Little by little, the princess got used to living with the great serpent. She stopped being afraid of it, and in time she grew accustomed to being chained. She made the mistake one day, of saying that her daddy would come and get her. The dragon jerked it’s leg back in anger, pulling the chain and scratching her neck terribly.
"The king isn’t going to come and get you," it laughed with a terrible sound. "Don’t you know that the king doesn’t even think about you any more. He’s got lots of princes and princesses to keep him company. He’s not going to put himself in danger for you!"
Oh, these words sunk into the princess’s heart like a dagger. "That’s not true!" she exclaimed. "My daddy does too love me, and he’s going to come and get me!"
But over the days and weeks and years that followed, it was hard to keep believing that it was true. If her daddy really did love her, why didn’t he come?
Every month the canary would fly in through the window at night, and keep the princess company. When he was there she could believe and have faith in her daddy. But during the long days and longer nights when she lay alone by the dragon, she found it hard to believe that the king still thought about her. What if he didn’t come? What if he didn’t love her enough to rescue her?
Slowly, slowly, the little princess began to believe that her daddy didn’t love her. At least, not enough to come get her. Slowly, slowly, the little princess also began to grow up. She changed from a little girl to a teenager, beautiful and lonely. Eventually the girl forgot what it was like to be a princess. She got so used to living with the dragon that she began to act like it. Instead of being kind and gentle like her father, she became hard and selfish. Worst of all, as the years passed a deep anger grew in her heart towards her father, whom she now blamed for all of her troubles.
Ten years passed, but the king never scaled the mountains or tried to get his daughter back. At last, the dragon saw that it hadn’t won after all. It had stayed chained to the princess all this time, waiting for the King to come rescue her. The dragon had planned to kill the princess right in front of her father’s eyes, knowing that would destroy the king as well. Finally, the dragon realized that the King wasn’t coming. Somehow, he had known, even better than the dragon, that rescuing his daughter would have destroyed her. Instead, he had given the princess the chance to grow up.
The dragon was so outraged when it finally realized that it’s plan had failed that it breathed fire and smoke for five whole days, making the castle so hot and miserable that the princess thought she was going to die. When the dragon finally calmed down it decided it was pointless staying cooped up in the castle any longer. It unlocked the chain around the princess’s neck and flew off to find another way to hurt the king.
The princess didn’t know what to do at first. She had been chained to the dragon for so long she had forgotten how to live any other way. She waited around the castle for three days, expecting the dragon to return at any moment. On the fourth day, when she finally realized that she was free, she searched through the castle for food and warm clothing, then opened the front gate and set out to find her way home.
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