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Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess — there always is, you know. And when it came time for the lovely young woman to find a handsome prince, her father wanted to make sure she found someone truly worthy of her charms. So he made a deal.
He called on the young lady’s fairy godmother, who agreed to keep the princess locked in a cave, guarded by a great dragon, until such a one could be found who proved truly worthy of her hand.
So far, so good. We’ve hit on all the major archetypes. There was, unfortunately, one problem. The young princess with devastatingly blue eyes and long, golden tresses, was a first-class, grade-A bitch.
“Aunt Gwynneth! Where is my breakfast?”
“Aunt Gwynneth! Make my bed.”
“Aunt Gwynneth! Brush my hair.”
Dearest Goddess, please grant me the strength to not fry Princess Mary into a tiny pile of ash today.
Gwynneth, in case you hadn’t guessed, was the fairy godmother, and she was getting mighty tired of hearing her charge’s whiny, entitled voice.
Why didn’t I just offer to put everyone to sleep for a few hundred years? That trick worked splendidly for cousin Lizzy, but nooooo, “A dragon,” he said, “they’re very impressive,” he said, “a show of strength is always the better option,” he said. I’ll never make that bargain again, no matter how many seaside cottages are involved.
“Aunt Gwynneth! My closet door won’t close.”
As it turned out, she couldn’t even find a real dragon to help her out. She interviewed a half dozen for the position, but as soon as they met Mary, they all backed out. Just as well — they’d have probably fried her after the first week, anyway.
In the end, Gwynneth had to fall back on just a simple trick. Every time a new prince rode up the hill, she magicked up an illusion of a dragon suitably shiny and terrifying, conducted a brief interview, and when he was discovered to be inadequate (as they all, inevitably, were), she fried them into a little pile of ashes herself. Who needs a dragon? They cost too much, anyway, and always want to eat the horses.
Granted, the candidates so far were really no more than what the princess deserved — big, brawny, and brainless — but Gwynneth refused to stick the king with a knucklehead for a son-in-law.
“Such a waste,” she sighed to herself as she removed one more douchebag from the gene pool.
“But I liked that one!” came Mary’s whiny voice, “he was cute!”
Gwynneth sighed, “he was a moron.”
Then one day two lovely young men arrived at once, climbing up the hill from opposite directions. One looked like the usual sort — massive shoulders, tiny waist, and a huge broadsword that looked like it was compensating for something.
The other, though, seemed a bit different. He was tall, but lean with a head of floofy curls. His only weapons seemed to be a dagger and hunting bow; he wore no armor and carried no sword (though she did notice an awfully nice codpiece).
Well, divide and conquer, as they say. And Gwynneth set to work.
Pulling a large volume off a shelf, titled Entertaining Your Friends and Cooking Your Enemies, Gwynneth found the page she was looking for and started muttering and puttering around the kitchen. In no time at all a table appeared outside the front of the cave entrance laden with all sorts of tempting treats, just as the two men arrived and began to size each other up.
*****
Hal crested the hill just as Aethelred spotted the table. He paused to take a quick survey of the landscape. Grass grew only in rough patches in front of the cave entrance, and several blackened stumps stood forlornly across the clearing. The cave entrance was fairly large, though he noted that much of it was mysteriously blocked by a wall that looked quite ordinary that had a fairly mundane-looking door set off to the right.
Why would a dragon need a front door? He wondered. His eyes then spared a look at his apparent rival. He’s big. Can’t be all that smart, though. What good does he think armor is going to do against a dragon — it just turns into a big, human-shaped roasting pan. Doesn’t he know that?
He chuckled, then smiled again as the brawny hulk of a knight looked Hal over dismissively before sauntering up to the table and tucking in. That’s when Hal noticed the face peeking out of a high window, sporting the smiling look of someone who knows she’s done her job very well. I really hope that’s the princess, he thought to himself, she looks like a feisty one.
*****
“Oh splendid!” Gwynneth liked to talk to herself as she worked. “Mr. Brawny is being particularly cooperative.” She watched from a small window as His Entitled Majesty fell to at the table, and then fell over — comatose and snoring gently. “Very convenient. Big and dumb, just as I suspected.” She quickly magicked him off into a holding so she could deal with him later, while she ducked back inside to think about how to deal with “Mr. Charming,” as she’d mentally labeled him.
*****
Now that his rival had toppled over and disappeared, Hal decided he had better go on the offensive, a charm offensive. Never try to beat a dragon at his own game. His best shot was to try the unexpected. He would try being nice.
*****
Gwynneth stood behind the front door and waited for the threats to start — that was usually where they began, then came the banging-loudly-on-the-door, right before the brandishing-of-large-weapons, and finally the satisfying-roar-of fire-and-lingering-stench-of-burnt-flesh.
I really hope this one is a bit different, though — she peeked through a peephole hidden in the wall — he is mighty fine to look at. She sniffed then, working a bit at maintaining her indifference, not that it matters — he’s not here to see me, anyway.
Then the strangest thing happened.
He knocked on the door.
That’s a novel approach.
“Hello?” Came an unusually polite, one might even say gentlemanly, voice. “I would be most grateful for to opportunity to introduce myself. May I speak to the dragon of the house?”
Well, this could be interesting. “Prince Charming,” indeed. Gwynneth smiled to herself, waved her hands, and with a brief flash of light, magicked herself into a dragon, though perhaps one not quite so enormous and terrifying as usual. Materializing just outside the entrance and right behind “Mr. Charming,” she got a pretty good look at his excellent rear end before he turned to face her. She flashed him a lovely, toothy grin as she greeted him, “Good afternoon, young man. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit.”
“Well, Your Serpentine Greatness, rumor has reached me that a beautiful princess resides here under your careful watch, and I had hoped to gain permission to woo her as my bride.”
Such a well-spoken man! Too bad Mary will never appreciate it. Gwynneth’s heart beat just a little bit faster. She tilted her scaly head demurely and smiled another toothy grin. “Perhaps you would like to make your case over a cup of tea?”
“I would be delighted, Your Toothy Magnificence,” he replied, as he bowed deeply.
“Oh please, call me Gwynneth,” and as she giggled a tiny poof of fire singed his sleeve just a bit.
“Oh I’m so sorry.”
“No, no, it’s ok, really. Very pleased to meet you, Gwynneth; I’m Henry — Hal, if you like — from that little castle just over the hill.”
*****
Accommodations were a little cramped — they did, after all, have to fit everything into a cave. The parlor sat at one end of the room and the kitchen in the other. She set the teapot and cups on the trestle and sat next to him on the bench taking out her needlework while they talked.
Gwynneth had, of course, initially intended to slip a bit of poison into his tea, but soon found Hal to be wonderfully distracting. They got to talking, and he was so adorable, she just never quite got around to it. After a bit, she started to let the illusion slip a bit. He was quite distracting, sparkling blue eyes, chiseled features, lovely curly hair, and a voice as seductive as chocolate (well, had she known what chocolate was, anyway — this is the Middle Ages, after all).
For his part, Hal had never dreamed a dragon could be so enchanting, or female — that was quite the shocker. He was also a bit disconcerted at first, to see a dragon doing needlework, but it took all the diplomatic skill he had not to react as the shape that seemed so solid one minute subtly began to shift — her eyes transitioning from a golden opalescence to a soft chocolate brown, the scales gradually losing their shine until they blurred together to become soft, caressable skin, the claws losing their edges to morph into tapered, feminine fingers.
“Forgive me if I overstep propriety, Gwynneth, but you are uncommonly beautiful for a dragon.”
She smirked, impressed with his self control “that is sweet of you to say, but I am pretty well average for someone who is not a dragon.”
His eyes wandered over her transformed shape appreciatively, “You don’t happen to be the princess, do you?” came the hopeful question.
His answer came not from Gwynneth, but by way of a whiny voice that preceded its owner into the parlor. “Aunt Gwynneth! I thought a new prince had come. You haven’t already done away with him, have you?”
Mary stopped short as she spotted Hal, and raked him disdainfully up and down: too skinny! And where’s the armor and broadsword! “Is this him?” She whined in a disappointed tone.
“There was another one, Mary. I haven’t dealt with him, yet — he’s in the holding cell down the hall.”
The princess rolled her eyes, and flounced back out of the room, “Nobody thought to bring me any tea, I notice.”
Gwynneth sighed the sigh of the long suffering: “No,” and she turned back to give Hal a crooked smile, “I am not the princess. I am the Fairy Godmother.”
Henry shuddered to himself a bit. “That was the princess?”
Gwynneth’s smile became just a tiny bit strained, “yes.”
“And your her godmother?”
“Fairy godmother. I did say so, yes.”
Hal sat quietly for a moment or two, as he struggled with a decision for just a bit. He looked at his teacup, then he glanced up at Gwynneth, noticing again her soft, very much undragon-like curves.
He looked intently at the tips of his scuffed boots, then back up at Gwynneth, noticing again her big brown eyes.
He glanced at his hands, then back at Gwynneth once more as his eyes came to rest of her no-doubt warm-soft-kissable lips.
Gwynneth watched silently while Henry debated, but she was well past remaining a neutral party.
She felt his eyes roam over her curves just as if it had been his hands, and felt her nipples brush against the fabric of her dress as she shifted slightly under his gaze.
She held her breath when his eyes caught hers, the warmth pooling between her thighs.
Her heart raced when his gaze settled on her mouth.
She licked her lips.
He did the same.
He shifted on the bench so that his leg brushed against hers, and he leaned in to whisper in her ear, “You don’t suppose, do you, that just because I am a prince, that I necessarily have to woo a princess?”
She smiled as she brushed her cheek across his, closing her eyes tight, “No,” she inhaled deeply to take in the smell of leather, musk, and cinnamon, “no, I don’t suppose you do.”
It was all the cue he needed, and his hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her toward him as he found out just how soft those lips were, sliding his tongue across her mouth, moaning as she opened for him.
Gwynneth’s skin went all tingly as he slid one hand up her back and the other brushed across her cheek before tangling in her hair, humming little noises of pleasure, sliding her own hands up the leather of his jacket, before resting on the skin at his neck, teasing the curls at his nape.
She turned to straddle the bench so she could face him directly, and he took immediate advantage, pulling her even closer, and working at her skirts to hike them up and allow access to the warm flesh underneath. Mmmmm, soooooo nice. She smiled again as his lips left hers so they could travel down her neck, and find her breasts, nipping at them through the fabric.
“Skin,” she sighed, “I need skin.” He chuckled as her fingers slid out of his hair to work the buttons of his jerkin, and then pull the linen shirt over his head, while he worked the laces at the front of her kirtle, pulling it down to reveal a lovely soft shoulder (which he promptly bit into), and then a lovely soft breast with a naughty hard nipple that begged to be sucked (he obliged).
Meanwhile his wonderfully long digits had found their way to the forfended place, and found it Oh. So. Very. Wet. He groaned deep in his chest at the discovery, just as she squealed more than a little bit with his touch, hips rocking with pleasure. “Ohhhh, Hal, I believe you’ve done this before. You have been a bad boy, haven’t you?”
His only reply was to bury his fingers into her wetness and tease her (almost) mercilessly.
“Mmm!”
“Henry.”
“Your.”
“Fingers.”
“Are not.”
“Going.”
“To be enough. Ohhhhhmmmmmmnnnn”
She quickly worked to open his trousers and was amply rewarded for her pains — so big, I am a very lucky girl today!
She took him in her hands and it was his turn at inarticulate mumbling, “Ohhh Christ!”
He pushed he down onto the bench and pulled her skirts up out of the way before moving into position. She whimpered a bit as he hesitated for a bit smirking down at her — “A bit of a different way to skewer a dragon, don’t you think? I prefer it immensely.”
She squeezed her eyes tight with anticipation, “Shut up and fuck me, you show off! Before I change my mind and poison you, after all!”
He snickered one more time before slamming into her, and knocking the wind right out of her, then pulling out and repeating the process. She accompanied his thrusts with a high-pitched keening as she got closer to her climax, digging her nails into his muscular back, trapping him tight between her legs. His pace quickened as he watched her face mirror her ecstasy, “God you’re gorgeous,” and he covered her mouth once more with his own swallowing her screams, and moaning his own in return before (nearly) collapsing on top of her.
After a bit her sat up, pulling her up into his lap, planting soft kisses on her cheeks, eyelids, and mouth. “I think, since I am almost a king, I could probably wed a fairy godmother, instead of a princess.”
She allowed herself a bit of a smirk, “Won’t your advisors be angry when they discover they’ve lost a chance for a political alliance?”
“What stronger alliance can we have, than with a dragon?”
Her grin turned into something downright devious, “You could certainly do worse.”
(The princess, by the way, eloped with poor Aethelred. And while he was not the brightest candle in the box, they lived mostly happily ever after, and were very careful to treat their neighbors, the Plantagenets, with the utmost respect.)