She Belongs To The Devil

Nigel saw that all of his belongings were already arranged in his room. He wanted to get out of his uniform very badly so he called for a maid and asked, "Will you take out a set of cloth that will be fit to wear for the dinner with the King?"

"Yes, Your Highness," The maid walked over to the wardrobe and took out a nice pair of surcoat and trouser for the Prince. "Do you need any help in getting ready, Your Highness?"

Nigel shook his head and denied that offer. He was not quite comfortable with the new maids so he just replied, "No, I will manage."

Then the maid placed the clothes on the table and informed Nigel about details of the dinner, "Your Highness, the dinner with the King will commence from 8 in the night.. You still have an hour left but the Princes will already be there at the hall by now. So, if Your Highness would like to join the Princes then I can lead you to the dining hall immediately after you change."

"Sure, I will be right outside. You can wait for me there."

The maid bowed to the Prince and went outside, locking the door behind her.

Nigel proceeded to change from his uniform to the clothes that he actually liked. He thought of calling the maid in to help him comb his hair but he gave up that thought and simply ran his fingers through his hair. "I guess nobody can tell if I combed my hair or not. They look the same anyway."

He checked himself in the mirror one last time before going out of his room. Then he went outside to find the maid from earlier waiting for him.

After seeing the Prince, the maid began to walk ahead of him to show him the way, although Nigel was obviously already familiar with most of the places inside the Palace. The Royal dining hall was quite far away from Nigel\'s quarter. They walked for about 15 minutes and finally arrived in front of the hall.

The maid walked further in and left him in front of the door guarded by two of the guards. "Your Highness, I will take a leave from here."

Nigel nodded his head and waited for the guards to open the door to let him in.

The guards pushed the door open and while the Prince walked in, they bowed their heads to show their respect.

As the maid had told him earlier, Fenris and Wulfric were already inside the hall. Or to be more precise, they were inside a room that was inside the hall. They were sitting on a comfortable sofa that was placed in front of the table and they were already enjoying a few of the tasty snacks.

"You two are already eating before even sitting with the King?" Nigel was a little surprised with how his cousins were already filling their stomachs when they were to have dinner just some time later.

"There will be more talking and less eating if we eat with the King. So we eat before we sit at the table with father. At the table, we just enjoy talking with everyone and we pretend to eat." Wulfric replied like a big baby and jumped out of the sofa.

And he ran towards Nigel as though he was seeing Nigel after many years. "Brother! We finally meet. How have you been?" Wulfric gave a tight hug to his brother.

Nigel also reciprocated his hug to keep up the act and replied somewhat happily, "Hey, brother! I\'ve been good." Then he pulled back from the hug and slapped him on the arm and exclaimed, "Look at you! All grown up!"

Fenris rested his legs on the table and folded his arm. He raised his brows looking at the good actors and said, "Really? You two are going to keep on acting like you two just met?"

Wulfric laughed nervously and asked as though he didn\'t know what Fenris was talking about, "What do you mean? We are meeting right now, can\'t you see?"

"Yeah, right!" Fenris narrowed his eyes at Wulfric and confronted him, "I saw you sneaking out of your quarter again. So I am pretty sure that you went to meet Nigel where he was staying for the night. I am your brother, Wulfric, I know how you think and act. So, you can\'t hide anything from me."

Wulfric gave up the act and threw himself on the sofa beside Fenris. "Fine. I went to meet Nigel because I missed him. I am not as lucky as you who can visit other Kingdoms and even stay there for days."

"You are the Crown Prince! What more do you want? Can\'t you even pay such a small price?" Fenris definitely did not like it when Wulfric would complain about how hard it was being a Crown Prince.

Nigel walked over to the sofa, pushed the two of them aside, and sat in between them. "So, what are you two having? Is there something which is worth tasting?"

"Of course there is." Wulfric handed Nigel the bowl of meatballs and said, "You can have this, it\'s still hot and very tasty."

Fenris immediately grabbed another bowl of fish fillet and said, "Try this, it doesn\'t have bones. I bet you don\'t get to eat fishes that often in Wyverndale."

"Yes, actually. We don\'t have much supply of fishes back there." Nigel took a piece of fillet and tried it. "Yes, it\'s really good."

Fenris gave a side-eyed look to Wulfric and gave a sly smile as though suggesting that he knew Nigel better than Wulfric.

But then Nigel stuffed several meatballs at once in his mouth and chewed it while savoring the taste.

And it was now Wulfric\'s turn to return back that sly smile to his brother.

While they were eating and talking and goofing around with each other, one of the maids knocked on the door and then informed the Princes, "Your Highness, the King is about to arrive at the hall."

That was the warning the Princes needed to hear. They instantly jumped out of the sofa and then dashed to the dining hall.