Rose was determined to find a way to escape prison. But after six hours of pulling at the bars of her five inches by six inches window and trying to pick and break the door, she started to feel hopeless. She couldn't do anything. She was stuck there, with no way out. She failed her quest.
She must have tried everything. But she still couldn't escape. At some time before dawn, she started growing drowsy. So she lay down on the floor and fell into a deep sleep.
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Rose woke to someone calling her name from the other side of her prison cell. "Psst. Rose, Rose wake up!" the person said. Startled, she realized that the voice belonged to Tristan.
"Tristan? What are you doing here!" she hissed through the door.
"What do you think I'm doing? Breaking you out of course." Tristan replied. Before she could reply, Tristan had opened the door of her cell.
"How did you do that?" Rose asked in awe. He was standing there just outside her cell door wearing a simple shirt and jeans, a small bag hooked around his belt loops, he looked like a hero. She stood up, dusted herself off, and tried her best to not look foolish with her bed... well, floorhead.
"The magic is called stealing the keys of the guard." He said, jiggling a pair of keys in front of her face. "Nice floorhead by the way."
"Shut up!" She exclaimed, sticking her tongue out at him. "How did you know I was in prison anyway?" she asked, crossing her arms pouting.
"Hope sent me." He said simply.
"Wait, is that what you were hiding the day before?"
"Yes. Now be quiet, we have to get out of this town without being noticed."
Slowly, they started walking through the long lines of prison cells.
"Wait! The bag! I left it in the park. We have to get it." Rose face-palmed, suddenly remembering the bag that was left in the park. She hoped that no one had seen it yet. If someone took it, that would be disaster!
Tristan cursed under his breath. "Here's the plan, we break out of here, get your bag and quickly get the heck out of this town. Before we both end up in prison." He said. "No time for being slow now, we have to run."
Rose agreed and together, they ran out of prison as silently as they can.
Once they got outside, they slowed to a walk to catch their breaths.
"Why weren't there any guards in there? It was completely empty!" Rose asked Tristan in between pants.
"I had to make sure that we would get to escape. So I may have spent the whole night slowly ambushing each and every one of them, then I tied them up and locked them in a closet." Tristan said, turning sheepish.
Rose stared at him, eyes wide incredulous to what she had just heard. "So you mean to tell me that we could have taken our time getting out of there?" She exclaimed.
"I had to make sure. They could have gotten out already and signaled back up or something. Now let's go and get your bag." Running as he said so.
"Whatever." Rose grumbled. "Coming!" she yelled hurrying up to catch up to him.
"Why don't you scream it out to the world that we're here huh?" he teased.
"Ok, from now on I'm going to talk like this." Rose whispered mockingly. "Can you hear me, Tristan?" They looked at each other and the next thing she knew, they were laughing their heads off. "I'm happy he's back" she thought joyfully. But a part of her brain was thinking why he left. What was so important that he had to just disappear? Why couldn't he tell her? Did he even care? She stopped laughing, suddenly feeling deflated.
Tristan noticed and stopped laughing too, and instead asked, "What's wrong you look sad again."
"Do you even care?" She asked softly.
His brows furrowed as he looked at her. "What do you mean?" He said just as soft.
She hesitated, but decided to continue, no use in backing out now. "Do you even know that your dad is... gone? He died a year after you left." she looked at his pained expression and demanded. "Did you even care about him enough to think of him when you left?"
His pained expression morphed into one filled with guilt then just as quickly, his face turned expressionless. "Of course i cared. But you wouldn't understand." He fired.
Instantly, her face reddened with shame, what an insensitive thing to ask. Why was she being such a jerk? "I'm sorry." she whispered. Whether he heard it or not, he did not show.
They trudged along for a few more minutes, tension tightly holding the atmosphere, trying to choke them.
"Where is everyone? Don't tell me you tied up all the townspeople too." she finally said weakly, trying to at least loosen the hold of tension.
Tristan just smiled a sad smile. "I actually don't know, they might be in another noon gathering in the town square." Tristan replied, "Let's just hurry this up."
And just like that, tension released its hold and the air seemed much easier to breathe.
Rose didn't answer and instead just started running, Tristan followed suite. They got to the park after two minutes, and Rose quickly went to find the bag while Tristan kept a look out.
She found it exactly where she left it, sighing in relief; she bent to pick it up. While doing so, the flower case fell off, and inside, where the rose petals were supposed to be in, was red goo. She screamed and dropped the case.
"What's wrong?" Tristan called out from his stake out spot.
"Nothing! I just got startled, that's all." Rose called back, slowly picking up the case and pouring out the goo that used to be petals. "So this is what Hope meant with the whole the petals will lose their magical abilities. That's just disgusting."
She started taking some more petals off when Tristan came running in. "Quickly. Some of the townspeople are appearing. The meeting is done; it will take them just a few minutes to find out you escaped!" He said, panic evident in his eyes.
Rose heart started beating faster, she couldn't get caught again. "Give me thirty seconds!" she said, and quickly stuffed the case with petals. "I'm done. Let's go." She started running.
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"That was close." Tristan said once they were nowhere near the Northern Town.
"You think?" Rose said sarcasm dripping from her voice. "We saw Mayor Stewart's back like twice! If he turned around, we would be back in jail!" she exclaimed.
"Well, for you it would be going back to jail. For me on the other hand, it would be my first time!" he said jokingly, trying to cheer her up. Instead of laughing, she just shot him a dirty look. He cleared his throat and hurriedly add. "You should probably grind the petals now and drink it in the cup."
She nodded and sat down on the grassy floor. She then quickly got the case, the cup (more like a big goblet with jewels... real fancy) and the grinder out of her bag. She giggled when she saw the grinder, when Hope said special petal grinder, she apparently meant a thick piece of wood the size of a finger.
Rose got the petals and put it in the cup and began crushing it using the grinder. Once she got all the petals to turn to powder, she asked Tristan, "Do you know whether I should put water or something into this?"
"As I recall, Hope said something about the cup magically transporting water to the cup, maybe you should try that." He said, looking at her from where he was leaning against a tree.
Rose stared at the cup for a moment and began touching the different jewels ornamented on the cup, hoping that one of them was a button that will give water. After a few minutes, she gave up. "Tristan, it's not working!" she groaned.
"Try wishing for water." He advised. "C'mon, Rose you can do it. I believe in you."
Rose glanced at him and saw him gazing at her tenderly. He noticed her looking and quickly looked to the other side, avoiding her eyes. She just shrugged and continued to try to make water appear. She closed her eyes and thought as hard as she could, "Please, please, please give me water!"
Suddenly, the cup filled with water. "Yes! I did it." She exclaimed pumping her fist towards the sky.
"I knew you could do it!" Tristan said, walking towards her, they hi-fived.
Rose closed her eyes, took a deep breath, drank... and almost puked.
Just a tip: NEVER drink flower petal juice. It tastes like perfume. Disgusting.
She opened her eyes and expected something magical to happen, but aside from the slight tingling in her spine, she felt completely normal.
Talk about anti-climatic.
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Edited.