Dogs Feast in the Castles at Night (An Original Fantasy Story in 1,100 Words)
"It's a thimbu, your grace."
Jack's hand remains on the hound's side, conscious of the muck staining his trousers. The king's jewels spark and glisten in the sunlight as he inspects Mimi. Two advisors, one bald and one old, stand to the side, watching the interaction unfold.
"It's a bitch." The king states dispassionately, gliding his hand long over her chestnut brown wiry coat. He nudges her rear, testing the massive beast's balance. Mimi shrugs and looks down at the ruler. He doesn't notice her attention.
"Her legs are so thin--I wonder if she could even carry Alvin."
"Horses have thin legs too, your grace." Jack presses, "I'm sure the young prince would enjoy riding her, though he probably wouldn't put her to good use until he can properly hold a sword." The king frowns and the old advisor glares. Jack quickly adds, "And ready for battle."
Jack looks to the advisors, to the king, and to Mimi. They pass over the breeder's presumption about their prince's swordsmanship.
Mimi snorts and wags her tail, panting slightly from the heat. She twists to inspect the king, pulling gently against the rope leash tying her to the stable. She blinks, staring at the king expectantly. Her jowls upturn, revealing an eagerness Jack is well familiar with.
"If I may, your grace," You're talking too much, Jack, a young girl's voice whispers in his mind. He silences it. "See how she's looking at you? She trusts you. You can pet her."
"A terrible idea, your grace," the old advisor objects. The wrinkles on his neck mimic the folds on Mimi's chest. He trembles as he speaks. The bald advisor hands him a drink. The old advisor swallows, relieved for a drink. He continues, "If she bites you, she may have your whole hand for supper."
Or the whole arm, the voice whispers. Jack ignores it again.
The king hesitates, then takes his hand off the hound.
"What's she made of?" He asks, still eyeing Mimi. Her tail creates a soft swish-swish breeze. She wants to be pet so badly. He reaches for her head tentatively. Fingers connect. Mimi, such a good dog, nuzzles hard into the king's scratchy hand.
The king smiles. Jack smiles too, concealing his jealousy. Mimi had been his fourteen-year project, a product of love, poverty, and sacrifice. A military dog. What a waste that would be.
The old man takes another swig of the bald advisor's flask. The bald man gestures his equal to keep it.
"She's bred primarily from mastiffs and boxers--" Jack's nerves make his voice falter before adding, "--your grace. I call the breed 'thimbu' for their thin, nimble legs and bull-like body."
"There has to be something else too," the old advisor adds, suddenly an expert on breeding. He wipes white goop off the corner of his mouth. Jack combs his hand through his salty blonde hair, taking a moment to think. The advisor swigs another drink, then continues, "I've never seen a boxer or a mastiff with such long legs, nor achieve such size." Before Jack can answer, the bald advisor interrupts: "What does she weigh?" He asks.
"About 900 pounds, give or take," Jack answers, quickly concocting the thimbu's origin.
"When breeding, each brood bitch died during whelping," the breeder says candidly, "Each new set of pups were so much bigger than the last. They tore through their mothers. I think it was--" thinkthinkthink--"the food I gave them." Not totally a lie. "We've had a particularly fruitful harvest these past few years, your grace, and the dogs have been eating better than before."
And getting deadlier. The voice chimes. Jack coughs, clearing his head, hunching so the king wouldn't pay mind to his too-thin body. The king had already moved on, patting Mimi's side affectionately.
"You really think we're going to buy--" the old advisor starts, only to be cut off by the bald advisor again, who asks, "--is she fit to ride?" The old advisor glares at his rude colleague, then smacks his lips, parched.
Jack nods. The king, ever more entranced with Mimi's gentle demeanor, grins wide. "I'd like to ride her first," he says enthusiastically.
The old advisor opens his mouth to object. No, he has to, the girlish voice whispers in Jack's head. The old man closes his mouth.
He's finally unable to speak.
The saddle fits snuggly onto Mimi's back. "It's just like riding a horse," Jack instructs. The king, gleeful, kicks onto the dog. She waits for orders.
"I'm going to take her around the grounds," he says, turning the dog toward the forest. "I may just keep her as my new hunting hound." He exclaims.
He already loves me. The voice echoes.
Finally, Jack responds, I know, but not as I do.
The bitch trots off with the king.
As planned, the old advisor buckles a few minutes later, poison foaming at his mouth.
The bald advisor takes a thick sack of coins and hands it to the breeder nonchalantly. Jack takes the currency, worth over a year's worth of meals, and stashes it in his belt.
A kingly cry echoes from the forest. Delicious. The voice smacks.
"Just how much royal blood were those dogs drinking?" The bald advisor asks. "She really is massive," he said. Jack closes his eyes. Mimi and her kin, the dogs that feast in castles at night, would disappear for days before returning, jowls bloody with the end of a reign. He shudders.
"Obviously, enough," Jack says. Mimi trots back, saddle empty, face wet with dark-red stains. She smacks her bloody lips, looking to Jack for an ear scratch. "I think we have enough thimbus now to start breeding between them though," he added, petting his dog.
The bald man nodded, satisfied with an experiment and plan well executed. He turns back toward the castle. "A sack of gold for every one you produce," he reminds the breeder, "as promised by Alvin."
The prince, the financier, will now become king.
"Long may he reign," Jack stated, mounting his dog to return home.
Story Origins
This story was written for @steemfluencer's contest: "The Creative Writing Challenge." The contest provides a set of rules to create short stories from random prompts.
This week, we had to choose a random word from a dictionary that we didn't know the meaning to. Knowing it would be tough to hide the word's meaning entirely in a normal dictionary, I broke out my college Chinese dictionary and plucked a word from there.
I selected "Thimbu." It sounded exotic and fun, and I immediately started to think of "The Thimbu King" or "Thimbu" as a foreign name for a king, but then I thought it'd be fun to write about a royal betrayal. From there, Mimi was born.
All content is original.
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Wow, this is a remarkable entry indeed. Congrats for choosing a Chinese dictionary. Nice to meet you Mimi :)
Nicely done! Way to spin a whole story and theme out of that word. Good choice, and great writing. Enjoyable!
Yes, chapeau.
A really well concocted tale of deceit befitting a king.
Or a king eating hound, which are my favourite kind of hounds.
Surely we should be breeding more of them.