Far, far away, a young lad was walking around the town looking for a new blacksmith, when suddenly he crossed a poster that said,
KNIGHT WANTED:
Save the the king’s and queen’s daughter, Sophie,
from no man’s land and gain the throne and a wife.
(WARNING: Chance of death! Dragon protecting threshold)
             “Oh man! If I did this, I would be debt free, I would finally make my mom happy by getting a wife, and I would be the king!” exclaimed Ferdinand. Immediately after he read the notice, he ran home, grabbed all his food and armor, packed it on his donkey, and slowly rode off into the distance.
            Meanwhile in the tower, Sophie sat up and gained her senses. I must have fallen asleep while looking out the windo--, Sophie thought as she looked out into the distance and saw what seemed to be a man riding a horse in the desolate desert surrounding the castle.
            “Oh my gosh!” Sophie screamed, as she turned around to talk to Gerald, “My knight in shining armor has finally come to save me!” She started to frantically run around her room trying to make it as neat as possible. She fixed her bed and remembered when her sheets used to be soft velvet. Now they were worn and torn up. “Maybe he won’t notice,” she thought. As she cleaned, she picked up all her clothes on the ground, which wasn't very hard. She only had 5 pairs of clothes and one fine dress. The dressed had remained in her closet, for the book said that it was only for the day that the knight saved her. As she put it on, she looked into the oval full-body mirror that was partly shattered because of an accident when she was twirling around thinking about the day she would be freed from the castle. She saw herself in the beautiful sparkling creation and imagined how her knight would smile. She twirled once more, so happy that the day of her freedom was today. As she screamed with joy and hopped up and down, the last shards of the mirror fell to the floor.
            Ferdinand rode.  He was so tired from the twenty-hour-long journey, but finally he saw the castle come into view. When he laid his eyes upon it, he was reminded of the terrifying dragon that he would have to face. Gavrilo, his donkey, was tired, so they were moving at an even slower pace than when they first started out. This gave poor Ferdinand even more time to fret over the challenges ahead.
           “Oh my heavens! Gavrilo I don't think I will be able to fight this dragon. I didn't even know that dragons existed until now! I hope that she is beautiful and perfect like in the fairy tales.” As he thought of these things, his mind wandered so far that he was startled to realize just then that he was at the entrance of the castle. He was shocked by how dirty and run down the place looked. He started to doubt the finances of the King and Queen. But after convincing himself this was all part of the challenge, Ferdinand got off of Gavrilo and started to put on his armor and check his sword.

“Ok, I'm going in. Gavrilo, stay out here while I go in to rescue Princess Sophie.” Gavrilo just responded with a puff of air. As he went in the castle and took a breath, his lungs felt like they were on fire. There was so much ash that he could barely breath. Inside, there were three doors: one going right, one left, and one straight. From his ride in, he remembered the tower was on the right side, so he ducked through the right door. The room was so dark. He kept walking trying to adjust to the darkness. Just then he saw a horizontal slit of yellow light appear. Ferdinand started to inch towards it step-by-step. When he reached the light, around it was a scaly warm surface that was kind of hard. He heard a puff of air to his right and scooted scaling the wall with his hand. He reached the source from where the air came from and found a hole. The hole was constantly taking in air then letting it out. All of a sudden, the whole scaly structure moved towards him. That was when he realized the whole thing was the dragon!
            “Holy bananas!” he exclaimed as he fell on his butt. But suddenly he realized that the dragon was asleep and was just shifting around. He tried to get up silently, but his armor started clanking together. “Shhh!” He shushed his armor like it would make a difference. He started to walk slowly to the rear end of the dragon when a very bad smell hit him. As he smelt it, he nearly threw up. When Ferdinand saw what the source of the smell was, he was so shocked that the dragon has a collection of poop on his rear end. “Oh my heavens!” Ferdinand said to himself as he waded through the immense piles of manure. “Walking through waist high waste was not in the job description,” he thought to himself. As he got out, Ferdinand saw a doorway with stairs that were spiraling and thought maybe those were the stairs going to the tower.
             Ferdinand slowly stepped onto each step, for the weight of him and his armor had made the wooden boards creak loudly after every step. When he finally got to the top of the stairs, he saw a very soft glow of a candle seeping through the bottom of a wooden door that was arched at the top and had a metal ring door knob.
            “At last, after my not so tiresome journey I will finally meet this princess!” Ferdinand thought excitedly. He slowly put his hands against the door and pushed, but he pushed too hard. In his mind, he overestimated how heavy the door actually was and lost his balance. Lost his balance completely, Ferdinand entered the room straight onto his face. He scrambled up trying to make a good first impression and heard the gasp of a very surprised princess.

He stood up as quickly as he could and exclaimed, “I am here my lady, and I have come to save yo---.” As he laid his eyes on her, he saw what she looked like after all her years in a castle alone. He saw she was wearing a spectacular dress, but she was very skinny and her face was pale and thin. The smile on his face instantly started to drop. Her eyes were super wide and kind of frightening to him. After all the years of worrying and waiting, she had bags under her eyes and her cheekbones were very pointy. Also, she looked like she was in her late twenties, while Ferdinand was only eighteen.
            Then Sophie’s huge smile turned into a puzzled look, for she was trying to figure out why her knight in shining armor was not how she imagined. To her, he looked very young, probably only fifteen. He was very scrawny and thin and his armor was not shiny and all. Plus it smelled like he had trampled through manure! Also, she noticed from his entrance that he did not seem very charming.
             “He--hello,” Sophie said fumbling for words, for her surprise had thrown her off. “I'm Princess Sophie...and you are?”
             “Si--Sir Ferdinand. But, actually, I'm not technically a knight yet. I'm still training.” He mumbled awkwardly.
              “Oh my!” Sophie said surprised, “You are not a knight? This is an outrage! I cannot leave with you! The book says that a knight can only free me! After all these years, I was so excited, but now I'm left with scrawny, little you!”
              “Hey, wow ‘Princess Sophie’.” Ferdinand said sarcastically, “You're not much to look at yourself. Have you even used that mirror, once!?” He exclaimed as he pointed at the oval mirror shape hanging in the corner before realizing all of the glass was gone.
            “Hey! I will not take this from a ‘knight in training’,” Sophie shot back. “According to the book, the person who saves me has to be charming, handsome, brave, noble, strong, and kind, and so far you have not been a single one of those things!  I will not be returning with you and that is final! Also, what is that smell? It looks like you took a swim in horse shi---!”
            “That’s it! I didn't walk through a million tons of crap to find this!” He said as he gestured at Sophie. “I'm going to take you with me back to your parents because I want to at least save someone and get my reward. I at least deserve that from a twenty-hour-long journey of disappointment!” As he said this, Ferdinand pulled out a gag towel and tied it around her mouth. Naturally, she kicked and screamed, barely missing him. He finally grabbed her and picked her up, slowly making his way down the stairs. But just before they went into the castle’s atrium, where the dragon was, he said to her, “You better keep quiet unless you want to be fried by the dragon!” Sophie instantly stopped struggling.
            Ferdinand peaked outside and saw the dragon peacefully sleeping in the huge atrium. While he was tiptoeing through all the manure, he heard Sophie make a gagging sound. He smirked, but almost lost balance and fell face first into a pile of poop. After they finally got outside, they both let out a huge breathe that they had been holding ever since they walked through the manure.
            When Ferdinand untied the gag, she started screaming, “I cannot allow this! The book clearly states that the perfect knight has to come save me and kill the dragon to show his bravery! All you did was be a wuss and avoid the dragon! I will not let you do this!” She yelled, as she turned to go back into the castle.
            “No!” Ferdinand exclaimed grabbing her and tying her up with some rope. She started the kicking and screaming again, so he tried another tactic. “Please come with me. I'll give you an actual meal because it looks like it's been awhile since the last time you ate.”
            “FINE!” She yelled, “I'll go with you just untie me! But when we get back to the kingdom, drop me off at my parents’ castle and leave! I don't ever want to see you again after this is all over!”
            “Oookaaaaay. Just calm down, and we’ll go to my mule--” Ferdinand said stopping mid-sentence.
            “You don't even have a horse?!” she interrupted. “Oh my gosh! You can't even pass one regulation! The book says the knight in shining armor has to save me with his trusty steed, a white stallion!”
            “PLEASE! Stop complaining and whining about the ‘book’ stuff!” Ferdinand yelled. “Let's go, and I'll give you a lot of food if you just, BE QUIET!”
            Then they both mounted Ferdinand’s donkey and went off onto their journey back to the kingdom. The whole ride they barely spoke to each other, and they made one stop at a small village to buy some food.

Twenty boring hours later, the kingdom came into sight.
             “Finally,” Ferdinand exclaimed happily, “Well, I think you should get off.”
             “Why?” Sophie asked.
             “Well, I live a little bit out of the kingdom and want to save some time. Also, I do not  think I'm going to marry you, so I do not think I will be receiving the reward anyway.”
              “Ugh!” She exclaimed, “Well, I don't want to be seen with you!” She climbed off his mule and trudged off into the distance, but she fell straight onto her face because they had been on a mule for twenty hours and her legs were stiff. Ferdinand then turned, rode off into the opposite direction laughing the entire time. Then they never saw each other again. And they lived ever after. The End.