The Prince and His Slave

Chione - [The Ring]

He continued to compliment me with such ease. I wondered why he didn’t hesitate even once. It made me happy, the things he said. I looked at my reflection, I guess I was a little pretty. I smiled at myself when my heart filled with happiness.

       “And to top it all off, you big green eyes are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.” He said.

       I looked at my own eyes, the eyes I feared because they were different.

       But then I was no longer looking at my own reflection, I was looking at his. He is the Prince of Egypt; someone who I thought would be spoiled, stubborn and hateful. I was happily proved wrong. I saw him move when he noticed I was looking at his reflection rather than my own, so I turned my face to look at him.

       He looked at me as well. He seemed to be uncomfortable for a second, but then eased up. We looked at each other for a while, I don’t know why. My heart did maybe a hundred back flips in that little while. It was quiet; I heard only birds chirping and the breathing of Arius and I.

       Unexpectedly, the silence was broken. “Brother?” Someone yelled from far away.

       It startled the both of us, I turned and saw someone running towards us.

       “Brother! What are you doing?” The boy yelled.

       The Prince began to panic. “Umm, umm…” He said as he looked around. Then he pulled one of his rings off and dropped it in the fountain.

       “Hey, brother. What are you doing?” The boy asked when he had reached us.

       “I am, umm, looking for my ring.” The Prince said.

       “Why?” The boy asked.

       “I seemed to have dropped it in mother’s fountain. This girl was assisting me.” The Prince said.

       The boy was small and cute. He had short black hair and large brown eyes and when he smiled I could see the dimples he had on his face. He called Arius ‘brother’ so I assumed he was the younger brother of Arius.

       “Well brother, you have a lot of work to do! What were you doing here anyway?” The boy asked.

       “Just taking a break.” The Prince smiled.

       “Well come on then!” The boy said grabbing his brothers’ arm.

       “Wait, what about my ring?” The Prince asked, looking at the fountain.

       “Why don’t you look for it, my Lady?” The boy asked and I nodded my head.

       “Oh, then I’ll tell Aziza.” The Prince said as he walked away.

       “Thank you.” I said smiling.

       He smiled too, and mouthed sorry.

       I nodded and continued to smile as they walked into the palace.

       I looked into the water again and waited for it to stop moving. When it did, I saw my reflection again and laughed to myself.

       The fountain was beautiful and while I looked at it I remembered the Prince calling this fountain his ‘mothers’ fountain’. I wondered what he meant by that. I looked around, and finally found the gold shining in the sunlight at the bottom of the fountain.

       I slowly put my hand in the cool water and picked it up. The ring was beautiful; it had a snake design around it and inside the eye of the snake was a red jewel. I sat on the floor and leaned against the fountain. It was too big to fit on most of fingers, but if fit perfectly on my thumb.