He is My Master

46: Waking Up, Breaking Out - This Is What It Means To Be Free

                 *******EXCLAIMER*******
I DO NOT OWN THIS NOVEL IM MERELY TRANSFERRING IT TO WATTPAD CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL AND GIVE KUDOS TO AUTHOR Chiisai Kitsune ON FF.NET HERE

     https://m.fanfiction.net/s/4256772/47/

Just sounds of distant roar behind you...

"No!"

It was a single cry from Manic and it broke off abruptly when the purple lizard holding him yanked his leash harshly enough to nearly let him choke.

"Ssshut up. I hope you've ssseen what happenss to traitorss and sslave vermin who think of rebelling now," the reptile hissed at him, even if the despairing green hedgehog probably couldn't even hear him now. The court was filled with people cheering and jeering, a few of them also being sick, or looking equally distressed as the collared hedgehog – perhaps former friends of the ex-Prince.

Lazar noted their faces especially.

"Sonic..." Manic whispered, still remembering how the strange slave of the Prince had spoken to him only moments ago it seemed, but now would be silenced forever, along with all of his odd ideas and his infectious smile.

The blue hedgehog looked oddly peaceful now, hanging silently below the gallows and turning gently in the breeze. It was the first time Manic had seen him like that, bright emerald closed now and closed forever, and while the first tears were already stinging in his eyes he also wondered whether that perhaps could mean that at least the other was at peace now, having died next to his Master he loved so much. The blue lithe body was relaxed at last, for once all fight and angry pride gone from those muscles, hands that had held his owner's until the very end still loosely tied behind his back. Manic, who knew Sonic had hated restraints like no other, briefly wished they would at least take the chains off when they'd dispose of the body, and for some reason that thought hurt all the more.

"Alright. Sssend a runner to Hiss Majessty to inform him I have carried out hiss verdict," Lazar announced smugly to one of the guards, who nodded. "And while you're at it, assk of Lo-Prince Sscourge whether we might sequesster hiss pet for the time of hisss abssence or put him to work sssomewhere. If he isss of any usse."

Manic wasn't even listening. It had been more than ten minutes that the trapdoor had opened beneath Sonic and right now he cared very little for what was going to happen to him.

His Master had told him once off-handedly that there was no place for slaves to go to after they had died in their service. It had hurt Manic then, but he had accepted it. Now he wondered, briefly, if Sonic would have backed down, too. Or if he would have be as unafraid in the afterlife as he had been in this world and would rail against the gates of the Paradise supposedly reserved for those who had been free people until they let him in.

The green hedgehog was stumbling along now, his collar harshly yanked by the lizard pulling him along, the dangling corpses vanishing from his view as he was led back into the Palace again. But still, even in his pain, there was the smallest of wistful smiles on his face, almost mirroring the one of the blue-furred slave of the Prince moments before his death.

Perhaps you have now finally found your freedom, Sonic...

xxx

Amboss sighed and nodded in satisfaction at a job that was routine but still well done, the bulldog executioner a small island of peace amid the chattering, shrieking, sobbing and laughing of the crowd below the gallows. The guards were still busy holding throngs back that wanted to get at the corpses, either to cut off a bushel of fur for good luck and as a morbid souvenir or simply to get a closer look at their former crown prince who had now become a piece of macabre curiosity. Of course, Amboss would be having none of that. He had respected the Prince in his life, and even if he had been forced to execute him like a common prisoner next to a slave, he would make sure at least the body could be burned properly. The cream-coloured canine in the dark brown tunic descended the wooden stairs and with a grunt brought the large, straw-filled wheelbarrow in position underneath the bodies. Only now he noticed what strange footwear those two had been wearing, and he idly wondered whether he might be able to sell it for a decent price afterwards. The coat of the slave perhaps as well, such a bright azure fur could surely be made into a pretty pair of ear muffs or a stole. He'd have to see the peltmonger about that...