Princess Ahira (6 page)

I hea
ved a sigh as I sipped my soup.
Azmaveth glanced over at me and excitedly grabbed his book and opened it to the glossary. 

I rolled
my eye
s as I heard him mutter. “Sigh—
this
could mean possibly two things:
A) Your princess is tired and needs more sleep, o
r B) She is feeling depressed. Either way one
must proceed with caution because a tired or depressed princess can
quickly
become crabby and
irritable.”

“I ca
n hear y
ou,”
I said, my voice soun
ded hot and bothered to my own
ears.

“Hmmm…my guess is that you’re tired because
you became irritable instantly,”
He c
oncluded.

“It’s not that,
”
I sighed again
.
I rattled my dishes as I picked them up a
nd dragged myself to the kitchen.

“Did I do something wrong?”
I heard Azmaveth ask himself as I threw my dishes in the s
ink and clomped off to my room.
I flung myself on my bed and gazed up at my skylights in the ceiling.

“Oh bother,” I said as I felt tears gather in the corner of my eyes.
As much as I didn’t wan
t to admit it I missed everyone:
Caspian, Father, my sisters, (excludi
ng Jezbell) and even
Mother
!
I sighed again and turned over on my side. 

“I wonder
if Caspian will come save me,” I thought
out loud as I pictured
my older brother.
I held no doub
t in my mind that he would some
how track me down, and when he did I woul
d
be waiting for him. He would probably take a long time before finding the free time to come rescue me
though
. He was the crown prince after all.

But that suited me fine. An extended vacation with Azmaveth wasn’t unpleasant.
I could certainly think of worse ways to pass the time. This was th
e farthest I had ever been
from
Ardeo
. On top of that I had never before left the castle without one of my
siblings
or
parents
. Even if I missed my family this was a new and exciting adventure.

“It’s settled then,” I decided, stubbornly holding back my tears.
“Even if a prince does come, I’ll
hold out for Caspian,”
I said while
trying to ignore the nasty voice in my mind th
at wondered if
Mother
would ever allow him to search for me.

I woke up the next morning and c
hanged into a different dress.
(
I
was very careful to brush
my hair before leaving my room this
time.
)
I hustled to the kitchen where I prepared bowls of oatmeal before bringing it to the table were Azmaveth was waiting, grumbling to himself.

“Morning Azmaveth!”  I cheerily greeted him, determine
d to be happy no matter
how
wrong
it was to be cheerful in the morning
. 

“Morning.
But no, no, that won’t work,” h
e muttered to himself
as h
e started eating. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t the merry morning dragon I thought he was.

Once we finished I carried the shrunken bowls back into t
he kitchen and washed them out. After twiddling my thumbs for a few moments I decided to search
for Azmaveth
. I found him some minutes later, holed up in his lab.

“Azmaveth, I w
ant to clean your room today,”
I told him
on a whim
.

Azmaveth paused.
“I’m not sure you want to
tackle that now…
,
” h
e slowly
a
n
d carefully
suggested
.

“C
ome on, it can’t be that bad!”
I said.

“
Perhaps, depending on your definition of
bad,
” Azmaveth
said
.

“I’m going to do it
,”
I
decided
before leaving to gather my cleaning supplies.
I ambled down the tunnels and found Azmaveth waiting by the entrance for his room. 

“This won’t be easy,” h
e warned me as he pushed open the doors.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“You just might die,” he added.

“Please, you’re just exaggerating”
I sc
offed.
“No job is…
,
”
I
stopped talking
when I got a good look inside.
The easiest way to describe his room
is to say that a herd of pigs would have cleared out of
it
, too disgusted by the mess,
months
ago.

His bed was a pile of straw with silk thrown over it, b
ut the silk was torn and ripped. The straw w
as also starting to grow moldy and was spread across the floor like a ripped scarecrow
.

Random royal pu
rple scales littered the ground.
I
assumed he had shed them off, which quite frankly disgusted me. It was almost like leaving your toenail clippings or wads of shed hair in the middle of
your
room.

Huge stacks of books were
preciously balanced in strategic places. Some of them tumbled over under my glare.

A huge chandelier hung from the ceiling, but a badly burnt le
ngth of cloth hung down from it. If I had to venture a guess I would say one day Azmaveth was too lazy to get up and
blow the candles out, and instead threw
the cloth at it in a sorry hope that it would smother the flames. Instead it seemed to have caught on fire.

To finish it up, Azmaveth had beautiful glass covered skylights like my room, but his were blackened and unclear. Probably hazed over with smoke.

M
y mouth dropped
a
s I stared at the mess.
A couple of flies buzzed aroun
d my ear as Azmaveth had the decency to blush and glance away.
I rolled up the sleeves
on my dress and shook my head. “This will take me a while,” I said, getting to work.

I started by pulling the burnt cloth of
f
the chandelier. 

“That ke
pt the light from turning on!”
Azmaveth protested as I
unsympathetically
tisked
.
I threw away
the cloth and Azmaveth whined.
“I could still use that!”

“It’s ratty and torn,”
I told him as I lugged a ladder under the skylights and started chipping off the smog. 

“Now the light will wa
ke me up in the morning!” h
e complained as I man
aged to make a small patch of daylight visible.
It turned out his skylights we
re actually beautiful stain glass windows.
 

Azmaveth glared at me as I threw out several bottles filled with rotting poti
ons.  “I might need those!” h
e claimed.

I
pinned him down with one gaze.
“
Fine, fine. I’ll let you feel useful and do your work,” h
e meekly said as he sat down. 

“
Icky,”
I said as I picked up part his ‘sheet’ between my fingers, holdi
ng it as far away as possible.
“This s
mells like something died in it,” I said, covering my nose. That was saying a lot. I thought the kitchen smelled horrible yesterday. Azmaveth’s room smelled bad enough to make me gag.

“That’s my sheet!
I don’t want
it cleaned, or thrown away!” h
e groaned as
I torched it in a fire, creating a cloud of smelly green smoke
. 

“Ugh, now it’s worse!” I said as I picked up a bottle of
flower scented
mist
.
(
I had found it my room
the night before. Mostly likely
the last princess who serv
ed Azmaveth’s father owned it.
)
I ran around the room, spraying it as Azmaveth made a face. 

“Great! Now I’m going to
smell like a girl,” he grumbled.

“
Out, o
ut
, OUT!” I bellowed, growing sick of his whining. 

“It’s my room,” h
e complained. 

I
started sprayin
g the perfume directly on him.
“OUT!” I roared
in a reasonable dragon-like impression. Azmaveth quickly uncurled himself and made a hasty retreat.

I sighed with relief
and turned back to the mess to pick up a dirty, smelly cloth.
I threw it on the throw out pile and Azmaveth poked h
is head in the doorway one last
time.
“That’s my lucky sneezing handkerchief I’ll have you know.
” 

“LEAVE!”  I yelled, throwing a
shrunken
bowl of half eaten
, moldy oatmeal at him.
It hit him squ
are in the forehead and he finally got the point and fled to the library.
I turned back to survey the mess
with a grim expression when the doorbell rang.
“NOW WHAT?” I exploded throwing my dirty apron on the ground. 

I stomped out to the main chamber and saw Azmaveth poke his head out of the library,
note
my angry face, and disappear back within. 

I continued down the w
est tunnel and threw the door open, wondering how come my welcome rug hadn’t eaten the vis
itor yet.
To my surprise a human stood before me.
Only this time I wasn’t surprised because he was a human, he surprised me because he was quite clearly a prince.
He had
the obligatory
blon
de hair with light green eyes.
He
was also wearing the necessary
gold crown and a royal blue cape. To finish it off, his had a black horse
that
was patiently standing a few feet away from the door.

I didn’t say anything
—I was still shocked that a prince had managed to stumble on me so quickly
,
didn’t this sort of thing usually take weeks?—
but the
prince
brightened
when I stepped outside, causing my stomach to sink.

“You must be a princess!”
he beamed
.
Congratulations, he’s a genius,
he figured out my true identity. B
ecause really
,
who else would be hanging out in a dragon’s den?

“Yes,” I crisply responded
. “
What do you want?”

“Well if you’re a prince
ss then I’m here to save you!” h
e brightly
said
as he fiddled with a sword that was strapped to his side
.
I highly doubted he knew how to use it.
 

“Really?”
I
drawled
.

“
Indeed! Who are you
, might I ask?”

I sighed, this was dreadfully too close to the ballads for my taste.
“Ahira, Princess Ahira,”
I said.

“Oh,” he said drooping for a moment.
“Well…you
’
r
e
not Cinders, but you’ll do!
Any princess will do.” 

“Cinders?”
I
inquired
.

“I was originally supposed to marry he
r, but she was kidnapped about
two d
ays ago. I came to save her!
But I so
rt of got lost in the forest…,” h
e said tra
iling off as he blushed
. 

“That’s nice.
Good luck finding her
,”
I said stepping back.