Of Spinning Gold and Song

| Eighteen | The Thread

A different me, a me from before this crazy journey, wouldn't have I wouldn't have thought it possible to sleep on such hard, painful, cold stone ground.

Clearly I wasn't the same person. I was so exhausted last night that I slept easily, falling into a deep dreamless rest like the dead. It was wonderful for all of one, maybe two hours, before a huge bang of the heavy slamming of a door ripped me from my rest. I wouldn't have thought such a heavy object like the door could move with such intense velocity, but the rattling of the room around me was certainly no figment of my imagination. Blinking back any remaining traces of sleep from my bleary eyes, I found myself staring at the daunting figure of Queen Isolde.

She was more than enough to wake me up.

Or perhaps the fear that the she invoked was.

Despite the early hour of the morning—or perhaps it was closer to late morning; the lack of windows or any sort of connection between my prison and the outside world made it impossible to tell—she was already fully dressed in a gaudy, floor length bold gown of rich purple, embroidered with golden thread not unlike that which I had just spun.

Well perhaps a little unlike it. The thread that I had spun was supposedly pure gold. I had a suspicion that if she wanted me so badly, her current thread was nothing more than dyed.

From where I lay sprawled on the ground, the queen towered over me like a giant, not something I wanted to imagine. She frightened me enough when I was taller than she; I didn't want to spend another minute lying down here. And recalling our meeting yesterday when she had snapped and snarled at my behavior, I was sure she was of the same sentiment.

Remembering her threats, I was quick to hop to my feet and drop in a curtsy, cursing my lack of etiquette as I shook and nearly toppled in my attempt to dip low enough to her pleasing. Not wanting to embarrass myself further, I pulled back up, risking a peek into her impassive face. The frigid glare piercing through her silver eyes was enough to send my gaze back to the ground.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," I muttered, keeping my eyes trained on the murky grey stones by the hem of her gown.

"You will not address me unless I speak to you first," she snapped by means of reply. Her voice was even harder than it had been yesterday, and it was now filled with something like loathing. I decided to heed her words and not respond.

Instead, I followed her with my eyes as she strode across the room and picked up one of the golden threads I had made with the dwarf last night. I shuddered to think of his meaty palms touching me, working whatever strange magic he possessed to transform the thread. I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging my chest and grasping my shoulders as though I could somehow rub his presence off of me and pretend last night had never happened.

Oh, how I wished. I wished last night have never happened. I wished this week had never happened. I wish this entire past year had never happened. Or more

I wished I could go back to being a little girl, back when life was easy.

"Is this real?" the queen asked. The question didn't seem to be addressed to me, so I chose not to respond, instead picking slowly at a loose bit of skin on the tip of my finger, watching as it pulled off farther and farther down, shredding the skin until I feared I would start to bleed. The pain was specific, and it allowed me to focus on my finger instead of the deep fear I felt radiating through my whole body.

Would I die this morning? I had never been this nervous before. The only thing going through my mind was that I didn't want to die.

Self preservation really was the greatest instinct.