Princed

Chapter 8

Of course the prince knew he had arrested Princess Irenie's attention ever since the first time they met. It was clear every time she shivered with excitement at his arrival that the princess was enthralled by Froglip. He just didn't expect the princess to voice her opinion this soon!

Quickly, the prince hit his fist into the last bolt, combed back his spiked, pink hair and jumped into a trot for the dining room. He came upon a very tense image of the princess hovering deathly still over the sun man she must have been arguing with.

"Oh, Prince Froglip, would you care to sit?" She asked and pointed to the chair furthest from her. Well that just wouldn't do! If the princess was so affectionate towards him, she would want to sit with him, wouldn't she?

Froglip instead took his chair in front of the princess and in the process scooted the sun man to the side. To his enjoyment the man looked annoyed with his pink nose wrinkled.

"And what hath the Printh'eth Irenie arranged for today?" The goblin asked with his most charming of smiles while Irenie shivered again.

She looked at him, then down, and then at the people surrounding the table, her eyes alight with something like hope.

"I was hoping that a few of you present would volunteer to accompany Curdie and I to the village just along the outside of the mountain. There we will be building houses for the miners who had lost them in a mud slide."

Froglip's smile immediately faltered. If there was one true thing all goblins could agree on was that they hated the miners.

However, the goblin was not the first to voice his disagreement. "I certainly will not be doing manual labour. Why can't they do it themselves? Aren't miners supposed to be strong?"

It was the very same sun welp who had called him a thing.

The Goblin Prince considered what the sun man had said to Irenie and shifted his jaw in contemplation. "I would gladly lend my goblins to help with the miners recon'thtruc'thion." The Prince glanced at the man with a cruel sneer.

The princess held a faint smile even though the rest of royals' mumbling seemed to agree with the sun man. Perhaps they wouldn't be of any help, but that just made Froglip look all the better.

He was so overjoyed by her reaction that Froglip was floating through existence all the way up to the moment the princess had him and his goblins lined up in front of the miner hovels. He was only nudged out of his giddy state by a pointed elbow.

"Are we sposed' to knock em over, my prince, or build em up?" One of Froglip's goblins asked.

"Build," he growled under his breath while Irenie continued to chatter her plans to the group in excitement, a smile as plain as the sunlight on her face. It didn't take a goblin of vast intellect to see that the princess felt strongly towards this plan. Froglip didn't want any of his minions messing things up for him if he was to demonstrate to the Princess Irenie that he was capable of 'kindness'

Often times, sun people like the miners said goblins were unkind because of small things like their unwillingness to follow the imposed laws of the sun people. However, physical displays of strength and name calling were their tradition. Froglip just had to make sure that goblin tradition was kept under rock and cave in order to convince the princess he was 'kind'.