Long Live

          If anything positive can be said of the King of Kemenbar, it is that he was highly adept at planning ahead. When he had the castle constructed, he specifically ordered flame-resistant stone from a small village up north. For years and years afterwards he would stop anyone dumb enough to listen and tell them all about how wise he was for thinking of that detail and how lucky they were to have a monarch such as him.

          What he didn’t plan for was a dragon. The fires of a dragon’s belly are not hindered by any stone, even the flame-resistant kind. Fire of that nature can easily melt castles, small mountains, robust stop signs, and anything else that might happen upon its searing path.

          This night the Kemenbarian castle would be in ruins and the King and Queen would be homeless. Though to be fair, they were already kidnapped by a deranged villain who looked exactly like King Nate and that was mostly what concerned them. They had no idea the castle was under siege by a dragon. Or that they would never see their beloved castle again. Kemenbar would not survive the night.

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          A scream tore the night in two. In some corner of the castle grounds, a hobbit raised a cry about fear and fire and foes. He soon came to regret his outburst as he learned that dragons dislike cries of that sort. His last sight was of the gaping jaws of a midnight-colored dragon, then he met his end in a swirl of hungry flames.

          The dragon, who was called Heath, was having the time of his life. His dark face shone with joy. What more could a dragon ask for than crowds of screaming people and a healthy dose of destruction? He felt alive.

          This was his idea of a fun night out. The fire issuing from his throat was roasting hobbits. His large paws stamped the castle grounds into a pulverized mess. He sucked in a supply of air, then spit it out as a fireball which enveloped the castle walls. The fire-proof stones melted into a puddle of lava. Not long now. King Heath the Handsome Dragon had a nice ring to it. Yes, it most certainly did.

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          Stephanie was awakened by the obscure noise of boiling stones turning to liquid. She had never once heard the sound before, but she recognized it instantly. It is one of those sounds that is nearly unmistakable.

          If you take a newborn baby and place him in a melting castle, he will immediately think to himself, “Why is the castle melting? What an undignified thing to do!” Newborn babies often think about concepts such as dignity.

          Stephanie leapt straight out of bed. The castle was melting. When did that sort of thing happen to castles? She didn’t think it could, but the sound was impossible to ignore. She thought that leaving might be a reasonable course of action. With a speed not seen in several ages of history, she flew through corridor after corridor and out into the courtyard dressed in penguin footie pajamas.

          It was moments like this that she thanked her lucky stars she had thought to install the taser holster in this set of pajamas. One never knew when one would need to rescue a kingdom from melting castles in the middle of the night and luck favors the prepared.

          She slipped the weapon out of its holster and scanned the area while pointing it at anything and everything that moved. Which by this point wasn’t much of anything. Most of the hobbits were either long gone or toasted.

          A black dragon spat out great tongues of flame into the sky. The orange blaze licked low-hanging clouds. It was hot even from so far away. All around her, every surface was charred and smoldering to varying degrees. It reeked of smoke.

          “You, Dragon!” She shouted, ever the brave warrior. “Get thee and thy large bulk henceforth!”

          The dragon looked at her, incredulous. “Excuse me?” He rasped.

          “You heard my tidings, you Great Ashen Oaf!”

          “I am Heath the Great Dragon of the Northern Mountain Passes and Bunny Valley! Do not insult me with your mockery and disgraceful speech.”

          “Thy title doth amuse me,” retorted Stephanie. “Come and face my taser, Vile Beast. Attack this fortress no longer.”

          “Aye, Tiny Wench. I will not. I have come to this castle with an errand at hand and I will fulfill its claims on me.” The great Dragon scraped his claws on the sodden earth. He stretched his lips into a grimace that spoke of raw aggression. Heath intended to intimidate her, but the poor beast did not know what sort of impossibility he was intending.

          “You will not, Beast. You will return to your home. Or else you will meet an unhappy end.” She planted her feet and refused to budge from this struggle of wills.

          “I will not return to my home.”

          “Indeed, you will,” Stephanie assured him.

          “I will not.”

          “Yea, I will make sure of it.”

          “It would amuse me to see you attempt it.”

          They were at an impasse. Neither would budge either verbally or geographically. The two opponents merely stood and glared at each other. Stephanie’s burning eyes jabbed straight into the dead, soulless eyes of the dragon. It was, it can be said, supremely awkward.

          Stephanie thought for a solution to this situation. Here was an enormous dragon practically melting the glorious castle of Kemenbar, and all she had to defend it was a wimpy taser. This was bad news. What she needed was a clever plan which could send the dragon scurrying away.

          “How about we have a staring contest?”

          “Say what?” the Dragon blinked.

          “I win!” shouted Stephanie.

          “What? You most certainly did not win.”

          “You blinked so I won!”

          “We hadn’t yet started the contest.”

          “I think we very clearly did, besides you never stated otherwise.”

          The Dragon was incredibly upset that she not obey the rules that he promptly stormed off and flew into the great openness of the blue sky.

          Stephanie, on the other hand, was victorious and it made her feel quite the hero. She whistled for Gus. He came trotting to her. “Quickly, Noble Steed! We must fly like the birds of the dawn!”

          Now, Gus was a noble dragosaur and he had very lofty ideas of what was and was not dignified. Being likened to birds fell into the “Not Dignified” list. But he knew that the Queen and the King needed help, and by golly he would be the one to provide that help.

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          This was not the first time the King was locked in a musty cellar and it certainly would not be the last. Course ropes snaked around each of his limbs. He smelled rotting food and misery. Over in the other corner of the cellar, the Queen was muttering to herself. “She’s probably lost it,” he thought.

          If she had “lost it,” then it could only be the fault of his incessant singing.

          “Megan?” He called out.

          She did not answer. In the dark, Nate felt what he could of the knots holding him to a certain spot. He was grateful that it was merely ropes. Often, he would be locked up with chains, which he considered a royal nuisance.

           His raw fingers could not get a decent hold on the ropes in order to untie the knots. He continued at it until he felt that his fingertips might just decide to pack up and find another person to belong to.

          He shouted in frustration an unintelligible noise. Megan’s only response was to cease mutter for half a moment. When she returned to her muttering, Nate just about lost his own mind. Nate slammed his fist into the cold stone floor of the dungeon. He yelped from the pain.

          Then, to his great and everlasting joy, he heard Megan stir, stop muttering, and say, “Nate?”

          Nate would have leapt up, and indeed, he tried, except the ropes held him down. “Yes!?” He said.

          Her voice sounded different, but it was Meg, and she seemed alright.

          “What are you shouting for?” She asked.

          “What do you mean?”

          “Why are you shouting while I’m trying to sleep?”

          “You were asleep?” He asked, incredulous.

          “Yes.” She said curtly, her voice losing its drowsiness began to sound normal.

          “We’re in a dungeon.”

          “And what else should I do in a dungeon? I was having a lovely dream, thank you very much.”

          Nate sat in silence. The dungeon had a quality that made it feel not dissimilar to an enormous, stony lung. You could not hear the movement of air, nor feel it exactly. It was just an idea that you got that the walls were moving, living things.

          At length he asked her, “How will we escape?”

          “I don’t expect we will.” She answered.

          He remained silent after that. “So you’re ok with us staying here forever?”

          “I don’t think that will happen either,” she said.

          “Oh?”

          “I expect Gus to be here with half a legion, before the day is out.”

          Nate scoffed, “First, we won’t know when the day is out, because we’re in a dungeon. We may never see the sun again. Secondly, they’ll never find us.”

          Now it was Megan’s turn to act surprised, “Oh?”

          “How could they?”

          “Gus has a fantastic sense of smell.”

          “You think he’ll sniff us out?”

          “You don’t?”

          “We’re potentially underground in a stinky dungeon, I don’t expect him to pick out our scent.”

          “I think we smell fairly awful in our own right.”

Nate laughed despite himself, “I’m sure we do.”

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In the end, Megan turned out to be partially right. Gus did sniff them out. And though he didn’t ever admit it, a large portion of the thanks could have gone to Nate’s feet which had a distinctive odor that stood out from the horrendous dungeon stench. Indeed, for several weeks after Nate and his feet had been there, none of the filthy rats that usually frequented the dungeon, dared get within half a mile of it.

It should be noted that Megan was wrong about the half legion she expected him to bring. He only brought Stephanie, which is similar to bringing half a legion, but not enough to get her a point for accuracy.

Still, both Megan and Nate were grateful with the walls of one side of the dungeon were torn away by enormous claws to reveal the beaming face of Gus. They did not remember much of their escape. It was all a blur of late afternoon sunshine and Stephanie barking orders to no one in particular.

In the commotion, no one thought to ask where Mel was. Revenge was not on their minds. They merely hurried home to their castle, that was not as much a castle as it was a pile of rubble in a similar shape to that of a castle.

The people of Kemenbar slept under the stars that night as a homeless people. It did not suit them. Each one of them fell asleep with the distinct impression that they missed their home. None of them slept particularly well.