Fables/Fairytales Fan Fiction / Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ The Princess and the Dragon ❯ The Princess and the Dragon ( One-Shot )

The Princess and the Dragon

© 2006 Ohne Sie

 

 

 

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess. Well, actually…no, she wasn't all that beautiful, really…but she was a princess. Her parents, the king and queen (of course), had always wanted a son. So when their daughter was born they wanted to get rid of her. But they didn't. Because they soon discovered that they could have no more children.

 

“Oh, woe is me,” the queen said, sobbing. The king patted her on the shoulder.

 

“There, there. There is only one thing we can do now. We must raise our daughter as we would raise a son.”

 

And so they did. The young princess's hair was cut short and she was forced to wear boys' clothes. She was given lessons in all of the things a boy would be taught: fencing, several languages, horseback riding, mathematics, and science. She was raised as a boy, even though everyone knew she was a girl.

 

When the princess was older, the king and queen were faced with a difficult situation. The princess would have to get married. But how would they arrange such a thing? They had raised their daughter as a prince, not a princess, but had not thought about what would happen when she was of age to be married. They thought for days about their predicament. They could not marry her to a prince, because no prince would want her. But they could not marry her to a princess because she was biologically female.

 

After a few days, the king made a decision. “She will be sent to marry the dragon!”

 

The queen also thought this was a fantastic idea. “Yes! The dragon will be thrilled to marry a princess, and then he will never again attack our kingdom!”

 

The princess, of course, was not at all thrilled by this decision. “You're marrying me to a dragon?” she asked, exasperated.

 

“Yes. It will be a fine match, I believe,” the queen said. “You will be sent to the dragon's cave tomorrow at dawn. You must pack your things quickly. Go to it. Shoo,” she said, snapping her fingers at a servant who lead her daughter away.

 

“But who will rule over our kingdom once we are gone?” the king wondered. The queen did not have an answer. The king sighed. “I would not like to have a dragon be my heir, but it seems we have no choice if our daughter is to marry him.”

 

“Unless we can somehow manage to find a prince willing to defeat the dragon and save her,” the queen suggested. “Then, not only will our daughter be married, but the dragon will be slain as well, and we will have a future king!”

 

“Brilliantly spoken,” the king said. “Of course I'll take full credit for the idea.” He turned to one of his servants. “Send out an announcement to the princes of the neighboring kingdoms that my daughter will be forced to marry a dragon unless one of them rescues her in time! And that prince's reward shall be my kingdom…as long as he marries my daughter.”

 

The servant did as the king commanded, and the king and queen relaxed on their thrones. “Well, that's going to work out perfectly, I believe,” the queen said.

 

“Yes, it will.” The king called for the court jester to entertain them for the rest of the night.

 

Meanwhile, the princess was in her room packing. She angrily shoved her clothes into a bag. “Marry me to a dragon, will they,” she muttered. “Well, it's their fault if no prince wants to marry me!” She growled. She finished packing and sat on her bed, glaring at the door. “What good would marrying a dragon do, anyway? What kind of husband would a dragon be? He'd probably just eat me.” She shuddered at the thought. “Ew.” She lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. “Or do they expect the dragon to rule the kingdom once they're dead?” She laughed. “Yes. That's likely.”

 

The dragon, meanwhile, was informed by a messenger that the princess was being sent to marry him the next morning. After eating the messenger, as he was a dragon and that's what dragons do, the dragon sat in a corner of his cave and pondered the idea for a moment. “What would I do with a princess?” He twitched his tail back and forth in annoyance. “I could eat her…but then why would I marry her first? What, do the king and queen expect me to leave their kingdom alone if I marry their daughter? And if they get rid of the princess, who will rule the kingdom once they're dead?” His tail stopped twitching as he pondered something else. “Maybe they want me to become king? But that's just stupid.” He curled into a ball and closed his eyes, preparing himself for sleep.

 

The messenger who was to send the request for a prince to rescue the princess somehow got to every neighboring kingdom by noon the next day. It doesn't matter how he managed to do this, so don't ask. Everywhere he went he was met with laughter.

 

“Why would I want that kingdom? I already have my own.” The first prince said.

 

“Because you could double your land mass?” the messenger suggested.

 

“Yeah, but I don't feel like having that much responsibility.”

 

“Isn't that the princess who dresses like a prince?” the second prince asked.

 

“Er, yes…but she is, you know, technically a princess.”

 

“No thanks.”

 

“I'll do it,” the third prince said, shrugging. He was the brother of the second prince and had no way of inheriting a kingdom otherwise. Plus there was a significant shortage of princesses and he was afraid that he would not be married at all. “Take me back with you and I'll, I don't know…vanquish the dragon somehow.”

 

So the messenger and the unenthusiastic prince went back to the king and queen. The king looked at the prince and frowned.

 

“You're the one who is going to save my daughter and rule my kingdom? You're kind of scrawny for a future king, aren't you?”

 

The prince shrugged. “No one else will do it.”

 

The king seemed satisfied with this answer. “Okay, messenger. Take the prince to the dragon.”

 

“Uh, about that…” The messenger shifted his feet nervously. “See, I'm a messenger…I only get sent out when there's a message to deliver…not a prince to deliver.”

 

“Oh.” The king thought for a moment.

 

“Send him a message, then. Tell him `hi,' from the king and queen,” the queen said.

 

“Brilliant plan,” the king said. “I take full credit for it. Messenger, you will go to the dragon and tell him that we say `hi.' Now go!”

 

The messenger was not at all happy about this, but he obeyed the orders of his king and queen. He dragged the prince with him to the dragon's cave, where the princess had been brought earlier that morning.

 

“Dragon?” the messenger asked.

 

“Yes?” the dragon responded. “Princess, go see who is here.”

 

The princess did so, going to the cave's entrance. “It's a messenger, Dragon.”

 

“Oh, is it? Tell him to come in.”

 

“Come in,” the princess told the messenger. She looked at the prince. “I guess you can come in too.”

 

The messenger and the prince walked in. The princess followed.

 

“What do you want, then?” the dragon asked.

 

“I'm here with a message…the king and queen say `hi.'” The messenger backed away.

 

“Ah, now, you know you can't leave. You're a messenger and it's a rule that dragons must always eat messengers.”

 

“I had hoped that you'd forgotten that rule.” The messenger sighed and stood quite still as the dragon gobbled him up.

 

“And you,” the dragon said, turning to the prince. “Why are you here?”

 

“To save the princess,” the prince said simply.

 

“So you'll want to kill me, then?” the dragon asked. “I just want to make sure we're clear on this.”

 

“Oh, no,” the prince responded. “I plan on convincing you to give the princess to me.”

 

“I can rescue myself,” the princess insisted, but the prince and the dragon laughed.

 

“You're a princess! You can't save yourself,” the dragon said.

 

“Yes, it's a rule. Princesses must be saved by a prince,” the prince added.

 

The princess sighed. The prince turned again to the dragon. “Why do you want her anyway?”

 

“I don't, really. I don't feel like eating her because I'm pretty full on messengers already. But she was given to me to marry, and I must marry her unless you kill me.”

 

“So you won't be tempted by words?” the prince asked.

 

“I'm afraid not. It's been ages since I've had a good fight to the death. Although, from the looks of you, I won't be getting that, either.” The dragon sighed. “Let's get this over with, then.”

 

“Yes,” the prince replied. “Princess, you will have to cover your eyes…” He frowned, looking around. The princess was nowhere to be seen. “Princess?”

 

The dragon also searched for her. “She's not here,” he said.

 

“Well, then. We have no reason to be fighting, have we?” the prince asked. “So I believe I will be leaving now. It was nice meeting you, Dragon.”

 

“Yes, quite.” The dragon nodded. “However, if I happen to come across any princesses in the near future, you must come see me again.”

 

“Oh, of course. I shall do that, definitely.” The prince left the cave and the dragon, heading back to his kingdom. But before he got very far he was attacked from behind.

 

It was the princess. She was very angry. “So not only do you believe that I cannot save myself, but you don't even stay and fight the dragon?” she asked.

 

“There was no point in it. You were gone, and as there was no princess to save, there was no need to fight the dragon. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I'll take you home.”

 

The princess laughed. “Oh, but if you take me home they'll send me right back to the dragon, or force me to marry you. And I'd much prefer not to do either. So thank you, Mr. Prince, but I don't believe I will be going home at this time.”

 

“But the rules clearly state that we are to be married,” the prince protested. “Once the princess is rescued—"

 

“But you did not rescue me. You and the dragon never even fought. What right do you have…?”

 

“Fine. Here's a solution,” the prince offered, rolling his eyes. “We'll go back into the cave, I'll fight the dragon, and we'll go back to your kingdom and be married.”

 

“Or…I can leave now, run far away and live by myself in the woods for the rest of my life,” the princess said. “Which I believe to be a far more suitable proposition.”

 

“What's going on out here?” the dragon demanded, stepping out of his cave.

 

“She's being unreasonably stubborn,” the prince said.

 

“He's being stubbornly unreasonable,” the princess said.

 

“Then it seems to me that you're perfect for each other and you should get married right away. Or that you're absolutely not perfect for each other and should never see each other again. Either way, get away from my cave before I eat you both,” the dragon growled.

 

The prince and the princess took the hint and walked away, unintentionally heading toward the princess's kingdom. When the princess realized this, she glared at the prince.

 

“What?” he asked tiredly.

 

“Why are you following me?” the princess asked.

 

“You're following me. I'm going to your parents to tell them that you're not worth it. I thought you were going to the woods.”

 

“I could not survive on my own in the woods!” the princess exclaimed angrily.

 

“So you're going home? But I thought you said they would either force you to marry me or the dragon.” The prince smirked.

 

“They probably will, but I can escape that as well,” she said, shrugging. “Besides, you already said I'm not worth it, and I'm sure the dragon agrees, so in the end, I'll win and inherit the kingdom all by myself.”

 

“Maybe I should marry you just so that you'll be miserable,” the prince suggested.

 

“Maybe,” the princess said. “But so would you.”

 

“So neither of us would be happy. Sounds perfect to me.” The prince shrugged.

 

“You're a jerk.” The princess stuck her tongue out. “I'm not marrying you.”

 

“Yeah, you are.” The prince kept walking toward the castle. The princess glared at him. Then she ran after him.

 

“I hate you.”

 

“I know, I hate you too.”

 

“I'll kill you before you'll rule the kingdom.”

 

“Not if I kill you first.”

 

“My parents will never agree to this!”

 

“They already have.”

 

The prince and the princess argued all the way to the castle. They were still arguing when they stood before the thrones of the king and queen.

 

“You didn't even fight the dragon for me! You wanted to reason with him? Reason with a dragon? And you two just…gave up! Because I left! You're not a hero at all! You're—"

 

“You broke the rules! Princesses are not allowed to rescue themselves! I knew there was a reason that no one else wanted to come save you!”

 

“Well, you're just pathetic! You don't even have a kingdom to call your own and you'll never be king!”

 

“But I will have a kingdom to call my own when I marry you!”

 

“You're not marrying me!”

 

“I am!”

 

“You're not!”

 

“I am!”

 

“You're not!”

 

“I am!”

 

“Silence!” The king held his head. “I'm starting to get a headache. You. Prince. What happened?”

 

“I got to the dragon, he ate your messenger—“

 

The king sighed. “And good messengers are so hard to come by these days…”

 

“I told him why I was there,” the prince continued. “Then the princess said that she didn't need me and could rescue herself—“

 

The king and queen laughed heartily at this. The princess clenched her fists.

 

“I could!”

 

“No, you couldn't,” the other three said.

 

The prince continued again, “Which caused the dragon and me much amusement. Well, then I tried to reason with him—“

 

“Reasoning with a dragon,” the queen scoffed. The princess smirked.

 

“But he said that the only way to solve the problem was by fighting. Well, at that time we realized the princess was gone—“

 

“She saved herself?” the king asked. The princess nodded.

 

“So we determined that there was no need to fight. So I started to head back here—“

 

“He still thinks he's going to marry me!” the princess interrupted. “Even though he didn't even fight the dragon!”

 

“You rescued yourself!”

 

“So you both broke the rules?” the king asked.

 

“Yes!” The prince and the princes glared at each other.

 

The king sighed. “What is the rule when the rules have been broken by both parties?” he asked the queen.

 

She turned to a servant, who handed her the Official Rule Book. She thumbed through it. “Ah, here. In the case of a princess who was raised as a prince being forced by her parents to marry a dragon, then a prince coming to save her even though he didn't really want to, and the princess saving herself and the dragon and the prince never even fighting…the rule is that the prince and the princess must be married.”

 

“What?” the princess demanded, grabbing the book from her mother.

 

The prince smiled smugly.

 

“But…then we can just break this rule! Because we've broken countless others already!” The princess said desperately.

 

“No,” the king said calmly. “You must marry the prince. Immediately.”

 

“Does the rule book say `immediately'?” the princess asked, crossing her arms over her chest and sticking her tongue out at her father.

 

“Yes,” the queen said, pointing to the line in the book that said “immediately.”

 

The princess glared at the book, then glared at her parents, and finally glared at the prince. “I hate you all.”

 

“Lovely,” the king said.

 

“Well, I hate your father, so you don't have to love someone to marry them.”

 

“Whatever,” the princess said, defeated. “Marry us already. Then I can go back to doing what I want all the time.”

 

“Sounds good to me,” the prince said.

 

“Right. Tomorrow then,” the king agreed.

 

They were married the next day. Everyone in the kingdom was there to witness it, including the dragon…who ate a few people, because that is the rule. Dragons must always eat people where they are present.

 

The prince and the princess never really spoke to each other again. The prince was happy because he got a kingdom. The princess was happy because she did what she wanted whenever she wanted. The dragon was happy because he got a constant supply of messengers sent from the castle to satisfy his hunger. And the king and queen were dead fairly quickly, so it does not matter whether or not they were happy. So everyone lived happily ever after.

 

The End.