Richard grinned and sauntered away. “Yeppers. In fact, brother dearest, did I hear you accurately earlier? It sounded like you were trying to sabotage my virtuous plans to sabotage you.”
“I don’t see why it’s any of your business why I do what I do,” the crown prince sneered. “You are the second son. You have less power than the weakest of my followers. You are insignificant,” he added.
The younger prince just smirked. “Right you are. But remember, I may be weaker but I have other traits. For one thing being the most beloved man in the king means I have much fewer enemies than you. Besides, I’m smarter, and legitimate, and full of charm and poise that makes all of our kingdom fall over their feet to rush to serve me. Face it, you are a half baked failure. Father will always support my efforts as his sweetest and most beloved son no matter how he feels about me personally.” He smiled and stopped pacing to look back at the crown prince. He whispered, “How can mere Aeron compare? So cold, so mean. Always in the shadow of his brother. Who loves little Aeron? Not his father who loves him so much but ignores him. Not his mother who abandoned him. Not even the girl who once promised to love him forever and ever can even stand the sight of him now.”
Aeron leapt and pulled his sibling into a headlock. He quickly cast of his human glamor and took on his full size that compared to an apartment building and easily smothered the other boy. “I could kill you now,” he whispered with a deadly squeeze. “One move and I could quiet those poisonous lips forever. One twist and all the people will be forced to accept me,” he whispered.Richard panted, lungs compressed by the sheer weight and size of his giant brother as his own true form was slighter than even a human. “Just one twist and I won’t have to worry about your spiteful whispers and acts of rebellion. Who would dare to pledge allegiance to your corpse when I’d still be alive and powerful and oh so very present?”
“I could shift,” the pinned man retorted. His cool veneer had long since melted away as he tried to hammer at the restraining, but oddly gentle, grip. A blue haze flickered along his form, and his shape gradually shifted to a towering dragon.
His brother merely laughed, a tiny figure on top of the snake like form. “As could I,” was the calm reply. I have two true forms, and as you know this is the smaller one. Don’t you think it would be easy for me to completely smother you if I stood here as a two hundred foot tall dragon? He looked down at the figure he straddled which was a mere handful of stories tall and rapidly shifted his own form to crush it. “You may have forgotten, but I`m a solid two hundred feet longer than you, and fifty wider. Let alone the fact that I`m definitely stronger than a dragon who spends all his time in human form flipping through books.” Fully shifted his red scales gleamed in the faint light as he stretched out to his monstrous proportions. What`s more, his claws and horns looked fiercer, his form more European than the slim and delicate wyrm beneath him.
“My studies of the arcane are far more advanced than yours. I could destroy you in seconds before you had the time to move,” Richard gasped as the weight pressing on him became unbearable.
“I can use magic well enough to freeze a squirt like you, and then all I`d have to do is smoosh you,” the elder retorted. He demonstrated by grabbing his sibling in a headlock.
Richard was blue in the face but still stared stonily ahead, refusing to give in to the crushing pressure. His brother sighed and released him. “That is how we are different, you know. I care about you and don’t actually wish to kill you. I would wish that we could get along, be friendly, have movie marathons and pick up ice cream and travel the worlds. It’s very unfortunate that you’d prefer to see me dead or deposed when I still can’t help but think of you toothlessly grinning at me and begging for a piggy back ride as a hatchling.”
“I could still probably beat you in my original form. I’m not powerful but I’m very clever,” Richard muttered.
The prince just laughed that away and melted back into his human guise. “You could do some damage, but your shift is very slow and I could still stop you before you’d had the chance to do anything at all. I am not as skilled in my lessons but it would still be easy to smother a squirt like you.” He held up a hand to the other’s protest. “Never mind all of that now though, I can see I can’t talk sense into you yet. We have other priorities that require our focus anyways.”
They glared at each other. Both finally stomped away from the other at the same time.
“I’m to check on the doings of the little spy Darien,” Aeron announced. “Maybe I’ll get to lop off a head or two while I’m at it if I’m very lucky.”
The other laughed. “You were wrong, before. There’s the difference right there,” Richard said. “You joke of violence but are so peaceful and forgiving. I joke of peace and forgiveness and kill the first who dares to betray me.” He started his own transport spell, a weak
