Dragon Princess in Peril

Forja, Princess of the Draconic Republic of Dracaenaria, considered herself the possessor of an indomitable will, as was the due of all dragons. However, even more potent and even harder to control was her boundless, eternal curiosity.

The Red Wing clan was the ruler clan of dragons, the strongest among them, and Forja was their princess, as such, she was someone who had almost never met adversity. With power unrivaled even among dragons, she had never known the idea of fear, had never encountered danger.

Was it so strange, then, that after two decades sheltered in the Royal Palace, she sought to stretch her wings, and fly as far as she could? Almost everyone had warned the King and Queen that their daughter, their beloved child, would undoubtedly recklessly rush forth and try to learn everything she could about the world that had been kept from her, if they didn't let her leave the palace, the moment she could.

Stubborn and too powerful for anyone to question them, the Royals had ignored all advice, and thought they could protect their child from the world, only for that child to chafe at their protection and do exactly what everyone thought she would do except her parents.

At the very instant she could break their binds and spread her wings, she flew away. Stronger, faster, more powerful than any other, none could impede, let alone stop, the princess as she fled the palace as soon as she was able. Despite her inexperience, the only ones whose power rivaled hers were the King and Queen, and through years of sitting inactive on their thrones, the King and Queen had taken too long to respond, and by the time they took to the skies, their daughter was nowhere to be found, nor did she leave a path to trace her.

Thus, the princess Forja was lost, in a single moment, for a silly reason, and none would know the consequences of this loss for quite some time, but the tale of the lost princess, the strongest dragon of all time, would be passed down through the generations...

And as for where the girl ended up?

Forja's curiosity took her far. Through mountains, flying and doing pirouettes in narrow valleys, swimming through the cold blue weater of the oceans, flying between the wet white puffs of vapor in the skies, hunting cattle and the sea's bounty, devouring fruit and the fields of lesser creatures alike, and in general, having the time of her life being the dragon that she was always meant to be.

At least, until she saw a grand structure, infinitely fancier and more overdesigned than the stocky, sturdy and overlarge Royal Palace of Dracaenaria. The Dragon Princess saw this building from the distance, from the skies, and swooped down upon it, hurricane winds blasting apart the thunderclouds that wrapped around the lands as she dove.

She knew it was the structure of one of the lesser races, due to its tiny size and intricate detail, and so as she slowed down to prepare for touchdown, she utilized the magics innate to the greater dragons, the ability to change her shape to that of the gods' favored bipedal beings, and touched down upon the ground. She formed clothes, and let her imagination run wild, with her magic, wrapping herself in something that reminded her of the military outfits that some of her clan's human servants wore. Pants were uncomfortable, however, and she decided to go for a skirt, and had to shorten it three times until her scaly red tail could comfortably go under it.

She completely ignored the fact that it raised her skirt and revealed her backside to the world.

She was a dragon, technically, she was always naked. Still, she took consideration to the humans, and covered under her skirt with those clothes they wore. Panties, she thought. Admittedly, she had to readjust them twice, because she didn't think about how they'd need to stay on her while giving her tail space. 

Had she had a proper education, she'd have known that what she settled on was a thong, but Forja had not been properly educated.

Her head had a long, silky red mane that she thought was reminiscent of the ruby red of her scales, and was crowned by dark red horns in the same configuration as her dragon form, a horn on each side that curled forward, and another pair that curled back. She had to shrink down the horns a bit as she touched down, for they actually made turning her head a bit awkward by touching her shoulders when she did.

She touched down upon the largest balcony, behind it a grand hall that was lavishly decorated with gold and gems, everywhere.

There were dozens of bipeds, almost all of them having the extremely long ears of the longest lived of the bipedal races. For a moment, Forja thought of giving herself ears like theirs, but decided against it. She thought humans were cooler. They might live like, a blink, but they did some impressive stuff with their short lives!

She looked around. There was a stage at the far back, and elves with musical instruments were upon it, though they had stopped playing.

Forja spread her arms and made a grand gesture. "Lesser races! I, Forja, Daughter of Forcius, King of the Red Wings, greet you in your reverie!" she intoned, the way she had been taught by her father, giving them a strong, confident smile and tone and wowing them with her greatness. Father had always insisted that she had to maintain a certain persona among the lesser races, so that they may understand their place beneath her.

Forja's own wings spread as if to remind them that she, too, was a dragon.

A man in finer clothing than any she had ever seen, slim, blond, green eyed and with the understated, soft jawline so reminiscent of elves, approached her. "Oh great one, master of the skies, I, King Borick of Grandleon, bid you welcome to our palace! Great one, what brings you to our lands, to our palace?"

What brought her there?

Boredom.

Boredom really, there was no other way to describe it. But she couldn't just say that. "Ah! Good King, I-" she stopped, blinking, and realizing she really had nothing to say. What could she say? What had her teachers, her father, told her to say in case she couldn't think of something? Oh... right! "I am passing judgment on the lesser races!" 

That was what dragons were supposed to say when they had no better way to explain why they did what they did! Nobody ever questioned dragons if they were smart, so nobody ever questioned their judgment, nor their place in handing it out!

"Oh, oh dear, Great One," the King said, wringing his hands together. Boring? King Boring. "May you give us a chance to impress your great majesty with our hospitality?"

"You may attempt to show me that you are worth being spared the wrath of the Red Wing, King Boring!" Forja said, balling up her fists and planting them on her hips, standing in the 'power pose' as she had been taught, closing her eyes and ignoring the response from the lesser races, nodding to herself. "I believe you are currently having some sort of celebration? You bipeds have them so wearily often!"

King Boring coughed. "Yes, yes indeed we are, would you perhaps like to join in on the festivities? It is my fiftieth birthday, and it would be a magnificent gift to celebrate, your august and grandiose presence, o master of the skies!"

"Yes, of course, King Boring, that would be most welcome!" she said. "You are correct, the gift of my presence truly is the greatest there is! Perhaps you are greater than I suspected, in which case, you may yet be spared the wrath of the Firewyrm!"

She allowed the King to lead her inside, and ignored his calls to return to festivities, as well as the subsequently awkward and stilted attempts to get things started.

That was, of course, until she was seated at the King's own table, and the elven people began to pile food on her plate, and ply her with drinks, both sweet and bitter, trying to gauge her taste. She welcomed it all, and found herself delighting on all things.

Even moreso, she got into a rather interesting conversation with the King's own brother, Boringer, who explained that the celebration was in part to search for a wife for the King after his first wife passed away from sickness.

"Ah, I see! If that is so, then why would he not seek a wife among his cousins, as per custom?" Forja asked. 

Boringer cleared his throat. "Well, our family is a rather cursed one. The Royal family of Grandleon, since time immemorial, produces only males," he explained. "A dozen generations have passed since, and even though many a holy man has tried, none has broken the curse, and to this day, not a single Grandleon female has been born."

"I suppose that would make it quite difficult to keep a strong, pure bloodline," Forja agreed. "A shame that you are not dragons! WIth this level of food, this entertainment, these drinks, why, I would even consider you worthy of my court, should you provide for us these refreshments!"

King Boring cut in. "Ah, the compliment is most appreciated, we truly are proud of our cuisine," he said, as he smiled and offered the Dragon Princess a drink on a silver platter, a tall glass with some sort of frothy blue liquid, with a slice of some sort of green fruit, one of the acidy ones, on the glass' rim. "Would you like to taste our greatest creation, Draco Dormiens? It's specially designed by our apothecary for dragons!"

Forja smiled brightly. "Certainly, if you'd go through such trouble to show your respect, it is only right that I accept the gesture!" the red wing princess spoke, grabbing the glass and heartily downing it, in a single gulp, as she had everything else. "Ah! It is sweet and del-"

And then there was a thump, and the table under them creaked, as the dragon princess slammed her forehead on it like she had just been dropped from on high.

"She asleep?" King Borick spoke.

His brother, Prince Boricker, grabbed the dragon's wrist and lifted it. "She has a pulse so yeah, just sleeping."

"Gods above, that was enough poison to put down an entire Dragon Clan!" King Borick said, groaning. "And I guarantee we're not gonna be able to hurt her at-fucking-all without divine weapons."

"And we gave those to my daughter since she went off on that quest against the demons..." Boricker frowned. Around them, the party guests finally relaxed, and the cleanup began, as everyone calmed down and stopped fearing that the scary flying lizard would reduce the Kingdom to ash just because she felt slighted for the dumbest reason.

"What a fucking disaster... do we still have the magic dampening manacles?" Borick asked.

"Those are for demons... you think they're gonna work?" Boricker asked. "Besides, she's way beyond what they're made to contain."

"Yeah but right now her mana is tanking since she used almost all of it to survive the poison... if we prevent her from ever gathering any again, then all she'll have left is just the toughness of her scales."

"And physical strength enough to chew through steel," Boricker reminded him, as they had put razor sharp metal slivers in her food and she'd just eaten them without even noticing. "Flight too?"

"I know what to do about all of that, with her mana suppressed and without the ability to gather any, her magical defense will be lowered. I can just use inhibitors to prevent her from actually using her strength, I'll have to replace them super often since her sheer strength will wear them down fast, but it can be done."

"Fuck me, brother, are we really doing this?" Boricker asked. "Are we really gonna keep a dragon captive?"

"Well it's either this, or try to bullshit our way out of this and dump her somewhere far, far away, and hope she doesn't remember where the kingdom is when she wakes up. And I don't fancy the countryside being burned to ash because of a lizard with an overinflated sense of self importance!"

The King's fist slammed against the table, and both the King and his brother flinched when the princess muttered something in her sleep, almost terrified she'd wake up and shrug off the poison.

"There's no time. Guards! Guards, to me, right now! Quick, get a cell ready for the prisoner! Get all our best apothecaries, and someone send for the royal forgemaster!"

Thus, began the great scramble.

And by the time Forja's eyes opened again, she found herself on her knees, for the first time in her life not feeling the immense well of flame that signified her nigh-unlimited power. For the first time in her life, Forja felt not like the world around her was beneath her, but instead, felt small and insignificant, weak and powerless.

And this feeling was compounded by the appearance of the man she only knew as King Boring, grinning down upon her.

"Well, well, well... what have we got... a monster that would have seen our people burned to the last one, brought down to the ground with the rest of us, what was it you called us? Bipeds? Well... you better get acquainted with your own pair, because you're gonna be spending your time as a biped from now on, 'princess'," the elf spat out the word, literally spitting on the ground as he did.

Forja tried to muster her strength, to stretch her wings, to claw at him, to vomit a torrent of magma upon his face, to do anything, but no part of her body responded.

"You're probably feeling it now. Your mana is being sapped even as you generate it. You're powering all the mana structures in this palace, aahahaha!"

The elf cackled as the dragon princess became frustrated, and for the first time in her life, felt fear. "W-What do you want!? You won't get away with this, w-when my father hears of this..!"

"Girl, the Red Wing is an ocean away!" the elf shouted. "They could spend decades searching and never find you here!"

Forja's eyes widened.

King Borick cackled. "I hope you're ready for your destiny... I'll be back soon," he said, and then he tossed a metal bowl on the floor. "The warden will be by to provide you with something to eat soon... better look forward to it..."

Forja screamed out inarticulate rage, but none cowed from the depowered dragon, and in the end, all she got from it was a sore throat, and resignation to the fate that awaited her.