The King's Collie

Part I, Chapter 7: Dinnertime Suspicion, Bedtime Apology

"First you let him at the dinner table, now the library? What is he, your new King?" Felix groaned.

"Stop speaking of such things at a meal, darling," Ophelia scorned at her partner, who reignited their earlier argument. "And you know well that it isn't like that!"

"What do you do out in those gardens, then, behind my back?" the King speculated. "I guess that wouldn't be good for table-talk, no! Changing dress, hiding in bushes. Too lewd," he added.

"Oh, HONESTLY!" the Queen roared with this raucous accusation, standing up for a moment, and leaning down onto the table. "I can't believe you'd suggest such a thing! Since when did you become so defensive?"

"Since you swept up a boy from the beggar's district, and made him your little pet!" Felix slammed his yellow-fuzzed fist on the table as he said this.

Cameron and Marco awkwardly tried to eat with this commotion, their forks and knives clattering at the plates below, as they sat across from each other, listening a little embarrassedly to the loud discussion taking place. The only other thing that provided the background noise to this argument was the crackling of the fireplace that lit the dining room.

"He is NOT a pet!" Ophelia retorted, standing fully now. "He is a talented musician who deserves as much of a place in my company as any of your large band of of trumpet-kissers do."

"Kind of true," Marco chortled.

"Shut up, you scabies-ridden howler," Felix growled aggressively, quickly silencing his own highest musician.

"Oh, Felix. What's gotten into you?!" the Queen cried out, almost horrified. She looked angrily to her husband.

"You give him our meals, and dress him in such fanciful clothes, and now give him access to the room I do some of my most important military strategizing and deep thinking in! What next, take him to BED?" the feline King jumped to such a conclusion.

"You're being ostentatious, oh! Nothing of that sort!" the lioness roared back.

"My brother surely doesn't have to deal with THIS kind of situation!" Felix considered. This certain statement was very likely true. King Argenti of Aragonia, being Felix's older brother, was just as well known for being a great king as he was for his beautifully silver fur. It was, while not an oddity, a rarity for fur to be such an unusual color, and it made his presence all the more regal. The kingdom was vast, even more so than Valentia, and proved itself, from time and time again, to be a great ally. All this Cameron already knew, from the book on the royal family he had read.

"Well, your BROTHER could at least assure he had Michel and Anna! HEIRS to his THRONE!" Ophelia roared immediately afterwards.

The room fell silent, as a blush came over the King's face. He then retreated from the table, having no appetite, and started to rush out the tall doors. He realized, with his wife's deep blow, that he had been dealing some even deeper verbal punches in that argument.

Still, Marco looked with astonished eyes to the lioness. Cameron covered his face, and drooped his ears, embarrassed that such a feud had been created about none other than himself. Ophelia, now recognizing the insult she had just given in her blind defense, lowered her chin, and, after taking a few more solemn bites of her food, decided to leave as well.

—

Cameron had finished his rinse-over in his tub, the kind he had gotten every night nowadays. He was thankful for this. Beforehand, he usually had to take a dip in a creek, and even then, he wasn't entirely clean afterwards. The water from the royal grounds, though, was much clearer and cleaner, and left his fur with much less of a muddy stain. He had thankfully gotten his simpler clothes for sleeping on, too, when a knock suddenly came at his door.

The dog expected Marco to be on the other side, perhaps asking for a conversation, which he would have said a polite no to, and went to sleep afterwards. However, when he opened the door, he took a step back, and quietly gasped. King Felix, in his own silken sleepwear, stood in front of Cameron, and sighed.

"Y-Your Highness!" Cameron whispered. "What is it you came here for?"

"I wanted to apologize," the King replied, and looked down, as he issued such a rare sentence.

"I'm incredibly sorry for my remarks about you, and my... conspiratorial theories regarding your service to my dearest Ophelia, as well as my general attitude during the dinner, which you had the full right to enjoy."

The canine looked in disbelief at his King, momentarily at a loss for words. "All is forgiven, my King," he nodded, surely.

"You don't know what it means for me to hear that, Cameron. I thank you for your generous forgiveness," Felix responded. The big cat's eyes looked a little reddened, and the stains under his eyes made it clear that he had been crying. He smiled, though, and then started to leave.

"Your Highness?" Cameron stammered a little.

"Yes?" the lion turned his head, his mane swooshing as he did.

The dog blushed at this unintentionally majestic sight, but snapped out of this trance, and then said what he needed to: "If you need me to leave... If that's at all what you desire—"

"Don't even consider it," Felix quickly answered. "That would break Ophelia's heart. I've never seen her happier than with you," he explained, putting his large, black-padded paw on the dog's shoulder. "In fact, I owe you infinitely, for doing such a thing as cheering up my wife. She had been growing more distant... more contemplative, and sorrowful." He shuddered, and looked with his deep, lapis-blue eyes to the now mystified Cameron. "You broke such a spell. I'm simply stupefied at how easily you did, too."

"I didn't realize I provided such a service," Cameron said, now feeling quite suddenly important.

"You did. And the way I treated you was no way to repay that," Felix now got back to the point. "If you so desire access to the library, you deserve it. Now... It's late, and I must be getting to bed." He thus finished the conversation, and sighed. "Goodnight, Cameron. Hope the heat doesn't bother you."

"Goodnight, Felix," Cameron said. The King felt a lurch in his heart... That was the first time someone other than Ophelia had called him by his name in quite a while.

"So that was how that felt," he meowed to himself, as he got back to his own bedroom, and entered.

—

Ophelia, though appearing to be asleep, was, at the most minimal sense of the word, awake.

"Did you apologize?" she tiredly mewled.

"Of course," her husband just as tiredly replied, shuffling under the sheets with her. He then slid a little closer to his beloved Ophelia, and sighed.

"And I'm sorry for comparing you to your brother. I didn't mean it," the Queen had her own apology to give. She was met with a soft kiss to her cheek.

"I know," Felix nodded. "I know. I've changed my mind about him. He's a natural fit."

"Hey, it's still just you and me," Ophelia meowed in reply, with the sweetest way you could deliver such words. "I love you."

"I love you too," Felix assured. Those were the last words he spoke before getting one of the best nights of sleep he'd had that year.