The ceremony was now halfway done. The king had finally put the stunning, intimidating but frankly useless spear down.
His majesty had gone around to the fifteen-year-old out and had laid a hand upon each’s shoulder both checking and celebrating that they were each equipped with their water power.
That was the reason why now the king looked absolutely exhausted up in his royal throne.
The nobles had been kept entertained while the king had done this through a collection of performers of many sorts. Found in the grand hall were the very best of singers and dancers, the very best of animal crafting water wielders and magicians, and the very best of circus acts and court jesters.
Although Jess the retired bully hadn’t performed and Min Li was sure no one but her would categorise the girl as such, Min Li thought that the greatest, the finest, the top dog of all the court jesters had to be the one and only Jess. Given her status as the best female warrior in the kingdom and her noble status as one of the noblest ladies of the West, it was ridiculous, absolutely absurd what the girl was doing for the prince now.
As soon as Jess the uncontrollable mess got a chance, she had conspired with some servants and set them away to replace them in serving the crown prince.
The crown prince didn’t seem to mind though. He was sat back in his throne. His head was thrown back in relaxation. He only moved to open his mouth slightly to receive bits of food from Jess like a little baby bird waiting for his mother to feed him.
It was a big change from the exasperated crown prince that was present in the company of Kit, son of the South, and there was not even a remote figment of the sympathetic prince Min Li had seen earlier on in the day.
Min Li had sent Fenhua snacks that she knew that he liked in thanks of how he had let her experience being able to wield water. But the obtuse man hadn’t even opened his eyes in gratitude to witness her rare gesture of goodwill. Rather he let Jess feed him the snacks Min Li had gotten for him not so much as uttering a word of thanks to Min Li but to Jess.
Now Jess was helping the prince get ready for the very last big event of the day, his big fight. She was massaging every hunk of the prince’s body while cooing in his ear unbothered about the disapproving glances of the nobles all around them. She was positively ruining the crown prince’s image of purity that he had carefully crafted, and Min Li found it positively repelling. What a floozy.
The king and his wife had finished bestowing gifts of honour to all the participants of the entertainment for the day, the floor was being cleared and everyone was waiting for the crown prince and Kit to take the stage.
When the floozy, whose name Min Li had decided should never be uttered with the only exception to sincerely admonish in punishment for the floozy’s crimes of passion, had finished massaging the upper body of the prince and was working her way down to the lower body with a slight giggle, the prince finally decided that it was time to get up after a particularly violent scoff from Min Li .
The prince stood up, back completely straight and surveyed his surrounding boldly with his chin up. The whole hall came to a standstill at the crown prince’s movements.
Again, Min Li scoffed which earned a frown from the crown prince, but it wasn’t her fault she was honest. Min Li was of the opinion that it was rather bold of the man to act like a prince and command the great hall after that show of impropriety.
The more Min Li thought about it the angrier she felt. The angrier she felt, the more noises of disapproval she made. The more noises of disapproval she made, the more the crown prince frowned.
Before it all blew up, Kit, seemingly ready and enthusiastic to fight the crown prince, walked into the middle of the grand hall and knelt down before the royals.
“I, KIT, THE SON OF THE HEAD OF THE SOUTH AM READY TO FIGHT TO PLEASE YOU, YOUR MAJESTY.”
The crown prince at the sighting of his opponent also walked into the middle of the hall and knelt towards his father.
“I, THE CROWN PRINCE AND CURRENT HEAD OF SECURITY OF XILIN AM READY TO FIGHT TO WIN YOUR COMPLIMENTS, MY KING.”
The king chuckled at the show of servitude from the two young men.
“YOU TWO ARE AMONG THE FINEST MEN AND FINEST WARRIORS OF MY KINGDOM AND I AM VERY PROUD OF WHAT YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. AS I HAVE SAID AND I HAVE SO DECREED, EACH OF YOU CAN TAKE ONE THING YOU SO DESIRE FROM MY KINGDOM IF YOU WIN THIS BATTLE. STATE YOUR WANT NOW OR NEVER.”
At once Fenhua dipped his head even further down.
“I need nothing. Serving you and the kingdom is a gift enough for me.”
How brave, Min Li snorted. He has everything he will ever need already. Of course, I too would say such if I was in his position. I too could lie very comfortably.
The king however seemed easily pleased by his son. He let out a hearty chuckle and said, “very well. For you, if you win the fight, I shall give absolutely nothing but my praise.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Kit, however, was far too genuine for all the false modesty.
“Your majesty, your praise is sufficient as the crown prince said. However, if I may be so bold, there is something absolutely amazing, greater than anything else you could give me, that I hope to ask you for as I believe it would help me strengthen the kingdom for your honour.”
“Very well,” the king spoke still smiling.
As he opened his mouth to speak Min Li thought, I don’t know why the crown prince seems to hate him so. He seems very elegant, the finest of fine. And he doesn’t pretend to be above a good present, just like me. A man after my very own heart.
Kit stood up confidently which was not the custom to do until the rewards for a win were granted as promised.
Kit turned to the mounds of presents right next to where the king was sitting next to the whole royal family.
He gestured that way and Min Li heard some people in the crowd gasp. What reward could be so amazingly glorious that it prompts people in the crowd to gasp, Min Li thought.
She looked at the floating arm up in the air that Kit was using to gesture towards what he wanted.
Min Li traced back a line from his floating arm.
The problem was Kit’s hand was moving as if he wasn’t all that confident in being allowed what he was asking for. The presents were all very close together and the great hall extremely packed due to the occasion. So, Min Li had to repeat the process of tracing back a number of times.
Finally, Min Li could calculate the medium place to where the awkwardly smirking man was pointing.
He was pointing to something delightful. He was pointing to something amazingly glorious. It was something that did strengthen the kingdom.
But although Min Li thought that he man’s assessment of was he wanted was extremely accurate, she wasn’t happy about it. Why? Because the thing that Kit happened to be pointing to was her.
A real bovine, boorish brute. Fenhua is correct. The man is definitely a cow in the making. A man should at least have the decency to pretend to want nothing from the king. How unsophisticated. Min Li was sure that if she mooed, then Kit the bovine, boorish brute would moo along with her as if they were singing the unsung song of their people.
It was as if Min Li had just realised what Fenhua had known all along. It had just dawned on Min Li, shamefully for all her thoughts that Tom her friend was the slow witted one, that she herself was cut from the very same cloth that Tom was. She just realised that Kit being a man after her own heart was not just a meaningless expression. It held true in reality.
The crown prince looked up from his bent posture at his opponent to where he was pointing. The crown prince did so again and again and again as if he could not believe his eyes.
Fenhua looked Min Li up and down like he wondered why he hadn’t thought of the same award as Kit. It seemed that Min Li’s knee had done a real number on Fenhua. Fortunately, the man soon came to his senses as he met her disapproving eyes and he frowned along with her.
“What a good award! Love will always prevail!” Jess the retired bully clapped at the suggestion from Kit.
What a conniving witch, Min Li thought.
The king was stuck. He was no longer smiling. His wife though, was smiling as if the cream that the kitten of hers, the crown prince, was given earlier, had been passed unto her. And she now looked as if she was getting ready to lick her paws of the remnant of the cream.
Though his father looked stuck, Fenhua snapped out of his confusion early. What Min Li was feeling, Fenhua’s face was showing. He was angry.
Quickly the crown prince stood up putting himself on equal footing with his opponent. No matter how angry the crown prince was though; he couldn’t show it by blowing up in front of his father. He just couldn’t be immature and blow up, he had to take the high road and be mature.
Fenhua blocked the direction that the arm of Kit was pointing to forcing Kit to both straighten out his arm completely to be even more bold in what he wanted and move to the left to be able to point at his target again.
What Kit didn’t know was that Min Li and the prince had an abundant amount, a stupendous amount of practice at this game.
The prince blocked Kit’s arm again by standing in front of it. Min Li aligned herself behind the crown prince to completely block herself from the bovine boorish brute's view.
Kit moved to the right to point to Min Li.
The prince again chose to not be immature and blow up but rather be immature and block the direction Kit’s finger was facing again.
Again, Min Li contorted her body so it would be hard for her to be seen by Kit, whilst damning the fact that she was forced to come to the power ceremony.
Kit sidestepped to the left.
Not one to lose the crown price made moves to follow his opponent.
“STOP,” the king bellowed.
Silence was held for a second.
Until Min Li’s awfully dramatic foster mother, the queen, squealed about how happy she would be to have a son in law.
With this encouragement but still a frown on the king’s face, the king started talking again glancing repentantly at Min Li.
“As I have decreed the person who wins may get anything, so it shall be. If Kit wins...” the king had the decency to cough slightly, “... then he gets to have Min Li.”
The crown prince tensed up from head to toe and the crowd gasped.
A king’s word, as well as the crown prince’s word was everything, and if he broke his word, there could be extremely negative consequences. As must as Min Li hated to admit it, she thought, worse things could happen from the king going back on his word than me becoming a child bride.
Min Li often forgot in such scenarios, that she was no longer a child or even a teenager, but a grown adult.
The crown prince’s word and respect for his father was also everything which was why although Fenhua seemed to be vying to, he didn’t make a cheap move to disparage Kit.
Min Li quickly thought through what Kit meant by the word ‘have’. It could mean that he intended to make her the heifer to his bull so that they could moo together, and she would be his property to love and to cherish or to use or dump.
Rather outlandishly optimistically, she also reckoned that ‘have’ could also mean a whole host of other things. It could mean that he wanted to have keep her like a rare jewel.
No matter what way that he meant it, Min Li was extremely disappointed in the turn of events. The drinks and gifts that she had enjoyed happily from Kit had come back to bite her in her rear.
Misogynistic tyrants. Min Li clicked her tongue. Min Li tutted. Min Li drove imaginary spears into the heads of the three men who had decided without her input that she was suitable as loot or plunder in war.
It didn’t work, they still seemed as if they were going to go ahead with it. So instead, Min Li pouted and Min Li sniffed hoping that she had done it prettily enough that one of the men would take pity on her.
Min Li forgot as she did earlier, that such may not work as she was no longer a child or even a teenager, but a grown adult.