The Beast

The panther paced in the tiger’s antechamber, trying to put his words into some semblance of order. “Sir, you have served my family well these many years, and I wish to continue our–” Here he struggled for the right word, his throat creaking in the frustration of a cat whose mind refuses to take their scattered thoughts and impose any semblance of order. He cursed his father. “Why couldn’t you have negotiated this, if you thought it was so important?” Like he was demanding an answer from his father’s ghost. It is in the nature of royalty to go a little mad from time to time, to think that since so much of the world has reshuffled itself to suit their whims that surely this one last impossible desire cannot help but fulfill itself. If the lion’s shade listened to his plea, his ghostly countenance held its tongue.

The panther would have likely stayed there long into the night pacing this way and that if the Beast had not uttered a harsh, guttural call, booming from within his lofty bedchambers. “Quit your pacing and muttering, whoever you are. Either come in or leave me to my rest!” ‘To my rest’ resonating with a measured yet garrulous growl. At least he was the same as ever.

The building that now housed the Beast used to be the old palace before the panther’s great-grandfather, Markus the Great, erected the nearby castle to serve as the new imperial center. His father had been disappointed, the panther remembered, that his only son was so disinterested in the history of the place, though he couldn’t help but notice that the King had not visited the old fortress once the Beast moved in. The last King, he had to correct himself. I am now King. That is why I am doing this. Because He is my only chance. A second’s hesitation, pregnant with doubts both said and unsaid, before the panther threw open the doors and plunged directly into the giant’s chambers.

The tiger was absolutely massive, a fact only heightened by the enclosed space. After the old castle had been superseded by the larger complex to the south, the old building was mostly used for ceremonial purposes, a feast day every other year, and for several years it had served as a hospital for soldiers wounded putting down the Leedsburg Mutiny. It was hard now to see any remnants of the history his father considered so sacred, not with the enormous tiger so large that he shrouded any trace of the building’s former purpose, whether they were stains from alcohol or those from bile and blood. No wonder his father had avoided the Beast’s chambers. More than any other sense it was the scent of the giant’s massive frame that suffused the room, a heady musk that clouded the panther’s perceptions and forced him to recall their first meeting six years before. 

The Beast was in chains then, enormous iron shackles holding him fast and firm to the wall of the dungeon. The prince had been much younger–they had both been much younger, really, but Markus was barely nineteen and not even so much as engaged. He usually hated to be taken away from his tennis courts–all the lovely furs there eager to play–but he didn’t mind joining the old lion for this. The story of this immense tiger had already become the stuff of legend, and a chance to see the fat behemoth in nothing but that army-tent-turned-loincloth and the chains that secured him to the dungeon wall was not one he could easily pass up. It was an image he would come back to over and over again–in boasts to his friends and the women he tried to seduce on and off and in and out of court, but also in private, well past midnight when he couldn’t help but turn that sight over and over in his head, cock positively dripping with lust. 

He truly was a Beast.

The titan had eaten the Duke of Richmond. Normally this would have meant instant death for someone of low birth, but the Beast was much too clever for such a bathetic outcome. He surrendered to the sheriff–a little embarrassed to report that he and his constables had taken the giant willingly–with a simple request: an audience with the King  (preferably alone) where he could explain himself and his actions.

The lion’s face had remained impassive as the giant tiger recounted his tale of woe, stories of poor peasants constantly victimized by their feudal lord and the liberties he took with any servant or farm girl that happened to spark his special interest. “Everyone knows that Richmond slept with women other than his wife,” the King said with even tones, dismissing the entire incident with a shake of his head. “I hope you have more to tell me because that alone will not be enough to convince me that what you did was just.”

The tiger bared his teeth reflexively at this provocation and almost lost the element of surprise. If he weren’t so strong and fast that the panther scarcely saw him move, he might not have managed to break the chain that was supposed to be holding his right wrist securely to the wall above his head, nor would he have been able to snatch the prince and hoist him ten feet into the air, held fast in that same meaty paw. “I know you don’t care about the honor of peasants, your majesty, but perhaps you care enough about the life of your heir to hear me out? You wouldn’t have accepted my request if you weren’t interested in what I had to say.”

The lion’s mouth twitched a little, the faintest outline of what those who knew the King well enough might see as a smile. The only man in the room capable of doing so was currently held in a giant tiger’s hefty paw, thumbclaw pressed firm against his throat. “Once again I ask, is there more to your story besides…some unfortunate lack of chivalry?” His golden mane practically shone in the torchlight–or at least it did in every nauseating retelling that the panther had been subjected to over the next six years.

With no scribe present, the prince could not remember the exact words Publius said in response. The basic outline, however, was easy enough to recall. The tiger had been normally sized, if a bit tall, until the late spring. Most of the kingdom already knew as much; half of them thought it a miracle, while the other half thought it was proof of demonic intercession. The tiger refused to clarify, claiming that he just started to grow, foot after foot, day after day. Most in the kingdom continued to believe in divine intercession.

Shortly after his prodigious growth leveled out (at something like three hundred hands, as the scholars the Beast permitted to study him eagerly reported), the tiger had discovered two terrible secrets: the nightmare that his sister was living, and the Duke’s plot to overthrow the King. The latter, easily confirmed by a search of the Duke’s private papers, was the one that interested the monarch. The giant named the drawer to search first, claiming to have seen the Duke stash the document by peering through a window, aided by his massive height. Amazed by both his loyalty and his audacity, the King was more than willing to bestow a knighthood on such an exceptional subject.

For his part, the Beast had proven worthy of the King’s faith. During the Noon Rebellions he even had to stomp through his native province, causing a minor famine that led to the deaths of dozens of peasant families, including ones the Beast had known. He was despised by commoners and distrusted at court. Feared by everyone. But though the prince kept his distance since that day–a bitter reminder of how little he was valued by his father, who had chided him that “the Duke of Calais could have reigned in your stead, and likely done a better job,” when he had had the temerity to complain about how casually the King treated his life in the negotiations, how he had even allowed the Beast the indignity of holding him until the riders came back from the Duke’s castle with confirmation of the tiger’s incredible story. “My son, you are just lucky that he has no claim to the throne, or he could easily seize it after my death.” No wonder there were so many dark, lonely nights when Markus thought about the firm grip of the tiger’s four digits as he soaked the underside of his satin sheets over and over again.

The tiger had always made clear that his oath was to the lion directly and not to any heirs. He did not rule out such an oath at a later date, but with each battle the tiger fought–and easily conquered–for his liege, the length of time between each “would you swear to serve my heir?” grew longer and longer until the King eventually stopped even asking. He had more pressing matters, and there were so many new possibilities up north…

In the six long years after, the Beast had helped the King gain prestige and struck fear into the hearts of his enemies, both foreign and domestic. The expense of providing for someone so gargantuan was monumental, of course, but the King was wise and his ministers well-chosen, and so the Kingdom never lacked the necessary funds. And the revenue from the three provinces the Beast had helped to conquer, Markus had often heard his King insist the Beast paid for himself.

When his father had taken ill following that fateful hunt, the only counsel he had for the next king was to secure the massive knight’s allegiance. “Convince him to swear an oath to you. Use whatever means you have to,” the elderly lion had managed between fits of coughing, his breath hoarse and weak where it had once been so strong and keen. “No promise is too large. He is your best chance, my child. Your only chance.” A firm, hopeless look in his eyes, a deep doubt that the King no longer bothered to hide from his only son.

And so he found himself in front of the half-naked beast, his only clothing now very similar to what he had worn then, a rather revealing and remarkably tight loincloth that wrapped around the tiger’s waist and left nothing to the imagination. “Oh it’s you, sire. Forgive me, I thought you were one of my pages! They hate to tell me bad news, think I’m going to eat them or something…” the tiger trailed off as he saw the look on the panther’s face, solemn and worried even before he felt the tiger’s deep, rumbling bass chuckles tumble through his ears. “Now!” The titan’s voice, incredulous as the look on his face, was clear even in the dim torchlight.  “…you want to negotiate with me…right now?”

“Y-you are…very perceptive, Sir Maximus!” What had given it away? Did he really stutter there, like a terrified child getting a scolding? “Now, listen.” Summoning every ounce of regal authority he could manage in front of the gigantic knight. “You have served me and my family well these many–”

“I have only ever served your father, sire,” the tiger interrupted, left eyebrow arched. “You’re gonna have to do much better than that. Come on, cut to the quick. What are you offering?”

Exactly the reason why he had been pacing the antechamber back and forth and back and forth… “Aw–Offering?” His voice so hesitant, his eyes locked onto the Beast’s enormity–and trying to keep themselves locked into the giant’s eyes instead. “Well, of course your tribute would be doubled, and I could always create some earl–”

The tiger let out a hearty belly laugh that filled the Great Hall even more than his other booming words and chuckles had managed. The panther felt himself squeezed out of the space by the oppressive largeness of the sound, triggering his recurring fantasy of getting caught under the tiger’s rump. Struggling to breathe, caught under every pound of his enormous– “You know, this is the first time we’ve ever been alone together?” The panther insistently shook his head but the tiger just continued, undeterred. “I don’t think I’m that intimidating…” A dark smile here said the exact opposite. “…is it just because you’re worried I felt your erection when I held you?”

The panther’s fur stood on end. He had never said anything, never let on for…this whole time? He knew? “I…don’t…it was a very stressful situation, and I just…got a little wrapped up in the excitement!” Hardly a convincing defense.

The tiger’s chuckles resounded, his already thunderous voice loud enough to shake the great hall to its foundations. After a moment they subsided enough for him to speak. “When I was a young feline, I found a deer in the forest with an arrow sticking out of its side. I took pity on it; I assumed it had been shot by the Duke or one of his retainers, men I loathe and despise even still. I was also afraid that such men would find me and prosecute me for poaching the King’s woods. I helped to staunch the bleeding with my shirt and nursed the doe back to health.

“When the Goddess of the Verdant Forest thanked me for tending one of her beloved deer and offered to grant my deepest desire, I was stunned. I fumbled, unsure of myself. I asked her what she thought I wanted most. ‘A larger perspective, Publius. You want to be above it all.’ I instantly, instinctively knew she was right. I was tired of being told who I was, what I must say and how I must feel. Who deserved my deference, and who was worthy of my respect. Even though I knew better than to trust a God of the woods, I couldn’t resist the temptation.

“I didn’t just grow in size…I started to see people as they really were. Just little dolls for me to play with…” the tiger’s eyes grew distant as he remembered. “Even those big, great men who used to terrify me, to demean and abuse my family and my neighbors, could be easily undone. All I had to do was apply some pressure in the right areas, uncover the right secrets and leverage them against each other, and I can’t say being the size of twelve men hurt!

“None of you ever thought it was strange that I had never been spotted near the Duke’s castle before I killed him. It was a major hole in my story, one that I would have expected the chief magistrate to notice.” The tiger’s eyes narrowed and he grew expectant.

“You said you came at night, and we all…well I know that I always figured…just what are you saying?”

“Sometimes, I get these flashes of insight. Moments where I see The Truth, and a clear way to exploit it. Your father eventually understood that my counsel was valuable, but he had no clue how much of an asset I could have been. And I’ll admit I never thought he’d make me the backup strategy to legitimize his weak-willed, spineless offspring.”

The panther did not quite know what he hated most, the way the tiger’s insults cut to the quick, the blunt, overly familiar tone this future regicide was taking with him, or the fact that his cock was now positively throbbing.

“Which I will be happy to do…with one condition, of course.”

The panther’s ears perked up at the sudden turn of events into a more favorable direction. “You…will?” His voice was dwarfed by the immensity, both physical and in sheer ego, of the Beast. His willingness to serve the diminutive panther was briefly perplexing. “Wh-what…what condition?” Prepared for the worst.

“You. I want you, sire.”

The panther was terrified by this straightforward statement of desire, struggling with how best to put his feelings into words. He was living in an impossible dream mixed with a nightmare, shades of ridiculous desires mixing seamlessly with each and every uncertainty of the prince’s former life. Each and every fear that he would never amount to anything and could not do anything but help other, greater men achieve their greatness at his own expense. His terror and his hope that others would find out his fervent desire for that monster, the most hated and feared creature at court. He was pathetic and petulant as he insisted on the only defense that came to mind. “B-but I am already affianced!”

The tiger let loose another castle-shaking laugh. “Affianced, eh? Luckily for her I don’t want your hand in marriage. I want you. Perhaps you can give me a lesson in tennis?” The tiger’s eyebrows raised as his jest hit its mark, the tiny panther even more painfully nervous than he had looked before.

“This–I–I cannot–it is not DONE,” the last word so firm and resolute the Beast knew it could not be a product of the prince’s own mind.

“Your father is dead, sire. You are now King. Act like it for once and take what I am offering you.” The Beast wrapped his furry fist around the tiny royal, lifting the panther to his smirking face. Even lit just by torchlight, the golden hues of the monster’s pelt were absolutely radiant. “Marry whomever, fill her with a dozen spoiled children if you must, but never forget that you are mine.” The words were so much more fierce with his breath washing over his tiny body, warm and moist and reeking of fresh, raw meat.

“Un–unhand me, you–you BEAST!” the king tried to order. His body betrayed him once more, his cock throbbing against the tiger’s soft and warm digits.

The tiger growled in frustration with the panther’s continued refusal. “Say it, Markus,” the tiger ordered with much more force and majesty than the king could possibly muster, both now and at any point in his life before. “Admit to me what you feel. How many nights you lay awake and dreamed of me dominating you like I can right now. How it feels to be under my control.”

The king demurred, tense and timorous in the tiger’s grasp. He choked on every possible answer, either positive or negative. None of the words were his own, just ways he thought he could imitate his father or his uncle or his cousin. People who knew what they were doing, and what they wanted.

Though the panther had stopped being outright obstinate, his continued resistance left the knight with no alternative. Pub let out a sigh more theatrical than sincere, and the massive knight opened his fist so he could reach under the king’s tunic–a fine, embroidered gown–and tear it down the middle with one swift slash from his sharpened clawtip. The panther’s chausse was next, a fine violet hue to the pants befitting a man of royal birth, shredded by the lustful tiger. “I can smell it, sire…” His deafening voice was breathy, sensual. A predator toying with his prey.

The panther’s arousal was now fully visible; the slack of his braies was not loose enough to hide his shame. “Why…I think you might even be bigger than me down there–well, if I weren’t me.” There was a certain look in the titan’s eyes, a fierce, primal hunger. It sent a shiver down the panther’s spine. The giant used his thumbclaw dexterously, making sure not to harm any bit of the sensitive organ as he ripped the king free of his last piece of clothing. The tiny monarch was amazed that the giant tiger could so easily ruin the king’s attire without bruising the terrified little panther underneath.

The tiger thought he could see a crimson hue hidden beneath the panther’s naked fur, a poorly concealed embarrassment as he struggled in vain against the giant’s grip. “Dream come true, isn’t it?” The tiger’s words dripped with irony as his tongue slipped out from between his gigantic, fearsome lips, large enough to swallow a tree, and, and–dear God the knight was so massive, the tongue muscle writhing against the king’s entire midsection, his erection desperate as the panther struggled to escape from the fast, firm grip of his captor.

“Please, please…” the panther’s words were weak, pathetic and uncertain. Did he want all of this to stop? Was he struggling to escape now, or so that he could writhe in the giant’s fist like he had so often dreamed? Either way, the giant’s paw remained wrapped around his body, his tongue lapping at the delicate little organ until…until…until the panther groaned loudly, felt his balls contract and rope after rope of royal cum splash onto the tongue of his colossal vassal.

The tiger savored the taste of the tiny royal, continuing to lick up and down his diminutive body long after the panther’s climax. “You are delicious, sire…now we shall see how well you function with something…more your size,” the tiger’s voice grew heavier as he lowered the king down to his loincloth, his arousal clear through its sheer fabric.

It was even darker in the confines of the tiger’s undergarments than it had been in the torchlit Great Bedchamber, but he didn’t need to see it to feel it, the knight’s great, pulsing mass of flesh, fully erect and now taller than the scrawny king. He wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the sheer size of the tiger’s length or how good it felt to breathe in his scent. How natural it felt to wrap his body around the warm, musky cock and pump the great mass of skin up and down, working his way bit by bit up to the cockhead so he could lap as much of this giant–of his giant’s pre as he could manage. 

Knight and king, panther and tiger, both building to this moment for the entire night, for what felt like an eternity. That panther felt the pressure build deep within the tiger’s mighty shaft, a rumbling as profound as the deep, guttural moan of pleasure grew in the titan’s throat. The panther pulled the tiger’s trigger as easily as the colossal tiger had pulled his…

The king was coated in his seed, rope after rope, a prodigious load that the tiger will later admit “was rather large, even for me” while the tiny panther gazes up at his massive face with the same mixture of awe and affection he had when the overgrown peasant pulled open his loincloth and stared down at the cum-soaked king and asked, “Is that a deal then, sire?”

~

“Well, you could send Essex instead. He’s been aching for a campaign of his own since your father wouldn’t let him fight the Bretons. And I can always eat him if he tries to revolt…”

The panther paled a little. “You–you wouldn’t!” The tiger’s hearty laughter rang through the valley, his back resting against a remote cliffside as he kept the tiny panther perched on his chest, snug and secure in the warm tiger’s ample bosom.

The ability to stride over rooftops, stomp over and squeeze through mountain passes were but only a few of the advantages of having an affair with someone so earth-shakingly immense; when he used Publius as transport the King could travel quicker than most horses, especially if the thick-thighed titan was willing to really stomp around his countryside instead of merely walking, running through fields of angry and terrified commoners and their lords. They each cursed the free rein that their liege gave the Beast, without any knowledge that the tiger was carrying the very same liege at that moment. They were supposed…well, The King was supposed to be judging a jousting tournament, one of those more grisly entertainments that both his father and the massive knight enjoyed much more than the dainty, pampered panther ever did…

“Not without your word, my liege,” the tiger managed to answer after his laughter subsided enough to speak. “It shouldn’t come to that, of course. And if I’m really that necessary at court…”

“I just feel safer with you around,” the King managed without any stutters and only a brief bit of hesitation between “I” and “just.” He was slowly getting better at projecting a regal air, at least when he wasn’t alone with the towering titan who seemed to alway strip him of his pretensions, including his ersatz confidence.

Few people in the Kingdom knew the truth about their relationship, and those that did know were mostly the knight’s squires and pages or the King’s servants and valets, all too eager to serve (or avoid being devoured) to object to all the times they were forced to see the giant kiss his handheld ruler while the King turned crimson with a mixture of pleasure and humiliation. “Not in front of the servants…” He’d order half-heartedly while Pub, a knight of many virtues except modesty, would smile and pretend he didn’t hear it.

“There will be times when I have to go on campaign, sire,” the usually jovial tiger’s face grew serious. “I…well, we have a lot of work to do, Markus.”

The panther remained undaunted, even at the prospect of being apart from him. “I think I could do anything, knowing that you’re at my side.”

The tiger couldn’t help but crack a smile at that metaphor. As if he could stand side by side with any part of the giant higher than his ankle! The sheer pride he felt that first time he saw the King upbraid the Duke of Norfolk with just a few days coaching from his new chief advisor, a timid, easily malleable prince no longer. How easily he routed the Baron of Herford’s rebellion, almost playful by the end, smashing his enormous rear into the opposing army. So amused when three or four of the mercenaries couldn’t free themselves from under his ballsack. The looks the archbishop gave them both when he found out, so livid at the lewd tiger, especially when he learned of Pub’s desecration of the remains of the opposing army in his seed!  Why, if the cardinal did not know that he could count on the support of his King absolutely and without hesitation, he might have considered resigning! How scandalized he would be to find the King actually enjoyed the tiger’s lewd exploit, or how eager he was to see the next one himself.

“Enough of all that. Would you rather start in the front or the back? ” The tiger chuffed as he looked down at his handheld King. The panther wouldn’t object to what he had planned. Not too much.