Ever After: A Cinderello Story

Ever After: Part VI - The Next Day -

"I would have given anything to have seen you all dressed up, talking to the Princess like a gentleman!" Paulo sighed at the thought, watching Daniel lift out honeycombs from the beehive that he had just smoked out. A veil hid Daniel's face so she could not see her expression.
"Scolding her is more like it! The woman is insufferable!"
"Yes, you have been saying it all day."
"Well, it's true." Daniel was slightly annoyed.
"Darling, she's royalty. They're born like that." Daniel frowned.
"I suppose the penalty for being wealthy is that you have to live with the rich."
Paulo shook her head, smiling. "Well, I'm sure she's beautiful once you get to know her."
Daniel handed her a honeycomb. "Honestly, I think she and Martinez deserve one another."

Paulo gasped in horror. "Bite your tongue! The only throne I want her sitting on is the one I have to clean every day!" Daniel laughed, just as his eye caught a strange contraption caught in one of the trees near where they stood.
The sun beat down upon Daniel, turning his hair golden. He ran in between the haystacks, laughing merrily as he looked up behind him at the graceful kite arching and swooping over his head like a bird. He had never seen such a marvelous device in her entire life; a flying machine! Giselle looked up from her painting of Catalonia, annoyed, as Daniel called out to her.

"My stepfather expects a quick engagement between Martinez and the Princess." Giselle squinted at the castle, then made a few deft strokes with her paintbrush.
"And what does that mean to you?" She examined his painting, silently comparing it to the gorgeous reality that rose out of the ground along the horizon.
Daniel stopped and began to reel the kite in. "Well, I suppose that they would all move to the palace and I could stay with the Manor." He smiled at her. "Turn things around, that's all that matters."
Giselle hid a secret smile as Daniel dreamed of a life without his stepfather and stepbrothers harrying him. He smiled at the thought and began weaving in between the haystacks with the kite darting behind him. Giselle shook her head and called out to him, waving his brush. "Admit it, you like her!"
"No." Daniel began to reel in the kite once again as Giselle continued.
"I suppose if you saw him again, you would simply . . ." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two lone horsewomen approaching. She found it difficult to make out their features and listen to Daniel.

"Walk up to him and say 'Your highness, my family is your family. Please take them away." She realized who the taller rider was with widened eyes and turned to Daniel with a mixture of amusement and anxiety scrawled across her face.
"Well, here's your chance. She's headed this way." Daniel let out a yelp and dashed behind a haystack, completely forgetting the kite that hung gracefully in the air behind him. Giselle straightened up and attempted to continue her painting.
The princess and Captain Laura reached where Giselle sat, attempting to hide the trembling of her hands. Princess Henriqua turned to her, almost speaking over her head from the horse. "I'm looking for Señora La Vinci. We're to go to the monastery together.
Have you seen him?"
"Kahlo?" The trembling was reaching Giselle's voice. Isabel de Santiago, the greatest artist in Europe, was here? Henriqua shook her head impatiently.
"Well, isn't that her flying contraption?" Giselle's head jerked up and he noticed the kite floating above the haystacks. "Where did you get it?"

Giselle said the first thing that came to her mind. "From the . . .uh . . .Conde El Langui. He's a . . .friend of her."
Sudden interest gleamed in Henriqua's eyes. "You know him?" Her voice adjusted to a mixture of command and pleading. "Please, I must find him. Where is he staying?"
Giselle was at a loss. Daniel glanced pleadingly at him from behind the haystack, but the words were already out. "I believe, your Highness, that he is staying with her cousin . . . the . . .Baron Rodrigo El Gato."
Daniel almost screamed in frustration. Henriqua scowled. "Hmm . . . that does present a problem."
Giselle had a surge of inspiration and she continued, despite the daggers Daniel was glaring at her from behind the haystack. She mouthed Shut up! Giselle smiled complacently and spoke to the Princess again. "But, I happen to know that he is there, alone, by himself, at this very moment."
Henriqua raised her head. "Excellent." She wheeled the horse toward the manor, stopping for a second to examine Giselle's painting. "Nice painting."
Giselle watched in open-mouthed astonishment as the two women rode off toward the road. She did not even notice Daniel until he began yelling at her.
"Giselle, you horrible little snipe!" Even then, she did not care. She was in a dream world of his own.
"Did you hear that? She liked my work!"
"And she is headed toward my house!" Anxiety and exasperation were filling Daniel's voice. She turned to him, smugly.
"Then, I suggest you run." Daniel thought for a second, then an excited smile spread across his face. He took off across the fields, dodging the haystacks as he sprinted toward the manor. He knew that the main road went in a circle around the field so there was some chance of him beating Henriqua to the house. He reached the Manor and ran inside, screaming for Paulo and Lorenzo, panic-stricken again.