"The Valiant Pink Knight"
a short story
Gary Baker, November 2012
[*This story is not following my normal posting routine,
I know, but this is my Thanksgiving gift to all of you!*]
Knight-Princess Miera smiled, proudly standing in her hot pink windbreaker, and yellow rain pants, with fists on her hips. It was a perfect day, the sun nowhere to be seen, instead replaced by dark gray clouds and the occasional flash of blinding light.
A deep roar rumbled across her kingdom as Mr Thunder said hello, followed quickly by his assistant, Mrs Lightning. Miera nodded, and waved her arms frantically at the clouds where her two subjects awaited her approval, knowing that they would grow impatient and annoyed if she let them wait too long. Afterall, that was what Daddy had told her back when she had yet to assume her royal position, back when she feared the rain and it's friends, and thus had also been yet to admit to them their benevolently needed wave.
The skies wavered slightly and she knew her two subjects were happy. Though who wouldn't be in a storm like this?
"Miera!" Her mother called from the front porch, "time to come inside!"
"But mom," Miera responded, "I still need to save my subjects from the evil puddle monsters!"
Her mother shook her head and played obeisance. "Then I guess I'll just have to eat these cookies all by myself, now won't I?"
A smile lit itself upon Miera's cheeks. Cookies! A rightful princess' favorite treasure! "Wait!" She screamed, suddenly sprinting to the door, "mommy, I'm coming!"
Along the way she found herself blocked by a wide pool of muddy water held behind her Daddy's white slug bug. Grinning, Miera ran faster, charging the unsuspecting leader of the mighty puddle fiends with her magical pink boots tight and ready.
Princess Miera! The leader called with it's grindingly bitter voice, we meet again!
Princess Miera grit her teeth and readied her leap, her legs pounded the road as she galloped like a horse leading the assault. But she dared not respond to him, this was her nemesis, his evil always made it hard for Daddy to get to work on time during the rain and now he was bound for defeat. And now there were cookies awaiting her arrival, and there was no way that she would let this beast keep her from such beauties.
Miera! The fiend called again, gaining a sense of worry and fear in his voice, What are you doing? You cannot expect to beat me this time!
Mr Thunder called out to aid Miera, and it was seconds before Mrs Lightning agreed to help as well, but this was it, this was the battle that Miera had been born for. She would save the streets from one more devilish puddle beast, by taking out the faction's leader with her allies at her back.
"Yaaaaaaaaahhhh!" She let her voice reach a crescendo as she lifted high into the sky, her arms reaching up like Superman's to carry her higher, and moved her feet to face the leader's head. She plummeted like a meteor, her mighty magical pink boots set and ready to hit the puddle leader where it mattered most.
And then she hit him, causing a great splash. And oh, how it was such a wonderful splash.
Nooooo! The fiend screamed as his body was sent out in waves as high as Miera was tall. Miera! How could you! My one weakness--MAGICAL PINK BOOTS!!
The princess hit the road at the bottom of the puddle beast's body, and the water reached back for her, rushing back to grab at her knees.
"No!" Miera screamed with fear. The boots should have worked, he had even shouted in his dying last words that her boots had killed it!
Yes!
"But how?!"
She darted for the safety of the sidewalk, struggling to reach it before the mystic maple leaves in the water could leech her power away. Her boots filled with the leader's liquid organs and he still came at her. The waves hit her then, reaching where her jacket armor wasn't able to protect from and soaked her shirt underneath. How had the puddle monster leader done this? How had her magical pink boots not worked?
Then it came to her as she reached the curb and jumped onto the part of the puddle that had overtaken the sidewalk: the fiend was even more powerful than she had thought. By the time she had reached the edges of the fiend's body as he recovered by mere magical wonder, the princess turned to face her foe. "No fair!" She screamed at him. "You can't use magic! It isn't fair!"
"Miera!" Her mother called again. "Are you still out there?"
Grumpily, Miera spun on her heels and darted across the flower garden, tracking muddy streaks onto the red brick walkway and toward the porch. "Mommy!" She cried, "Mommy the puddle monsters used magic!"
Her mother kneeled to catch her with a great royal hug on the wooden porch where an overhang of shingles and morning glories kept the rain at bay. Suddenly her mother pulled away and scowled. "Honey, you're soaked to the bone!"
Miera smiled, knowing that every drop was proof that she had valiantly fought off the beasts from taking over her kingdom--all except for their cheating leader. "But mommy it wasn't my fault!"
Her mother smirked with a curious glare, letting her sapphire eyes glint in the orange Porchlight glow. "Oh? And how," she tapped Miera's nose, sending the princess into fits of giggles, "might that be, little missy?"
Miera pulled away and pushed her lower lip out with a pouty face. "Well I was saving the kingdom from being flooded when I saw the leader trying to drown Daddy's slug bug! So I ran to attack it on the way back here and it didn't die by my boots!"
Her mother gasped, "no! It didn't die by your boots? But I thought they were magical!"
A great smile came upon Miera's face. "Mommy, they are! But the puddle monster used magic to fix it's boo-boo's!" Suddenly Miera's eyes went wide, "do you think that maybe my boots are out of magic?" She shook her head from side to side and found herself wanting to deny the possibility. "Maybe I defeated too many of the monsters and made my boots weaker against their leader!"
Her mother's arms wrapped themselves around Miera once more, and Miera was picked up into the sky as her mother stood up. "Well, then!" Her mother declared as she tossed her ponytail over her opposite shoulder, "I guess we're just going to need to have extra cookies to replenish your boot's magical power!"
Miera gaped. "Really?!" The valiant princess shook with giggles and cheerful excitement, kicking her dangling feet as she was carried into the kitchen. Her mother set her down at the table and reached to grab a steaming plate piled with nothing less than what must have been thousands of cookies! As she grabbed the largest of the pile, Miera began to rock back and forth in her seat, unable to hold in her glee.
"Cookies?!" Came a deep voice from behind Miera, "Now why didn't I hear about these?!"
Miera turned to see her daddy sitting on the sink counter with a white apron on over his business suit. "But Daddy, you silly," Miera laughed, "you made them!"
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