The Princess' Suitors

Sir William

“Show yourself to me, knight. Come forth and reveal yourself and state your intentions.” Damaris growled low and booming, rattling through the camps and the woods with an undeniable chill down the spine.

The onlookers felt a prickle of fear shoot through them, not one of them having heard the voice of Damaris the Great, not one of them having been worthy enough of an opponent to prompt the dragon into speaking to them.

They could all feel it, they could all feel the shift in the atmosphere that it left in its wake, echoing around them in the dead silence that followed.

However, despite the stench of dread permeating the air from the men around the tower, one knight was brave enough to step forward and announce himself. He took each step forward from the treeline, shaking but certain in its cadence.

“I am Sir William of House Loveday from the Kingdom of Evamere and I am here to prove myself worthy of Princess Winifred’s favour!” He shouted, voice loud and clear through his obvious nerves.

Damaris decided that she respected this man.

That was a first.

“Loveday is not a house that I recognise, young knight.” Damaris boomed from her perch.

“You would not recognise it, for it is a common household and not one of the nobility!” he called out.

Damaris regarded him for a moment and decided that he was certainly interesting.

“A common house? Very well, Sir William, you have piqued my interest.” Damaris roared and plunged forward, down from the tower to the top of the outpost on the keep that he had come adjacent to.

Her wings unfurled and stretched out to their full span, blotting out the stars that shone in the sky behind her. Her scales reflected a silvery blue sheen in the light of the moon and her golden eyes glowed like liquid metal. She leaned down with a ferocious glare, testing his reactions as all else remained silent.

The gust of air from her approach and landing pushed through the light brown curls of his hair in a gust, drying the sheen of sweat that had formed across his brow with its force.

He had a tremor in his stance and beneath his natural scent of lavender and petrichor came the rise of fear. However, he stood his ground and did not flee nor even take a single step backwards.

“Fight with me then, Sir William. Show me what you’re made of.” She challenged and wasted no time in taking flight from the tower.

Several archers on the ground took aim and fired arrows up at her, aiming for her underbelly and wings, but to their dismay, their attempts ricocheted off of her thick scales and bounced away from her wings like pebbles off of the side of a tent.

“No! I must fight her alone in order to prove myself worthy! Cease your fire!” Sir William yelled, a mixture of need to do this the right way and of respect for his opponent.

Damaris did not dignify the archers with a response and focused only on Sir William. She turned in an arch and roared as she thundered towards him, swooping over his head.

He drew his sword and swung upward with all of his might, missing by a hair’s width. She dove towards him again and flicked him over with her tail.

He was winded, but heaved and pulled himself up, his chest plate dented from the impact. He raised his sword once more, less steady now, on his feet. As Damaris swooped in, he landed a blow against her forearm and as she turned to face him, he landed another against the back of her tail.

She roared in amusement and faced him head on, a smirk on her reptilian face. She meant only to toy with him and she was, and she was enjoying it.

She pounced and knocked him flying into the trunk of a nearby tree. He let out a pained shout as his body thumped against the bark, plates of his armour scraping against each other as he crumpled.

She was having fun, playing with him, batting and swiping and watching him run around after her. He did not have even a slim chance of doing her any harm with his flimsy sword, but she liked watching him try. Every swipe would be doomed to glance off of her hard and dense scales without a scratch. He would be lucky if there was even a scuff mark from the impact.

It would take a lot more than a sword of the calibre that he wielded to make a dent against her. It was something that all of these pursuers had in common with each other: they overestimated themselves and the quality of their weapons, and they dared to underestimate the strength and durability of a black dragon.

It was rather egotistical of them, really, to assume that a single man, or even a group of men could have even a sliver of a chance at taking down a dragon. Even an extremely powerful mage with enchanted weapons would have a difficult time. Dragons were feared and revered for a reason.

It was a shame that so many of these men were so overcome by the pull of the curse that they forgot their place.

At least this knight seemed to be honest in his intentions. Many of the men came for Winifred for the wrong reasons, some even came for the prowess of slaying a dragon at a prominent spot in their minds; this didn’t appear to be the case in this instance.

It felt… different.

Once again, he stood and when he did, he charged at her, sword high and held firm in the grip of both of his hands. As he came, she dipped to the side and bit his sword between her sharpened teeth and lifted him off of the ground.

He yelped and held on for dear life, too late for him to let go and still make it to the ground without further injury.

For a few seconds, they made glorious eye contact. He looked white as a sheet as he stared into her molten gaze and her pupils dilated as she analysed him. She chuckled through her gripped teeth and he shuddered at the heat of her breath, too absorbed in their staring contest to close his eyes or look away.

He was like a frightened deer, frozen in place, but there was something beneath that, something else in his eyes that gave Damaris pause.

Carefully, she lowered him back to the ground and placed him on his feet, letting go of the sword and allowing him to stumble back.

He stood there in silence, the sword hanging loosely in his grip now that he could once again feel the grass and dirt beneath his boots. He had bruises forming in several places and a small patch of blood on the left of his forehead, barely visible through his mess of hair.

“Go, Sir William. Rest and heal your wounds. You fought bravely. Perhaps you will fare better the next time we fight.” Damaris said and moved to take off, back to her perch, but before she could, he shouted after her.

“But wait! I can still fight! I can prove myself! I can prove my love for the princess!” His voice was a plea.

“You are of pure heart, Sir William. Have patience. This is not the end. Rest while you can.” She spoke with finality and immediately took flight back to the top of the tower, returning to her coiled position at its tallest point.

Damaris watched over the camps through the night, making sure to keep checking all of the sides. She knew that it wasn’t above some of those people to try to attack or infiltrate the keep during the night. She had stopped a couple of small parties of soldiers in recent months and wasn’t about to allow a third.

There was a part of her that worried about the future, about Winifred’s future. Every day that passed, her safety was under more threat. There had been a few times when Damaris had considered simply torching all of the camps and smoking them out, but when she had voiced this thought to the princess, Winifred had implored her not to.

That woman was too kind, too forgiving. It made Damaris worry. She knew that she could take care of herself when it came down to it, she could hold her own in hand-to-hand combat, but she was still only one woman and there were hoards of soldiers outside that were constantly growing in number.

If they weren’t all competing against each other, they would pose a serious threat. If they decided to attack the keep, Damaris would have no choice but to do something about them, the same way she had been forced to kill individuals who had taken their obsession too far in the past.

Out of all of the suitors who had come to throw their hats in the ring for Winifred’s hand, it appeared that Sir William was the first to not fill her with disdain from the first second. He was by far the least objectionable.

A dragon’s intuition was almost never wrong, so she knew that she could trust herself to be a good judge of character. In the morning she would relay this to Princess Winifred, that there was finally someone out there who had potential.

She could see it in his eyes, as clear as day. He had good intentions, he was pure of heart. Although he wanted to prove himself in some way, he also seemed to be sincere in his proclamation of interest in the princess.

Damaris was sure that Winifred would be over the moon about this development. She finally had someone who could at least classify as an option. Unlike all the other pathetic buffoons hanging around out there, absorbed in shallow appearances and selfish feats.

They did not love Winifred, they did not care to know her; they only wished to claim her, to possess her. Their efforts would all be fruitless. Damaris would never allow one of those inferior, snivelling worms to come close to Princess Winifred.

The moon rose high over the forest, the hum of magic hung in the air as it always did and the nocturnal creatures made their rounds. Asleep were the birds and awakened were the bats. They flapped their wings and squeaked as they flitted between the spires and the eves under the roofs.

Damaris liked bats. They were fast and had incredible night vision, and their echo-location was particularly impressive. Dragons had no need for echo-location, but their vision in the dark was excellent. Dragons often hunted at night, especially those that resided in the mountains or in forests.

Perhaps that contributed to her enjoyment of sparring a bit with the young knight. She was in her hunting element at night and the light of the moon behind her wings as she swooped at him felt powerful.

She found herself scanning the treeline, looking for Sir William. It was curious how he had managed to capture her attention before even arriving at the clearing. The scent of lavender and petrichor was still clear through the plethora of other scents floating around, from the sweat of the soldiers below, to the fizzling flames of their campfires and the leather of their horse’s saddles.

She spotted him, almost directly adjacent to her post. He was settling in for the night, having brought nothing with him but the clothes on his back.

A fool.

She watched on as he found a rock against which to lean, and simply tried to go to sleep there. No blanket, no coverings, no fire for warmth, he hadn’t eaten anything... Had he really come so completely unprepared? Had he been robbed on the road, perhaps? Or, had he simply made his trip so spontaneously that he neglected the need for food and equipment? Perhaps it was some mix of those things.

It seemed likely.

Damaris resolved herself to keep an eye on him throughout the night, to make sure that none of the other potential suitors (though that may have been a generous term for them) would do something underhanded, like trying to attack him in his sleep. She wouldn’t put it past them, in all honesty.

The night drew on and passed uneventfully. It seemed that, at least on that night, they had decided to rest peacefully.

It was oddly nice, just sitting there, waiting for the dawn.