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Charming
This is not how the story is supposed to go. I am supposed to find my princess, she is supposed to fall in love with me, and we are supposed to live Happily Ever After. This is how it was for my mother and father, both passed on to the forever after. It is how it was for my grandparents, and their parents, and the entire Ever After royal lineage. I do not understand why I seem unable to defeat the dragon the way my predecessors did.
A weapon made for the beast now resides on my princess love’s back. It has chosen her, because her power is greater than she knows or can hope to understand. She was born in the mundane and has no fear of it. Her expectations are low, but the burden being put on her is so great I fear she may buckle beneath it.
None of this should ever have fallen on her shoulders. I should have defeated the dragon long before she came here. I should be wearing a cape of its scales, not this plastic-based garment manifested from her world.
The Ever After has a way of humbling those who imagine themselves to be great and of elevating those who remain humble. Perhaps that is what I should be focusing on, not my status as king of the realm, but my role as Princess Emmaline’s consort.
“Where is this dragon,” she says. “I’d like to talk to it.”
“There is no talking to the dragon. It is an elemental beast, something older than story. It is a creature that story attempts to capture and yet always fails.”
“Alright, well, I have a sword, but I don’t know what to do with a sword, and frankly, I’m not that into weaponry. It’s not really me,” she says. “They say the pen is mightier than the sword.”
“And that may be true, but the sword still has its place and its uses.”
“Do you want it, then?”
“It’s not mine. It’s yours.”
“But I don’t…” She frowns. “I’m not a sword fighter. I don’t even like killing flies. I am obviously not going to use this for any kind of fighting.”
“You were slaying monsters when I found you down in the remains of our wedding.”
“Sure, okay, but that’s, I mean. I had to.”
“Indeed, and when you have to again, you will again. But next time, you will not be unprepared. I can teach you fencing and forms. I can prepare you for the battles yet to come.”
She mumbles something about babysitting and term papers being easier.
“I am sorry that this is so hard. I never imagined you would have to do anything other than agree to be my wife, and to be blunt, even the agreement was a little neither here or there.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” she says with thick sarcasm. I can hardly blame her. If sarcasm is her only response to the desperate darkness she finds herself enshrouded by, then I consider her very gracious and brave indeed.
6
“Keep your guard,” Charming warns me. “The first form is a fundamental.”
I could argue that having my sword at any particular angle won’t fucking matter if a dragon bites me in half, but Charming is taking this seriously and I suppose I have to as well, given the dragon ruined his dream wedding.
Bridezilla has nothing on a King Charming denied his special day. For the last several dozen days, he has drilled me in the art of swordcraft, but I am sorry to say I am not a natural and I am finding it very difficult to master even the basics. It was one thing when I just had to wave the blade at some skeletal horrors, anybody can do that. Facing King Charming’s fencing academy is an entirely different proposition.
The king himself (who else would it be, he trusts no other near me) is standing before me, dressed head to toe in white fencing attire. I am wearing similar garb, though I do not think the color was a great choice. In the wake of the ruined wedding, everything has been very ashen, and so every time I accidentally make contact with something, I come away smutty.
Charming is handsome as ever, his green and gold eyes very enchanting, the hard lines of his face alluring. We are waggling floppy rapiers at one another. I would rather be handling a very different sword, if one follows my meaning. And I do not mean Dragonslayer, which is mounted on the wall in such a way it is able to keep watch over me. This, I feel, pleases it. I’ve been convinced from the moment I touched it that Dragonslayer has a personality or soul of some kind. It certainly has preferences.
We are training in a dungeon, which also happens to be our bedchamber. The Ever After remains in a state of chaos, and that means this room is no longer a traditionally romantic scene. The skulls littering the corners of the room are starting to become background decor to me, a kind of gothic vibe that is actually pretty in right now.
