The Salamander Prince

by S R Nulton

  The Salamander Prince

  Refurbished Fairy Tales Book 1

  By S.R. Nulton

  Copyright © 2018 S.R. Nulton

  All rights reserved.

  This story is a work of fiction based off of works of fiction (we hope! ‘Cause otherwise, there are some very odd relationships out there involving amphibians).

  No character, place, circumstance or relationship is intended to resemble anyone/thing, living, dead, undead, mostly dead, or anywhere in-between.

  The author humbly requests that you suspend disbelief for a short while and enjoy this story for what it is…

  Whatever that may happen to be.

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  Table of Contents

  Map

  Chapter 1: Punch Drunk Matrimony

  Chapter 2: River Rafting, Anyone?

  Chapter 3: The Power of Accessories

  Chapter 4: Like a Boat over Troubled Rivers

  Chapter 5: Family Defends. Always

  Chapter 6: Ghosts and Scars

  Chapter 7: Mother Issues

  Chapter 8: Pub Crawl

  Chapter 9: Cloudy Weather

  Chapter 10: Old Friends and New Worries

  Chapter 11: Mobile Home

  Chapter 12: Shopping!

  Chapter 13: Prenatal Care

  Chapter 14: Paaarty!

  Chapter 15: A Coronation to Remember

  Chapter 16: Coronation, Part Two

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1: Punch Drunk Matrimony

  More than once upon a time…

  This is a story about a family with issues. Well, there are a few families with issues in the story, but only one that really pushes the tale into existence. The first thing you need to know is that I got involved of my own free will. I was tired and compelled, but I did in fact choose to accept the odd shift in my life. I won’t have anyone claim I was unfairly coerced or rattle on about the morality of my supposed decisions. No one has ever made me do something I wasn’t inclined to do, not ever. Please remember that and don’t jump to conclusions.

  Now, this won’t sound much like the official story that you may or may not know. So few things remain true as they get passed from person to person. Actually, you’ve probably only heard a distorted version of my sister-in-law’s story, cutting me out completely. Not a big deal. I never really wanted to be a big part of history. Still, it is worth hearing the truth if only to understand why an entire country had to change its ways because of one family’s traditions.

  This is a tale of two brothers and two brides. It’s a tale of broken souls and the corruption stemming from enforced conflict. It’s a tale that, unlike many others, doesn’t end with a wedding, but rather begins with one…

  ~

  The party had been absolutely amazing! Satyr parties always were. I’d never been to a human party or even a tavern, but I could almost guarantee that they weren’t half as entertaining as watching a bunch of half-men, half-goats dancing with dryads. The satyrs would leap and bound, bouncing like mad around the ‘ceremonial’ clearing, all trying to impress the dryads. The tree spirits, on the other hand, were all about arm movements. They kept their feet well planted most of the time and would proceed to let their hands, arms, and torsos weave such a graceful spell that one hardly noticed the fact that they never moved from one particular spot.

  And then there was the wine! Satyrs loved wine to excess, getting as drunk as they could as quickly as possible. Unsurprisingly, the parties they threw would nearly drown you in alcohol and tended to last for days! This one had lasted for at least four, as far as I could tell. Actually, it had still been going when I’d stumbled out of the clearing.

  Spring had finally arrived after an abnormally long and wet winter and the forest was celebrating. I lived in the wildest patch of woods west of the Fey Forest. Most people believed that it had actually been a part of the Fey Nation at one point, but broken off due to a rogue magician at some point. As a result, it was an island of ancient magics, full of strange creatures and ghost stories that kept the human population out of the woods at all cost. Except me. I lived in a little cottage on the edge of the forest, close enough to a lakeside village to buy supplies and far enough away to avoid visitors. At least the ones of the human persuasion.

  A week before, I’d been working on a new tincture to remove warts (for my friend’s goddaughter, not for myself) when I heard a knock at my back door. Humans used the front door, on the rare occasions that they actually did stop by, so I knew it was probably a forest creature. There are several that are sentient and make exceptional neighbors (as opposed to the human villagers who are overly superstitious and hated the idea of my ‘haunted’ woods).

  When I opened the door, I was handed an invitation by a stout young satyr named Gregory. “Madame Enchantress,” he said with a smile.

  “Hello Gregory. Is it that time again?”

  His grin widened. “The snow is finally gone and the leaves are green. It is later than usual, but the clearing is ready for the Spring Celebration. We even made sure to double the wine order so it wouldn’t have to end early this year.”

  I shook my head at him. “Early? It lasted a week-and-a-half!”

  “Aye, shameful wasn’t it? Anything less than two full weeks is an utter disgrace.” He winked and hopped off into the forest, my invitation being the only one actually given out. Everyone else just showed up when the party started. Forest creatures were like that. Time worked differently for them.

  It was my fourth year attending the satyr’s celebrations. They had many. There was one for each new season as well as celebrations on both solstices and equinoxes. Being a resident of the wood, even one living just on the edge, meant it was rude if I didn’t at least attend one day each celebration. The first one I’d attended assured me that it was a very good thing I couldn’t get drunk. My sister may not have been good at witchcraft, but she was always creating interesting results. When I was five, she tried to cast a spell that would protect me from ingested poisons and inadvertently made my body immune to alcohol, caffeine and rotten food as well as arsenic. It made the idea of a night at the tavern rather dull and meant that I couldn’t use wine to rid myself of inhibitions. It was a good thing that embarrassing myself in public wasn’t something that scared me.

  What the spell did not do was make me immune to sleep deprivation. Even magic won’t make you think clearly if you haven’t slept in a few days. As a result I missed some obviously odd circumstances, or rather I didn’t realize how odd the situations were when I came upon them. Like the gold ball in the middle of the game trail I was following.

  ~

  “OW!”

  I fell, rather spectacularly, in the middle of a rather pronounced game trail while walking home from the satyr’s celebration. Dawn was still about 15 minutes off and the trees made the area very dark. Frankly, it was a miracle that I hadn’t done more than stub my toe and scrape my hands. There were a lot of rocks in the area and I had very nearly missed bashing my head on one of them. “What–“ I began, stopping when I turned and discovered what I’d tripped over. “Who leaves gold in the middle of the forest?” I giggled, picking up the heavy ball.

  Northern Alenia was little more than tiny villages and cattle ranches. There was enough food coming from the small farms everyone put in to provide for the residents families, but the growing period was fairly short because of how far north we were. In fact, most goods were purchased u
sing the funds from beef and goat meat sales in the fall. The goats were mostly housed on the northern mountains that bordered our country and didn’t have much contact with the rest of our country.

  The point was that no one in that area had enough money for a gold ring, let alone a ball the size of a miniature pumpkin that was solid gold all the way through!

  Unfortunately, I was too tired to think about any of that. All I could really manage was, Ooooo, this is shiny! And heavy! Pretty ball!

  Tossing it up in the air, I continued down the path. The air was still quite cold that morning and stopping to pick up the ball had cooled my blood even more. I hadn’t noticed the temperature while at the party because I was so busy dancing. I loved dancing. I’d never been formally taught, but go to enough woodland celebrations and you pick it up quickly. I decided that dancing down the path might keep me warmer.

  I had just leapt forward when my head was yanked back. I tried to move again and felt something pull at my hair.

  “Aghh! I left the trees only to get captured by trees!” I laughed. Everything is so funny when you hadn’t slept in a while! Even pulling an arrow out of your hair! That should have been my second clue something was odd. No one hunted with arrows in the forest. It was too dangerous, what with all the magical creatures.

  Once the arrow was gently released from my hair, I rubbed the back of my head and looked around. The little game trail had become much more dangerous than it had been when I trod it only four days before. To be honest, it was taking some of the giddiness away and waking me up slightly.

  I cautiously continued to meander down the path, humming quietly to myself. It was a lot harder to balance both the arrow and the ball in my hands. They both weighed quite a bit and the arrow was so dusty that it kept slipping down my hand and cutting my fingers. By the time I neared the end of the path, both objects had blood smeared on them and I was starting to crash.

  Breaking through the tree line, I spotted my cottage and smiled. I’d rebuilt it with the help of my magic over the last nine years. It was the perfect practice for my powers while they came in. Being an enchantress means that you are extremely powerful, but you have to sort of specialize in enchanting objects or, on rare occasions including a merchant’s ship worth of safety precautions, people. Enchanting tools, planks, shingles, sinks, doors, mantles, fireplaces… it helped me learn the control needed to protect myself and others from my magic spiraling out of control. And it made the shack livable. The place had been an absolute wreck when I purchased it.

  Now it was so beautiful, what with the rising sun making my flower garden glow, that I almost missed the tall man holding a salamander, standing on my porch. Almost.

  “My lady! I bid you good morrow,” declared a smoky voice. It wasn’t the giant speaking though. It was the salamander, and that was one of the funniest things I’d experienced that morning. I’d seen salamanders before, of course, both magical and mundane. The magical ones had a tendency to scorch the flowers growing by my dock. They controlled fire to a certain extent and liked to cook their bugs before eating them. Bugs that were on my irises. It was rather annoying to come out and find them half smoking. None of the salamanders had shown themselves to be particularly powerful or sentient though.

  The amphibian and his silver-haired escort walked over and smiled indulgently at my stunned expression. When the salamander was finally close enough to look me in the eye, he continued.

  “Congratulations on winning the contest.”

  “Contest?” I parroted, fighting off my giggles. I had to be hallucinating. I’d stayed awake longer once before without seeing things, but it was the only explanation I had at that moment. Salamanders didn’t talk.

  “Yes. You have retrieved the golden ball and the golden arrow–” he began, but I cut him off.

  “Huh, well what do you know? The arrow really is made of gold. I couldn’t tell with all the dust on it. I doubt it will fly well. It’s too heavy. And it’s yours?” The creature nodded. “Okay, well here you go,” I responded, holding the objects out.

  “No, you don’t understand. Because you have retrieved the golden ball and the golden arrow you have officially won my hand in marriage.”

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been proposed to by a fire breathing, talking amphibian before, but when you are already inclined to laugh at everything, it becomes the funniest situation in the world. It’s either that or cry. It doesn’t make you feel particularly good when your only marriage proposal comes from a creature that is semi-aquatic and breaths fire.

  “Is she drunk?” asked the frowning silver giant as he watched tears roll down my cheeks.

  “Not sure,” responded the salamander. At this point I was hugging my stomach and trying to breath properly again. And to hold myself together. I was half-convinced that I’d finally lost my mind.

  Finally, I got a decent breath and looked up at them. “J-just punch drunk, I think. I haven’t slept much this week. I can’t get drunk.” Neither of the… men? We’ll say men… knew whether to believe me or not. Still, they continued on their merry way, setting up for my wedding.

  “Stand here please, miss,” the silver haired man requested. I took a better look at him while I waited for him to arrange me to his satisfaction. The stranger was nearly seven feet tall and looked to be anywhere from 30 to 60-years-old. He was a little scruffy, like he hadn’t had a chance to shave that morning. The overall impression you got from him was the color silver. His eyes, hair, fledgling beard, and even his clothes were either silver or grey. Also, when I looked away, I realized that I could hardly remember him at all. It was very odd.

  While I studied him, the man pulled my hands up, leaving the gold ball in my right and turning the arrow so it was point up in my left hand. By this point, the arrow itself was pretty much dust-free, but liberally coated with blood from my pricked fingers and sliced palms. For some reason, that seemed to please the man as he looked me over.

  Once I was arranged properly, he gently moved the salamander over to the arrow. Then, the salamander did the strangest thing. He stabbed his foot with the arrowhead and my mind cleared a little. Just enough to help me realize I was okay with what was going to happen.

  “Bound by promise, fulfilled with blood,” his smoky voice declared. Then he was moved over and held in front of the ball. “Bound by fortune, fulfilled with truth.” Finally he was raised in front of me, looking at me, eye to eye.

  “Bound by choice, fulfilled with a kiss.”

  And then I was kissed by a salamander. It was more him putting his… mouth against mine. The sensation was odd, to say the least, but then it grew stranger. Things were changing somehow.

  “Bound by magic, fulfilled with matrimony.” And then he breathed fire into me and I blacked out.

  ~

  It was dark out when I finally woke, but the sky showing through my window still had the deep purple tones of early evening. I rubbed my head, groaning. I always got the worst headaches after a satyr party, usually because I was dehydrated and hungry. Water and dinner were on the horizon, then a cup of willow tea if the pain persisted. Strangely enough, it felt almost like I’d been out in the sun too long. My skin felt hot and tight. It was odd because I never got sunburns at the spring celebration. The sun wasn’t strong enough to do much damage and I was still too cold to expose much skin.

  Shaking the thoughts away, I sat up and reached for the pitcher and cup I’d left on my bedside. The cool of the water felt magnificent on my throat. It also helped me wake up enough to notice some odd discrepancies. Like the fact that there was a second indentation on my pillow. The type that happened when someone slept on it. Also, the blankets were wrinkled. I was an active sleeper, but that meant my blankets were usually on the floor when I woke up, not pushed aside for someone to get out of bed.

  I frowned as a clacking echoed from the kitchen. There was someone in my house! Someone had slept in my bed with me and was in my kitchen! I was beginning to get worried, but as an
enchantress, I was powerful enough to not be afraid. I hated being afraid. It was a reminder of a time when I had no power or control over my life.

  Slowly, I got out of the bed and changed, noting that I was still in my party clothes, minus my shoes. I must have been incredibly tired not to put a nightgown on when I went to sleep, I mused before stepping out into the kitchen. The cottage I lived in wasn’t large enough to have a hallway between the bedroom and the kitchen, so I wasn’t given much time to anticipate what I saw, which was a good thing. I wouldn’t have guessed anyway.

  There was a man in my kitchen. Cooking. He was cooking trout, from the look of it. Then I circled back to the first part: there was a man in my kitchen!

  He was about six feet tall and moved with a fighter’s grace. It was a good thing I had magic, because there was no way I could overwhelm a man with that much lean muscle. When I say lean, I mean that he had the sort of physique that hides well, but his shoulders and the way he moved made you realize that he was a lot more dangerous than someone covered in bulging muscles. He’d be too fast and strong. His hair was about the same chestnut shade as my own and fluffed out in a tousled mess. When he turned to grab something from my pantry I was finally able to get a good look at his face. Warm brown eyes shone with excitement and his high cheekbones were emphasized by his beard, which was an absolute mess. In fact, he reminded me of someone…

  “Thrushbeard!” I said, snapping my fingers and revealing myself in one fell swoop. I’m not so fantastic at impulse control when I first wake up.

  “I beg your pardon?” the man replied. His deep voice was slightly raspy, reminding me of something, but I couldn’t quite remember what.

  “You look like a man in my old village everyone called ‘Thrushbeard’ because his beard was so disorderly it looked like a thrush’s nest.” He’d been exceptionally kind to me when I was little, so I remembered the older man quite well. He was one of the few to never allow my mother to bully him.