The knight in shining armor was running
through the hallways, make a clanking noise that was very hard to miss. He had
entered the castle through the back, by a courtyard that had never been seen by
eyes different than the ones of the cooks and maids that had worked there when
the castle lived its golden age. Now, it building was empty and some areas were
ruins, crumbling slowly into the ground.
When he arrived at the end of one of the
hallways, he took out a map from his pocket. It wasn’t very easy to take
anything out of there with that costume on, so he decided to remove the leg
parts in order to be faster. He wasn’t as big and powerful as one would guess
so for a charming prince, but that’s what he was. He checked the map and then
ran towards the left, down a very long corridor that connected the main part of
the building with the south tower of the complex.
He finally found the door that lead to the
second tower. With one it of his sword, he was able to make the door collapse
to the ground. He stepped on the remains of the door and started climbing the
stairs, step by step. He got tired after the first fifty. He had to stop
running so he sat down by a small opening to the side of the tower and saw the
world from there. He could see the former gardens and the courtyard below but
he was still too close to the ground to see any fantastic views.
After a while, he kept on climbing, his armor
was still making the clinking sound, with every single step he made. He stopped
again after climbing for a long time and he saw, through another window, that
he was close to his goal. He could see the road from the window and also the
forest that existed between the castle and the rest of the civilized world.
Some said the forest was created to keep everyone away from the castle but that
hadn’t stopped many men from risking their lives and go there.
Many died in the forest, attacked by packs of
hungry wolves or by some huge bears that lived around. There were also rumors
of ghosts and various monsters that only rose when the fog was thick or it was
very late at night. But the biggest legend surrounding the area was that a
dragon protected the building and it had burned knights to their deaths when
they had tried to enter the castle without permission.
As
he walked the few steps that distanced him from the room in the upper level of
the tower, the knight celebrated the fact that he had wore the full armor to
defend himself on his way to the top. He had killed a few wild animals with his
sword but that was it. That’s why he felt that something was wrong. It had been
too busy, not according to the legend that everyone knew by heart.
When he got to the upper room, he knocked
gently and presented himself as Knight of Vals and Dam, sir Tristane Deschamps.
But even speaking loudly wasn’t good enough to make anyone open the door from
inside. So he pushed the door opened and looked around to see if the rest of
the legend was true. If there really was a very beautiful woman sleeping in the
tower, waiting for someone to rescue her from imprisonment. He looked around
but so no one.
He entered the room and walked to what
appeared to be a bed and checked, in order to know if the person that had lay
there had left a moment ago or many years ago. He put his hand covered in metal
on the bed and realized it was warm. There had been someone sleeping in it. Out
of nowhere, a young woman appeared behind him and held him tightly with a knife
to his throat. The knight felt hard to the floor. He couldn’t move there.
The woman asked who he was and he repeated his
name. Then she asked what he was doing there and he just looked at her a bit
confused. He asked her if she wasn’t the beautiful lady that lived inside a
castle waiting for a knight in shining armor to save her and take care of her
for the rest of her life. She looked at him as if he had just heard someone
speak in a strange language. The woman released him from her grip but told him
to stay down.
- You don’t need to rescue me.
The knight was about to ask something else but
then a sound was heard very loudly and appeared to come from the first floor.
The knight had never heard anything like it, like a thousand lions roaring at
the same time or many pieces of silverware falling to the ground. It was very
unsettling and that’s why he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything more that
advise the woman to live the castle with her as she was in mortal danger if
that was the dragon.
She didn’t appear to listen, instead helping
him getting up. She seemed to be thinking about something else or was at least
too distracted by other thought in her mind. The knight insisted she should go
with him in order to fulfill the legend. He knew that she would be very well
received in his towns and that everyone would love her.
That apparently convinced the young woman. She
stopped walking around and told the knight she would go with him. They went out
of the door and slowly walked back down, each step being easier as they headed
to freedom and civilization. The knight was happy about it because he had never
thought he would be able to fulfill such a difficult task.
When they arrived to the back courtyard,
through which the knight had arrived, the woman stopped running behind the man.
She just stood there, like frozen in time. Her heart was racing but none of her
limbs could move. He got near her and tried to determine what was wrong with
her and he couldn’t point it out. The roaring of the dragon seemed to grow
closer so he decided he would carry the princess to the backdoor but that
didn’t work because, somehow, she was very heavy.
He doubted that was something natural. It had
to be some kind of black magic in order not to take the woman out of the castle
without fighting the dragon. Probably, whoever put her there, had left very
specific instructions in order to safe her and killing the dragon was probably
one of those. So he let her where she was and he stepped into the grass patch
of the courtyard and looked up.
The dragon wasn’t flying, as he had thought.
He appeared from the opposite side of the courtyard, tearing down a wall with
its enormous paws. It was very big, just like a gigantic lizard with blackish
wings and a sickening greenish skin. The dragon pushed the wall, launching
several stones towards the knight. He avoided them easily. He decided to grab
his sword and run towards the dragon. He had to fulfill his destiny.
But his arms were almost broken when the sword
hit the dragon’s skin and it did absolutely no damage. Not only that, but the
body of the creature seemed so big and resistant, that the blow had actually
affected the knight more than the dragon. The creature did nothing. He just
watched him trying to feel his arms again and grabbing his sword to try again
with same results.
He then realized there was no way of killing
the creature, so he ran towards the princess in order to wake her up from her
trance. The dragon was only looking at him so he thought it was a safe thing to
do. When he reached the woman, he realized she was very cold, her hands almost
feeling like ice. The dragon watched as the knight tried like a fool to “wake”
her up fro whatever was happening to her.
But then the dragon just grew closer and ate
the knight in one gulp. The girl was then able to move but her eyes were not
the same as before. They were purple, just like the eyes of the dragon. She
blinked and the dragon blinked. She thought about tearing down the wall and the
dragon did exactly that with ease. The princess was the monster everyone was
afraid of. That’s why she couldn’t leave her castle. Because she shouldn’t.
There was no way in trying to prevent evil from pouring out of her. So she kept
herself locked away, even if sometimes she needed to breath like anyone else,
to run away.
