Saving the Princess

Not colors?

Dragon Nora needs a small, mostly concealed bottle in-hand with contents that look suspiciously like ketchup.

At no point has Trace ever been powerful enough to actually save Nora from herself. 💁🏽‍♀️

I was looking to lay the dragon, not slay it. It was insisting I draw my sword when I was trying to seduce it, then walked right into the sword and then fell over dead. Fortunately the princess has horns and tail. I suppose everything worked out alright.

"when you said you wanted to roleplay...."

Now I got the princess. I think I will put her in the other castle.

Tom, I read that as "Shaving the Princess" and got somewhat confused for a minute. XD

Seems like the wagging dragon tail might be a bit of a giveaway....

...Still pretty heavy.

Hmm...The princess I rescued has horns, dragon feet, and an awfully thick tail for a princess... Ah well, she's cute. No reason to be suspicious. Probably.

Nora figured out how to be in two places at once, everyone should be very afraid..

And we all know Nora is playing along.

You're on a path in the woods. At the end of that path is a cabin, in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. XD

I initially thought he was "saving" Serraphina. ^^

A female dragonborn with the noble background is the ultamate switch: she can be the knight, the princess, or the dragon as circustances require. I'm Imagining a scenario where through a series of misunderstandings, she is hired to rescure herself from herself. Priest: "Sir Aldes of Mosley, the church has evidence that the princess Miranda of foxley has been kidnapped by firefang the ruthless. will you rescue her on behalf of his holiness." Sir Miranda Aldes, born in Foxley, honorably knighted in Mosley as a black knight after winning a jousting tournament, who's rebellios teenage name was Firefang: "So, about all that..." ------- The armor didn't fit right anymore. Sir Aldes—no, 'Miranda'—wiggled her shoulders, feeling the way the steel plates pinched where they hadn't last winter. The black enamel was chipped near the left pauldron from that damn tournament in Mosley, and the padding underneath smelled like old sweat and crushed rosemary. She'd meant to get it repaired. The priest’s voice still echoed in her head. "Princess Miranda of Foxley," he'd said, like she wasn't standing right there in full plate, her tail twitching against the back of her greaves. The old man hadn’t even glanced at her claws when he handed over the writ, just pressed the seal into her palm with fingers like dry twigs. She could’ve breathed fire right then and he wouldn’t have noticed. Miranda exhaled through her nostrils, a thin curl of smoke escaping as she stared at the writ. The church's seal gleamed under the tavern's grimy candlelight, a perfect, damning circle. She'd spent years ensuring "Firefang" remained a half-forgotten rumor scrawled on wanted posters in backwater towns. Yet here was some senile priest, paying good silver to hire 'her' to rescue 'herself' from 'herself'. The irony would've been delicious if it weren't so catastrophically stupid. Miranda tapped one claw against the tavern table, the sound like a slow-ticking clock. The writ crinkled under her grip. There were three options, really confess the absurdity and lose the coin, play along and stage some ridiculous rescue, or 'actually' kidnap herself properly this time. The last one had a certain dramatic flair she couldn't deny. Miranda slammed the writ onto the table, rattling tankards and drawing glances from the drunkards slumped in the corner. "Listen," she growled, her voice dropping into the gravelly register she'd cultivated for knightly work, "there's been a misunderstanding." The priest blinked at her, rheumy eyes watery with confusion. She leaned in, close enough that her breath singed his eyebrows. "I 'am' Princess Miranda. And Firefang. And 'gods help me' Sir Aldes." She exhaled sharply, igniting a small pile of tavern napkins. A serving boy yelped and beat them out with a tray. The priest’s eyebrows, what remained of them after her accidental singeing, slowly climbed his forehead. His mouth opened, then shut with a wet click. The tavern’s usual din of clattering dishes and drunken ballads seemed to hush in anticipation. Even the drunkards in the corner leaned forward, though whether from curiosity or the promise of fresh drama was unclear. The priest’s trembling fingers reached for his holy symbol, then froze halfway. His mouth worked silently, like a fish stranded on a riverbank. Miranda watched, her tail thumping against the bench in slow, deliberate thuds. The tavern’s firelight caught the gold flecks in her amber eyes, an effect she’d practiced in polished mirrors for exactly this sort of moment. The priest finally found his voice, though it cracked halfway through like an adolescent boy's. "But the 'records'... the lineage scrolls of Foxley clearly state..." He flapped a hand toward her armor, then her face, as if trying to reconcile the knight, the princess, and the dragon into one coherent image. A drop of sweat trickled down his temple. Miranda leaned back, her tail curling around the bench leg with a creak of straining wood. "The records aren’t 'wrong'," she said, tapping one claw against the writ. "They’re just... selectively interpreted." The priest’s mouth hung open. She sighed, smoke curling from her nostrils. "When I was fifteen, my father sent me to Mosley for ‘finishing lessons.’" She made air quotes with her claws, nearly taking out a passing barmaid’s eye. "Turns out ‘finishing’ meant ‘get this hellion out of my court before she burns the tapestries again.’" Miranda flicked her tongue over a fang, tasting the stale ale and charred napkin remnants in the air. "See, the Mosley jousting registry only records surnames," she said, flattening the writ with her palm. "Sir Aldes of Mosley sounded suitably knightly when I signed up. No one questioned the six-foot-two competitor with 'literal' scales." She snorted, and a tendril of smoke escaped her nostrils. "Especially after I unhorsed three barons and a duke's nephew." Miranda traced the wax seal with a claw, watching as it flaked onto the table like dried blood. "The church's archives are meticulous," she said, her voice shifting into the crisp enunciation she'd perfected during those wretched etiquette lessons. "But they don't account for teenage girls who file their own marriage annulments." The priest's jaw twitched. She grinned, fangs glinting. "Oh yes. At sixteen, I may have forged documents declaring Princess Miranda deceased, burned alive by the notorious Firefang during a tantrum over unsuitable suitors." She flicked the writ toward him. "Apparently, no one fact-checks arson reports when the princess in question keeps setting things on fire." The priest's quill hovered over a fresh sheet of parchment, ink dripping like a suspended accusation. Miranda watched it tremble, then deliberately flattened her claws on the table, each one a polished black dagger. "Foxley's archives," she began, "are kept by monks who think inkwells are holy relics. They never updated my status after the 'arson.'" She flicked her tail toward the tavern's soot-stained ceiling. "Meanwhile, Mosley's records list me as a knight. And Firefang?" Her grin widened. "Outlaw notices don't include baptismal names." "The trick," Miranda said, plucking a chicken bone from the priest's abandoned plate and snapping it between her teeth, "was in the 'timing'." She crunched the marrow with deliberate slowness, savoring the way the priest's Adam's apple bobbed. "Father dearest sent his 'wayward daughter' to Mosley right after the third suitor's carriage 'mysteriously' combusted. Conveniently, the monastery's scribes were too busy copying psalms to notice my funeral documents were signed with the same hand that wrote my own marriage contracts, in 'flaming' ink, no less." She flicked the bone into the fireplace, where it ignited with a 'whump'. The priest’s quill snapped against the parchment with a sound like a breaking twig. Miranda watched the ink splatter across his trembling fingers, fitting, really, given how thoroughly the truth was about to stain his precious records. She leaned forward, her armored elbows denting the tavern table. "Here’s the thing about noble lineages," she said, her voice dropping into the conspiratorial growl she’d once used to terrify highwaymen. "They’re all fucking fanfiction." Miranda stretched her claws overhead, the tavern's torchlight glinting off the dark ridges as if they were freshly oiled daggers. "The 'real' joke," she said, flicking her tongue over a fang, "is that Firefang was never a proper outlaw to begin with." The priest's quill hovered, ink quivering like a hanged man's legs. "You ever tried collecting a bounty on yourself? Turns out it's piss-easy when you're the one writing the warrants." She snorted, igniting a stray ale droplet on the table. "Spent three summers 'terrorizing' my father's least favorite trade routes, conveniently leaving witnesses who'd swear the beast had emerald eyes when mine are 'obviously' amber." The priest’s quill snapped against the parchment. Miranda watched ink bleed into the grain of the tavern table like a confession. "It’s simple," she said, plucking the broken nib from his grip with her claws. "You lot record 'roles', not 'people'." She twirled the quill between her fingers, its splintered edge catching the firelight. "Knight, princess, dragon, you scribble each into separate ledgers and call it holy truth. Never occurs to you that someone might 'wear' them all at once." The priest’s face cycled through expressions like a bad actor in a traveling mummer’s show, shock, horror, dawning comprehension, then back to horror with a side of existential dread. His fingers twitched toward his holy symbol again, but Miranda caught his wrist with one clawed hand, pressing just hard enough to make the old man feel the razor edge against his paper-thin skin without injury. The priest's pulse fluttered under Miranda's claw like a trapped sparrow. She could've recited scripture from memory... hell, she 'had', during those interminable monastery years, but the terror in his eyes was far more entertaining. "Relax," she purred, releasing his wrist with a flick that left a thin red line but no blood. "His Holiness doesn't pay you enough for this kind of revelation." The priest's lips moved soundlessly, his gaze darting between Miranda's armored pauldrons and the singed remains of his eyebrows. Behind them, a barmaid dropped a tray with a clatter, but neither turned. "You're telling me," he wheezed at last, "that the Church just paid 'you' to rescue 'you' from 'you'?" His holy symbol slipped from nerveless fingers, clattering onto the ale-stained wood. Miranda nodded, the motion sending a ripple down her armored spine. "Gist of it," she said, watching as the priest's face collapsed like a poorly baked soufflé. His holy symbol lay between them like a discarded punchline. Miranda flicked the holy symbol back toward the priest with the tip of her claw, watching it skitter across the table like a guilty secret. "Silver's silver," she said, shrugging. The motion made her pauldron creak ominously. "And frankly, the church overpaid. I'd have kidnapped myself for half."

Nora looks so beautiful

HILARIOUS!!!

Bleh..

This is getting out of hand now there are 2 of them.

what a way to both slay and lay the dragon

(Nora's sleeping body lets out an almighty fart while she's too distracted being elsewhere)

Trace: How is there two of you? Nora: I don't know, I've been trying to figure that out all day! Trace: ......

Trace: "Nora, if you put half as much effort into being a responsible adult as you do with these schemes--" Definitely not Nora: "'Nora'? Who's this 'Nora' you speak o--𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘪𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘱, 𝘙𝘦𝘯𝘪! 𝘙𝘶𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵!!!" Probably Nora? Who knows?: "Can I at least wash off the white paint? It's drying between my scales and starting to itch..."

I love that she's Cute while maintaining a modest appearence. <3 Thanks, Tom!

Trace as Dirk the daring, Nora as Singe the dragon,and Adelaide as the princess Daphne Let see if there are someone old enough to get the reference

This is getting out of hand! Now there are two of them! 🤣

There's two Noras? How does she do it?

Not colors?

I’m getting some serious bowsette vibes here. XD

Two Noras? 0.0

Makes me think about possible roleplay with Saria and lady Nora

"My, my strange Princess that I've never seen before, what an interesting dragon-like tail and horns you have! Are you sure we've never met before?"

If it were me I would've gone with the derg, but this is a great work around! (Better than saving a normal princess anyways)

I feel this could've been some roleplay between Trace and Saria :)

Seems Lady Nora still needs to work on her shadow clone no jutsu. You can still see the horns and tail. 😛

When you have to pretend the "slay" in order to get the "lay"

Considering this is Lady Nora, I’m more terrified by the fact that there’s two of her, cause I’m not sure the fabric of reality can handle that, lmao.

Of course Nora would... She's got a 'soft spot' for lil Tracy...

You ain't fooling anyone.

Trace didn't get to fight the dragon and he knows the Princess will be a bigger pain that its worth.

Love her so much xDDDDD

Man it was so easy he didn't have to swing his sword

Leave it to Nora for romantic role-play. As enjoying how a single look from Trace can say an entire sentence. I can see the "You do know that you're not Saria or Flora. This is as far as it goes.. " look on his face.

Trace looks so done with this. lol

But your princess is in another castle. Honestly, I'd rather save the dragon. Though in this case, Trace technically is.

Oh god now there are two of them! Amazing, so silly. I love this haha. Trace's princess is in another castle

Nora able to crate a Duplicate for both roles? She's too OP as an Ancient Silver Dragon cougar.

I love how silly this is

Nora is definitely in on it. 😏

Two Nora's thats terrifying but intriguing!

Unimpressed trace is unimpressed

Something tells me Nora set this whole thing up just so she can see her knight in shining armor lol :)

Lmao

This is cute and funny

the little "bleh" is so adorable!

Bleh!