Coming out of my apartment in the king’s palace, I was confronted in the main hall by a group of angry and confused people. Angrier than confused, I revised my thoughts. Before me was the king, a knight, a squire, a princess, and a dragon.

They set upon me with raised words of anger. All manners of insults. Stupid this, imbecile that, insults against my appearance, my mother, and how I must have cheated to become part of the government because clearly no one should be this idiotic.

The palace guards moved to protect me as I was, after all, the king’s translator, and a member of the government. The king may be angry at me, but I was still a member of his government, and the guards would protect me all the same. Even if the king fired me, the guards would still protect me until I left the palace grounds, or if exiled, the kingdom’s borders.

I held up my hand and patiently waited for them to stop yelling at me. I would not try to talk over them. It took a few minutes, but eventually they stopped. I surmised it was less they were trying to be polite and more they were losing their voices in their tirade and was getting winded.

“I did not mistranslate.”

The group threatened to erupt in anger once more, with movements that suggested that they were packing heat and were about to use it. I did not know if it was a fireball spell, a crossbow, or a magic boom stick, though. Regardless, I put my hand back up.

“Let me explain. Then you can shoot me.”

I paused to look them all in the eyes. The dragon included. Then I began:

“The prophecy stated that a kingdom will lose its princess to a dragon. The princess will be locked in a stone tower at the fortress of the dragon. A hero will rise to be officially recognized by the king and set off on an adventure to defeat the dragon, save the princess, and eventually be wed to her with witnesses of king and pastor. The two are supposed to inherit the kingdom.

“Nothing in that prophecy was false and none of the events were off.

“However, the prophecy was misleading.”

I looked to the palace guards and nodded. They were ready to jump between me and the people in front of me. They relaxed, but kept an eye on the situation.

I started:

“The kingdom lost its princess not once but twice. The king’s last name is Yelmyr. Of course, because this is the Kingdom of Yelmyr.”

I pointed at the princess, “Princess Jensula here, her last name is Yelmyr too. She is the king’s daughter.”

I then pointed to the dragon, “Liliwayahaeus, or Lily for short, is a dragon.”

There were two kinds of dragons on this world.

The normal kind, usually fire breathing reptilian winged monsters that were the big boss apex predators around but also had a knack for hoarding things and living in manmade structures or large caves, extra points if they were both manmade and a large cave. Poor dwarves.

And the humanoid kind. Anthropologists throughout the land had come to the conclusion that humanoid dragons are actually distantly related to ‘normal’ humans. They have reptilian wings, draconic hands and feet, a set of horns on their heads, a tail on their backside, and a snake-like skin elsewhere. Beyond that, they’re as human as everyone else. The name dragon stuck for the majority of the realm, though some kingdoms use the term half-dragon to differentiate between them and real dragons.

“Lily’s last name is Daemyr. The king’s first wife’s last name is Daemyr. A one Invae Daemyr. She’s a dragon too. His second, and current wife, however, is not Daemyr. That wife is from the Cuset clan. Her name is Denise. Denise is one of us regular humans. Invae’s daughter’s name is Liliwayahaeus.

“Lily is the king’s firstborn daughter and thus princess. Her mother lives in a nearby nation that uses a dragon on their coat of arms. Their house is there. Lily still has her residence in that house.”

The revelation shocked the whole hall. Guards included. Everyone with their mouths open. You could hear a pin drop.

“You see, the king and Miss Invae Daemyr were young lovers, they married, and she conceived and birthed a daughter. They were young and dumb as the saying goes. She eventually divorced on good terms with the king. Lily left with her mother and he forgot all about his little girl. Later, the king would marry a woman from the Cuset clan and have a child with her too. This girl’s name is Jenny. She’s the ‘normal’ woman standing right here. She’s a princess too.

“However, she is also a dragon. Not a real dragon. Or a dragon human. But the empress of the Dragon Empire. She’s married already. Her husband is none other than the emperor, one Charles Drakeclaw.

“They’re all massive dracoweebs and have names like that.”

The guards chuckled. Handpicked from my home planet ‘Earth’.