The Green Dragon part ONE
The knight stood at the bottom of the tower of the princess that he’d been told to rescue. He wasn’t even sure why he had this overwhelming urge to rescue anything because up until this point the only things that he’d saved had been the cat in the tree for the small child that was in the castle a couple of months ago. It was all the same, a height and something to rescue. She hadn’t noticed him yet, took a deep breath to calm himself down and concentrate on something different. He looked around at the grassy knoll that the tower was built on, apart from the small town below. The peasants in the town had given him wary eyes as he walked through clanking his armour.
He considered his task before him, and the fact that he’d needed to concentrate. He’d been tasked by the princess’s father to find her and take her home. Finally, he felt confident enough to bellow up. The sound echoed up the wall, there was some movement, the window opened, and a face peered out of it, presumably the lady whom he was going to rescue.
His observations so far had yielded a door. It was unlocked. He was glad of this of course, a stray thought making him consider why it was so easy, but he brushed it away like one flick an errant stray hair. He opened the door fully onto a landing with a staircase in the back corner. There was what looked to be a coat rack and the thought that he had when he opened that door came back to him. Fame and glory overrode his concerns. Fame and glory at rescuing the King’s wayward daughter. The final steps dropped him on a landing that looked approximately like the one below. The one thing that he noticed was that the round room was sparsely furnished into an apartment of sorts.
After catching his breath, the stairs were steeper than anticipated, he noticed the princess was sitting on the other side of the room in a threadbare armchair. She stood up and watched him but didn’t move any closer.
“I’ve come to rescue you from the foul dragon and take you back in the arms of your bosom father.” Although it was old fashioned, he didn’t expect to see that the princess was furrowed in her forehead in a thinking mood.
So, he forged ahead with the rest of what intended to say. He paused and said nothing else for it was his idea that he would be able to rescue the princess, maybe there would be a quick but glorious battle with the dragon and that he would be the end of it. Even as he was thinking this, another thought popped in that he might not win.
He pulled out his sword in a dramatic flourish that would have been perfect in any story of a prince saving the princess. The man who had come up the stairs just looked at him.
But the man that had asked the question repeated the question in a way that made the knight confused and made him think that the man had not just seen the previous display and was dumb. He did notice that the voice had changed, it had gone from a normal tone to a lower tone. The man had a sword on his hip but had not made any movement to get it out. The princess was in the back, the furrow in her face had disappeared. And she looked at him closer, her eyes getting slightly wider.
“It’s Richard from my father’s kingdom,” she paused a second, “but he was a squire the last time that I saw him.”
He cut in quickly, “It is I, madam, but I have completed my training and now I am here to save you from the foul beast that has captured you.”
“Do you just speak in fairy tales? A foul beast, a bosom father…?”
When he’d seen her at the palace, she had been serene and gorgeous. Now that he reflected, she was wearing rough peasant clothing, and she was confused and scared. The contrast to him was obvious. Even if she had run off, her place was in her palace where she would be happy.
“I am happy here, please leave and tell my father that if he wants to sell me again, he will have to come here himself. What did he promise you Richard? Did he knight you prematurely?”
Now the knight was standing there, with his sword by his leg. Imagination had not prepared him for this outcome that he would not need the sword and instead he would have to have a conversation.
He looked at the man again, considering the way that everything had gone down that in fact the dragon didn’t live here because there was no evidence of a dragon and the man that had. Before his very eyes, the man transformed into a dragon. And from the beast came an even deeper voice.
“What are you doing here?”
He picked up the knight with his tail and in a quick motion took him out the window and plopped him on the ground as one would drop an egg onto the frying pan. And that knight just sat there, not hurt, just unable to move and looked up. Eventually he was able to move, his pride took an almost palpable knock. In fact, his new shiny armour, had a sizable dent where he had been forcibly sat down.
