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Chapter Nineteen

Soon they arrived back at Dearth’s cave. All four of the other D. D. D. D. D. club members were there and most of them wondered at that. But they didn’t have to wonder long.
“Welcome back!!!” said all of the D. D. D. D. D. club members. “We saw you coming so we thought that we would all be present for the initiation finalization.”
“I thought I just did all of the initiation?” said Dearth, as the four others slid off his back.
“Oh no! That was just the beginning. We have been studying other clubs initiation processes and we think that there should be something else done.” said Demothesisous.
“Like what?” asked Dearth.
“To begin with” said Demothesisous, “We are going to test your coordination. Pat your head while rubbing your stomach while hopping up and down on one leg and saying “Dormant Dragons Doing Dire Deeds” twenty times fast.”
Dearth did his best, and I have a feeling that he did a lot better than most of you would have done (try it!) and fortunately he did well enough to pass. There were several other tests in the initiation process, and most of them were very funny (but nobody laughed, it would have been an insult and you should not insult a dragon without a very good reason.)
After the initiation was over and Dearth was officially declared a member of the Dormant Dragons Desiring Dire Deeds club, Nancealia mentioned that it was time for them to head to the capitol.
“Yes, I am very eager to get there.” said Celticia, “It will be so much fun to be a Lady and get to wear lovely dresses all the time.”
“Oh that reminds me,” said Dearth, “When the crowns were captured the queens luggage was also captured and I think I still have it. You will probably enjoy the dresses since you are about to become a queen yourself, Nancealia. I think the trunks are somewhere in my hoard. I’ll go see.” Dearth went into his hoard and after a slight bit of thumping, clanking and crashing he came out carrying two trunks and set them before Nancealia. In between Nancealia and Celticia the lid of one trunk was opened very quickly and the beautiful gowns saw the light again after quite some time. I don’t know what it is about dragon hoards but for some reason things in a dragon hoard stay just the same as they were when they were put into it. Now a trunk full of clothes that was shoved at the back of a cave for over a hundred years would probably not come out with all of the clothes looking just like they looked when they were put in, but in a dragon hoard those sort of things seem to happen and the gowns were in spectacular condition. Nancealia and Celticia were rather excited about them and there was slight delay before getting started because both Nancealia and Celticia wanted to know if the dresses would fit, which they did (fortunately there was a nice private side cave in Dearth’s lair that turned into a temporary dressing room. ) Celticia and Nancealia were about the same size so they decided to split the gowns. Since they had different hair colorings it worked out quite well. They thanked Dearth quite a bit for the two trunks and their contents. (I know I would have!) Finally they set off on their horses, To be able to take the trunks Arnold rode Lady with Nancealia while the two trunks where slung on Starlight. This arrangement was made since Lady and Starlight where the two strongest horses and as Arnold and Nancealia rather enjoyed riding on the same horse, they didn’t object.

Chapter Twenty

We shall now do a bit of time traveling and will go back in time to a few weeks ago. It was morning and everybody in the royal castle was beginning to be up and about. Prince Arnold however wasn’t up, to the great distaste of his father whose name was Douglas.
I would like to pause the story here to explain why there are so many Douglases in Scotland. King Douglas thought that since he was a king and was a very important person, the name Douglas must be a very important name. Also he wanted everybody to be familiar with his name so he made a decree that one son in every family had to be named after current king (This decree was later abolished when Arnold became king because his wife didn’t want to say “Arnold” and have twenty different people look up. (Just think of the chaos in the schoolrooms when the teacher said “Douglas”!)) Thus it was that the country began to overflow with Douglases and since it was customary in Scotland to name the eldest son after his father the amount of Douglases did not diminish much even after the decree was abolished.
But to get back to the story, King Douglas when he heard that his son was being lazy and sleeping in, decided to give him a piece of his mind about early rising and its healthful benefits. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to give his lecture for when he entered the prince’s bedroom he discovered that they prince was not there and where he should have been there was a note. It read,

“I have decided to go after Dearth and get the crowns myself. I’ll be back as soon as I can get them. It is very economical for me to get them because then you won’t have to pay the reward and plunge the nation into debt. I would like the sword you promised me when I turned twenty-five should you feel a reward necessary. Tell Mother not to worry, a Dragon shouldn’t be too difficult to fight.
Affectionately yours,
Prince Arnold”

Thereupon chaos promptly ensued. The nearby areas where scouted throughly to find the prince. Every single story of the unfortunate knights who had or hadn’t escaped from Dearth where gone over and the queen was nearly beside herself with worry and terror despite her son’s note telling her not to be. It was generally believed that unless something miraculous happened Prince Arnold would either be killed or burned and wounded past recognizing, and that, as the queen said and all the single young women of the court agreed, would be a terrible shame. The fact that Schelsh was missing did bring some slight comfort, for his good sense and courage was known to all, though the king said that if he had been mindful his duty he would have prevented Prince Arnold from going, and since he was always mindful of his duty he most likely was not with the prince at all. Indeed everyone seemed to be in a depressed state of mind, except for the Kings younger brother Lotho. He rather enjoyed the increase of attention he was getting, because if something had happened to Prince Arnold, Lotho would be the next king because the current king had no other children. In fact Lotho was suspected by some of having spirited the prince away so that he could have the throne next, but nobody thought that anybody other than the Prince Arnold would have written that note the way he did.
Thus things went on for several weeks. The queen started to wear black and all the other ladies did so too, especially the single young women of the court. The King sent out many messengers to hide near the location of Dearth’s cave with orders that if Prince Arnold showed up he was to be prevented from going near Dearth and sent home. Unfortunately most of the messengers had no experience with dragons or mountainous territory and couldn’t even get near the place where Dearth was and some of them managed to come back and report that they couldn’t. All hope had been lost soon after that and Lotho was going about very happily until the queen mentioned to the king that she supposed that they would just have to have another child. That dashed Lotho’s hopes and after that he looked as gloomy and miserable as everybody else.

Chapter Twenty-one

Things went on in this way until one day Arnold walked in. You could have heard a pin drop, every single person there was completely astonished, but it wasn’t just astonishment about the fact that Arnold himself was showing up, several other things astonished them. For one thing he was unwounded and unhurt, for another he held the two royal crowns in one hand, and the greatest reason for astonishment was that with his other hand he held the hand of one of the most beautiful ladies the court had ever seen. She had dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes and was wearing a gown of cloth of gold with fiery red accents. She looked every inch a princess.
Schelsh also had his share of astonishment for Celticia, in her green gown with gold accents, and the splendid emerald jewels she was wearing (a wedding present from the five D club) combined with her long red hair and green eyes, where quite a lovely sight too. Suffice it to say that nobody got over their shock in a hurry.
The King was the first to recover and as Arnold and company stepped forward he said, “Arnold! Where have you been? What have you been doing? And who is that?” he finished pointing to Nancealia.
“To answer your questions, All over Scotland and the Wilds, finding the crowns, and this,” he said with a look at Nancealia, “Is the future queen of Scotland.”
“I could have guessed all of that, what I want is more details! You never answer questions directly! Where exactly did you find the crowns? And how did you escape unwounded from that terrible dragon Dearth.”
“And ” interrupted the queen, “What is the name of the young lady with you, and also who is the young lady with Captain Schelsh, and where did you meet them and…”
“Isn’t that enough questions to begin with?” interrupted Arnold in his own turn. “I don’t know which to start with first.”
“I think introductions would be the best thing to begin with,” put in Nancealia, “I am Nancealia Arloth” she said turning to the King and Queen, “I have been a studier of dragon ways and customs for some time and that is how the prince and I met. This” she indicated Celticia, “Is my good friend and adopted sister, Celticia McCleevy.”
“She is my Fiance” added Schelsh, “And I never thought that following a young fool of a prince on a wild goose chase would be so rewarding.”
After that the king demanded a complete and thorough explanation and after a great deal of talking he got it. It was very unusual, and extremely out of the ordinary, the tale that they related but in between the four of them, they managed to tell a good one. When it was over there was a grand feast since everybody was hungry (the four of them especially). As there was no use in wasting time Nancealia and Arnold, Celticia and Schelsh, were married that evening at a double wedding. And though the single young ladies of the court were glad that Prince Arnold was back safe and sound, there was much sadness and weeping at his wedding and they didn’t stop wearing black for quite a while after it. However it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good and quite a few of the single noblemen were very happy about Arnold’s wedding, for though they didn’t have much of a chance with some of the lovelier young noblewomen while Prince Arnold was still single, they later had a good chance once he was married.

Epilogue

Arnold and Nancealia later became the King and Queen of Scotland and they were a good King and Queen despite the fact that they went off and had adventures every year or so and would be gone for several weeks. It was usually assumed that they were visiting the dragons at these times (though sometimes they weren’t) and the kingdom usually did not fall into ruin by the time they got back. They had only one child, a daughter and when she grew up she married Schelsh’s and Celticia’s oldest son. And they ruled well too.
The D. D. D. D. D. club went on doing dire deeds. Dearth eventually wrote a book about his adventures with Arnold, Nancealia, Celticia, Schelsh etc, and called it “There and back again, A dragon’s tale by Dearth”. Later when a similar story was published by Tolkien it was generally thought that he must have read Dearth’s book at some point.
Yrtemoeg still happily roams the world of Geometry. Dolak McDath lived to a ripe old age, then he died very happily in his black marble castle. But it was not to remain black marble for long because several generations later the male heir to the castle died of pneumonia and his younger sister became the first Lady McDath. She did not like either the number thirteen or black marble and soon began remolding. She hacked off a tower and every where there were thirteen of something she took off one so soon there was twelve of everything. Then she had the black marble changed to pink with gold trim… It was a very different castle by the time she was done with it.
As for Elizabeth Von Fange, her story has not yet come to an end so I can’t say more about it now other than the fact that she plans to write more stories and hopes that you will read them. And now for the climax…

And they all lived happily ever after with the exception of those that didn’t…
THE END

I think that I am going to write a series of books next. I want to have something like “The Chronicals of Narnia”. last night, I got a good title for my series. To begin with, my name is Elizabeth Von Fange. Since “Von” in German, roughfly means “From” Fange would be the place I am from. So Fange would be a perfectly logical choice for the name of the land I’ll write my stories about. I think that the royalty of Fange will all have the last name of “Von Fange” because that will make me of royal decent, in my book at least. So the name for my series will be “Legends from Fange”. Here is a little something I have all ready written.

Little is known about the mythical Kingdom of Fange, other than the fact that it was an island somewhere in the atlantic. However, the long forgotten legends of the Kingdom of Fange are about to be told again, and please remember that they are legends of an older time, and a different time. Things have changed since then, so that things that were considered to be perfectly normal back then, may seem illogical and even impossible now. So knowing this, I hope that you will enjoy the Legends from Fange.

Some of those clauses were put in because most of the time when I am writing a book, most of the time I have no idea of what I am talking about. For example I don’t know how fast, how far, and what else a horse can do and the proper method of traveling. So I shall merely mention the fact that the horses in Fange were unusual horses and leave it at that. Currently I am going to write up a lot of detailed information about Fange, that way I have some reference points. I’ll probably draw a map of it sometime.

Daniel has read “The Royal Crowns of Scotland” and he laughed several times and also pointed out a lot of improbabilities but he also laughed sever times at my jokes. I hope I can figure out a way to get it on here, currently my posting program won’t let me put it on here. Oh well, I’ll just have to deal with it later.

Apparently my posting program doesn’t like something in the book I wrote so there will be a slight delay before “The Royal Crowns of Scotland” appears on my website.

Well, I finished the basic editing process and I think that my book is ready to be put on my website. Later edits will be made once my Mom proofreads it but you can get a general idea of what the book is going to be like now. I am putting it up in a separate post.

I just have one chapter left to edit then the first edit will be done. Then I will probably do one quick run through of the story and then post it! Since I usually don’t use commas or be completely grammatically correct I think the slight imperfections of the story in those areas may be overlooked(I hope.) I seem to use run on sentences quite a bit too… Well, I hope the plot is interesting and that there are some bits of humor. So now to edit Chapter Twenty!

For I have just shopped until I dropped today and right now I am rather tired. However I have been doing a bit of work done on my story because I want it done before I go on the cruise. Speaking of cruises, Mom and I have been buying our cruise wardrobes. It is amazing how two people with overflowing closets will still buy more clothes… But we are and I now have about $75.00 worth of new clothes and since I am supposed to be saving my money that is not very good. Oh well, I did need a new swimsuit(Though I think that $25.00 is way to much money for a swimsuit but it is better than most prices.) And I also have several nice new tops and two new skirts. Also I am very fatigued but I hope I am getting in shape for the cruise. After all, shore excursions are probably going to be as fatiguing as clothes shopping.

Primarily because I am not adding in more description and conversations. After all, short chapters are rather interesting and don’t take as long to read and if you want to find out what is going to happen next(which I hope you do) it will tell you in a lot less time. I am currently on chapter twelve and the last sentence I edited was They continued to move in the same slow manner for so long that it became monotonous. Hopefully the book will not be as monotonous as the part of the journey they currently are on. Fortunately the monotony only lasts for a few sentences before they start talking. The plot of this book summed up in a few sentences is this: The royal crowns of Scotland have been stolen by a dragon. The book follows four adventurers who are trying to get the crowns. Eventually after many adventures they do. The End. So now that you don’t know much more about the book I hope that you will enjoy reading it when I finally get it put on my website.

Hopefully it will be up here soon!