Little Fur-Skin

A retelling

Once, in a great and vast land far from where we now sit, there was a grand kingdom.

It was a bountiful, blesséd land, filled with mighty forests that grew in rich soil; the people were kind, glad and good, and they were magnanimously ruled by a loving, just king. Tall as an oak, with ginger locks and fine beard, when he laughed, the rumbles coursed like triumphant drum-beats across the land and stirred one and all with merriment. His queen was a fine and gracious woman, wise beyond the kenning of the kingdom's most cunning philosophers, and as beautiful and bright as the sun, so they whispered. The radiant, golden tresses she bore hung to her waist in soft waves.

It was said that she was so breathtakingly lovely there were none to equal her upon the Earth.

This king and queen were blessed with a daughter in their early years, whose hair shone with the same pure-gold light as her mother's, though she had her father's eyes. The princess grew sweet and wise both, but in her tender life she would face the greatest sorrow she had ever known.

Her mother, the queen, fell ill.

It was not a swift illness. Many doctors were called to the ailing woman's bedside; many remedies and treatments were tried to cure the queen, but nothing prevailed. The king offered rewards of gold, of land, of noble titles and knighthoods to anyone who could save his beloved wife, but none succeeded. The princess spent her days tending her mother with love and dutiful care, and though it eased the elder woman's suffering, both knew their days together grew short. The queen watched her daughter grow from precocious, energetic child to tempered, intelligent woman, all from her sick-bed. It was bittersweet for the queen, watching her daughter grow knowing she could not enjoy it as a parent should.

The princess reached her eighteenth year, and her mother soon came to know that her time had come. In a final burst of emotion and delirium so near death, she called her husband to her side and railed:

"After I leave this world, my husband, should you ever wish to marry again, you must promise!" The woman warbled, feeling the frigid touch of death upon her. "Promise me that you will only take a wife as beautiful and wise as I- and only if her hair is as golden as mine!"

She never meant it as a curse.

The king was stricken by this odd demand, but her distress was so clear, her wail so heartbreaking, he took his queen's hand and shushed her. She calmed under his touch, her rheumy eyes dropping shut.

"I promise, my darling. I promise. Rest now."

The queen fell quiet and drifted into sleep. The king hastened to the door and called for his daughter, so that they may say their final goodbyes before the hour came.

That lovely woman had faded through illness, but she did not lose all her worldly beauty, and no doubt carried it with her to the next. The princess and her father sat vigil at the bedside all night and wept, and before the next morning broke, the queen breathed her last, and finally found her peace.

Before long, all the traditional and necessary rites of death were undertaken, and the kingdom fell into a country-wide period of mourning. During those months of grieving, the king gave absolutely no thought to ever marrying again- he loved his wife, and his heart was in pieces at her loss. However, as the pain eased and the time passed, his advisors gathered and encouraged him to take another bride.

"The people need a Queen," they told him. "A new queen may give you a son," they pestered. Gradually the king healed enough to move forward, and he agreed to seek another wife.

Princesses and noblewomen from many neighboring kingdoms were invited to visit the king. He visited many lands in turn. Even peasant women and those of the middle castes were sought in hopes of finding a lady as beautiful and wise, with as golden hair as the late queen. Though the king understood the need to remarry, he would still honor his departed love by keeping his promise, no matter how strange he found it.

The search went quickly, but no one woman could meet his wife's request. The king met with wise women, beautiful women, and women with golden hair, but if they were wise and beautiful, they seemed not to match her shade- and if they had equally radiant locks, they were not as wise or fair as the late queen. The king grew frustrated, and as the search wore on, he grew despondent, grief rising once more.

While her father had mourned, and then begun his still-fruitless quest to find her mother's equal, the princess had been acting in place of her mother to aid and guide the people of the land. She was a dutiful young woman, then nearing her twentieth year, and she was learning rapidly how to be a good leader. In their king's apparent descent to madness, the citizens of the kingdom looked to their steadfast princess, and saw with open hearts that she had blossomed.

The princess had grown into a wise, clever, compassionate, beautiful woman, with her mother's lustrous, waist-length golden hair. She was the very picture of the late queen, and much beloved by the entire kingdom.

It so came that the king returned home after a long bout of traveling, still having found no bride. He'd become sick in his heart after so much failure, and he yet reeled from the loss of his wife. He feared he'd returned to find his dominion in shambles, his people miserable, but lo! They prospered, having found their harmony once more. Astonished, the king spoke with his advisors, asking how his subjects had remained so well, even as he suffered.

"The princess has done an admirable job of ruling in your absence, sire," his eldest advisor said. "She has become a wise ruler, and maintains order with kindness."

"And she has grown into a fine woman," said another idly, thinking only that the praise would cheer the king. "She is quite the image of her mother."

None of this was intended to worm into the king's distraught mind and cause him to consider folly, yet the words would not leave him. When he entered the throne room, where he would normally address his nobles and take audiences from his subjects and visiting dignitaries, he found his daughter there, offering counsel to a pair of quarreling farmers.

"Messire Laidon, Messire Millaran, since this jeweled necklace you brought me was found on the boundary between your fields, it belongs simultaneously to both of you and neither of you. Therefore, since it cannot belong to either of you alone, we shall pay a reward for its discovery, and each of you shall receive an equal share. The necklace was likely lost upon a voyage and I'm sure its rightful owner would like to have it back. Is this agreeable?"

The king watched with pride and awe as his comely daughter negotiated the truce between the men. The farmers agreed, and both of them departed with a heavy, jangling purse, content to have made a gain. The princess gave the necklace in question to the royal treasurer to be cleaned, and tasked a messenger to visit the nobles with an inquiry on the missing article. The king stood watching her every move, and at once realized that his daughter had grown up a wise, beautiful woman, with hair as every bit as golden as her mother's.

It was then a terrible longing seized the king's heart. His daughter finished her duty and greeted him with a warm smile. She was sad to discover the quest to find a new bride had still not succeeded, but being who she was, she reassured the king:

"Fear not, father, the right woman is just waiting to be found!" She pressed a kiss to his cheek and left to see about his supper and a hot bath to rest his weary bones. The man watched her go, his eyes fix'd to the curves of her body beneath her sapphire-blue gown. His grief eased as his body turned lascivious, and the knowledge remained stuck in his mind. The princess, his daughter alone, was her mother's equal. As the king stood, struck to the heart by the sudden bolt of his lust, long absent, he vowed to take his daughter to wife.

In his years of agony over love lost, never again to be found, the king had fallen ill in his mind and spirit. An immoral love for his daughter grew wildly, and even as he called his advisors to him mere minutes after she left the throne room, his cock was still hard as stone. He remained so as the men gathered, and he told them what he planned.

"I have traveled far, to many neighboring lands, and I have met many eligible women, yet the only one that is an equal to our beloved queen is my daughter, the princess. Therefore, I shall marry my daughter, and she shall become queen."

The royal advisors were aghast.

"This cannot be!" They cried. "Such a marriage is a sin against all Creation, and will surely bring ruin upon our kingdom!" The advisors' protests continued, as they were all horrified by the very idea. They pleaded with the king rightly until he grew angry and roared for silence.

"SO I HAVE SPOKEN, SO IT SHALL BE DONE!"

At those words, the nobles fell into a shocked quiet and disbanded themselves, not wishing to further incur the king's wrath.

Full of seething lust, the man departed the throne room to seek his chamber, where he knew his daughter was overseeing his needs. She intended to feed his hunger and soothe his fatigue, but she would soon be satisfying his passions too, so he thought. Indeed, when he entered his rooms, he found the servants carrying in the wooden tub and preparing to fill it with hot water. A meal of roasted meat, bread, wine and fruit awaited him too. The king bade the servants leave the bath for later, and called for another goblet of wine. When it was brought, he offered it to his child.

"Princess, I have made a decision regarding my marriage," he said, gesturing to the wine. The princess drank, nodding as she listened. The wine was rich and sweet, and it warmed her belly. After a few sips, she set the goblet down and moved toward the food, to carve some of the roast for her patriarch.

"I'm listening, father. Please, rest. Eat. You have been gone a long time." She tried to get him to accept the food, but he waved it away, causing her to set it down on a small table. The princess began to sense something amiss as he advanced and took her by the shoulders.

"My darling, I've grown weary of searching. All my efforts have yielded nothing- the woman to equal your mother does not exist in any other kingdom or realm I have visited. It is only since I returned home that my choice has become clear." The sweet-hearted maiden rested her hand upon his arm and tried to comfort him.

"I know you loved my mother dearly, but father please- the promise she made you give wasn't fair to y-" The princess was stunned to find her earnest protest cut short. The king took her in his arms and pressed himself to her body. The hard jut of his cock against her softness startled her, and her sentence was interrupted by his tongue. Rigid with horror, the young woman fisted her hands between them as the king traced her lips, tasting the wine she had drunk. When he let her go, she pulled away with tears in her eyes. "You cannot mean this!" The princess cried hoarsely. "I am your child!"

"You are the only woman that can ever be equal to your departed mother," the king growled. "We will marry, daughter."

"But it's not natural!" The forlorn beauty cried.

"WE WILL MARRY!" he bellowed. It was then the princess saw with disturbing clarity how far from sanity her father had gone. Fearing for her life as he lurched toward her, the grotesque truth of his mad arousal on display, the princess carefully circled the chamber so her back eventually aligned with the door. Lowering her voice to a dulcet purr, she straightened her spine.

"Father, do you love me so much?" The princess asked in a breathy warble, appeasing his inner sense of desire. The king thought her humbled, and regained some control.

"Yes, daughter, for I can love no other. We must wed. The people already see you in the same light as your mother." He reached out to stroke her cheek, fire in his eyes, certain that his path was right. The princess stared back into the abyss of his soul and repressed her shudder. She must stay strong. She had watched a mother die and a father slip into ungodly madness; only her wits would keep her from this forsaken union.

The princess took her father's hand and stroked it, keeping her tone subdued and sweet.

"If this must be so, then I can only consent if you fulfill a few wishes I have," she began impulsively, an idea taking shape.

"Name your price, daughter," the king boomed, itching to close the distance between them. He burned for more than a mere kiss, but the princess remained cool, twirling or dancing with him as he moved.

"Before our nuptials, I will need three gowns," she stated, thinking to buy herself some time. Perhaps her requests would prove as impossible as she hoped. "One must be as golden as the sun, the next must be as silvery as the moon, and the last must be as glittering as the stars."

"It shall be done," he rumbled, impatient with the game she played.

"And I shall need a cloak- Made from a thousand different kinds of fur, leather and hide, and every animal in the kingdom must give a piece of itself," she continued, trying to avoid being ensnared and pressed once again to her father's body, where his masculine flesh stood erect. The woman knew he was no longer thinking with his mind as he considered their wedding.

"I will satisfy your wishes," he cried hoarsely, desperate now to claim what he considered his rights. "And we will wed. This, I swear. Now, princess, you must ease me, as was your mother's solemn duty, as will be yours." The king advanced, grasping at her gown as if to tear it, but the princess shied away and escaped him. She laughed as if enjoying their flirtation.

"Father, it would not be seemly to consummate before the vows are taken," she teased him. "If we transgress in passion before we are wed, our union will be ill-born. My blood will run too hot in waiting, but when we are man and wife, the joining will be so much sweeter." Before he could say another thing or menace her again, the princess reached- her hand trembling- to brush down his chest and belly, over his imposing hardness. "We must wait, father. Please. We cannot doom our marriage before it is done."

Reluctant reason seemed to creep back into him, and he nodded. His voice grew thick, and the king cleared his throat.

"We will wed as soon as we may," he ordered. "When your requests have been satisfied, so too shall I be as your husband." His hand mirrored hers, but in reverse. He cupped the princess's mound with his palm and dragged his touch upward until he could take a firm breast in his hand. A ragged breath took her and fled her throat with a rasp, and the king pressed down, possessing her lips once more. Though she filled with loathsome disgust, she returned his kiss as long as he held her fast.

When he at last let her go, breathing hard, the princess bade him good-night coyly and fairly fled to her rooms, her heart pounding with the spent energy of terror. There was no longer a safe home for her behind the walls of the castle. With luck, her tasks would take much time to fulfill, and she could prepare for the inevitable. If her father would not abandon his insanity and the delusion of a marital bed with his daughter, then she would have no choice.

That night, the princess sobbed, completely disturbed by the altercation with the king and what she had to do in order to fool him. She shuddered when she remembered his touch on her sensitive body, and wretched when she felt him still under her fingers. But she was not to be defeated. That, she would never allow.

Weeks began to pass. The princess avoided any room or time in which she might find herself alone with the king- a man she could barely consider he father any longer. He became more and more tense and unreasonable, barking his orders and neglecting his sworn duties. A dozen seamstresses had been tasked with the creation of the princess's gowns, and every hunter in the kingdom had been dispatched to collect hides for the cloak. The more progress was made, the harsher and more impatient the king became. The more the princess feared and loathed him, working against him in secret.

Her own preparations went on in silence. She practiced with her bow and dagger. She learnt cookery. One of the woodsmen taught her to chop, hew and cleave wood with an axe, and to build. She bought herself several articles of peasant's garb; tunics and hose, boots, breeches and shirts, all of dun material and leather. The clothing and weapons she hid secretly in her rooms, along with a bundle of useful and valuable goods- spices, coin, cloth, rope. Things needed, or that she could trade or sell. Nothing too heavy. If she had to flee at any time, it would not do to be too burdened.

Though the princess intended her requests to be as difficult as possible, the work came together under the stern command of the king quicker than she ever anticipated. Her most trusted eyes and ears within the castle kept her informed of the progress. As it seemed inevitable the king would succeed, the young woman made her final preparations and waited for the unbearable moment to come.

When the man saw how well the three gowns and the cloak were coming along, he smiled. Messengers were dispatched far and wide to proclaim the advent of the wedding, and he invited all of his kingdom to witness the nuptials, as well as many royals, nobles and dignitaries from the neighboring lands. Only the king's advisors and the princess herself knew the terrible truth. The invitations were received with a great deal of enthusiasm and curiosity, and many intended to go to what would surely be a great celebration for the king's mysterious new bride.

Finally, a day came when the princess awoke to the sensation of her blankets being lifted. She slept in a thin shift, one that barely concealed her, and when she opened her eyes to see her father leering over her, she shook with trepidation. His hands dragged her out of bed and forced her to stand; he spun her toward the front of the chamber and showed her all that she'd asked for. The three dresses hung from her wardrobe, each a shimmering work of art, and the cloak was spread over a chair.

"Behold," the crazed man declared, pressing his daughter's nearly-naked form to his own, "You shall wear one of the gowns for our wedding, tomorrow. Once our vows have been spoken, you will be mine, my dear, and you will give me your body and many fine children." The princess hissed as her father groped her feminine flesh through the filmy cloth of her shift. He rubbed the hidden cleft of her womanhood, his thick cock pushed into the soft curves of her buttocks. His free hand roamed to her breasts and tweaked her nipples to hard points. The maid cried aloud as her father bit and suckled the curve of her neck and shoulder, and she feared the very thing she so tried to avoid would happen right there in her own bedroom. "I know you're excited," the man cackled, stroking her most tender spot with almost spiteful accuracy. "I can feel your heat. But thank me for your gifts, daughter, or my displeasure may prompt me to consummate our marriage here and now. My patience grows short."

"They're b-beautiful!" The princess immediately stammered out. "T-thank you father, they're absolutely perfect!" A laugh met her throat, and she clutched the king's arms in feigned passion as he satisfied his desire for control, pushing her to the breaking point with his hands. Frozen and horrified, the poor woman could only endure her father's ministrations. His fingers drove her to madness, bringing pleasure that she never imagined coming from her own father. He caressed and groped and stroked and kissed and bit until she came apart with a scream, her body betraying logic and reason by finding bliss in his touch. All the while he'd been grinding himself into her soft flesh, and as his daughter came in his arms, he felt a surge of passion and spent himself against her body. Wetness seeped through his clothes and stained her night-rail.