by K. M. Shea
Even so, I was half tempted to try running away, just to prove to Mother that I wasn’t a traditional princess. But I decided a near death experience wouldn’t be worth an “I told you so!” so I went to sleep and cut my losses, resolving to run away if life with Azmaveth the dragon really proved to be a terrible.
Chapter 2Digging in Dishes
I woke up the next morning to a shaft of sunlight playing on my blankets.
I stumbled out of bed, my dirt brown hair was swirling around me in a frizzy mass. I walked into the kitchens, almost tripping on my torn dress with every step, where Azmaveth was waiting for me. He curiously cocked his head and watched me with no small amount of amusement.
I was silent for a minute or two before I realized that the purple dragon was apparently happy just to observe me, so I took the initiative to break the silence.
“So…what happens now?” I asked.
Azmaveth shrugged. “I was hoping you would know,” he said with a strange dragon smile. It looked almost as friendly as it did predatorily.
I tried to restore order to my hair as I replied, “Sorry, but I’ve never been kidnapped before.”
“My apologies,” the dragon gravely said, as though it was my loss. Obviously my sarcasm was wasted on him. “I thought, perhaps, you would know because you’re a princess. You are my first princess after all,” he worriedly said, eyeing me as if I might bite him.
Meanwhile I was getting thoroughly distracted. There was a distinctly foul smell wafting through the kitchen. I wrinkled my face and covered my nose as an atrocious odor invaded my olfactory system.
“What is that smell?” I coughed as I stumbled across the large kitchen and climbed up a dusty ladder that was placed near a huge counter top. When I reached the top I nearly fell over from the sight that greeted me. Huge dirty dishes that were almost as big as me littered the countertop. They were fuzzy with mold.
“This is disgusting! How can you live like this?” I asked as I hopped on top. “Don’t you have a standard of cleanliness?” I said as I disappeared under a plate that was leaning against a bowl.
“What?” he asked, sounding a little sheepish. “It’s not that bad. If you wait long enough the mold dies because there’s nothing left for it to eat.”
“You shouldn’t even know that!” I said as I popped out from the other side. “Well that settles it. Until we figure out what exactly I’m supposed to do I’m going to make myself useful and clean this pigsty,” I said looking around the colossal kitchen.
This was great, if I worked as a maid for Azmaveth I would be violating all of those historical epics and ballads about captured princesses. That would afford me the pleasure of both offending Mother and getting rid of my guilt of doing nothing so I wouldn’t feel compelled to go hurtling into the wild woods. It was the perfect set up!
There was just one problem with my plan. “I have no idea how I’m going to move all of these giant dishes,” I muttered.
Azmaveth heard me—apparently dragons have excellent hearing. “What?” he inquired.
“The plates, they’re as big as I am. How am I going to store them in their proper place?” I asked while poking around on the counter top, sometimes pausing to glance at the purple dragon. “Um, also I would like to make a request for some more clothes, please. The one I’m wearing now isn’t going to be wearable for much longer,” I abruptly said, changing the subject. “And a door, could I please have a door and a new mirror? The one in my room is shot.”
“So these clothes you speak of,” Azmaveth said, forgetting my original complaint. “I assume you mean these?” he asked daintily picking me up by the collar of my dress. “I thought those were odd looking scales!” he exclaimed, looking proud of himself as he set me back down on the counter.
“This is cloth, I have skin, not scales,” I educated him, swatting his silver claws away. “Perhaps a more experienced dragon would be able to help you?”
“Very well, I shall go obtain these clothes,” he declared as his wings started to fan out around him. I absent mindedly nodded as I ripped a string of lace off my ugly dress and used it to tie my hair back.
“All of that kitchen experience is finally going to pay off! I knew cutting classes was the right choice,” I said with no small amount of satisfaction.
In previous years, before my mother learned my hiding patterns to a beat, I would hide in the kitchens, poorly disguised as a servant, and cut classes. It was always easier to get to the kitchens to the stables, and the cooks and maids would never turn away help. As I was one of many princesses the head cook let me stay there without telling my mother as long as I was willing to assist her.
I summoned up all my strength before poking around for soap. And hot water. And something to scrape off the mold.
I struggled with scraping the moldy dishes for the better part of two hours. By the time I was finished I had enough mold to patch together a quilt. I was trying to figure out a system for washing dishes when Azmaveth returned.
“I’m back!” he shouted, flouncing into the kitchen.
I yelped and fell into the bowl, which was full with water. I tried to keep myself from barfing as I sat in the mold riddled water in his soup bowl. “Welcome back,” I said between clenched teeth.
Azmaveth flashed me his leery/friendly grin as he fished me out of the bowl and set me on the counter.
“I see you’ve been busy,” he said, observing the mold blanket.
“Yeah, about that. Is there some way to fix this? I can’t move these dishes, much less clean them, by myself,” I said as I walked around, making squishy, wet noises as I paced. “Please,” I added, deciding I had better be somewhat polite in case he happened to enjoy the taste of human.
“I did just invent a new shrinking spell!” he excitedly said.
“A what?” I questioned, apprehension starting to build in the pit of my stomach.
“A shrinking spell! I’ll bewitch the dishes so when you say something like ‘shrink dishes’ the dishes will shrink to a more manageable size. And when you say something like ‘grow dishes’ they’ll grow back to their original size,” he happily hummed.
It occurred to me at that moment that I might quite possibly be royally screwed. Not because I was kidnapped by a dragon and brought over to Tsol, but because I was living with a dragon who was both an inventor and a mage—a very dangerous combination.
The shrinking spell was a good idea though, it would save my back, and it would make meals easier to prepare. “Are you sure about this?” I carefully asked. I didn’t want to get myself killed for my impertinence.
“Absolutely! In fact, I’ll get started now,” Azmaveth decided, sounding serious for the first time since daybreak.
I was slightly assured when Azmaveth’s supposed shrinking spell appeared to be quite harmless and easy. “Everyone, listen up,” he said as all the dishes and cooking ingredients slowly hovered a few feet above the ground. He glanced at me. “Your new clothes are in the hallway,” he pointedly said before turning his attention back to the dishes.
Taking the hint I left the kitchen and wandered out to the hallway where a big bag was carelessly strewn on the ground. I opened up the sack and found four work dresses, a pair of sandals, and another pair shoes along with some white undergarments. To my bewilderment all of my dresses were made of clothe colored a dark purple, the same shade as Azmaveth’s scales.
I sheepishly hid myself in a small corner of the hallway before I changed out of my wet, tattered dress and into one of the soft, new dresses. The material was durable yet comfortable. I was happy, but it made me wonder how the dragon was able to procure all of my necessary clothing items, in my exact size, in such a short amount of time.
Just as I finished squeezing water out of my hair Azmaveth lumbered down the hallway with a smug smile.
“It worked,” he self-righteously announced. “The phrases are ‘glistenblossum’ to shrink them, and ‘weezlesnout’ to make them grow.”
“What happed to ‘grow dishes’ and ‘shrink dishes’?” I asked.
“Those phrases are uncreative. They don’t even sound like magic,” he said, shaking his large head.
It was in me to argue, but at this point I was still aware of Azmaveth’s size, power, and how easily he could kill me. (This awareness lasted only a short while before I learned I could walk all over him.) “I should get back to cleaning,” I said, pausing for a moment. “But why is everything purple?”
He rolled his eyes. “As one of the three Dragon Dukes I have my own colors: purple and white,” he explained. “Because you are my princess you’ll wear my colors. My father was this color too. You see the first-born son of a duke is the same color as his father because he will take over the title once his father is dead. My son, if I ever have one, will be this shade as well,” he lectured. For some odd reason he sounded annoyed when he spoke of his father.
“I see,” I thoughtfully said. “If you’re a duke why haven’t you had a princess before?”
“I’ve only been duke for about a decade. I never received a princess when my father was the duke. He would take care of all the typical dragon roles,” he admitted. “You and the other princesses have been the first to come in quite some time. Thanks to the previous rotation, I received the honor of going first for princess selection this time,” he explained.
“Oh,” I said. Azmaveth was continuously proving to me that dragon society was very complex and refined. It actually sounded similar to my father’s court—if you ignored the princess selection part anyway.
A deep rumble shook me out of my reverie. “What was that?” I asked, looking up at the ceiling. It sounded like the den was going to collapse on us.
“Um…well I haven’t exactly eaten yet this morning…” Azmaveth said.
“I can prepare a simple breakfast. I am somewhat familiar with cooking, but I guess that depends what your usual meals are,” I carefully said. If he ate raw meat I was not about to offend him.
Azmaveth rolled his eyes. “I’m not some sort of barbarian. I do eat fruits and plants! Practically anything you humans eat,” he defended.
“Sorry. I’ll go make us some porridge.”
Two broken dishes later I poured the porridge into bowls before carrying the dishes to the table. I left mine in the kitchen so when I said the magic word, weezlesnout, Azmaveth’s bowl, and Azmaveth’s bowl alone, grew, porridge and all.
I went back to the kitchen and retrieved my bowl as Azmaveth sniffed at the food. I climbed up on the table and Azmaveth nodded before politely sipping at the porridge, almost like the way a horse drinks water.
After he finished he happily sighed. “Excellent cooking Ahira. Especially for a princess. I truly think this could be a wonderful, working relationship!” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, swallowing the last of my porridge.
“Not all dragons get along with their princesses,” he said, sounding surprised that this had never occurred to me. “In fact it is a rare case that a dragon gets along with a princess. Generally speaking a dragon is never killed over a princess. She is merely released into the wild, or goes free with a random prince. We dragons have a lot of patience, but princesses are, in general, stupid creatures,” Azmaveth said, rolling his head.
I considered his words before agreeing.
After we finished eating Azmaveth went off toward the library and I tackled the kitchen for the second time that day.
“I bet a snail keeps its shell cleaner than this,” I fussed as I washed dish after dish after dish after dish.
What felt like days later, but was really only a matter of hours, I finished. By this point I was so sick of mold and dishes I was ready to give Azmaveth a piece of my mind, dragon or not.
I made a beeline down the tunnels and gaped when I entered the library.
Bookcases were stacked on top of each other so the library was over three stories high. Three skylights filtered light into the room, along with huge stain glass windows at the back of the library. A giant marble staircase had been made, obviously for humans because Azmaveth could easily reach all the books, and big rolling ladders were scattered around the room. The books were about triple or quadruple the size of a regular human book, and they were on all sorts of subjects.
Azmaveth was curled up, gazing at a book that was titled All About Princesses: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Pet Happy and Clean.
“Interesting title,” I said as I slowly approached him. My anger over the pigpen kitchen had evaporated.
Azmaveth looked up from his reading material. “It is a highly educational read. It’s helping me learn why you do all the interesting things you do,” he started, about to launch into a lecture. “Take your hair this morning, for an example.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” I sharply asked.
“Um, nothing!” he gulped. “It was positively beautiful. Did you want something?” he stammered, quickly back peddling.
It was then that I realized my captor was first and foremost a coward. It was highly unlikely I would ever do anything that would make him angry enough to gut me. These ponders lifted a weight from my shoulders. This princess-napping ordeal would be bearable, perhaps even pleasant, if Azmaveth really was a coward.
I shook myself out of my thoughts in order to answer the purple dragon. He was starting to look increasingly worried. “Yes, I’m all done with the kitchen, and I was wondering if there was anything else to do,” I said.
“Well…The floor was just cleaned last week, and my room a little over two years ago. No, I guess everything is running smoothly! Perhaps one day, if you feel up to it, we could organize this library. But that is a task better done in the winter when there is not much to do outside,” he supposed.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I dumbly asked.
“I don’t know. And to be honest, I don’t really care provided you do not destroy my home. Why don’t you go off and do princess-y things?”
That got a reaction out of me. “I don’t like to do princess-y things.”
“I assure you, that was apparent from the moment you first opened your mouth. Which reminds me!” he said, getting to his feet which had been neatly folded under him like a cat.
“Climb on,” he instructed, moving his giant head so I could clamor onto his long nose and forehead. I hiked up his face, clinging to his sharp scales. When I found a suitable position Azmaveth started walking. In mere seconds we were out of the library and moving down the north tunnel.
“This room is the treasury,” he said as we stemmed off the hallway into a smaller corridor. “It’s quite humble, almost embarrassingly so. But it doubles as a laboratory as well,” he narrated as we entered the room and I hopped off.
There were lots of tables filled with barrels and sacks of strange objects and plants. A few gross looking liquids were boiling over a fire, and towards the back of the room were about 50 chests. All of them were wooden and plated with gold.
“Let’s see, which one is it?” Azmaveth murmured as he rummaged around the chests. He opened one and a wave of gold coins spilled over the edges. “Nope.” he said, carelessly slamming it shut and pushing it away as my eyes grew wide. I had never before seen so much wealth! He opened four more chests filled with crowns, jewels, and more gold.
“Ah-ha!” Azmaveth crowed when he came to a rusty trunk. He opened it up and snatched something out as I coughed in the thick dust that hovered in the air.
We stumbled back over to the lab area, knocking over several chests as we made our retreat. “Here,” Azmaveth said dropping several objects on my head. “My book, All About Princesses: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Pet Happy and Clean, says I should give you gifts to make you feel welcome and appreciated,” he explained, ever the scholar, as I looked over my new presents.
The first object was a beautiful dagger, which really would do me zero good because for all of my cutting lessons and skipping out on lectures, I never pulled a
cliché fairytale move and tried to learn cool things like how to use a sword or dagger. Oh no, instead I hid in kitchens where I was forced to wash a million dishes, or I hid in the church where I was kicked by bratty little choir boys. Don’t get me wrong, I tried escaping to the armory, but I never managed to get very far while Mother’s spies floated about.
The second gift was a silvery flute that appeared to be made out of a long, pearly unicorn horn. Again, this present I would be even less likely to use. Long before I started skipping my music classes it became apparent that I was not musically gifted. After awhile even my mother gave up making me attend them.
The third and last present was a silver charm bracelet. The bracelet had five little charms: a unicorn, a dragon, a sword, a crown, and a slipper. It was my favorite gift, it seemed to be a better match for me than the previous two.
Still, I cast a confused look upon the dagger and flute.
Azmaveth cleared his throat to explain. “The dagger is to protect you from any physical harm. The unicorn flute you can use to protect yourself from any mental harm, and I don’t know what the bracelet does. I found it lying around last week. I believe my cousin gave it to me when were kids.”
I was strangely touched by his flippant words. “Thank you Azmaveth,” I said with my first real smile since my kidnapping. I tucked the dagger into a pocket in my dress and attached the flute to my side via my apron.
As I moved Azmaveth became distracted with one of his many foul smelling experiments, so I tiptoed out the door and returned to the kitchen to sweep the floor.
Some time later the quietness was shattered by the tolling of a bell.
“Ahira, could you get that!” Azmaveth bellowed from the library. He had moved back to his previous reading spot after tinkering in his lab.