Quest 138

[primrosella]

Entry the One Hundred and Thirty-Eighth
In which Her Royal Highness Princess Rosella finds herself in distress, which is normal, and shortly thereafter drops a bag of peas on her head, which is not.
Once upon a time, in a rather strange land known as the City, there lived a princess with quite a bit on her mind--which was only to be expected, really, from living in a place like the City for so very long. She had made plenty of friends in her time spent there, and she had been through many curses, and that made for a great number of things to think about, especially for someone who, to be perfectly honest, often thinks about things too much, anyway.

As she made her way through the aisles of the little grocery shop, listening to the pleasant click of her shoes on the floor and scouring the shelves for the items she wanted, the princess let herself drift into thought. She'd had a lovely evening the night before, attending a surprise party for the eighteenth birthday of one of her dearest friends, and soon there would be another birthday to celebrate, for another dear friend. And of course, Giving Thanks--or rather, Thanksgiving, she quickly amended with a touch of embarrassment--would be coming up soon, as well. Yes, there were plenty of good things to look forward to, she mused, and placed a bag of flour into her basket.

But alas, her thoughts soon turned to other considerations, and these were ones of the not-so-pleasant variety. Many of the people she cared about had seen friends sent home lately, and while she knew all too well that there was really nothing she could do to fix it, she still felt guilty and worried for them. And then there were her own worries--ones that had been piling up, bit by bit, over the course of a few months now, that she had been trying to ignore and determined to overcome. So many calamities had occurred, arriving every few weeks, and while she always did her best to recover from the horrors of those calamities, she was also aware that she hadn't shaken those horrors completely.

As she added a bag of apples to her basket and then went in search of the yeast, she let her mind drift over the memories of the prison, of the loss of her heart, of the cannibals and monsters that October had brought about, and finally to the horror of her encounter with Lolotte in the pumpkin patch. The joy of seeing her family the previous weekend had helped to counter a great deal of the sadness and uncertainty these events had brought about in her, but unfortunately, countering sadness did not necessarily mean eliminating it entirely, and the princess knew all too well how the City seemed to thrive on misery. She had vowed that it would not extract any out of her in the month of October, and she took a measure of rebellious pride in the fact that she had succeeded in keeping her vow.

However, this was now November, and she had no such vow for this month to help get her through.

(And, of course, had she known there was a curse on this particular day, she might've chosen to put these thoughts off for a later time, so as not to broadcast them all over the Network. But alas, it was not to be.)

Perhaps it was just that the coming of winter made it harder to keep her mind on light and cheerful things, she mused, dropping two packets of yeast into her basket. It was difficult to be anything but cheerful in the spring, when the days grew warm and the flowers came out and the whole world seemed to come back to life again. Now was the time for bundling up against the cold and building fires to keep warm--the normal fires, preferably, ones kept to the hearth and not to couches or straw dolls--and with the evenings coming sooner and sooner, perhaps it was only natural to be a bit gloomy. And at that thought, her optimistic spirit briefly surfaced, and she thought that perhaps she'd just have to hang on that much more tightly to the things that did make her cheerful, to combat the gloominess. It may not be easy, she mused, but she had never let things being difficult stop her before.

All these things she considered as she absently reached for a bag of peas, straining on her tiptoes to pull it down with the use of two fingers, and it was then that the princess learned her lesson about why one should always pay careful attention when retrieving heavy bags of peas from very high shelves.

Comments

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Certainly, the earl has no doubt that the princess would have come up with some kind of clever response. That seems to be one of her skills, really. And perhaps it's only her nature, or perhaps it's something she's learned. Perhaps it's both. After all, he knows full well that she's inclined towards adventure. It's a family tradition for her, as his collection is one for him.

How different they are, indeed.

He spoke at last: "How do you, Rosella?"

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

She was flattered, of course, that her acquaintance had such faith and confidence in her wit. However, she supposed that he ought to be equally confident in her insatiable curiosity, and she wondered if he realized just how easily this style of narration might reveal things to trigger that curiosity of hers. She wasn't entirely sure if she liked the thought of learning things this way, though; as others on the Network had said, reading such a narration rather felt like an invasion of privacy.

Of course, he could just as easily read all of her narratives, and so that would at least keep them on equal--if frustratingly revealing--footing.

"Oh, I'm quite all right," she answered, and then after a moment's consideration, added, "Well, other than the matter of the peas, anyway."

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

'Yes', he answered, 'I did hear about that. Are you all right?'

He could only imagine her face at finding the bagful of vegetables crashing on her head. He hoped--well, he hoped any number of things: that the bag was well closed, that the peas were neither wet nor fresh, that the bag was lightweight. For all that they were peas, surely that couldn't have been an especially comfortable event.

But at least it was serving as a conversational gambit in the midst of a rather fatiguing curse.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Fortunately for the security of the princess's head, the peas had been both dry and dried, and while the landing of the bag had not exactly been what one might call soft, it could have been considerably worse. And it had remained intact, as well, which was a very good thing indeed, since an aisle littered with peas would have been exceedingly difficult to navigate.

"My head hurts a bit," she admitted, because it did and if she had lied about it, she likely would've just been made to reveal that lie through her narration anyway, so it was much better to tell the truth, all things considered, "But the peas are fine and so am I. A bit embarrassed, of course, but generally no worse for the wear."

Sorry for being so slow. School essays have really taken it out of me.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

'You know', he said, 'there's a story about a princess and a pea. Merry retold it to me a few times. I think she thought it was rather ridiculous, and I'm inclined to agree. Admittedly, it's only one pea in the story, but your unfortunate turn of events reminded me of it.'

And, of course, because he could do nothing else, the story began:

Once upon a time there was a prince who would marry a princess. But before his mother would approve any girl to be his bride, she insisted on testing her to find out if she was a real princess. A real princess, his mother had said, would be so delicate as to be able to feel a pea through a feather bed.

And so, for the test, she stacked feather bed upon feather bed and pillow upon pillow, making a veritable tower on which these unfortunate princesses had to sleep. And at the very bottom, under the last feather bed, she placed one, small, single pea.

A great many princesses were invited to visit. And all were charming, beautiful, refined young ladies. Any one of them would have made an excellent wife and an even better queen. And yet, in the morning, the queen would ask them how they slept. And all them would answer that they had slept very well, thank you. And, of course, they never had the prince come back to them to ask for their hand.

Until there came to the palace another princess--from father away than most, but just as charming, beautiful, and refined as any of the others. She too was made to sleep on the stack of feather beds with the single pea beneath them.

And what a wretched night it was. She could hardly find a comfortable place to lie--if she wasn't being rolled off the bed. There was no explanation for it. It was as though she was sleeping on a massive stone.

And in the morning the queen, of course, asked her how she'd slept. And the princess answered, as politely as she could, that she hadn't slept very well at all and that she was covered in bruises and that she rather wondered if there wasn't an entire goose accidentally stuffed into one of those feather beds.

The queen was overjoyed, for here, at last, was a princess who had passed her test and felt the pea under her mattress.

The prince was delighted, and the two were married, and--as is the usual end to these tales--they lived happily ever after.

Ugh, I know how that feels. No problem! It's all good.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Though it was true that the princess had heard that particular story before, that certainly didn't mean it was any less fun to hear it retold to her just then. And so, when she realized that retelling it was exactly what her friend the Earl was doing, she quickly found a comfortable place to settle in and read it over, eagerly devouring the narrative line by line. It really was a good story, if perhaps a slight bit silly, since it seemed to her that there were many better qualities to pick as the deciding factor in whether or not to marry someone, and being "delicate" often precluded princesses from doing highly entertaining things, such as swimming or riding horses or climbing trees, anyway.

But it was a good story, and she enjoyed it thoroughly, and while she was well aware that she'd just revealed that fact through her own narration, she felt it was rather important to say it through her dialogue as well. "Oh, I do like that story," she wrote, "but I agree with you and Merry, it's a bit ridiculous. My situation seems to be a bit of a reversal of those circumstances, though, doesn't it? I really do wonder if the peas thought my head was as hard as a stone when they landed on it, rather than the other way around."

Break time! :D

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Of course it was silly, the same was most other fairy tales were when one thought about them properly--if they weren't more than a little nightmarish. They were all rather like bad dreams in certain regards. But, still, rather than a princess on a pea, here were peas on a princess, and it had amused him--and it had seemed to amuse her, so it was just as well.

'I rather doubt the peas thought much of anything,' he said, 'Especially not if they were the dried sort.'

Yaaaaaaaaaaay! :DDD

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

For a brief moment, the princess found herself wondering how in the world it would make any difference at all, whether or not the peas were the dried sort or not, as to whether or not they thought much of anything--and then it occurred to her that she was perhaps devoting a bit too much consideration to the hypothetical intellectual processes of vegetables, and really, she ought to put an end to such silliness right away. Even though it was admittedly not the most unusual thing she'd ever considered in her life, but that was mostly because she had a tendency to get herself into some of the oddest conversations without quite realizing it, and then one thing would lead to another, and so on and so forth. Much like the way her thoughts were rambling on and on just now, come to think of it.

Quickly bringing herself back to the present with a touch of sheepish embarrassment, the princess made herself write, "No, likely they didn't. Which is likely for the better, anyway, since I intend to eat them, and I'd hardly wish to know their opinion on that, either."

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

'I should certainly hope they wouldn't think at all, then. It would be enough to drive a person to starve if that were the case.' After all, he had met a few eccentrics who believed in not eating any meat at all, that it was healthier for the body and so on. And there were some who went so far as to avoid anything from animals at all, but they had a harder time of it. But their argument had been much the same: how can one eat something that thinks? Quite easily, Cain thought, if their meat was good enough. That was the nature of, well, nature, that one creature would consume the other. But he left the thought at that.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, Rosella did think it was a bit odd, that there were really people who wouldn't eat meat at all. She was friends with at least one person who didn't, she knew, and while she was far from implying that such a thing was wrong or bad, she did have to admit it puzzled her a bit. Granted, she would likely never consider eating anything that talked to her, but that was only practical, really. She'd heard too many stories of people transformed into animals or taking good advice from helpful animals to think otherwise. And all the talk about things consuming other things was rather driving her to think of that horrible curse in October, back when people were cursed to eat each other, and--

And she abruptly stopped that train of thought because she didn't like where it was going, and she very much wanted to think of something other than people eating people.

Perhaps a little too hastily, she quickly--and rather obviously--changed the subject: "Yes, well. Luckily, they don't, so that's that and there's no reason to worry about anyone starving. But goodness, I've been so caught up in all this business with the peas that I've completely forgotten to ask how you are today. Do forgive me--and how are you, then?"

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Cain couldn't help but notice that abrupt change of subject, but he was little surprised. After all, it was Rosella and, while he wouldn't call her especially sensitive about these things, they still seemed to displease her a great deal. They were not her favourite things on which to dwell. They bothered Cain a great deal less, but he would follow her conversation. It was the done thing, and he would play by the rules this time.

Cain assured her that he'd been quite well and had had no vegetables falling on him and inquired the same of her--beyond her recent encounter with those aforementioned vegetables.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

It was very courteous of him, really, to let her change the subject without remarking on it. Or at least, without outwardly remarking on it--since the matter of the narration was another thing entirely. It was a little strange, still, trying to hold to the usual standards of courtesy in the midst of a curse that seemed to turn all those rules on their head. Still, he was right that she didn't want to dwell on thoughts of monsters eating people, and more importantly, she was pleased to hear that his day had been both pleasant and vegetable-free.

"I'm quite all right," she answered, which she was, other than the slight headache she'd incurred from the incident with the peas. She paused a moment, as something occurred to her, and then carefully added, "And Rue's speaking with me again."

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Cain was certainly glad to hear this and, of course, remarked the same. Really, he'd been quite certain that the Princess Rue couldn't long stay crossed--or rather, persist in purposely avoiding--the Princess Rosella. It would have been far too complicated in City Society--what imaginary Society there might have been. Such close acquaintances couldn't stay crossed and confused with one another for very long.