Ch 10. Princess Distress

John walked into the waiting room of his office with his usual bagels under his arm as well as the special for Andressa. He had a large bag of books held by looping his arm through the handle that was beginning to dig in rather painfully so he placed everything down gently and handed the pastry bags to Andressa.

“Thanks,” she said, opening it and peering inside. “Oh, cinnamon buns this time. In the shape of bunnies too.” She looked at John. “Are you sure this woman isn’t in love with you?”

John laughed; it was a solid attempt from her to supplement her breakfast. “Hilda is in love with everyone. You can taste it.”

She carefully extracted one of the buns and took a large bite of bunny ears before carefully removing some frosting from her mouth with the side of her thumb.

“Good?”

She nodded. “Excellent as always. If you’d listed free baked goods on your want ad I would’ve had far more competition for this job.”

“Well, I didn’t realize I would be doing it every day. Until I was.” He started moving toward his office door so that he could start his coffee and have his own breakfast.

“What’s this?” said Andressa reaching into his bag and pulling out a book.

“Bedded by the Beast,” she looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly the type of book I expected you to read, but to each their own I suppose.”

John blushed a bit, and her own shade of red brightened in response.

“Those are for a friend actually. I borrowed them from Mia at the bakery.”

“Really?” she asked, putting the book back in the bag and grabbing another. “You don’t want to read Imprisoned by the Drake Prince?”

“Well, that one I might give a try,” said John trying to rally a bit as he took the bag.

“I’ll be very sure to knock before going into your office then,” she replied, smiling at him as she brightened yet another shade.

He sighed. “You’re lucky you’re so good at this so far.”

“So are you.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but stopped. “True.”

…

John was just finishing his breakfast when he heard the door to the waiting room open and his first clients of the day enter. He brushed some of the bagel crumbs off of his desk and skimmed his notes again. Princess Sabatha and Prince Rodrick, they were having relationship problems. He nodded as he pushed himself up from his desk, after having so recently done counseling for five people at once he was fairly certain that having only a regular couple to work with would feel like light work.

He walked out to see a woman sitting on the couch. She was blonde and skinny with long hair, and wearing a pink dress covered in intricate beading. She was objectively beautiful, especially by the standards he’d come from back home, though not exactly his type. On the other side of the room was a man wearing a fine blue and gold doublet with curly dark brown hair, a comically strong chin, and piercing blue eyes. He had a sword buckled to his waist and was searching nervously around the room.

“Hello, Sabatha and Rodrick right? Is everything okay?”

Rodrick turned to look at him, glancing up and down. “Okay, good. I was worried that you were going to be some kind of ogre king in disguise or something.”

“Excuse me?” asked John.

“I told you darling, I’m taking this seriously,” said the princess to her husband.

He sighed and his shoulders fell a little. “I’m sorry my love; I guess you are.”

John nodded. “It seems we have a lot to talk about. Why don’t you both go ahead and step into my office?”

They nodded and he held the door as they went inside. He offered them the usual tea and made some light smalltalk until he settled into his own chair.

“So, I was told that you’ve been having problems with intimacy?”

“I think our intimacy is great,” said the princess with a smile.

The Prince sighed so strongly it became a groan.

“I’m guessing you’re of a different opinion?”

“I mean, we’re intimate regularly, but her… tastes are becoming a problem.”

John raised an eyebrow and looked at Sabatha.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said innocently. John was growing relatively certain that she wasn’t going to give him a straight answer, so he turned his focus to Rodrick.

“Since she doesn’t seem to agree, why don’t you tell me what the issue is for you?”

“She won't stop getting kidnapped.”

“Excuse me?” asked John, looking back at the princess to see her wearing a small smile.

“The first time we met I was saving her from a dragon,” said Rodrick. “It was the end of a very long quest and she… rewarded me quite vigorously.”

John nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“After that we were wed and for nearly a year we were very happy, at least I thought so. After that she was kidnapped by a demon that dragged her down to hell. I was forced to fight my way through legions of the damned to get to her. As with the first time, she was very forceful with her gratitude.”

“Ah,” said John, starting to get the picture.

“Since then it’s been more and more frequent. She’ll be kidnapped by a neighboring kingdom, or scooped up by a minotaur and dragged to his labyrinth, or even gifted to another man by a god from a pantheon I’ve never even heard of.” He looked at her pleadingly. “I. Am. Tired.”

She was silent and John looked at her. “Your husband is being very honest about how you’re making him feel. Do you have anything to say to him?”

She shrugged. “It’s not like I’m trying to get kidnapped. It’s just an unfortunate accident.” She looked at him. “Besides, it’s not as if you don’t also enjoy it when it does happen. You get to barge in and swing that big sword of yours, find me with my dress torn and my hair all disheveled.”

The prince had been having a sip of tea and coughed a bit.

“Well… obviously I enjoy parts of it, but not every week, hells even every month is just too much. We’re never home anymore. I’d like to be able to sit at a dinner table and not wonder if a witch is going to barge in, shrink you, place you in a jar, and fly away.”

John nodded along as they spoke. “It seems to me that what the two of you need to do is have an open conversation. You need to talk about what your limits are, and maybe even experiment with a little less…adventurous roleplaying of some kind every once in a while. Let’s start by-”

The office suddenly started shaking.

“What the hell,” said John, barely managing to catch a mug before it clattered to the ground.

The shaking got more intense and a large crack tore through the center of the floor in the office, green flames bursting from them and licking the ceiling.

John ducked behind his desk, and when the flames ended he peeked over it to see a massive figure in a black cloak threaded with gold. His head was a skull, and he held in one hand a tremendous gold staff covered in carved snakes. In his other hand was the Princess, her hand dramatically over her forehead as if she’d fainted.

“Dammit Sabatha, you told me you’d take this seriously,” yelled Rodrick over the flames, drawing his sword from his hip.

“Foolish mortals!” screamed the flaming skull. “I, Ictharius of the black pages, shall be taking this woman’s soul to join me in the realm of eternal dark! You shall never see her again, and if you dare come after her, it shall be your death!” The skeleton laughed as it fell back into the crack below him and Rodrick’s sword hit nothing but air as he landed, the crack having sealed along with whatever portal had come with it.

He took one hand off the hilt of his blade and rubbed it across his face groaning loudly.

“My love, I swear on my life that I will free you from the lich lord’s infernal realm and bring you back into my arms,” he said the words with almost resignation.

John very carefully stood up from his desk and walked back around taking in the damage to his office and sighing. He looked at Rodrick.

“You know, you could let her stew for a while. May help her to at least start speaking with you honestly about things.”

Rodrick looked at the ground, biting his lip a bit. “I uh.. Don’t want to miss out.”

“That good, huh?” asked John.

The Prince nodded. “Unfortunately.”

John sighed. “Well, I wish you the best of luck. Please make another appointment though. There’s no way this is healthy in the long run.”

The Prince nodded and ran out through the waiting room.

John went over to his desk and opened a low wide drawer. He pulled out a jar with a number of floating motes of light, shook it, and when the motes were dazed he opened it and pulled out a single one of them.

“Please clean up this mess, after that you’re free.”

The mote of light turned green to give the affirmative and started working right away, beginning with the crack on the ground which swiftly began to seal. This wasn’t the first time his office had gotten trashed and it wouldn’t be the last.

He walked out into the waiting room, where Andressa was writing something down in her planner.

“I don’t think the office is up to any more clients for right now, could you-?”

“I already pushed back all of your remaining appointments by an hour. Fizzick cancelled though, had too tight of a schedule.”

“That gives us a free hour. Lunch?”

“How about the goblin shish kabob place that just opened up the road? They have all new servers and I have a very complicated order I’ve been meaning to stress them out with.”

John sighed. “Unfortunately for them, shish kabobs sound perfect to me right now. Let’s go.”