A Fairy Tale:

The Attack of the Wolfman

Chapter 1.

An old man stood at the door to the dungeon where a flustered yet still regal girl wept. "Presenting the Lord Caine; The lord of this castle." Ava could tell that this old man was truly young at heart from the way his voice echoed inside her jail cell. Suddenly a very dark looking man entered.

"So this is the girl you caught snooping around in the forest?" This Lord Caine's voice seemed prideful. He knelt down to look at her from eye level. (But this did not defeat his overcoming nature.) It still felt as if he was looking down, as he seemed to study her. "Funny, she doesn't look like a threat at all." He laughed and the very room seemed to laugh with him ( but maybe that was just his echo).

Ava could take no more of this! "The longer you keep me here the harder the punishment." She rose to her feet and shook the dust from her pants as if they were a ball gown. "My father will have your head for this." The remained very regal.

Lord Caine froze, but just for a moment. "And who is your father that he would pose any threat at all?"

"My father happens to be the king of the land, and he will rescue me."

The man seemed only slightly perturbed by this. "Then let him come. You can just wait for him here." He turned to leave the dark dungeon, but was stopped at the door by his servant. They whispered for the next moment or so.

" Master, you do not intend to let her stay here?" The Lord Caine must have really respected this servant for he dare not interrupt him. " She could be the one who will save you. We must let her out."

Caine looked as if he were studying the possibilities for a moment. Then he shook his head. " She would bring back her father's armies. I will not unleash those forces on my palace and my friends for a slight chance."

" You know I am a powerful sorceress. After all, show me a princess in this country's history that wasn't. I can escape rather easily on my own." Ava leaned towards the lord as if to tell him a secret. " I just wanted to warn you, that the palace might collapse in the process.

" What do you want me to do?" The old man asked.

" Keep her under close supervision. And for goodness sake, clean her up. And get her into one of the guest bedrooms. If her father comes, he shouldn't find a thing to complain about.

" When is he going to let me out?" Ava asked the housekeeper, Thora, for the third time in five minutes. Only this time the words brought up even more worries.

" I doubt if he has his way he ever will. And he does usually get his way. Now a young pretty girl like you shouldn't cry. Now what's wrong?" The elderly woman said hugging Ava in a motherly way and rocking back and forth slowly.

" What if my father dies when he finds out I've been captured/ I don't think he can handle any more heart-ache."

" Shh, now I'm sure that if your father is half as brave as you, he'll be fine." That same old male servant walked into the room. " Oh, Ava, this is my husband, Alban."

" I really hate to meet you under such circumstances, but the master has called a meeting down stairs. He requests that even you attend."

" Then we will be down in a minute. Come dry your tears and let's go see the master."

Ava climbed to her feet, sniffled back tears and calmly said, " I'm not going." Alban slowly stepped back to the staircase and repeated what she had said. A roar, not a human roar, erupted from below. And in a matter of seconds a red-brown wolf about six feet tall at the shoulder came running into the room. Ava was terrified. She took one-step back slowly, but the wolf mirrored the step. Instead of widening the gap his long stride narrowed it. " Get away!" she shouted as the wolf snarled. " What do you want?"

" I want you to come downstairs and obey me." The wolf was Caine! Lord Caine was a werewolf! This was truly Ava worst nightmare.

" I should have known a monster like you had to be a werewolf!"

" Just come downstairs and I won't have to rip your arm off."

Ava tried to hide her fear, but it was nearly impossible when she walked down the stairs followed by a huge wolf. When they got to the bottom, he separated from them and walked over to a chair sitting in front of a humungous fire. There he changed back into a man who seemed to be in a bit of pain for a moment. He sat in the chair and looked out on his staff. Ava felt completely out of place.

" Now the topic of own meeting is out guest's horse. She has given the stable workers some trouble I believe?" The stable crew nodded. " So this is what I want to be done with her: I want her to be worked until sweaty, then to be smeared with mud. And then to he readied at the gate. She will have a whip slapped on her hindquarters and be sent off in the direction of the palace at the fastest gallop she can muster." He looked right into Ava's eyes as he finished. " Just imagine, the king will probable have a heart attach when he sees her."

" No! You cannot do this!" Ava yelled as loud as she could. He could threaten her life. He could make a complete fool out of her. But he could not kill her father!

" I can do whatever I want." He walked over and glare right into her face. " And you are my prisoner."