The Red Vixen at Sea

“So I was thinking that once we go over the quarterly earnings report for the plantation on Nagrim later this morning with the administrator you and I could…” Melanie paused, looking at her husband Rolas’ back from her perch at the edge of the bed. Normally this was an enjoyable exercise, especially in the morning, while he was still undressed and allowing her a fine view of his well-muscled shoulders, the definition visible even under the tall foxen male’s dark brown pelt, his black tail waving over his ass cheeks. “Rolas, are you even listening to me?” she prompted.

“Mm, yes dear,” he murmured, still looking out the open glass doors to the morning dawn rising over their home, a small manor house on the lands administered by his parents, the Countess and Count Darktail.

Melanie blinked her green-gold eyes at him, taking a brush from the table with her black paw and running through her thick red tail fur, then over the splash of white fur at her neck and cleavage as she continued, “So as I was saying, I was thinking after that we can have business lunch with Miss Hewitt, the rep for that human consortium that wants to create a consolidated shipping line with my company all the way to Earth.”

“Yes, dear.”

She paused for a moment, then asked, “Are you really listening?”

“Yes, dear.”

“So I assume you’re all right with me just setting your tail on fire right now, yes?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, his neutral tone not changing a bit.

“Right...” Melanie stood up, grabbing her silk robe off the bed, slipping it over her shoulders before joining him at the open door. Small birds were flying low over the back gardens, hunting for insects. Rolas looked out over them with his beautiful amber eyes, not even turning to face her as she slipped an arm around his waist. “What’s the matter?” she prompted.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“Which is why you’re not looking at me, and talking only in monosyllables.” She poked at his chest lightly with one finger claw. “What’s wrong, Rolas?”

Rolas finally turned his head to face her, his expression grim. Well he was always grim, or glum, or gloomy. Except when she could jolly him out of it and make him smile and laugh. Melanie thought she’d been getting rather good at it. Recently not so much.

“I was thinking about Salli, and Ali, and you, or rather your old persona,” he said.

“Ah,” she replied, tensing up. That was a sore point to be sure. Several points actually, rather like a caltrop you might step on expectedly, to pierce your footpad and cause you to fall.

Salli was Rolas’ sister, a survivor of a rare case of foxen domestic abuse at the claws of her ex, and now very much dead, husband. She’d escaped that horror and eventually achieved a reasonably steady grip on her post traumatic stress, with the aid of therapy, medication, and the companionship of her bodyguard, a female foxen named Alinadar.

The two of them had recently married as a matter of fact, something which pleased Melanie greatly, not the least reason being that Ali had once been Melanie’s bodyguard, back in the days when she’d also been known as the Red Vixen, Scourge of the Spaceways ™. A persona she had since abandoned, trading the thrill and profit of piracy for more domestic concerns, and the chance to make money without running afoul of the Stellar Patrol.

“They’ve been doing rather well together,” Rolas went on. “I think they compliment each other. Ali provides Salli with a very physical reassurance of my sister’s safety, and Salli gives Ali the emotional stability the younger vixen needs so desperately.”

Melanie let herself relax slightly. If Rolas wanted to talk about how well Salli and Ali were getting along, that was fine by her.

“That doesn’t change the fact that Ali’s problems were exacerbated by you completely failing to get her the help she needed when you found her,” Rolas finished, his voice’s normal warm baritone chilling several degrees.

“I already apologized for that, Rolas. Several times,” Melanie said.

“You enslaved her,” he said flatly.

“She was sixteen and out of her mind,” Melanie protested. “You didn't see how feral she was back then. Ali's life with Bloody Margo had driven her insane. I had only been pirating in my Red Vixen persona for two years at that point. I didn't want to drop her off back on Foxen Prime to spend the rest of her life in an insane asylum!”

“So putting a collar and leash around her neck was the best solution you could think of?”

“At the time, yes. It was like an indenture, and don't tell me Darktail Domain doesn't have any of those.”

“Indentures are either mutually agreed upon contract between a Lord and their Commoner subject, or applied as a means of assuring resitution after a Commoner is convicted of a criminal act,” Rolas pointed out. “They are not imposed upon innocents out of convenience.”

Melanie rubbed her ears in frustration. “I can't undo what I did, anymore than Ali can! What do you want out of me, Rolas?”

“I want to be able to trust you again,” Rolas said. “When I asked you to marry me, I didn't understand you, why piracy was such a thrill to you, but I thought I could trust you.”

She was starting to get a sick feeling in her stomach. “You can! I'm your wife!” Surely he couldn't possibly be thinking of...

“Can I?” he asked, his tone still cool, clinical. Too clinical. He'd been thinking about this for a long time she judged. When he was flying off the handle she knew he was just letting off steam. This was different, like when she'd first met him after capturing his family's merchant vessel, when all of his family's problems were chewing away at his soul.  “I love you, but do you love me? Or will you merely drop me when the smell of profit in the air overwhelms you again?”

“I would never do that, Rolas,” she whsipered fiercely. “I will honor my oaths to you, as I know you will honor yours.”

“I hear the words, but I don't know whether to believe you anymore,” he said, crossing his arms over his muscular chest. “I want to believe you though.”

“How can I prove myself to you then?” she asked, tail curling up in distress.

“Come away with me. A vacation. You and I. Where we can be alone, and I can get to know ou again. No distractions, no demands.”

“When?”

“Now. Just pack a bag and we can go.”

A dozen objections rose in her head, I've got a meeting tomorrow. You have a meeting tomorrrow. We can't just drop everything... But the look in Rolas' eyes brooked no argument. “How big a  bag?” she asked instead.

“For a week, say.”

Melanie nodded. “Where are we going?”

For the first time this morning, Rolas smiled. “Let that be my surprise.'


TBC