Tale of the Princess

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Shyra positioned her bow towards the sky, drew an arrow, and fired it at the dark birds flying overhead. It knocked one out of the sky, but it was replaced by hordes of them, turning the sky dark with their wings.

She sighed with exasperation and turned to Tuhin, who was perched atop the hill with her and defending the flag with his sword.

"Tuhin, These arrows aren't going to work on them. They keep coming back in waves. We need a different strategy."

Tuhin glanced at her as he slashed another beast through its neck. He wiped the blood clean in the sand and shrugged at her. "Yeah, that plan clearly isn't working out. But what do we do?"

Shyra regarded the large timer on the screen. They had fifteen more minutes left. After a grueling half-hour filled with all sorts of attacks. At one point, arrows had come flying at them from all directions, and they'd had to use their swords to cut through the arrows and protect themselves and the flag.

Both of them sported several bruises that they'd laughed over when the deluge of arrows had drained out. Their amusement died in an instant when a few soldiers from the Alzan army marched into the Arena and tried to battle their way to the flags. Shyra held them off at the base of the hill while Tuhin stood guard at the top.

Once the army retreated, they were followed by a continuous battering by various kinds of attacks, both natural and human-made. By the end of their allotted time, Shyra and Tuhin were exhausted to the bone, and their flag had been slashed up slightly. Shyra had thrown a fit when it got its first scratch, but Tuhin assured her that those scratches wouldn't count yet.

And now, these monstrous birds were making life quite difficult for Shyra. She grunted when she saw that the opposing team's flag had fewer scratches than theirs.

"Ten more minutes!" the anchor said as the timer buzzed in a warning red light. The birds seemed to get offended by the buzzer's sound and renewed their efforts to peck at the flag. Shyra almost screamed with frustration and swung her sword wildly at the birds.

The birds took no heed to the harm she was inflicting on them, and performed several evasive maneuvers in response. Behind her, Tuhin yelled in pain as the birds began hurting him in their mission to destroy the flag. He fell to his knees and covered his head with his hands, leaving the flag unprotected.

Taking the opportunity, the birds dived at the flag, hacking away at the red cloth. Shyra's heart came to a stop as she watched their flag get torn to shreds. Her people flashed before her eyes, along with all the people who had a stake in her winnings, and she saw red.

"That's it," she muttered and looked around wildly. From afar, she could make out that even the opposing team was facing severe attacks by the birds. As she watched them dive and hack at the birds, a devious idea began to form in her head.

"Tuhin!" she called, pointing towards the other hill. "Remember the trick we used on the Naands? We can do the same and draw them toward the other team's flag. That way, they'll stop bothering us plus finish off the flag for us. It's a win-win."

He turned to her with wide eyes. "Shyra. Do you realize what you're saying? With the Naands, it wasn't technically harming the other team. We just drew them to the doors and locked them out. But this time you're asking us to harm the other team. It isn't the right thing to do, and you know that."

"Sometimes, Tuhin," Shyra said with gritted teeth, "You need to compromise on small details to gain better profits in the end. It's one of the first things I was taught in my statecraft lessons. We should try to accommodate everyone in the kingdom, but monarchs always have to work for the greater good. Always. And besides, these birds only want to destroy the flag. As long as the other teams stay out of the way, they won't be harmed."

Tuhin opened his mouth to protest, but Shyra had already raced ahead, grabbed the flag, and begun running toward the other end of the Arena. The birds gave chase immediately, flapping their deadly wings and cawing at Shyra's retreating figure.

She kept the flag high in the air to make sure the birds' attention was on her and looked behind her back every once in a while to check if they were following her. To her surprise, she heard someone's heavy footsteps and risked a glance to find that Tuhin was running after her as well. She cursed and poured in more speed in her steps, running as fast as she could.

The other team noticed her racing toward them and panicked when they spotted the horde she was bringing with her. Shyra's mind raced as she tried to figure out a way to transfer the birds from her hold to the other flag, but it appeared that she didn't need to put much effort. Once the birds saw the other flag stuck high in the air, they abandoned their pursuit of Shyra and flew up to rip apart the other flag.

Heaving a sigh of relief, she was going to turn around when Tuhin grabbed the flag from her hands and began waving it noisily in the air. "Here, here!" he said, flapping it vigorously and jumping up and down.

"What in the five worlds do you think you're doing?" Shyra whisper-screamed at him and tackled him to the ground. A few birds, who'd turned around at all the noise and begun flying back to them, turned around and attacked the other flag.

Tuhin struggled against Shyra and kept muttering, 'What you're doing is wrong. Let me go, and make this a fair fight. I do not wish to win like this.'

Shyra ignored him without the slightest ounce of sympathy in her furious eyes, and they both watched as the other team ran down the hill and the flag got torn to unrecognizable shreds. The timer buzzed to indicate that the hour was up, and in the wake of its loud ringing, Shyra realized that the stadium had gone completely silent.

"Well," the anchor said with an awkward laugh. "That was quite the game. But as we can all see, the undisputed winners of this round are Shyra and Tuhin's team! Tomorrow, we'll see this team compete with each other."

The audience, having overcome their shock, clapped and whistled at them. Shyra tuned out all the cheering and looked at Tuhin. He glanced back at her, caught her eye, and fumed, letting his displeasure show.

Shyra rolled her eyes and observed the audience, noting their jubilance, even with her questionable methods.

Unwittingly, her gaze landed on Mahi, who'd been staring at her all this time. Her face heated up at the intensity of his gaze as he stared into her eyes with an inscrutable expression.