A Grim Fairy Tale

Chapter Sixty-Seven

"Papa!"

It was in the dead of night when the prince suddenly awoke to hear someone screaming. He sat bolt right up, at first thinking he only dreamed it but then he heard it again.

"Papa! Papa! Papa!"

Turning to his side he saw Vagatha still asleep but tossing and turning, sweat dripping down her face and at her side was Raphael trying to nuzzle her awake but he didn't seem to be strong enough.

"Papa! Papa!" She kept crying out.

Anthony quickly went over to her and started to shake her, but not too hard.

"Vagatha wake up!" He called to her.

After a few minutes, her eyes opened and she broke down crying. Anthony just held her and let her breathe. She didn't seem to realize where she was or who she was with at first. Her emotions were completely in control. Eventually though, her sobs stopped and she became embarrassed. She couldn't believe she had gone in a screaming and crying fit in front someone besides her grandmother and sister.

"Are you alright?" He offered her his handkerchief.

"I'm fine." She refused it. "Sorry I woke you."

"Forget about that, what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing? You don't just start screaming and crying over nothing. What's eating you? Did you have a bad dream?"

"It's none of your business!" She snapped.

"Hey don't get mad at me! I was only trying to help!"

She was about to counter-argue and tell him that she didn't ask for his help. That she wasn't some damsel in distress for him to rescue. That she could take care of herself and that she didn't need anyone. But Raphael, in a situation where animals can sometimes be wiser than humans, whimpered and gave her a look that seemed to advise her to calm down and to recognize that the young man's heart was in the right place. He advised it even further by brushing up against Anthony and licking his hand.

Vagatha then took a deep breath and realized that her faithful pet was right. Anthony had done nothing wrong and she had no right to behave this way.

"I'm sorry." She said to him, in the softest tone he had ever heard her speak in. "I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself."

"Why?"

"Because I acted like a total idiot just now."

"No you didn't, you had a nightmare and judging by your reaction must have been horrible one. Do you want to talk about it?"

"What good would that do?"

"Well my tutor and my mother would always listen to me talk about what scared me and it always made me feel better."

"I'm not scared anything!"

"Okay, but there's no shame if you are. Everybody gets scared. Hell, you should have seen me when I was a kid, everything scared me. Including my own shadow. At one point I never wanted to leave my room."

"Why?"

"Well I was a skinny shrimp back then and everything was always so much bigger than me and more bulking than me. The guards, the other kids, even some horses. And a lot of them liked to make fun of me."

"Horses made fun of you?" She replied skeptically.

"Well yeah! Every time I walked by they'd neigh in a manner that sounded like wimpeee! Wimpeee!"

Vagatha couldn't resist laughing at his horse impression.

"Is that really true?"

"Well that's how they sounded to me." Anthony shrugged. "Anyway, the point is being scared is perfectly natural and talking about what scares you can make it easier for you to face it in the future. But if you don't want to talk, that's fine. I'll just go back to sleep and we can pretend this never happened."