Prince charming's Arc

Chapter 5 of 30

The flock settled on the branch, and the earring hung bright between them. Prince Charming did not untie it. Princess Elara Rosemary stood at the edge of the stones with her slippers stained green, watching the birds she had bought him. She said she would need the earring back, or its match in worth, before she left the forest. Her carriage waited on the road, and her father expected her home by week's end. Prince Charming looked at the diamond swinging in the light, then at the mountain. He could send the earring up and lose the princess. He could return the earring and lose the flock. He needed a third thing to give her, and he needed it before the birds grew bored and scattered again. He asked her to walk with him. He led her along the forest's edge until the trees thinned and a tall wooden lookout rose above the brush. The tower had stood there since before his father's time, unused, its ladder grey with weather and its rope rails still tight. He climbed first and she followed, holding her skirt in one hand. From the platform they could see the whole valley, the road where her carriage waited, and the mountain path he had failed to climb. He told her the truth. He had no jewels in his house. He had cheese, seed, and a black scale from the dragon. But the tower was his, and the land it stood on, and he would sign it over to her family as payment for the earring and for her trouble. She could sell it, keep it, or tear it down. She studied the boards, the view, the mountain. Then she took a small knife from her belt and cut a curl of her own hair, tied it around the top rung of the ladder, and said the tower was hers now and he could borrow it whenever he wished. She untied the earring from the branch herself when they came down. She pressed it into his hand and told him to send it up the mountain before nightfall. Then she walked back to the road in her ruined slippers, and the flock stayed, because he still held the shine.