision a deep shade of crimson, and he threw proper sense to the wind and stormed through the black towards the Princess's unmoving shape, his tail lashing behind him.

"I'd a duty to follow them, Nicholas," The Princess defended with a steadfast spark in her tone, her teal and silver form shooting at him from the shadows and meeting his bristling approach with a stiff posture and defensive glare. "I thought them once again be plotting to take your life. I did this for your sake."

"Truly?" Nick halfheartedly chuckled, his tail snaking around his ankle, as constricting as a noose, while he unflinchingly folded his arms across his chest.

"Pray tell then, Judith," He half-snidely remarked, his eyebrow perked in a fit of dark humor. "How will the Princes off me? Poison? Drowning? Decapitation? I've yet to experience the last."

"They won't," The Princess almost spat back, seemingly enraged by his words, yet the fire only lasted until her bristling ears and heavy brow sunk like ballasts to a riverbed. "I listened to them and their cohorts speak without their knowing. They're of fair heart."

"But you must excuse me, Nicholas!" She implored, turning her two wide, pleading amethysts to meet his gaze, yet Nick knew better than to fall for the sybil's charm. "I know this was hardly the most orthodox solution, but we needed to ensure my brothers wouldn't try their paws at anything foul so soon after their return. I only held the wish for an easy night's rest to my heart."

"Fascinating," Nick bluntly retorted, his fists falling to his sides while his ears plastered themselves to his skull, and he squinted down into the depths of his betrothed's stare with tempered criticism. "Albeit, what's even more so is that you'd lie to me."

"What?!" Judith exclaimed, recoiling with a horrified backstep while her pupils shrunk to the size of a pepper's seed only to dart forward with even greater speed. "Nick, I-"

"Had you been acting in my interests as you so erroneously claim, the both of us would be smothered in slumber!" Nick hissed, unable to stem the tide of crimson rage for an instant longer, and as his words flooded the thick air the color consumed his senses, one by one. "You couldn't let your father keep an eye on the Princes, have them kept in line by his paws? Was it necessary for you to brave this maze of dank alleys to fulfill your personal desire for vindication when we are stalked by a cold-blooded killer?"

Judith remained quiet for a long, tense moment after his final words, her expression raw and the tint in her gaze reflecting some concoction of hurt and fear. Nick straightened his posture at the ill sight, clearing his throat and flattening the bristling fur along the back of his neck with a quick brush, entirely aware of how… intimidating he may have appeared. He nearly convinced himself to cough up an apology but cut the idea free when it suddenly struck him that it was not fear of him that shone through his betrothed's gaping amethysts, but fear of realization.

"Nicholas, please," The Princess quietly begged, placing a cool, comforting paw against the side of his muzzle. "I never meant to… don't be mad."

"I'm not," Nick pointedly snapped, shrugging off her touch and shoving her unraveling lavender crown into her chest before he turned his back to her to stare off down the darkened street. "Merely disappointed."

"Now come on."

The silence that followed his order was as piercing as a thorn pressed between ribs, but Nick forced himself to live with the feeling. It wasn't eased the slightest part by the spiritless steps trailing from behind his tail; yet those, too, he drowned out with his frustration.

Stubborn rabbit! He growled, managing a glance back at the Princess to see her following in his shadow, her expression as vital as a winter tulip and the flowered circlet all but broken in her clutch aside from a few, faint tendrils, its scent having long since perished in the wet air. A tiny snarl crept once again upon his face at the harsh reality of the street's pungent, chilling odor, and he threw his eyes forward, scanning for figures amid the shadowy structures.

This place reeks of crime. He warily remarked, his paws clenching into fists as his attention shifted skyward, his squinted eyes and nose facing the nearby roofs of stone and thatch as the Marshal's report flocked to his mind. Is this the district Fenus ordered extra patrols to? Abra? Not a dewdrop's chance at Surtr's feet that'll trek through such a pit for long, especially with her.

That last word he almost spat out like a bad taste.

The windy, silent alleyways were the answer to his prayer. They would lead right up to the foot of the Palace's embankments, where they could begin their disgraced parade before the guards.

"This way," He commanded, turning down a paved path that snaked between a pair of steep, stone buildings, yet when the Princess's footsteps abruptly stopped he glanced over his shoulder and stared at the unmoving silhouette facing him from the alley's entrance.

"Shouldn't we-" Judith uncertainly started. Nick cut her short with a hasty lash of his tail. He could read the very protests from her tone like words from a page.

"We don't have the time for banter," Nick bluntly scolded, eyeing his betrothed critically while his paws fell and clasped behind his waist, claws digging into his palms. "I trust these roads as much as I do your sense of judgement. We'll take a more direct path back to the walls."

Judith made no more sound to stand against him, and Nick sent her a curt nod as he stalked off down the blackened alley with her trudging just alongside. They plowed on through the night in utter silence.

All of this is her doing. A rash voice cried, and he forced his claws further into his skin at the thought. When she's hunted by assassins she decides to act like a headstrong hero. Truly a genius mammal, isn't she? Do you believe that she had even considered the consequences in the slightest?

Not even with my tail. He distrustfully answered, his spirit as dim as the passing buildings, yet a subtle, sideways glance at his betrothed made the foundations of his frustration quiver.

The disheartened tint in her expression had taken a dismal, guilt-trodden turn that made his soul writhe. The lavender tiara he'd crafted for her mere hours earlier was little more than a few intertwined, scentless stalks, yet she still clutched it in both paws as feverishly as a drowning sailor clings to the mast of a flailing ship.

That stupid rabbit needs a harsh reprimand to for this stunt of hers. He halfheartedly grumbled to himself, and his ears and eyes sunk towards the muddy ground while his fury simmered into a festering regret. But it is that rabbit to whom our species owes this peace. To whom I owe so much. She's a dumb bunny, doubtlessly, but an honest one at that. All of this trouble came about because she was fretful over my safety…

Nick hardly knew how to respond to that, save for with a confused, guilty sigh. Was he acting too harsh to Judith? After all, when the sun would rise in mere hours' time only he would know of what had transpired here. There wouldn't even be a hint of a trace of either of their scents; he had her quick thinking and the dank air to thank for that.

With a sharp shake of his skull Nick recollected his thoughts, letting a fiery feeling bubble to the surface of his pelt; so consumed by conflict, he didn't pay a whisker of attention to which alleys his feet absentmindedly guided him down.

Is it I who will be recorded as the villain in history's pages for how I've treated this? Nick uncertainly reiterated, doubting his vexation in every sense of the word, yet his idle stare down at the mud-streaked pavement became engulfed by ire almost immediately.

Who was he to answer that? The paths to hell's gates were paved with the intentions of the fair; he knew all too well. Regardless of whatever good his betrothed had hoped to do, the assassin hunting them cast a shadow that plunged that faith into darkness. How could she so foolishly wander through these midnight streets when at any instant a poisonous arbalest's bolt or the sudden stab of a blade could come flying from the black, snuffing out her life without him even aware she had gon-

"Nicholas!"

Nick very nearly jumped out of his pelt at the demanding exclamation. Without an instant's delay he whirled back towards the direction the voice had come to find himself in an unwavering stare with the Princess, who stood unflinchingly with her ears tautly raised and an anxious tint in her frowning amethysts.

"You're leading us away from the Palace," Judith sullenly noted, extending an accusatory paw at a gigantic silhouette that rendered faintly in the far distance.

"What?" Nick stammered in a panic, flying past his betrothed to gawk at the familiar outline while his blood ran as cold as arctic ice. "That can't be. I…"

"…was poetically groveling because I did us both a favor?" The Princess finished for him, her tone as biting as a gale that'd blow alongside his blood, and with a silent growl he confronted her disgruntled glare with a warning snarl.

"Come on," He snapped meanly, jerking his head with his fur still bristling in unease as he began to purposefully trudge back down the empty alley. "We'll just head back the way we came."

That was easier said than done. After backtracking through a parade of familiar, brick-faced buildings, their scent trail ran dry at – what better a place – a three-way fork in the tight passageway. Each dingy alley looked vaguely familiar, completely traceless of their past passing, although it was the one furthest left that appeared the least fortuitous. Nick's sight pierced further down its misty depths than the others, and there, at its end, he almost saw the moonlit makings of a proper street.

"I vaguely recall the shadows of this alley," Princess Hopps noted uncertainly her muddled eyes prying the passage furthest right, although her tone hardened as she nodded towards the leftmost one. "But I am positive that's not the way we came."

"Yet it is the safest from attack. Come on," Was all Nick bothered to reply, striding towards the low arch that marked the alley's entrance with added haste, yet he shot his ears high and halted dead in his steps to meet his betrothed's unmoving scowl when she scoffed back.

"I am not a kit needing to be coddled," She indignantly stomped, trudging up to stand a whisker's width from the end of his snout while fresh brimstones visibly ruffled her hackles.

Nick snorted doubtfully at the Princess's surefooted guarantee, managing a quick roll of his eyes while the now seething rabbit before him opened her maw.

"Really?" He coldly snickered before she could fume, his ears folding stiffly behind his skull while his tail began to bristle in hostility, and he pointed a deadly serious claw to Judith's clenched jaw. "Every step you've taken tonight has proved otherwise. You've so devoted yourself to this misguided persecution of yours you-"

"I am the one who's misguided?" Judith snapped in amazement, motioning to herself with a fist, and her expression took an infuriated turn while frustration baked her purple eyes red. "You're so invested in catching this assassin, you hardly sleep an hour each night! How dare you criticize me for one occasion when I took your safety into my paws, when you oversee every additional security made to protect us? You've grown distant and restless thanks to your fruitless crusade on the very eve of our wedding!"

"You've the gall to-" Nick furiously snarled, toes digging into the muddy ground and his flexed paws trembling with rage, yet his betrothed's fingers flew over his muzzle and squeezed it shut before he could speak any further. He nearly struck them off, growling as his gaze darted back to the Princess's face, yet confusion doused his fire with vapor when he saw her bristling ears and stiffened gaze had been dragged back down the rightmost alley.

"Someone approaches," She silently whispered – although her voice was more like a hiss – and Nick pushed past her with little resistance and held his ears as high as his head would allow. For a long moment all that echoed in his ears was the rapid thumping of his heart and the distant, shrill cries of wind, but from the nigh-impenetrable darkness rang the low tap of approaching feet, and the sound that followed them pierced his sanity.

Sccchhhhink!

The rasp of a blade being drawn.

Nick needn't do more than look down into his betrothed's equally frantic eyes, all the adrenaline brought on by their war of words flooding his legs and plunging his mind into a frenetic desire to run.

"The wrong alley it is," The Princess hurriedly conceded, and Nick sent her a curt nod before they rushed off down the passageway, neither of them paying much of any mind to keeping themselves hidden.

The dim world flew past at a staggering speed. Nick's feet carried him across the slick tiles and muddy dirt that shaped the alley without them even having a chance to skid or slip. His eyes were locked with the moonlit road at the its end, and his sprint persevered until he and the Princess, who in her mud-stained teal gown had taken a far lead, stormed out into the wide space.

The first move he made now that he wasn't half-crushed was to pull his rapier from its sheath and spin on his feet towards the way they'd just come. His eyes now no more than slits pierced through the shroud of black cast over the alley, his hot blood broiling into the anxious snarl on his jaw, but in the fading ghostly light his sight began to fail him; the same was hardly true of his stiffened ears and the ever-louder footsteps that echoed into them.

"This way!" Nick aggressively yelled at Princess Hopps as he sprinted off down the mud-soaked road. Not so much as a whisper, let alone a footstep, answered in reply.

Alarmed, he cast a glance over his shoulder and found to his utter horror his betrothed waiting motionless in front of the alley from which the assassin's footsteps echoed with her ears high and her own rapier firmly clutched in her paw.

Fucking rabbit! He snarled, seething, and he forced his momentum to a stop in mere instants and threw himself back towards her, his steel armor creaking under the sudden moves.

"Listen!" Judith hissed at him, delivering him a snarl tenfold more vicious than his own, and with a confused frown he stopped dead in his tracks. His tail fell even lower while he listened to the approaching footsteps; no longer were they just coming from that one alley. He could hear their approach from others, too, and from further down the road. The assassin was not as alone as he'd thought.

"We've been driven into a trap," He grumbled direly, a thousand horrible, blackened thoughts flooding his skull all at once, yet they were driven off in a single instant by a serious sense of calm. Those youthful years of his spent in the Camhara flew through his mind like a Furgundian[1] tapestry. All the back alley fistfights he'd started – and lost – while Lepidus sat and chuckled at his bruises left a stinging reminder too painful to ignore.

With the feeling in mind Nick backed away from the road's edge and into its crooked center, holding his rapier low and his tail even lower while he waited, with his left foot forward in a defensive stance, for the inevitable battle that was running ever closer.

"You'll be getting the fight you wanted, after all," He quipped half-ominously, flicking the tip of his tail at the Princess's ankle as she came up behind him, and Nick watched with restless heartbeats as a pair of shadows – each holding an instrument of steel – turned towards them from the night beyond the road's corner.

"If we retreat any more we'll see ourselves separated, and I'd rather not have to deal with the stink of a dead fox tonight," Judith shot back, her ears folding and her rapier raising at yet more shades emerging from the nearby alleyways. Nick somehow managed a faint grin at her passionate rebuke. That rabbit…

The assassin had brought more accomplices than Nick had claws. The exact number of adversaries he couldn't quite count – ten, twelve, twenty – but it was more than enough for his paw to curl around the hilt of his rapier with the force to turn coal into diamonds.

Soon enough the menacing figures formed a rough circle around the Princess and him, but not one dared to begin the assault against them. An eerie silence took hold in its stead, accompanied by such a freezing breeze that Nick amply felt every shiver of his bones and the unceasing clamp of his jaw. To him a lifetime passed before one of the larger figures finally shattered the illusion of stillness, but it couldn't have been more than a few breaths.

"Not too oft do we find ourselves in the presence of royalty!"

The figure's voice was deep and harsh, brimming with all the greed and virulence one would expect from a denizen of the underworld, yet what was most intriguing was that he spoke not in the common tongue, but in that of rabbits.

Rabbits? Nick exclaimed in bewilderment, realizing in a harsh glance that the brigands around them lacked the haughty tails and pointed ears of his kind; no doubt, had the air not been filled with mist and night, he would've been able to tell from the start. Judging by the stiff nod he caught Judith sending him from the corner of his gaze, the realization had struck her too.

"There is no need for us to fight!" She called, half-warily and half-pleadingly, to the thugs' leader, but the rabbit only seemed to seethe at her reply.

"Months I've seen myself wander these damn'd streets!" The looming figure spat, raising what looked to be a long, curved dirk accusingly. "But now fate has seen you thrown into my 'ath once again! You stole a part of me, and I'm not leaving until I get it back!"

Nick tensed his paws as the bandit started a slow approach, and slowly the circle of his associates, too, began to close in around the two of them, shutting off any hope of escaping without bloodshed.

"You don' think…" Nick started half-focused, recalling the brigand's threat and catching a sharp glint off his noticeably pawless wrist in the moonlight while he folded his orange ears and lowered his rigid body.

"These are the thugs hired by Lord Caer to kill me?" Judith finished for him, making a noise akin to a bemused sniff as her foot shifted closer and as her spine pressed up against his segmented steel plate. "Probably."

"Just be prepared to move," He ordered firmly, meeting the half-dozen approaching pairs of fiery eyes with an arctic resilience, and he felt the Princess nod.

The bandits' daggers were very nearly in striking distance…

"Right," Was all Judith replied.

All the hours they'd spent on their sojourn by the lake, perfecting their cooperative style of combat, now seemed like time spent exceedingly well.

Judith made the first move against their attackers, before any one of them could even think of striking out, and Nick was at her heels while she landed a flurry of blows against three of the unprepared, unarmored rabbits.

Two of them went reeling backwards with deep, bloody blows in their shoulders, while the third routed entirely, dropping his dagger and screeching in pain as he sprinted off down the street with a visible trail of blood dripping from his face.

The retaliatory barrage began almost immediately. Nick lowered to a crouch and slashed out at the incoming daggers while the Princess ducked into his chestplate, pressing herself against his armored form with his tail around her cuirass while he parried the strikes meant for her. His huge size and weightier steel meant that whatever stabs managed to break through his rabid defense did little aside from bounce off.

The brigand's attack was loose and disorganized, with only a few coming forth with their daggers drawn at a time. Nick managed to land a few slashes across one of the attacker's chests before he withdrew, growling and clutching his wound, and sent a different one shooting back into the muddy road with a powerful slam of his shoulder.

"Are you fools blind?!" An irate voice roared, and Nick squinted at the bandits while he tried to track the source of the voice. In the misty darkness he was no more than a shadowy shape, just like his attackers.

So play it to your advantage! He told himself furiously, and with a stiff grunt he parried the next bandit's thrust and pulled him into the center of the fray. Before the rabbit knew what'd happened Nick had darted out of striking distance with his betrothed still hovering underneath him.

Not more than a second passed before the bandits renewed their assault against what they assumed to be the two of them, only to abruptly end after the shadow of a dirk pierced the dumbfounded rabbit's side and a shrill cry cut through the air.

"Now!" He growled at Judith while the brigands were distracted, and the light-armored doe shot from his underside and charged towards the group. Nick kept right behind her as she dove into the mass of fur and steel with an embattled expression, yet a sense of wonder slowed his movements as he watched her viciously slash and stab at a pair of attackers and rake her rapier across the face of another before kicking him face-first into an earth-colored puddle.

Talk about itching for a fight. He remarked, an amused huff slipping past his lips before he drove himself into the chaotic fray.

Nick was in the midst of the action, fending off attacks from all sides while his betrothed leapt from bandit to bandit, leaving each with a fresh incision or slash. It didn't take long before his ironclad chest was heaving from all the dodging and parrying, but his racing heart somehow skipped an aching beat when one of the shadowy bandits sent his betrothed stumbling backwards with a cut along her shoulder.

With a ferocious growl Nick threw caution to the wind and landed a deep, pointed strike against the already-bleeding rabbit's chest that sent him groaning to the ground, and in a maelstrom of thrashing blades and lashing tails he gouged and clawed at the remaining bandits that weren't busy trying to pin down his betrothed.

As a single living, breathing being the two of them danced a storm of violence, weaving in and out around the other while striking out with flying stabs and sweeping strikes. It was a crimson harmony of battered steel and slashed fur; the numbers of the situation meant absolutely naught. None of the bandits presented much of a challenge, and the only harm that came to Nick was a slash against his knee that he quickly repaid in kind to the side of the dealer's head.

Yet as their rapiers flew and tore, the brigands could only cope so well against their well-coordinated assaults. Nick managed a grin between fast breaths while his gaze swept over the scant, bloodied attackers that still formed a loose circle surrounding them. The weary, fearful look in their wide-eyed stares betrayed just how close they were to shattering.

"Enough fun for you?" He coyly quipped, tilting an ear towards the Princess, who stood back-to-back with him while her chest heaved for air and her resilient amethysts scoured their opponents.

Her reply was a shallow nod and a tensing of her dripping rapier.

"Then let's end this," Nick uttered seriously, his paw clenching 'round his rapier's handle even tighter, and once his betrothed had concurred with another, stiffer nod, the two of them shot apart with their blades pulled back.

A primeval growl shook Nick's chest as he broke the will of a thin rabbit, whose fur was streaked more red that white, with a well-placed stab, and immediately strafed away from the incoming daggers of two other brigands. He hissed at them, displaying his marble-white fangs in a frightening snarl, and they halted dead in their tracks only for Nick to have his rapier knocked from his grip from a blow from behind an instant later.

He hadn't noticed the dark, brooding shape of another bandit slip so close to him thanks to the other's distraction. The glint of his dirk pierced through the darkness towards the glaring gap in his chest-plate's underarm, and Nick darted awkwardly away from the strike the instant before it collided with his fur, backpedaling away from the blade in a low crouch and watching wide-eyed and flat-eared as the two other thugs drew closer.

Nick searched frenetically through the muddy road for the steely shimmer of his rapier, but it was fruitless in the utterly black air, and the bandits were nearly atop him. Yet the cold fear of being surrounded and unarmed could only hold him back for so long; once his attackers tensed their daggers for a final assault a resolved growl broke his hesitation and he charged the three of them, claws flexed.

A hard slam of his elbow into one of the bandit's faces left the rabbit screaming and clutching his broken jaw with both paws, and Nick had just the time to swerve under one of the other brigands' blades and bring his balance out from under him before raking his claws across the face of the third, sending him howling onto the mud-soaked road.

He was so absorbed by the struggle - the only sound echoing in his eardrums that of roaring blood - that his betrothed's plea reached him just a moment late.

"Nicholas!"

It was like hearing a cry from the opposite side of a ravine; somehow distant, yet seemingly very, very near. It was the hideous tone of the scream, though, that ushered a tide of urgency to shoot through his chest like the bolts of an arbalest.

Without so much as a breath's delay Nick whirled towards the sound of the Princess's cry, ignoring the littered howls and groans of the bandits already defeated, and his heart skipped a score beats at the sight that greeted him across the embattled road.

Judith had seen all the bandits that had approached her left with deep wounds, and around her lay their moaning, injured forms. All except one; the same, black-hearted rabbit who'd first levied the vengeful promises at the battle's beginning. A deep slash running from one side of his face to the other turned his brown fur into an ugly black, but it was his long, crooked dirk, pressed against the fur of her throat, that was truly sickening.

Nick watched in stunned horror as Judith struggled in the thug's grip, clawing at his arm while trying in vain to kick him away. Her furious, desperate expression was just that – desperate. Nick snarled viciously at the brigand and took a menacing step towards them, his body fueled by rage while simultaneously trembling with fear.

But the bloodied rabbit replied with a vile hiss and dug his edge deeper against the Princess's throat, drawing a sharp cry of pain from her and putting an abrupt end to her frantic struggles. Nick audibly heard his heart fall to the muddy ground as her panicked, pleading gaze met his, and he stopped dead in his tracks, his will to fight suddenly evaporated.

"I tol' you!" The thug venomously shouted, accusingly pointing his pawless wrist at Nick while sliding the point of his dagger to the underside of the Princess's chin. "You took my paw from me! Stol' it like the backstabbin' fox you are. How's this for revenge, ay, Prince?!"

Nick could only stare on, helpless, while the brigand tensed his dirk against his betrothed's windpipe. A heavy, wretched guilt settled in his stomach as he watched her struggle feebly.

Yet her eyes were still moving wildly, making sharp, sudden movements towards her paw, and the instant Nick caught on his will to fight suddenly crashed back into him.

Inside her clutch were a few intertwined stalks of green and purple. Yet even here, with the air so thick with the smell of blood and water, there still came a faint scent of lavender.

The crown! Nick silently screamed, suddenly feeling the cool touch of his own iron circlet that'd he'd since grown numb to. He ground his teeth and bit his tongue until he tasted the salty tang of blood, knowing what Judith wanted him to do.

"Wait!" He pleaded panickedly, throwing himself forward and landing in the mud with a wet thud. His voice sliced right through the mist in the night air. The thug stopped the moment before he could drag his dirk's blade over the Princess's throat, turning his soulless gaze down to the Prince with a wary frown and spiteful snarl.

"Spare her life," Nick begged weakly, holding both his paws together and struggling onto his knees with as much desperation as he could force into his voice. "I took your paw; it's only fair you take mine. Just don't hurt her. Please."

The brigand fell silent for a few moments, his eyes shrinking to a squint, and Nick shared a quick, invisible nod with the Princess before an almost evil grin pulled up their attacker's cheeks.

"Huh," He cackled noxiously, letting his blade fall from Judith's throat, and the two of them slowly moved forward with his arm still locked around her. "I lov' a little ol' irony. But, try anything and I'll gut the both of you."

"No tricks," Nick promised with a tiny shake of his head, and he nervously held out both his paws in an enticingly vulnerable manner and looked away with a ludicrously frightened grimace. "Just make it quick."

The thug snorted dryly and held his dirk above Nick's wrists while his heinous smile grew all the wider.

"This'll hurt," He spat.

Nick heard every beat of his heart echo through his ears when the dagger finally descended, yet the instant before it pierced his skin he shot away, tearing his iron crown off the top of his head and throwing it into Judith's outstretched paws, just as she'd wanted.

The bandit managed half a growl before the Princess struck him across his head with the makeshift weapon, beating him down onto his knees until she had wrest herself free of his grip. The brigand snarled, even more blood drenching his face as he thrust his dagger at her, but Nick swooped in and slammed him into the ground with a loud crack! before the blade even came close.

The wounded rabbit howled in pain, holding his shattered elbow with a paw as he tried to stand, but Judith brought the crown into the side of his skull one last time with a fiery hiss and sent him spinning into a muddy puddle.

He twitched a few times before he lay utterly motionless, knocked out cold, and the one or two of his wounded accomplices who'd yet to struggle to their feet crawled away into the gloomy depths of the neighboring alleys. In the time it took for a moth to land on a pine nettle, the road was suddenly draped in a blanket of stillness.

Nick breathed a deep, drawn-out sigh of relief, resting his palms on his knees as he turned, with a concerned eye, to his betrothed, yet she'd already strode off to the other side of the street and was cleaning the blood from her rapier's blade with the end of her gown. The final toll of their fight was evident in her limp ears and slumped posture.

Nick nodded at nothing in particular and hurried back to where he'd so foolishly lost his own sword. After a moment of searching the muddy road he meandered back to the Princess's side while cleaning the scarlet spread across his weapon's hilt.

"You hurt?" He asked her while sheathing his rapier, and she shook her head as she held out his dented crown, her expression brimming with an unintelligible emotion. Nick smirked at the glimmer of flames still present in the corners of her eyes, and with a gentle rub of her shoulder that brought those two uncertain amethysts up to him he took the crown from her paw.

The whiz of a crossbow bolt overhead interrupted Nick before he even knew what he was going to say and sent both the Princess's and his ears shooting straight up. The two of them spun simultaneously towards where the shot had come from, and Nick felt his heart lurch as he picked out the approaching shapes of steel-clad foxes from the bend in the street.

"Halt! In the name of Prince-Regent Wilde!" One of them shouted while another loaded his crossbow. For a split second Nick's feet were locked to the ground, unsure of what to do, but he hastily resolved to run. Grabbing the arm of his still-stunned Judith, he pulled the two of them down an alley. They raced off down the labyrinth of alleys, turning down every corner they could to try and throw off the guards pursuing them until, eventually, the sounds of footsteps behind them disappeared entirely.

They were both starved of breath by the time they'd scaled the Palace walls. Hardly the scent of any fox remained on the brick; dozens of flickering torchlights moving hastily through the maze of streets below betrayed where they'd ran off to.

Nick sat panting on the gap between two parapets with his right foot and tail dangling in the open, chilling breeze. Each and every one of his joints was aching just as much from their flight as the fight, and he hardly wanted to look at the slice on his mud-covered, blood-stained calf. He couldn't even muster the energy to raise his head off the slab of uncomfortably hard stone digging into his neck.

"Seems we could've been a little more covert," His betrothed remarked with a dry huff of laughter, shattering the shaky silence between them. Nick just barely cracked his gaze at the sound of her voice.

Judith's teal dress was stained with streaks of mud, and her steel cuirass had a dozen fresh slash-marks carved like tallies across it, but once his eyes reached the birch grey fur and cotton-white accents on her soft face every inch of his form was flooded with pure, unadulterated fury.

"What were you thinking?" He hissed, infuriated. He was no longer willing to stop his pelt from standing on end, and his sudden outburst made his betrothed jump in surprise. "Had I not intervened in your spying footsteps, you would be buried right now!"

Judith could only speechlessly stare at him for a short moment, her amethysts gaping in confusion and alarm, before a frown just as dire as his dragged down her ears and turned her fur into a bristling display.

"If you hadn't stalked me, I would never have run into those vagrants!" She shot back, raising onto her knees with flames engulfing her glare. "You wouldn't be hurt if you just trusted me!"

"Trusted you!?" Nick spat like a bitter taste, his tail shaking with rage at the words, and he leaned in towards her tensed expression with his claws digging into his thighs. "I trusted you before, and you betrayed it by leaping right into danger!"

"I thought my brothers were plotting to kill you!" She defended vehemently, her paws clenching into fists while both her feet incessantly tapped against the stone parapet. "You're the one who went on a tirade and led us the wrong way!"

"I was only trying to protect you!" Nick hissed, exposing his ice-white teeth to the moonlight.

"So was I!" Judith screamed back.

Irony pierced the both of them like bolts from a ballista, and they both went reeling back as though they'd been struck. Nick found his entire body stunned, his face unable to move or speak or do anything more than gaze, shocked, into his betrothed's equally taken aback amethysts.

What felt like a lifetime of gaping passed until he opened his jaw, unintentionally simultaneous with Judith, although no sounds came from either of them. Nick couldn't think of a single word that would make the situation any less ironic. They both merely sat there, their stare unbroken and unwavering, until a tiny smile cracked onto the Princess's muzzle and a lighthearted giggle filled the night.

Nick joined her with a chorus of genuine laughs that strained his joints, but he was so absorbed by the orange glow of the moment he hardly felt the stiff pain. His chest was so filled with humor and warmth despite the ever-rising breeze slicing through his armor and fur alike. Judging by the gleeful beam he was sharing with the mud-covered, grey-furred rabbit, their thoughts were one in the same.

God, I'm an idiot.

"Maybe…" Nick eventually started once their laughter had begun to die down, and he absentmindedly brought a paw to stroke the back of his head while a forced grimace pulled up his cheeks. "Maybe I've been a little tactless with the situation about this assassin."

"Yeah…" Judith agreed haphazardly, rubbing her shoulder and glancing off awkwardly while her pink button-nose incessantly twitched. "I think it to be in our best interests if I drop my suspicions about Gregory and Lucas. Even if – God forbid – they are plotting some ill deed, my father is more than capable of dealing with them."

"And Marshal Fenus is more than capable of ensuring our safety," Nick remarked with a tad of gratitude, yet his ears turn a shade of scarlet and fell as he thought on. Not to mention the Emperor is in Wien, and two armies lie between us and him…

"Let's…" Judith started, clearing her throat and gathering her thoughts before she shot to her feet with a resolved smile across her muzzle. "Let's move on from all this fretting. It's doing us no good so close to our wedding, and I'd rather have a fox who isn't starved of sleep waiting at the altar."

"That makes two of us," Nick huffed dryly, his sly smirk returning, and Judith returned the touch of his tail against her calf by helping pull him up to his feet. Together they shared a long, private pawhold as their worn eyes danced over the glimmering torchlights of the Burrow below and the stars peeking through the clouds overhead.

"And to think in just over a week's time we'll be husband and wife," Nick smirked distantly, the idea sending shockwaves of amazement plowing through him, and when he glanced down into the wide, lively eyes of the doe at his side, he saw his own excitement reflected right back at him. "Think it'll be much different?"

"I suppose it may be better," She pondered thoughtfully, putting a single finger against her chin and jutting out a hip, but a snarky flicker tinted her amethysts a shade darker. "With how you acted tonight, I'm having doubts you could handle a lifetime of me."

"Can't you recall how I so delicately dealt with that last thug?" Nick scoffed, puffing out his breast heroically and placing a dainty paw atop his steel-clad chest. "I'd finished hustling him before he'd even realized it!"

"Excuse you!" Judith protested, stomping her foot defiantly and tearing her paw away from his with both ears in a wild bristle. "I was the one who thought of using your damned crown. You just stood there gawking."

"Fine," Nick stiffly conceded, his eyes rolling before they fell to his betrothed with an amorous smirk. "We hustled him."

"That I can live with," Judith thanked victoriously, and with a tiny frown furrowed into her brow the two of them set off for the nearest tower along the wall they could then use to scale down into the Palace's gardens unnoticed.

"We are in desperate need to get the stench of blood off us, or we'll really have some long explanations for the Marshal," She went on, rather apprehensively, and Nick perked an ear when her eyes met his again. "I've a hot bath we can use in my suite."

"We?" Nick repeated warily, perking a suggestive eyebrow, and he stopped in his tracks with his maw sealed tight to watch his betrothed's reaction. To his surprise the Princess's cheeks didn't turn a tomato red at his quip. Instead, her composure stood strong alongside her rigid glare.

"We." She confirmed nonchalantly, cupping the side of his face and replying to the fall in his tail with a sly, confident smile. "It takes more than that suggestion of marking to ruffle my fur, Nicholas. I would've thought you'd know-"

Nick cut her off by slowly running his claws up the length of her left ear. For a brief second, he had her shivering in carnal delight, but a flurry of furious punches sent him running off towards the distant, darkened shape of a tower.

"Dumb bunny!" He yelled over his shoulder, his thumping heart and carefree beam nearly lively enough to animate a funeral, and the instant before he turned his jocular emeralds away from her he caught Judith's fuming form sprint out after him.

"Halfwit fox!"

[1] Furgundian = pun on Burgundian. Not that inspired, lol.