Another journal

1.

There was a princess.

2.

Prince Frances, stalwart and true, stood before the wall of thorns and contemplated his approach. He looked up, following the thick growth as it twisted and snagged up crenellated walls and towers. There was a castle beneath the briar and, if rumour proved true, a princess in magical sleep, awaiting a kiss.

Frances hadn’t rescued a princess before, though he was familiar with quests and had won a few. The sword he jabbed experimentally at the thorns had been dipped in the blood of a giant magical boar he’d killed in some great wood a few years back. The blade was now tough enough to cut through anything but dragon hide. Killing a dragon and bathing his sword in its blood would come later. After the princess, before any heirs. He had time for quests yet, even after he rescued and married this girl in the castle.

The briar appeared to be nearly solid, growing densely a full stone’s throw from the castle wall. The woody trunks Frances glimpsed in the tangle were as wide around as his mailed torso. He pulled on thick leather gloves and wished he’d thought to bring a helm. It hadn’t seemed necessary when he set out on this quest. There were no beasts to fight, just thorns, which the mail would protect against. It had been picked up on a quest too, one with dwarves. There’d been no killing on that quest either, just a simple find and fetch.

Frances guessed at where a door might be and began to hack at the dense briar, keeping one arm up to protect his face. The sword grew heavy as he worked and he dropped his arm to use both hands to swing. He hawed a respectable swath into the thicket, still far from the castle wall, but a wide enough tunnel that he wasn’t as worried that he’d put an eye out.

Hunger caught up with him after awhile and he backed out carefully. His squire sat under a tree with the horses, juggling pebbles. Frances ate staring at the briar. He looked at the towers and tried to guess which one the princess lay in. His squire chewed his bread and meat silently, gazing into the middle distance. He’d gone with Frances on quests before and was a trusty right-hand man, but not one for conversation.

Frances went back to the thorns, edging closer to the castle wall. His technique began to grow sloppy and as he turned to hack at a particularly twisted branch a thorn as big as his thumb raked down his face. The cut burned from cheekbone to jaw, deep enough to leave a scar. Frances shrugged it off. It would be additional proof of the completed quest, a badge of honour to go with his blushing bride. He kept hacking at the thorns.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.