Today's #flashfiction #ColdBloodsOnIce

“Do or do not, there is no try.”

The Hunger Games* #quote

Looks like tomorrow CJ is coming over so yay!

Cold-Bloods On Ice

        “The dragons are attacking!” A soldier yelled at me.

        I yawned and got out of bed, still in my pajamas. “You don't need to give drills to a prince idiot.”

        “This isn't a drill Your Highness!” He replied. I noticed that the man was fully suited up, in the rusty armor we held at this castle and his face was truly scared.

         It didn't make sense to me. I came here because the dragons would never invade this part of empire. It would be a cushy job for me to do as one of the younger princes so I could spend my days reading the library here. This castle is in the icy parts of the country. They would never come here. The cold-blooded creatures couldn't survive outside to lay any sort of siege to our castles. We would lock up our enchanted warm castles and fight them outside as they just died quickly from the cold. Dragons couldn't cast temperature regulation magic so the odds were so much in our favor half of my soldiers had little training. This was supposed to be a joke of a military job for me to goof off at.

        “How could they even invade?” I cast a spell to turn my pajamas into my warm armor. Our armor contained fur, metal and leather in such a way to keep warm and protect in the best way possible.

The soldier said, “Sir it'd be better if you just looked outside.”

       I took a look outside the nearest window. I saw one of our castles moving towards us from a distance. They took one of our other castles! I recognized the seal carved into the castle wall. That castle bordered the cold lands, but still had temperature regulation spells on it like this one. I saw wheels on all sides of the castle. The scaled beasts must have realized that if they can't cast temperature regulation magic they would just take it. I didn't want to imagine how many dragons were contained in that castle.

       “We're dead if we fight them,” I told the soldier, I had the same tone of voice I did with my father when I asked him a serious question hoping for his advice. The soldier looked at me clueless to my emotions. The recruit next filled with panic.

      “You have no ideas Your Highness? Prince Quain, you read so much I thought you knew everything on military strategy!”

       “Idiot!I don't read about military strategy!” I yelled at him. I began hearing the screams of other soldiers throughout the castle. The dragons hadn't reached us yet. But all the new recruits must have been wailing in despair.. Veterans to fighting the dragons would be keeping their composure but would also know their inevitable demise. “I'm not supposed to command anyone! They're not supposed to invade here. If they manage to bring that castle to this one and breach we'll be dead. We'll be outmatched by them. Why couldn't they be like the four legged dragons of old and not stand like us and be able to build things like wheels to move a castle? Why must their claws be on hands? We're going to die!”

       A short recruit then walked in, as nameless as the others to me. “Hey your Princeliness. The only reason we may die is that you're not coming up with something. Don't tell me we've been feeding you rations when you're good for nothing.”

      I then lashed out at the commoner. “Don't you dare talk to me like that!”

      “Or what you gonna do? Execute me? Looks like you're already planning to get us all killed. Useless royal.”

      Was I really that useless? I took this position out here in order to do nothing? I had to come up with a plan! I would need to make this a great moment or a last moment in my life. As the castle neared I came up with a plan.

      We evacuated the castle and took all the supplies we could. We exited out the back way, making sure the dragons couldn't see us. The dragons lined their castle only a few feet away from ours then invaded so they wouldn't have to deal with the cold. We took their castle while they poured their forces into ours. I ordered my men to move the portable castle away as quickly as possible. The dragons must have wished they had their ancestors powerful wings as they saw us move away. Now they lay trapped in one of the coldest parts of the country. Sure they had our warm castle while its food lasted. But outside only ice awaited them. We took their wheeled castle away to hotter places told the other princes of their new battle tactic.