Princess

The Princess the Dragon and the Boy.

Once upon a time, because that's always how these things start, in a
land far away from here, Wigtownshir. There lived a Princess. Now this
princess was butifule, as you might expect. She was also rather
loud.
Everyday she would lean out of a high window in her father's castle
and shout to the people in the gardens below. "Hey! You there in the
garden. No not you. You! The one in the stupid looking hat. Yes you.
Your hat looks stupid! Get out of my garden you stupid hat-wearing
person!"
And that was more or less all that anyone ever saw of the Princess,
apart from on her birthday when everybody in the kingdom was invited to
a big party and expected to bring presents.
One day when the princess was in the middle of a particularly
satisfying shout. A dragon that had been munching on fresh mutton off a
hillside a few miles away, heard the shout and decided to
investigate.
"You are so fat," shouted the Princess to a particularly unlucky
person trying to enjoy the gardens, "You need six horses just to hoist
you out of bed!"
The Dragon hid behind a cloud when he heard this and waited.
"Hey come back here you cry-baby! I'm not done shouting at you yet!"
The Princess was leaning out of the window shaking her fist at the
unfortunate person who was now running out of the garden in floods of
tears. The Dragon saw his chance. Nobody else was around so he swooped
out of the cloud, snatched the Princess out of the window; the Princess
fainted immediately, as princesses are inclined to do in such
circumstances, and flew away with her in his claws!

When the King found out about this he was very worried! He sent out
two great armies to try and find the Princess, but neither one
returned.
One army had found a dragon's lair but had been burnt to cinders by
the dragon inside. Which was just as well anyway because they had found
the wrong dragon, and we can't have innocent dragons being harmed now
can we?
The other army got lost somewhere along the A75 and spent the rest of
their life in a pub in Springholm.
At this point the King was very upset and at 2:48pm every day he would
sit on his throne in the great hall of the castle and call out to all
his knights and servants. "Who will go and rescue my daughter, the
Princess?"
But nobody would step forwards. Nobody seemed to mind that much that
the Princess was missing. Nobody, apart from the people who make and
sell hearing aides, had liked the Princesses constant loudness and now
that she was gone they didn't need to worry about it. Also they were
all scared of the Dragon. So at 2:59pm all the people looked down at
the space between their feet or picked some fluff off their trousers.
This went on for at least a week until one day a young boy, who worked
in the kitchen cleaning dishes with his tongue, walked past the door to
the great hall at exactly 2:48pm. "Who will go and rescue my daughter,
the Princess?" The Boy was filled with curiosity and decided to go and
see what was going on. In the great hall everybody was looking at the
space between their feet or picking fluff off of their trousers.
"I can't believe nobody will go!" said the Boy with great disgust.
Everybody in the room, including the King and Queen, turned to stare at
him. "Your majesty" he said, bowing so low that he hit his nose on the
floor. "I have often dreamed of adventures and quests. Send me to save
your daughter if nobody else will go."
"You!" Said somebody in the crowed. "You're just a pathetic scrag of a
useless little boy! What use could you possible be?"
The King stood up and shouted angrily at his royal guards. "Take
whoever said that away and cut his head off! This boy may be a
pathetic, useless, scrag of a street urchin, but he is the only one
among you who is brave enough to face the dragon and die if he has to.
All of you are nothing compared to this little piece of filth standing
before you now!"
"Thank you my lord." said the Boy. "You honour me greatly."
So it was arranged that the Boy would go on a quest to find the
Princess and slay the Dragon. He was given a horse, a sword, and a suit
of armour. The horse was too big, the sword was too heavy and the
armour didn't fit properly. In the end he was given a small spear to
use as a weapon, an iron helmet to protect him and he rode off on his
quest with a Shetland pony as his steed.

The Princess was frightened. She had woken up in the Dragon's den. The
den was a large cave in the side of a mountain. She was tied to a chair
and facing the back wall so that she could not see out of the
cave.
"Where am I?" she asked. Not because she expected an answer, but
because it was the sort of thing a princess should say when waking up
after fainting.
"You are a guest in the home of a dragon, and I am the Dragon," said
the Dragon from behind the Princess where she couldn't see him.
"This damp, smelly, rotten cave is your home?" Asked the Princess as
if it was too horrific to believe.
"Oh its not that bad." The Dragon hissed smoothly. "I think it's
rather cosy." He said it smoothly. Really smoothly. Smoother than
butter. So smooth you could take your shoes off and slide along his
words in your socks!
"What do you want with me?" The Princesses bottom lip was
quivering.
"Oh, nothing." The Dragon darted round the chair, into the Princess's
field of view. He was delighted to hear her squeak with fright. He
smiled a big, sharp, pointy smile. "But perhaps you'd like to stay for
dinner?"
"If you come one step closer I'll scream!" screeched the Princess. The
Dragon laughed and stepped closer. The Princess screamed! She screamed
loud. Really loud. The Dragon covered his ears with his claws and
backed off into a corner. The Princess continued to scream with all her
might. She screamed so loud that stalactites on the cave roof shook and
fell off. One of them fell on the dragons tail and he roared with pain.
The Princess's screams were getting higher in pitch as well. She
screamed so loud and so high that dogs heard her forty miles away and
howled in response.
The Princess screamed and screamed and screamed, and she would not
stop!

"You're lost aren't you?" said the Shetland pony.
"No I am not lost." The Boy shouted through the pouring rain. "I know
exactly where I am. The only problem is I don't know where anything
else is." The Boy had not had a good time up to this point. He had
started by travelling through lovely sunny countryside. That had lasted
for about fifteen minutes. Since then he had trudged through bogs,
swamps and marshes. Now it was raining, but not your usual everyday
rain. This rain was heavy, cold and going in all directions. There was
no way to hide from it because it would find you and soak you.
"Look, you know you're lost and I know you're lost, so why don't you
just admit it and set camp for the night?" The pony suggested as it
through the Boy off its back and into a puddle.
"Oh all right!" sighed the Boy as he reached for the saddlebags to
retrieve the tent. "Hang on a second. You're a Shetland pony. You can't
talk!"
"Of course I can't talk you little idiot! You're imagining it." and
with that the pony slumped down beside a tree in a vain attempt to
shelter from the rain.
"Oh! Well in that case I'll get on and make camp shall I?" Said the
Boy his brief bout of total confusion at being confronted with a
talking pony now forgotten.
"You do that." Said the pony.
Just then a very loud, blister-popping scream shattered the noise of
endless rain. The Shetland pony got such a fright he bolted up the tree
and sat quivering on the highest branch. "That's the Princess!" Shouted
the Boy and ran off in the direction the scream was coming from.
Twelve hours and ten miles of up hill running latter. The Boy, now in
the mountains, heaved himself over a ledge and collapsed from over
exertion. He was panting so hard that if anybody had been looking they
would have been able to see his ribcage in perfect detail as he forced
air out of his lungs. His heart was pounding so hard that he feared it
might explode. The terrifying scream still rang in his ears but it
seemed much louder now. He looked round for the first time and saw that
he had collapsed right in front of a large cave. The screaming seemed
to be coming from inside.
"Have no fear!" he shouted as he struggled to his feet." I'm here to
rescue you! Just let me catch my breath first." he collapsed again and
passed out for two hours. When he regained consciousness he felt ready
for action and marched right in to the cave.
Inside the cave The Boy saw the Princess tied to a chair still
screaming her head off. He was about to say "Your Highness I have come
to rescue you!" But then he noticed the Dragon!

The Dragon was sitting in a corner of the cave, hugging his hind knees
and rocking back and forth. "She's been screaming like this for
fourteen hours! Please make her stop. Make her stop!" The Dragon wined
and began to cry.
"Oh you poor thing!" said the Boy and walked start past the Princess to
comfort the Dragon. The Princess, now aware of the Boys presence,
stopped screaming. "Oh at last!" She said. "It's about time Daddy sent
a knight in shining armour to rescue me." Then, as if she had only just
looked at the boy for the first time, she added. "Where's your mighty
stallion? And where's the rest of your armour? And what's that tooth
pick your holding? Where is you sword? What kind of Knight are
you?"
"I'm not a knight." Said the Boy, a little taken aback by all the "Just
a Boy?!" The princess screeched. "What do you mean just a boy? How dare
my father send a stupid, ugly, dirty, little scrunt of boy! Where's my
knight in shining armour? Well if this is the best Daddy can do then
I'm not going!"
The Boy blinked in puzzlement.
"You see." Moaned the Dragon. "This is the sort of thing I have to put
up with. Every time I kidnap a princess she turns out to be a stuck up
snob! But the screaming was insane! I don't think I could have taken it
much longer. I never wanted to be a dragon. All that breathing fire and
such, its just not me! But its all part of the job description."
"I am terribly sorry you know." said the Boy. "But if you hate it so
much. Why don't you just quit?"
"You know," the Dragon said thoughtfully. "That's not a bad
idea."
"Hello?" said the Princess. "You're supposed to be rescuing me. This is
supposed to be all about me you know."
" I've always wanted to be a stunt pilot!" the Dragon declared with an
air of excitement.
"That sounds like fun. Why don't you come with me and we'll find an
aerodrome you can use?" the Boy asked as he led the Dragon out of the
cave.
"Really? You'd do that for me? Wow! Thanks!" Said the Dragon and gave
the boy his last Rolo. So the Boy and the Dragon walked away from the
cave, down the mountain and into the sun set.
"Hay!" Shouted the Princess. "Come back here and rescue me this
instant!"
Nobody came.
"If you don't come back I'll scream!" she shouted to the world.
Nobody came.
She screamed.

The Princess screamed for one whole month! This caused the entire
population of a near by village to go deaf and learn sign language. It
also caused the roof of the cave to collapse and smooth the Princess
into mush!

And that's where the story ends.
The Boy got lost somewhere along the A75 trying to get home. He now
spends all his time in a pub in Spingholm, telling people about the
time he saved a dragon in distress from an evil princess.
The Dragon went on to become the worlds first, and best Stunt
Dragon!
The near by village started the first ever school for deaf children,
which was hugely successful.
The Shetland pony lived up the tree and occasional helped travellers
who had gotten lost. Or, throw pinecones at them. It all depended on
his mood at the time.
And they all lived happily ever after!
Except the Princess. She was dead.