“Oh Princess Hoshi, you shine brighter than the morning sun and sing sweeter than a bird! Ouf!”
“Out of my way, loser,” Princess Hoshi grumbled while pushing a noble prince from a neighboring kingdom down. This happened on the daily, suitors of all shapes and backgrounds serenaded her young majesty on the daily, calling her beautiful and bringing her gifts, but she didn’t want any of it. She didn’t want to be a princess or a queen or a proper lady, she had only wanted freedom from this prison they called a castle.
“P-princess please,” the prince pleaded from her feet. “I love you, my dear.”
“Guards! Help, please! He’s assaulting me!” This was one advantage of being a beloved princess, you could play damsel in distress, and all too well. The royal guard rushed in and whisked the young suitor away, bowing at the princess on their way out.
“Oh, and also, could you please let my father know that I will be resting in my room until dinner time,” Princess Hoshi spoke in her airy voice, gliding gracefully away to her bedroom. After turning the corner she listened to the guards silently.
“The princess is as lovely as ever today,” the first guard absolutely swooned.
“I wish I was a young prince, they are so lucky to be in her presence every day.”
“Wasn’t Prince Lavender supposed to come by today?”
“I heard he’s stuck in a tower in the Aroma Kingdom that’s guarded by some dragon.”
“Oh! That story,” the guard laughed heartily. “They said the dragon was the Celocia.”
“Celosia?! The dragon on fire? I heard that it’s really a god in dragon form. I also heard he’s immortal.”
“Where’s the royal guard?!”
“Crud, that’s the king. Let’s head over.”
Hoshi stood against the wall for a moment, processing the great tale just told. This was it, she thought. This is the adventure I wanted! Running to her room, she thought of plans of escape. She was tripping on her poofy dress when she reached her bedroom door. It was a grand door, almost 4 meters tall, her name engraved in gold at the top with a star dotted on the ‘i’. Her mother told her she had named her Hoshi because it meant star in her native Japanese. She had wanted Hoshi to be “golden”.
The old clock tower boomed in the distance, pulling Hoshi from her thoughts. She opened the golden door and found her old satchel in her closet. Entering her closet again, she pushed all of her hangers to the sides and opened a small door in the back of her closet that revealed an even smaller closet.
Crawling inside was a hassle, but once you were in you could stand and almost touch the ceiling(only if you were the princess’s size which was a petite 5’ 6”).
The walls were painted a light shade of pink, worn down over the years. The floor was carpeted and it was about a 10 by 9 feet space. This was the princess’s safe haven. She had discovered it when she was younger, only sharing her discovery with the family cat, Chester. Since then she had been filling it with her findings of actual pants and suitable shoes for exploring and running. After all, her servants would only buy her dresses that were handsewn and high heeled shoes that were more expensive than their monthly salary.
Hoshi pulled off her dress, being careful not to ruin the soft fabrics or rip the carefully placed threads. She kicked the heels off her aching feet and pulled on a tunic and some pants. She laced her shoes and looked in the large mirror she had leaned against the wall in the corner. I look good, she thought as she inspected her thin body, but still like a princess. Patting her hair she ran over to the door and crawled out into her room.
It was an enormous room, Hoshi believed it was bigger than her parent’s. There was a king sized bed against the middle of the wall that was across from the door. On either side of that there were small end tables that held roses that her mother requested were changed out every Tuesday(her mother used to say that the roses would share their grace and loveliness to her as she slept). There were two doors on both sides of the room, one being her closet and the other being her personal bathroom that was adorned with marble counters with a golden sink and a porcelain bathtub.
She ran across the room to her bathroom and picked up a hair elastic from her sink counter. She had picked it up while on a parade when she sneaked off and had gone to the flea market, the vendors treating her to free goods and merchandise.
Hoshi ran back across the room to her smaller room and pulled up her long blond locks into a ponytail. She looked at her self again. No, how about a braid? She braided her hair quickly and tied it off. A braid wouldn’t sway when she ran and kept the hair from her face. Perfect. She crawled out of her secret room and closed the door. What startled her was a crash on the floor.
“Mrrrrrrow!” It was Chester, the old castle cat.
“Chester, you scared the wits out of me,” Hoshi says while patting the white feline. She inspected the floor around the cat, looking for what could have caused the crash, but she couldn’t find anything. She ducked down and looked under her dresser to find a narrow bird cage that was four inches tall and four inches in diameter. The small cage door was opened.
“Crap!” She closed her mouth and put a hand to her ear, listening for the twinkling. Before it stopped Hoshi heard a soft ‘ting.’ She shot her head to look over to the window. A soft crimson light could be seen from behind the pink drapes.
“Ahahaha,” she laughed as she walked towards the window confidently. “You still owe me a favor little Spark.” she pushed back the curtains to reveal a tiny fairy that glowed a ruby red.
“No, please! I’ll do what you want, just don’t keep me in a cage,” the fairy pleaded.
“Alright, fine, but it has to be tonight.”

    After slipping her dress back on over her outfit and unraveling the braid, she slipped downstairs to the dining room.
    She greeted her father who was sitting at the very end of the grand dining room, “Hello father, how are you this evening?”
    He laughed heartily, “Hello my dear. I’m very well. Hey you,” he shouted to the guard to the right of him. “Would you go fetch my dear wife in the garden? She’s been tending to the roses all day. Crazy woman, we have a gardener for a reason!” and with that he laughed again and the guard ran off to collect the queen.
Once the guard returned she had sat down and the plentiful plates of food had arrived at the table. There were hams, roasts, fruits, mash, greens, grog, yams, just the works. Queen Reika had floated in like she was drifting on a cloud and sat down gracefully. King Julius however was loud and large, kind-hearted but big mouthed. But they brought out the best in each other; Reika was the only woman to ever calm Julius’ rage and he always made sure her life was still exciting.
The Princess had just eaten a few slices of roast and a scoop of mash when the king slammed his mug of beer down on the table, startling them.
“My dearest princess, did you meet with Prince Farrow and Prince Lavender today?”
“I met with Farrow, but not Lavender, father.”
Reika gasped, “What do you mean? Did he not show up to meet the loveliest princess on this green Earth?!”
“He has lost the greatest opportunity of his lifetime.” she zoned out as the king and queen complained about King Apple and Queen Cinnamon from Aroma Kingdom calling them irresponsible and unworthy of the young princess. It wasn’t just the kingdom that thought highly of her.
“Mother, father, I’m going to go to bed early. Good night,” she said while creeping away to her room.
“Good night, my little star.”
“Good night, my dear.”

“Spark,” I called out into my room. A soft ring sounded in on the bed where I saw Spark laying. “We’re going right now,” I told her while pulling off my dress and slipping on my shoes.
She flew off my bed and floated in front of me. “Once ten minutes are up the spell will be broken so you had better be out of the castle by then,” she says as she flies around me in spirals, sprinkling her trickster treats on me. It was absolutely magical to transform. Your body felt all warm and tingly and you could feel your body changing with every passing second. I looked down at my feet which were large and adorned with black shoes. I turned around to look at myself in the mirror. I gasped. I was a man. A member of the royal guard at that.
“Spar-” I stopped and closed a hand over my mouth. My voice was deep and husky, nothing like a princess’s. “You’re a miracle worker, Spark! A one of a kind pixie,” I grabbed her and kissed her head.
“Ouch! You’re losing time, hurry and leave!” she screeched as I grabbed my satchel and ran out of the room. As soon as I was out I ran into another guard.
“U-uh hello.” I scratched the back of my head.
“What were you doing in there?” he questioned as he observed me.
“Princess Hoshi, uh, wanted an escort, said she didn’t feel safe after the whole Farrow incident,” I coughed and slowly moved away from the other guard. “You have a good night now.” and with that I swiftly turned the corner and ran downstairs, straight to the backdoor in the castle kitchen where a few older cooks were humming away as they prepped for tomorrow’s breakfast.
“Why Ted, is that you?” a younger cook asked as I was about to turn the doorknob.
“Um, y-yes it is!” I replied as I tried to recognise her face, but it was impossible, she was a new cook.
“Care for some cornbread? There’s plenty left over. Why don’t you take some home for your dear Priscilla?” she said while taking out a tray of fresh cornbread.
“O-oh, no thanks, I’ve got to go make my rounds out back, thanks again.” I rushed outside. Glancing at my pocket watch I realised I had just made the mark and the warm tingly sensation took over my body again.
I sighed, “I made it.” I looked above me. It was a clear night’s sky, dragons were soaring overhead. I whistled a short tune and a smaller dark blue dragon flew down and landed near the garden. I ran over and smiled.
“Fuyu! I haven’t seen you in so long,” I stroked her cold blue scales and inspected her left wing.
Fuyu was an ice dragon that was born on Haukea Mountain. She had flown into our castle garden on a summer evening while I was out playing with Chester. It startled me, but I was curious. Even when hiding behind the guards I watched the blue dragon cry and roll about as it’s wing was inspected by the castle vet. ¨It’s left wing is broken, might take two to four weeks to heal.¨ After that it stayed in the castle yard for a month, being cared for with great honor. Dragons were a sign of power in the Kingdom of Elements.
I was a timid girl then. I was tiny, pale, timid, and I was constantly sick. I was also terrified of Fuyu; I was constantly peeking at her when she slept and mesmerised by her amazing scales. Eventually I worked up the courage to go to up her and we bonded well. She considered herself mine. Maybe that was why people honored me so much.
“I’m gonna need a ride tonight, Fuyu,” I said as I climbed on her back.
“Waaaaaait!” Spark flew towards me so fast I thought it was a deranged hummingbird. “I’m coming too!” I heard her announce as she climbed onto my shoulder.
“Okay, to Aroma Kingdom, Fuyu. Full speed ahead.” Fuyu spread her wings and flapped them, the leaves on the trees around us whirling and wizing about. Soon, we were in the clouds.
Flying was a phenomenal feeling. It was like freedom. I put out my arms and felt the wind pushing against us.
“I-I’ve never been up this high!” Spark yelled from my shoulder. The gust was so loud I could barely hear her even when she was next to my ear. I looked down to the Earth. Everything seemed so small, even our grand castle. I realised how insignificant we were to the world, all just one little speck on a huge scale.
We continued flying for another few minutes when I spotted something dark in the distance. Storm clouds.
“Fuyu! We have some trouble to the right!” She turned her head to look and when she did, she didn’t look very please. “Should we keep going?” She nodded her head and started to speed up. The clouds would roll in in about ten minutes and Aroma was another twenty minutes away. But with the increase of speed we would make it in 15 minutes. It was risky, but I trusted Fuyu.
As we flew on I kept my eye on the ground. We had passed three kingdoms already, none bigger or grander than my own.
“Look! There it is!” Spark had flown in front of me and was pointing ahead. Indeed, there it was. Aroma was bigger than I thought. It was about the same size as our kingdom and the castle was rustic, ivy growing at every crevice. It was probably nine o’clock by now, all of Aroma silent in slumber.
“Is that the tower?” I looked at the castle and could make out an extremely tall building behind it, also covered in ivy and crumbling. However, on top of the tower there was a bright red dragon, three times the size of Fuyu. It was glowing and… on fire? Celosia! I thought as we landed a few houses away from the castle. I hopped off of Fuyu and thanked her, telling her I would call again when I needed her. She nodded again and flew off into the night.

As the young princess walked closer to the tower, the dragon seemed to be bigger and bigger. It was a bit unnerving, but Hoshi wasn’t going to back down now. She kept walking and walking, but with every step her legs felt more and more like jelly and her arms flopped helplessly at her sides.
“Spark, wait. I’m so tired, my legs feel like jello,” she said as she closed her eyes and crouched down to catch her breath.
“Uhhh, princess, you might want to check your body,” Spark said nervously. Hoshi slowly opened her eyes to look at her legs and screamed. Her body was turning to jelly!
“What?! Spark, help!”
“Help? What? How?”
“I-I don’t know, just do something!”
“If you say so!” Spark circled around Hoshi with the magical dust again and soon enough Hoshi was no more.
“What am I this ti-” Hoshi gasped when she heard her voice. It was high and squeaky. She was also seeing things from very, very low down.
“Not bad, try out the wings,” Spark suggested as she floated down to the shrunken fairy and held out an arm.
“Wait, you made me a pixie?!”
“I had no choice! I felt a strong magical presence in the ground and I can’t have you turning to jelly on the ground. Now come on up before you turn to jelly again!” Hoshi could feel a new kind of joint on her back and tried moving them. She watched the yellow wings behind her thrash every which way and she lifted off the ground slowly. It was like walking for the first time, except flying.
“W-woah,” Hoshi exclaimed as she floated higher and higher. “I think I’m getting the hang of things. Let’s go!” And Hoshi sped off towards the tower.

Once Hoshi got to the tower she was back to being a human. She looks directly up. Celosia was still on her perch, sleeping. Relieved, the princess walked towards the base of the tower.
“Come on, Spark. There’s got to be a door or something somewhere.” she says while feeling around the cool stone that made up the building. After a moment she whips her head around as she hears a jingling and Spark cry out.
“Help!” Hoshi runs around to the other side of the tower to see her, the Great Celosia before her. Her eyes widened and she backs up slowly. For a second the two were both still. Actually, Celosia was very still, too still. She creeps closer to the dragon and not only did it’s eyes not trail the princess, but it didn’t move at all. She gets beside the “dragon” and looks behind it to see nothing. It was a cutout! She was being tricked the whole time! But who took Spark?
“Spark,” she calls out into the darkness of the night. Frantically, she searches the tower again, this time finding a small slot near the bottom. Nervously, she brings out her satchel and finds a small red pouch. It was five inches wide and three inches deep. It was given to Hoshi by her grandmother. On her deathbed she said one thing to the young girl: “It will be the key to the life you’ve always wanted.” she said as she smiled fondly. I finally understood what it had really meant. Putting her hand into the pouch and wrapping her hand around the cold handle, she pulls it out, the sword of Element.
The handle had a design of golden vines around it, entirely made of azula stone. The blade was a red steel and engraved in it was one word, “Courage.”
With one fell swoop she plunged the sword into the slot and a slab of stone opened for her, revealing an old staircase. Hoshi takes a deep breath and enters, the door closing behind her.
“Let’s do this!” And she runs up the stairs.

By the time our young princess had reached the halfway point she was winded. She had counted each agonising step and she was at 583. She huffed and puffed and stopped, leaning against the inner wall of the spiral staircase.
“Ahhh!” she screamed out when the wall supporting her caved in. “WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!” she yelled while she fell another hundred feet.
“Ouf!” When she landed she expected pain, a few broken bones and quite possibly, death. But she got none of these, only a pleasant softness enveloping her from behind. She opened her eyes and saw that she was in a room the size of her secret closet back home, the only big difference being the large door in front of her. Above the door she found a sign that read “ELEVATOR”. What in the world is an elevator? she thought as she got up from what seemed like a giant marshmallow and walked over to it.
It was obviously a door, but it didn’t have any handles, only a button to the right of it that had an arrow pointing up. Hesitantly, Hoshi pressed the button, making it light up and the golden doors opening up before her. She didn’t exactly know what she expected, but it certainly wasn’t a little box room. She stepped inside and looked around. The princess turned around to face the entrance again and saw the control box next to the doors. There was a single green button identical to the one outside of the doors. She assumed it was to close the door, so she pressed it and was excited to find that she was correct. But what she didn’t expect was for the room to move. It jolted upwards and the princess nearly fell onto her bottom. She knew for sure that she was moving upwards.
After what seemed like an eternity, the elevator made a “ding” sound and the doors opened to reveal yet another mysterious room. This room, however, was a bedroom.
It was quaint, a small bed in the corner, neatly made, a desk and chair against the wall, a dresser against a wall that had a circular window, and a few small paintings on the walls.
“Hello? Is there a Prince Lavender here?” the princess cried out as she stepped into the room and inspected it. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but there was a slightly ajar door on the wall to her left. She inched closer to it, hand in the red pouch. Swiftly, she pushed open the door and saw a crouching figure in the bathtub.
“Pl-please stepmother, I won’t disobey you again!” the boy cried.
“Umm, it’s just Princess Hoshi.” she said awkwardly as the boy quickly stood up and regained his composure. Now that he wasn’t a nervous wreck he stood tall, at least a head above our princess, his hair a deep brown. He was handsome too, a chiseled face of a respected prince. But his eyes were weary, a lovely blue, but drained of light. Hoshi could have sworn she felt her heart skip a beat when he looked straight at her.
“Why are you here, princess? You could be in danger!” he had stepped out of the bathroom and was now pacing the small space.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m more concerned for you at the moment.” Hoshi had walked to the window of the tower. Gazing out into the horizon she observed the same dark storm cloud from before. “There’s a storm coming, come on, let’s get you out of here!” she stuck her head out of the window and was about to whistle the tune to summon Fuyu, but Lavender clamped his hand over her mouth. She flushed at the sudden contact and pulled his hand off.
“What’s the big idea?”
“Listen, if you call a dragon here, she will kill it immediately, understand?”
“Wait, who is she?”
“My stepmother, Maedrix. She was an alchemist, but it all went bad when she drank the wrong potion. She had been married to my father, see? They were real happy, but the potion ate away at her conscious everyday. She realized it was a Venom Mix.”
I gasped, “How is she alive?” Venom Mix was the worst poison out there. It ate away at your soul and made you go insane. It was made from the essence of the Cherrybloom Snake.
“They all said that she was going to die, but she knew of the cure. She went on a journey to find Pandora, the Witch of Under. She told me how there was a potion Pandora had brewed that was the only cure for the poison and that it was made from the Gumgum Fruit. I told her she was insane already and she threw me in here. She went crazy before she even reached Pandora and now she just tortures me by turning me into a toad. It’s awful. Don’t you know how horrible they smell?” So the legends were true, everyone in Aroma was obsessed with scents and smells, but that wasn’t her biggest concern.
“We still have to get you out of here!” Hoshi brought out her sword and swung at the, now closed, elevator doors. “Argh! Why isn’t it working?”
“Only Queen Cinnamon can open those from up here.”
“WHO INVENTED THIS STUPID THING?! Ah, whatever! I need Fuyu now!” Hoshi pushed past the prince and ran towards the window, whistling on her way there. For a moment it was silent and she really was concerned that Fuyu had been killed, but soon a dragon’s roar could be heard and Fuyu had flown down to the window. By this time Hoshi was already crawling out of the window, eager to save the prince. She offered her hand out to him.
“Come on, Lavender, we’re going to Element!” Hesitantly, the prince finally took her hand and jumped onto the dragon’s back. Fuyu sped off, going straight to Element. They flew for a while, the timid prince who had apparently been afraid of heights and was now clutching tightly onto the princess.
“Why does it have to be so high?!” he had asked when they were nearing Element.
“It’s the sky, dummy.”
“Hey, hey, what’s that?” Lavender had released his hands and was now pointing off into the horizon.
“Oh, no.” Hoshi squinted toward the growing storm clouds. It was going fast now, going straight for them.
“Is that Maedrix?”
“Yep.”
“Well, Fuyu, you might want to hurry to the kingdom!” Fuyu roared as a reply and flew even faster. But the storm clouds were still gaining on them.
“Lavender! How dare you disobey me?!” Maedrix was right by our side now. Before I could react she had conjured some type of burning potion and had thrown it on us. There was two things Fuyu despised; the color red and heat. Fuyu was angry now, the heat spreading throughout her body. It stung her left side badly and Fuyu knew what she had to do.
Fuyu conjured all of her strength and felt a tingling sensation in her core. She opened her mouth widely and a light erupted from it. Seconds later, an icy explosion flew towards Maedrix and engulfed her body in snow, a blizzard out of thin air.
“...Whoa,” Hoshi breathed out as Fuyu continued flying towards Element. Prince Lavender glanced back at Maetrix hesitantly, expecting her to still be trailing them, but was stunned to see that she was frozen in midair.
“Look, she’s… Frozen.”
“I didn’t even know Fuyu had powers,” Hoshi states, patting the dragon on the neck.
The trio arrive at the kingdom and everyone is congratulating them, cheering for them.
“I guess you princes aren't too bad,” Hoshi says to Lavender as she helps him off Fuyu.
“You kidding me? That was all the dragon.”
“I guess so,” Hoshi says as he pets the creature.
The king and queen were furious of course, but they could never stay mad at their princess for too long. They came to realize that Hoshi didn't want this life of royalty. They let her off to go on her own journeys, now with Prince Lavender, they go off on adventures with Fuyu.