He Came, He Saw, He Left

Eleanora was an independent and intelligent girl, but for some odd reason, she was sitting in a tower waiting for her “Prince Charming” to come to save her. 

Leaning back on the headrest, she sighed. The dragon’s loud snores shook the formidable tower, preventing her from sleeping. Then she heard the sound of metal hitting stone. The dragon’s breathing rapidly quieted, and then he roared. 

Eleanora quickly ran to the only window in her room. Peeking through the iron bars, she saw her Prince. “I knew he’d come for me!” she cried, inwardly cursing herself for sounding so much like a damsel in distress. 

What she had imagined would be the most heroic, action-packed, exciting fight in the history of princes saving their princesses, turned out to mostly consist of the following: 1) A scream. Dear reader, you may be thinking that it was the princess who was screaming. Unfortunately, it was not. Yes, it was the prince. So heroic! What shall we do with this magnificent specimen of manhood? We shudder to think about what poor Eleanora would do without him! I’m sorry to say, dear reader, it gets worse. 2) The cry, “He’s huge!” Here comes the worst part. 3) He ran away, crying like a baby for his mummy. 

For the next few days, she did two things: 1) Cry. Because that is the only thing you can do when your only hope of escape rides off with the prince. 2) Dramatically look out of the window, hoping the prince would come back and save her. I’m sorry to say that he did not come back. Our heroically, lazy prince soon found another. He did not have to climb a tower with a man-eating dragon guarding it to woo this fair princess

Eleanora soon realized that she was her only means of escape. “I don’t need a man to save me!” she shouted into the empty room. Awkwardly clearing her throat, she looked around for supplies. Her search yielded a knife, bread, water, a sword that was hanging on the wall, her favorite book, and a backpack. Again her eyes swept the bare room. Finding nothing, she groaned, “How am I ever going to get out of here?”

Her eyes darted toward the bookshelf as she remembered the last book she had read. The main character had pulled out a book that opened a secret passage. She quickly ran to the bookshelf. After pulling out every single book, she sank to the ground in utter defeat.  After gathering herself, she got back up.

Taking in a deep breath, she walked toward the other side of the room. “I’ve got this,” she told herself… right before she tripped on a book. Arms flailing, she grabbed onto the first thing she touched. Unfortunately, that ‘thing’ was covered in cobwebs and wasn’t firmly planted to the wall. Growling, she got up and glared at what ended up being a candlestick.

Upon closer examination, she realized it wasn’t a regular candlestick. It was a cleverly hidden lever that she hoped opened up a way out. Quickly turning around, she saw a hole in the floor. Carefully, she crept up to the edge. Grabbing onto the ledge, she looked down into the abyss. There were stairs! Eleanora excitedly ran to her pile of supplies and stuffed everything into her backpack. Sword in hand, she descended into the darkness.