The Princess and The Dragon

Chapter 10 - Round 1

   The following morning, my stomach was abuzz with nervous butterflies. I had barely slept in the night, and the moments that I did, I had the most horrid of nightmares: I fell from Stormshine’s back and into an abyss, or Flarescream would attack us while he was thrice as big as in reality; Godan’s manic laughter rang through my ears long after I woke up. There was a bracing chill in the air, but it was mixed with an air of inferiority, which tangled itself around me as I gazed out onto the grounds from my bedroom window.

   I heard a few knocks on my door, and jumped as Randa let herself in before I could speak. She seemed just as fidgety as I was, but she was carrying two bundles, one wrapped in shiny black cloth (and I could have sworn that I heard clinking from within), the other in pink frills. I frowned.

   “Cule made you armour, and your saddle is with Stormshine,” she explained, “That’s what is in the black package. In here is the new dress your father bought for you. Fortunately for you, you are not the one who will need to wear it.”

   I stared with apprehension as she set the packages down on the bed, moving to the pink one and starting to open it. In order to save myself from hurling, I kept a hand to my mouth and gurgled, walking back to the window for fresh air.

   In the brief glimpse that I had gotten of the dress, it was the most ill-inducing object I had ever seen in my entire life, and that was including the time I had accidentally walked in on a pair of servants fornicating on the kitchen counters one night, when I had gone for a midnight snack. I had been thirteen, and vomited all over the floor in front of me.

   The dress I had just seen was so pink and so frilly that, had I not spent the past few weeks with a dragon and thus increased the strength of my stomach, Randa would not have been pleased with the mess I would have made.

   “Don’t worry,” she said, laughing. I heard her folding the package closed again. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

   “I wish,” I replied, still holding a hand to my mouth.

   “I’ll go get you breakfast,” she said, and I could still hear the amusement in her voice.

   “I can’t eat,” I said. Just thinking about the sensation of something opening the passage down my throat, which I was trying to keep closed with all my might, enveloped me in a fresh wave of nausea.

   “I wasn’t asking,” she said with a wink, exiting the room again.

   I gave a sorrowful whimper and walked over to the bed, opening the black package. Within the folds of the cloth was a set of black leather armour, and shiny golden shoulder blades, bracers and greaves. A black belt held it all together, and the buckle was gold with Stormshine’s face engraved into it.

   “Oh, God, I can’t look,” I said to myself, imagining myself in various scenarios in which the modest amount of armour would fail to protect me, even though I was very grateful for the notion. I made a mental note to thank Cule later.

   Suddenly, I heard several heavy knocks on my door that I recognised to be that of my father. He called, “Allania? Are you decent?”

   “No!” I cried, panicked about what would happen if he saw the armour, “Don’t come in here!”

   “Oh – I – all right,” he said through the door, “I was wondering if Randa gave you your gift yet?”

   “She did. It’s ugly, to say the least.”

   “Perhaps you would like to wear it to the race today, if you’re interested?” he asked. I had always wondered whether he thought I was sarcastic about the ugliness of the dresses, or if he simply never heard what I said about them.