Cyrus stood in the royal courtyard surrounded by four towers and marvelously colored stained-glass windows of his ancestors and deities worshiped across the island nation of Aristillus. Begrudgingly, the young prince suited up in his bright white fencing jumpsuit, and being the dead of summer, his thighs were soaked with sweat stains. He panted and brushed his dripping, but still well-conditioned hair while beads of sweat made his pasty white skin shine. He panted as a man in an outrageously garish outfit paced by him back and forth. The man wore colorful orange and white checkered shoes that were pointed at the tips with little white balls. His matching pants puffed around his waist--comically exaggerating his body-- and a brown vest with a large checkered ring hung around his neck. The man himself was not ugly by any stretch and possessed handsome dark eyes, tanned skin and curly black hair. He was the Coates’ famous Majester.

“Can we go inside now?” Cyrus whined. “We’ve been out here for so long.”

“Now, now,” he said in an avuncular voice that playfully teased Cyrus. “If 5 minutes is considered a long time, then I must be the great bearded wizard of the west for the amount I’ve lived.”

“It’s times like this I wish I could be sitting in our cool dungeon enjoying a nice popsicle,” Cyrus whined again, now relishing his fantasy.

“Hey now, you’ll never woo yourself that cute little princess lest you give a little show of magic and wit,” the Majester said as he bent over and winked at Cyrus. ”I ain’t like your stuffy parents, ol’ Archibald knows exactly what it’s like to be a hungry adolescent craving for love.”

“You do?” Cyrus asked with shining eyes.

“Come on princey poo, you know this about me. I wouldn’t be helping you with your dead poet spell if I didn’t have some investment in your success. Ol’ Archibald likes to see you succeed”—the Majester pulled away and whispered under his breath—"And your folks will pay me more gold that way.”

“What was that last bit?” Cyrus chimed in.

“Nothing hehe”--the Majester snapped his gloved finger and three white, blue and red bullseyes hovered fifteen feet away from him--“How about we get to practicing a little magic?”

Cyrus groaned. He grabbed a small burlap bag and poured a small amount of magic red dust on the back of his hand. He snorted it and choked. His eyes bulged and steam exploded from his lungs and mouth. “Bleh,” he gasped, “Did we have to use dragon powder today? I already have heartburn from the spicy wings I had earlier.”

“Think how the dragons feel always having fire in their lungs,” Archibald responded. “When you embody their feelings, you’re able to use this magic powder much better.”

“I know, but can’t we cast fire without having to ingest something so nasty,” Cyrus asked with his hands on his knees.

“Look at it this way, my boy,” Archibald responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’s either this or the method I had to use as a sprout: chanting an entirely paragraph in an archaic language. When I was your age, I’d easily give up all my hours of memorization for a split second of heartburn. Magic is so much more convenient for you youngins”

“Yeah not convenient enough,” Cyrus muttered.

He aggressively breathed out, hacking up several fire balls that reduced the wooden bullseyes into burnt ash. He leaned forward and belched from the dire combination of dragon powder and hot wings.

“That young princess will never lift her dress for an attitude like that…or a gas issue,” Archibald said wagging his finger. “How goes this maiden anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” said Cyrus. “Normally she gets back to me in a week, but she’s been oddly silent.”

“Did you knock her out with your magnificent borrowed words?” The Majester laughed, but he was interrupted by a messenger wearing a page hat and robes bearing the pink and white colors of the Toccatta Kingdom.

“About time you got here,” Cyrus shouted. “Where’s my letter?”

“Young master, this is more urgent than that,” the messenger responded. “Your parents have gathered in the court. This concerns you and more importantly, Princess Trinity.”

Young Cyrus didn’t like being told someone was more important than him but he remained quiet. Even someone as pigheaded as him could tell from the messenger’s voice and the nervous look in his eyes that something was amiss. Archibald clapped his hands and the targets dissolved into dust. “Looks like you got out early like you wanted, princey.”

Cyrus followed the messenger through the door leading to the royal court where he was greeted by the ultra-stern faces of his parents. Richard and Victoria Coates were clad in the finest robes of green and blue and marked with their family crest. The head of the white wolfhound was emblazoned on the front cloth hanging down from their robes. Victoria wore a silver circlet around her dirty blond and gray hair, while Richard’s graying orange beard covered his well chiseled jaw. Their haughty faces were a clear sign of the blue blood running through their veins, but their eyes were still fraught with great concern when they saw their son. The page bowed to Richard and Victoria.

“What is this you speak about the princess of the Toccatta Kingdom?” Richard resounded in his deep kingly voice.

“Your majesty, King and Queen Toccatta beg you dearly to aid them in the return of Princess Trinity. A few days prior, she was kidnapped and we fear the culprit is no mere ruffian.”

“How do you know?” Queen Victoria asked.

“Let’s just say,” the page said, “the royal astrologer has indicated to us that a celestial event in the near future may be linked to her kidnapping.”

“What do the moon and stars have to do with this?” Cyrus yelled in a boorish voice.

“Cy,” Victoria said softly, trying to hush him.

“The royal astrologer has said that the dreaded night of the red moon is on the horizon.”

Cyrus’ parents looked at each other. Both knew exactly what it was, but Cyrus remained ignorant. “If you don’t know,” the page said. “The night of the red moon occurs every 666 years and it is both a time of celebration and regeneration for the Everbloods.”

“Everbloods?” Cyrus asked, he had begun to wish he wasn’t so neglect in his studies.

“The Everbloods are a type of vampire that remain young forever,” Archibald remarked, “as long as they drink royal blood on the night of the devil moon. Otherwise, they wrinkle like fanged raisins.”

“Yes,” the page said bobbing his head frantically. “There have been reports of Everblood appearances throughout the land and now we fear our dear princess is among them. We have to act quickly for the night of the red moon is dawning in a week. We don’t have much time.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Cyrus asked, continuing to question the page.

Suddenly, everyone looked at him in dead silence. The page looked up at the king and queen and his voice uncoiled like a hissing snake. “Excuse me for saying this to your son, but how does this not have to do with you?”

He removed a piece of parchment from his shirt. “Here is a letter written from your son, and I quote the final line: ‘And I will lay my life down for thee, I pledge as long as you call me yours, you will always be safe and sound by me.’”

The page shook as he spoke and he pointed at Cyrus who began to tremble as he realized his blunder. “The princess was so enthralled that she had an ‘oh-so-brave’ member of the Coates family pledging to protect her, she showed her parents. To this they said, ‘if the young royal claims it, he better back up his words when the time comes, for only then will we honor his pledge.’”

The page rose from his kneeling position. “And the time for that is now. If you don’t live up to your words and forsake the princess, you and your kingdom will lose the respect of my king and queen. You will forever be in their disgrace!”

Richard gave a stern grimace underneath his lion’s mane beard and turned his head aside, causing Cyrus to swallow hard. He could tell by his father’s austere eyes that this wasn’t a mere scolding he would get. Cyrus may have been pigheaded, lazy and selfish, but he wasn’t stupid. He immediately realized what he did wasn’t a childhood prank like putting mustache powder in his old maid’s tea; he had truly offended his kingdom’s honor. Or at least if he failed, that’s what would have happen.

He began to hyperventilate like he had run up the marble staircase five times, and his mom ran to him. She put his arms around him. Archibald strolled up to the young prince and put a consoling hand on his shoulder. “It’s ok, my little lamb,” Victoria said with motherly ease. “My husband and I were both saying it was time you learned responsibility as the future king. Now is that time.”

“Mom, what if I can’t do it?”

Victoria gave a look of both motherly and queenly resolve. “At least you can say you tried.”