A Slave to the Dragon King

II-Brothers & Pets

The right wall of the dining hall was covered in large windows, while the other side lead to two doors that led to the kitchen. The slaves were lined on both sides of the long table behind the chairs. Lucinda led me to a spot near the wall near the prince, who was eating a meal of eggs and sausages. The table was covered with a silk sheet and golden plates were set in front of the chairs.

Lucinda told me not to speak while the prince ate. I would eat later with the other women. For now I stood by the wall. Every now and again the prince smirked at me. I felt hate and fear towards him. I was disgusted with him for what he did to me the previous night. The sound of the door opening caught my attention. My eyes flickered towards the door and I saw the man from the hallway walking into the dining hall.

"Ah...the great Dragon King has graced us with his presence." the prince said sarcastically.

"Silence, Alec." the red haired man growled as he sat down in the chair across from the prince.

"And what new abomination hatched today, big brother?"

Brother? The prince had an older brother. I realized that the man, the prince called 'Dragon King' I had ran into this morning was the prince's older brother! Why did he call his brother the Dragon King? My father had told me stories about creatures called dragons that came down from the sky and set villages on fire. Others told of brave knights off to save a maiden from being sacrificed to a dragon. However, they were just stories. Dragons couldn't be real, could they? I only heard stories about them, but that's all they were: Stories. They were told to scare young children, but there were records of creatures that were similar to dragons destroying villages. They couldn't exist.

"Be careful, Alec. They may be young, but they can hear you."

My jaw dropped slightly when I started to see the prince's food disappear before my eyes. Was this castle haunted by spirits or was something else happening? I thought I was seeing things, but the food was gone...and the prince did not even know it yet.

"Are they in this room as of now, Scott? I do not see them."

"Look harder. Maybe at your plate." The Dragon King said, smiling amusedly.

The prince looked at his plate and was shocked to see his food gone.

"Where did my food go?" he asked, before his goblet toppled over and spilled red wine over the sheet.

The prince hurriedly tried to save as much wine as he could, but to his shock and mine, the puddle of wine moved.  When hiss goblet had toppled over, the red wine spilled onto a small animal. The animal looked to be invisible, but the wine had just given away it's presence. There were chirps and squeaks of displeasure coming from the animal. It soon became visible and so did two others.

The one covered in wine was a bright green with a red belly. The other two were red and yellow and had three stubby horns; two behind their heads and one on the tip of it's nose. The back legs of the animals were where they would usually be, but their front limbs were folded wings rather than arms. This confused me. What were these odd creatures? They reminded me of the creature on the crest at the entrance of the castle. The red and yellow ones started to lick the wine off of the green one with their forked tongues.

"Little monsters!" The prince shouted, picking up a knife and intending to stab the poor little creatures.

Before he did, they disappeared and became visible again in different place than where they were before. The prince tried stabbing again, but they kept disappearing and reappearing in different places every time the knife came down, squawking at him as if to taunt the prince.