Second part : https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46005260/

https://youtu.be/5ln85dvhz5o
The rising dawn brought up the rich air from the meadows. Bakhten Lapprides smiled as the new year's breeze ran through his whiskers. Downhill, at his feet, Goviony was laying down, endless open fields, still sleepy and gleaming with dew, as if it was waiting for him to take it. And waiting, it was. It had been waiting for a liberator for a long time, and it had been too scared to say it, even now, conspicuously silent apart from the occasional farm hand carrying firewood or leading cattle around. Months ago, the sad columns of the Oath of Mercy had left the mountains on the same rocky road that his soldiers were now marching on; his own children had walked down the very same way with collars around their necks. It had been the last of this pitiful trade.

Even as the rumors spread that an ost from the mountains was marching on Goviony, all banners out and accompanied by drums and horns of war, they could still ask what exactly was new. For a long time the forces of the king had seeked to file the teeth of these cursed Lappridian nobles. The blood eyes as they called them, the white furred spawns of Lappinumber. Bakhten Lapprides might prove to the arrogant Govionists that their fears were justified, but it would not be for his white coat or red eyes, or the supposed unnatural origin of his blood. Instead, it would be by demonstrating to them that they could keep poking those who could as well be already dead, but should expect, should they poke the hornet's nest, to see him tear open his own abdomen so as to deliver a killing blow.

It was when the peasants started revolting in their path, when the meadows nobles started swelling the ranks of the rebels, that terror propagated through the land like an earthquake. Heralds carried out a message, the demands of their leader : the end of the Oath of Mercy and the head of the king. Low-key, rightful ruler and protector of the rabbits, summoned his military commanders, appalled; he started doubting, not the rightfulness, but the wisdom of his decision, when trying to bring the puny, unruly lord to his knees, he had taken his children as part of the yearly tribute of live flesh to keep their voracious foes in the East out of the kingdom.

The measure had aimed at breaking the spirit of the rebel; did it break it so well, the rabbit had gone insane, and would now scorch the earth for vengeance? he must know he is dooming the realm... within a year, if he is victorious, frustrated of their tribute, the wolves will come from the East and put the entire land to the sword. In lieu of a few expendable children of peasants, they will have every last one of the rabbits roasting over the burning remains of their towns and homesteads. By some accounts, would the ashes go cold before this was done, many would be eaten raw.

Does he care? It is said that his agents are running tirelessly through the land, inciting rebellion against the rightful king, screaming on market places that the wolves are not real and never were; that they always were but a cheap and outrageous scheme by the Govionists to seize the children of the folks of the meadows and the mountains, and consume them in horrid nights of sacrifices. Was anyone here old enough to remember the sackings the realm had supposedly endured? None was. The king himself had never seen them. The fools all believed these fables, and gave away willingly their own flesh and blood, so the king and the queen, a true bunch of witches, could bathe in it.

Grieving mothers and fathers, many thousands of them across the realm, may find in the thought a much needed cope, that the unnatural tribute was not a necessary evil, that others may be spared this horror. And the anxious ones whose precious brood slept an uneasy sleep at night, for sure may want to hear that they could from now on sleep in peace, if they would just take up arms one time and put an end to an unjust rule.

But the red hornet must know the truth. Perhaps, did he really not care. Or perhaps he himself had come to believe his lie. He smirked noticing a thin column of smoke going up in the distance : no doubt, the beacons alerting the king of his advance. Soon he would have to fight. “Burn, baby, burn” he whistled in the wind, and gave his army the forward order, echoed by the horns of the officers, reverbed in the valley below with ominous clarity in the clean morning air.