On a beautiful starry night, in a land hidden within the covers of a book, ran a lady of twenty. She was wearing a beautiful white ball gown, but more on this later for she was in a desperate hurry. Through the cobblestone streets of the capital called Lumerie, she ran panting and gasping, desperately trying to not fall down on her glass slippers. The lady’s ball gown was breathtaking with crystals and pearls dangling from the bottom and a white corset with silver inlaid. Her long red hair was carefully brushed and cascaded down her back towards the ground. Nearby, a street clock struck midnight through the empty streets and dinged along with the other clocks spread throughout the city.

Above the metropolitan on a cliff, resided a beautiful white castle made of marble and it was completely illuminated even this late at night with hustle and bustle. A chime of a bell came from the castle waking up the citizens of the town from their bleary sleep and the girl hurried faster and faster to her destination.

Up at the castle, guards and servants shouted and searched through the entire castle desperately searching for something lost. ‘How could this have happened,’ they whispered amongst themselves and the king furiously proclaimed on his red velvet throne, “You must find her. She couldn’t have run very far on her own.”

It seems that the oldest princess had slipped away during her birthday ball and cannot be found anywhere inside of the castle. It was previously whispered amongst the servants that they princess had fallen in love with an unknown person. Not thinking much of it and believing that it was just young love, none of them had informed the king of this development. And now they were too late, for the princess was gone.

Back to the princess, she was running around the corner of a building when in front of her the lights of a group of the city guards were coming up the street corner. She quickly hid behind a wooden crate at the back of an alley and while she hid she heard one of the guards say to the other, “I wonder why the princess would run away? She has anything she could ever have wanted of in the castle and a marriage to a rich prince coming up.”

‘Not what I want most of all; what is the point of material things when you can experience something even better? I want to be with someone who makes my heart point in love and excitement.’ the princess thought with a smile and held her breath while the group passed by the foot of the alley. When they had left the street and their light wasn’t able to be seen, the princess crept out of her hiding spot and continued on her way to the gate of the city.

Getting desperate on time the princess threw off her cumbersome heels and dashed even faster through the lonely streets. ‘I have to get to the gate, before they lock it down and trap me in,’ she thought and tried desperately to run even faster.

Before arriving at the line of sight of the gate, she peered around a corner and a tear escaped one of her eyes in dismay, when she saw alert and awake guards at the gate. ‘He promised that they would be knocked out at this time. Did he abandon me?’ she thought and her heart broke at the idea, when behind her a hand suddenly covered her mouth and dragged her away towards an alley. The princess kicked and bucked her attacker, but nothing she did seemed to faze them.

Suddenly at the end of the alley, they released their grip on her body and turned her around abruptly and the princess gasped in relief.

“Arthur, you fool! You nearly startled me to death,” the princess exclaimed and the adventurer Arthur only chuckled and kissed her. In the moonlight the kissing couple looked like complete opposites with the princess in her white ball gown and Arthur in a simple brown leather vest and dark green breeches with a dark black clock covering his head and clothes.

Breaking the kiss, Arthur said looking at his love, “You must be cold in that sleeveless ball gown. Take my cloak, my princess.” He then swept off the garment and wrapped it around the blushing princess thus covering her bright white gown.

The princess only hugged him harder and putting her face in the crack of his neck, in an effort so that he wouldn’t notice her tears, she whispered, “When I saw the guards, I was so scared that you had given up and left me here all alone,” and as she said this a tear splashed down on Arthur’s neck.

Pulling back, he gently grabbed her chin and lifting her head up till her eyes met his steady gaze. Arthur the hero solemnly said to her, “Princess Melody Alice Seraphim, I love you with all my heart and would even give up adventuring and exploring and settle down, if you asked me of it. I would do anything for you.”

He suddenly grinned and said to her, “Now come on. I have a better way of sneaking you out of here, then just going through the gate.” He grabbed her hand and together they quietly slipped through the streets and alleys until Arthur reached a wooden ladder propped up against the side of building.

Gesturing to Melody to climb up, he said bowing with a smile on his face, “You up first, my lady.”

Giggling, Melody said to him, “Oh stop it. After this, I will no longer be a princess in the eyes of my family, but as a runaway.” At the last part the light in her eyes dimmed in sadness and seeing this Arthur kissed her and putting his forehead to hers, he whispered, “To me you will always be my princess.”

Smiling at him with tears in her eyes, she turned back around and started to climb the ladder. Suddenly around a corner, came a group of guards who exclaimed upon seeing the couple.

“Arthur!” Melody exclaimed and made a move as to get down, but all Arthur did was say to her, “Just keep climbing, I will handle this.” He removed his black-bladed sword Desuex; known throughout the kingdom for its many fights and battles, and bared it at the advancing guards. The blade glinted brightly as he swung it at the blades of the guards.

Arthur stood his ground at the foot of the ladder and swung his blade until it seemed to be just a blur of black on an even darker night. The guards though they were well trained couldn’t keep up with the blade master and were quickly knocked out cold. Soon though the sound of more guards coming could be heard by Arthur and he readied his sword. When Melody had reached the top she turned around and loudly whispered to Arthur, “Don’t just stand there and get ready to fight, you fool. Hurry and climb up.”

Grinning up at her, he said, “Only for you my highness, would I resist getting into an exciting brawl.” Arthur quickly sheathed his sword and raced up the ladder, as guards started to pour into the street. When he reached the top and was on the roof of the building he quickly grabbed the ladder and hoisted it up grunting and set it up on the roof of the building. The guards quickly started to enter the building and Arthur turned around and said, “Well princess do you like my ride?”

The princess turned to see what he was referring to and gasped when she saw a huge dragon with varying shades of red lift its head up from the ground and unfurled its wings.

“Xarius here owed me a favor from saving him from a gang of trolls a while back,” Arthur said still grinning and he then grabbed Melody’s hand and led her closer.

“How are you faring princess?” the dragon asked politely craning his neck closer to her.

“Thank you, I am having an even better party than at my actual birthday party earlier. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping us,” she replied, bowing to the dragon at the last part. The dragon lowered his body, to allow Arthur and Melody to quickly climb on Xarius’s back with Arthur sitting behind Melody holding the dragon’s head horns. Guards burst through a door at the opposite end of the roof just as Xarius leapt off of the building and flew through the air, barley avoiding the tops of buildings.

The dragon gained height as he flew and soon the couple was flying through the moonlight night away from everything that kept them apart from each other.

~That is until the darkness comes and curses the entire land from any happy endings.~