The Next Cinderella

Chapter 27--What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Myrielle and Fredrick slinked through the castle like a couple of high schoolers hiding from the pain-in-the-ass hall monitor. Their recent make-out session had left them floating on air, weightless amidst the euphoric haze that springs from one's chest like a 'Care Bear stare.'

"Can you give me a tour of the castle?" she said playfully, ignoring the fact that the prince and the ice queen and the contest awaited her return.

Fredrick put his arm around her waist and smiled. She was basically his chosen one and nothing could stop them now. "Would you like to see the place where I administer the prince's ridiculous weekly hair treatments?"

"You mean the lavatory?" she said, scrunching her nose. "It's an interesting suggestion but...I think I'll pass."

Fredrick's casual 'boyfriend vibe' took a sudden hit of embarrassment. If he really hoped for Myrielle to change her mind about the contest and run away with him, he needed to minimize his focus on knocking down the prince, and maximize demonstrations of his leading-man charisma. He ran through his leading-man qualifications in his head: no fortune, no home to call his own, and the title of a servant. The failed mental experiment left him feeling even more apprehensive.

"Does the castle have a library?" she asked, trying to get things back on track when she noticed his strange silence.

His eyes lit up. "You enjoy reading?"

She nodded. "It's my favorite hobby, aside from digging up worms and feeding them to rats." He looked at her strangely. "I'm kidding of course!" she lied, since at one point in her childhood she had done just that.

The relief in his laughter was obvious. "Of course you were only kidding; I knew that."

"Good," she said firmly, "because only a fool would give away worms when they could be a main course in themselves." He looked at her strangely but she definitely wasn't kidding. "For the protein!" He seemed a bit nauseous. "Well we're peasants after all, with very limited options, since the food we could be having is locked in the fat king's kitchen," she said sneering.

His eyes widened at her treasonous words. "We must never verbally comment on the king's figure!" he whispered.

Myrielle snorted. "What figure? He's a blob."

Fredrick maintained a serious expression. "Be that as it may, he's cultivated a reality where he eats for ten, but according to the rest of us and our regular compliments, he's healthy and fit as a fiddle."

She shook her head in amazement. "These royals are stranger than I thought." She sighed. "And I'm really starting to doubt I could ever be one...or want to be one."

Her words seemed to be magic to Fredrick's ears, and he squeezed her hand tight before leading her up to a secluded winding staircase. "No one ever goes to the royal library," he said. "Which is a shame as it contains so many valuable first editions."

The fascinating mention of library nerd-porn was an instant turn-on for Myrielle. She nuzzled his neck. "Can you show me all the first editions?"

They wound their way up the narrow staircase, and when they reached the top a set of massive doors at the end of a long corridor was their prize. "I regularly visit the library to clean off all the dust and for general maintenance," he said. "And...if I'm being honest...to borrow a few titles for myself."

She pulled his arm and dragged him towards the doors. "Let's go inside and borrow some for ourselves!"

An echo of sound reverberated from the stairwell, which made Fredrick and Myrielle freeze in their tracks. It may have been a footstep, or it may have been a squirrel running headfirst into a wall, but the uncertainty alone made them nervous.