[Arrive, Object]

  [Support, Consolidate]

  We were back in our room in Ironheart Delve, after the most unsettling banquet of my life and that’s saying something. I attended the banquet where my thirteen year old sister was married to the grossly overweight seventy three year old man, a staunch ally of my fathers. He’d alternated his attention between looking down my sister’s bodice and groping the serving maids. At least my sister had five more years before he could legally start groping her.

  But tonight had been a whole new level of surreal. First that giant statue with the ponderous breasts. I should be happy that it was so tall at least the breasts were out of reach of the dwarves. I watched a steady stream of them go over and lovingly caress the calves and feet, the only body parts reachable without a ladder to the diminutive species.

  I’d spent the entire evening trying to glean from the Thane what I might offer them in exchange to cease mining and I came up with a big fat nothing. Ronan it appears had been right. Dwarves loved to mine, drink ale, and a new obsession me. Well I wasn’t going to be part of the bargain.

  “Well you must be very pleased with yourself, princess.”

  “What do you mean Ronan?”

  “You’ve gotten an entire mountain of little men, captivated with you. While you were flirting with the Thane, I was speaking to his first minister.”

  “First off I wasn’t flirting with the Thane, I was trying to determine what to offer him tomorrow to stop mining. You can’t possibly be jealous, you know what you mean to me.”

  “That’s not entirely true, when we met your former lover, Em, you introduced me as your friend.”

  “That was days ago, why are you just bringing it up now? We haven’t had the talk, I didn’t want to presume. May I please introduce you as my boyfriend in the future?”

  “Well I suppose if you want to, I can’t stop you.”

  “Great after sitting staring at that statue all night and listening to the odes the bards have composed for me, the one person I depend on decides to tease me.”

  “Only half tease you slutty princess, I do want to be introduced as your boyfriend. Also I talked to the first minister and the dwarves want to form an army to fight for you.”

  Then Ronan produced a statuette of me, a tiny little miniature version of the giant statue we had dinner with.

  “This is the magical statuette, it’s made by Mage Fontaine. Here, take it and push right where the navel is.”

  "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

  Came out of the statuette in my voice.

  “How could the mage possibly know I’d say that, I said that the day after we left Redhollow.”

  “Just wait a bit I’ll explain the entire thing, pinch the statuette’s bum.”

  “You do understand that a woman has a right to consent and you think you can just grope me where and how you like without consent, that’s going to end when I’m the queen.”

  Again in my voice, but I don’t even remember saying anything like that. I thought about it plenty of times as I've watched other women being assaulted like that but felt powerless. I’ve always thought of myself as bait for my father, the fisherman. Either ally bait or dragon bait, but bait has no agency, no one asks for bait’s consent before it’s painfully hooked. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to think about what I can do, to effect change.

  “Alright explain, Ronan.”

  “Just wait, it does one more thing, stroke it gently a little bit below the navel.”

  I was thoroughly embarrassed but I did as he asked.

  “Ooooh yes Maria, do it again please.”

  “What the hell is that? Ronan.”

  “That is Em’s stroke of genius.”

  “Yeah nice pun Ronan, now explain.”

  “Once Mage Fontaine had a rough cut and a portrait, he had enough to create the statuettes. Em gave him quotes you said, campaign slogans and a couple of Vesta’s virgins came up with the pornographic bits, which address the user directly, making it much more personal, more engaging than you telling a dirty story. It’s as if you are sharing the story together, not being told a story.”

  “So you all colluded on this together, I thought I could trust you, and you’ve all just been making me a laughing stock. No one is ever going to take me seriously after this, and who can blame them. I’m just a naive girl who was duped by the same girl twice. That really hurts but it’s nothing in comparison to you. I thought I was falling in love with you, and you’ve just been playing with me. This will make another great story for statuette. How I got to screw with a princess and you can too. Just get out.”

  I wish Ronan hadn't ever saved me. Getting torn apart by wolves couldn’t possibly hurt more than having my heart torn apart by Ronan. There was nothing I could do about it so I just cried myself to sleep.

  ***

  Things didn’t look any better in the morning, in fact when I thought about everything those damn statuettes could do it got a whole lot worse. I had to face a whole warren of happy dwarven miners who thought I consented to how that thing worked, what it said and did.

  Then he walked back in.

  “Alright you slutty princess, you got your say last night and that is fine. But it’s a new day, and I deserve a say as well. First I’ve been following your shapely arse since I first saw you on that mountain. We’ve done everything, just exactly the way you wanted. You’ve shattered my world. I was a big deal Paladin for a popular god. Could you let me have that, no you couldn’t, you had to prove that my god didn’t even exist.

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  Then you drag me to your original lover and introduce me as your friend. Do I smarten up and walk away, nooo. I’m a sap, so I continue doing just exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it. But I’m so far gone at this point, there was nothing else I could do. Your friend who looks at you with burning lust by the way, she finds a way to make a world who ignored you or just didn’t care about you as you were chained to some posts as dragon bait. This world now clearly adores you as much as I do. You don’t get to fault us for that damn it. Oh and by the way if you don’t get it I happen to be in love with you and I have no clue why. What’s the damn dragon ring got to say about that?”

  “Truth.”

  We stood there staring at each other for thirty seconds or so then we had really good make up ‘dating’. Which our young guide Runar walked in on.

  “Good morning Slutty Princess the Thane awaits your pleasure, but I’ll tell him you Knight has already taken care of it. I’ll be in the corridor when you wish to go, princess.”

  I was beyond getting embarrassed anymore. But we disentangled ourselves and went to talk to the Thane. After a lavish breakfast, I began.

  “Thane, I was sent by the dragon who has lived in this mountain for centuries. He gave me an ultimatum, to get you to stop mining or he’ll burn my fathers kingdom to the ground and use our castle as his new quiet lair.”

  “Runar, get the Chief Engineer here right now. I’m sorry princess, we’ll have this cleared up very shortly. While waiting for her, we can talk about your army if you wish. We know that you want a bloodless coup, but as my da always said. ’Better to have an army and not need them than to need an army and not have them.’”

  The chief engineer arrived.

  “You wanted to see me Thane?”

  “Aye, I did. Are we just thieves now Chief Engineer, because surely when you survey a mountain you can’t possibly miss something as large as a dragon.”

  “I’m sure I didn’t, Thane.”

  “Oh I see, that means you are calling the Slutty Princess a liar then.”

  “No Thane, I would never presume to do such a thing.”

  “Good, load up a pack train of mules with enough gold to cover the cost of the iron we dragged out of this mine. You will make our apologies to the dragon, an ally to the Slutty Princess and explain your error in detail. Did I make myself clear, miner?”

  “Aye, Thane.”

  “Tell him mining has already ceased and we’ll be leaving this mine tomorrow. Princess, I’m so sorry to be the source of distress.”

  “No, Thane, that is very good of you. I’d offer you a mine in my country in compensation if I was in charge of my country and the gold mine we had previously been mining wasn’t blocked by mithril. Our miners have tried everything to get past it, but supposedly it breaks anything that tries to mine it. It’s too bad because our chief Engineer claims that there is more gold in the mine.”

  “Aye, princess, gold and mithril are always found together. But to mine mythril you need mythril tools and we have mythril tools. So after we help you win your kingdom, we’ll pay you personally ten percent of our profits and another ten percent in taxes to your kingdom. You’ll be the richest woman and the kingdom will be the richest kingdom in the world, if you have a mythril deposit so large your miners can’t get around it. What do you say, Slutty Princess?”

  He stood up, spit in his hand and held it out for me to shake. I spit in mine, stood up and shook.

  ***

  Later that day, Groda the Chief Engineer, Ronan and myself started for the dragon's lair, with a pack train loaded with gold and enough dwarves to control all the mules. We promised to come back and make plans with the Thane after I convinced them to wait in the mine, just not to mine.

  Groda knew the mountain very well after Ronan and I explained how to get to the dragon’s lair directly from Pintyde. We veered off the trail we were following and took a game trail back up the mountain. A few hours later Groda had us at the base of the rock talus the dwarves began work on making a set of rock steps right through the talus to the opening of the tunnel. So that they could carry the twenty chests of gold.

  Ronan helped me up the talus while the dwarves worked. I’d go in and talk to the dragon in advance so he didn’t just attack on sight. I walked into the tunnel and then the golden caveran but before I could even speak.

  “The slutty princess returns, are the dwarves out there preparing to attack, because I’ll slaughter them where they stand.”

  “No, they came here to make reparations. They weren’t aware that you lived here. They’ve brought you gold, can they bring it in or do you plan on hurting them?”

  “No, princess, I’ll not hurt anyone delivering gold. How far did you have to debase yourself, to get them to stop making all that racket.”

  “There was no debasing, none. I told the dwarves you’d allow them to remain in the mine a few more weeks, without any mining. Once we obtain my kingdom they’ll be moving permanently to my kingdom. Are you ready to do your part, when I return?”

  “Yes I swore on my eggs didn’t I? Besides, it seems you're not as clueless as that girl I met here less than a month ago.”

  I heard a shout from the entrance. It was Groda. I went out and got her, she was carrying a chest of gold, a line of ten dwarves each carried a chest and we approached the dragon.

  “Mighty dragon, I’m Groda, the Chief Engineer. It was my error that led my Thane to believe this mountain was unoccupied. We have taken many tons of iron from these hills. This gold we pay in recompense, mining has ceased and will not be restarted. As soon as Maria is crowned queen we’ll depart your mountain in peace. My thane says my life is yours to take if that be your wish.”

  "Well, spoken Groda. I’ll not not take your life as it seems we are now allies of the Slutty Princess who we are to raise to the Queen of Carnal Delights.”

  Groda and all the dwarves bowed lowly and exited via the tunnel.

  “Hopefully I’ll be back in a week, we’ll also have a dwarf army.”

  “What happened to your bloodless coup?”

  “Nothing, that very much is the plan. But I was told. It’s better to have an army that’s not needed, then..”

  “Need an army and not have one. Look at you, I thought the only thing you had time and thought for was mating. It’s good if a Queen has a brain in her head and decent advisors. Whoever told you the army quote might make a good advisor.”

  “Dragon, can you never just say something nice.”

  “Something nice.”

  “What are you ten years old?”

  “Seven hundred and eighty eight, actually. Now get out of here, it’s finally quiet and I want a nap and oh, Slutty Princess, well done.”

  End of Part 5