A Summer Of Missing Princesses

The sun has just begun to rise over Fairwood and I am already out of bed. My teeth are brushed and my silky black hair is tied into two braids. I take a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves.

“Selima... You didn’t have to promise the king something as big as this...” my father says, his forehead wrinkled in concern.

“I lost his daughter, I owe him at least this much,” I say with a sigh.

“Make sure you come home alive...” my mother says.

They both kiss my forehead and hug me tight.

“I will, mom... I promise...” I whisper.

My parents walk me to the door, seeing me off. Fairwood Castle is on the far north end of the island and my home is in the east. I head west first, passing the random bridge that was constructed in the field. That bridge doesn’t even go over anything like a river or gorge. It just sits there in the field for no apparent reason.

It takes quite awhile to get to Fairwood Castle and I am now realizing that I probably should have gotten out of bed even sooner. At this rate, it’ll be past noon by the time I arrive! Out of nowhere, someone comes riding along on a large pony. I can tell it isn’t a horse because the face and belly are much rounder.

“Hey, you!” the rider calls out, halting the pony next to me.

“Huh? Why have you stopped to talk to me?” I ask.

“You look like you could use a ride!” the rider says.

The rider takes his riding cap off to reveal that he is a young man. I hesitate, not sure if I should trust the stranger.

“Erik-James can carry two people,” the rider says, patting his pony’s head.

“Sir, I could easily just walk a few more feet to Fairwood Castle, why would I need help?” I ask.

“Well, that’s true... I guess I’ll just continue on my way, then,” the rider says and puts his riding cap back on.

“...but then again...it could save energy for what I’ll be doing at the castle...” I say.

“Climb on, then,” the rider says, extending a hand for me.

I take his hand and he helps pull me up onto Erik-James’ back.

“Here we go!” the rider says.

Erik-James jerks forwards, taking off at a quick speed. In my surprise, I end up grabbing onto the rider’s shoulders, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Probably only in a matter of seconds, we come to a screeching halt in front of Fairwood Castle.

“Alright, here’s your stop! Good luck!” the rider says.

I let go of his shoulders and dismount the pony. He waves goodbye and takes off just as fast as he came. Fairwood Castle appears much larger than I thought it was with at least one tower stretching far into the sky. I gulp nervously and cross the bridge over the moat.

I walk right into the courtyard and the guards just nod as I go by. Perhaps the king already told them to expect me. One guard even opens the castle door for me.

“His Majesty, The King of Fairwood, has been expecting you,” the guard says.

“I hope I haven’t kept him waiting too long...” I say.

As soon as I enter, the king takes my hand and rushes me to some sort of training room.

“Selima, thank you for coming. I was starting to fear you were going to go back on your promise!” the king says.

“So how are you going to train me?” I ask.

“Well, first I have got to get you dressed appropriately for battle,” the king says, “Once you get used to the feeling of the armor, I can instruct you on how to use a sword. I assume you’ve never even touched a sword before.”

“You’re correct in assuming that. I’ve seen the blacksmith create swords, but I have never touched one myself,” I say.

The king’s servants rush over and start measuring me, taking their findings and quickly creating some suitable armor.

“These servants of mine are quite great at creating armor for all my knights. Since you’re going to be traveling a lot, I’ve decided on a design that is light weight, flexible, but tough enough to withstand attacks,” the king says.

A lady servant takes me to a dressing room and helps me to put on the armor. It feels awkward at first, but still better than I imaging the full metal armor suits would feel. I’ve now got shoulder panels, a chest plate, some sturdy boots, a neck guard, kneecaps, a chain-metal skirt, metal cuffs, and even a helmet!

“The helmet comes with a face protector, should you need it,” the female servant says.

“Really? How do I get that?” I ask.

“There’s a button on the side of your helmet. If you happen to get hit in the head, the mask will automatically deploy,” the servant says.

I reach up and touch the side of my helmet. In a second, or maybe less than that, a mask covers my face and I’m left with just two eyeholes and a breathing hole for my nose.

“Wow... This is awesome!” I say, “But will I have to serve in the castle to make up for the use of this equipment?”

“No, no! The king just wants to restore order to the world. If you can manage that, that will be enough,” the female servant says.

I tap the button again and the mask disappears.

“Is this magically powered?” I ask.

“Why, yes! Yes, it is!” the female servant says.

She leads me back to the training room. The king is seated in a comfy chair that wasn’t there earlier and he is drinking some tea.

“Your Majesty, she likes the armor!” the female servant announces.

“Very good! That’s what I want to hear!” the king says, putting his tea cup down.

We run through a few basic courses on how I should and should not go about moving around in the suit.

“You must be agile, but do not attempt anything that you think might be impossible to pull off. That’ll only get you hurt,” the king says.

The pages rush out and set up an obstacle course for me. Things to climb over, things to crawl through or under, and things to squeeze through are included in this obstacle course. I do not succeed my first time through the course, getting stuck between two posts because I did not turn my body the correct way.

“Oh dear...” the kings says after my first attempt, “Perhaps you could try again... I was kind of hoping you’d get it right the first time so I could move you along quicker... The longer those princesses are missing, the more likely it is that they’ll never be seen again!”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty... I’ll try again,” I say after the pages move the post enough for me to get free.

The king watches as I complete the course again. This second time through, I actually succeed and the king smiles in approval.

“Great job, Selima!” the king says.

“Thank you, Your Majesty!” I say.

“Next, you’ll need practice with your sword. I can’t send you out thinking that a sword can be swung at random and still hit your target!” the king says.

The pages run off and retrieve a random squire to assist with the sword training. The pages themselves are not eligible to help with this part of my training as they aren’t allowed to use swords yet.

“Young sir, I need you to teach this girl some sparring techniques,” the king says to his squire.

“She doesn’t even have a sword, Your Majesty,” the squire points out.

The king hesitates a moment and then nods his head.

“Give her one. You know where the spare swords are kept, don’t you?” the king asks.

“Yes, Your Majesty!” the squire says.

He runs off and returns a few moments later with a decently sized sword.

“This will probably suit you,” the squire says.

“Thank you,” I say, receiving the sword.

With the squire’s guidance, I unsheathe the sword. The beautiful silver blade sparkles in such a stunning way under the castle lights. I wrap my hand around the padded portion of the handle.

“There you go, then! Looks like the sword is a perfect match for you,” the squire says, seeing the way I take to the sword as if by instinct.

“Wow... I’m holding a sword!” I say, having no idea what else to say.

“That you are,” the squire says, “Now, to start the sparring, you’re going to want to hold your sword out, blade pointed towards the sky.”

I get into the position being demonstrated to me. I hear the king sipping tea behind me and nearly get distracted.

“Now, I’m going to swing my sword one way and you’ll want to swing the other way to block my swing,” the squire says.

He begins to swing his sword to the left so I swing mine to the right and our blades meet with a clink. A spark flies up from the contact.

“See? Now we keep doing that until you get used to aiming your sword at mine,” the squire says.

We hit our blades together a few more times, sending more sparks flying.

“Now, I think you’ve got the hang of that, now here’s a trick you can do. When your blade meets the other blade, thrust forwards to knock your opponent back. Like this!” the squire demonstrates the motions required and sends me flying backwards.

“Oof!” I groan as I hit the ground.

The armor I am wearing protects me and I get back up.

“Now, if I had meant to kill you, I could have ran in and stabbed you while you were down. Never do this to someone or something you don’t intend on killing,” the squire says.

I get off the ground and dust myself off.

“Try to force me back. Just don’t stab me afterwards. I intend on living long enough to become a knight,” the squire says.

“Alright,” I say.

We both swing and when our blades hit, I try to force him back, but he also is trying to force me back, causing us to be locked in place.

“You need to be more forceful than your opponents!” the squire explains.

I press harder and he becomes unbalance, falling over.

“I did it!” I cry out.

“Yeah, you did...” the squire says, getting off of the floor.

The squire brings out some props and sets them up in the room.

“What is this?” I ask.

“This is for training in case you come across an enemy that you absolutely have to kill. Of course I won’t let you practice death moves on me!” the squire says.

I look over to see if the king is still watching and, in fact, he still is. He has a bucket of popcorn that he’s eating while watching my training. The squire quickly demonstrates which motions I’ll need to defeat each prop and then he steps back, allowing me to get to work. I get most of them right on the first try, but then I mess up horribly on the final one. I swing at it with my sword, but it only chips slightly rather than breaking.

“Try again!” the king encourages.

It takes me a few more tries, but I eventually make it work. The king glances at a clock on the wall and sighs.

“Well, I was hoping for a quick training session... We’re almost done!” the king says.

“What else should I learn?” I ask.

“You have your armor and sword, but you have not yet been given a shield,” the king says.

The pages bring out a faded red shield and hand it to me. I chuckle a bit, thinking that using a shield has to be much easier than using a sword or even trying to move about in the magic armor.

The pages hand the squire a shield as well.

“There are various tricks you can do with your shield. If you lose your sword temporarily, you can actually use your shield as a weapon,” the squire says.

He takes his own shield and holds it like a flying disk. He flings it with a flick of his hand and it goes twirling away. The king ducks just in time as the shield whizzes over his head.

“Aye!” the king exclaims.

“Sorry, Your Majesty!” the squire says.

The king stays ducked down, knowing I’ll probably toss mine towards him as well.

“Only problem is... The shield doesn’t come back to you. You have to go find it and get it back,” the squire says.

“It’s behind my head, sonny boy...” the king says with a sigh.

The squire goes and reclaims his shield.

“You try,” he prompts.

I try, but my shield limply falls to the floor.

“No! You’re supposed to fling it! Put some energy into that disk!” the squire says.

I pick my shield up and try again. I do slightly better, but still not quite as great as the squire.

“Well... I guess that’s good enough...” the squire says.

I go and get my shield back and return to my position.

“Alright, if you don’t want to fling your shield away and your enemy is right in front of you, you can just thrust your shield forwards to unbalance them! Like this!” the squire says.

The squire puts one leg back and bends the other before thrusting his shield forwards and then upwards.

“Now you try it,” the squire says.

“Okay!” I reply.

I get into the same position that the squire was in and thrust my shield, getting it right on the first try. Surprised by my success, I burst out laughing.

“Very, very, good! It seems you’ve got all the basics down!” the squire says.

“Can I keep this stuff?” I ask.

The squire looks to the king for his response. The king nods his head eagerly.

“Keep it and use it well, remembering all that you’ve just been taught!” the king says.

“Thank you!” I cry out.

With that, I am sent off on my quest to find and return the seven princesses...