Cursed

To be fair, the dragon remarked to himself, I wouldn’t believe a goose either.

Then he remembered that he had done just that.

“Who are you?” The frog prince seated on the lily pad in front of him looked about as confused as a frog could, which really meant that he looked like your typical frog.

The aforementioned goose did the goose equivalent of setting her hands on her hips, which was ultimately just her flapping her wings. “Were you not listening to a single thing I said?”

The frog shook his head. “Oh, believe me, I was listening. I just see no reason to believe what you are saying. How could a princess be turned into a goose?”

The dragon’s goose companion fixed the prince with a glare. “You are a prince cursed to be a frog.”

Now, the dragon had never been great at social cues (how was he supposed to know that the flock of sheep being kept outside his cave wasn’t for his consumption?), but even he could see the anger boiling up in the feathered white beast in front of him. All the geese he’d known (which amounted to about two and a half besides the princess) had been creatures made of pure, unadulterated rage. It really made the dragon wonder how many geese went to hell. What sort of bird needed that many teeth?

The dragon had gotten off-topic, as he often did in his thoughts. The point of the tangent was that he wasn’t sure whether the princess had always been filled with fury, or whether her transformation into a goose had simply instilled in her the rage that every gosling was taught from the day it hatched by its mother, or whether it was simply a vengeance that knew no bounds that fueled her, but whatever created it in her had made her a force to be reckoned with. The girl was a terror, one the dragon still wasn’t certain he’d made the right call in joining with; then again, better to be on the side of the angry goose than against it, because the princess seemed quite set in the mentality that if you were not for her, you were against her.

The frog prince, however, was not the shiniest piece of armor on a toasted knight, and did not seem to be catching on to the anger festering inside the princess before him, despite the dragon’s attempts to shake his head and keep the prince from opening his big mouth any wider. “I fail to see how my curse to be this hideous, slimy, bug-eating creature has anything to do with our discussion.”

“We have both been cursed by witches.”

“Princesses are cursed to sleep till they are kissed, not to be geese.” If the dragon hadn’t feared for the prince’s life before, he certainly did now.

The goose princess’ voice dropped to a growl. “I have a dragon with me. He will eat you.”

This caught both the prince and the dragon off guard; the prince had apparently failed to notice the presence of a giant red dragon behind the white goose he was speaking to, and the dragon had not been expecting to be volunteered to murder someone, and by a princess nonetheless. It wasn’t that he had qualms with eating other creatures – he’d eaten a fair amount of barbecued knights and peasants in his day – but frogs made him queasy, and he didn’t appreciate being ordered about without any say in the matter. Besides, did he want to risk ingesting the stupidity that was the frog in front of them? The dragon wasn’t sure that his own IQ wouldn’t drop if he ate the frog prince.

“I will not eat him,” the dragon announced, only to receive a sharp glare from the goose princess. He then adjusted his answer. “I will probably not eat him.”

The prince put on a bold face, though he continued to periodically glance at the dragon, obviously not convinced that he would not be swallowed up without a moment’s notice. “What is so important about having me go with you on…whatever journey you have planned?”

“Well, originally it was in an attempt to help another kindred spirit. Now it’s simply the principle of the matter.”

“I’m still not convinced you are a princess. You might just be a normal goose who likes to run a good scam.” The dragon could see the prince’s concern being valid if the princess had requested anything from him, but all she’d done was tell him the story of her curse and finding her new companion, as well as invite him on their quest to find the witch who’d cursed the princess.

Wait a minute, why am I even here? The dragon reflected to himself, till he felt something tickle his throat. At this, he was completely distracted from his thoughts, choking and gagging at whatever had managed to get itself lodged in his throat. A few moments later, he got the answer to his question as a disgusting crown was dispelled from his mouth to land – surprisingly accurately – on the goose princess’ head. Oh, yes. Because she promised me gold when she turned back. A bribe. What would your mother say if she saw you now, good sir? Bribed into compliance. How pathetic. I didn’t even try and extort her!

His inner turmoil over his failure to try and rob a kingdom blind was broken by the frog prince, who was looking at the dragon-slobber-coated goose in her crown with newfound interest. “Oh, would you look at that? Perhaps you are a princess!”

Both the dragon and the goose stared in silence at the dumb prince for several minutes before the princess slowly turned to face the dragon. “Why,” she began, eye twitching, “did you eat my crown?”

The dragon briefly considered his options. He did not have any particular interest in sharing his addiction to shiny objects to the princess. Between that and being a kleptomaniac, he was not often invited to parties, and though the princess did not have many options for companions on this journey beyond himself, the dragon at this point had remembered his investment in her quest and was not intent on losing those delectable…ahem, valuable treasures she had promised him.

So instead, in a particular stroke of genius, the dragon answered, “I…planned for this scenario.”

Ah, he reflected to himself, not a stroke of genius. A stroke of stupidity.

And yet, for whatever reason, the princess seemed to believe his story, or at least was willing to let it slide for now. “Good. Now, it’s back to the matter at hand. Frog prince, I have set out on a journey to find my stepmother and--”

“Vanquish her?” The dragon offered.

“Force her to change you back?” The prince suggested.

“--murder her,” the princess finished.

Both the dragon and the prince exchanged looks, and the prince proceeded to meet his quota of one smart decision per day as he announced, “I suppose I could join you and see if we can find a cure for my curse in the process.”

He proceeded to waggle his eyebrows in froggy fashion at the princess, something the dragon wasn’t even sure was possible. The princess either did not understand the implication or was simply choosing to ignore it. He applauded her nonetheless.

She hissed, showing her terrifying tongue and beak, both lined with teeth. “Let’s go kill a witch!”