The Perfect Fairytale

Ch 2 || Faith in Destiny || pt.2

Finished with her task, Sivelle's eyes landed on the tea trolley. All the food have been left untouched and had gone cold. Beside the trolley, sat her father. Hunched over the table, head buried in his arms, asleep. On opposite of him, sat her mother still going through page after page. Desperately trying to find anything; any clue that may lead her closer to her apparent favourite child, F/n.

The monotone page turning in the ghost-quite room dangled over Sivelle's head, serving as a constant reminder of her missing younger sister. She walked over to the left side of the room and started cleaning up after parent's wreckage. Arranging the documents, papers and books neatly back into the shelves. These are important to the royal family, thus no servants are allowed here.

"I know the Roquezac did this... It had to be them"

The strained desperate voice of her always proud, strict mother brought tears into Sivelle's eyes. She silently begged to the gods to send her little sister F/n, home.

Soldiers of Étincea and Trerus poured all over the lands of Étincea. Over the course of a day and a half, almost half of the great land of  Étincea was covered in men either of Trerus or the royal family. And they left no stone unturned.

Querying everyone from the squabbling mothers bargaining over fishes in the flea market to the secret society of poets and writers residing by the sea port.
From the drunk vagabond in the alley way to the bar maids of the taverns.

F/n L/n is a woman of pure unadulterated beauty, chaos and wisdom. Her beauty knew no bounds, so much so, that the William Shakespeare wrote "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" confessing his desires for the 17year old. It still baffles Bartholomew how he got away with the lie that this sonnet was made for Anne Hathaway, his wife. He supposed that's the power of a charming man with a sliver tongue.

Now, if a women of Princess F/n's status were to ever step a foot on the lowly lands of this flea market, the whole of the population would stop and stare. Admire her grace and question if a woman this stunning can be a human and not be a goddess or an angel. Thus if the regulars around the market hasn't seen her, that could mean only one thing, she hasn't been here.

This is one of the last roads that leads to the forest. Which could mean that
A. Princess F/n didn't go to the forest unlike the usual.
Or B,
The thoery that every soldier, Knight and guard has been thinking about but is too crude and cruel to voice.

B. Princess F/n has been abducted. Not because she is the princess of Étincea but because she is F/n L/n. One of the most beautiful human beings to exist.

If B. is the case, then this would be a very tough situation. The lack of ransom letter only added to the predicament.

As Bartholomew navigated the dirt roads one last time, a young child ran into the shins of his legs. The youngin's dirty ragged attire made Bartholomew's skin crawl with disgust. Bartholomew tried to move away swiftly but the boy latched on to the small portrait of Princess F/n.

"Oh no you don't! If you desire to keep all your limbs, you will let go of the portrait this instant."
Bartholomew fiercely pulled the portrait away, glaring at the child.

"That pwetty lady here? She gibe me gold coin and then we eat food for days! " It took Bartholomew a minute to decipher his sentences. Good god. Out of all the people why did the princess have to interact with the most brainhead, illiterate -probably homeless- child she could find?

"This lady "
Bartholomew pointed at the portrait.
"Gave you "
He glared at the child.
"coins?"
"gold coin! She here? "
"No. And you shall take me to where she went, little bastard. "
The youngin stared at Bartholomew with his big, hopeful eyes.
"Take...you..she..went..."
"Y..yes. Do... you... understand....? Bartholomew asked more slowly this time.

"Yeeess! " The child grabbed onto his  hands and pulled him through the crowd.
"No you mistake of a man. Tell me.. verbally! "
The child didn't stop and kept running at a high momentum. Bartholomew clung onto the kid's small hands, heart beating with the intensity of a drum. He used his utmost agility to keep up.

Bartholomew couldn't afford to lose this lead.

Neither could the man in the muddy dark-orange cloak who was eavesdropping on the interrogation.

This man is a solider of Trerus. Unlike noble knights who trained in privileged and posh military. The soldiers trained through the worst of conditions. Thus when the time came, the soldier of Trerus kept up with the little boy pretty easily whilst simultaneously avoiding most of the public eyes.

-

Gnarled roots dipped in and out of the ground, branches twisting in every direction. As F/n ventured deeper, the ground became more wet and cool. The atmosphere became more humid. The ancient trees' bark appeared rough with age but their roughness was mostly smoothed out by the deep-green carpet of moss.

F/n could hear birds twitting and chirping along with the gentle summer breeze blowing. Sudden rustling through the foliage caught her attention. It was a small fox. As much as she would have liked to pet it, F/n now knows better than to chase the first pretty thing she sees.

A distant scent watfed towards F/n. It smelled sweet and summery. A bit ways ahead of her, laid a field of forest flowers be-speckling the ground in many wonderful shades. Unable to contain her excitement F/n ran ahead of Snow, startling him a bit.
"Be cautious my cherub! There is a hill slope ahead. "

As she got closer to the flower fields, F/n could hear the gurgling of a nearby creek.

By the time Snow reached the fields, F/n already had a bit of mud on her face, probably some on her cloak and hands too. She sat in a sunny patch of flowers with a dainty smile stretched across her face. She was dressed the way a corpse would be had it crawled out of a coffin underground. Yet her smile under the warm sun light was that of impeccable beauty. Snow's golden eyes remained stuck to her physique. He didn't, for a moment, even register F/n was talking to him. All Snow could see is the moving piece of art named F/n. A masterpiece with ripped edges.