The one good thing about the Prince’s banquets had been eating normal food again. She couldn’t help pining for roast quail and salads comprised of the most delicate ingredients with piquant sauces drizzled over them, and cracked pepper, a fine dusting of gold and…
Po sighed.
“Ruth, what do you know of true love and what I like to call true lust?”
“Oh my!” Ruth chuckled. “You made up the last one. Most of us just call it lust. Let me see…”
John threw the ball again. Shades caught it, tossed it back with a bit of extra effort. It whistled as it spun, such was the speed. Her eyebrow cranked up. She’d forgotten his metal one was super strong. The aim was poor though, and it hurtled a few feet past John’s shoulder and out over the chasm. Ruff, watching avidly, judging from the swing of his poofy, floofy body, had decided it was his, and he launched…
Into space.
Over the chasm.
Heart instantly ascending into screaming mode, Po leaped to her feet, clutching nothing with her fist at her side, as if she could grab and rescue Ruff. “No, oh no.” That came out a frightful whisper.
Ruth had stood too; everyone was watching with their hearts in their mouths or in John’s case, with whatever was in his chest.
The floof machine plummeted and vanished from view, then she heard a faint squawk, and he bounced up the cliff face to land skidding beside John.
Shades saw them watching and raised an arm, waving it. “He’s okay! He rebounded off a bird flying by, then up the cliff!”
What the… It was ridiculous, but then Ruff was the most maniacal creature when he chose to be. He often sprinted ahead a half a mile then returned.
Relief flooding her, Po lowered herself into a cross-legged position again. “No more ball throwing, you two!”
They waved back at her.
“Tarnation.”
Ruth laughed again. “Gave me a start too. Now where were we. True love and lust? Hmmm. I believe true love often has a lot of lust too. Separating them is difficult. Where does one start and the other end? In young uns like you, it’s like sifting the air from smoke.”
“Go on.” She had the diary Ruth had given her at her side and wondered if this was like princess lessons, where she should be taking notes.
“Love has ingredients all mixed up, such as caring for them, wanting to help them do their best… worrying about them…”
Here, Po noticed how Ruth’s gaze had drifted to Shades. Hmmm. Telling.
“Being willing to sacrifice some of your happiness for them, and loving them because of and in spite of their flaws and weaknesses.”
“Damn. Knew I should’ve taken notes. That’s complicated.” She lay back, propped her head on the saddle bag she’d removed from Pearbottom. The mare was grazing around the corner on the small area of grass they’d found her and Rocky. They’d freed the other horse to return to the caravan. Water and grain were getting sparse. They needed to get out of these mountains soon.
“What is your weakness, Ruth, do you think?”
“Me. Ohhh, caring too much for others. Bad habit of mine.”
She chuckled. “I call that a lovely habit.” Po shifted her head into a better spot. “You know, John thinks he has no heart inside him. Really. But I am sure I can hear it.” Her words drifted into quietness as she stared at the clouds wandering by above. It was peaceful here.
“If you believe that then I believe it has to be there. Hang onto that belief.”
“Okay. I will.”
“True love can be like lightning, Po, but to keep it you need the other things to come along, and often you need to make good choices.”
That was getting too vague for her. Choices? She had no idea what that meant though she had been thinking about choices herself, lately.
“Such as, I have noticed how you have changed, how you and John act together. You made a choice there?”
Po felt herself blushing. She really should train herself not to blush.
“I suppose I did.” And she was definitely not telling Ruth about the choice she’d made in the wagon the night he deflowered her.
“I have decided that no one is ever free, not even, or especially not even, a princess.”
And then she remembered she had never quite told Ruth she was a princess, had she? Everyone seemed to have figured it out, though.
“However.” She held up a finger. “One can choose to be free-er. And I believe I have done that.” Partly by choosing this journey. “But a princess must always acknowledge her responsibilities.”
“Very good thinking, Po. If a ruler doesn’t do that, bad things happen.”
“Yes. You know that cloud up there looks like a dragon.”
“It does. Have you been writing in your diary?”
“I have.”
They discussed the pros and cons of writing things down and other important matters, while John, Shades, and Ruff climbed to the next highest point and looked out, no doubt trying to see where they must go.
When they descended, they urged her and Ruth to rise and come with them.
Having packed up everything, and with the horses on a lead, she followed them to the ridge.
When she crested the top of it, the view robbed her of breath.
“Beautiful.”
The sky was blue before them, clear for many miles apart from those fluffy white clouds. In the far distance, past a terrain of rocky hills, then past a checkerboard of farmlands, was a city that nestled at the edge of a sea.
But most remarkable of all, to her, was a slim white tower with a blue roof that sat on a hill a mile or two lower than them. It perched
