Eric was riding on his white Arabian stallion through the village of the kingdom. His hair and his clothes were blowing in the wind. The horse's mane and tail were a bright gold. The horse snorted and galloped down the streets.

          Eric's eyes were a bright blue and his hair was a reddish brown color. He laughed with joy as the wind blew in his face. But then he heard shouting. The guards were shouting at Eric. "Come on, Snow, faster!" the prince said to his horse.

         Snow neighed softly. He soon galloped faster away from the guards. But Eric was determined to escape.

"Stop, Prince Eric!" The leader of the guards, Sir Robert, yelled from behind. He was riding on his Arabian mare and getting closer to them. The gates were wide open for Eric to ride through. But Sir Robert shouted at the men at the gates, "CLOSE THOSE GATES NOW!" And they did.

          Eric quickly turned his horse around. "Oh come on... we were so close." He pulled the reins back and Snow slid to a stop. He got off Snow and patted his head. The horse was led to his stable by a farm boy.

"For the tenth time, Eric. You have to do your work. Ride later. If you keep doing this, you won't ride for a week. You don't even act like a prince." Sir Robert said. His brow furrowed. "And I mean a whole week."

         "You can't stop me, you aren't my mother! So you can't tell me what to do, idiot!" Eric shouted.

        "How dare you call me an idiot! You should be ashamed of yourself. If I was your mother, I would kick you out! You are the most stubborn, hot-headed, reckless---"

       "That's quite enough!" The queen stood at the entrance to the castle tower. "Prince Eric, come here."

Eric stayed where he was.

        "Come here. NOW." She said losing her patience.

      Eric approached his mother bowing his head with an ashamed look on his face.

"You're grounded for two weeks." She said holding her head high.

        "But---" Eric started.

     "Get inside. Now." The queen said. Eric frowned and walked into the castle and glanced behind him and noticed Sir Robert smirking at him.

What a morning.  

Queen Rynia was furious with her son. She sat him down in a chair inside the great hall. Eric looked around. "Where are the guests that were supposed to come?"

       "They already came. Now they're gone. They wanted to meet you. But since you have no respect for our guards, I simply told them that you were 'absent' at the moment." Rynia told him.

       "But that's not fair!" Eric shouted. The queen paced back and forth. She stopped.

       "Look, I know you don't want to be a prince and I know that you want to have fun, but you need to earn spending time by yourself or with friends by doing your work." she sighed.

       Eric nodded slowly but kept his head down. A tear came down his right cheek and dropped to the floor. He closed his eyes and more tears came down. "I'm sorry, mother..." he sobbed. The queen knelt down to him and hugged him.

"I'm sorry, too."

   Eric looked up at her. "Do you still love me?"

         "Of course I do! What made you think I don't?" Eric wiped his tears with his sleeve.

"I just thought of the times I was mean to you and I wasn't listening. But a few nights ago, I saw you crying... I thought of the mean things I said and I wanted to apologize but I felt too ashamed to even try. So I'm sorry for... everything... even my life---"

        Rynia stopped him with a finger to his lips. "Don't you dare say that! I love you no matter what! Your life matters. You matter. I love you my son. Don't you forget it!"

      Eric smiled with tears still streaming down. "I love you, too. I'll make you happy. I'll make everything better."

And with that, he kissed his mother on her cheek and ran up to his room.

Eric closed the door behind him and smiled. His bed wasn't made yet. Some clothes from his dresser were on the floor. He smiled and laughed to himself.

He thought of how he could plan out his days and what he could do. So, he picked up all the clothes that were lying on the floor and put the dirty ones in his laundry basket.

        Then for the clean ones he folded them nicely and put them back in his dresser. He made sure his room was clean.

He made his bed and right as he finished, Rosalyn came in. "Who cleaned your room?"

     "Me." he said.

      "You? Well, you didn't have to do that you know. But thank you."

      "I'm sorry about running off. I won't do that anymore. I'll try to make everyone happy." Eric said smiling.

Rosalyn smiled. "I came in to tell you that your sister is coming to stay here for a while."

      "Is something wrong?" Eric asked her.

The maid looked sad. "Well, Emmay's kingdom was destroyed. Something is after her so we must keep her safe."

         There was a long pause until Eric said, "What destroyed the kingdom?"

"A basilisk. A very large one in fact. It was created by a dark sorcerer. You should never trust sorcerers of any sort. Not even the forest wizard of the east. All that I know is that, that basilisk said to be as long as a full grown hump-back whale. This basilisk was said to be the fastest creature on land. It can only be killed by a dragon. Dragons will rarely hunt these horrid beasts because of the giant snake's power and strength."

       Eric sighed If only dragons were nice. Then one could save mankind from this snake. Wait.... Eric realized something. His father gave him his sword. The markings on the sword were in Elven language. And the blade had a design of a dragon and a rider.

       Ever since his father's death, people hated dragons. Maybe the Black Dragon wasn't bad. Maybe It wasn't the dragon's fault. What does this mean? Eric thought.

      "Eric? Did you hear my words?" Eric snapped out of thinking and payed attention to Rosalyn. He nodded. 

~o0o~

          Later that night, Emmay came to the castle. Eric was already in his room sitting on his bed. He couldn't stop thinking about the dragons. Why did this all come to him now? There had to be a reason. He got up from his bed and went over to his father's sword that was hanging on the wall.

         He looked closely at the markings and design. He turned to the door that led him to the great hall and out of the castle.

       "What have we erased from history? Everything we know about dragons is right. Or is it?" He looked back at his father's sword.

"What is the truth?"