“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she said.

“I know you. And it’s not nothing.”

She didn’t reply. “Is it that guy you’re in love with?”

She huffed. “Does it –” she started. Then decided to stop.

“Does it what?” I prompted.

“Never mind. I don’t want you worried about me.”

“But I do worry about you!”

“Why?”

I was stunned.

“How come you’re so concerned about me? Because I’m your Fiancé’s sister?”

“No! Because you’re my friend, Ella. I care about you.”

“Don’t,” she said. This hurt me more than I’d ever imagined. “After this we can go our separate ways.”

“That’s not what I want!” I argued.

“It’s what I want.”

Tears stung my eyes.

“What went wrong? What changed? I don’t understand.”

“You never will,” she said. And walked away. I wanted with every fibre of my being to follow her but something held me back. Someone. It was the Evil Queen.

“Let her go,” she said. “She’ll be back.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Its not really what she wants.”

“You don’t even know her. How can you know what she wants?”

“Perhaps it takes a stranger to see things clearly.”

“I need to go after her!”

“No you don’t.”

“Let me go! I freed you! We’re even!”

“You put me in there to begin with! Now I’m a fugitive.”

“You were always on the run,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but now you’ve added attempted murder to my long list of crimes. Okay fine so it was already on there – but that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“You need to give her space.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked suddenly. “Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“Believe it or not I’m not always evil. Sometimes I’m just a person. And the reason you wanted to end your life was because of lack of love. So I gave you the opportunity to find it.”

After a while I understood. She must’ve lived a dull life like the one I did or was going to. That’s the only reason she would understand and do what she did.

“Thank you,” I said, “but I haven’t found my true love. The poisoned apple didn’t work.”

“Didn’t it?” She stared of into the direction that Ella had headed off in.

It all made sense now. Why Ella was the face standing above me. Why she was the one I saw first when I woke up. Why her smile made my insides flutter. Why I didn’t ever want to be apart from her. She was my true love. And I did love her. I knew that with everything in me, I loved her.

She loved me too. I knew this because she had awoken me. Not Charming. It was all so clear. Why couldn’t I notice it before?

‘It’s not all black and white,’ she had said.

‘You can’t change the circumstances.’

She knew the world would never accept us. But I didn’t care.

The Evil Queen saw the understanding in me eyes and let me go.

I turned back and gave her a grateful look which she returned with a smile and a nod.

I ran of towards Ella.

“Ella!” I screamed. “Please! I need to tell you something!”

I found her sitting on a log. She turned back to look at me. “Snow –”

“I know. It was you. It is you.”

Her happiness was proof she understood.

“I wanted to tell you,” she said softly. “So badly. I didn’t want to break my brother’s heart. I fell in love with you from the moment I saw you. He did kiss you first. It didn’t work. And I just saw you lying there. I couldn’t resist. He had gone outside. I think he didn’t want me to see the disappointment in his face.

And so I kissed you. And you woke up. He came just in time to see you open your eyes. He thought he did it. So did you. So I let you both believe it.”

I just wanted to hug her and tell her that everything would be alright. I ran towards her. Our embrace was short lived. I felt her being pulled away.

“How sweet!” said a familiar voice. “The Princesses found love!”

“Eric?” we both said in unison.

“No, your highness… es. Eric is dead.”

The footsteps behind me made me spin around. It was Eric.

“Eric, I know you must be angry,”

“Don’t you get it?” he laughed. “I’m not Eric. I just look like him. Thanks to some fairydust of course. Eric really is dead.”

“You killed my brother?!” Ella raged.

Well you were going to kill him from a broken heart anyway. I just saved you the trouble and guilt.”

“I’ll kill you!” said Ella.

“Not while you’re all tied up.”

“HELP!!!” I cried to no avail.

A hand grabbed her from behind. I felt it do the same to me. In a few seconds we were bound and gagged.

“What do you want?” I managed to choke out.

“You couldn’t just be like normal Princesses could you? I had a plan! We were supposed to get married. I was supposed to be King!”

“Who are you?”

“Oh forgive me,” he said mockingly.

He took out a ring he was wearing.

In an instant he transformed into his true self.

“Enchanted ring,” he said. “Put it on right after I killed Charming.”

“Jiminy?!”

“Yes. You remember.”

“Of course. There’s only a few people who I felt like smacking just a few moments after I met them.”

He laughed. “Feisty.”

“Why did you kill Eric?” I asked as Ella cried.

“Because,” he said, “I needed to. For my plan to work. I’d never seen you two before in my village and sensed something was off. So I followed you and saw you take off your disguise. I recognised you immediately, of course. Your wanted posters are everywhere. I would’ve turned you in but who wants to be just largely rewarded when you could be the King himself one day.”

“So you killed the Prince just so that you could marry me?” I was flabbergasted.

“Yes, Princess,” he admitted. “I did it all for the glory of being King and you could help me get there.”

***

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