The Subtle Taste of Midnight

The Plight of Poor Prince Charming

The bones look the same as they do in the portrait that lays close to my heart, the cut and curve of her face having been imprinted in my mind in the pale twinkle of starlight on countless moonless desert nights as I lay dreaming quietly amongst the shifting sands. The eyes are still black and unyielding; although the skin is no longer moon-kissed. Now, it's ruddy from labor in the unforgiving sun....and...where is her hair? Where is the thick, black braid, perfumed with jasmine and sage that I've dreamed of curling between my fingers for so long? All I see now is hair, disheveled and hay-riddled, shorn too close to the scalp to be decent for a proper woman of Islecene.

My Gods, this can't be... "Princess Ⱥzura?"

She sneers when that name falls from my lips.

"Don't go batting titles like that around here," she warns. "'Tis likely to catch the ears of thieves and beggars. But, to answer your question, yes. I am who you seek."

"But...but...I was sent to rescue you."

"Rescue me?" she gasps. "From what? The chickens?"

"The king...he...I..." words spill without meaning or coherence. The Princess' eyes glow with understanding.

"He promised you jewels and wealth, didn't he? A fiefdom too, if I recall the going rate. And oh, yes, my hand in marriage?"

"Why...yes."

"Hmm," she shrugs thick shoulders worked too strong and too hard. "Well, you're shit out of luck, noble knight? Might as well cut your losses and head back home now for 'tis a long road back to King Michon's side."

"Please do not jest, woman!" I huff. "I have no countenance for mockery. Not after everything I've been through!"

"Does it look like I jest?" she offers a laugh that is tinged with bitter bile. "I'm too far past my maiden years to have the time or the patience for such petty things. So, sweet Prince, you have your terms and instructions. Take your steed and turn to yonder before I put you through a task worse than what the highwaymen have put you through already."

There is no joke on the Princess' lips this time, for when she shifts her soiled apron to the side, the glint of cold death peers back at me. A ŧrivon ladened with magic and ready to fire. Only Islecene's best mages and blacksmiths could craft something like that, and only someone like, say, the king's lone daughter – who court gossip says had dabbled too deeply in the dark arts and, thusly, was ensnared by the now-non-existent vile sorceress − could afford to have a ŧrivon strapped to her hip like a butcher's cleaver. But something inside me refuses to give up so easily without a proper challenge.

"I've come too far!" I protest. "Through the swamps and the deserts, surely you must see that."

The Princess nods as if struck by a bout of sudden understanding. "Ahhh!" she sighs, "I see he sent you the long way around, eh? Well, 'tis for the best, I suppose. The highwaymen in Rulzin have come to depend on the easy living they make off my father's hapless knights passing through their lands."

"No-no-no. This can't be!" I'm so stung with shock that I don't even realize when exactly it is that I'd slid from Ⱥvalon's saddle and pooled like piss at his hooves. I'm only faintly aware of the crunch of Witch's Weed and the shift of gravel underfoot as Ⱥvalon stirs uneasily. "This...can't...No. NO!" I feel the tears prick behind my eyelids, for I have walked through Hell and back again, sacrificed my heart and soul to the Devils Below for this woman. And for what? Just so that I can stand here on the threshold of my own ruin, wobble-kneed and paltry? To come so close to Heaven's shifting mists only to see the cruel truth that hides beyond?