Another journal

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Emily waited in her room until she couldn’t stand it any more and went down to the kitchens. She needed to be doing something and the multi-limbed pastry chef happily put her to work filling cookies.

“Where does all this food go?” Emily carefully piped jam into the soft hollows of cloud-white balls of dough. “The castle seems pretty empty, and it’s not like you all have to eat.”

“Sometimes we make food just to make it. What else would we do?” The creature was rolling out fondant with one set of arms and shaping translucent flowers with another. “But the castle is much bigger than you think and there are more people here than you can see.”

“When you live forever, dearie, it’s nice to have things to do.” The cook added, standing on a stool to stir something bubbling in a giant pot. “It may not be bodily necessary, but making food and eating it can help keep the mind intact.”

“Infinity can be a terrible thing.”

Emily looked over at the pastry chef and began to reply, but shook her head and returned her focus to the cookies.

She was back in her room the next morning when a page came for her. She slipped a folded piece of paper into the letter slot of the writing desk that said “I’m seeing the king.” Following the page to the throne room her nerves felt burned away.

Again, the king sat alone on his dais. Emily walked up to what she figured was a respectful distance and waited.

“I have decided to let your people return.”

“Thank you.” Emily bowed awkwardly.

“I have also decided the price.” The king raised his hand and a guard entered, leading a woman with her arms bound in front of her. Like the king, she was a modern storybook elf. “This woman instigated the civil war between my brother and I. She drove a wedge between us with jealousy and caused to be banished a woman I loved.” The guard brought the queen before the dais. “The price for granting your petition is to kill her for me.”

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.