Prince charming's Arc

Chapter 4 of 30

By morning the black scale sat on the table beside the empty satchel, and the flock was gone. Prince Charming walked to the flat stones and scattered a fresh handful of seed. No wings came. He whistled the low note that had drawn them before. Nothing moved in the trees. He walked deeper into the forest and found a single blue feather caught on a bramble, but no bird to answer it. The jewel flock had scattered, and without them he had no way to send the dragon anything at all. He stood with the scale warm in his pocket and the mountain waiting above the treeline, and he understood that the first courier had been a gift he did not know how to repeat. He went back to the stones and sat until the sun was high. A shadow fell across the seed, and he looked up to see a young woman on the path from the road, a princess by her dress and the small crown in her hair. She was picking her way toward his house in slippers not made for the forest floor. She stopped when she saw him and said her name was Princess Elara Rosemary, and she had come because she had heard he was trying to speak to the dragon. She held out her hand. In her palm sat a diamond earring, one of a pair, the stones cut small and bright. She said the jewel birds had followed her carriage that morning and would not leave the horses alone; they wanted the shine. If he hung the earring where they could see it, she said, they would come back for it, and one of them would carry it up the mountain for him. Prince Charming took the earring. He thanked her plainly. He climbed onto the flat stone and tied the earring to a low branch with a strip of thread. Within an hour the flock returned, quiet and greedy, and settled on the branch around the small bright thing. He did not let them take it yet. He held the scale in his other hand and knew he had his courier back, and now he owed two gifts: one to the dragon on the mountain, and one to the princess who had walked out of the road to help him.