griffinmarsh

[marrinikari]

Princess Emmalina of Griffinmarsh is her parents' pride and joy.

She's as beautiful as anyone could wish, even if her hair color isn't quite the fashionable shade of blonde. It's long and flowing and perfectly tended and really, no one will mind if it's just a tad too dark. And her eyes are so unique, aren't they- and hazel is coming into style now, isn't it, so it won't matter a whit that cornflower blue is still the current trend.

Her multitude of tutors did their work well. She's not flawlessly graceful, of course, but she dances quite nicely nonetheless. She's as courteous and gracious as they could hope, even if she's sometimes a tad snide for polite company. And her watercolors are more than adequate, particularly that one of the river from the east tower (though wasn't the view from the west tower better? Well, the room's been empty for years, this was more practical, isn't she thoughtful.)

And she's certainly never any trouble. All those stories you hear- of course Cimorene's rather a dramatic case, but didn't that girl two kingdoms over recently run away from home to marry her girlfriend? Can you even imagine? Her parents must be so mortified. Thank goodness Emmalina's such a good child; she might talk back too much, but she's never done anything like that.

Really, her parents couldn't ask for a better daughter.

If only she would get married.

---

Emmalina doesn't think it's her fault, exactly. Griffinmarsh is very... average. Average size, average population, average wealth. Average princess, if she's being honest. And they hadn't had any of those recurring griffin problems in years, no matter the gossip. But for a kingdom, it's still rather... left out, if such a thing is possible. Not to mention that the marshes are rather hazardous to the unprepared; they don't get a lot of visitors. How Emmalina is supposed to marry someone when she never meets anyone has never been explained to her.

Her mother's latest plan is promising, she thinks, but it still seems to be missing a few pieces.

"Tourneys are downright thrilling," the queen assures her. "I met your father at one, back in the day! And this is one of the largest tournaments in years. They've had to split the bakeoff into two, can you imagine? Surely someone will find you to their liking."

"But we have to get there," Emmalina reminds her. "We can't exactly take the carriage through the marshes."

"The merchants have found a new route," her father tells her smugly. "Very promising. I'll send you and your mother through in a carriage with an escort, you'll be there in a week, no problems at all."

In Emmalina's experience, saying 'no problems' was just asking for them to appear. She's almost surprised an evil fairy doesn't materialize on the spot.

"You can't spare a full escort for a month," she points out.

"Well," her father says uncomfortably, "we'll only send half an escort. But you know as well as I do the griffins haven't appeared in years."

"To hear Princess Iradwel tell it, we've been attacked yearly for centuries," Emmalina says sourly.

"Emmalina," her mother says sternly. "Just because our neighbors indulge in rumor mongering does not make it appropriate for you to belittle them."

"Sorry, Mother," she sighs.

"It's all right, dear," the queen says. "Just do try to be careful at the tournament, won't you? Gossiping is unseemly in a princess."

"No, Mother."

"Very well, then. You'll be attending the grand tournament two months hence. I'll make the travel arrangements." The king beams at her. "And then we can put all this nonsense about you being unmarried behind us."

"Yes, Father."

---

Emmalina and her mother depart for the tournament exactly on time. The carriage was ready for them, as her father had promised, with the half complement of guards he could spare. (Emmalina's maid had confided that there had been more than a few fights over the honor of escorting them; the promise of watching the tourney was, apparently, more than enough incentive to brave the marshes.) They're packed, loaded and out the gate before Emmalina is even fully awake.

Her mother chatters as they drive about all the eligible young men who have registered for the tournament. Prince So-and-So is nice, but a little too old- princes marry later, of course, but hasn't it been a little long even for a prince? And Sir This-and-That is ever so handsome, but obviously an actual prince is much to be preferred. Emmalina tunes her out. She's sure she'll hear it at least twice more before the end of the trip.

She's far more concerned by the marshes.

They're huge, and treacherous, and most of the reliable paths eventually submerge. The griffins are mostly gone, but one can never really be sure, and everyone says that the presence of armed men will set them off and-

Emmalina worries.

She worries the whole time through the marshes. It takes them three days to get all the way through, and she barely sleeps. When they make it through with no more casualties than a single bag that got thrown too far over a horse, she breathes a sigh of relief and goes for her first good night's sleep in a while. They've made it out of the marsh, and out of the griffins, and now getting to the tournament will be straightforward.

Or it would have been, anyway. No one could have predicted the dragon.

Waking up was very unpleasant.

---

Half an escort might have been enough to handle bandits or even an unlikely griffin, but they were definitely unprepared for a dragon. Emmalina wakes up carefully bundled in the dragon's arms, still wrapped in her blanket, and promptly screams.

"Hey!" The dragon says indignantly. "Why all the yelling? I was very nice about this, you know."

Emmalina doesn't respond. She's busy screaming.

"I even brought your blanket," the dragon says, sounding aggrieved. "I didn't have time to file my nails, and I wouldn't want to damage you after I went to all the trouble of fetching you in the first place."

Emmalina pauses her screaming to catch her breath, then starts again. "Don't eat me! Please!"

"Eat you?" the dragon asks, confused. "Why would I eat you? I just said I'd gone to all this trouble! No, no, my last princess finally got rescued last month, and it's rather annoying having her gone. Helpful creatures, princesses. So I've been looking for a new one. I must say, I didn't think I'd have to go all this way, but here you are, so it all worked out, didn't it?"

"Not for me!" Emmalina wails. "I'm supposed to be at a tournament with my mother! I'm supposed to meet princes and knights and fall in love and live ha- happily ever a- afterrrr."

"Tournament?" the dragon says. "No, no, there's no tournament near here. No self respecting dragon would fly past that many knights! Don't be silly."

This shocks Emmalina almost into silence. "But- but I was going-"

"You were right where your father said you would be," the dragon says happily. "And you'll meet all sorts of knights and princes when they come to rescue you, and until then I'll have a princess to help with the cooking and tidying. Won't it be nice?"

"Of course," Emmalina mutters, because that's polite, she's always polite, she's a good daughter-

She cries the rest of the way to the Mountains of Morning.

---

The dragon, who introduces himself as Morath, helps Emmalina settle in. Once she accepts that Morath truly has no interest in eating her, it becomes easier. Her fury with her parents is surprisingly motivating; she sets herself to learning how to be a dragon's princess, and who cares if her parents would approve, because at least Morath is honest about it all. She learns the basics of cooking, and Morath has an enchanted broom and mop that help her through most of the cleaning. There's only two other princesses in the caves near Morath's, and Emmalina is polite to them whenever they appear to socialize, but they seem to find her parents' plan helpful and romantic, so Emmalina silently resolves to never be their friend.

Days turn to weeks. Emmalina adjusts to life with Morath well enough to have some free time outside cooking and cleaning; she reads, or organizes Morath's treasure. He doesn't have a lot of treasure- he's not particularly rich as dragons go- but he's good enough about keeping magical items separate that she can play dress up with the safer pieces, which she finds quite entertaining. Some of the older pieces are just stunning. Leave rings here, shields there, weapons in the back corner... She can do this. It's easier than keeping track of the relative ranks of dukes, counts and barons, if she's honest about it.

Weeks turn to months. Emmalina's far from home, and word only spreads through the knightly grapevine so quickly; she's had just a handful of would-be rescuers. Morath is very nice about it. He defeats them neatly, never damaging them too badly, but sends them back looking just injured enough to tell tales and garner sympathy. Emmalina hasn't decided how she feels about it all. It might be nice to be rescued. Certainly if she met a rescuer she liked enough, which she hasn't yet. She would be more than happy to never pull out the enchanted mop ever again. But on the other hand... then her parents would get what they wanted.

And they don't deserve it.

Comments

[abeance]

"One of these days I'll rescue somebody from a dragon and have to actually fight the dragon over it."

[follow_the_leader]

"Am I just the latest in a string of dragon rescues, then?" Emmalina asked with a faint smile.

[abeance]

"Did I not tell you about the time m'cousin got carried off? He got carried off. Apparently he smells like a princess to things, we're not sure why. I had to go fetch him because it would've been the height of awkwardness if somebody else had done."

[follow_the_leader]

...that is absolutely not what Emmalina was expecting. She wants to respond but she can't help herself. She starts laughing helplessly. "He. He smells like a princess? That's- what?!"

[abeance]

"He does! He smells like a princess and the dragon was old and blind and deaf! This wasn't even the first time, a giant got confused too, but Milo was able to talk his way out of that one."

[follow_the_leader]

"Your lives sound wonderfully absurd," Emmalina tells him rather wistfully.

[abeance]

"I'm not sure he found it wonderful, but I find it a funny story."

[follow_the_leader]

"It sounds like it ended well. So now you can laugh as much as you like."

[abeance]

"And he did enjoy organizing the dragon's library!"

[follow_the_leader]

Emmalina blinks at that. "...was it a particularly interesting library?" she inquires. "I organized Morath's treasure sometimes, but half the appeal was seeing history's poor fashion decisions. And I'm guessing- hoping- your cousin was not wearing the books."

[abeance]

"I don't think so. He's the bookish type, though."

[follow_the_leader]

Emmalina is about to respond when the darkness comes rolling back. She sighs and stops in place, one hand on the wall. "I was so hoping the last one would be it, we're almost th-" she is cut off by a familiar chittering.

"-down, sitting down now, help spider," Emmalina breathes out in a rush. She curls into a ball on the floor, back against the wall, dagger retrieved and held carefully in front of her.

[abeance]

Sound of drawn sword! "Ow." Squelch. Clank. Clank. Squelch. "Say something, which direction are you in -"

[follow_the_leader]

"Here, I'm here, it was-" she thinks frantically- "ahead of me, a little to the left?"

[abeance]

"I've touched it since then, just wanted to make sure I hadn't got turned around, don't want to take my sword out of it till it stops twitching -" Clang. "And it's easier to pin down with the ground helping."

[follow_the_leader]

Emmalina nods jerkily, remembers he can't see her, and manages to gulp out, "Okay, so it's- good. That's good."

[abeance]

"Yeah, I got it, we're fine," he assures her.

[follow_the_leader]

Unfortunately, fighting spiders is a loud activity, which attracts spiders. Either they are sneaky or their approach was quieter than the thrashing of the dying one on Jann's sword. Either way, Jann now has two more spiders to deal with, and one has found Emmalina.

When the spider brushes her arm, she shrieks and wrestles her dagger free. It's dark, too dark, she can't see anything, but she can feel it moving and maybe she can't kill it but she will stab anything that gets close to her.

[abeance]

"Shit," says Jann, and he resumes spider-stabbing. "Are you okay, did one bite y-" Scrape of fang on armor. "How many of these things are th-" Stab. Slash.

[follow_the_leader]

"It's-" she feels spider hairs on her arm and stabs for them, "-trying but-" it steps on her leg and she even manages to connect the dagger this time, "-hasn't gotten-" she can feel it move towards her face, swallows another shriek (mostly) and slashes wildly in front of her, "-just yet?"

[abeance]

"I'll be there in ow a sec -"

He dispatches one of his foes; the other has managed to poke him in the eye with its leg, which is really uncomfortable.

[follow_the_leader]

Sure, they are large and unfriendly and have scary teeth, but they are not poisonous. That would just be excessive. Jann's eye will not suffer (extra) damage.

Emmalina is setting no records for fine swordsplay, and she's certainly not capable of fending off the spider, much less killing it. On the other hand, she is waving a sharp metal object with terror-powered force, and it's sufficient to keep the spider from jumping her outright. She's starting to get a little winded, but the adrenaline's helping. "Knife's keeping-" stab, "-it off-" slice, "-for now!"

[abeance]

Jann kills the second spider. "Can you, I don't know, kick it in my direction, something like -" The light comes back. "Nevermind." He spears it in the abdomen and removes it from Emmalina's person.

[follow_the_leader]

He gets another hug. A shaky, rather bloody hug, admittedly, but still a hug.

[abeance]

Pat pat pat. "Let's get as far from here as we can before it goes dark again."