Princess Ahira (17 page)

I swallowed, and the blondes zoomed across the yard, stopping to inspect me from all angles.

             
“You must be the last princess!” the tallest and snobbiest of the trio stated. She gave me a pose
d smile, almost like the cheesy/
sort-of-powerful smiles my brother used when posing for courtly pictures. She was quite pretty if you could get over the strange smile, but for some odd reason the large unicorn I had stumbled upon days before came to mind when I looked at her. “My name’s Lesha,” she said, bending over in a deep curtsey, beam
ing at me with her posed smile.

             
“Ahhh…” I said as the next blonde poked me hard in the side.

             
“Hey. Pay attention to me!” she demanded. “I’m the best painter out of the three of us. My name’s Malory.”

             
For some reason I failed to see what art had to do with anything, but the poke hurt so I eyed the princess
with trepidation
. “A pleasure to meet you,” I said, resisting the urge to poke her back.

             
The last princess got right up in my face. “My name is neeta. tuneete.  Tuneeta,” she finally got out.  I suspect
ed
she was drunk, but her face was the same droopy eyed look as Caspian’s hounds back in the kennels. That’s not
to say she wasn’t princess
material! I’m sure she looked, and acted, darling when she wasn’t so sleep deprived. (Perhaps?) But her lack of personal space and apparent ineptness was most disconcerting.

             
“Uhh, hi,” I said leaning back, trying to get away from the freaky princesses.  Suddenly there was a bellow and the scary, dark haired princess, Cinders if the first prince could be trusted, stomped out of the house. 

             
She leaned in and gazed at me with be
ady eyes. She was built
like an ox: solid. She was wearing a huge gold dress
which
vaguely looked like a plucked peacock. “So you finally decided to join the resistance,” she said suspiciously gazing around. “You may be my last hope, even though you aren’t much to look at
.”

             
While the first three princesses were confusing (and stupid) Cinders was far more
confusing (and even more stupid
). I found myself wondering what kind of parents spawned such a child when a, blue dragon stuck his head out of the door. I vaguely rec
alled
Azmaveth telling me I would be staying at Behemoth’s den. This blue dragon must be him.

             
“Excuse m
e, you there! Princesses, girls.
Girls!” he yelled.  “Please come back inside,” he ordered, pushing the door open a little wider.

             
The blonde princesses were apparently satisfied wit
h their inspection of my person
and turned on their heels to traipse back into the cave. Cinders gave me a meaningful gl
ance, whispered “the resistance,”
and scuttled back into the den like a rare species of crab. I found myself following them with great reluctance.

             
When I entered the cave the blue dragon smiled down at me. “Good morning to you, Ahira. I’m Behemoth, a friend of Azmaveth. He was over here the other day bragging about you,” he introduced himself as the other princesses marched
past
him. 

             
I warmly smiled
. “I’m pleased to meet you,” I said as
he gave me a small but weary grin
as we entered his sitting room.

The cave was spotless, even cleaner than my cave. I was
a
tiny
bit jealous of it
s cleanliness.
But
it was a little puzzling:
Cinders did not seem to be the cleaning type.

             
“Yay!  Look at my pretty picture!” the princess named Malory yelled, holding up a big smeary mess. The paint was slowly dripping onto the table. If she was the best artist o
ut of the three blondes
I didn’t want to see Lesha
’s
or Tuneeta’s work.

             
Behemoth
cried
before
reaching down to rub
his table with a
tiny bit of cloth he held between his claws
. That solved the case of the clean cave: Behemoth himself was a neat freak. 

             
Lesha and Tuneeta clapped, cooing over the… picture. “Your work is so pretty,” Lesha started. “It reminds me of a boy that liked me two years ago. He was rather ugly, but still I flirted with him. I think he became a hermit because I wouldn’t marry him.” 

             
Tuneeta stared.

             
I glanced over at Behemoth
,
who was still rubbing the table and muttering under his breath. That made me wonder…where was Cinders?

             
“Attack!” Cinders bellowed from behind me. I
turned
around to face a broomstick wielding Cinders. I ducked and she sailed over me, landed on the floor, and got back up as if she had meant to do that.

“You must always be prepared for a
fight,” she said, dropping her pearls of wisdom
on me w
ith great solemnity. They were all crazy here.
I had no idea how Behemoth kept his sanity.

I gla
nced once more in his direction. H
e was still cleaning.

             
“Now it’s time for sewing!”  Malory announced, abandoning her artwork on the table, face down. Behemoth shrieked
and speared the painting on a claw tip
. 

             
The trio gathered up their sewing materials before pushing away from the table.

I was content to observe a sniffling Behemoth, but my gaze wandered when I heard a most efficient string of uttered curses. Tuneeta glared at her needlework.  “I sewed my dress to the tapestry again,” she
said
.

             
“Let me help you, after all I am the smartest and the most artistically gifted,” Malory said, hopping out of her chair before walking over to Tuneeta.

             
“That reminds me of this tailor who fell in love with me,” Lesha began as Malory only managed to tangle Tuneeta’s thread. I rolled my eyes and rubbed my forehead, thinking it was strangely still as Lesha rattled on. 

             
“Take that!” Cinders yelled, launching herself at Lesha. Lesha wasn’t expecting it and was knocked over in mid sentence. I couldn’t help but clap. Lesha’s incessant suitor related chatter is very much like the buzzing of a pesky mosquito. 

             
Behemoth chastised his princess. “Cinders try not to hurt her too much,” he said as he sat down next to me, watching Cinders wail on Lesha. Throughthe whole ordeal Lesha still managed to sputter out some sentences. “He was a very good tailor, but he wasn’t worthy of me. To begin with I don’t think I could marry anyone named Rumpelstiltskin.”

             
It was about then that Tuneeta almost fell over. Malory
had
managed to spin a c
ocoon of thread around Tuneeta.

             
“This would be amusing…if they weren’t serious,” I grumbled, letting my head fall on the back of the red velvet chair.

             
“They aren’t just serious, they think it’s
normal
,” Behemoth grumbled next to me. 

             
“Just kill me and get it over with,” I muttered.

             
“Only if you kill me first.  They’ll ruin my
home
at this rate,” he sadly said as Cinders finally got up and crept off to go do some more creepy Cinderish things. 

             
“Have any princes come for them yet?” I asked. 

             
Behemoth s
adly shook his head. “Yes. The p
rince
sses sent them off though. T
hey weren’t handsome enough
, or so
they said. How many have come for you?” 

             
I thought for a moment. “I’ve seen two, but Azmaveth installed a magical barrier around our home so I don’t really know. Azmaveth said it was up to five as of yesterday,” I supposed.

             
Behemoth looked impressed. “How delightful
?”

             
“Not really,” I wryly replied. “They’re all after the reward my brother has put out for me.” 

             
“How degrading,” the blue dragon observed before cocking his head. “I think I’m going to steal you from Azmaveth,
you’re so much more logical than these other
creatures,” he lamely finished as Cinders leaped out of the shadows and hit the bookshelf with a mop. 

             
“Sorry,” I said with a rueful grin. “I’m happy where I am.” 

             
“Yes, I figured as much,
” Behemoth
sighed
and we watched Cinders start to wrestle with a rug, placing bets that the rug would win.

             
The flow of the day followed a disturbingly repetitious pattern. The trio would try to do artsy crafty stuff. Malory would make somethi
ng ugly. Tuneeta would screw up.
Malory would start to help her and only make it worse, and Lesha would be reminded of one of her suitors and start to tell dumb stories. Meanwhile Cinders attack
ed
random objects, and Behemoth and I tried to keep our minds straight. 

             
“What time is it?” I asked Behemoth for the millionth time that day. 

             
“Noon,” he replied as we watched the trio try to make bread. Tuneeta had already given up, a small miracle Behemoths was thankful for. Her first attempt mysteriously and inexplicably exploded, making a flour storm swell up in Behemoth’s spotless kitchen. He
had
cried.

Just when I thought I would be doomed to watch Malory roll her disgusting bread dough forever, the doorbell rang. Both Behemoth and
I
bolted.

             
“Please be Azmaveth, please be Azmaveth,” I begged as I chased after Behemoth. The blue dragon threw the door open, revealing a haughty Kohath who was beaming his this-would-be-charming-if-I-didn’t-know-you smile.

“I’m here to pick up Ahira for Azmaveth,” he coolly announced, reaching out to snag my wrist before dragging me out of the cave. 

             
Behemoth looked crestfallen and started to beg. “No, please don’t leave me here all alone! I
cannot stand this madness
! They ruined my kitchen!”

Kohath slammed the door in his face and pulled me out to the road, still holding my wrist.

             
“Why did
you
come to pick me up?” I
said, my upper lip curling up slightly.

             
“What, not glad to see me?” he asked with faked hurt.

             
“I don’t think there is a safe way to answer that,” I supposed. Either way he would twist my words to suit his bloated head.

             
Kohath grinned
and puffed up
. “
It’s a well known human convention that girls pretend to ignore the men they find handsome
.”

             
My case in point.

             
“Oh wow. I am so surprised. You saw straight through me,” I said, yanking my wrist free from his hand.

             
Kohath winked. “You can’t hide anything from me, Ahira,” he said as we continued to walk home. I grumbled and stomped around behind. “Was it really that bad?” he inquired.

             
“Yes. It was beyond the worst
that
I could imagine,” I mulishly replied.

             
“
I would agree, but I also believe w
atching Behemoth freak about his den is
rather amusing
,” Kohath said with a wide grin.

             
“Maybe, but I was about to lose my mind in there!” 

 
             
He ro
lled his eyes. “You exaggerate
.” 

I squawked and was about to tell Kohath that he was hardly one to point fingers with his illusions of grandeur
,
when a blue ball of light exploded into existence in front of Kohath.
Voices buzzed out of it, as though it were a living thing
.