by K. M. Shea
“AH! I’m going have you declawed! This place is a mess! What will your friends think if they see it now?” I yelled.
“That it’s really, really clean for me?” Azmaveth suggested.
“NO!” I roared. “They’ll think I’m a deficient princess!”
“Truly I’m giving you more time than is expected. They wanted to come today but in my book, All About Princesses, Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Pet Happy and Clean, it says ‘your princess needs at least two days to adjust to her new surroundings, so don’t let your friends come over until she is comfortable’,” he quoted. He smiled down at me like he had done me a great favor.
I contemplated becoming a professional book burner for a few moments before tearing off—hustling through the halls as I tried to restore order and cleanliness to the cave.
I stopped only to make dinner because Azmaveth was rolling around on the floor, blocking my progress while claiming he was dying of malnutrition.
Chapter 4Shrinking Spells
I shook my head as Azmaveth greedily eyed up the cooked chicken, which was roughly the size of a small hut. I cut out a tiny portion for myself and Azmaveth took a piece that was the size of a horse.
“How can you eat that much?” I asked, turning green.
“How can you eat so little?” he shot back.
I could only sigh and shake my head.
“So, tell me about your family,” Azmaveth ordered.
“I don’t want to,” I stubbornly said.
“Good, then we can talk about my book, which is All About Princesses, Everything-.”
“I have one older brother,” I said cutting in. I cannot stress to you how much I hated that book. “His name is Caspian, and he’s been my best friend ever since we were young. We tried skipping our lessons together. Caspian always had a tighter guard on him though because he’s the crown prince.”
“Do you only have one sibling?” Azmaveth asked.
I laughed. “No. I have five sisters.”
Azmaveth eyes bulged out of his sockets. “FIVE?” he yelped.
“Yes. There’s Jezbell, Brianna, Debrah, Annabell, and Leah,” I said, practically spitting out Jezbell’s name.
“I take it you don’t like the oldest one?” he asked, his voice colored with curiosity.
I shrugged, “She and I have never gotten along very well. When I was four she took me on a walk in the woods and left me alone there. A troll attacked me but thankfully a sorceress was nearby and saved me. She took me back home, but my parents didn’t believe me that Jezbell had left me behind,” I said as Azmaveth cut another slice of chicken for himself.
“That’s pretty low. Trying to kill your own sister?”
“I guess. I don’t think she would have really meant for me to die. But it doesn’t matter. I haven’t had to see her for about three years because she got married,” I finished. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked.
“No. I am an only child,” he said with a tight smile.
“That must have stunk,” I bluntly said.
“Perhaps. I never really knew what I was missing though,” Azmaveth said as he cut yet another slice for himself.
“It must have been lonely… playing by yourself,” I said. I could never imagine life without my brother and sisters.
Azmaveth raised his large head to look up at the ceiling. “Oh, I had a cousin I played with a lot. He was a beastly little thing though. Such an insufferable know it all.”
“Do dragons usually have more then one child?” I asked.
“Dragonets they’re called. Yes, usually they have four or so. My case is a rare one,” he said with a half smirk. “I was not an easy dragonet, so who could blame my parents?”
“What happened to them? Your parents I mean,” I asked.
Azmaveth cringed.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“No, no. My book says you have a right to know my background. We’re supposed to bond over it. My mother died when I was young and my father was killed in an ogre and valkyrie raid a decade ago. Shortly after I was crowned a duke,” he said.
“How old are you anyway?” I inquired.
“Lets see…well in dragon years I’m 124, so translated to human years I’m…about 18 or 19,” he supposed.
I felt a little taken aback. I had thought he had to be my father’s age! Although after I thought about it, Azmaveth’s age made sense. He didn’t yet have his own family after all.
“And how old are you?” he curiously asked.
“I’m sixteen,” I said. I was still a little sore about the whole kidnapped-on-my-16th-birthday thing. “I’m sorry about your parents,” I added as an afterthought.
“These things happen,” he 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, so I’ll see you then,” he 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 and 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 ready 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. The 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 skidding 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! My 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 in the process,” he 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 tail around my elbow and his paws around my arm. His wings were extended to keep himself from falling over and his tiny claws pricked me 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 friends as supposed to come today,” I remind
ed him.
“Um, I don’t know!” he said and suddenly the loud, clanking toll of the doorbell echoed through the cave.
“Oh bother,” Azmaveth groaned as 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 reached 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 red female with blood red eyes. She was dainty and pretty with fine features. The second dragon was a sea green male with dark green eyes. He towered over the female but was still a great deal smaller than Azmaveth. The last dragon was silver blue with grey eyes who was roughly Azmaveth’s height and girth.
The female looked down at me. “Why hello darling!” she 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 sweetest thing? I can see why Azmaveth picked her!” she cooed before turning back to me. “My name Rose,” she said in her own version of Azmaveth’s dragon smile.
The sea green dragon rolled his eyes. “Knock it off Rose. She’s Azmaveth’s pet, not yours,” he 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,” he said, tossing his head in the general direction of the large silver dragon. Zerah completely ignored me, but once my attention was turned back to Rose I could tell he was sneaking peeks 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. They’ll never let me forget it!” Azmaveth hissed. “I’ll be the laughing stock of the dragon court—again!”
“Master Azmaveth isn’t here,” I said respectfully as possible while fighting the urge to pinch the small dragon hanging off my neck.
“We’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 too good to sneer directly at me.
“Don’t let them inside,” Azmaveth ordered.
“Uh, you can’t!” I said starting to close the door. “I’m cleaning the den and it’s a mess,” I said.
“That wasn’t a very good 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 she glanced at the giant doors. “When I had a princess she never did a very good job at keeping the cave clean,” she 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 bite into my flesh, drawing blood. “You little rat!” I bellowed as I ripped him off the back of my dress. “That hurt!” I yelled 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 mouth!” 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.
Chapter 5Dragons at Tea Time
It didn’t work.
Shammah fell down laughing and started rolling on the ground as Rose giggled. “You should know better than to bite your princess, Honey, especially since you’re smaller than her,” Rose said as I glared at Azmaveth who indifferently sniffed.
“She throttled me,” he tisked.
“If you had kept your mouth shut in the first place then I wouldn’t have strangled you,” I sulked.
Azmaveth rolled his eyes as he unconsciously slipped his tail loosely around my neck again. “Stupid human,” he 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 dragons into the dinning room. They sat down on the floor like cats as Azmaveth climbed up my hair and 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 agreement 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.
“It was your fault!” Azmaveth whined as we disappeared from view. Once in the kitchen Azmaveth quickly worked some healing magic on my neck, closing up the small mark.
“There will be a scar,” he 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 Mum, 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 walked 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. Azmaveth 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 uninterestedly 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 until 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 my forehead with a silver claw to draw my attention. “You may go Ahira,” he 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 back into the east tunnel. I paused about halfway down the 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 terrified of his princess. What will you do when a prince comes to take her away?”
“One already tried. I don’t think she’s going 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 could only be Zerah. “As 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 imagined.
“Rose, report,” Azmaveth said. Even with his high pitched voice he sounded serious.
“The goblins and orgs are creeping toward the forest, and a swarm of krakens have swum into twilight bay. The krakens 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 valkyrie are starting to appear in our lands, so we must be on our guard. Also, trolls and giants have taken to disrupting the human said of Somnio,” Rose finished.
“That’s bad. This is the first time the valkyrie have pulled the humans into our battle,” Shammah worried.
“Remember that the valkyrie prey on humans, Azmaveth,” Zerah’s coldly intoned. “I’d keep a close watch on that princess of yours. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to her,” from the 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.)
