Tide of Shadows and Other Stories (9 page)

Fáfnir was very lonely.

Of course, one cannot attract friends or lovers without those mountainous piles of treasure—emeralds and goblets, arkenstones and mirrors, gold-plated armour and diamond-studded swords, pearl necklaces, amber earrings, and gem-encrusted crowns. So, Fáfnir razed towns, pillaged kingdoms, and upended caravans like any good dragon, all in the name of making friends and luring lascivious lasses.

However, life is never so just or easy as it sounds in a fairy tale. Try as he might to collect the greatest treasure hoard in the land, Fáfnir could not catch the eye of the Princess of Flowerdumpling Peak. He never attacked her castle, but instead destroyed her enemies and picked on kingdoms smaller and weaker than her’s. If his jewels would not impress her, his courage and virility surely would!

But no, instead, she was enthralled with a flower—so dainty and small.

So he watched her as she ascended the mountain next door, with a melancholy longing in his serpentine eyes. Alongside her band of powerful knights (with easy smiles and irresistible physiques), she climbed to the peak to pick a single flower, once a month, with each full moon.

"I SHALL TAKE HER!" he bellowed, and his furious voice sent thunder booming through the Kingdom of Flowerdumpling Peak. "SHE SHALL BE MY PARNASSUS!"

He hatched a plan, and the next time she climbed the highest peak of the highest mountain in her mountainous kingdom, Fáfnir was waiting for her. The knights were beautiful and strong, but they were nothing in the wake of his flaming breath and rending claws. For each knight he killed, Fáfnir shed a single tear. For the Princess's sake, of course; certainly not for his own. Ahem.

He took the Princess of Flowerdumpling Peak up in his talons and flew her away. Her screams were shrill, her thrashings weak and pathetic. She weighed no more than a lamb.

"OH, JUST BE STILL, MY LOVE. DO YOUR FLOWERS SQUIRM SO WHEN YOU STEAL THEM FROM THEIR MOUNTAIN HOME?"

Still, she wailed harder, her tears dropping like rain on her kingdom, stretched far below like a painting. They arrived at his lair, with its impressive collection of gold and jewels.

Days passed. The Princess of Flowerdumpling Peak stopped crying, for which Fáfnir was grateful, but she was hardly the peachy companion he had hoped for. She was moody and demanding, petulant and dainty, and would not even eat the leg of the mutton he brought her (charred to a perfect crisp, might he add!). She was too slender, too soft, and much, much too boring.

Oh, and the bloody Parnassus! How she went on about that flower. For the dragon—in his stomping, uncoordinated attack on her guards—had crushed the field.

"You turned it to mud!" she crowed. Tears muddied by makeup ran in rivulets down her face, and Fáfnir was reminded of a tribe of warriors he had once destroyed, whose masks were painted like devils, though they were not nearly so frightening to look upon as this damsel in distress.

Kidnapping a princess was not nearly as enjoyable as Fáfnir had imagined. His loneliness fled…but was replaced by something much worse.

To escape from his misery, Fáfnir left his cave most days and hunted. There was nothing like the smell of roasting human flesh and burning villages to wash away the ills of caring for an angry princess. He razed several towns, cooked flocks of sheep, and rained terror on the kingdoms of Flowerdumpling Peak, Peachpit Plains, Rustyrock Swamp, and, most notably, Copperkettle Vale.

So, then, we turn our story back to the Prince of Copperkettle Vale and his ultimate role in saving his kingdom, rescuing the Princess of Flowerdumpling Peak, and, finally, falling in love.

"I will slay the dragon!" said the Prince of Copperkettle Vale during breakfast, his head and heart full of grandeur. "I will save the princess and bring glory to our land!"

"And you shall find a wife at last, a woman to warm your bed and bear your children!" wept the Queen of Copperkettle Vale.

"Ahh, yes, a wife. Yes. Of course…" muttered the Prince. But soon, he was hefting axes and swords again. He must choose the best dragon-slaying weapon, of course.

He set off on the adventure of a lifetime—songs of dead dragons, valorous heroes, and peaceful kingdoms resounding in each step. It was an arduous odyssey, for he had no strong knights to carry his goods, nor a palanquin to sit in, but the Prince of Copperkettle Vale ignored such loneliness and focussed his dauntless energies on the task ahead.

"Glory awaits me at the end of this road! And my heart and hands shall be filled with the glimmer of gold!" he bellowed into the wind, hoping his words would spread through his kingdom, to the ears of each of his eager citizens.

But at night, he missed those knights with strong arms and easy smiles, the warm companionship of a manly man to share a story, to share a beer, or ribald laughter.

But no one ever said a hunt was easy, thought the Prince, before pulling his cloak tighter and shivering himself to sleep.

It is not easy to find the lair of a dragon. They are often found near the top of treacherous peaks, like the cherry atop a towering white-frosted cake. Should one find one’s way to the summit of such a mountain, one must overcome a labyrinthine lair full of booby traps. And one’s only reward at the finish line? A very angry dragon. But the Prince of Copperkettle Vale was not deterred. The Kingdom of Flowerdumpling Peak knew which mountain their princess had been stolen from. He would start from there and travel to each peak surrounding it (and worry about the mazes and booby traps later).

He spent seven days climbing those mountains, searching every nook and cranny for the dragon's lair, but frustration and failure were his only companions.

Until.

Deep in the depths of a winter that never left the mountain peak, he rounded a corner on a particularly perilous pathway, and lo and behold, he stumbled into a cave, aglow with the fiery radiance of a dragon's den.

There were no booby traps (indeed, that was just a myth spread by lazy dragons) nor a maze (for not even a dragon can carve a maze into a mountain), but there was a princess and a great sleeping dragon.

"I am here to save you, fair lady!" he yelled, loud as the blizzard outside. "And slay the evil dragon who terrorizes your kingdom and mine!"

"But he is not evil!" said the Princess. "Just lazy and fat!"

The Prince of Copperkettle Valley had heard stories of her beauty, but she was plain as could be. Limp hair the colour of charcoal, heavy-lidded eyes as dull as a muddy river. A smile to scare the fur off a bear and a voice like a banshee.

"Hah, a wife, indeed!" huffed the prince to himself, and smiled at his mother’s dashed dreams.

"Did you bring a Parnassus?" said she.

"A what?"

"A Parnassus, you bum."

"A flower, you mean?"

"Go get one, you louse, or I stay here until a real knight comes."

"WHO GOES THERE?" cried the dragon, woken from his slothful slumber by their banter.

"A silly knight, cruel and ugly as can be," said the Princess of Flowerdumpling Peak.

And so Fáfnir lit the lamps of his terrible eyes upon the Prince of Copperkettle Vale, and...they softened. Time crawled as their eyes met and danced.

"TAKE HER!" bellowed the dragon after an electrically charged (and only slightly inappropriate) moment.

"What!?" cried the princess.

"TAKE HER AWAY, AND LEAVE ME IN PEACE!"

The princess stomped her slippered feet and balled her little fists. Steam poured from her ears.

"I do not want her!" said the prince. "She is a horror, and spoiled to boot!"

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA! I BRING HER THE WORLD, AND SHE WANTS BUT A FLOWER!"

"I will take her away, but on one condition."
 

"NAME IT!" said the dragon.

"You must give me your greatest treasure!” said the prince with a cocky grin.

"DONE! JUST GET HER AWAY!"

The princess, as you might imagine, was indignant and on the verge of a very entitled tantrum. A powerful prince and a dreadful dragon fighting to be rid of her! Where was the justice? Where was the romance? Where was her knight in shining white armour!? Was a flower so high a price to ask for the heart of a beautiful princess?

"Fine!" she said in a snit. "Have it that way! If you do not want me, I shall leave you two for each other!"

And she did. The blizzard raging outside the cave swallowed her whole. And soon she was forgotten by the two mortal enemies.

"She is gone," said the prince. "So, I will now claim a treasure!"

"BUT SHE LEFT ON HER OWN!"

"We struck a deal! Or is a dragon's word worth so little?" said the Prince of Copperkettle Vale. A coy smile touched his lips. "I could slay you, if you'd prefer."

The dragon huffed (in a manner eerily similar to the princess, though with an added puff of smoky flame).

"FINE. BUT BE FAST AND BEGONE!"

"What do you think of this one?" asked the prince, holding up a shining suit of chain mail adorned with little red rubies.

"YOU COULD DO BETTER!" Fáfnir admitted.

“This, then?” The prince held a silvered crown set with gems every colour of the rainbow.

"YOUR EYES WOULD GO BETTER WITH GOLD!"

"Then this!" said the prince, lifting a robe woven of gold thread, the emblem of a tree stitched in silver.

"YOU ARE NO WEEPING WILLOW, KNIGHT. IS THERE NOT A LION TO SUIT YOU BETTER?"

And so it went.

The Prince of Copperkettle Vale spent many days searching the halls of Fáfnir's lair, looking for the perfect piece of treasure to seal their deal. At the end of each day, as the endless storm outside shook the very mountain to its core and the sun turned her realm over to the moon, the prince joined Fáfnir for supper (roast mutton with turnips; roast beef with mashed taters; chicken—plucked and roasted, drizzled in butter; charred oxen with yams and honeyed turnips; or ham cooked with mustard) and they talked of war and loneliness, princesses and knights, the dreadfully strong and the deplorably weak.

Then, in that dark cave, the funniest thing happened: love blossomed—even though they seemed so surely doomed, for love knows no boundaries and cares little for the colour of skin, social standing, gender, or, apparently, even species.

It was not the love between a prince and princess, founded on families and power, treasuries and politics. This was a true love, formed between two who share a soul. Their cruelty was equal and their love of mayhem and treasure unmatched. They bonded over stories of villages razed and kingdoms invaded. They sparred with sword and claw where other couples made love, and lay huffing and puffing at the end, limbs akimbo, bodies drained of strength but filled to brimming with shared satisfaction.

They were days of endless magic, and passed in a blur. The bitter prince felt his anger fade. "Who needs a wife when you have a dragon to whisk you away!" he cried from atop Fáfnir's back as they flew far above the clouds, free from the savages below.

The dragon shed his loneliness. The prince was not boring nor weak of arm. His voice was a dusky rumble—a fire burned in his breast. Together they could rule the world, and other dragons would cower in their wake. And, best of all, he hated all flowers; did not even know their names!

But all honeymoons must come to an end, and so this one did when Fáfnir announced to the Prince of Copperkettle Vale, "WE MUST NOW GO TO YOUR LAND TO BEGIN OUR GLORIOUS RULE."

"But my people will scream at the sight of your terrible might! They will fill you with arrows, quench you with all the waters of all the rivers in the vale!"

"THE ARROWS ARE BUT SMALL PRICKS, NO MORE HARMFUL THAN A MAYFLY OR MOSQUITO! THEY WILL NOT REACH ME WITH THE WATERS OF YOUR RIVERS, FOR WE SHALL SOAR FAR ABOVE THE LAND AND SHOW THEM THE GLORY THAT COMES FROM A PRINCE RIDING THE BACK OF A DRAGON!"

"They will not trust us. My father will set his best knights on you."

"AND I WILL DESTROY THEM LIKE I DESTROYED THOSE KNIGHTS HIGH ON PARNASSUS PEAK. THEY ARE NOTHING TO US. WE WILL BRING GLORY TO YOUR LAND; WE WILL CAPTURE KINGDOMS, BRING GOLD AND JEWELS; WE WILL SHOW YOUR KING JUST HOW STRONG HIS KINGDOM COULD BE. BY OUR STRENGTH WILL COPPERKETTLE VALE REIGN OVER THE WORLD."

"Ah, just," said the Prince of Copperkettle Vale. With no argument left, he leapt upon Fáfnir's back and they took to the sky, heading into the sunset, aiming straight and true for Copperkettle Vale.