The Unexpected Surprise

The strange man skips over to the princess.

“Hello.” He chimes. “I offer you a gift, what would you like?”

“A dragon!” Exclaims the princess.

“That’s not realistic.” The man giggles. There’s a pause.

“Fine, I want a boyfriend then.” The strange man disappears without another word.

The princess wakes up to some instructions to travel into the woods. She follows the steps which lead her to a cave. At the base of the cave, there is a care manual with a note: Proceed with Caution. The care manual is for a dragon.

The princess is in shock. She was not expecting to receive a dragon. She had woken up thinking the dream about the strange man was just that, a dream.

The princess riffles through the care manual for how to approach her new dragon. The manual tells her how to get close to the dragon without bringing its guard up.

The princess slowly makes her way into the cave, towards the dragon. As she gets closer, she starts to realize it’s just a baby. The dragon notices the princess stepping closer and flies itself behind a rock. The princess, not believing her eyes, tries to reassure the dragon. She puts her hand out to show the dragon she won’t hurt it. The dragon peers over the rock to see if the princess is still there.

The dragon starts making attempts to approach the princess; the princess takes hesitant steps toward the dragon. When the princesses hand connects with the dragon’s forehead, she whispers to herself:

“This is crazy,” as she strokes the dragon’s head. The dragon gets spooked by a rat leaving the cave. This frightens the princess, so she goes back to her bedroom hoping she imagined it all. She brings the care manual with her.

Back in her chambers, the princess takes a bath, trying to clear her mind. All she can think about for the rest of the day is that dragon.

“How is this even happening,” the princess whispers to herself, “how is this even real?”

“Pardon me, Ms. Breitner, I couldn’t quite hear. Do you mind repeating?” The princess had forgotten about the maid, so she quickly makes up an excuse about wanting tea. The maid hastily leaves to prepare some.

While alone, the princess decides to look through the care manual.

The next morning the princess goes out into the woods to see her new dragon. As she gets close to the entrance of the cave, she slows down and announces her presence to not scare the dragon into hiding.

She gets close to the dragon, extending her hand to let the dragon come to her. The dragon puts his head in her palm. She strokes the head and starts talking to him.

“You’re going to need a name, aren’t you?” The dragon tilts his head as if he understands her words. The princess notices this and decide to let him choose his own name. She starts spouting names to see his reaction to them.

“Kal, Sam, Chuck, Benny, Jay, Reko, Drago, Kitso, Zeemu -” the dragon tilts his head, “- Kitso? You want to be called Kitso?” The dragons head flips back and forth at the name. “Okay, Kitso it is.” She looks at her newly named dragon and smiles. What an interesting turn of events. She would have never believed she would own a dragon, let alone come up with a name for it.

The princess heads home for the night, and on her way, she hears strange noises coming from the treetops. She doesn’t dare look up as she fears something threatening might be there. She rushes back to the safety of her castle walls and asks her maid for a bath.

The next morning, she packs some food and heads back out. She takes the time to look around and up into the treetops, to try to figure out what the noise from the previous night might’ve been. She finds nothing out of the ordinary and proceeds to make her way towards her dragon. As the princess gets closer to the cave, she hears more noise but this time it’s from behind her. She starts to panic, wondering if she might get kidnapped by a rival kingdom’s men or if it’s her father’s men whom he sent to follow her. She decides not to go to the cave but instead keep roaming the woods until she finds a cute area to have a picnic. She settles near a stream and proceeds to enjoy the calmness of the forest. She still hears leaves shuffling above her, so she decides to look up. When she does, there’s nothing but tree branches and leaves.

The princess is worried about this, but when she starts to make her way back in the direction of Kitso, she listens for noises from either behind or above to make sure she isn’t followed. When she hears nothing for a distance, she makes her way to the cave.

When she reaches Kitso, she apologizes for not being there earlier and pets him. He seems to not have been too bothered by her tardiness and snuggles into her. She laughs at this because it made her fall backwards. As she giggles with Kitso she can’t stop thinking of the noises that seemed to follow her. She furrows her brows as she keeps stroking Kitso’s head, thinking about the strangeness. Maybe she shouldn’t stay too late tonight.

The princess is making her way back to the castle before sunset, keeping her guard up in case there actually was something, someone, following her, or still following her. She makes sure to go directly back, not going out of her way to enjoy the view and walk. The princess is slightly unnerved by the strange noises she’s been hearing, and she doesn’t want to risk being taken by a rival kingdoms’ men. She cannot risk being kidnapped while her new dragon is still untrained.