Princess Ahira (8 page)

“These things happen,” h
e said, having finally finished eating
.
“I
’m going to retire for tonight.
I’ll be up early in the morning to do some testing on a new spell, s
o I’ll see you
the
n
,” h
e said as
he ambled off toward his room.

I
washed
the
dishes and put the food scraps away before trudging off to my
room and collapsing on my bed.
That night I slept soundly with a hilarious dream of Azmaveth scorching Jezbell’s hair off in front of our whole court.

I woke up the following morning a
nd busily prepared breakfast.
I put Azmaveth’s food on a tray and left it outside his door after
calling through the
keyhole
to tell him it was there.
I then quietly ate by myself and rushed back to my room to read
y myself for Azmaveth’s guests.

I threw on
a new dress, purple again, and brushed my dirt brown
hair. I washed my face and
planned on braiding my hair
,
but
right when I was selecting a ribbon to tie around the braid
there was an explosion
. T
he ground shook beneath my feet.

I cried out for a moment before it sunk in. “Azmaveth,” I uttered, grinding my teeth. “If that
harebrained
dragon has destroyed all of my cleaning from yesterday I am going to rip into him,” I
glowered as I dropped my
towel and ran towards the lab, bare feet and all.
I was starting to feel sorry for the palace maids back home in Ardeo—no wonder they always walked around with scowls. Stupid nobles were probably ruining their mop jobs every moment of the day.

I screeched to a stop outside the door.
“Azmaveth?”  I
called as I
pushed on the door,
swinging it open
.

“Ahira, help!”
I
heard a tiny voice cheep.
I looked around the lab, everything was normal except for a
blue bottle that was
smoldering
like a rain storm. Oddly, Azmaveth was nowhere to be found.
 

“
Azmaveth?” I called again.

“Over here!” he peeped.

I followed the tiny cry and weaved my way through the treasure chests and tables before I came to a blue bowl that was skidd
ing across the ground. Curious,
I bent over and picked it up, revealing a pint sized Azmaveth.

I stared at him for several moments. “Thank goodness,” I said, placing a hand on my chest
as I sighed in relief
. “I was so afraid you had ruined all of my haphazard cleaning work from yesterday.”

“Who cares about a clean den?” Azmaveth cried. “This is bad!
M
y spell went wrong and all you care about is the state of the stupid cave,” he said in what would have been his impressive, rumbling voice. Instead, because he was smaller than a cat, he sounded whiny, like a cricket. “We are in so much trouble!”

“What? Why?”
I asked.

“I was working on another shrinking spell when it blew up in my face, getting all over me i
n the process,” h
e said.
I actually felt a small piece of satisfaction. I was right, being a mage and an inventor was a terrible combination. “I don’t know how to reverse it!” he continued.

I held out my arm and he hopped on
, scurrying around so his butt rested in the crook of my elbow, his muzzle on my wrist.

He carefully
wrapped his tai
l around my elbow and his paws
around my arm.
His wings were extended to keep himself from falling over and his tiny claws pricked m
e as he peered up into my face. “Eventually,” he started.
“The spell should wear off
, probably some time tomorrow.”

“What will we
do for the time being?
Your frie
nds as supposed to come today,
” I reminded him
. 

“Um, I don’t know!” h
e said and suddenly the loud, clanking toll of
the doorbell echoed through
the cave.

“Oh bother
,” Azmaveth groaned
a
s we exchanged worried glances.
I walked out to the main entrance as Azmaveth scurried up my
arm and rested on my shoulder.
He wrapped his tail
around my neck
,
thoroughly attaching himself to me before
hiding in my hair.

I blushed when
I rea
ched the door and realized that I must be a sight to behold.
My hair was down and cascading over my shoulders and back, and my feet were
still bare.
I gently pushed the door open and shook under the gaze of three enormous dragons. 

The first dragon was a rose r
ed female with blood red eyes. S
he was dainty and pretty wi
th fine features. The second
dragon was a sea
green male with dark green eyes. H
e to
wered over the female but was
still a great deal smaller than Azmaveth.
The
last d
ragon was
silver blue with gre
y eyes who was roughly Azmaveth’s height and girth.

The female looked down at me. “Why hello darling!” s
he said in a sweet
, honey
smooth voice.
“You must
be Azmaveth’s new princess!”

She
turned to the other dragons.
“Isn’t she just the sweet
est thing?
I can
see w
hy Azmaveth picked her!” she cooe
d before turning back to me.
“My name
Rose,” she said in her own version of Azmaveth’s dragon smile.

The se
a green dragon rolled his eyes.
“Knock it off
Rose. She
’s Azmaveth’s pet, not yours,” h
e rumbled. 

Rose rolled her eyes.
“
There’s nothing wrong with being friendly” she scolded.

The sea green dragon ignored her
and instead lowered his head to speak to me.
“Hello, I’m Shammah.
He’s Zerah,” h
e said
,
tossing his head in the general direction of
the large silver dragon.
Zerah completely ignored me, but once my at
tention was turned back to Rose
I could tell he was sneaking pee
ks
at me
.

“We’re here to
see Azmaveth,” Rose said, her eyes carefully studying my odd appearance.

“I’m not home!
We can’t let them see me like
this. T
h
ey’ll never let me forget it!”
Azm
aveth hissed.
“I’ll be the laughing stock of the dragon court—again!”

“Master A
zmaveth isn’t here,” I said respectfully as
possible
while fighting the urge to pinch the small dragon hanging off my neck
. 

“W
e’ll
just go inside and wait
, then
,” Shammah said, sitting upright again. He paused, as though it occurred to him that it might be considered intrusive to me, the supposed pet.
“
Is that okay?”

“No!” Azmaveth hissed.

“Umm…
,
” I stuttered as Zerah
glowered in my general direction. Apparently he was far to
o
good to sneer directly at me.

“Don’t let them inside,”
Azmaveth
ordered.

“Uh, you can’t!”
I sa
id starting to close the door.
“I’m clea
ning the den and it’s a mess,”
I said.

“That wasn’t a very go
od reason,” Azmaveth scoffed as I moved my hand to the back of my neck
and strangled the living daylights out of him.

“That won’t
be a problem, sweetie,”
Rose soothed me as s
he glanced at the giant doors.
“When I had a princess she never did a ve
ry goo
d job at keeping the cave clean,
” s
he said taking a step closer to the door.
“Besides, if you cleaned
at all
I’m sure his den will look better than it does when it
’
s just him.”

By this time Azmaveth had recovered from being strangled and bit the
back of my neck in retaliation.
I felt his sharp little teeth bit
e into my flesh, drawing blood.
“You little
rat
!”  I bellowed as I ripp
ed him off the back of my dress.
“
That hurt
!”
I yell
ed as I felt the back of my neck. Blood colored my fingers when I inspected them again
. 

By this time Azmaveth
was
clamped onto my forearm, dangling precariously as I glared at my bloody fingers.
“Gross, who knows what kind of germs you might have in your mou
th!”
I yelped
as I pictured
his room.

“Azmaveth?” Rose asked
as she squinted
down at us
.

Azmaveth
glared at her before managing to squirm back up my shoulder
. He gripped my ear for balance as he cleared his little throat and tried to look as imposing as possible.

Dragons at Tea Time

It didn’t work.

Shammah fell down laughing and started roll
ing on the ground as Rose giggled.
“You should know better tha
n to bite your princess
,
Honey
, e
specially since you
’
r
e
smaller than her,”
Rose
said
as I glared at Azmaveth who
indifferently
sniff
ed
.

“She throttled me,
”
he
tisked
.
 

“If you had kept your mouth shut in the first place then I woul
dn’t have strangled you,
” I
sulked
.

Azmaveth rolled his eyes as he unconsciously slipped his tail loosely around my neck
again. “Stupid human,” h
e
loftily
said with a great sigh as I
murderously
flexed my hand
. 

Finally, for the first time since arriving, Zerah spoke. “Are you going to invite us in, or will we have to hold our meeting on your front stoop?” he said, his voice lined with dislike and abhorrence.
 

“Yes, of course
. Ahira lead the way,”
Azmaveth ordered
.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, pushing the pulling the doors open.

I still had a hand
clasped to the back of my neck, trying to stop the bleeding
,
as I led the d
ragons into the dinning room.
They sat down on the floor like cats as Azmaveth climbed up my hair a
nd sat on the crown of my head. I suspect he was trying to get the highest possible viewpoint.

Rose muffled a
coy
giggle and Shammah didn’t even try to hide
his snort. Zerah settled for looking
everywhere and at everything but me. 

“Ahira
will fetch us some tea. I will accompany her to treat her wound,”
Azmaveth announced from the top of my head. 

As the other dragons nodded in agreemen
t I started to walk toward the east tunnel. “You talk like
I was bitten
through an accident
.
Take some responsibility
,
please
!” I scolded
, knowing the dragons could hear.

“I
t was your fault!”
Azmaveth whine
d as we disappeared from view.
Once in the kitchen Azmaveth quickly worked some healing magic on my neck, closing up the small
mark
.