"They certainly would? Therandil said indignantly. "What do you mean by playing these kinds of tricks? Don't you want to be rescued?"
"No," said Cimorene, losing her patience at last, "I don't. And I'm tired of having my work constantly interrupted. So please go away, and don't come back."
"You can't possibly mean that," Therandil said. "Besides, everyone expects me to rescue you."
"That's your problem," Cimorene told him. "I'm going to go fix dinner.
Good-bye." Before he could say anything else, she turned and ducked back into the cave, hoping the prince wouldn't follow.
3
In Which Cimorene Meets a Witch and Has Doubts about a Wizard
Therandil left, but he came back again the next day, and the day after that. It got so that Cimorene could not even step outside the cave without running into him. She might have been flattered if it hadn't been so obvious that Therandil was only worried about how foolish he'd look if he went home without fighting the dragon. On his fifth visit Cimorene was very sharp with him, and when he had not returned by midafternoon of the next day, she began to hope that he had finally left for good.
Cimorene was in the kitchen taking the pits out of cherries when she heard someone knocking at the mouth of the cave.
"Go away," she shouted in complete exasperation. "I've told you and told you, I don't want to be rescued, and I'm not going to argue with you any more!"
"I didn't come here to argue," said a no-nonsense female voice from outside. "I came to meet the person who keeps borrowing my crepe pan.
It's not something there's normally much call for."
"Oh, dear," said Cimorene. She wiped her hands hastily on a corner of her apron and hurried out to greet her visitor. "I'm sorry," she said, coming around the gray rock at the cave mouth. "But I've been having a problem with knights lately, and I thought-" She stopped short as she got a good look at her caller for the first time.