Amy was a middle child. I specify this because it’s integral to what happens in this story. You see, Amy, like most middle children, had the habit of getting herself in unlikely situations, then hoping that some family member or random do-gooder would intervene and save her life.
All princesses caught in towers or imprisoned in crystal caves are, without fail, middle children. Eldest children become queens, kings, surgeon generals and lich lords. And the youngest—ah, who cares? We’ve forgotten them already.
Amy was a butcher’s daughter, but she was very beautiful and energetic and said clever things sometimes, which impressed all the young men in the village.
A knight named Ryan (who’d earned his knighthood after a run-in with a rampaging griffin that turned out to be in heat) was particularly interested in Amy. That didn’t surprise Amy in the slightest—at least it wouldn’t have, had she been even remotely aware of him.
Poor Sir Ryan chased Amy around for quite a while—not in that somewhat creepy way that men do, but in the devoted, quiet, never-noticed-by-the-love-of-his-life way.
Amy went about her day like she always did, but with an extra skip in her step for the fair luck she’d been having. Of late, everything, without fail, worked out splendidly for her. She always got the freshest slice of bread with her breakfast. Hers were the driest boots despite the recent rain. Her duvet always smelled fresh, and her pillows looked like they had been recently plumped.
She attributed it to good luck. Sir Ryan attributed his lack of sleep and fraying nerves to her good fortune—and still, he remained unnoticed and increasingly uncertain of how to make himself known enough to win her affections.
This all went on until the day a dragon appeared and did a very dragon-like thing: It kidnapped the most beautiful person in the kingdom. And the most beautiful person was…(wait for it)…Sir Ryan!
What?! That’s right! This is a tale about a hopeless boy being saved by the charismatic—if somewhat annoying—middle child. Erm. Girl.
Now, “most beautiful” person can be translated to “most honourable” or “most coherent” by medieval fantasy standards. It had very little to do with outward appearance. (Sorry, Sir Ryan).
The dragon swooped into the town, took one look at Sir Ryan’s shiny armour and objectively hunky personality (he was gathering flowers from a meadow at the time) and plucked him up by its claws. The brave knight screamed and peed himself a bit, but I think we can all agree that most of us would have done the same in that situation.
The dragon dropped its shiny prize amongst its golden hoard, in a cave cut into the steep pinnacle of an impressively large cliff.
It was around this time that Amy realised her luck had run dry. Or rather, fewer things were going her way. Life was still pretty good, but something was missing. She mused on this for several days—and considered taking up the sport of croquet as a pastime—when another boy in the village stuck his nose in the air and declared that the reason Amy’s life had been so wonderful was because of the stupidly nice knight who followed her around.
“Creepy!” Amy gasped (fair) before settling into more of an admiring interest for the young man who’d spent so much of his knightly time ensuring her well-being. “Alright, what happened to him?” she asked, thinking that this was quite an easy way to find a kindly husband—and far better than the usual hubbub of picking the first man at the market who smelled the least like manure.
“He’s been kidnapped by a dragon. Obviously,” said the boy and stomped off. (On the rating of manure smell, he was a ten out of eleven).
“Well, then,” Amy harrumphed, picking up the nearest pitchfork and dusting off her best pair of boots and a spare outfit (though they had not a speck of dust on them thanks to Sir Ryan’s shoe polishing and thorough laundering). “I guess I’d better go save him.”
Not such an easy marriage match after all.
Amy found the tallest cliff, decided the pitchfork hadn’t been the best idea, and climbed up and up and up. (She had strong hands because she, like all village girls, milked an obscene amount of cows). Alas, when she reached the top, there he was! Her knight in shining—er… Sir Ryan had been stripped down to his pantaloons.
He threw his hands over his bare chest at her arrival and let out a dignified squeal. “It only wanted my armour!”
“I see.” Amy inspected the boy from top to tail, and, thank their draconic overlords, he had no tail. “We’ll just have to put you in this, then.” She dug out her extra dress and handed it over.
Ryan inspected the frilly cuffs and tight bodice, then shrugged and put it on. It was a bit snug, but not nearly as snug as he might have hoped.
“Is this your dress?” he asked his dearest love. When Amy nodded, he let out a sorrowful groan. “Why does it fit me so well?”
But Amy was already pressed on her plan. “We need to get out of here! How shall we get down?” She stared over the expansive drop with a twist of nausea.
“Erm… Didn’t you think about how we’d get down before you came up here?” Sir Ryan asked, quickly fixing his hair in the shining reflection of a golden crown.
Amy stuck her hands on her hips and spun to face him, lending his assumptions correct. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead!”
“Could we climb down the same way you came up?”
“Brilliant!” She threw up her hands with a scowl. “Why didn’t you do that before?”
“It looked difficult,” the knight said weakly.
“Well, now my fingers are tired.” Amy squinted at the boy accusingly. “You’re not a middle child, are you?”
Sir Ryan’s shoulders drooped. “I am.”
“Well, great,” Amy declared and sank into a pile of gold the size of her house. “We’re both doomed.” And then she took a nap.
THE END.
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