Chapter 15: The Happy Princess

In which everyone gets a happy ending (yes, even cat!Ivana)

Alfred, Arthur, and Kiku

After the wedding, Alfred and Arthur returned to Kiku's cave, because they both thought that Kiku had the right to know why he would need to find a new chef. Weddings took a long time to plan and the palace staff were tired from arranging the most recent one, so the two decided to have a long engagement.

Alfred was a little nervous about informing Kiku, because some dragons tended to get testy when their princesses ran off with someone, but Kiku didn't seem to mind at all (in fact, he didn't even seem surprised by the news).

"Good for you," he said to Arthur. "And congratulations to the pair of you." He smiled slightly and tilted his head. "I'd been wondering how much longer you were going to stay, Arthur-hime."

"Then you really don't object?" Alfred asked, relieved that he wasn't going to have a dragon for an enemy. King Ivan was bad enough.

"Why should I?" Kiku said. "You've been very polite about the whole thing. That doesn't happen often. Normally, knights and princes just grab a princess and run. And most of the princesses don't even bother to say good-bye, much less give proper notice." He looked at Arthur and sighed.

"I will miss your cooking, though."

"I can come back for a week or two, if you'd like, and train a replacement," Arthur offered.

"I may take you up on that, once I find one," Kiku said thoughtfully.

At the end of their stay Arthur successfully convinced Kiku to deliver the magical wardrobe that created clothes to the Gallic palace. For reasons Alfred didn't quite understand, Arthur wanted to give the wardrobe as a present to Francis to thank him for a favor (exactly what the favor entailed, Arthur didn't bother to explain). A wardrobe that magically produced clothes did seem like the perfect gift for Francis.

Arthur and Alfred stopped by Emma's cottage. She provided waffles, congratulated them on the engagement, and promised that she would send a pair of cats as a wedding gift.

"I have the perfect ones in mind!" she said, grinning her unique cat-smile.

Sometime near the end of their long visit with Kiku, it finally clicked in Alfred's head that he was going to marry his step-brother. He suddenly laughed, drawing Arthur's attention. Arthur gave him a bewildered look, and Alfred explained:

"I think I need to apologize to Nataliya."

"Whatever for?"

Alfred grinned.

"Because I want to marry my brother."

Elizabeta, Feliks, and Toris

Alfred and Arthur visited Elizabeta's inn a month later. But they discovered that Feliks and Toris were now the ones running the place.

"Where's Liz?" Alfred asked curiously.

Feliks smiled and told the story. Elizabeta had been seeing a dark-haired bard, Roderich. Eventually, as their relationship progressed he confessed that he was actually a prince who had been cut off from his parent's wealth because they thought he was turning into an aristocratic laze-about. They wanted him to find a girl and settle down and stop expressing all of his feelings through music.

"Elizabeta, I have a bit of a confession..." Roderich said hesitantly.

"You're secretly in love with another man and you want permission to have an open relationship?" she asked breathlessly.

He stared. "Uh, no."

"Darn."

"I'm a prince."

"Oh. So you want to whisk me away from this life of drudgery and take me to a palace where servants will serve my every whim?"

He nodded.

"Well that seems like a decent second place prize," she cheerfully replied.

After running off with her musically inclined prince charming, Elizabeta left Feliks and Toris in charge of the inn. Between Feliks's horse skills and Toris's skills with everything else (cooking, cleaning, and being organized), they had no trouble running the place.

Angelique and Francis

After his father and step-mother's, Francis accepted Angelique's invitation to enjoy a relaxing tropical retreat. They sipped wine on the beach, ate delicious fish, and did nothing but bask in the sun all day. Francis even developed a slight tan.

At the one-month mark, Angelique finally worked up the courage to ask a vital question:

"Francis... how do you keep a small amount of stubble when you never shave?"

She had never seen Francis use a shaving cream or razor and she didn't understand how he managed such perfect permastubble. Unless he shaved right before going to bed to make sure he had a 5 o'clock shadow at 5am in the morning.

He smiled and rubbed his petit blond beard. "Because I am le sexy."

Angelique decided that like his summoned roses, it would be an enduring mystery.

Katyusha and Mathieu

Mathieu showed Katyusha how to make pancakes and enjoyed his newfound health, even if everyone continued to forget about his existence.

Ivan and Yao

After Ivan found himself bereft of one sister and joyfully free from the other, he turned to sunflower growing as a hobby. (He had tried it as a hobby before, but Nataliya had a nasty habit of waiting to ambush him near the sunflowers, so he had quit.)

Eventually, he met and befriended the dragon Yao. After Yao learned of his love of chess, the dragon gave him a chess-playing cat as a gift. He named her Kotvana and they spent many happy evenings sitting near the fireplace, playing chess. The only problem was that they both wanted to play red, so Ivan made a new set of dark-red pieces and bright-red pieces. That way, red always won.

Lili and Nataliya

For the first time, Nataliya felt like she had a real friend. She grew out of her obsession with marrying her older brother and decided to find a new hobby. After trying competitive embroidery, dwarf-tossing, and extreme papier-mâché, she discovered a love for rescuing princesses. Nataliya, with her daggers, and Lili, with her anachronistic gun, went from cave to cave, making the world a little safer for princesskind.

Kiku's Dating Service

As Queen of the Dragons and an incorrigible match-maker, Kiku started a dating service to match up princesses and eligible royalty. The King of the Magical Forest was his first and only client. The King wanted to find a partner for his sister Emma so she would spending so much time with her cats. Emma rejected all of their attempts at match-making and in the end, the only new couple was Kiku and the King. Kiku discovered a human transformation spell and they enjoyed a beautiful relationship. Emma lived happily ever after with her cats.

THE END.

Author's Notes

Thank you to everyone for the reviews, follows, and faves! I hope you enjoyed the story, even though I didn't do justice to "Dealing with Dragons" and its sequels. If you haven't read these books before, go! Do it! I'll even make it easy.

Here's a link: go to (www) e-reading-lib (dot org) and search "Dealing with Dragons"

And a snippet to whet your literary appetite:

"We have made the perilous journey through the tunnels to see the Princess Cimorene, newly come to these caverns, to comfort her and together bemoan our sad and sorry fates," the first princess said haughtily. "Tell her we are here."

"I'm Cimorene," Cimorene said. "I don't need comforting, and I'm not particularly sad or sorry to be here, but if you'd like to come in and have some tea, you're welcome to."

And THAT is why Arthur made the perfect Cimorene :)