Pax Multi Pt. 10

A shocking number being about five hundred.

Which was still less than zero, which Lou had expected.

But despite Bea's nerves...the only thing Lou could feel was joy. Just having her around made him want to smile. To laugh. And so, he did, taking her hand and squeezing. "Beatrice, my love, my dearest one..." he said, quietly. "A single body is more than enough for me."

"True...Amy did say there were a great many sexual kinks we have yet to explore," Beatrice said, nodding. "And, you could preform femdom upon me many, many, many times before I will ever become tired of it."

Lou chuckled. "That's, uh, not femdom..." he said -- and he did not blush. He did not feel mortified. After what they had been through, it felt as if such worries were so childish and petty that he could do nothing more but laugh at them.

"And yet, it has a female, being dominated! Hence, femdom!" Beatrice proclaimed.

Lou shook his head and took his wife to his home. He introduced her to Marc, his trainer, and she thanked him profusely for all that he had done to prepare her husband for the battles that he had faced. Marc blushed like a schoolboy and rumbled out a soft 'my thanks, my lady.' Then, in the master bedroom, where his parents had once slept, Lou and Bea got to work making it comfortable for themselves, changing out furniture for furniture they preferred. As they worked, across the solar system, changes more sweeping and shocking than the end of the Bug War were taking place.

The Federated States, liberated.

Several higher ranked members of the Upkin community jailed by an interfactional court -- allies and associates of Dr. Listens -- discredited by the rescued, slowly recovering Righteous Zen Two, a splice that had been the core of Project Etemenanki's perverse goals.

The most shocking of all, the abdication of King Louis Benoit XI and Queen Josephine Benoit V.

Lou had been the one to suggest it.

"The war's over. And...lets be honest..." he paused. "Neither of you are happy with what you are. Or else, you'd never have broken your vows and excused it. I'm ready to take rulership of the Neopolitans." He smiled, slightly. "You two can be who you want to be, Mother, Father, without fear. Without guilt." He paused. "I promise to you, I will do right by the Star Kingdom."

He hadn't needed to argue very hard. He had seen the dawning excitement in his parents eyes.

Once the interior of the mansion had been set to their preferences, Beatrice had placed her lower hands against her hips, nodded to herself, then beamed. "I declare this to be a most excellent place to live within." She paused. "Queen Beatrice Benoit the First..." She murmured, tasting the words on her tongue.

"Oh, you're not the first," Lou said, shaking his head. "You'd be Queen Beatrice Benoit III."

"There were two other Beatrice Benoits!?" Bea exclaimed, her voice horrified, her antennas drooping.

Lou smiled. "Yes," he said, chuckling. "I mean, you're one to look horrified, Bea, I'm the twelfth Louis."

"B-But..." Bea stammered. "Y-you reacted with great shock and horror at my name! For it was very silly!"

"Your name is by far, the most lovely name in the entire galaxy," Lou said, his voice a husky purr. He walked past the table they had been setting, taking her upper hands in his, his eyes meeting hers. "Your name makes my heart race and my skin tingle and my mind whirl. Your name...is perfect." He smiled. "What I could not stand, at the time...was the pun." He grinned at her as Beatrice blushed, trembling.

"I-I'm sorry, w...were you saying...things after...after that second sentence?" she whispered, her voice soft, her black-blue eyes gleaming with excitement. "I...I stopped noticing, after I fell even more in love with you."

He leaned slowly forward, to kiss her -- but before he could, a chime through the house. A servitor hovered into view and spoke in its creaky, artificial voice. "There...are...several...nobles...here...to...pay...their...respects...my...lord..."

"Ah, fantastic..." Lou purred. Bea grinned back at him.

***

Morrigan Macchi, the high lady of House Macchi, the largest and most important noble house after the Benoits, reclined in one of the sitting chairs in the front veranda, waving a fan lazily to keep herself cool. Her two bodyguards stood to either side of her, while she looked across the table at Beatrice in her sundress and her hair and Lou, pouring wine for himself with his left hand, moving carefully to keep it from spilling, while his stump rested in Beatrice's lap.

"It does not pain you?" Morrigan asked, her voice dripping with barely concealed venom.

"Oh, no, no, not at all," Lou said, cheerfully. "I actually get along just fine without a second hand -- you'd be shocked at how fast you can adapt." He smiled. "I tried a few prosthetics, but any that don't use direct nerve stimulation are really more to make other people comfortable than me."

"I see," Morrigan said. Then, her thin lipped smile quirked up. "So, we've received the...letter you have set."

"What do you think?" Lou asked, curiously.

Morrigan snapped her fan shut. "I think it is insulting," she said, her voice flat. "You want to destroy the noble houses of the Neopolitans and turn us into...into...into replicas of the Anarchist Commune! You want to tear down our entire way of life, and turn yourself into a kind of...barely present arbiter of disputes rather than a-"

"That is not what the letter said at all!" Bea exclaimed. "It merely was a list of reforms that we worked out, together."

Morrigan growled, quietly. "I can read between the lines, my lady." Her eyes flashed as she leaned forward. "If you think the noble houses will let you destroy the Neopolitans from the inside out, then you have another think coming."

Lou chuckled, quietly. "Do I now?"

"The United Human Polity will not interfere with internal affairs -- and we in the Macchi know how to play the game," Morrigan said, her voice icy. "Listen here, boy...I came to your home to offer you a chance. A chance to rescind this letter, to quietly squash it all, and to...to..." She paused. "What?"

Lou was laughing again, his shoulders shaking. Then he looked at Beatrice. "Oh, Bea...I'm utterly terrified. Are you?"

"I'm spooked solid!" Beatrice giggled, quietly. "I believe that my wings shall fall off!"

"Oh no!" Lou laughed.

Morrigan looked between them. "I've read the reports! You're down to just-"

The wine in the glass quivered. The glasses clinked.

Bea...grinned. "I was very precise in the words I chose when I was interviewed by the very nice AnCom lady." She nodded. "I said that I had only one body that my husband loves."

The wine shakes, rippling outwards as the ground shakes and the trees creak and groan -- and five Terror Talons, several of them still scarred, their armor still pitted from high energy weapons fired at them by Federal troops. Lou's favorite was the one who had taken a chunk of shrapnel to the left eye. Rather than removing it, Bea had simply allowed the flesh to grow back around the shrapnel, giving it a wickedly feral look as it walked forward, all five of the Talons looking down at Morrigan, who was frozen in her seat. Her goons had drawn their guns as Bea leaned back in her seat.

One of the Talons leaned down, bumping the side of its massive head against Lou, and he felt Beatrice's closeness in the heat and the moistness of its breath. He slid his palm along the side of the creatures snout and looked right into Morrigan's eyes.

"The Neopolitans have been ruled by the House Benoit for thirteen generations," he said, parroting the lessons he had learned from youth -- and then swerving, hard. "By comparison, our queen has ruled her worlds for thirty seven million generations. Morrigan, you think that Beatrice has married into the Benoit House. You're wrong."

He grins. "We married into hers."

Bea smiles.

The Terror Talons smile.

"So," Lou said, his voice soft. "You were saying?"

Morrigan gulps, then stammered. "L-Long live the queen?"

Bea giggled. "Okay!" She smiled. "So, I'm thinking, we shall begin by spending the ten years until my space born bioforms arrived getting everyone ready to living in the new world. We need, absolutely, to convince the Shavanti to be less sticks in the mud. I have some ideas, and, well..." She leans forward -- and as she talks, Lou leans back.

It's good to be king.

THE END