Chapter Text
Once upon a time, there was a prince.
And this prince was going to become king of the Taung Kingdom when he grew up.
He grew up learning how to sword fight and read and predict the weather, all the skills a prince needs to be a good king one day.
But then one day, his father, the king, called for him.
“My son, prince of the Taung Kingdom,” the wise king said, “the kingdom is in danger. The blessing of the dragon has worn off. Without it, we will not be able to protect our lands or grow our food.”
“Oh no!” The prince thought, for this was a very bad, worrying thing.
“But I am too old to make the journey and regain the dragons’ blessing. You are young and yet have learned what you needed. The kingdom needs you to regain the dragons’ blessing.”
“Of course father, my king, I shall not fail. I shall get our kingdom’s blessing back!” the prince promised.
And so the prince set out to find a dragon to bless the Taung Kingdom once more.
The prince travelled for three weeks of rain and three weeks of sun. And then three more weeks of snow, looking for a dragon, until he came upon a wise wizard’s tower.
“Wizard!” the prince called, “I need your help!”
The wizard looked out from the window on the top floor of his tower and told the prince it was rude to shout.
The prince tried to ask again at a polite volume, but his voice could not reach the top of the tower.
The prince entered the tower and climbed the stairs in three days and three nights.
When he reached the top of the tower where the wizard was, the wizard told him it was rude to enter someone’s home without knocking. The prince apologized, because he had done something wrong, but because he was a prince he did it for a good reason. The prince explained that his kingdom needed the dragon’s blessing again as he shared a cup of tea with the wizard.
The wizard, knowing the prince was doing the right thing and not wanting to see the Taung Kingdom harmed, agreed to join the prince on his journey to find a dragon.
The prince and the wizard set off from the tower, traveling through the woods and over the river and around the marsh until they reached a village with a dragon’s claw.
The old woman who ran the village welcomed them into her house, where they sat around the fire and talked about the danger the kingdom was in. They talked for so long that the fire went out and the old woman got so cold she could not stand to get the dragon’s claw.
The old woman asked the prince to cut her some firewood, so that she may “warm up by the fire and be able to get the dragon’s claw.”
The old woman did not have an axe in her house, so the prince had to go into the woods with only his sword to cut the old woman her firewood. But his sword was made to go into battle, not chop down trees, so the prince was very worried about whether or not it could cut the firewood.
But the prince knew the kingdom needed the dragon’s blessing, so where the axe would have gone “chop chop” to the tree, the prince used his sword to go “slash” and because he had worked very hard at his swordfighting, the tree fell down and was cut into nice firewood.
The prince took the firewood back to the old woman, who warmed up by the fire the prince had made and was able to stand and walk over to where she kept the dragon’s claw.
The old woman gave the prince the dragon’s claw and the village sent the prince and wizard off with cheers for helping the old woman.
With the help of the dragon’s claw, the wizard was able to cast a spell that pointed them in the right direction. The two travelled into a deep forest, where they ran into a group a faeries circling a mushroom.
The faeries seemed very hungry, and tried to eat the prince!
But the wizard cast a spell to make a barrier, so the faeries could not touch them. The faeries didn’t like not being able to touch the prince, but not because they were hungry.
“We need a present for our friend!” they chittered, “Her birthday is today and we have no present for her! Surely a scrumptious meal would do!”
The prince told them he did not want to be eaten, and that they would have to find a different present for their friend.
“But she is coming here with the book we left her! She cannot read and will want one of us to read it and we will not have time to find her a present!” they cried.
The prince thought for a moment, and then cleverly promised that he would read their friend her book, so that they may have enough time to find another gift for her, if the gift was not a human to eat.
The faeries liked this idea, for faeries eat humans a lot, but prefer new things. If the prince gave them time to find a new gift, instead of a human to eat, then they could give their friend a very good present.
The faeries left and the prince waited. When a faerie appeared with a book in one of her three hands, he greeted her.
“Hello there, that is a nice book you have there,” he said.
“Indeed,” said the faerie, “it is very pretty, but I cannot read it.”
“I can read it aloud for you,” the prince offered, “but only if you let me hold it while I do so.”
The faerie thought about his words, which promised that the book would be returned once it was read, and agreed, tossing the book to the prince through the barrier, not realizing it was there.
The prince read the book aloud to the faerie and tossed it back to her. She was very happy and flew off to tell her friends about the story, dropping a token of gratitude to the prince as she left.
The prince collected the moon’s juice the faerie had left him, and made his way out of the deep forest with the wizard.
The wizard guided them along a valley, using the dragon’s claw. But the prince, who was a very good prince and therefore skilled in predicting weather, saw that it would rain for the next few days.
The prince and wizard climbed out of the valley, and so were safe when the creek at the bottom turned into a raging river.
As they stayed dry under a tree above the river, they heard a panicked whinny.
The prince and the wizard looked for what could have made a noise. They saw that a unicorn was trapped on a rock near the river’s shore, surrounded by water.
The prince, since he had predicted how it would rain, knew that the river would rise even more, swallowing the rock and drowning the unicorn.
The prince approached the unicorn, the wizard following, looking for something to help the unicorn with.
“If you help me, I shall give you some of my hair,” the unicorn promised.
The prince found a wide stick, which the wizard grew into a board, which the two of them laid across from the shore to the rock, letting the unicorn cross to safety.
“Thank you for your help,” the unicorn said, bowing his head down to the prince so the prince could take the promised hair.
The prince tucked the hair into a pouch his father, the king, had given him, and he and the wizard continued on their journey.
The prince and the wizard traveled through the land again, searching for the dragon, until at last they came upon a cave in the center of a special mountain.
There, the prince and the wizard entered the cave, whose entrance was revealed by the dragon’s claw. And then they entered a door, using the moon’s juice to grease the hinges so it would open. And finally the prince wove rope from the unicorn’s hairs that could lift a bell they found, pulling the rope and sounding the bell to wake up the dragon.
The dragon heard the prince’s tale, of how the Taung Kingdom had lost its blessing, how the people were worried for their food and land and each other, and how the prince had journeyed far and wide for the kingdom.
The dragon decided that the prince, now not only skilled like a prince should be, but wise from his journey, would be able to carry its blessing back to the kingdom, and bestowed the blessing upon the prince.
And so the prince and the wizard, now comrades and friends, traveled back to the king’s castle – where the king, the prince’s father, had been very worried about his son – and brought the dragon’s blessing back to the land, ushering in a new time of peace and plenty.
And so the prince and wizard and kingdom lived happily ever after.
The end.