The Princess and Her Dragon

The prince fought valiantly. He slew the dragon, married the princess, and lived happily ever after…

       Fires flickering, soldiers lying on the ground, the prince pulled the trigger once more…

 “NO!” the princess screamed as the dragon stumbled to the ground. She ran to him—the dragon had told her to stay inside the castle no matter what happened, but that did not matter anymore. Tripped over by her dress, she fell several times, but ignoring the pain, she stood up and kept running to her dragon. “Please don’t, don’t….” the princess whispered, tears sliding down her rosy cheeks. “I can’t lose you…”

~~~

“Princess, it seems like another prince is coming for you.” The dragon landed on the balcony. “Should I go and fight with him?”

“I don’t think that is necessary—if he comes with peace.” The princess answered from the kitchen, “Also, I don’t want you to get in another fight. It’s dangerous, and you might get hurt like you did last time.”

“You have a point, my princess, but it is my duty to protect you from those selfish princes. I promised your Majesty I would protect you until the right prince appears, just like my father did for your mother.” The dragon walked toward the kitchen; he smelled that the princess was baking cookies, his favorites. “Wow, my princess, are you baking cookies?”

The princess giggled, “Yes, I am.” She put the spoon down and stared at the dragon. “Your father did protect my mother really well, but he died because the wicked prince wanted to hurt my mother after the right prince had appeared. I don’t want that to happen to you! I can’t lose you…why does everyone thinks dragons are the evil ones, while the princes are truly more wicked?”

“Well, princess, sometimes people make up lies to make themselves heroes, I guess.” The dragon peeked inside the kitchen.

“But why can’t the dragons live longer?” the princess asked.

“Because the princes are becoming more evil, princess. They make up new weapons just to defeat dragons; I heard rumors they are making a new weapon now. Dragons don’t upgrade…oh, princess, do you need help with the baking? I could just give it a breath!”

“I just hope you will be at my side when I get married and live with me forever! Promise? Or I won’t give you any cookies for the rest of your life!” the princess crossed her arms.

“I’ll do my best, princess,” the dragon replied. Then, he took a deep breath and blew his fire toward the cookies. A few seconds later, they were ready to serve. “Thanks, dragon! And you may have all the cookies I make for the rest of your life.” The princess hugged the dragon.

“Anytime, my princess.” Under his thick dragon skin, he blushed.

~~~

“No, no, no…”

The princess knelt beside the dragon. His blood was everywhere, and his wings were broken and torn apart. The dragon was breathing heavily.

“Hang on, you’re going to be fine…” the princess sobbed as she tried to stop the blood. Just then, an iron arrow flew past besides her and struck the heart of the dragon!

“NO!” the princess screamed. She shook the dragon, pleading, “Please stay with me, please…” He was gone.

“You promised me, you promised you would be at my side when I got married!” The princess’ words turn into sobbing.

A gentle hand touched the princess’ shoulder. It was her prince, to whom she was engaged to be married in the next few days. Heartbroken, the princess shook her beloved prince’s hand off.

The evil prince walked forward, he was still grabbing the iron bow, which he used to kill the princess’s best friend. “You see, I was never going to kill your precious. But you rejected my proposal. Leaving me no choice but to kill all of those who protect you in order to own your kingdom and you.”

The princess stood up, and grabbed the sword next to her. She faced the evil prince, eyes flooding with tears, she screamed at him: “YOU KILLED MY DRAGON!”

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Hey guys, just a side note. I wrote this for my school magazine, so it actually belongs to the school magazine, (you can check them out over here --> http://www.claymag.org/ ) but they reconstructed their website this year and now everything from the previous year is gone. So I wanted to post this up here because it's the article I really enjoyed writing it and liked how it turned out, I hope you guys enjoy it as well!