La Bella and El Bestia

Chapter 4

Meanwhile back in the village unknown to Frida, Django was secretly planning a proposal for her. He had a whole wedding scene prepared.

"Django why marry Frida?" Zoe complained to him. "She's not good enough for you."

"Yes why don't you marry me?" Carla said.

"No me!" Sofia said.

"No me!"

"Now ladies." Django said calming them. "Though I'm getting married I'll still have my rendezvous with you three."

The girls giggled at his flirtatious gesture.

"Frida sure is gonna get the surprise of her life huh?" Sergio asked.

"Yep, now remember Sergio when I come back-"

"I know I strike up the band!"

He was just about to start when Django slammed a tubo on his head.

"Not yet!" He hissed.

"Sorry." Sergio said.

Django then straighten up his hair and walked right up to Frida's house. The young woman was in the middle of reading when she heard a knock at the door. She went to the peek whole, much to her annoyance it was Django. She decided to pretend she wasn't home so he'd go away unfortunately that plan was eliminated when Django rudely barged in.

"Django to what do I owe this...pleasant surprise." She said trying her best to fake being nice.

"Well I just wanted to see my favorite girl in town."

"Zoe?"

"Ha! You are so funny. So listen I talked to the tax collector yesterday."

"Did you now?"

"Yes and according to him you and your father are high in debt."

"What are you doing talking to the tax collector about my financial business?"

"Can't I be concerned for your welfare? Anyway it would be ashame if your father was unable to pay his taxes. After all how is he going to take care of you?"

"We'll manage."

"You know there's a very easy way to fix this."

"Really and what is that?"

"Marriage to a wealthy man."

"Oh is that it?" She said not so surprised that he was going to play that card.

"And lucky for you, I a very rich not to mention handsome man am searching for a little wife."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, of course she'll be the most beautiful and she'll tend to my every want and need with no questions asked."

"So you want a slave?"

"There's that since of humor again. She'll give me plenty of little ones and dogs. We'll have six or seven."

"Dogs?"

"No sons."

"Imagine that."

"And do you know who that little wife be?"

"Let me think."

"You."

"Me?" She squeaked nervously. "Ha-ha! And here I thought you couldn't be funny!"

"This is no joke Frida. You are the lucky girl chosen to be wife."

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious about anything in my life. We'll make a charming pair don't you think?"

"Oh God I'm not hearing this." She mumbled. "Django I'm...I'm speechless. I really don't know what to say."

She began backing up nervously.

"Say you'll marry me."

He walked closer to her until he had her pinned to the door.

"Sorry Django but-" Her hand desperately made it's way to the door knob. "I just don't deserve you."

With that said she opened the door and sent him flying into a mud hole with pigs.

"But thanks for the...Kind offer."

She then closed the door. Sergio conducted the band to start playing but quickly silenced it when he saw Django in a pigsty.

"So how did it go?" He asked.

Django angrily seized him by his throat.

"Mark my words Sergio!" He snapped. "That stubborn beauty will be mine!"

He then threw Sergio into the mud.

"Hmmph! Touchy." Sergio said as a pig snorted in agreement.

Once Django had left Frida creaked the door to her house and looked outside.

"Is he gone?" She asked herself. "Can you imagine? He asked me to marry him. Me? The wife of that boarish, brainless-"

Frida was unbelievably appalled and annoyed. The nerve of that man, waltzing in her house acting like she would just automatically fall over him and spend the rest her life serving him as his wife slave. Fat chance of the happening. She walked out into a field and spotted a dandelion. She picked it and began plucking the seedlings off.

"I wish." She thought. "That I could meet someone who would understand my dreams, understand that there's more to me than just some pretty face."

A breeze blew by and it carried the dandelion seedlings into the wind. She sighed as she watched them fly away into the sun and wondered what it would be like to be fly to far off places, to wherever the wind took her, like the seedlings. After a couple minutes of daydreaming she walked back home. She saw Sergio was still there trying to clean mud off himself but she noticed he was wearing a familiar scarf.

"Sergio where did you get that scarf?" She asked.

"I found it."

"This is my father's."

"Hey finders keepers."

"Where did you find this?"

"In the woods."

"Where in the woods?"

"I don't know."

"Think!" She said pinching his ear.

"Ow! By the crossroads."

"You have to take me to him!"

"Not on your life!"

"Then I'll find him myself!"

She put on her red cloak and went into the forest. By the time she made it to the crossroads it was already starting to get dark and she didn't find her father there but she did find the broken remains of her mother's music box. She kneeled down and picked up one bluebird figure that managed to stay in one piece, she held it close and fought to suppress her tears. She then continued on her journey, it was no long before she came to the castle.

"What is this place?" She wondered.