The Princess and the Mirror

Chapter 2

      After what seemed like forever to the Prince, they finally came up to a tall pine. The pine was so tall the Prince couldn't see the top and wasn't too sure if he wanted to know what the clouds hid.

"So I thought apples grew on apple trees?" asked the Prince, looking around the tree's branch.

"It's not a normal apple, is it?" Lilith looks at him with exasperation, "and it is probably at the top, ingredients never come by easily." she mutters. They walked up to the pine and began their journey to the top. 

The first few branches were easy going, but once they got about a quarter the way up things got more difficult. The branches got denser, scratching their faces, little insects were crawling around under their fingertips. The higher they went up the more dangerous it got. The Prince grabbed on to a branch above his head and instead of pulling himself up, he ended up pulling what seemed like a branch down. the Prince nearly lost his footing when he felt the branch wiggle in his hands.

"Ahhh!" Lilith rolled her dark eyes, and turned around to see what the commotion was.

"What the f-" wrapped around the Prince was a long Python, using its body to squeeze the life from him. Lilith whips out her dagger and slices the snake's head clean off, the Prince rushes to get the Python's body off of him, then he puts his hands on his knees as he takes deep panic breaths.

"Where did you get a dagger from?!" Lilith wiped the snake's blood on her sleeve before answering mockingly,

"My bag? Where else? and instead of questions a 'thank you' would suffice"

"But WHY do you have a dagger? no lady should carry such a dangerous item!"

"Well obviously I'm not like any other lady." The Prince's head shot up like a spring, his face flabbergasted while Lilith rolled her eyes.

"Wait, What? Are you a MAN? I must say I'm impressed, you almost look beli-"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'ALMOST'? I AM A LADY!" The Prince's eyes widened, stuttering out excuses while Lilith hit him with her bag.

After everything calmed down they continued their way up the pine with Lilith occasionally muttering about being a woman and the Prince continuously apologizing. Once they reached the top, it looked as if they were walking on the clouds with how high up they were. They were surrounded by different shades of greens, pinks, yellows and red apple.

"Holy Gods above," muttered the Prince, there must have been hundreds of apples, "So... Will any apple do?"

"I wish it were that easy, the Sea Witch told me it would be obvious, let's just walk around and see what we find." The Prince agreed, they split and explored different areas until the Prince came across something peculiar, an apple but not just any apple, a deeply rotten red apple with maggots wiggling around; the Prince winched in disgust, it was the only rotten apple he's seen so far. This must be it!

The Prince lightly pinched the stem and kept the apple at an arm's length, gagging at the smell as he brought it over to Lilith.

"I think I found it" Lilith turned around and used her fingers to pinch her nose, looking startled.

"It has to be, it is the only unperfect apple here." They wrapped the rotten apple in some leaves then put it in her satchel.

"Alright, where to next?" questioned the Prince, Lilith pondered for a second before answering,

"Well, I have the shells and I was able to get the rose petals before we met. We need to get a lock of Rapunzel's hair now."

"What if she doesn't want to give it to us?"

"I guess we'll just have to take it."