The Dragon Prince

Chapter Two: Chocolate Cake & Silver Daggers

A tall man, with hair as black as ebony and eyes the color of blood, walks down a dimly lit hallway, stopping once he reaches a dark oak door with a name etched in gold across the wood's rough surface.

Before knocking on the door, he puts his ear against it, straining his already enhanced hearing to listen for any indication of current occupancy. Yet he doesn't hear even the slightest sound.

He calls out first before moving to knock. "Ludwig?"

There is no reply. Skipping the knock, the man turns the handle of the door and opens it, allowing a faint sliver of light to illuminate the completely dark space. But he can see a figure sitting at a small round table at the far end of the room, eating a very familiar food that the man knows all too well not just by its shape and smell, but by the figure's known love of that food.

Chocolate cake.

The figure stays silent for several seconds, but he speaks before the man in the doorway has a chance to say anything. "You better have a good reason for interrupting my dinner, Mykel."

Mykel just laughs and invites himself inside, navigating effortlessly through the darkness and ending up at the edge of the figure's bed closest to them, and he is able to make out an entire chocolate cake sitting in the middle of the table. "You're going to kill yourself if you eat that entire thing in one sitting."

"Nuh-uh. The sugar is going to kill me." The figure retorts.

"That's what I mean." Mykel reiterates.

Standing up, the younger of the two picks up what remains of the cake and walks over to a small fridge in the room, storing it within before walking back over to the small table, sitting down, and taking another bite of the piece that lies on a plate. "Happy now? Can you leave so I can weep in peace?"

The man sighs and shakes his head before he forces himself to change his expression to reflect the seriousness of why he came to this room in the first place. "Ludwig, I have a request for you."

"If it's to stop eating cake, that's an automatic no." Ludwig crosses his arms over his chest after shoving a rather large piece of cake into his mouth, clearing the plate. Though his words come out muffled, Mykel understands him perfectly.

"I know. I want to ask something more important of you." Mykel hears an odd sound from underneath him and pauses before continuing. "Is Angelica under your bed? Did she convince you to act so closed-off tonight?"

A childish wail comes from underneath the bed, and a moment later, a girl's head pops up from under the bed's edge that Mykel sits upon. "But did you think he did a good job? So many of the spies I hear you talk to sound so cold, and it makes Ludwig's cheery mood come off as weird." Angelica confesses, yet the man shakes his head and glances at Ludwig, who shrugs.

"I'm asking for a very important mission from Ludwig because he's very cheery. That is, if you're willing to hear me out." Mykel waits for the spy to nod his head after gesturing for Angelica to sit in the second empty chair on the other side of the table.

Once she's seated, Mykel silently watches as she reaches for the empty plate next to Ludwig, yet he catches her a moment before she attempts to grab it. "There's some in the fridge. Just don't eat all of it." Angelica vigorously nods and skips over to where the cake is stored while Ludwig turns his eyes back to Mykel.

"Well, now that I've been revealed, what do you want? Do I get a cake at the end?" Ludwig crosses one leg over the other as the older man softly laughs.

"As you do with all your other successfully completed missions. What you are to do is find a boy and guide him back to his kingdom of birth. I know where he is, his name, and where you'll be guiding him, but nothing more." Mykel explains, and Ludwig raises an eyebrow as Angelica places the cake down on the table.