The Immeasureable Distance

 There is no worse feeling than that of disappointing one's parents. It's a terrible feeling, one that hits you cold and hard, like a cruel slap to the face. And yet, as I sat and thought over the rather tragic events of the day, I experienced and even more terrible feeling than that of letting down my dearest mommy and daddy.

I had let down my dragon.

After the incident where I had more then blatantly showed my support for the dragons, my father had grabbed me by the ears like I was eight years old instead of eighteen. It was like the fact I was an adult capable of making my own decisions was thrown right out the window. 

He had brutally forced me up to his private study in the second highest tower and made me sit in the most uncomfortable chair in the entire kingdom. Then, he told me to "Wait until he and my mother had come to a decision about my swift and just punishment." Then, he walked out and locked the door behind him.

I was quite disappointed in my father. If there was one thing he should have learned after being my father for eighteen years, it's that one never should leave me alone with my own thoughts.

There is no telling what may happen.

Take this very moment for instance. I, sitting in a tower awaiting my sentence, was running through my mind possible escape routes from the castle into the surrounding villages. Then, on top of that, I was also planning on which tapestries I was lighting on fire and which wine barrels I was going to break on my way out.

Unfortunately, my thinking was interrupted by my parents coming back. I watched warily as the locked turned ad the door opened, letting my father and mother step through, both looking very cross indeed.

"Why the long faces?"  I asked the obvious question, something I was quite used to doing. Both looked at each other with an expression of disdain as they came to sit across form me. 

"Son," mother said, every bit of tenderness that was ever in her voice gone. "Where is the dragon?" 

"What dragon?" I mocked innocently.

"The dragon that had ruined everything!" My father bellowed. "My people no longer trust the royal family, there is a new fear in the heart of the kingdom..."

"And the kingdom of Dunshire no longer wants to marry their daughter to you!" my mother shrieked, tears flowing form her eyes. "You are a disgrace."

"I suppose I am." I agreed, hoping to throw her off.  I, however, only succeeded in having her look at me with a hatred no mother should ever posses toward her children. 

"Son, there is only one way you can rectify this most terrible wrong that you have committed." he stuck one of his kingly sausage fingers in my face. "You're going on a quest."

The way he said it made me shiver, and not in a good way. There was too much impending doom and darkness in his tone for me to enjoy the word quest.

"A quest for what?" I asked skeptically. There was no way they were going to let me just get way that easily. They had to of have more up their sleeves. 

"A quest to kill the dragon that you let escape today. It won't be hard to miss," he said, smirking. "and when you bring back it's head the kingdom will love you and forget your many woes and stupid mistakes." 

"And you can marry the princess!" mother cried, so beside herself I thought she was going to fall out of her chair. 

Although my stomach had churned at the thought of having to kill my dragon, my heart lifted when I suddenly saw an opportunity. 

"So, you want me to leave the city, the castle, completely." I asked trying to disguise my joy. My own parents were giving me an escape route via a punishment. 

"Yes," father growled. "if you mess up, if you do not come back with that dragon's head upon your sword, you will no longer be a prince of my beautiful kingdom."

"Perfect!" I said, suddenly, and the look of shock on my parents face made me laugh, turning my mother's shock into tears, and my father's into rage.

"If thats the way you feel, then out with you! Go!" he pointed to the door and I sprang up like a giddy child. "Consider yourself exiled young man! I banish you!" 

I didn't care, I was free! My ears barely caught the rest of my father's hateful words as I skipped down the spiral stair case and ran smack into my best friend Freddy. 

He fell to the ground, and looked up at me. "Seriously, what was that for?" 

Reaching out my hand to pull him up, I smiled and said, "We're getting out my friend. We're going on a quest!"

"What?" he asked, a perplexed expression appeared on his face giving away his ever present confusion. "Does this have anything to do with that dragon of yours?"

"Yes it does, and first things first, we find Kadin," I set my jaw in severe determination. "And then we find the rest of the dragons. It's time for a change."