Author's note: Warning: this may contain large amounts of Cuthbert. About seven years after the show, while Cuthbert is 'courting' his wife to be. I know, he's OOC, but the events in 'Life of a Knight' changed him a bit, okay. I just had to write this, and it took about an hour. Please review!

She really wasn't that pretty. To be honest, she was ugly. Really ugly. She had a feet too small for her body, a body too small for her head, a head too small for her mouth, a mouth too small for her nose, a nose too small for her eyes, eyes too small for her brow, a brow too small for her forehead, and a forehead too small for hair. All in all, she had a face like a triangle, a body like a rectangle, and a voice that you wish sounded like nails on a chalkboard, but was in reality more like a cat dying while wolveshowl and a rusty gate is opened. It's really not something that you want to hear very often.

She sat in a chair that was too big for her body,just about right for her nose, but much too small for her hair. Her dress tried to accentuate her figure, but she didn't have much of one. Her hair might have looked good on his mother the way it was done, but on her, it looked ridiculous. Someone had gone to great effort to try to make her face seem more proportioned, but they failed and she looked like someone had hurled paint at her face and called it done.

At least she wasn't fat. She had that much going for her.

"So, Anna, I hear that you play chess?"

"I am the best in my kingdom. Do you play?"

"I do, but I am sure that you are better."

"Nonsense," Anna reached to her right and pulled a rope. Someone appeared quickly. "We need a chessboard." That same someone left and reappeared with the requested item. In a flash, the person was gone again, the only evidence they had been there in the first place sitting on the table between them.

"Was that-?"

"A slave? No. We have freed all of the slaves in the castle, but many of them wanted to stay on with us. Shall we play?"

"Of course."

The next minute or so was filled with Cuthbert thinking hard before moving, but it was only three moves of his before "Checkmate. You left your queen too open. Be glad that these were not real troops, or else your father would be in terrible danger."

Cuthbert laughed. "If this were real, your kingdom would be the safest place to be. Where else could a pawn take the queen?"

Anna did not laugh. "We have held up our end of the bargain. We have started to abolish slavery, as a sign of good faith. But you have done nothing to help protect us."

"You know as well as I that nothing must happen until we are wed, which has not occurred yet."

"Maybe your own defense is not so great. You claim you have a dragon, and yet I have never seen it. You claim to have hundreds of knights, but I have seen not one. Our part of the bargain is easily seen, but yours remains hidden."

"You request assurance?"

"Yes."

"Will just seeing the dragon do?"

"Yes."

"Excuse me for a moment." Cuthbert left his chair. He moved to the heavy wooden doors and walked through. He made his way through the slightly confusing palace to his guard's barracks. Sir Ivon met him. "Is Jane available?"

"May ah ask why"

"The Princess Anna requests proof of our Dragon."

"Of course." Sir Ivon knocked on a door where the young knight emerged with a burst of red.

"You need me, sir?"

"More accurately, Lady Jane, I need Dragon."

"Your highness. Just a moment, he said he would remain near to here. In the meantime, it might be wise to bring Princess Anna to the courtyard."

Cuthbert was amazed for a moment that she knew what he needed Dragon for, but it passed and he went to follow her advice. In minutes he and the Princess stood in the courtyard when Dragon came plummeting out of the sky. Cuthbert yawned nonchalantly as Anna became somewhat nervous in front of the several ton Dragon.

"Is it very wild?"

"It doesn't like being called 'it'," Dragon said, deciding that Princess Anna needed an even greater shock. Anna fainted and was taken back to the sitting room.

"Very good, Dragon. I do believe you helped our country immensely."

"Just by scaring one shortlife? Good deal." Cuthbert laughed.

"Thank you. I must return to the Princess. I do believe that she will more readily believe in you now!" And he turned around sharply, revealing his knight training, and made his way back to the sitting room. He saw that the Princess was recovering from her shock. The someone who had fetched the chessboard was fanning her rapidly while the Princess leaned on the arm of her much too big chair. She may not be beautiful, he thought, but she can make me laugh, and she is much more intelligent than I will ever be. Perhaps I do not love her, as my father loves my mother, but I like her, and she is someone whom I would want to sit on a throne next to me for all my life.