Everything's foggy. Not like "ugh, too much wine" foggy, but milky, glowy, wrong. Like the world forgot to put on its face. Sounds are slurred and too loud at the same time—shouting, maybe? Screaming? A crackling noise, like someone's trying to roast a city.
I'm small. I mean, really small. Arms like noodles, fingers like soft worms. I can't talk. I can't even sit up. I'm just… there. All wrapped up in something scratchy, stuffed into a basket. A basket, seriously?
The basket rocks. Not gently. More like it's being jostled by a drunk goat. Water sloshes underneath. River, probably. What else rocks like that? A ship? No, too quiet for a ship. No sailors shouting about tits and tar.
It's dark. But everything glows red. Not candle red. Fire red. Like something is burning behind me. I can't turn. Can't see. But I know it's fire. I know it started when I was torn away—lifted? thrown?—and someone said something. A word I didn't understand. A name, maybe. Not mine.
There's a woman, blurred and too far to reach. I feel her more than see her. Warmth. Then gone. Just the smell of smoke and whatever they wrapped me in—lavender and panic.
A shadow leans over me. Not a face. Just the shape. No eyes. And then I'm floating. Not in the basket anymore. Just drifting upward, like steam off a piss pot.
I try to cry. I think I do. But it sounds stupid. Wet and squeaky. I hate it. I want to complain. I want to swear, gods damn it, but all I do is flail my stubby little arms and hiccup.
And the river takes me.
No control. No choices. Just floating in a basket someone didn't even bother to name me before shoving me into.
Typical.
I wake up with sunlight stabbing through my eyelids like it's got a grudge. My tongue feels like a rug, my head is stuffed with cotton and bad decisions, and something is squinting louder than it should.
I crack one eye open. The sky's too blue. The sun is smug. And the Dragon is already watching me with that long-suffering, judgmental look—like he's seen the whole sorry show.
"You drooled on my wing," he says.
I grunt and pull the blanket—his tail—up over my face. "Had a nightmare."
He snorts. "You had one too many last night. I counted four cups of that cheap rosé you stole from the inn down the road. Then you started singing about goats."
"I hate goats," I mumble into scales.
"Didn't stop you from slow-dancing with one in your dream," he adds, way too pleased with himself. "While calling it 'Prince Buttercup.'"
I groan. "Shut up. No, this one was different. I was a baby. In a basket. Floating down a river. There was fire. And screaming. And I think someone left me behind." I pause. "I couldn't even swear. It was awful."
He shifts, stretches, does that insufferable yawn where he flashes every gold-crusted tooth. "You're mushing up legends with your own half-baked backstory. That's just a cocktail of Seebulban myth, leftover trauma, and poor wine quality."
"No dream is just a dream," I say, rubbing my eyes. "Maybe it was a message. I don't even know who I really am."
He flicks his tail—my tail-blanket—off with a dramatic sigh. "You also ate an entire wheel of molten cheese last night with your hands, and then tried to sell me to a barmaid for a honey cake. The only message here is: 'never trust a whore with dairy.'"
I pout. Deep, soulful, lip-jutting pout. "You're a terrible therapist."
"I'm not your therapist. I'm your getaway driver."
"And blanket."
He grumbles, but doesn't pull his wing away when I snuggle back in.
Just saying—terrible therapist. Excellent blanket.
He exhales like he's just aged another century. "Fine. Alright. You win."
He rolls onto his side with the dramatic weight of someone composing a deathbed confession.
"You're a long-lost princess," he says, deadpan. "From Lolika. Born under an ominous comet. Cast adrift in a golden basket last time the city got raided by flaming centaurs or whatever. Raised by kindly dockside harlots who taught you their sacred ways—mainly how to pick pockets with cleavage. One day, your true lineage will be revealed. You'll reclaim your throne, ride griffons sidesaddle, and sentence your enemies to mildly inconvenient punishments involving lace and sarcasm."
He glances at me sideways. "Happy now?"
I pout harder. Chin-jutting, lip-wobbling, utterly unreasonable.
"I could be," I grumble. "Why not? What's so impossible about that?"
"You? Royalty?" he scoffs. "You once ate a ruby because you thought it was a candied cherry."
"It looked candied!"
"And you passed it two days later, screaming about demons in your lower intestine."
I cross my arms. "Still counts as treasure."
He sighs again. "Saya, gods know there are more 'lost princesses' out there than fleas on a minotaur's crotch. Every inn wench and turnip peddler thinks they're secretly heir to some forgotten sapphire throne."
"Exactly!" I snap. "Statistically speaking, one of us has to be right."
He raises a scaly brow. "And you think it's you."
"I have the cheekbones for it," I say, with dignity. "And I look excellent in gold."
He stares at me, long and hard. Then mutters, "The terrifying part is, that actually is solid princess logic."
"Thank you."
He closes his eyes. "I'm going back to sleep. Wake me if you inherit anything."
I flop down beside him and mutter, "I'll remember this when I'm Queen."
He murmurs, already half-asleep, "Of course you will, Your Radiant Basketness."
He falls asleep, the smug, scaly bastard. Snoring like a furnace with bronchitis. Wrapped around himself like he didn't just stomp on my dreams with both talons and a tail slap.
I sit up, arms around my knees, pouting into the rising sun like some tragic ballad heroine abandoned by fate and fashion both.
Why does nobody ever take me seriously when I say I might be a lost princess?
I mean—look at me. I've seen princesses. Two of them, definitely. One smelled like rosewater and sadness. The other had a pet ferret in a jeweled corset. Neither looked half as good in silk as I do. One of them had a lazy eye and a nervous twitch whenever someone said "velvet tax."
I could absolutely fake it. I have faked it. The way I sip tea when someone else is paying? Regal. The way I throw a tantrum when cheese is substandard? Dignified outrage. The way I deliver a speech about betrayal while stealing someone's coin purse? That's pure courtly drama, that is.
So what if I wasn't born with a tiara? Maybe I was—and someone stole it. Maybe I got basketed during a raid and floated all the way to Seebulba on a current of flaming destiny.
And it's not like I'm asking for an empire. I'm reasonable. A tidy little city-state would do. Something coastal. Warm. Maybe with olives.
Or a duchy. I could duchess. Grand duchess, even. I'd be good at it. I already have the snobbery and the sexual history. What more does nobility even require?
I don't need a crown. I just think I'd wear one very, very well.
Is that so much to ask?
The Dragon grunts in his sleep and mutters something about cheese again.
I scowl at him.
Maybe I am a princess. Maybe he's the one who got dropped in a basket. Or maybe a chamber pot.
I lie back down and stare at the sky, waiting for fate to get its act together.