Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
I get dressed in britches and a shirt, not to mention a tunic and belt with leather boots. These are practical pieces of clothing. I tie my hair up and out of the way and put it under a tricorn hat. My ensemble at this point could be considered a little piratey, I suppose, but it’s what works.
Dragonslayer comes with me, of course, strapped to the sheath on my back. The blade is far too long to hang from my waist, and it would be so heavy weighing down just one side I think it would make me lopsided even if I was tall enough to carry it that way.
I leave the castle on foot, and step out into the dark realm left in the wake of our less than successful wedding. Fascinating, how not being married left everything seeming pleasant enough, but the second our wedding was ruined, the realm became unspeakably gothic.
There are wild dogs tearing at the carcass of something as I walk down the village streets, cobbles flecked and perhaps even stained with the blood of the innocent. I see villagers poking their faces out at me through narrow gaps in hammered down shutters. They, like Whiskerton, appear to have undergone feral transformation. I wish I understood the mechanics of this world, but I suppose I’ve never really understood the mechanics of any world. I never knew how a computer worked, how do I expect to know how a feral mouse man works?
A dark figure is standing at the gate leading from the village out into the Ever After. He is old, or has very bad posture, I can tell that much from a distance. As I draw closer, I see a long purple beard, and when the creature lifts his head, I see slitted golden eyes and scaled green skin. He is old. And he is powerful. Dragonslayer starts to hum on my back. I don’t know if it is out of desire to kill the alien, or because like recognizes like. It is hard to develop a decent conversational style with a sword.
“And who,” he says, as if he has the right to just start talking to people in what I am going to call a straight-up imperious tone, “are you?”
My first instinct is to say Emma, but that is not my name here, and something about the way he speaks to me, the particular curl of his upper lip, the suspicious narrowing of his eyes, and most of all, the sneer around his nose, makes me use the title Charming gave me.
“I am Princess Emmaline,” I say. Dragonslayer throbs. I think it liked that.
“You are no princess,” he laughs. “And you are not of the Ever After.”
“You’re incredibly rude,” I reply, because apparently this is going to be an antagonistic conversation with someone who is not paying attention to the fact I have a very large throbbing sword on my back.
“I am Balthazar,” he says, as if the name should mean something to me.
“Alright. Bye, Balthazar.”
“Where are you going?”
“None of your business,” I say, replying with all the politeness due someone who thinks waylaying people and being a dick to them deserves.
“Wait, princess,” he says. “I apologize. It has been some time since I spoke with any intelligent creature from another world. I forget myself.”
“M’kay, have a nice day!”
I keep walking, because I have plenty of experience being accosted by people who want to have conversations I’m not interested in having, and I know the secret to getting out of them is to just keep moving.
“Princess!” He says my name again, though this time it is sharper, and with a great deal more censure. “You show great disrespect.”
I flash the peace sign over my shoulder and keep walking.
Next thing I know, my feet are no longer touching the ground. I have been lifted up bodily, though not by anyone’s hands. I am floating, levitating, whatever the heck you want to call it. Gravity has suddenly abandoned me.
“If you would do me the kindness of speaking with an old man,” Balthazar says, turning me about in midair with a casual gesture of his clawed hand.
I would have been thoroughly freaked out by this several weeks ago, but by now I am used to powerful, magical things happening to me. I will say, however, there is a very real vulnerability in finding oneself dangling midair. Hard to defend against anything and utterly impossible to retreat, or attack for that matter. Dragonslayer can’t do anything from up here, a good four feet off the ground. I suppose I could try throwing it, but… no. I don’t think it would like that.
“King Charming attempted to marry you,” he says. “Now, of course, we both know that can’t happen.”
“We do?”
“You know you’re not really a princess,” he says. “You know what you are. I see it clearly, and surely you must know it too.”