A ray of light from the rising sun shined through a window
and bathed Prince Charming’s face – still handsome
save for a knot and bruise on his head – awakening him. Squinting his eyes
from the sunlight which only intensified the throbbing within his cranium, he
groaned and pushed himself upward until he was on his hands and knees. Even his jaw and hair hurt.
A great rumbling sound from beside him caused him to swing
his head to the side and tense, especially when he saw himself staring at the
side of the head of the pinned dragon which still lay several yards away, but
then he realized that her eyes were still closed and the sound was of her
snoring as she slept.
Then when Charming turned his head forward again he saw his
helmet sitting a few feet in front of him.
Pinned within its visor was a parchment bearing some sort of writing. As his head
cleared and he recalled his last few moments of consciousness, a sense of dread
overtook him as he stared at the note.
He hesitated a moment longer, then rose to his feet, took the couple of
steps to the helmet, and then reached down and plucked the parchment from the
visor. He unfurled it, stepped into the
sunlight, and read the elegant cursive script:
Kind Sir:
I wish to beg thy forgiveness. Upon reflection, I understand that thou wast only seeking to fulfill the wishes of thy king. Although I understand not the reasons, as a
subject of the realm I yield to the decree of one with responsibilities and
rights greater than mine. But in good
conscience, I cannot allow thou to endanger thy mortal soul through the
execution of thy dark commission.
Thusly, I am returning to my tower room, from whence I shall hurl myself
into the boiling moat below, praying that God shall take pity on my obedience
to the will of one who rules by His Divine right and shall allow the few
moments of fiery agony in this world to suffice and spare me such torment in
the world beyond.
Fare thee well, my Prince.
The note was signed ‘Fiona’ with a little heart dotting
the ‘i’, a touch which seemed incongruous since the
note itself was written in blood.
“Blast!” Charming spat. The vile Rumpelstiltskin had demanded that he
return with Fiona’s head as proof that he had completed his assignment. Charming had recoiled at the crudity,
indignity, and…messiness of the task. Yet
if he failed, his mother was as good as dead herself. But if Fiona dived into
that lava…
Perhaps it wasn’t too late. Perhaps the princess was hesitating. It was only human nature. And with the sunrise, Fiona was human
again. “Fiona, if you can hear me, wait!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the
castle. “You needn’t do this! You needn’t die! I…have another idea! Please wait for me!”
The dragon stirred slightly at the annoying sound, then
fell back asleep. Charming scanned the
floor for a moment, saw his dagger – covered in sticky drying blood – then
seized it and bounded toward the tower.
“Fiona, please wait!” he cried again.
Charming had just started rushing across the short stone
bridge spanning the inlet that led to Fiona’s tower when he heard, from high
above, a scream. He looked up to see a
green-clad figure falling from the tower.
“Oh, no,” he said in helpless frustration as he watched the figure
plummet downward and eventually plop with a dull thud into the midst of the
lava many yards away. The green felt
dress immediately burst into flame, and a few moments later whatever was left
was sucked into the bubbling molten brew.
Charming walked to the last standing remains of the stone
railing that had once spanned the side of the bridge, looked at the spot where
the figure had disappeared, and then pounded the fist that held the dagger on
the railing. “Blast!” he said. “Selfish wench!”
Charming tried to think.
Obviously Fiona’s body could not be recovered. So what to do when he returned to Far Far Away and confronted Rumpelstiltskin? He could tell the truth…an option he found
immediately revolting, given what had happened when he tried to dispatch
her. But as he continued pondering his
options his eyes drifted to the dagger – whose blade still bore her blood. And he still had the lock of her red hair. With their otherworldly powers, perhaps the
imp or his witches could tell that the blood and hair were indeed hers. If so, then perhaps Charming could tell…a version of the truth, using those items
to back him up. At any rate, he would
have to try. Fiona had left no
reasonable – or at least palatable – alternatives.
He stared into the boiling inlet again. “May your soul also be burning now for all
the trouble you’re putting me through,” he said, sneering. Then he turned and strode back into the
castle.
As Charming disappeared into the keep, the beautiful human
face of Princess Fiona, who had been carefully peeking down at his small
faraway figure from her bedroom window, broke into a sad sardonic smile.
Shortly after sealing her wound, as she looked down upon Charming’s prostrate form, Fiona had realized she was in a
quandary. The king wanted her dead. Although she had incapacitated his agent, the
price was surely still on her head, and once the prince awoke, he would
doubtlessly seek to fulfill his bloody mission.
But what could she do to prevent that?
Try to talk him out of it? The
scoundrel had already proved conniving and deceitful; even if he gave his word
not to harm her, how could she trust him?
Rhetorical question, that, she realized; obviously she couldn’t. Perhaps she could tie him up, but that would
be forestalling the inevitable; he’d eventually free himself or someone else
would arrive and free him, and then he or they would doubtlessly pursue her. She supposed she could…kill him. Despite what he had done to her, her stomach
twisted at the thought. If she couldn’t
bring herself to kill a dragon in cold blood, how could she do so to a fellow
human being? Well, to a human being, she
through wryly, remembering her current form.
But even if she did the gruesome act, someone else was likely to simply
take his place in hunting her down until the king’s vile wish was
fulfilled. No, she realized in despair,
the only way that she would be free was when she was dead.
Or if the king thought
she was dead.
Fiona wasn’t sure where that stray thought had come from –
perhaps from one of her stories, or perhaps her instinct for self-preservation
was driving her thinking process to venture into more devious territory – but
once she had the thought she clung to it, and began to develop it. Several minutes of pondering and scheming
later, she had concocted a plan: a plan whose most delicious aspect was that
Charming, the intended vehicle of her destruction, would serve as her savior
after all, after a fashion.
She set about her preparations. First, she needed to write the note for
Charming to find. She knew she had quill
and parchment back in her room, but she didn’t want to have to make that long
walk back to her tower more than once, what with the pain that gnawed at her
side with each step. So she searched
about the lower floor of the castle for writing tools, and eventually found a
writing nook that contained parchments and quills. Unfortunately, she found to her frustration
that the ink well had dried up. Then an
idea struck her – morbid, but somehow appropriate, considering her
situation. It would make for a literally
grim touch to her own revised fairytale; but then, she had read a number of
dark fairytales, such as ‘The Seven Ravens’, where a young girl had to chop off
one of her fingers to use as a key, or ‘The Juniper Tree’, where an evil
stepmother decapitated her stepson and then cooked him into a stew. Fiona sneered. Even tales such as these were somehow twisted
into happy endings. She simply couldn’t
imagine how her own predicament could possibly end ‘happily’. Right now, a ‘happy’ ending would simply mean
she survived. My, she thought cynically,
how her expectations had lowered. Still, she had to play the cards dealt
her. She took a quill and parchment,
returned to spot where she had earlier noticed her blood forming a pool, dipped
the quill in, and began penning her sanguinary note, making sure to include the
proper flourishes expected of a naďve, innocent, obedient princess. Once she had finished, she read it over, her
mouth again distorting into an involuntary sneer. The sappy cadences certainly sounded like the
meek, starry-eyed maiden that she had imagined herself to be, so wanted to be, so recently before, right
down to dotting the ‘i’ in her signature with a
little heart.
Fiona retrieved Charming’s
helmet and laid it near his head, carefully pinning the drying parchment in its
visor so he would see it upon wakening.
As she checked her handiwork, she heard a moan, and saw Charming
starting to stir. That simply wouldn’t
do; she wasn’t nearly ready. With coldness
that she wouldn’t have imagined herself capable of a few hours before, Fiona
reached down and lifted Charming’s head up by his
hair with her left hand. “Not yet,
Sleeping Beauty,” she muttered, and pelted him with a right cross, sending him
back into deeper unconsciousness. She
then casually let go of his hair and let his head plop back down onto the
floor.
Fiona then found a satchel and waterskin
and headed back to her tower room – the room that she thought she would never
see again. The wound in her side
protested each step up each stair, at first dully, but by the time she entered
her room she had to stop for a while, leaning against the doorframe to wait for
the pain to recede. Eventually it did –
only to be replaced by a new, brief, all-encompassing pain as dawn broke and
her body was again rearranged into its smaller human form. Fiona looked down to see that her dress, as
usual, had shrunken with her frame – but one side was still bloody, and she
still had a cauterized wound. She had
half-hoped the transformation would eliminate that, but found that was yet
another forlorn hope. At least the pain
from the wound had decreased to where she could move about again.
Fiona cast the satchel and waterskin
aside and wandered over to her reading corner.
There she picked up the doll. She
looked into its artificial face and sadly smiled. Just yesterday she had been able to project
her imagination into the doll, making it into her companion and sit-in
offspring. Now, though, as she stared at
it all she saw was cloth and yarn – and a tool to help realize her scheme.
“Sorry, Felicia,” Fiona said. “It’s time for you to grow up.”
Fiona disassembled the doll, and then removed her own
blood-stained dress, leaving herself in her undergarments. She used parts from the doll and the dress to
construct a dummy of about her own human size.
When she found she needed additional stuffing, her eyes fell on Mr.
Fluffy. Sighing, Fiona said, “Sorry, but
I need you too, kitty,” and soon Mr. Fluffy had been integrated into the
dummy’s torso. She also added a few of
the stones on the floor from where she had fallen through the ceiling so that
when the dummy fell it would be less likely to be blown off its course from the
lava-filled inlet by any unfortunate gusts, like that wayward slipper.
Fiona placed the dummy by the window, then turned back to
look upon her room. Her eyes fell upon
her bookcase. Silly children’s stories
and useless doggerel, she realized now. Seized
suddenly by a dark whim, she walked over to the bookcase, picked up an armful,
headed to her window – hesitated just a moment longer – and then tossed them
out. They fell, some of the bindings and
pages fluttering like birds trying to take flight. Some smashed amidst the courtyard below, the
rest fell into the lava. The effort had
caused renewed pain in Fiona’s side, and a heavier pain in her heart. But she felt oddly compelled now, and
returned to the bookshelf again and again until all the books had been tossed
out the window – and her eyes were brimming with tears.
Fiona wiped her tears away and took watch at the window,
keeping her eyes peeled now for Charming’s form to
appear at the far end of the stone bridge that joined her tower to the rest of
the castle. She mentally kicked herself,
realizing that she should have been doing this before instead of allowing her
emotions to distract her into the book tossing.
Fortunately, Charming was
apparently still unconscious. That was one bit of luck, anyway. Fiona wryly figured that she was due.
After a while, Fiona thought she heard his voice calling
her name. She wasn’t sure exactly what
he said, it was so distant. She silently
cursed her inferior human hearing. But
then she saw his faraway figure appear on the bridge. She quickly sucked in a lungful of air and
screamed as loudly as she could as she picked up the dummy beside her. Charming froze about half-way across the
bridge, and Fiona threw the dummy out of the window with all the strength that
she could muster so that it would fall far enough away from the tower so as to
land in the lava. With the effort,
Fiona’s wound sent a searing pain through her side, and she turned and nearly
collapsed against the wall, having to reach up and bite a finger, nearly
drawing blood, to keep from releasing a real scream. She then reached down and felt her side. Fortunately, the bleeding had not resumed.
Fiona carefully made her way back to the window and peeked
out, gasping while waiting for the pain to recede again – hoping it would recede again.
She watched Charming looking out where the dummy had disappeared. She silently prayed for him to take the bait,
and not resume his trek into the tower.
To her great relief, he eventually turned and strode back into the
castle. A while after that, she saw him
make his way back across the rope bridge, untie his horse, and ride away toward
the northwest, in the direction of Far Far Away. Her kingdom. Her former kingdom. At
the latter thought, Fiona reached up and took off her tiara. She examined the jeweled headpiece for a
while, turning it over in her hands.
Then she shook her head sadly, smirked, and tossed the symbol of her
royalty onto her bed.
She waited another hour.
Her side felt better. Although
not particularly hungry, Fiona forced herself to eat breakfast and drink. She would need the energy. She would like to have rested longer, but
didn’t feel comfortable staying.
Charming might change his mind and return, or the dragon might free
herself. She packed some of the elvin bread into the satchel, filled the waterskin, and then carefully made her way down the stairs
and into the castle. The dragon was
still asleep. Fiona wondered if it might
have entered into some sort of hibernation, and if so, how long would it last? Months? Years, maybe? Decades? Who knew? She could only hope.
Fiona scrounged and scavenged until she had found a suit
of chain mail as light as possible that was about her size, a loose-fitting
white surcoat adorned with a red Saint George’s cross
to go over it, leggings, and a domed Norman helmet with a hanging nosepiece
which helped obscure her feminine features.
She undid the remains of her ponytail and then donned her new apparel
along with another baldric and sword.
Almost as an afterthought, she also added a knife which she strapped to
her ankle. She even found a pair of
metal sabatons that she fashioned so that they
covered the tops of her slippers while allowing her to walk in them comfortably. She expected to be dong much walking. She also figured that there might be robbers
and other possibly dangerous individuals that she could encounter on her
journey, and it would be better if they thought she was a wandering knight or
soldier than a lone, ‘helpless’ maiden.
Fiona then found her way to the dragon’s treasure
room. There she filled another satchel
with as many gold coins as she could comfortably carry.
Thus prepared, Fiona walked out of the castle and made her
way across the rickety rope bridge above the lake of lava. At the far end, she turned and took one long last
look at her ‘home’ for the past many years.
Then she turned away and began heading southeast, away from the land of
her parents and toward…she knew not what.
She had not planned to be an adventuress, but it seemed that role had
now been thrust upon her, and she would have to make the best of it. Perhaps she could find a different man…a good man…who could still break the
curse. Fiona sneered. Don’t
stop believing, eh, Princess? she thought. But why not? She had her freedom now, but was finding that
in her case it was just another word for nothing left to lose. To top it all off, a light drizzle
started. She barked a harsh laugh.
As Fiona began on her journey, an old song that she had
heard many years before began playing in her mind, to new lyrics that came
unbidden there:
Listen, people, to a story
Began many years ago
Of a princess in a castle
Set above a volcano
She was trapped, locked in a tower
Beset by a beast of dread
Waiting years for a brave man who’d
Rescue her and then they’d wed
Go ahead and dream, Fiona
Go ahead and make a plan
Believe in the feats of heroes
Believe in the good of man
But there won’t be anyone, Your Highness
To save you this day
Abandoned, bloody, and betrayed…
One cursed princess walks away