“You’re like a gnat to him and he loves you.” Reason was complaining, and Estella was enjoying her flight. The wind fluttered her hair. Strange lands lay below as clear as the palm of her hand. If the dragon were to blow fire downward, they would be gone. But she is not so cruel. Let them stand. They don’t bother her yet. What Estella liked best was to fly over the sea, where mermaids splashed about, and over the valleys where fairies danced in the moonlight.
“The flight was like a magic dream!” Estella said. “Thank you for taking me to the dungeons and introducing me to the dragon! I owe you so much for that.”
This wasn’t the first time Reason had flown in a dragon, so he wasn’t exactly thrilled. It was barely half past midnight and already he was begging to go home. They didn’t arrive at Aluar until just before dawn. Reason’s legs began to stiffen. When he got off the dragon, he was limping.
“You’re my darling!” Estella stroked the dragon’s ears and hummed a song she had composed herself. She had to do something to thank the dragon for a splendid flight.
“Well, you mewl here, and I’ll go to the cellar for stupefying wine! Now, the guards who saw you and the dragon are asleep, but when they wake up, their memories will be as blank as a sheet of white paper.”
Reason did not make his promise in vain. There was no panic in the morning. But most of the guards looked as if they had fallen under the sorcerer’s power and had become his puppets. Empty wineglasses were lying around the barracks. Even the pixies who wanted to finish their wine felt sick.
“Don’t drink any more, Virgil,” Estella advised the dragon, calling his first name for suggestion. “Or else Reason will get his claws into your head, too.”
The dragon did not understand her. The princess’s singing made him so happy that he couldn’t think of anything to say. Estella, on the other hand, thought about it. In her own head Reason has not run its claws?
Star Fairies
Golden grapes grew on the walls and columns. Estella was dumbfounded when she saw its glow inВ the darkness ofВ the evening garden. Normally the rockweed and fuchsia bloomed here. There were no grapes inВ this part ofВ the garden atВ all.
“Is this a decoration for my coronation?” She looked around for those decorating the garden, but it was empty. Even the gardener and his young helpers were long gone to the servants’ feast. So who had strung the columns with metal vines? Estella touched the tinkling leaves.
“It is pure gold!” She determined.
Where could it have come from? For the treasury was almost empty, not counting the treasury, which could never be opened. Locksmiths, smiths, and even pickpocket thieves, who had been caught byВ the guards inВ the square and were good at picking keys, had already been summoned toВ the gilded doors. No one was able toВ break open the locked doors. AВ spell had indeed been cast upon them.
But the night garden blossomed with golden leaves, like an entire treasury. With joy Estella tugged at Reason’s tail.
“Look, we are rich!”
“I don’t think so,” he muttered doubtfully.
“The vines stretch everywhere, and the grapes on them are golden. You see how they shine! It took tons of gold to decorate them like that.”
“Don’t rejoice too soon! It cannot be melted down.”
“Why is it not? It’s not gilding, that’s for sure.”
“The grapes are all gold,” agreed Reason, who somehow didn’t touch the berries. Either he’d run out of room in his cache, or he was afraid of burning his paws, for the gold grapes glittered so brightly.
“Was the gold enchanted?” Estella admired the grapes. “Even if it is some magic trick, I like it better than holiday fireworks.”
“It is a typical Star Fairy’s gift,” Reason determined, squinting unkindly at the glittering golden berries and leaves. “It is very pretty, but you can’t spend them unless the fairy says you can. She won’t give me permission to spend it, because it’s for you.”
“So it’s from my mother?”
“Don’t get excited. Star fairy’s gold is most often a trick.”
“What if it isn’t?”
“Why don’t you check it out? Or better yet, let me do it,” he asked slyly.
“You can if you want.”
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