A Grim Fairy Tale

Chapter Seventy-Three

At some point, Charlotte fell asleep and she once again dreamed of the handsome, gentle-eyed prince. In the dream it was a snowy winter day, a day when it was cold enough for snow but not so cold that you couldn't be outside. When snow was delicate, soft, and twinkling in the sunlight. Unlike most people, Charlotte and her father had always adored the winter season. The beauty of the snow and the ice to play about in during the day and the warmth of the hearth to rest by at night. Her father had said that in some ways, her mother had been like the winter season. Beautiful like freshly fallen snow yet warm like fireplace burning on the hearth.

She and her prince went strolling together, catching the falling snowflakes, something that she had loved to do with her father when she was a child. Then, hand in hand, they skated together on the frozen lake. A winter waltz that skidded across the ice, one so graceful and perfect, not once did either one of them slipped. As their waltz was coming to an end, her prince took her into his arms, held her close, and then...

She woke up.

"Oh Eli, sometimes I hate good dreams." She said to her cat. "Cause if they're too good, you feel awful to wake up from it and find out that it's not real."

Eli just responded with a yawn.

"And what am I doing fantasizing about some prince?" She upbraided herself. "There are more important matters to consider. I need to find my father."

After an hour or two, Charlotte started to feel a little better and she decided that she didn't want to spend all day in bed. She thought that maybe she needed to go outside and get some air in order to clear her head. Millie agreed to take her to a secluded glade she knew of where they could pick wildflowers, and it also happened to be a good long distance from the village. Away from all those dead bodies and carnage.

"Flowers always remind me of the first birthday gift Moxxie ever gave me." Millie said smelling a pansy she had plucked.

"Did he give you flowers?" Charlotte asked, having picked herself a bouquet of pansies and poppies.

"No but when we were courting, he had brought me a flower every time he came to see me. When my birthday came around, or rather my creation day since alps technically aren't birthed, he decided to that he wanted to get me something different. Something special. Like a new dress or a piece of jewelry or silks and furs. He spent hours in the village looking for something to buy me but he couldn't afford anything special. He only had five copper pieces at the time. Now I had told him that I was not a material girl but he insisted that I deserved the best of everything."

"Still though, not much you can get with five copper pieces. At least gift wise."

"I know and I knew that's how much money he had. I told him not to even waste his money on me and that if he had to get me a gift, another flower would be just fine cause I so loved how the smelled. That's when he got the idea to do the most wonderful and thoughtful thing."

"What?" Charlotte asked intrigued.

"He picked as many snowdrops and tulips as he could find in the forest, my favorite flowers and at the crack of dawn, he got up and collected all the morning dew drops from the leaves. After that he used his skills in alchemy to crush the petals of the flowers and mix them with the dew drops to make me my very own perfume."

"Really?" Charlotte awed in amazement.

"Yes and it smelled absolutely wonderful. The best perfume I ever smelled, I loved it so much that I've kept the bottle all these years. Just so I can still smell the scent that lingers in the glass."

"That is so romantic. You are so lucky to be married to someone like him."

"I know. Sometimes I don't think I deserve him."