Prince charming's Arc

Chapter 2 of 30

The next morning, Prince Charming stood at the base of the mountain and looked up. The path was a thin scar cut into the rock, steep enough that loose stones slid down when he set his boot on the first ledge. Above, the cliff bulged outward. He could see where the trail thinned to nothing and where a fall would drop a man onto broken stone with no way back. He carried a satchel of dried apples and a fresh wheel of cheese, wrapped for the dragon. He climbed twenty paces. The path narrowed. He pressed his palm to the rock and tried the next ledge. His boot skidded. A handful of gravel rushed past his knee and clattered down the slope for a long time before it stopped. He held still. He counted his breaths. He understood he could not reach the top this way. If he fell, no one would come. He backed down, one careful step at a time, until his feet found flat ground. He sat on a boulder and watched the ridge. The dragon rose from behind the peak, wings wide, red membrane bright against the sky. It circled once and settled on an outcrop where he could see it plainly. Its horns curved back from a heavy brow. Its scales caught the sun in layered plates. It did not dive at him. It did not roar. It watched, the way he had watched it through the spyglass for months. He set the cheese and the dried apples on the flat top of the boulder. He stepped back the same six paces he had used at the forest's edge. Then he sat on the ground and waited. The dragon did not come. An hour passed. The wind changed. Prince Charming stood, left the food where it lay, and walked home. He had failed to climb. He had learned two things instead. The mountain would not let him walk up to the dragon. And the dragon, for now, would not come down to him. If he wanted to close that distance, he would need someone the sky already trusted to carry his offering the rest of the way.