Ehrhart

The Three Choices

Anastasia's mind was whirling in her room. She knew she only had one chance to save three people, and none of the paths were easy. And all three of the paths meant that the other two options would be shut out.

Anastasia could disobey Ehrhart and run to Snow's village, warn her of the Evil Queen's attack, and bring all of the villagers to safety. That one seemed the smartest, as it would save the most people. But she also knew Ehrhart's warning: she had to stay away from Lohr am Main. If she did that, it would save itself. But could Anastasia really trust Ehrhart? After all, he worked and lived (if you could call it living) for the Evil Queen.

Her second choice was to save the princess by finding out who the princess was and then rescuing her from her father and hiding her someplace safe. Whoever the princess was, Anastasia knew she didn't live in the castle- the princess definitely would've been obvious if that were so. So who was she?

And her third choice was to save her father by venturing into the woods to find the lone dwarf and kill him by taking his blood. After what the dwarves had done to Anastasia and her father- chasing them through the forest to the castle after... after the incident... Anastasia gladly felt that she could kill one.

The incident. She, her father, and her mother had been eating in their cabin at the edge of the woods, when her mother went to the river to get more water for them to drink. It wasn't exactly clean water, but it was water all the same.

She hadn't come home. Anastasia and her father had gone out to check on her, only to discover a family of three deer feeding on a bleeding carcass. It had been gruesome and scary.

And then, when they returned home, Anastasia and her father had found their house in flames. Later, the two decided that this was probably due to one of the candles catching a wooden end table on fire and igniting their house in immediate flames. With nowhere to go, the two had begun to venture off into the woods until they heard a surprised cry and dwarves began chasing them.

The two had emerged from the woods to see a huge castle, and...

The three choices, Anastasia reminded herself.

Not the village. That one was too dangerous. With Ehrhart's warning and the Evil Queen waiting to pounce, heading over there was just too dangerous.

And not the princess. As far as she knew, there was no easy way for Anastasia to figure out exactly who the princess was. And besides, how did she know the princess was nice? Would she even want a simple servant girl saving her?

Finally, Anastasia realized that the most important person in her life was the one who needed saving- her father.

She looked down at her blade, reading the words over again. The lone dwarf. Who could that be?

Determined to save her father at all costs, Anastasia tucked her knife into her belt and bolted for the stables.