FanStory.com - Ol' Silver and Red, ch 2by Wayne Fowler

In the last part Ohmie arrived at the the castle of his arranged wife-to-be in a neighboring kingdom for an acquainting meeting. Ohmie, unwilling to be bind into a catostrophic union, falsely claimed that Prince waynard (himself) had been struck by lightning and died. He offered himself, as Ohmie, to mentor King Herb's heir, young Prince Shauconnery. Soon enough, Ohmie and his previously intended, Princess May, became fast friends. During an occasion of playful, but ill-advised behavior Ohmie quite inadvertantly touched King Herb with his fingertip while running around a curving staircase. After Princess may convinced her father not to execute him, the king merely ringed one of his fingers with his sword, promising to axe the digit should it fail to scar, the scar to be a lifelong reminder.

Described in the previous part, local dragon of renown, Ol' Silver and Red, made an unwelcomed appearance into the castle's great hall. That scene had yet to occur as of this point in the tale's telling.

Ohmie showed up the day the Princess lost her husband, her intended husband, that is. Her intended husband Waynard, pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable, was the son of King Jear of neighboring Spewlunkia. Waynard was the Prince of the Land Over the Rainbow. The people called it the Land Over the Rainbow, and when May first heard it, she liked it so well, that became her name for Spewlunkia, as well.

Spewlunkia, or The Land Over the Rainbow, was a country not quite as large as Princess May’s Calandria, but did have rich bottomland and therefore, slightly more prosperous. While very productively growing beans and rice, Calandria was rich with corn and cotton. Both countries raised cattle and chickens aplenty.

“Waynard has been struck by lightning,” Ohmie falsely informed King Herb. “His carcass has been taken home. His father sends his deepest regrets, but he simply cannot introduce the prince-betrothed to King Herb’s daughter in light of the turn of events, him being dead and all.” That was the disheartening message Ohmie carried to King Herb’s Tempest Castle. And since Ohmie, the bearer of bad news, claimed to have been Waynard’s mentor, and was then, supposedly, without a pupil, Waynard being dead, would King Herb be in the market of an instructor of numbers and letters for Prince Shauconnery? That was how he became a castle resident and cohort of the Prince and Princess, masquerading as a lowly tutor.

Waynard hated lying to the King of Calandria, the father of his betrothed, but saw it as as necessary evil, a slight that might be made right, or dismissed into seas of forgetfulness. He simply could not wed a pig in a poke. Nor would he force marriage upon an unwilling bride.

Lowly tutors primarily worked for room and board. Most gambled on the prospect of ultimately tutoring a student of wealth who would reward him with either funds or favor, should said student prosper.

Princess May felt a stab of vague familiarity with the explanation of Waynard’s fate. It would have been just about the same time of day that she’d left herself behind, floating, as it were – as if watching some part of her fate under review. The eeriness was more definite than any such previous sense. She’d been apprehensive enough as it was, the arrangement was to be a meeting with the man she was already betrothed to, not sure whether she would honor the contract, or dishonor her father. She was in a complete and total dither, quite flummoxed. And then she learned of her future husband’s heinous demise – fried to a crisp.

Waynard, now disguised as Ohmie, was not the crown Prince, as was Shauconnery, heir to the crown. Waynard had two older brothers, the elder the Crown Prince, the second-born bound for glory, having been appointed a General in the army of the land’s Great King. Waynard was meant to wed the neighbor King’s daughter, and live out his days as guarantor of peace to the east, and possibly taking charge of the land’s agronomy.

Waynard allayed himself by study and learning. He’d bled his own tutor dry of knowledge. Waynard questioned every master craftsman in the realm, every husbandman, every successful anyone, learning all he could of every known subject – especially histriology. There wasn’t a book in the land he hadn’t read, many more than once. His older brothers, jealous and suspicious of his thirst for knowledge, bade their father’s refusal of the boy’s constant requests for more books. Their resentful picking at him provided increased impetus for his mastery of the martial, as well as other fighting arts.

Princess May was (now) unbetrothed, but not unpleased at this status. She’d been pledged to Waynard, now presumed dead, since the day of her birth. It would have been sooner, the betrothal agreement, but had she been a he, withdrawal from the bonded treaty would have been awkward. They waited until certain she was a she. This was to have been the occasion of the couple’s first meeting, but of course, it wouldn’t happen because of Waynard’s death. The second meeting would have been the day Princess May arrived in the Land Over the Rainbow to become Prince Waynard’s Princess. Now, she didn’t even know what he looked like. Or used to look like before being supposedly struck by lightning.

But as of the time of all these thoughts and occurrences, the dragon Ol’ Silver and Red had yet to make his most unwelcomed castle appearance.

Princess May salted Ohmie’s incised finger, making certain it would scar. She didn’t want the bare pointer axed off simply to make a King feel kinglier. The rudely arriving silver and red dragon would soon take Ohmie’s mind off his tortured digit.

Ohmie took issue with the silver and red dragon’s sudden disturbance of his numbers lesson with Prince Shauconnery as it crashed its way into the castle. Leaping from a table top, Ohmie launched his dagger, burying it deeply into the back of the dragon’s neck. It took on the appearance of a single horn that was wrongly placed to be a horn, a deformity. No one noticed the gilded carving at the knife handle’s butt, a lion’s head allowed only by royalty.

The silver and red dragon was not pleased with his adornment, pirouetting to repay the debt. As nimbly as Ohmie had avoided the King’s cut-throat jab, Ohmie neatly slung himself atop the dragon’s neck, grasping the knife handle as would an aborigine the mane of a wild stallion while mounting it on the run. The silver and red dragon screeched the most terrifyingly hideous screech ever heard throughout the kingdom, or the surrounding kingdoms either, for that matter. The noise acted within everyone’s mind, causing them to imagine the sound they would make if being eaten alive by such a monster. Everyone grabbed to cover their ears it was so terrible and frightening. People plunged for cover under tables and chairs, believing the next instant to quite possibly be their last, becoming piles of ash from the inferno of the dragon’s flames.

Instantly, as if magically, the two were gone. Some said they’d seen them, the dragon and his rider, exit through the busted-out wall, but others described that they’d simply vanished. Prince Shauconnery sided with the vanishing faction.

Suddenly Princess May stood bolt upright, her mind seeing a prince, regaled in fierce splendor – Prince Waynard – favoring her Ohmie to a T. They were one and the same. Though she didn’t appreciate the deception, she would allow him time to unburden himself of the truth.

For his part, Ohmie hadn’t figured far enough ahead. He had not properly calculated the possibility of such a heart-felt relationship with his formerly espoused bride-to-be. He was then flummoxed as to how to right his wrong without despoiling the growing affection.