Hara and the Witch

Chapter 21: Ruddy Princes, Huh?

'Psh,' Plim scoffed, sawing through the rope with a few well placed clips of her beak. 'I can't, I just can't get on the prince bandwagon with you and Hara- but what a bunch of gits. No one with any sense would use fae silk for a rope. Everyone knows it's all shimmer and-'

'No strength,' Marigold chorused, gaining control of her broom after the loosening of the rope threw them high into the air (and a tree). 'That's princes, though.'

'BUT IT'S NOT EVEN ROPE!' Plim bellowed, then did a few angry circuits in the air before landing on the tip of the broom, just in front of Marigold's hand.

'I wondered when she'd do that.' Plim looked steadfastly ahead, but there was a enough of a smile in her voice.

'What?' Marigold thought for a second and then amended. 'Really?'

'Course.' Plim chittered and turned one eye on the witch. 'Why do you think she weeded your garden?'

Marigold felt heat seep into her cheeks. 'Oh.'

'Well.' Plim sighed. 'We'd better go and rescue her. Ordinarily I wouldn't, but...'

'Do you think-' They both looked at the ground. 'Oh. Right.'

It did rather look like chaos.

It was chaos.

Princes swarmed around Hara as she dropped to the ground, their screams, yells and bellows a deafening chorus. Still, she rose from her crouch without a flinch and battered off the oncoming hands with only a slight narrowing of her eyes.

'Maiden-'

'Stop calling me a bloody maiden!' she yelled, nearly punching one particularly unfortunate fellow in the gut. 'I am a quester and I was bloody questing!'

'...you weren't.'

Hara whirled around, face a thunderstorm she willingly bestowed on a prince with ginger curls and perfectly sculpted dimples.

'What?' she hissed.

'Alis said,' a new voice intoned, 'that you weren't. And they're quite right, Miss Maiden.' The new voice was enough to freeze Hara; the words it spoke enough to defrost her and set her aflame.

'What are you doing here?' She gazed upon the man who had fired the flame of her distaste for princes, the chap who set such a low bar and himself only lowered it. Not the first prince, not the last, but by far the worst.. The man who, even longer before, had offered Mere a life Hara could not.

'Trenton.' She wrinkled her nose. He just wore so much lycra. 'I had hoped never to see you again.' And his hair. It was all just too, too much.

'Maiden-'

She glowered. 'If you keep on calling me that I swear-'

'I assure you, after you ruined my engagement I never wished to see you again, lest it be to bring you to justice by avenging my love an-'

'That's the same love you stole an heirloom from? The same one you lied to? Cheated us out of our fee for?' Hara raised an eyebrow. 'She's better off without you.'

Someone gasped.

Trenton scowled. 'Fortunately, I have a plan to get her back! Then my dear, my sweet-' Hara huffed and he shook his hair pointedly. 'Once I discredit you, she'll see the error of her ways and then-'

'Or you could apologise? I mean, if you love her so deeply. Just... say sorry. Stop the scheming because, see, it's what got you you here in the first place. I mean, that and your personality. Just be honest. Will she accept you back? I mean, I wouldn't, you're an arse, but it's worth a try.'

'Or you could just go on a sixty year quest and learn how to be a better person.' Plim landed on Hara's shoulder and looked Trenton up and down distastefully. 'I remember you. Book voucher thief.'

'Ah yes. The pigeon.'

'I'm. Am. Not. A. Pigeon.' Plim looked like she wanted to peck him. Maybe not surprising, then, that she did just that, leaving a nasty gash across his nose. 'I'm a dove.' She fluttered back to Hara's side. 'What are you even doing here?'

'I've been... hmm, how shall I put it?' He smirked, holding a glossy, pleather glove to his nose, blood smearing across the fingertips.

'Briefly.'

'In as few words as possible?'

'Hired,' he snarled, teeth sparkling like very sharp pearls. 'We all have.' He gestured at the gathered princes, who were watching with mixed distaste and enjoyment. 'To bring you to order.'

Hara looked at the man before her and snorted. 'Brilliant. How... splendid of you. No, no, not splendid - there's a word I'm looking for here and that's not it, it's...'

'Serpentine?' Plim offered, momentarily halting her cackling laughter.

'Excellent word, Plim, but no... no, it's more...'

'Gallant.'

'Yes!' Hara beamed, turning to Marigold as she landed with a soft thump beside her. 'Yes, Marigold, that's exactly the word I was after. How extremely galant of you all, but no. No, thank you.'

'We're already busy enough, see,' Plim explained, fluttering this way and that, ostensibly doing a headcount and stopping as she saw eight more princes ride into the forest.,

'Busy?' Trenton laughed, the sound like dozens of tiny bells smashing dozens of panes of glass, all at once. 'Do you have a prior-' he tittered '-engagement?'

'Yes.' They watched him blankly.

He eyed them for a long moment, eyebrows undulating as if he could not decide between an expression of surprise or anger. He bent down and flicked a muddy leaf off the tip of his boot and he'd have stood, continued on in the same way for goodness knows how long, had Hara not kneed him in the side of the head.

He fell easily. One or two horses whinnied, but that was all. No one moved. No one spoke.

'Is that clear enough for you?' Hara asked, standing over the slowly blinking Trenton.

'We were to take you to Her Majesty.' He lifted a gloved hand to his temple and hissed.

'I don't pay court to any queen.'

Plim chirruped in anger and Marigold, very quiet, said something to her, but Hara didn't catch it.

'Do you understand?' she asked, blending down low to meet the prince's eyes. 'I do not bow to any queen,' she snarled. He closed his eyes, lips curling in pain before he made the curtest of nods. There was the shuffling of feet all around, as if suddenly every prince and horse longed to run, but Hara stood still.

She wondered how badly she had hurt him. She wondered it even as she felt fingers curl around her neck, a fist sink into her stomach

As she struggled to turn her head she again caught sight of the curling of Trenton's lips and realised - planting a last kick into his slumped form - what a fool she had been.