The little Princess

     Years have passed and little Luna has grown into a fine young girl.  Her long blonde hair and he piercing blue eyes, she is a beauty in every sense of the word.  Of course she will be any way, right now she is still a child, a child of only six. Her parents gave her full run of the castle and the guards absolutely loved the little princess.  She was always running around and doing expertises they had never seen before. They had no idea that within her was an experienced soldier from another world.

     The war with the demon hordes was not going well.  Not the war ever went well. Humanity had been struggling in this world for as long as anyone could remember. The demons were larger, stronger, and had a higher affinity to magic than humans.  The only advantage humans had was their will to protect those around them. It caused them to fight harder. So that they could protect what was dear to them.

     One day the princess was "playing" in the hall near the war room.  She was not "playing" any sort of game, what she was doing was training. Luna hated how small and weak her new body was, she remembered back to when she was an adult male in his prime.  She longed to have that strength back and she was determined to work hard and have it once again. While she was outside the war room she overheard a conversation between her father, and his advisors.

      "Your majesty, we have to do something, the town closest to the capital is about to fall to the demon horde!" Jeremy said, Jeremy was one of the kings advisors.  He was an older grey man who had served the royal family for as long as he had been alive. In fact his family had been serving the royal family for as long as they had existed.  There was no advisor that the king trusted more than Jeremy. "All those lives, we have to do something."

     "What would you have me do?" The King responded.  "If we send soldiers to that village they will be wiped out along with it!" The king paused for a moment. The thought of sending more soldiers to their death was not one he liked.  He also did not like the thought of letting innocent civilians die either. "I wish we could save them, I just don't see how."

     Luna heard all of these conversations and thought to herself what could be done.  She had years of military training, including tactics. She finally found her answer and decided to share it with the king. "Hey Daddy!" She yelled in her tiny voice as she entered the room.

    "Oh my sweet girl!" The king said as he bent down and opened his arms for a hug. "Come to your daddy!"

    Luna run across the room with remarkable speed, all that training was really paying off. She leapt into her daddy's arms. Even though Luna was reincarnated and had all the memories of her past life, she still loved the feeling of being held by her parents.  It made her feel tall again, where she could look eye to eye with everyone and not look up to them. "Daddy we can save that village!" She told the king.

    "Sweety, I am sorry." The king paused. "I don't think we can."

    "Sure we can daddy! We just need to out maneuver our enemy!" She smiled.

    The king was shocked that his six year old daughter used such a big word! Pride swelled within his chest. "What do you mean my dear?" The king asked, hoping his daughter would impress him further.

    "When facing an enemy of greater strength, it is important to have the element of surprise." She looked around the room as if she was giving a presentation. "We must first issue an evacuation of the villagers and then set a trap inside the village. Once we lure them inside the village we will use the buildings to our advantage.  Attacking from around corners and constantly move position." Fighting like this had never been done, battles were always on the battlefield. Both sides would line up and crash into each other. That way of fighting was the main reason the humans kept losing.

      "But how would we attack from the corners, my sweet Luna?" The king was very invested in what his daughter was telling him. He was also so full of pride at how smart his daughter was.

      "Oh right!" She yelled in her tiny voice. "Put me down daddy I will be right back!"

      The King complied and set her back down on the ground and as soon as he did she was off in a flash.

      "The young princess sure is fast." Jeremy said to the king. "I would wager she could outrun most of our finest soldiers."

      "She is my daughter after all!" The king said with pride. "With her mother and I making her up, how could she not be the very best!"

     "Though I am also intrigued by this new method of fighting she had thought of." Jeremy continued. "Do you not think it cowardly to attack from the shadows , my king?"

      Just then an arrow flew by Jeremy's head and struck the wall.  In the doorway stood the tiny princess holding a crossbow. Crossbows did not exist in this world, she invented it.  Since magic existed, war weapons did not advance much past the sword. The general consensus was that ranged weapons were unnecessary because of magic.  "We must survive!" The tiny princess yelled. "Tactics are not cowardly." She stomped across the room to be in front of Jeremy. Looking up at him steaming. "We have an enemy that is stronger than us, so we have to fight smarter than them!"

     The scene of a tiny six year old princess letting an older advisor to the king have it, was just too much to bare.  The king could not help himself. He reached out and grabbed the top of Luna's head. "You are adorable my daughter. What is it that you have made there?"

     "It's a crossbow daddy!" She replied still fuming at the cowardly comment from before. "It will win us this battle!"

      The king holds his hand out for the item and she places it in his hand.  After inspection he notices how simple the design was, yet he had seen how effective it was already. "I will send this to the royal craftsmen and have all of our soldiers equipped with one!" The king said.  "I will also send word of the evacuation and our plan to attack our commanders. You may have just saved all those people my dear Luna."

      Luna jumped up and gave the king a hug before running out of the room to continue her training.

     "Your majesty, your not seriously going to follow the plan of a six year old child are you? And what of that device, how good could it be, if a little girl made it." Another advisor asked from across the room.

     The king simply loaded the crossbow with a bolt Luna had attached to the side. He aimed and shot the advisor square in the chest. "No one questions my daughter, even if she is only six, she just gave us hope for the first time in ages. If you survive you would do well to remember this lesson."  The king and Jeremy then left the room, they were off to make preparations for war.