The prince came with an entourage. Once upon a time, that would’ve seemed perfectly normal to Amelina, but living on her own for five years, with only the governesses, her father, and the great wizard Egon to visit her, having people follow you around every moment of the day seemed tiresome. The tower hadn’t allowed anyone besides her to stay more than a couple nights, so even maids and servants had been out of the question. Now it was time to return to that life.
The princess was standing in front of the drawbridge she’d never been able to stand on in her best clothes, both doors flung open, hands folded in front of her. She would have been more impressed with the prince finding his way here, if there wasn’t clearly a wizard among his entourage. She’d bet he hadn’t even fought the monsters in the forest on his own. Still, a “valiant” prince was her ticket out of the tower, and he was handsome enough. Looked nice enough, too.
She waited for him to get on with his speech, just as she’d always practiced, but he was taking his time with it, working up the nerve. “P-p-p-princess Amelina Carrowen of Barthoff! I am Wilhelm Marrow, third p-p-prince of Lamden, come to rescue you from your c-curse.”
Oh boy. This one wasn’t very smart, was he? She wondered vaguely if all princes were this dull, or if her father had specifically picked one who was dumb because he thought it would keep her in line. She had, after all, “been getting quite wild” since she’d been cursed. Still, she smiled and curtsied appropriately, and responded, “Welcome, fair prince. Long have I awaited my rescuer.” So her voice might have been a bit less enthusiastic than it should have, but as per tradition, she held out her hand for him to kiss.
He kissed it dutifully, and she stepped aside to allow him in, the doors closing behind him without any prompting. The loud thud made the young prince flinch, and Amelina couldn’t fault him for it. The tower had… personality, and the sound had been distinctly ominous.
For a moment, the two of them stood silently in the stone hallway. Amelina wasn’t supposed to speak until the prince made some kind of move, but he was being rather awkward. With a cough, he asked her, “So… princess, should we…?”
“Kiss?” Amelina finished for him, slightly impatiently, attempting a strained smile. “That is the way to break the curse, Prince Wilhelm.” She said, as politely as she could manage.
“Yes, of course.” He said back, awkwardly, then he dithered and shifted from foot to foot until she was fairly ready to scream at him. Finally, finally, he took both of her hands, chastely, and leaned forward to kiss her on the lips, squeezing his eyes shut as he did so. Amelina wasn’t entirely certain how he expected to actually land a proper kiss with his eyes closed, so she kept hers wide open, making sure that the kiss made it to her lips. The last thing Amelina felt before she lost human consciousness was a searing pain ripping through her body from the center of her back as her spine lengthened.
The princess awoke because she was cold and uncomfortable. Her blue eyes blinked open, one hand rising from the hard stone beneath her to shield her eyes from the glare of the newly risen sun peeking over the horizon. It took her a moment to realize that she was on the roof of her little tower, flat on the ground on her stomach, dressed in the same clothes she’d been in yesterday. Pebbles from the stone roof clung to hair and chin, and her arms were sore and numb from having had her head lean on them while she’d slept.
As she peered over the parapet of the tower, she realized that the drawbridge of her tower had been pulled up, and the prince and his entourage were nowhere to be seen. That was when it came back to her.
The memories didn’t feel like hers, not disjointed but covered with a strange mental fog that made them feel unrecognizable. Her arms growing thicker, face growing longer, sharp claws bursting from paws covered in iridescent purple scales, the same shade as the gown she’d been wearing. Prince Wilhelm had backed away from her and run to the doors, for the first time not hesitating as he yanked one open and raced across the drawbridge, her inhuman roars chasing him into the forest.
She remembered clawing her way up the stairs, the stone of her tower expanding unnaturally to allow her scaly body to slither through her room and burst onto the roof, where she roared once more and dove for the rest of the entourage, causing their horses to shriek in terror. Flames had burst from her mouth, and she recalled managing to snatch one terrified man from his horse, her sharp claws wrapping tightly around his body and her flying once triumphantly around her tower before dropping him into the moat. She couldn’t remember how much longer she had flown about the forest, hunting down the intruders, setting disgruntled magical trees on fire before landing with a thud on the roof of her tower again, and falling asleep with her head on her paws.
Shaking, Amelina pushed herself into a sitting position, slightly stunned. Her father had always sworn that she’d never turn into a dragon. True love’s kiss was just a kiss, it wasn’t really hard to find, or no curses would ever be broken. She’d hung on to that fact for the past five years. In a daze, the young princess crawled her way to the hatch that led from the roof to her room, climbed down it, and planted her butt onto her bed. Her eyes landed on the little cloth doll of a dragon sitting on her bed. It had been a present from her mother who had sent it on her second birthday in this place, along with a note telling her that this was a reminder not to be afraid of a little curse. That her father would take care of it.
The fourteen-year-old princess curled her legs up onto her bed, and burst into tears.