Princess Arianna scoffed and was about to have the old madman dragged away and flogged when he suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke. At that moment the doors to the audience chamber flew open.
"Daughter, I heard that you were attending the Noble Wizard --..." the king's words trailed off as he saw no one but the coughing Princess and her guards in the slightly hazy chamber. "Where is he?"
"That charlatan ran off somewhere!" Arianna snorted. "Just wait until the guards find him."
"Daughter, you could not have! Do you not know--" the king stared aghast at the daughter he usually pampered, but was cut off.
"I shall return to my quarters!' Arianna interrupted, irritated that her father would lecture her over some doddering old fool. Sweeping her expensive dress along, she completely forgot about the wizard's words--and his curse.
After an appropriately luxurious meal and bath, Arianna lay down comfortably in her enormous bed and fell into a deep sleep.
Arianna squinted her bleary eyes. She must have pulled the covers over her head during the night, as all she saw was the weave of the fabric in the dim morning light. Reaching up, she tried to pull it down, but she could not find the edge of the sheet. Crawling upward, after what seemed like a rather enormous effort, she poked her head out of the sheet. However, something was strange. Everything looked...huge. Not that everything in her room was normal-sized; it wasn't. A princess like her should have everything larger and grander than everyone else, shouldn't she?
However, Arianna blinked, and blinked again at the fact that her pillows were the size of carriages, and if so her room.... Arianna could not make sense of what was going on, so raised her hand to rub her eyes, but instead of her silky-soft skin and manicured nails, something pink with little claws reached up...and those white things, were they whiskers? And looking down...fur?? By the time Arianna saw her tail, she could not help but let out a loud squeak.