The Finest Trophy

Someone was supposed to rescue the princess. She was meant to stay put and wait and someone would come. They would save her. That’s what the stories said; that’s what the stories told her.

It was just a lie. A lie to keep her waiting patiently.

Well, she was done waiting. Waiting had got her into this mess and she knew no one was coming now.

When Her Royal Highness, Princess Catherine, was a little girl, there had been an incident. A number of incidents, actually. One in particular led to her big sister, Princess Julie, walking out on the family. She had taken half the royal navy with her. In response, their father, the oh-so-wise and noble king, had imprisoned his own daughter in the tallest tower.

The room was filled with books, most of which were stories about princesses being locked away in tall towers. They told her that this was normal and to sit still and wait for rescue. The king knew no one would come. The king knew the lies would keep her from kicking up a fuss. He was a wise king, not a nice king.

For the first few years she was convinced Julie would come back to save her. They loved each other, or so she thought, and her sister had an entire armada at her disposal. So why wouldn’t she save her? Why, wouldn’t she.

She never did, and Catherine waited.

As Catherine grew older, she grew more beautiful (though beauty was mostly considered a secondary perk, after her royal blood). Suiters would line up to ask the king to court her (or her other remaining sister, with whom she did not speak). The king would turn them all down.

Catherine hoped one of them would defy her father and whisk her away from her tower.

They never did, and Catherine waited.

Older still and with hope wearing thin, a chance encounter with an errant messenger pigeon introduced her to her new pen pal, the fair maiden Jane. Fair maiden, in this context, means ‘Surprisingly strong and stout young lady who fought crime as an officer of the watch by day and studied at the university along side actual wizards by night’. Catherine’s infatuation with her new friend was absolute and was probably not healthy but she was sure Jane would come rescue her. Jane knew wizards, and strong guards of the watch. She had connections.

She never did, but Catherine did not get the chance to wait.

Jane had joked about a rescue in her letters but before anything could become of it, someone else came. Something else came. Not to rescue her but to take her as its prize.

To be fair, some of the stories had foreshadowed this. The deadly terrifying dragon that captures the princess. However, everyone knew that dragons didn’t exist. This knowledge brought her little reassurance as the dragon snatched her from her tower and carried her off into the darkness.

Catherine now sat in its lair. Lines of crimson betrayed her now dry tears, though the sound of water droplets still echoed all around her in the damp cave. In the stories, the dragon’s lair was little more than a small divot in a cliff wall but this cave was a subterranean labyrinth. Hundreds of long, pitch-black passageways, strewn with rubble, pit falls and dead ends. The only area with constant light was the huge cavern in which she now resided. The treasure vault.

All around were things of value. Mountains of gold, silver and platinum coins, many minted in styles Catherine didn’t recognise. Precious stones of every colour, value and size, from huge diamonds the size of her head, to tiny pearls little larger than a pea. Some were carefully cut, other were raw and unworked. There were other things here too. Paintings, tapestries and statues. Furniture made of the finest mahogany. There were huge vats of black sinister looking fluid, the origin and purpose of which were unknown to her. Nothing here was any use to a dragon but it didn’t want to use any of it. It wanted to hoard it. Hoard wealth, hoard valuables. The creature had a sense for what others valued, and it took those things for itself.

Further in the vault were small crudely carved stone idols, they were worthless to her, but who ever carved them must have valued them dearly. Beyond these were tools, not noble weapons but honest tools, which to a farmer or craftsman would be worth their weight in gold. Catherine gasped.

In a section all of its own, where the dragon had vomited molten gold on the walls was a pile of so many tiny bones. Everything in here was valued above all else at one time or another. Catherine chose to believe these were bones of loved pets and prized livestock. She knew this not to be true.

She stalked through the chamber glancing at the assorted items. Each one, save for those in the dark corner she now left behind her, would make a valuable prize. It dawned on her that the same was true of her. She was a prize to be won: A princess to marry to give access to the royal family, to look pretty, or a bargaining chip to marry off for political power. That was the value the dragon saw in her. That’s the value her father saw in her. She had been passed from one dragon to another. At least this time the labyrinth was real. She would not wait any more.

Escape didn’t look too achievable. Even if she could navigate the inky black tunnels, she had another problem. A huge red eye had been watching her this entire time.

The dragon itself blended almost seamlessly with the glittering interior of the cave. Its scales were a complex mix of gold and red, with grey and black specks on the edges. When it stayed still, it could easily have been a pile of old golden coins. When it moved, its body looked almost indistinguishable from flames. Two huge golden horns sat upon its head like a crown. Perhaps she had passed from one king to another. She couldn’t escape while being watched so intensely.

She slowly took off her jewellery and made a show of adding it to the appropriate piles. It was some of the finest in the world but felt like a drop in the ocean here. The eye watched with cool indifference.

Next, she removed her gown. It was made of the finest silks and embroidered with such intricate detail that the tailor could easily have spent years on it. She was a little self-conscious now, in just her underwear. The great eye narrowed.

Next, she returned to the tools and selected a carefully knapped flint knife. Some craftsman many years ago had spend days getting such a sharp edge. Her hair had been tied in a large black bow. She now adjusted the ribbon and tied the hair tight in a long pony tail. Her silky chestnut hair was the envy of women everywhere. Wig makers would pay a small fortune for such radiant hair. She took a deep breath and began cutting. She laid her hair gently on a silver dresser and surveyed the damage in a vanity mirror among the furniture.

The eye watched; it was not pleased.

Catherine looked at the blade. If she had no value the dragon would let her leave. She looked in the mirror. She was very beautiful. That beauty had not brought her happiness, and what use would it be down here. She tightened her grip on the blade, and tightened her resolve. This was not going to be pleasant.

It wasn’t.

Crimson fluid stained the blade, and made a sickly slapping noised as it dripped from her face into the silver coins by her feet. She stood motionless waiting for the pain to subside.

The dragon, startled, leapt to its feet. Each slash had made it rear up. It now paced back and forth, frustrated. Smoke puffed from its nostrils and it slammed its claws into the floor making the whole cave shake. Clearly, she had lost value in the eyes of many, but the creatures restraint in taking out its frustration told her she still had some value, which was both concerning and reassuring.

Clearly upset, the creature stormed off into the darkness of the tunnel that led away from the treasure trove.

Catherine didn’t wait, but she did bide her time, which she told herself was a totally different thing. Once the sound of monstrous stamping had faded she began following into the darkness. First however, she needed light. Around the cave were glowing crystals. They would do, but they were too valuable. It would be foolish to take them. Instead, she returned once again to the tool section. Everything had value, but the more ancient tools surely had less. An old scythe handle and a fabric case that contained an intricate set of lock picks (which were carefully removed) were combined to make a basic torch. She didn’t have to search for long to find a flint and steel, a tool valued heavily by those out in cold weather. 

The treasure room was immaculately clean and dry, an achievement made easier by the fact that molten gold had been used to coat most of the walls. The tunnels beyond were very different. Mud and ash had mixed to make a black sludge that was bitterly cold. At times she had to crawl over rubble, squeeze past boulders many times larger than herself and climb filthy cliffs. It didn’t take long for what little clothing she had left, her skin, and her hair to become completely caked in filth. Her transformation was complete: from a glamorous princess to this, she thought to herself as the muck made her wounds sting.

She couldn’t tell if it had been minutes, hours or maybe even a day but she powered on in the frigid darkness. As the embers of the wooden shaft she desperately clung to, began to die out, she started to think she would too. Perhaps she had taken a wrong turn, perhaps even the dragon wouldn’t find her bones. In the now near-complete darkness, she took a step into thin air as the cave floor opened up before her. She tumbled down a near shear cliff, her fall broken only by a few inches of muck. Everything stung, each ache exacerbated by the cold that now reached her very bones. Her eyes stung, and wept, desperate to clean the filth from themselves. Even so, she smiled, because she could see the light at the end of the tunnel, both figuratively and literally.

It wasn’t a particularly warm day but the suns rays felt like a welcome flame to her icy cold skin. Reborn from a womb of stone and filth she was finally free, no tower, no cave, and no stories.

She surveyed the horizon. She did not recognise what she saw, and the only thing that passed for civilisation in the otherwise wilderness was a small town that was currently being consumed by a big fire. Apparently, the dragon was out replacing his lost wealth.

She had no food, no clothes, no palace, and she doubted anyone would recognise her now. She had nothing, but she was free, and for the first time ever, she felt alive. 

The end.