Princess Ahira (9 page)

“There will be a scar,” h
e told me
as he hopped out from behind me
as I slipped on some plain white shoes. 

“
Oh that one will be fun to
explain to my mother. “Honest Mu
m, it’s not what you think. A dragon bit me”,”
I
mimicked, smiling when I found the silver serving tray.

“Whatever,” Azmaveth
said hopping back up on my head, draping
his wings over my ears
as I picked up the tea and wa
lked back to the sitting room.
We reached the
dining room in no time.

I carefully set the tray down and tried to ignore the dragons
,
who were staring at me. Azmavet
h was still lounging on my head without a care in the world
as I poured the tea.

“Umm…. Azmaveth?
” Shammah started. His eyes were fastened to the cups
.
The small, human sized cups.

“Watch,”
Azmaveth ordered unintereste
dly as he flipped onto his back.

“Glistenblossum,”
I mumbled
self consciously
after setting a cup
down in front of each dragon.
The delicate silver cups grew in size un
til they were perfect
for the dragons. 

“Ooooooh,” Shammah
said
.

“That’s a
useful spell
,
did you invent it yourself, Azmaveth? You always were so ingenious with magic,
” Rose
cooed, rapidly raising the miniature dragon’s ego
.

Zerah was as animated as a rock.

Azmaveth tapped m
y forehead with a silver claw to draw my attention. “You may go Ahira,” h
e informed
me as he flew off my head and landed on the chandelier that was hanging from the ceiling. 

I
drew a deep breath and
walked b
ack into the east tunnel.
I paused about halfway down t
he hallway
. I was clearly out of their sight, but the dragons, with their rumbling musical voices, were most certainly not out of my hearing range.

Feeling slightly guilty for intruding on their conversation, I leaned against the tunnel wall and slid down to the ground. I was curious why three dragons would call on Azmaveth. I originally thought it was to show me off, but I was getting the feeling that
I
wasn’t the only reason.

“She’s sweet. She seems useful too. I bet she actually helps out around this disgusting
bachelor
cave
,” Rose laughed.

Azmaveth, in his cute little voice, said something sharply in retort, but it was so high pitched I couldn’t make
it out
.

It was Shammah who spoke next. “You really should be grateful
,
Azmaveth. I heard Behemoth is terrifi
ed of his princess.
What will you do when a p
rince comes to take her away?”

“One already tried.
I don’t think she’s g
oing to go with anyone other than her brother. I can’t say I blame her. The chap that stopped by seemed to be mentally unstable,” Azmaveth criticized
in his small voice
. 

“Excuse my
interruption
,” a
said
cold, icy voice that cou
ld only be Ze
rah
.
“A
s
interesting
as your human is,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“We need to get to the
real
matter on hand.” 

“
We know
,
Zerah,”
Shammah said as one of the dragons shifted their weight, Rose I imagine
d
. 

“Rose, report,” Azmaveth said. Even with his high pitched voice he sounded serious.

“The goblins and o
rgs are creeping toward th
e forest, and a swarm of k
rakens have
swum
into twilight bay. The k
rakens haven’t been doing much
damage. The Keeper of the forest has been able to keep them back,”
Rose
recited.

I had to cover my mouth with my hands to muffle my laughter. Keeper of the forest? How cliché sounding was that title?

“The v
alkyrie are
starting to appear
in our
lands
, so we must be on our guard.
Also, trolls and giants
have taken
to disrupt
ing the human
said of Somnio
,” Rose finished.

“
That’s
bad. This is the first time the v
alkyrie have pu
lled the humans into our battle,”
Shammah
worried.

“Remember that the v
alkyrie
prey
on humans
,
Azmaveth,” Zerah’s
coldly intoned
.
“I’d keep a close wa
tch on that princess of yours.
You
wouldn’t
wan
t anything to happen to her
,
” f
rom t
he way he said it
he
clearly
wanted
otherwise
. 

“
So we know the movement of the enemy. How about the front lines?” Azmaveth asked.
It got boring after this and I left shortly after. 

Throughout the late morning and early afternoon I returned to serve the dragons more tea and a batch of dainty cookies I had baked on a whim. It was about seven hours after the dragons first
arrived
that Azmaveth bellowed for me for the last time.
(I’m not sure how they were able to talk that long about such boring things. My brain would have turned to soup before then.)

I hurried to the room, thinking they would want
more
refreshments
, if not dinner
, but all of the dragons were standing and shifting, clearly getting ready to leave.

“Ahira
,
help
me see our friends to the door,” Azmaveth
ordered as
he relocated from the table to my shoulder
. 

“
Alright
,”
I agreed before turning to Rose, Zerah, and Shammah.
“This way plea
se.”  I said, leading the way.
We reached the doors
and I pushed them open, stepping out into the late evening air. The birds were still chirping and the sky was a beautiful
shade of dusty pink
.

“Until next time!”
Shammah
dragon grinned
, winking at me, before stretching his giant wings and taking flight, doing spirals
through
the air.

“Show off,”
Rose grumb
led as she untucked her wings. “Good bye Azmaveth.
I had a fantastic time talking with you as usual.
It was a pleasure meeting you
,
Ahira,
” s
he said
,
giving me a pat on my head with the tip of her wing. 

Azmaveth squawked as the wing tip b
arely missed smashing his head from his position on my shoulder.

“
Thank you,” I called to the red dragon as she leaped into the sky, flying away.

“Azmaveth,”
Zerah
coolly
said with a bow of h
is head. “Ahira,” h
e slowly
and painfully
added befo
re disappearing into the sky.

“
Okay, I’m hungry. Let’s eat,”
Azmaveth ordered as he twined his tail around my neck again. 

“Right. Just don’t fall in anything while I’m
making
dinner,” I said.

Cooking
was a little awkward, mostly because Azmaveth insisted on sitting
on my shoulder during the entire
experience. If I moved t
o
o fast he went flying off my shoulder and into whatever bowl I happened to be standing over. Additionally, as I added ingredients Azmaveth kept up a steady commentary, lecturing me on everything from the mish mash way I threw in ingredients, to what ingredients I chose to use.

Out of mere spite
I
made stew with a questionable meat substance I found crammed
in the
icy
cellar.
Azmaveth lap
ped
it out of a saucer.

After a lot of complaints
we finally finished our meal. I washed the dishes, fishing
Azmaveth out of the soapy water
whenever he fell.

I was drying my hands off, finally finished, no thanks to a small purple dragon, when Azmaveth stretched and yawned. “Let’s go to the library,” he
ordered, holding the rim of my
ear with his tiny paws.

“Why? You go. I’ve got work to do,” I
said
.

Azmaveth tugged on my ear. “Sheesh,
are you certain you’re a princess? One would think you come from a very long, very dedicated line of chamber maids.
Come on, it’s
been
a long day. We can sit in front of the fire,” he lured.

Sitting down
did
sound nice.

“
Okay
,” I agreed, tossing the towel aside before busily moving through the hallways. Af
ter a few minutes we popped in
the dark library.

“Where was this fireplace you mentioned?” I asked, stumbling in the dim light.

“Move towards the left corner. It should be here still. I’m
pretty sure
I got it replaced after Shammah smashed it with his tail several months ago,” Azmaveth recalled.

“That’s hardly comforting,” I dryly said before yipping when a huge, marble fireplace magically roared to life.

“Ah-hah! I knew it was somewhere back here!” Azmaveth triumphantly cried.

I seated myself in a comfortable, overstuffed green chair that was pulled up in front of the fire. Azmaveth slid off my shoulder and curled up on my lap like a cat.

“See, isn’t this nice?” Azmaveth yawned. He purred as I ran my finger up and down his neck.

“Yes,” I admitted, staring into the cheerfully snapping orange and red flames. “Azmaveth, Zerah hates humans, doesn’t he” I said, my lap growing warm thanks to hot
,
little Azmaveth.

Azmaveth snorted. “What
gave it away
? The way he refused to look at you, or perhaps the fact that he wouldn’t talk to you?” Azmaveth said, hi
s voice vibrating. He was
trying to purr while simultaneously talking. “You know the fact that he even said goodbye to you was highly, highly impressive. It’s a first as far as I know.”

“Why does he hate humans?” I asked as Azmaveth curled up into a tighter ball.
I still
stared at the brilliant flames
even as my head started to drop.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Azmaveth happily sighed. “
All I know is that he sees humans as being utterly beneath him. Don’t worry about it though. The worst thing he’ll do is ignore you, which is actually more like a favor. He might act like a porcupine but really he’s quite harmless,” Azmaveth finished.

“Mmm,” I said, my eyes slowly closing as I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up
to a painful cramp in my lap. It felt like an elephant was perched on my knees.

“Ow,” I muttered, struggling in the chair. Something hard and distinctly scale-like was digging through the material of my gown and into my skin. “Azmaveth, get off,” I muttered, the great weight was holding me captive.

I opened my eyes and rapidly blinked before stretching. Sure enough, Azmaveth had returned to his normal size of humongous. The tip of his muzzle was resting on my lap. The rest of his body was curled around my chair like a giant dog.

“Azmaveth, wake up,” I grumbled. “Your spell wore off,” I yawned, cracking my neck. “You’re going to squash me,” I added.

Azmaveth opened one large eye, peered around, and gave an affirming grunt before
flipping over to his other side, removing his muzzle from my lap
.