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The Ma
Fuming white with rage from some unimaginable wrong, Blade Captain Toporello watched the infantry march by and wrung his reins between his fists like a pair of chicken necks.
Prince Ma
Passing behind a clean, gleaming squadron of hippogriff cuirassiers, Gilberto Ilego swung his mount about to slide in beside the prince. Ilego's horse curvetted prettily, allowing the bright morning sun to strike sparks along its copper mane.
"An impressive inspection, sire. Most enlightening."
Ilego had hardly even spared the assembled troops a glance. He matched his horse's pace to that of his prince and posed himself in thought; an artful display designed to convey both elegance and surprise.
Ma
"Sire, I do believe that is your daughter on the balcony."
"Like enough." Ma
"Aaaaaah." Ilego swiveled snake-bright eyes toward his prince. "A pretty girl, by all accounts."
"I'd like to see whose accounts. I'd like to hire him." Prince Ma
"But surely, my lord, she has spirit?"
"In a sense," said Ma
"Rats, my lord?"
"So I am told."
Prince Ma
At his side, Gilberto Ilego turned his horse to face the palace balconies.
"You are hard on the girl. There are tales, my lord, of princesses whose beauty launched a thousand ships." Ilego faced his monarch with a bow. "Perhaps your own daughter might aspire to such a thing in her own small way. "A thousand troops, perhaps?"
Prince Ma
A welcome diversion came in the form of a ski
Prince Ma
"My lord! M-my lord prince." The boy almost choked himself on his own tongue as he hopelessly addled a carefully prepared speech. "Sir-I merely wished to say how… how invigorating your kingdom seems. How fresh, how inviting, how active!"
Insanity in a man so young seemed such a pitiable thing; Prince Ma
"It is one of the young gentlemen from Lomatra, my lord."
"Oh. Oh, yes." Aha-the prospective groom! Ma
The boy took the prince's smile as instant encouragement.
"My lord? My lord, I wondered if I might speak with you awhile? That is-I wonder if I can show you…"
At this point, the leather portfolio flipped open; cramming the wad of papers into the bole of a tree, Lorenzo inserted himself between the two older men and proudly spread out a parchment smothered in designs.
"My lords-I have ideas! Concepts, theories and designs the likes of which the world has never seen. Designs that will thrill you, my lords. Thrill you to the core!"
Prince Ma
"Say on, lad. Say on. It ca
Finding himself with an audience at long last, Lorenzo seated himself in the crutch of an olive tree and used a green twig to point out the salient points of his inventions.
"Look you, sirs. I have been studying basic natural phenomena with an eye to making these phenomena work with us-for us." Paper fluttered as the boy avidly flicked through page after page of incomprehensible scrawls. "Ah! For instance… here-do you see? I have been experimenting with the forces that make solid objects fall."
A drawing appeared; a drawing showing a very badly rendered stick figure dropping objects from a tower. Lorenzo unleashed his excitement in measured little chunks, marking each point with a sharp wave of his olive twig.
"Now, consider the downward path of a falling object. Let us take two items identical in weight. A pound of feathers, and a pound of lead. Which of them will fall more slowly?"
"A pound of feathers." Ma
"Aaaah-but why do the feathers fall more slowly? The answer is, simply, air resistance! The feathers present a broad face to the air, thus slowing their descent due to the viscous qualities of the air itself."
Sitting cross-legged in his tree, Lorenzo made his points stab forward one by one.
"So, how is this phenomena useful to us? Well firstly, we have discovered that narrow objects fall more swiftly. I feel this may be useful for making some sort of aerial dart, or what I call a 'bomb.' But, certainly more valuable than that, I believe I can now create a fall-breaking machine! A device made from cloth that will slow the speed of a man's descent through the air, allowing him to alight as safe as if he were a pixie."
This declaration was met by a confused silence from the two armored noblemen. Loath to break the lad's enthusiasm, Prince Ma
"But my dear-um…"
"Lorenzo, my lord. Lorenzo Utrelli Da Lomatra!"
"Yes, quite…" The boy had the i
"Think of it, my lord. We could use my fall-breakers as a safety device… say, for the riders of hippogriffs."
"But our hippogriff riders are already provided with magical protection for such a case." The prince indicated an overflying squadron with a pained wave of his mace. "A one-use ring of feather falling, in point of fact…"