You're The Only One - Prinxiety [COMPLETED]

Chapter Eighteen: The First Race

Prince Roman led the way to the throne room. The royals and their champions were all mingling and waiting for the Queen of Sun Glade to enter with the King of Fire Stone. Once they arrived, they would head down to the village.

The champions and the royal advisors worked together to draw a race route that was mostly along the beach and the cliffs, but made also made its way through the village to make it more of a spectacle for the onlooking crowd. The original idea was to have the entire race be in the village, but after explicit warnings from Virgil, they adjusted the route to mainly be outside of the village.

If it had been up to the stable boy, the race would've been entirely outside the village, but unfortunately he wasn't permitted to design the race himself. All the champions and the advisors had equal hands in the creation of the course, that way none of the racers would have an unfair advantage.

Virgil stayed quiet as he waited beside the prince. He was still nervous about the race that was to start soon. He figured that he shouldn't worry too much, given the fact that the Fire Stone Champion and his dragon wouldn't be participating.

"We should probably talk to some of these people, otherwise they might get suspicious about me," Roman said, rolling his eyes.

"Fine, are any of these people tolerable?" he replied.

The prince chuckled and looked around the room. There were many familiar royal faces, but most of them weren't pleasant to talk to. They were all snobby and fake. Roman scowled, but eventually his gaze landed on a familiar face. "There, I know him," he said. He pointed toward a man who looked about their age. "I- uh- I dated his sister for a while earlier this year... before I- uh- you know..."

"Oh, is he nice?" Virgil asked, trying to change the subject.

"He's very sweet, yeah," Roman said with a smile. "We were friends even after Cassandra and I broke up. I'll introduce you-"

The prince was interrupted as he heard Logan announce the arrival of the Queen. His mother and the Fire Stone King strode into the room with elegance and false smiles; Roman always wondered how his mother managed to look so convincing. The walked to toward the throne and stood above the crowd of royals and dragon racers.

"The first race is about to begin," the Queen said cheerfully. "Come! Let us go down and watch this display of modern entertainment!"

Virgil's hands clenched as his sides. Dragons are not meant to be for your entertainment, he thought crossly. They're creatures that deserve to live happy lives, whether they desire to spend it with humans or not.

The crowd made their way out of the palace and down into the village. The Queen had arranged for a special viewing box to be build for the royals and their champions. It was stationed at the start of the race and gave them a view of the beach. The beach was crowded with not only the trainers but spectators as well. Some of them had positioned themselves on the cliff top to watch. The streets below the viewing box were filled with people ready to cheer on their kingdoms' racers.

Along the race's route was a series flags to keep the racers on the path. There weren't any real rules aside from not intentionally hurting each other.

Virgil took his seat next to the prince, looking at where the first set of racers were waiting on their dragons. Some of them looked fairly well behaved, but others snapped at the dragons beside them or tried to buck their rider off. He gnawed the inside of his cheek; if they were behaving like this on the ground, he could only imagine what they'd be like in the air.

Once all the royals and their champions had taken their seats, a designated announcer began talking. They urged the crowd into an excited frenzy and then began to count down.

Virgil felt his gut clench as he landed on one. A bang sounded and the dragons leaped from the ground into the air.

He watched as each of them flew by, analyzing each of them. It only took him a few moments to see who had control of their dragon and who didn't. He could also tell which dragons were trained better. None of them were incredibly well domesticated, but the more intelligent ones were easy to spot.

The racers flew down to the beach, looking much smaller from a distance. He peered closely as he noticed a large dragon get close to hitting another. The rider on the smaller dragon looked panicked and slowed down to avoid a collision.

Virgil released the breath he didn't know he was holding. There were several more moments where dragons nearly hit each other but it went fairly well until the last lap.

A racer from Fire Stone momentarily lost control of their dragon. The beast clawed at the wings of a fellow flier.

The stable boy stood up as he watched blood fall from his distant viewpoint. He grasped the railing in front of him with frustration, watching as the rider who's dragon had been wounded spiraled down onto the beach. She managed to save the situation and continued the race. The young woman from The Kingdom of Sea Foam finished in third despite of the incident.

Virgil sighed heavily as the racers landed and everyone began to celebrate. "Dear lord, that was almost a disaster," Roman murmured to the boy beside him.

"Fortunately, the scratch wasn't too deep," he replied. He was watching as the woman who had been riding the injured dragon cleaned its wounds with a caring expression. "I think the other ride just lost control for a moment... but she seems to know what she's doing. It's a good thing no one got seriously injured. A collision or dragon fight in the air could be incredibly dangerous."

The prince nodded in agreement. "I hope the next race goes better."