All right. Apart from poetry (possibly), this will probably be my only posting this summer. I'm taking a little "retirement" for the summer, to work on my stories, and deal with some other stuff that's been going on recently. I'm also applying for a column, which, if it works out, should be an adventure, to say the least. Consider this a teaser - a preview, perhaps, of things to come. I may come up with a sort of short story prose thing that's been bouncing about in my head for a while, but it's not on paper yet. Anyway, this is subsequent to change, although I think it's not as bad as SOME of my first attempts have been. Hey! All of A Lost Princess is first edition. Sailor Moon style A Lost Princess, that is. Anyway . . . before I get lost, welcome to The Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Book V (I'll get a "---- (insert preposition here) Dragons" title when I'm done writing) Enjoy!

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Book V

Chapter One

In Which Shiara Argues With a Knight

Above the clangor of the pots and pans, Shiara could faintly hear the rolling tones of a bell. Elbow deep in soap suds, she grimaced and rolled her eyes.

"Not another one so soon," she groaned, seizing a towel and heading for the entrance hallway. As she approached the mouth of the cave, she heard yelling.

"Dragon! Come out! Come out! Stand and - um . . ."

"He's got terrible form," she commented, and stepped out of the shadows in time to see a knight riffling through the pages of a book. Dragon - something something - Etiquette, she read. "Great," she muttered.

The knight had obviously found what he was looking for in the book. "Aha!" he cried. "Stand - forth and do battle!"

Shiara cleared her throat audibly. The knight turned to stare at her.

"You're not the dragon," the knight said suspiciously.

"No, I'm not," Shiara agreed. "Very observant of you. The dragon is out. So you can just turn around and go back to - wherever you came from - instead of wasting your time out here."

The knight appeared to consider this. "Wait," he said after a moment. "Since you're not the dragon, then you must be the princess. So - I've come to rescue you."

Shiara shook her head. The knight looked confused.

"I'm not the princess," she explained. "The princess is out, too. She's been out for over sixteen years. She's married, didn't you know. She's Queen of the Enchanted Forest."

"No, no!" the knight exclaimed, his armor clanging loudly as he shook his head. "That's Princess Cim - Cim - Cim - the other one!"

"Cimorene," Shiara told him. "Exactly."

"Yes, and there' a new princess now," he said. "We've all been hearing about it. The dragon king has a new princess."

Shiara shook her head again. "No," she said. "There's no new princess. There's only me."

"Right," said the knight, trying to scratch his head through his helmet as he attempted to sort this out. "So - you must be the princess. I've come to rescue you."

Shiara groaned. "Are they born this stupid, or do they have to work at it?" she muttered. "Look," she said to him. "I'm not a princess. I took Cimorene's place, certainly, and I'm Chief Cook and Librarian, but I am most certainly NOT a princess. In fact, I'm a fire-witch."

"You are?" he asked, sounding confused again.

She nodded.

"A fire-witch princess?" he hazarded.

"I'm afraid not."

"Oh." He looked disappointed. "Well, then, I guess I'd better be going . . ."

"Yes, you had," Shiara agreed. "And you could let your friends know, too, so they wouldn't bother coming all the way up here."

For once, he had an answer immediately. "Oh, no, I couldn't!" he exclaimed, sounding shocked. "It would be a rumour, and I can't spread rumours. It wouldn't be proper."

Shiara frowned. It never was. They all said that.

As he headed clumsily off along the slope, he twisted his head back over his shoulder. "Are you sure you don't want to be rescued anyway?" he called.

"Quite sure," Shiara answered. "Besides, you just COULDN'T rescue a Chief Cook and Librarian, and especially not one who's a fire-witch, at that. It wouldn't be proper at all."

"Right," said the knight, looking slightly relieved. He stumped away, clanging gently with every step.

Shiara grimaced after him.

"Nightwitch?" she called.

"That was one of the dumbest yet," a black cat noted, leaping up onto her shoulder. "Usually princes are dumber."

Shiara grinned. "They're all dumb, Nightwitch. Cimorene must have had been more patient. She never said they were THIS bad."

"Cimorene's were stubborn, not stupid," Nightwitch remarked. "She actually had to convince them she didn't want to be rescued. You just have to explain you're a fire-witch. Anyway, Scorn says that people are getting dumber every day."

"Scorn says a lot of things," Shiara told her. "Not all of which are true. She's far older than any cat should be, and she's senile. Don't listen to her."

Nightwitch mewed and vanished back into the cave. Following her, Shiara caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that hung in the hallway. It was huge - dragon-sized, naturally. She stopped and took a closer look.

The trouble was, she reflected, that she could pass for a princess. Cimorene, indeed, seemed to think that working for a dragon qualified her as one. Or at least as a Chief Cook and Librarian, both jobs at which, Shiara admitted reluctantly, Cimorene had been decidedly better at.

Still, she was learning, and Kazul didn't complain. She wasn't in that much, anyway - what with the dissolution of the Society of Wizards, she was busy sorting out alliances, enemies, and stolen property. Kazul's absences made it somewhat easier to get rid of the rescuers, although there had been one unpleasant incident when a particularly stubborn knight - Asper, she thought his name was - had arrived at the same time as Kazul. He'd charged immediately, and Shiara had only been able to stop him by flaming at him. Kazul had been too taken aback to do anything, but the sight of Shiara with her hair on fire had seemed to finally convice the knight that she wasn't a princess. He'd run and never come back.

That was the last time she'd been able to do magic. What she'd said was true enough - she was a fire-witch, just not a very successful one. She'd grown up with her magic out of control. She could do stuff, just not on purpose. And it usually ended with something drastic. Until recently.

Shiara hated wizards. Hated them with a passion. They'd heard about her and kidnapper her to use as a sort of guinea-pig, because fire-witches were immune to most magic. She'd been so furious that she'd burned the Head Wizard's staff. That she was still proud of. But it turned out not to be such a great thing.

She'd had to run away, and she'd ended up in the Enchanted Forest with half the Society of Wizards in hot pursuit. It was there she'd met Daystar, who was being chased by his own lot of wizards, and turned out to be the prince of the Enchanted Forest - and it was when she'd met Daystar that she'd had that stupid spell put on her.

It hadn't exactly been Daystar's fault. It was that stupid sword of his. 'The Sword of the Sleeping King,' he'd called it, until they'd met a baby dragon, been through the Caves of Chance, ended up at the castle, and woken up the king, who suddenly turned out to be Daystar's father. Then it became the King's sword. But the point was, it had put the spell on her. Which was another thing she deeply resented.

When she'd met Daystar, all she'd wanted was for her magic to work. He'd wanted her to be a little politer. The sword had a way of making things happen - and they'd touched it at the same time. The result was that Shiara now had to be polite - and mean it - for her magic to work.

Most people thought it was a ridiculous spell. Cimorene - Daystar's mother - and Morwen, the witch who'd given her Nightwitch, thought it would be good for her. Kazul was indifferent. It frustrated her no end. She wasn't as rude as she had once been - but being polite simply did not go with being a fire-witch. It didn't work much, anyway, because being polite for personal gain didn't count as meaning it. Still, Daystar and his father - and Telemain, Morwen's magician-husband - were working on getting the spell off. And, meanwhile, Cimorene was teaching her to be a dragon's princess.

Which brought her back to the problem of knights and princes.

Shiara looked up again. Yes, she decided, if she could only make herself look a little more witchy, the rescuers would leave her alone.

An indignant mew from the kitchen reminded her of washing - and lunch - and she hurried down the dark passageway. Something, however, made her stop just outside the kitchen and look around carefully. She could feel some kind of magical residue - and it couldn't possibly be from her. Nightwitch? She dismissed that idea at once. Most cats could channel magic, but only a rare few had any of their own. If Nightwitch was one of them, she would have seen some sign of it before now.

"Wizards?" she mused, and then shook her head. "Nah, a wizard couldn't get in here. They wouldn't dare, anyway. They're too disjointed without their society."

She was just being paranoid, she decided - it was probably something Kazul had done before leaving.

She shrugged and finally returned to the kitchen, ready to tackle the sinkful of dirty dishes once more.

She had only just finished the washing when the bell rang again. She groaned.

"Oh, go away," she muttered. "Can't you tell I'm not in the mood?"

Reluctantly, she got to her feet and headed off to the mouth of the cave again. In the gloom, she couldn't see the person standing there, but she was quite sure of who it would be.

"Look," she began. "You can't fight the dragon, she's not here. I don't want to be rescued, and even if I did, you couldn't because it wouldn't be proper -" this, she had found, almost always worked "- because I'm a fire-witch, not a princess."

And then she came out into the light and saw who it was. She stopped dead. It wasn't a prince. It wasn't a knight. It wasn't a dragon. It wasn't even a wizard.

It was a princess.

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Righto, that's chapter one! Hope you enjoyed it. I'll be back from my little "working vacation" ASAP. See you all then!

Thanks,

Autumndark:

spectral452@yahoo.com