Her hand hurt. Princess Erianthe nursed her bandaged fist as regally as she could, sitting upon a particularly flat rock on the edge of a dread mountain. Thinking about it made her think about the shameful outburst that earned her the bloodied knuckles in the first place. Screaming and swinging around like a child…and the boy, Mills, had merely ducked away somewhere to wait. He seemed to reappear only once the furor had left her. Erianthe hadn’t been so embarrassed since the last time her nanny scolded her over a clumsily broken vase. The gentle cleaning and bandaging she got this time was almost worse.

Fortunately, she had other targets to turn her ire upon. The princess glared into the darkness of the cave that dominated the mountainside, and the outline of the dragon’s bulk resting within. The creature had not moved an inch since its landing yesterday. Not uncommon, apparently. Offhand, Mills had mentioned the monster often slept days or weeks at a time until something could stir its interest. Erianthe was desperately tempted to waltz right up and see if a good kick in the teeth might be ‘interesting’ enough, but survival instinct reigned that particular moment of madness in easily enough.

The princess allowed herself a delicate sigh. As it was, she would have to keep calm and wait. Wait for a knight—the image of her age-old guardians batted aside—or an army. Yes, just wait. Wait like a good, little-

“‘Ever’thin’ alright, ‘Ighness?”

Erianthe fingers uncurled from where they had been digging into her legs. Once again, she had not even noticed the boy’s approach. “I am…fine.” Mills regarded her for a time. He held a dark stick, she noticed, some kind of long, rigid hair tied around one end. A broom? She took the excuse to change topics. “Did I interrupt your sweeping?” What kind of task was sweeping a mountain?

“Oh, nah,” he replied. “Ah finished that ‘fore M’Lord brought ye’.”  A smile tugged at the princess’ mouth. Of course he did. “This is fer groomin’ M’Lord.” The small expression stalled out, uncomprehending. Moments passed in silence, and Mills opened his mouth as if to speak.

“You sweep the dragon.” Erianthe beat him to it. Mills was at least deft enough in Common to understand this wasn’t a question. He was not quite as deft in people, and answered anyway.

“Ah, yep. ‘S good fer the scales, an’ M’Lord gets rather dusty after a day out ‘n ’bout.” At first she couldn’t quite grasp it, and not only because the boy refused to properly pronounce anything with a ‘t’ in it. “‘S easies’ ta get it done while ‘e’s sleepin’.”

“So you…brush him.” Alright, alright, that made sense. Like a dog, or a horse. A really big, castle-destroying horse. Erianthe found herself nodding along, then froze. Slowly, carefully, she leaned back into a properly ladylike posture. “Well, don’t let me stop you.” She watched the boy scamper off. Under the black soot staining most every inch of him, Mills seemed to disappear into the shadows of the cave. Time passed, and she would spot him out of the corner of her eye from time to time, long ‘brush’ waving away. Down the limbs, along the flank—in a daze, she watched the boy walk along the ridge of the monster’s back until he vanished again. It became something of a game, to spot him and then keep him in sight. It was hardly riveting, but it whiled the time away. And away. Perhaps sweeping was a more accurate term after all.

He hopped down the ridges of dragon’s shoulder, until the scruff of his hair slipped out of sight again. The princess idly traced the form of the beast with her eyes, a simple strategy to spot wherever the boy’s small form might break up the dragon’s outline.

“Are ye’ bored, ‘Ighness?” Erianthe most certainly did not jump. She brushed a hand through her long hair, a lazy-looking gesture, to best compose herself.

“Your ‘lord,’ has not seen fit to provide much entertainment, no,” she finally replied.

“Eh,” the boy paused, as if mulling over her words. “Ah’m real sorry, ah didn’ even think o’ that. Most o’ the princesses spent the firs’ couple days, ah…” Mill pursed his lips. “Woss it called? Like, talkin’ fer a long time, and sometimes the words sound kind o’ the same?”

“…Poetry?” she answered after a beat, and immediately wanted to pretend she hadn’t. Erianthe had scolded herself for expecting reality to follow the old epics, but surely no one would actually expect the world to carry out in verse?

Mills clapped a fist in one hand. “Yep! That’s it.”

She stared at him. “That…I’m honestly not sure if that makes me feel better about myself or worse as a fellow princess.”

The boy blinked. “What?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head. Erianthe supposed it was hardly fair to expect a boy raised by a dragon to understand. “So… what do you do around here, when you aren’t…cleaning?”

…

Playing the pan flute wasn’t exactly the answer she had been expecting, but the princess felt she deserved a pleasant surprise at this point. The instrument itself was a fine piece, smoothly carved and cleaner than the boy who owned it. That said, Mills played it well—a soft, whistling tune that brought to mind sunlit horseback rides through the forest. The simple rhythm he beat on a crude drum with his feet was less elegant, but possibly even more impressive.

She clapped more than politely when the song wound down. “That was very good.” Erianthe cracked a smile. “Better than either of my brothers during their court training. Were you a minstrel’s apprentice?”

“Oh, nah,” Mills replied, glancing away, and she liked to think he flushed a little under the soot. “Princess Lizbeth liked to sing, so she showed me ‘ow to play fer, ah…”

“Accompaniment?” One of her fellow kidnappees taught him?

“That’s the word. ‘S awhile ago now, but M’lord likes music, so ah kept it up.” And a dragon was his audience. Well, she supposed her younger brothers might have shown some improvement if their instructors could breathe fire.

Once again, that brought her attention to the sleeping form of her scaly warden. Who was apparently a music lover. “What is its-his, name?” Mills had begun the first few notes of a new song when she suddenly spoke. She caught his stare. “If I am going to be stuck here, I should at least know my ransomer’s name.”

“Tried to say, ‘s not really ransom…” Mills trailed off under her glower. “Ah, most people call ‘im Arkenbold, yer ‘Ighness.”

“Arkenbold,” she tested the name on her tongue—it sounded familiar.” Arkenbold…as in, the Black Dragon, Arkenbold?” Her voice rose. “Arkenbold the Heroslayer?”

“Uh…yea, that’s M’lord.” Erianthe was very glad she was already sitting down. The princess took deep breaths, heaving in and out, as Mills watched. She ignored his confusion, she ignored everything.

There was no point in panicking. She had already been captured. If the dragon had not eaten her yet, there was no reason to assume he would anytime soon. So what if he had razed the Order of the Dragon Hunters, slain every last knight, and been the continent’s living nightmare for the past two hundred years? Manic giggles threatened to erupt, but she clamped down. No. Her predecessors had escaped, somehow, Mills had said. After knights came for them, that was what Arkenbold was interested in.

The princess’ breathing slowed. Her knights, Tristam and Guilfort. No matter how easily the dragon had trumped them at the castle, she had believed…They would still come for her, certainly, but would it only be to their deaths?

She felt eyes on her, and mustered the energy the energy to look up. Mills watched her with something like concern, but too uncertain to act. Her lips twitched, a flash of a morbid smile. His very existence was absurd. He seemed so normal, courteous even, but could stand unaffected upon the back of a legendary monster to give it a good brushing.

“Where, why, in all the realms did Arkenbold-”

“-the Heroslayer!” The princess blinked. A voice, human and proud, boomed. “Prepare your wretched hide! For I have come to finally end you!” Silence filled the air next, broken only by the sound of clanking metal coming over the cliff side.

“Someone is…climbing the mountain?” Erianthe turned away from the voice, but Mills had absconded back into the cave. He emerged moments later as the sound of metal, the sound of climbing, grew louder. A hand, clad in metal and leather, broke the cliff’s outline and grasped flat earth. The princess stared, dumbfounded. From the hand came a shoulder, a bulk of white steel. The rest of the man, the knight, rose up. He was a massive man, a head higher than any of her father’s soldiers, and broad like a bear. His armor was polished, but did not shine under the sun. Instead, the shadow of the summit played across its curves and angles, occasionally revealing the delicate inscriptions running across every plane. A monstrous greatsword hung from his back like a single, iron wing.

A quietly awe-inspiring image, only somewhat diluted by the sound of heavy breathing, rasping from the confines of his helm. “Beware…foul beast! I…for I have come again…and, and this time…” Mills suddenly appeared from the princess’ peripheral vision.

He held up a pitcher. “‘Ere ye go, sir.” The knight swung for the pitcher blindly, plucking it from the boy’s hands, and knocked it back in one motion. Rivulets of water dripped from the edges of his helm. It was quiet again, just the whispered, regular thump of a man drinking with all his might.

Finally, the pitcher broke away from his face. “Ah! Good lad!” He knelt to return the vessel. “You’re a life-saver Mills. More than this, at least,” he jerked a hand to the helm concealing his face, “Bloody thing nearly blinded me thrice on the way up this gods-forsaken rock.”

“Ah think it’s quite nice, sir,” Mills replied. “‘S not as fancy as the last one, but it looks much more useful.”

“Really?” The knight’s hand twitched, and he brought it up to Mill’s head in a clumsy pat. Erianthe, still seated stock still to the side, imagined the gauntlet must have made it quite uncomfortable for the boy. The knight’s other hand reached up and undid the clasps of the helmet. “You can have it then, eh? For your ‘hoard.'” Swiftly, he pushed the helm squarely down on the boy’s much smaller head. Mills endured the brief fussing easily, but of all things it was the sudden sympathy shared between children that snapped Erianthe from her stupor.

“Sir knight?” The man snapped to attention. He turned, and stared at the princess with wide, dark eyes. He was a man still some time off from his middle years, hale and healthy. Short hair, plastered to his forehead from sweat, was still black to the roots. A matching beard, carefully groomed, matched his dropped chin.

“My lady! Pardon my manners,” he stood tall and struck a fist to his chest in salute, “Sir Daric, at your service.” He bowed, an opportunity Erianthe took to master herself.

“Well met, Sir Daric. You have come,” she paused, “you have come to rescue me?” It seemed doubtful. She did not recognize him. That a foreign knight would come before her kingdom’s own warriors was unlikely, to say the least.

“Not…originally,” the knight admitted. He coughed, then smiled. Somehow, the expression still radiated assurance. “But I will give my all to see it done.” He turned to Mills, who had removed the helm to admire it in the sun. “Fetch the beast, would you, Mills?”

The boy glanced up. “Nah, M’lord’s awake now, sir.” Erianthe heard it. A creeping roll of sound, the grinding of scales against the cavern walls. The blackness within the mountain moved, twisting. Golden pinpricks pierced the darkness, and the dragon resolved into a solid shape once more.

Sir Daric’s grin bent under grim determination. He drew his blade, and charged.