The Dragon was only about the size of a small truck, but the very sight of them struck terror into the depths of my soul.
The Dragon was crouching, obviously having difficulty fitting into the relatively low ceiling of the hallway. Even in my terror I briefly took the time to wonder why they had chosen somewhere so ill-fitting to be their lair, until I remembered that Dragons often assumed a more Being-like form except when they were showing off.
"Well, well, well," the Dragon said. "Come to slay me, I suppose?"
"Um... uh... not really," I said. "We've come for the princess. Please may we have her?"
"No," the Dragon replied and shut the door.
Fairwater and Zivan were looking at me. "Nice work," the Angel said.
"What? We're still alive... we still have our souls..."
"...and the Dragon still has the princess," he retorted.
"Look, it was your idea to talk to them. You know they're as powerful as the Fae, right? And just as dangerous when angry? You can't just kick them in the balls and ransack the place."
"Let me try," Fairwater said.
"NO!" I yelled, grabbing him. The Doberman looked surprised for a moment and then grinned.
"I meant 'Let me try talking to them'. In case you haven't noticed, this is a Dragon-she so kicking them in the nuts won't achieve much anyway."
"Just talking, right?"
"Promise." He rang the bell.
"Yes?" Asked the Dragon.
"Doesn't say much, does she?" Zivan whispered, and received a frosty glance from the lizard.
"Let me guess. You're just here to sell me some fine leather jackets, right?"
"Um, actually I was just wondering if we could maybe see the princess?"
"Get stuffed," the Dragon replied. "What are you, some wandering band of perverts?"
"No! I mean... to make sure she's all right, and stuff?"
The Dragon sighed. "Take it from me, Princess Admaria is fine. But she doesn't want to go home either, so don't even think about it."
She began to close the door again, but Fairwater, in what might be called a rash move, quickly stuck his boot in the crack.
"Persistent, aren't you?" she said. "Look. The princess doesn't want to be disturbed right now, so you ain't coming in. Why don't you three just bugger off and leave me be?"
The Dragon couldn't see me where I was since the door was in the way as she was closing it.
I became invisible and shapeshifted into a feral rat, creeping through the gap. Suddenly a hind foot scooped me up, passing me to one of the hands which gently but forcefully ejected me out of the door.
"Well, you're creative, I'll give you that," the Dragon said and threw a punch at the Doberman. He jumped backwards with a yelp and his foot came out of the door, which quickly slammed shut.
"We have treasures!" Zivan yelled, banging on the door. "Surely we can come to some kind of arrangement!" I just about caught the reply from inside. It wasn't very polite.
"What now?" I asked, pulling out one of my Arriflex cameras. If the Dragon wasn't going to ignore us entirely, I could probably get some good footage of her.
"We go down the chimney," Fairwater replied, with a strange look in his eyes.
"You what?"
"Jakob had the right idea in turning into a rat. We climb on the roof, shapeshift into something small enough to fit down the chimney and go inside."
"In case you've forgotten, I'm an Angel," Zivan said. "I can no more shapeshift than a Being can eat bricks."
"I have't forgotten," Fairwater said placatingly. "Jakob and I will shapeshift. Once inside, assuming the Dragon doesn't find us, we shall make our way to the front door and let you in."
"If we're not back in half an hour, run like hell," I added.
Fairwater's insane plan actually worked out quite well. The only snag being that we got lost while trying to find the entrance.
"Maybe we could find the princess now and then let him in?" Fairwater snickered.
"That would hardly be polite," I objected. "I don't know what it is that motivates him in this lunatic quest, but it's a force to be reckoned with. If he wants the glory, I say we let him have it. A pissed-off Angel is something I could seriously do without right now."
The Angel jumped as the main door opened, recovering as he realised it was just us. Swiftly, silently, he raced inside and we shut the door behind him as carefully as we could.
You do realise that the Dragon will be perfectly within her rights to kill us for trespassing now," I whispered as we crept through the hallway. Zivan's less-than-friendly response was caught on film.
As we left the entrance, Fairwater and I remained hidden, while Zivan scouted ahead. This seemed to me a sensible approach since the Dragon, if she found us, would probably not take so great an offence upon discovering an Angel had penetrated her defences as she would upon a pair of incubi. Nonetheless, it was still a risk - the Dragon had seen through my invisibility at least once before.
There was a faint scratching sound ahead. The three of us froze, glancing nervously around for signs of the beast. Just as we began to think it was all-clear, the figure of a stoat detached itself from the wooden panelling of the hallway and lunged at us.
"The door!" he squealed, half-starved and delirious. "We must go, we must... too dangerous here! The worm... and..." he suddenly stopped, looking around in some sort of paranoid frenzy.
"Easy, easy," Zivan said, trying to comfort the crazed Being. "The door's behind me. But... What's wrong?"
"There are people!" the stoat babbled. "People here! You can't see them but they are here! Their shadows come at night... and... then they come too! People! But not like me... wingies! Soul-slayers! In league with the Dragon! Flashes of light, magic! Rooms that only they can enter..."
"The wingies!" he screamed, and without another word he suddenly bolted. The Angel wasn't fast enough to catch him.
"Quiet, you fool! You'll bring the Dragon down on us!" he hissed furiously, but the Being paid him no heed. With a great yelp of relief he ran to the door, opened it and fled.
"Wingies? What the hell was he talking about?" Fairwater asked, becoming visible again.
"He didn't seem to take offence at Zivan's wings," I mused. "Whatever it was that spooked him, it's not just the sight of wings, period." With anti-wing groups and the powerful anti-Creature sentiment that pervaded far too many towns and villages, that sort of intolerance was something that all three of us found much too common. And given what some of us had done, it was no great surprise.
The Angel remained silent for a few minutes and seemed content to follow us without offering anything to the conversation. At one point I glanced back at him and was slightly unsettled by the dreamy, abstracted look on his face.
"Hey, Zivan?" I asked eventually. "This whole thing was your idea. Any suggestions?"
"Oh," he said, suddenly snapping out of his reverie. "Yes. First, we must work out where the Dragon is. If she stays in one place for long enough, we may be able to search the rest of the castle. Ideally we'd need to set up a watch, though... but we don't really have enough people. Unless either of you has a warp-aci or some other sort of familiar?"
Fairwater and I glanced at each other.
"Well, let's find out where the Dragon is first, and take it from there. According to legend, there are two places that Dragons typically spend most of their leisure time - while they're in this plane, of course - and those are treasuries, and libraries."
"Rooms only they can enter," I murmured. Zivan looked somewhat perturbed at this.
We tried the library first. It was a very extensive one, and the mere sight of it sent Zivan into raptures of delight. It was only when Fairwater and I both threatened to leave him in the castle to face the wrath of an angry Dragon alone that he came to his senses and reluctantly allowed himself to be led out of the rooms.
The Dragon wasn't in the cellar either. We found the storerooms, and only a modest treasure trove, pathetic by Dragon standards.
"Maybe the rest of it is off-plane," I said, looking on unnerved as Zivan helped himself to a pair of bracers, a necklace and a few other items, not dissimilar to the statuettes we had taken from the King.
"The whole point is that we don't let the Dragon get us," he said, catching my eye. "In any case, these must have come with the princess. We have proof at least that she was here."
As it happened, the Dragon was in the bath, so we took the opportunity to search for the princess in earnest. From what the Dragon had said there was the distinct possibility that she would kick up a fuss when we found her, but that was a bridge we'd have to cross when we got there.
"You don't suppose the princess is in there too?" Zivan asked, as we stood outside the bathroom. I looked at him strangely.
"Uh, like someone bathing their pet, I mean?" he added hastily.
"Maybe she was right about the 'wandering perverts' comment," Fairwater smirked. The jaguar's expression turned foul and he grabbed the executioner by the collar of his shirt.
"It's something we must try," I said. Zivan turned suddenly, releasing the doberman who landed on his butt.
"I'll go this way - Fairwater, you go the other way. We'll circle the bathroom as closely as we can. See if you can sense anything."
"Oh, right," he said. We met in the middle.
"Well?" Zivan demanded.
"There's only one mind in there that I can see," I said. Fairwater nodded in agreement. We left hastily as the Dragon broke into an aria.
An hour later we had combed every room in the castle save two. The bathroom, obviously, and another room on the third floor. It was fairly small, too small for the Dragon to enter - at least in full form - and it was unadorned save for two stained glass windows and a small brass door-knocker set in the wall.
We tried the knocker, but to no avail, although it definitely had some kind of enchantment upon it.
"This must be what the stoat was on about," I said.
"So the princess is through there?" Fairwater asked.
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," said a voice behind us. Zivan almost dropped the goodies. Fairwater and I turned, our wings fluffing out in panic. The Dragon most likely had more magic in her little finger than we did in the whole of our clans combined. Whatever his clan is, I thought. I never asked... I guess I'll never know...
"But wait... what's this?" she asked, gesturing at the Arriflex. "If I'd known you had come here to try and make a film, I'd have let you in in the first place."
Zivan's attitude had changed entirely. The plundered items were at his feet, and his arms were folded. There was a somewhat shrewd expression upon his face.
"All right, Dragon, cut the cackle. Where is the princess?"
"Haven't you guessed yet?" she asked, and began to flow. The feather-winged figure of a Border collie stood where the Dragon had been. Her arms were folded just like the Angel's.
"Princess Admaria, at your service."