Perfect Peridot

(MO: So what if this is another dumb sidestory take it up with FP I'm just a lowly narator)

Spoiler :

Happy New Year's Eve.

I am humble to announce the first ever (and probably last)

Rein Carnation Flower Anniversary Celebration

My fic Reincarnation Flower is turning one years old, one month from now on the 31st of January. So I’d thought I have to celebrate such a sad pathetic occasion somehow, so why not do it on royal road? Why not right?

So, I am planning on releasing more chapters then I usually do as a bonus for those of you rare folk who read it, but this is just the tip of the ice burg of what I want to do. :) Then what is the rest of it you ask?

Well I want to host a RF contest! (yay…) basically almost anything goes, however all entries must adhere to the rules of Royalroadl, plus they cannot have a mature rating in their content. (In general keep it PG), and obviously plagiarism is also a no-no, with the exception of fanficting to a certain degree, but it can’t be copied straight from whatever work you are sourcing from, in other words you can use characters and their names but not much else.

In the likely event you need some clarification of what I am talking about here are some examples ideas/loose guidelines of what you can submit.

A fanfic of the/a fanfic! (Min 1,000 words max 2,500 about a RF chapter’s worth)

Fan art, or fic inspired art!

Poetry (no word limits unless it is supposed to have them: like for haiku)

Gratuitous beautiful flattery/compliments for the work or the author  

Painful Clever Criticism  for the work or the author  

Almost anything else you can think of!

Now the reasons you would want do this:

Well…there isn’t really any...especially if you don’t read or like RF however you are free to participate without having read or liked any of my works…you probably just won’t appreciate the prize as much if you win. Now having said that…here are the prizes!

1st place: Almost anything that is within my power!

(So long as it isn’t illegal and doesn’t go against any of my beliefs or willingness) And it can be broken up into segments. That is, you could ask for one big thing, or you could ask for a bunch of smaller things it’s your choice.

2nd place: One ‘medium’ sized thing, can also be broken up into smaller segments

3rd place: One ‘smaller’ sized thing.

Potential Things:

Big Sized

An actual physical thing…(can’t be expensive, extremely limited not recommended)

Help with something through the internet

Free story written by me you decide what kind (don’t see why’d you’d want it…)

Inclusion of a character you created in a future work of mine, your choice which

Inclusion of a plotline or event that you want to see happen your choice which fic

Medium Sized

You decide my next chapter release date or receive the next chapter before other people (minimum of 1 week after last release or we can debate further)

The ability to name/custom create minor characters that will appear in the future of any fic of your choice.

Art made by me, your choice as to what (once again no clue why’d you want it but…)

Poetry made by me, guidelines same as art

Song Lyrics, you decide contents and can provide the music

I will leave a review on a fanfic of your choice, warning: I will be neither cruel nor extremely complementary (essentially

I will just be myself)

Smaller Sized

Free spoilers, completely spelled out for you and explained just message me anytime you are curious

Consolation Prizes

Not only will I include each and every name in the spoiler section of my next RF chapter I will also:

Judge each entry and give you feedback (tell me if you want the feedback to be private)

Give to you an invisible party favor, in the form of a tiny sized prize of your choice (message me if you wish to redeem it and we will work something out)

Other Instructions

You can email me your entry or post it on one of my fics, all works must include the FORM in order to be valid and each participant is limited to one per category, max of 3 categories.

All entries are due by January 31, all entries submitted after will achieve honorable mentions at best.

Judging will will start as soon as entries are received so time depends on amount of entries received.

FORM:

Have You Read Reincarnation Flower Before?: Yes or No

Tell the truth, have you read all/most of it?:

If No for either of the former 2 questions or in the case that the reason for yes is really interesting, why are you entering this contest?:

Entry Type: Art, fic etc.

Why this type:

What prize do you want if you win?:

Judgment Guidelines

1 As said all valid entries must use the FORM (see above), other things that will be judged  include quality, what it is vs estimated difficulty and emotional appeal

2 I am the head judge and my word is final.

3 Depending on how many entrants there are I may have to resort to a popularity poll to narrow things down, in such a case anyone who votes by default becomes a secondary judge. (See number 2)

4 I will do my best to remain impartial but as I am human please forgive me my biases if they so happen to arise

****IMPORTANT****

Keep in mind that unless you say otherwise, I will consider your entry to be a birthday gift, and thus I may end up using it in the future (especially if you win) in such a case, though I will give credit, the work will now essentially belong to me and I will do with it what I please.

Peridot was perfect or at least that is what he thought. In his opinion his perfection should be obvious to whomever who was lucky enough to gaze upon his great visage or even those who had heard of his greater feats.

This undeniable fact was not a surprising one either he felt because being an elder son of the current reining monarch of the gem dragons, it did not take much work to become perfect because he was almost so from the very beginning.

In fact he was so perfect that when he occasionally wondered why he had no close friends and no followers other than a few pathetic cowards that were eye hurtingly imperfect, he could always comfort himself with the ‘true’ thought, that all the dragons that were of a quality that actually deserved to serve under his perfection must be so intimidated by his greatness that they felt unworthy of becoming his servants and thus were fearful and slow to approach him.

He had every confidence that they would one day get over their fear and to be with him, after all who can resist being near perfection? In the meantime he would go and win over the hatchlings first.

They were all young and naïve enough that even his perfection shouldn’t be as off putting, and thus as long as he showed them a little affection and gave them a little help, at most nudge here or hint there, they would all be tripping over themselves to become his followers.

It was the perfect plan as befitting the most perfect of dragons.

And just as he expected it worked pretty well, and the only reason it didn’t work perfectly was of course because of reasons outside of his control. It was understandable for as everyone knew not even the plans of geniuses worked 100% of the time.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

To migrate failure as much as possible he decided to make his move around the time that the hatchlings grew large enough that they were no longer closely guarded and allowed to go mostly where they pleased as long as it was within hatchling walking distance of the complex of dens.

During such a time, the little ones were usually excited yes but also fearful and wanting to seek comforting things. Since their parents would be busy with the war, he would selflessly step in to provide that comfort.

And for the majority of those young minds he was quite this method worked quite well. Usually the few he didn’t succeeded with were mostly loners, the unsocial ones, who wouldn’t work well in his group even if he did manage to recruit them.

Strangely there were some dragons who oddly enough disliked his methods, for some incomprehensible reason they even disapproved of them! But luckily for him they couldn’t do anything even if they wanted to, for as said before he was essentially a prince! And they were of the loyal sort that couldn’t even entertain the thought of hurting the Queen’s feelings and by default his feelings.

And although Mother herself frowned and father snorted in disgust if they really did disapprove no matter how busy they were wouldn’t they intervene, or at least order him to stop?

But of course they didn’t. Which implied they must actually secretly admire the beauty of his plan and were only disapproving to reward the loyalty of the dimwits who did strangely disapprove. Perhaps when his followers started to grow up and mature a bit they would even end up admiring not just his brilliant plan but he himself and rightfully so.

For wasn’t there so much to admire!

They might even reward him for his efforts like they did for some of his siblings and give him a position in the military like Gold, allow him to rule his own village like Silver, or perhaps send him out as an ambassador to the other neutral dragon races as they did for Lilly.

Maybe even, with a bit of luck he would gain enough power, prestige and personnel that he could take the same route as big brothers Gold and Silver did, but solely through his own power too. Wouldn’t that be just delicious?!

If such a great thing happened unlike his poor confined brothers, he wouldn’t have to be obedient to his imperfect parents anymore and would be able to make his own perfect way without their hindering influence.

So he continued to work on winning over the young dragons, and training them to be acceptable enough to serve him. Several times he would lose a few to death, or to his other siblings or even a rare few who left to become loners.

But it didn’t matter, all he had to do to make up the numbers was patiently wait there was always a new generation waiting wings that would hatch every few years…until there wasn’t.

Strangely and suddenly, this time around the expected time for hatching none of the eggs hatched.

At first he wasn’t worried, these things happen now and then he thought. That the lesser young creatures are occasionally lazy and late to show is natural, he thought. But when weeks and then months passed, without any further hatching he became a bit uneasy.

So he started to be a bit more cautious with the underlings he already had, and even started to organize some training for the more talented among them. It was only good business to hedge ones bets, besides if the lack of new recruits continued, he may end up at a disadvantage with his opponents. The majority of them unlike himself relied on quality rather than quantity.

He soon realized that he was right to worry when the months turned into years. And he was far from being the only one concerned the Queen mandated that essentially that all offensive measures would no longer be allowed, they were allowed to defend only.

She also seemed to be working harder on her alliance negotiating efforts, there wasn’t a day going by when he didn’t see at least one messenger dragon flying off, in the direction of a more neutral neighbor.

He didn’t quite approve, why should the superior they, ever want to beg the help of the lesser races? In fact it should be them coming to the gem dragons and begging them to deign to even speak to them let alone form an alliance with them.

Unfortunately when he tried to point this out to his mother, she had only smiled and said.

“I see, well the next time one of the ‘lesser races’ comes to beg our aid, I will consider asking for your wisdom.”

She then made the justified excuse that she was busy and politely told him to leave.

Though the thought of being recognized for his wisdom pleased him, he eventually realized with his keen mind that she had been merely mollifying him and not taking him seriously at all, and had become a bit put out until he realized all that had to happen for flattery to become fact would be for one of those lesser races acting properly and coming to beg for their alliance.

Something that should happen anyway and if not then he would look in the remote areas himself and come to them, for perhaps they were shy or so in awe of the beauty of his people, that they were intimidated into not coming.  It made sense for him to do, and he would only be doing his duty as someone of his greatness should.

A few more years passed, well possibly more than that but he never kept track of such menial things. Their enemies had apparently been baffled at their lack of movement for other than a few token skirmishes there had been no major battles.

In other news, as he had expected there had been no new alliances made. In his opinion this had to be a direct result of great ones lowering themselves to lowly ones level. Even his mom’s trusted Lilly hadn’t managed to do more than maintain the friendships of the neutral parties she worked with.

Fortunately the village that Silver ran, was not experiencing any unnatural lack of hatching so they were able to receive a good amount of new blood to make up for their casualties in the form of an influx of villagers who wanted to taste the luxury of the capital as well as better defend their homeland.

He of course had taken advantage of this by seeing if there were any promising village hatchlings to recruit. Although he had great success with the orphans to his surprise the uncivilized villages practiced the most uncouth habit of directly rearing their young, and as a result the majority of those with parents wouldn’t even speak to him, and the few who did would be quickly collected in by their parents who would even give him dirty look as they did so.

But what else could one expect from mere uncultured villagers?

He had been relaxing in his suite of dens, whilst pondering his brains for ways to wean the little barbarians off their parents when there was a knock on his entrance rock.

He flicked one of his hands utilizing the minor magic that would roll the stone aside.

“Enter…” he lazily said.

“Prince Peridot, Prince Peridot!” The little fellow shouted in excitement as he ran into the room.

It was one of the few of his minions that he considered acceptable, the way the little one addressed him verified this fact. For amongst the others besides those of his noble sort of mentality it was considered a bit conceited to be addressed by one’s title unless they were ranked at least general and sometimes even kings felt it.

“Yes what is it?” He asked with a bit more energy, seeing that the fellow was so excited the news he was bringing had to be interesting at the very least.

“THEY HAVE FINALLY HATCHED!”

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Check the spoiler at the top of the page for information about the RF Happy Birthday /1st Year Anniversary Contest