Princess Ahira Read online

  How to be a Fairy Tale Princess

  Princess Ahira

  By: K. M. Shea

  a Take Out The Trash! Publication

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Failure of a Princess

  Chapter 2: Digging in Dishes

  Chapter 3: A Pox on Princes

  Chapter 4: Shrinking Spells

  Chapter 5: Dragons at Tea Time

  Chapter 6: Meddling Wizards

  Chapter 7: the Dragon Steward

  Chapter 8: Beauty and Intelligence

  Chapter 9: Princess Visitation

  Chapter 10: Keeper Clichés

  Chapter 11: A Moody Kitten

  Chapter 12: A Princess Outburst

  Chapter 13: Dozing Dwarves

  Chapter 14: Bad News

  Chapter 15: Truths Revealed

  Chapter 16: Dragons on Trial

  Chapter 17: Ardeo Again

  Chapter 18: Stand Tall and Pour Wine

  Chapter 19: The War

  Chapter 20: Happily Ever After

  Chapter 1Failure of a Princess

  Once upon a time… is how just about every fairytale starts, right?I always wondered why that was. MY story starts more along the lines of, “One dark night my mother grounded me.”

  My story doesn’t start like the stereotypical fairytales, but the components are there. I am a princess from the fantastical land of Somnio. I hail from the country of Ardeo.

  Somnio is segregated. One half is populated by humans, the side I live on. West of the Enchanted Mountains, however, Somnio is called Tsol and is filled to the brim with dragons, unicorns, dwarves, leprechauns, griffins, fairies, and so many magical creatures and entities I couldn’t hope to name them all.

  Some humans are lucky enough to be born with magic. These wizards/enchanters are able to travel back and forth between Somnio and Tsol.

  Unfortunately I am an unremarkable, unmagical, middle child with three older sisters: Jezbell, (She’s married and out of our family castle, THANK GOD!) Brianna, and Deborah. I also have one older brother, Caspian, age 18, the Crown Prince. In addition to that I have two younger sisters, Annabell and Leah. As you can see my poor father and brother are sorely out numbered.

  My name is Princess Ahira Zipporah, and as far as my mother is concerned I am a failure as a princess.

  My story starts on the eve before my sixteenth birthday. I was locked in my bedroom tower, again.

  “And stay in there until you learn to behave like a lady!” my mother shouted for the third time that day before slamming the door shut. I sighed and I tugged my cape off my shoulders.

  “Bother,” I muttered, bending over to brush off my boots, breeches, and white shirt. That was what the fight was over: my clothes.

  Mother caught me sneaking into the stables in male clothing. According to her, it was an act only the most barbaric of woman would attempt. (Needless to say I enjoyed every second of it.)

  I kicked my boots off and walked across my bedroom so I could gaze out my window. My bedroom was near the top of the family keep, giving me quite the view.

  My bedroom door clicked, and I turned around in time to catch Caspian closing the door behind him.

  Caspian’s features combine into the perfect mixture of a storybook prince. He inherited my father’s golden hair and my mother’s blue eyes. My brother is every bit the dashing lord riding the white horse.

  Unfortunately his storybook features twisted into a frown when he got a good look at me.

  “Ahira, is that my shirt?” he asked.

  I grinned and he scowled, pointing to my screened off dressing room.

  I purposely gave the most pathetic sigh I could muster before sweeping into my dressing room and changing into a hunter green dress. I hated it, mostly because it made my unattractive dirt brown hair turn into an even more unattractive mousey brown color. “Happy?” I asked, tossing him his shirt.

  “Yes!” he said, inspecting the seams. “You didn’t shred it this time.”

  I grunted and walked back over to my window, Caspian joining me moments after. I didn’t speak, I didn’t have much of anything to say. So Caspian filled an hour with chatter about his precious horse: Windfall.

  “So after I brushed him—you know he has certain favorite spots in which he likes to be scratched and the grooms never get him there—I took him out for a ride.”

  I liked Windfall enough, but Caspian never allowed anybody else to ride him. I was stuck riding old nags, so it sort of felt like he was rubbing it in my face.

  “He got a rock lodged in his hoof so I had to stop and pick it out, but otherwise his gaits were perfectly smooth! I raced Lord Gai’s son, Roland, and beat him by a mile if it was an inch!”

  Did I mention Caspian really doted on his horse?

  After an hour of equine discussion Caspian silenced himself and stretched. “I have to go. We’re having a feast tonight and Mage Helem is performing,” he grimly said before gallantly handing me an apple he smuggled up.

  “Have fun!” I said as I bit into the proffered apple.

  “I will try. But Ahira, please don’t try to anger Mother as often anymore. I think you’re steadily pushing her to the edge of a precipice,” he warned before making his exit, disappearing in all his princely glory.

  I laid down on my bed for a nap and fell asleep—sleeping into stables is hard work you know. Unfortunately I woke up a few hours later. It was dark and I blinked as I slid out from underneath my blankets. I walked over to my open window once more and peered outside. The window was good sized, as high as I am tall and at least as wide.

  “Hmm,” I said. “Judging by the constellations… it’s nearly midnight. In mere minutes I shall be 16-years-old,” I concluded. (Ironically, I was staring up at the dragon star constellation as I said this.)

  I sniffed the air. It was heavy with the scent of rain and as frigid as ice. Winter had just left us what felt like mere days ago. I was most pleased with my observations when the bells of the cathedral tower started to toll.

  One…

  I wondered who was ringing them tonight.

  Two...

  I hoped it was choir boy, Corinth. That little brat kicked me at the last mass I attended.

  Three…

  I hoped I would get at least one present for my birthday

  Four…

  I was so wrapped up in the sounding of the bells that I didn’t notice the screams or the smoky scent of fire that came from the main entrance of our palace. I also didn’t hear the great gusts of wind, or even feel the faint sizzle of magic. Oblivious dolt, that’s what I was.

  Eleven…

  Just one more toll till I’m sixteen.

  Twelve…

  “…Well that’s cheap!” I muttered. “I don’t feel any different,” I said as I turned away from my window and started to walk back to my bed. It was then that I heard a strange noise. It was a combination of wind and something dragging across stone. I sleepily turned around and my eyes bulged out of their sockets when I spotted a colossal, red dragon flying directly outside my window.

  My shrill screams caught his attention, drawing his gigantic eyes to peer into my room. One of his silver claws snaked out to grasp me, pulling me through the window and into the clutches of his paws. It was then that I noticed the front gate was on fire. The guards were mobilized and standing in the courtyard. They were shouting and gesturing wildly, but I couldn’t hear anything over the steady beat of the dragon’s wings.

  Being held high above the ground, in the claws of a dragon no less, I did what any other person would have done. I screamed bloody murder. “LET ME GO!” I shouted between blood curdling shrieks.

  The dragon ignored my screams and instead caged me between his clawed paws. As I increased the volume of
my shouts the dragon banked and started flying higher.

  I screamed some more. “TAKE ME BACK! I TASTE HORRID, I PROMISE! LET ME GO! CASPIAN!”

  The dragon ignored me, and his huge bat-like wings pumped as we soared higher into the air until my castle was a tiny dot. It was then that I had to silence myself, unable to breathe enough in the thin air the dragon soared through.

  I gasped for air as I sat in the dragon’s careful grasp. I could hear a steady whooshing noise grow overpoweringly louder. I peered through the cracks between my captor’s claws saw four other dragons had sidled along side of us. Each dragon clasped its forepaws together, like the dragon carrying me.

  “It was a raid for princesses!” I hiccupped in revelation.

  Mother was forever lecturing me about the proper, historical role of a princess. One of the things she used to hold up to me as a shining example of femininity was a captive princess. Once upon a time dragons used to kidnap princesses. These beautiful maidens were always held hostage until a great prince (usually one would emerge after several not-quite-great princes had already tried to save the princesses and were roasted in the process) came and killed the dragon, freeing the graceful and properly cowed girl.

  It was a myth I was always particularly disgusted with because the princesses saw none of the action and apparently never had the brains to try and escape on their own.

  Foolish princess drabble aside, I was always taught that it was part of our history. Princess raids hadn’t happened in practically forever. Or at the very least, before my mother was born—which is almost forever!

  This made me very, very mad. Don’t get me wrong, I was terrified of the dragons! But this would undoubtedly make my mother’s year. Now a prince would come rescue me, and I would have no choice but to marry him out of duty and gratefulness.

  I considered swearing under my breath—hanging around the stables does have its perks—but I thought better of it and instead continued to peek through the confines of the dragon’s paw.

  I fell backwards in surprise. We were passing over the Enchanted Mountains, the divider between Somnio and its magic filled counterpart, Tsol. Apparently dragons flew faster than I thought.

  I shuddered from the cold and rolled myself into a ball, trying to hug the flimsy material of my ugly green dress closer to me. I sneezed, and my ears popped as we started to lose altitude. The gradual descent went on for about half an hour. One long, cold, miserable half an hour.

  I was peering through the cracks of my captor’s clasped claws when the ground zoomed into my sight. I screamed as we began to land, convinced I was going to be squashed, but the dragon landed rear first. There was a deafening rumble as he plopped down on the ground, shaking my entire body.

  The dragons slowly waddled forward on their back feet before growing excessively exasperated. My dragon, in a stroke of ingenuity, latched one clawed paw around me, holding me much how I used to hold my dolls as a child. This action freed up one paw, allowing him to move forward in a shuffling, three legged hobble.

  The other dragons carefully copied his movement, holding their princesses in a single paw. We, the princesses, were set down in a circle in the middle of a giant cave. It was so big that the ceiling didn’t end. It just disappeared into a big black cloud. Giant torches were fastened to the gleaming, marble walls. It looked a little like a coliseum.

  About four hundred dragons were perched on the sidelines of the cave. They were watching us with glowing eyes that came in a wide array of colors and shapes.

  What surprised me most about the dragons, not like I was able to think very brilliantly at that moment, was their elegance. Their scales shone like precious, plate sized gems. The younger dragons were big, proud and glossy. Their body structure was sturdy, but they had a sort of feline grace to them. Their necks were long and their faces were almost equine with their glowing eyes set on the sides of their head.

  A particularly fat dragon lumbered up to us princesses and cleared his throat. “In our scouting of Somnio five dragons returned with princesses. We are ready to divvy them out,” he announced.

  My mouth dropped to the floor. “I didn’t know they could talk,” I uttered. Mother’s legends never mentioned smart dragons. Princess snatchers were always greedy snarling beasts, not educated creatures!

  Out of all the princesses it seemed that I was the only one who was awed. The others were crying in muddled messes on the floor. Well, all but one of them. The odd ball of the bunch was a fierce looking princess with coarse, black hair. She looked very warrior like.

  In a situation like this that would usually endear her to me. However, she appeared to be mad. Insane. Not quite right in the head. How did I draw this conclusion? She was army crawling on the ground in a circle. As she crawled she muttered under her breath.

  “This is all because I pose to be such a big threat to my brother the crown prince!” the nutso princess decided. Her laugh was distinctly horse like. “If I were to remain in my country any longer surely the people would revolt and demand I take the throne! But alas, I am by far the most beautiful princess here! Surely the dragons will eat me to retain their lizard beauty!”

  I was dumb struck by her speech, mostly because she looked like a cross frog.

  My attention was only drawn away from the crazed princess when the dragons began humming. It was a musical sound that came from the back of their throats.

  “And Duke Azmaveth here by receives the honor of going first!” the gold dragon announced. Apparently the dragons, going by some sort of ranking system, got to choose a princess to serve them. Interesting, not only were they able to speak, they had some sort of government.

  The humming grew louder still and I realized it wasn’t that the dragons weren’t singing, but were gossiping with one another. A dragon slowly stalked towards us, presumably Duke Azmaveth.

  He was huge. A horse could have comfortably stood on his forehead! His scales were a lustrous royal purple, and his intelligent purple eyes were slightly darker than the hue of his scales. He was big, even with his wings tucked against his sides, but still elegant.

  He sat on his hindquarters, much like a cat, while studying us. I instinctively backed away from his sharp gaze and noticed that the scary, fierce princess was smoldering and shaking her fist at him. The other girls had stopped crying and were instead on the verge of hysteria.

  The dragon moved his giant head toward me and blew out of his enormous nostrils, which was like a blast of wind.

  The purple dragon cocked his head at me before turning to the fat dragon and nodding.

  “Huh?” I said. Suddenly a giant silver claw swiped out at me and I found myself pressed against a solid, purple surface. I tipped my head up and saw the purple dragon looking down at me, his intelligent eyes watching me. I tried shifting, but I was utterly trapped by the claw. No matter how I wriggled I couldn’t get out of my captor’s grip.

  Slowly, one by one the princesses were chosen by dragons. Predictably, the scary princess was chosen last and her dragon was looking quite reserved as he dragged her out of the cave—which quickly emptied after the ceremony was over.

  The purple dragon abruptly released me. I stumbled forward and jumped as the dragon lowered his giant head to gaze at me.

  “My name is Azmaveth,” he said. His voice was a smooth and musical sound. He blinked as I stared, too afraid to speak. “You will be spending a bit of time with me, until I get bored with you that is, so you might as well tell me your name,” he said helpfully.

  “Ah-ah-Ahira,” I said, barely able to spit out my name.

  “Lovely name, Ahira,” he said it pleasantly as if this all was normal. “Now climb on my back and we’ll head home,” he instructed.

  I didn’t move. If I did my legs would give out in an instant.

  Azmaveth the dragon sighed, picked me up with his claws, and deposited me on a ridge between his neck and his shoulder blades.

  He exited the cave, unfolded his wings, and gracefully launc
hed us into flight. We flew over a huge forest, which I recalled from the stories of I’ve heard of Tsol as being named the Endless Forest—not very original, I know—for about ten minutes. We suddenly banked and dove, landing in a huge meadow. I stammered from in my notch and rolled off, his scales digging into my skin.

  “This is my home,” he explained as we stared at a pair of huge doors that were nestled into the side of a hill. I couldn’t see the top of the hill in the darkness, nor could I see the ceiling when the dragon opened the doors, allowing us to enter his domain.

  I heard Azmaveth hiss, and suddenly huge torches on the cave walls sputtered to life. The floor was made of marble and the sides of limestone. The hallway slowly sloped down into the earth.

  We entered the main chamber, which doubled as a sitting room and a dining room of sorts. “The north tunnel goes to my room and the treasury. The south tunnel leads to the library and dragon washroom. The east tunnel goes to the kitchen, a washroom for you, and your bedroom. The west tunnel, which we just left, will take you back out of the den.”

  “Oh,” I carefully said before setting out in the direction of my room. (I was surprised he intended to house me so civily, but then again I still hadn’t quite gotten over my shock of hearing dragons talk.) I heard him lumber after me as I navigated my way through the tunnels. I finally came to my room, which Azmaveth could only peer into. His head was too big to fit through the doorway. It had a bed, a dresser, a broken mirror, and a dusty, empty bookshelf.

  I hopped on the bed and Azmaveth blew out of his nostrils.

  “Night,” he said, heading back down the hallway.

  I stared up at the ceiling and considered the irony of my situation. As a child I had always criticized the princesses who were kidnapped by dragons and never attempted an escape. Now that I was in the same mess as those damsels in distress, it occurred to me that zooming outside, head first, into a wild forest in the middle of the night did not sound like a brilliant plan.