Always Be Appreciative of Opposable Thumbs

Chapter One: The Princess in the Cabbage Patch

 It was gone.

The entire cabbage field was gone.

Well, not gone exactly. Destroyed. Burnt, by the looks of it. There were scorch marks all along the neatly plowed rows, and any heads of cabbage that had not been turned to ash were black as charcoal.

Willow tore her eyes away from the disaster to steal a glance at the young man standing beside her. He stared at his lost livelihood with a strange calmness, his short, brown hair blowing lightly in the wind and his tanned face void of any real emotion. But she knew him well enough to understand that his disconnected gaze meant he was trying to keep himself from having a complete and utter meltdown.

"Come on, Hugo," she said, taking his arm and pulling him towards their shared cottage. "Let's go inside and sit down and just think things through."

Alas, there was no inside to go into. Much like the cabbage field, the cottage had been reduced to charred pieces of wood, some of which were still smoking.

"How?" Hugo muttered.

Willow stifled a whimper, mourning the loss of the sweet little home they had shared for the past two years. So many memories of working together in the fields, selling their cabbages in the market, and enjoying quiet evenings by the fire. All of it was gone now.

Her gaze flickered to her stunned friend, and her heart fluttered. At least she wasn't alone. She still had Hugo. Her grumpy, sweet, adorable Hugo.

"I know this looks bad," she said, pasting on an encouraging smile. "But things could be so much worse."

Hugo looked at her as if she were crazy. "How could it be worse? Our home and our means of survival have both been destroyed."

"We still have some cabbages in the cart that we didn't sell at the market. And we have the cart. We can live in it until we find a new place to grow cabbages. They'll grow most anywhere, especially with your green thumb."

"Willow, we can't live in a cart."

"Why not?"

"It's not a real home."

"Home is where your family is. And we're family, aren't we?"

"I mean, not technically, but—"

A low moan interrupted them. They turned to the field and saw amongst the blackened vegetables a body. Another moan came from its general direction as it began to move. Willow squeezed Hugo's arm and ran off towards it.

It was a woman. A small, fair-skinned woman in a man's shirt and trousers. She sat up with a groan and ran a hand through her short, black hair.

"Are you all right?" Willow asked, falling to her knees beside the mysterious maiden.

"Slight headache," the woman said, her voice lower than Willow would have expected considering her small frame.

"You weren't burnt, were you?"

"Burnt? Ahh, no, not me."

"Did you see who did this?" Hugo asked as he joined them.

"Did what?" the woman asked.

Hugo motioned to the razed field, his dark blue eyes wide with sarcasm. The woman followed his gesture, hardly reacting to the smoking head of cabbage laying right next to her.

"Oh, that," she said. "Ah, yes. Actually, it was a dragon."

Willow clutched her chest, her pulse pounding. "A dragon?"

"Yes, a dragon."

"And how did you remain unscorched by this dragon?" Hugo asked rather skeptically.

"Well, I was being kidnapped by the dragon."

"Kidnapped? Why would a dragon kidnap you?" Willow asked.

"Yes, what makes you so special?" Hugo asked.

"I'm a princess."

Willow gasped, hardly able to contain her excitement at meeting a real, live princess. "Amazing! How did you manage to escape the dragon?"

"He had a sudden coughing fit—hence your scorched field—and ended up dropping me. Lucky, eh?"

The woman flashed them a crooked grin.

"Lucky for whom? Our home is destroyed!" Hugo said, gesturing violently at his ruined cottage.

"Oh yeah. Tough break there," the woman mumbled as she gazed at the smoking rubble.

"Princess, is there anything we can do to help?" Willow asked.

"Do you have any water?" the woman asked, rubbing at her throat. "I'm parched."

"We had a well, but your dragon friend burnt it," Hugo snapped.

"How are my kidnapper's actions my fault?"

"Princess—is that how I should address you? Just Princess? I've never met a princess before," Willow gushed.

Hugo rolled his eyes.

"My name is Serafima. But you can call me Princess Sera."

"All right, Princess Sera," Hugo said irritably. "It's been real nice meeting you and all, but we have to try to scrounge up whatever pieces of our life are left and decide what we should do next."

"Hugo! She's a princess, you can't talk to her like that," Willow said.

"She doesn't look like a princess to me."

"Not all princesses have to be pretty blonde damsels."

"Whoa, are you saying I'm not pretty?" Sera interrupted as she got to her feet. She paused, one eyebrow quirked, and turned her grey eyes to them. "Is that your cart over there?"

Hugo glanced over at his rickety old cabbage cart. "It is. What of it?"

Sera pushed past him and approached it, examining it carefully before turning back to them. "Tell you what," she said as she leaned against it. "I'll make a deal with you. If you help me get home to Elaric, I can guarantee that my father, the King, will reward you handsomely."

"Help a princess? Oh, how exciting!" Willow said. She looked up at Hugo pleadingly. "Please, Hugo, let's do it. It will be a wonderful adventure."

Hugo hesitated. He looked at her, then at Sera, and then her again. Glancing back at his smoking field and cottage, he once more set his attention on her. Finally, he turned to Sera.

"So if we help you, your father will pay us?" he asked.

Sera shrugged her shoulders. "I can only imagine he would. So long as I'm returned to him safely."

"And that's all you want from us? To bring you home?"

"Yes. In your cart. My poor, dainty feet just can't handle the arduous trek."

She stuck out a booted foot and pouted.

Hugo sighed. "Fine. We'll help you get home."

Willow cheered. "This is going to be so much fun!" she said, jumping up and down excitedly.

"All right, then," Sera said as she climbed into the back of the cart. "No better time to start than now. So which of you two is gonna pull this thing?"