i.

The first time it happened, Nick didn't even mean to walk in.

It was a late night at the precinct, and apart from the Captain, he was pretty sure that he was the only one there. But then, it wasn't like he had a host of free time on his hands – ever since he became Portland's resident Grimm, the only way for him to complete his paperwork had been lots and lots of late nights.

So he supposed that it was excusable that the Captain hadn't expected him. As far as Renard was concerned, Nick had probably already returned home, leaving him free to conduct Royal business without anyone listening in.

But it was still a shock when he walked into said Captain's office and caught him counting gold coins that looked to be the size of his palm.

"Captain?" he asked tentatively, slightly in shock over the size of that coins that were almost certainly pure gold.

At the sound of his voice, Renard looked up in shock, his face clearing once he realised that it was only Nick, and not someone else who would never have understood.

"Paperwork, I imagine?" he asked. There was a slight quirk to his lips as he took in the dishevelled state of his detective.

"Yeah," Nick replied, still tentative. "If you don't mind me asking…" he started, before trailing off again.

"Wh- Oh, the coins? It's nothing. Just another part of being a Royal. Portland is my domain, even if I am only half-Royal, and until someone else comes and manages to claim it from me, it is to me that all the tributes are given."

At the clear confusion on Nick's face, Renard sighed, before gesturing to the seat in front of him. Once Nick sat down, he started explaining the inner workings of wesen politics, and the consequences of being a royal.

"So, wait," Nick said after Renard had finally finished speaking. "You're telling me that all the wesen of Portland have to pay you every month?"

"It is their way of paying me back for protecting them, Nick," Renard replied patiently. "The presence of a Royal in a city keeps a lot of rather nasty creatures away."

At the doubt that was still written all over Nick's face, he let out a short laugh. "Don't look so concerned, Nick. I make sure not to take more than what a wesen can give. The coins were simply from one of the more wealthy families who make Portland their home."

"I wasn't thinking that!" Nick cried out, shock overcoming his reluctance to speak. "I don't think that of you Captain, really," he said earnestly. "It's just…the entire concept of it is rather unbelievable, seeing as we're living in the twenty-first century."

Reanrd smiled. It was a gentle quirk of the lips, but a true smile nonetheless. "I'm sure you will, Nick," he murmured. "This is Portland, after all – I'm sure you've seen stranger things."

Personally, Nick doubted it, but it was just so much easier for his confused to brain to nod in agreement.

He had an odd feeling that he would be visiting Monroe tonight.

ii.

The last thing Nick expected to see when he walked into the precinct was an old-fashioned quill lying deceptively innocuously in the middle of his rather messy desk.

Hank was staring at it quizzically when he sat down.

"Since when have learnt how to use quills?" he asked.

"I haven't," Nick replied shortly, picking up the quill and examining it carefully. The feather was golden – a beautiful gold that brought to mind a stone he had long watched shatter – and thankfully, it didn't look like it was an oddly subtle assassination attempt from the Reapers. "Did you see where this came from?"

"No idea," Hank replied, holding up his arms in the air. "When I came here, it was just lying there waiting for you."

Nick knew that there were going to be no more questions about the quill that Hank could answer. It would have been better if he had just returned to his work – and he did, but his eyes kept wandering to golden feather sitting on his desk. It was perfect to use when writing his own diary – definitely better than the ball-point pen he was currently using. If his aunt could have seen his new diary, she would have smacked him over the head.

If only he knew who had left the pen on his desk.

(A part of him wondered if he had somehow garnered the attention of a secret admirer, but he was well aware that that was a stupid thought, so he refused to think about it further.)

And then Renard finally came out of his office for the first time in the day, and Nick realised exactly how that little quill pen had shown up on his desk.

When he asked him about at the end of the day, he simply picked up the pen and smiled.

"There's a seltenvogel in Portland. I believe you know her," he said, his tone making it clear that he expected Nick to understand the rest.

When he realised that Nick had not, in fact, understood, he sighed. "Quills made of seltenvogel feathers are nearly as rare as their unbezahlbars are. It was part of a set of ten – my tribute from her. It's a bit extravagant for only a month, of course – I've let her know that it's enough to last the year."

While rather informative, that still didn't help solve Nick's confusion. "But – why give me one?" he asked, completely lost and out of his depth.

"The tributes are a way of repaying me for protecting them," he mused, "And you do that just as well as I do, so I thought you deserved your part. Besides, I'm not blind – I'm sure you have more books like the one you showed me, and this seems like the perfect instrument to use when – if – you wish to write in them."

And he walked out, leaving Nick staring behind him.

iii.

"So wait, this is a custom?" he asked incredulously.

"I thought the Prince already explained all of this to you, Nick," Monroe said exasperatedly.

"Well, yeah, he did," Nick replied, scuffing his toe on the carpet sheepishly, "But you have to admit, it's pretty difficult to believe."

Monroe only quirked an eyebrow. "Nick, you do realise the world you live in, right?" he asked. "If you told anything about wesen and Grimms to an ordinary human – well, apart from Juliette and Hank, I guess – they'd find it all pretty difficult to believe. Compared to that, this isn't all that big."

"Yeah, but still – monthly tributes?"

Monroe sighed, taking a seat next to Nick. "You have to understand," he said gently, "This is a tradition from the old days. Back when the Royal families didn't exactly have that much power or wealth in the world, and it was our tributes that helped them fight for our rights. Back then, it was not so different than taxes – and now, they've kind of become our way of thanking them for all they've done for us."

Nick opened his mouth, but before he could argue, Monroe continued. "I know that you've only had a chance to see the worst of them, apart from your Captain – but over the years, even with how corrupt they've become, they've done a lot of good for us. They're the ones who helped make traditions such as the Roh-hatz a rarity, for example. And besides, there's always the ones like Sean Renard – I'm ready to bet that quite a bit from the tributes he receives goes to making sure that the higher ups – human or wesen – don't pay too much undue attention to what's going on in Portland."

Nick sighed. He knew when he was beaten.

"Wait a second," he asked suddenly. "Do you give Renard tributes too?"

"I used to," Monroe answered. "He's one of the better Princes – he asks only how much a wesen can safely part with, and he's more than happy to deal with payments in kind instead of in cash. So sometimes I gave money, sometimes clocks, it depended."

"So why don't you anymore?" Nick asked curiously.

Monroe smirked. "Apparently, there are advantages to being adopted by a Grimm – he said that as long as you need Rosalee, Bud and my help, we won't be required to pay any tributes. Saving you from yourself is payment enough, he said."

iv.

Nick had absolutely no idea exactly how Sean – that's what he had said to call him – had managed to wear him down. Honestly, when he had first asked him out on a date, Nick had been certain that he was joking or was only trying to get up a political leg up by using his reputation as a Grimm.

Of course, when Sean refused to take no for an answer and asked him over and over – well, that was when he had started to believe that maybe this wasn't a joke, and had nothing to do with his duties as a Royal. And so, for some odd reason, he had said yes.

(He refused to acknowledge the faint spark of attraction that he had felt for his handsome Captain even since he had first joined the precinct. That road meant confronting too many 'what-ifs' that Nick really did not want to face.)

So here he was, walking into the home of the Prince of Portland for a dinner date.

The first thing he noticed when he walked inside was the opulence. While the house looked relatively normal from the outside, as soon as he walked inside it was easy to tell that this was a place worthy of a Prince.

He followed Sean – who had opened the door – into his study, feeling extremely out of place. It was when they got to the study that he noticed the second important thing – what looked like a white tiger-skin rug on the floor.

For a moment, he thought it was one of Sean's heirlooms, or something equally out of the world – and then he noticed that the rug wasn't actually tiger-skin.

No, on closer inspection, it was actually pfilchttreue-skin.

Noticing Nick's utterly stunned look, Sean grinned. "Don't worry, I didn't have someone skinned," he murmured. "It's another tribute – apparently it had been in their family for quite some time, but they had no idea what to do with it."

As Sean grabbed his hand and lead him away from the study – hopefully to a room where there were no reminders of dead wesen – Nick sighed. Honestly, he was certain that it said a lot about him, the fact that he had actually chosen this.

v.

Nick considered himself a rather patient man. He had taken the entire tribute thing extremely calmly, in his opinion. And he had never said a word about some of the odder things that Sean tended to receive, like that time he had walked in on him fingering what he later told Nick was a cape made of the Silk of Harmonia.

But honestly, this was where he was going to put his foot down.

He had been certain – certain – that he knew what the eisbieber Lodge's tribute was going to be. After all, he had watched his house transform into a homemade-goods shop after helping them out with the hässlichen. He doubted that they would come in quite as much quantity as he had faced, but still. It was calming, knowing what was coming.

Of course, he had never been more wrong in his life.

The Lodge, like almost all other wesen, sent their tributes to Sean's home instead of the precinct. And since his boyfriend (and didn't that sound odd, even in his own head) was even more of a workaholic than he was, it was Nick who stumbled upon the basket first.

Sean had, a week or so ago, told him to go ahead and open any of the tributes that were dropped by when he wasn't home. And, truth be told, Nick was rather hungry, considering he had skipped dinner again, and an eisbieber-made pie wasn't something he would refuse.

So he unwrapped the basket, an eager smile on his face- and stopped short.

As he stared down at what could only be called – well, pleasure aids, in polite company, Nick decided that he had had enough. He was going to have a talk with Sean when he returned – he might have finally accepted the concept of tributes, but he was not having wesen use them as a way to interfere in his romantic life!

(That didn't mean he was going to throw out the basket and its contents. It was just the principle of things.)

A/N: This was based on a kink meme prompt: It's normal for royalty to accept tributes from their subjects, Renard's pretty fair, he doesn't take more than his subjects can afford.
But once a month Renard must go through the tributes and catalogue them so he doesn't get too much or too little from the wesen under his rule.
Nick knows Renard is a creature.
Aka: 5 times Nick walked in on Renard cataloguing a strange tribute item and one time Renard made his pet Grimm do it.
The title is a rare Latin translation of the word 'tribute'
I hope you guys liked it! I definitely loved writing it :) As always, please don't forget to drop a review on your way out! :)