The princess arrives at the sunny meadow kicking and screaming, flanked by two palace guards who have long abandoned all courtesy in order to restrain her. 

“I won’t do it! I won’t! You can’t make me!” 

As it turns out, they can, and quite easily—horses are much faster than a damsel in distress’s attempt to chase them. She slinks back, head down, hair full of twigs, oversized sundress cut up in a million different places. Swinging open the creaky wooden door at the base of her tower, she drags thistle-stung feet up the stairs. Silence in the forest is soon restored. 

Well, save for the occasional wail from the princess’s quarters. 

Thus, the dragon’s term begins. What a fair punishment on the surface! Only a few decades out of infinity to compensate for the few decades the burnt-to-a-crisp shepherd would never see. Plus, the sheep were delicious, the first proper meal he’d had in days. 

The finest craftsmen in the kingdom fashioned his chains: its two pressure points meant that the only key in the universe that can unfasten the titanium padlock on his chest is the human touch, his only chance of salvation the very people who imprisoned him. 

It is written into tales older than time that the dragon is to watch, the princess is to wait, and the knight is to rescue with shining armor and chivalrous ambition. When Prince Charming slays the beast and rescues his true love from her loneliness, she’ll stay forever indebted to her husband, preserving the divine order that maintains social balance. And then, long after she is whisked away, the beast’s wounds will close, his captors will grant him freedom, and he may once again take to the skies and let the wind’s caress float him under the stars. 

Five years pass without incident. The dragon distracts himself from his atrophying wings by watching her as she harvests tobacco to smoke, sharpens sticks for a growing pile of unbloodied spears, and counts—under her breath while cloud-gazing, too quiet to make out whether she’s going up or down. 

Another three. The number of days between each attempt to escape lengthen; her sundress changes from the color of daffodils to that of mud. At the dragon’s mild amusement, she starts eating grass instead of foraging for mushrooms. 

Then, at long last, something that isn’t a rodent stirs in the bushes. At the edge of the clearing stands a young knight—his eyes full of naive ambition, his chest plate fresh from the forge. Blue eyes and sideswept hair epitomize the happy ending. Behind him, the princess squeals from her tower, pointing frantically at the dragon as if he isn’t already ambling toward the boy, ready for this to be over already. Without a moment’s hesitation, the knight charges into battle. 

Time slows as he approaches, a war cry rising in his throat. He swings his sword, and sunlight refracts through the metal into a million different colors, like diamond, like—

Dragonsteel.

Oh, no. No no no—that’s not part of the deal. If that blade punctures him, he will bleed out in the field, arcane healing prevented by the poisonous properties of the alloy. He won’t live to see freedom. But that could only mean… 

How could I have missed it? 

Of course. The kingdom never planned to fulfill their end of the bargain. 

He closes his eyes and spears out a claw. A gurgle and the knight slows; the sword flying out of his hand and landing a few meters away. He manages a look of disbelief before his knees give out and he collapses, pretty blue eyes going dull. 

The princess chokes on the victory cry that unexpectedly shatters in her throat, perhaps noticing for the first time that the dragon is an entity capable of making decisions. He swivels his head, gaze level with hers as she plants both feet onto the window ledge. Her entire body quivers. They both know that there will not be another knight; both make the simultaneous realization that tower and clearing and loneliness is all they will have, forever. The hope that acted as helium on his shackles floats away, the extra weight of them already carving fiery grooves into his flesh. Blurring the line between scales and metal until he becomes just another skeleton, barely six feet above all the others. He lets his last bit of hope drain away, respectfully parting ways with both past and future.

“Three million seven hundred sixty-six thousand four hundred eleven.” On the ledge, her voice is clear. The dragon understands—she can count for months, years, even. But there is no quantifying forever. 

She takes a last look behind her at her room. Three breaths—two shaky and one sure, followed by tears that race their way off her face to test the plunge first. The dragon tracks the drops until they land in the grass, each as noiseless as a body. 

Eyes screwed shut, she strides into thin air. 

Her too-long sleeves flap upwards as she falls, projecting shadows of wings onto the tower wall. It dawns on the dragon what is happening, and he has a sudden desire to harm her, too—how is it fair that she gets to opt out, to fly, an angel transcending the material world? How could she leave him here shackled to immortality, doomed to hope for a someday that will never come? 

Perhaps he made a mistake. Perhaps death is the better of two evils. 

Again, he flexes his claw. It snags onto the back of a dress that never fit, stopping the princess mid-plummet. She makes a strangled noise and grasps at her neck, realizing she is too close to the ground now to properly reach her destination. Fear and hate blaze in hazel eyes. 

The dragon lets her down. Her legs give out. For fifteen minutes, she stays crumpled, sobbing eight years’ worth of anguish into the grass.

Then, she stands. Each movement proves an astronomical effort. 

“You,” she seethes. 

She beelines for the sword. She is holding it all wrong, her stride unsteady as it skews her body weight to the left. But there is nothing unsteady in the viciousness of her charge. 

Again, he closes his eyes, waiting for someone to die. 

Except this time, no one does. 

Instead, he hears the dull thump of a sword as it clatters onto the ground. He feels warm, soft skin pressing gently into his chest. With a click, the chains slide off. He smells festered, infected skin where his confines dug into his wings. He dares to peek—the princess takes her blessedly opposable thumbs out of the keyhole, aligns her hazel with his midnight black, and speaks. 

“Looks like we have no choice but to be our own knights, dragon.” 

With this, she reaches down to her feet and rips her muddy dress cleanly up to the neckline so that it hangs on her skinny frame like a cape. Then, legs free, she vaults onto his back, her hands hugging his neck in a rider’s embrace.

“So. Can you fly?”