Story Saturday: The Amazon Dagger

*This is a sequel to last week's story, "The Prince Competition" based on a suggestion from one of my favorite readers. Thanks, Sugar!

"The Amazon Dagger"

A few years after a peasant boy named Ellis won a competition that gave him the rare honor of becoming an Amazon prince, Princess Jacqueline was crowned Queen and gave birth to a new heir, who she named Dagger. Dagger was expected to be as mighty and clever a warrior as her parents, but a problem soon arose. Whenever Dagger was invited to spar with her fellow Amazons, she would run off to chase butterflies and climb trees, and no one could ever find her until it was time for dinner.

One day, Dagger's mother asked her why she always ran away from her sparring lessons.

"I don't want to fight," said Dagger. "I'd rather chase butterflies and paint the beauty I see in the world around me. Our island is so beautiful, yet no one ever seems to take notice of it."

Jacqueline found this concerning, so she had a special weapon designed for her daughter. It was a dagger after the princess's namesake with a jeweled handle and butterflies carved onto the blade. Dagger was pleased with the gift and wore it proudly on her belt. She often moved it this way and that to admire the rays of sunlight reflected in the faceted jewels on the hilt.

"Do you want to learn how to use your new weapon?" asked her mother.

"It is a lovely ornament," replied Dagger. "Far too lovely to stain with the blood of my enemies."

Not sure how to handle the situation, Jacqueline consulted her prince consort, Ellis.

"There is more to life than fighting, my love," said Ellis. "Perhaps she can be useful to her tribe in a different way."

"But what other way is there?" asked Jacqueline in frustration.

"I can teach her the art of smithing. The Amazons need a constant supply of armor and weapons to maintain their way of life."

Jacqueline was not thrilled by the idea of the princess becoming a mere weaponsmith, but she had already tried everything else, so she allowed Ellis to share his knowledge with their daughter.

Dagger caught on quickly to the trade and designed some lovely new armor for the royal guards that incorporated the leaves and butterflies she so admired on their beautiful island. Her designs became the new standard for all the Amazon warriors.

One day, three warriors approached the castle gate. They were wearing the old armor that was now obsolete in their tribe.

"Who goes there?" asked one of the guards.

In an annoyingly squeaky voice, one of the warriors responded that they had been hired by the queen to join the Amazon army and had come to train at the palace arena.

"Nonsense," responded the other guard. "If you really were hired by the queen, you would be wearing the new armor issued by Princess Dagger. You are imposters!"

With that, a great battle ensued, but the imposters were taken down quickly by the royal guards since their uniforms made them easy to tell them apart from the true Amazons. After stripping them of their armor, the Amazons realized that they were actually men wielding poison arrows who had disguised themselves to assassinate the royal family and conquer their island. Ellis recognized one of them as his evil stepbrother who had escaped from the dungeon after all these years and sought revenge.

"Princess Dagger has done us proud today," announced Queen Jacqueline. "If it had not been for her ingenuity, these foolish men could have infiltrated our castle and poisoned our some of our finest warriors. I hereby decree Princess Dagger as the royal armorsmith from here on out!"

The Amazons cheered as the princess held up her jeweled dagger in victory. At last, she had found a place in her tribe where she could finally belong.