The Dragon's Princess

2.

I was woken up early the next morning by one of my maids. She ordered me to go up to the fourth floor in the east wing to start my dress fitting. The first order of business in what was sure to be a long day. I asked her to take Semoda down to breakfast and have something sent up for me, which she agreed to. When she and Semoda left, I put my hair up into a ponytail and slipped into my silk robe before I headed up to my fitting.

The castle had a simple layout, well once you got used to it. The main floors in the center, east, and west wings were all common rooms like the dining room, ballroom, library, throne room, etc. The second floor for all wings were completely made of guest rooms. The third-floor west wing was where my and mother's rooms were, and the east and west wings were staff rooms. The fourth floor held fitting rooms, training rooms, mother's office, and my own personal parlor that was tucked away in the corner of the east wing. It was a lot of rooms and it always took new staff a while to figure everything out even with a map. I'll admit, sometimes even I got lost in here.

When I walked into my fitting room I was instantly stripped down to my undergarments and slipped into a dress. It was a floor length, long-sleeved crimson dress. The sleeves and bodice were lace and the skirt was nothing special, just a nice puffy princess skirt. Mother believed in simple but elegant dresses and it was one thing that I never argued with her on. Seeing all these other girls in intricately designed dresses just gave me a headache to stare at.

I stood on the small platform patiently as I was pricked, I don't know how many times as the women made sure that everything was going to fit as close to perfect as she could get it. I was just glad that this would be the end of the tailoring, being pricked with a pin or a needle a million times got frustrating after a while.

As the tailor was finishing up pinning the little rings that slipped around my fingers to keep the long sleeves in place, mother entered the room. She didn't say anything at first so the woman could finish up, but once the woman rose and started putting away her things started talking.

"You look nice." She stated.

"I think this is my favorite dress to date," I said.

"Are you done here?" My mother asked the tailor.

"Yes, my Queen." She nodded.

She turned her attention back to me and handed me a list, "Someone is bringing clothes up for you. That's everything that you need to do. It's mainly extra things requested by our guests and things to make the rooms look nice. Some of the things we need today so you'll have to be as quick as you can."

I didn't say anything, I just nodded. The tailor helped me out of my dress just as a maid walked in and handed me a set of clothes. I excused both the maid and the tailor and mother left right behind them so I could get ready. I slipped on the black flowing off the shoulder top and jeans and finally, I stuffed my feet into the black flats. As I walked out of the room, I pulled my hair out of its ponytail and my hair messily fell into place. With one hand I ran my fingers through it to make it look a bit more presentable and with the other hand, I held my to-do list up so I could read over it. Flowers, towels, sheets, extra coffee, extra snacks, and the list went on and on. They were all small things, but I had to go to a million different shops too because she wanted very specific brands and types of things.

I stepped into the elevator and as soon as I was down on the main floor Semoda came flying over and landed right on top of my head. I reached up and scratched his side as I walked both of us out of the palace and right into the carriage that was waiting to take us toward the shopping district. It wasn't a long ride, within ten minutes I was out and headed towards my first stop, but it wasn't to do any shopping for mother. It was to my favorite café in the Kingdom, The Witches Brew.