A small mouse quickly cleaned his nose with his paws tiny that were as soft as the large dust bunnies that silently sat next to him under the slightly rust covered oven. He quickly twitched his tiny nose before cautiously poking the fleshy pads an inch from underneath his safe hiding place out into the bright open black and white tiled kitchen floor.
His feet quiet as death raced his panicking body across the floor, every second to every pace seemed like hours for ten miles to the little brown creature. He scampered on the slick surface towards some falling cranberry muffin crumbs, his ample paws desperately trying to cling to the floor. His heart no bigger than a tiny popcorn seed hammered enough for ten elephants, after what seemed like a life time he reached the sweet crumbs. Before he could shove all the morsels into his chewy mouth a dark shadow came over his teeny frame; the small mouse squealed at a huge foot started to come down right above him, his little feet shot under the nearest cupboard before Mrs. Potts's petite shoe landed on the glossy floor, her voice swelling in the mouse's tiny leaf-like ears.
"They didn't?" Mrs. Potts gasped as she set the warm pot down a little harder than necessary on the little table.
"It's true!" Chip said, "They had to have gone into the woods. There isn't any other place they could be."
"I do believe it's true," Cogsworth sniffed, quickly checking his pocket watch, "We thoroughly searched the castle and its grounds yesterday, and they were nowhere to be found."
Madeline inhaled sharply and put a hand to her chest in dismay, "Surely she wouldn't be so foolish to go alone with that scélérat?"
Lumier scooted a little closer to Madeline and wrapped his arm around her thin waist, "I would not worry, Cheri, Rose would never take him somewhere beyond our help."
"Lumier," Gisabelle held an embroidered handkerchief up to her heart, "you don't think he would actually," she gasped slightly, "hurt her?"
"We all know that he is capable of such atrocious deeds." Cogsworth spoke daintily taking a bite of a sweet, honey-soaked biscuit before directly sipping his tea.
"We don't actually know what he is capable of," Mrs. Potts scrambled trying to keep her mind on the steaming tea pot, her hands trying to touch the smooth porcine handle without burning them against the black stove top.
"Mamam," Chip interjected, his tea sitting untouched in front of him, "It's completely obvious what type of person he is. Do you really think his parents would have sent him here if he wasn't such a bâtard?"
"The boy has a point," Lumier said ignoring Mrs. Potts's motherly glare towards the slightly red faced Chip as he realized his slight profound risks in his coarse language.
Cogsworth went to take another sip of his strong, English gray tea, "It is exactly why I still say we should inform the master-" everyone cut him off at the same time with multiple shushes and hisses of "quiet!" causing him to spill his tea down his "once" perfect front.
"I'm just saying," he spluttered as he wiped away the gray-green tea off his soon to be stained, white, ruffled, front collar. His face starting to become bright red, "the master would like to know."
"If we bring him into this we'll be opening a can of worms we will never be able to close again," Mrs. Potts insisted.
"Not to mention how Rose would feel about us. She would think we were all traîtres," Madeline added sadly.
Chip thought about it for a moment, "but what if he hurts her and we could have prevented it? Wouldn't it be better for us to have Rose mad at us than have her permanently scarred because he hurt her?"
Everyone looked down at their tea, thinking about what Chip had just said. The possibilities of what Daniel could do and what would happen if they overreacted fighting each other in their minds. Finally, Mrs. Potts couldn't take it any longer.
"I think we are all overreacting. We should simply give them a little time before we make our decision."
"I concur," Lumier said, "If he had hurt her than we would know about it, and she certainly would not be out there with him again."
"What?" Chip exclaimed, "don't tell me she actually is back out there."
"As much as I hate agreeing with Lumier," Cogsworth input, "it is most certainly accurate that the young-"
Lumier cut him off, "yes, she is."
Cogsworth looked ruffled, "I was saying exactly what you just-"
"Yes, but you were taking longer than a candle takes to burn."
"I most certainly was not!"
Chip interrupted, "would you both please stop it? We were discussing Rose not your speaking habits."
"I thought we were all in agreement about that," Madeline said.
"Yes, I believe we are," Mrs. Potts agreed, "We shall wait and see what happens, and, if it comes to it, inform Aaron and allow him to decide the miscreant's punishment."
Everyone nodded their heads slowly; Chip taking a fraction of a second longer than any of the others. After a moment, everyone started to slowly stand. Out of nowhere, a shadow swept over them and everyone looked up, startled.
"What was that?" Madeline asked.
"It was just a bird," Chip said, "a blue jay I think."
Everyone smiled and started to wander off; none of them giving a second thought to the mysterious black bird that cawed softly as it flew towards the woods in search of its friend and her annoying, Schwachkopf of a hiking buddy.
*************************************************************************************"So your (cough) best bud isn't coming today?" Daniel asked, cautiously hoping he was right as they walked through a dark path shadowed by the thick foliage of the trees above. He quickly looked up to see if the annoying black ball of feathers was following them, or worse bringing other's along with it.
"Not that I know of," Rose responded and stopped to fix her pant leg which was caught on one of her bootlace latches.
Daniel paused and watched her, unconsciously studying her movements. She had one of her hands leaning against the tree to steady her, yet even in this unlikely pose for a princess she still kept her unique sleek less beauty as if she were wearing the most tearable dress he could imagine. Even though she was dressed as a back street tomboy with her legs in his rough black jeans, her waist and top drenched in his white and black boy bands shirt spreading the designs of the faces from the legendary rock band "QUEEN" on the back. And of course her small mousy feet trying to stay in his sleek, black and red hiker shoes that his mother had carelessly gave to him for his eighteenth birthday without even attending the opera concert she herself had enforced him to attend.
Even through all her tough and roughish glares he found himself amazed at the grace she had even in such ordinary clothes, considering he could barely imagine finding her wearing his casual t-shirts and jeans he would wear to his drinking parties in his father's mansion back in Kingston.
He couldn't help himself from marveling at how beautiful he found her to be, even though his clothes did not flatter or emphasize her curves such as the other so called stripper beauties he normally found himself with. He used to be around girls that would dance around a squeaky poll throwing off all their clothes and showing off their most seductive moves in order to get his moods going, but this girl touched him in a way he never thought he could be touched; this thin, bratty yet spunky princess could understand him without ever having to rub her fingers all over him.
He smiled to himself trying to keep his eyes on her graceful moves, her delicate features, her shining eyes that burned like small glowing embers.
"What are you looking at?" Rose said breaking into his musings.
"Nothing," Daniel quickly replied as his face turned scarlet. Luckily, Rose couldn't tell because of the dim lighting from the forest canopy.
She shrugged, "ok," she said and started walking again. Daniel took a moment, he quickly breathed in some cooling air that rushed from his lungs and into his burning cheeks faster than a racing rabbit running from a ravenous fox. He quickly licked back his styled hair before catching up to his new friend.
"So," Rose said carefully after a moment, "I was wondering if I could ask you something." She breathed nervously, her fingers delicately playing with her hair.
Daniel wasn't so sure that he liked the tone in her voice but he answered, "If you want." He nippily gulped down his short squeak as Rose looked at him, playfully smiling from his blushing cheeks which looked like two cherries growing underneath his eyes.
Rose paused for just a moment before she started speaking, "well, why did your parents send you here anyways? Papa never told me the whole story."
Daniel stopped in his tracks; his mind racing as he tried to think of something to tell her. He frenziedly searched for any excuse, explanation, justification, any reason he could possibly incline without telling her the full knowledgeable truth. Daniel noticed Rose watching him expectantly and he decided to try to dodge her question, "Oh no, sorry princess I don't do sob stories."
"Really, it couldn't have been that bad," Rose pushed.
Daniel almost laughed when he heard her say that. He imagined the look on her face if he told her: 'oh I only slept with this bloody slut, and she was found stabbed to death in our hotel room three days later, no biggee', laughing to himself as he imagined her cheeks suddenly draining faster than a broken drain pipe of color. He knew that everything that had evolved in their friendship would go out the window if she ever found out: trust-gone, loyalty-dead, friendship-extinct, and somehow, he found he couldn't live with that. However, he realized, he didn't want to lie to her either, so he decided to settle on a partial truth.
"Well," he teased, "I just couldn't stand their smelliness anymore, and they couldn't accept it when I finally told them to take a bloody bath already." Rose raised her eyebrow at him. "Ok, ok, in all seriousness, they wanted me to become more of a gentleman; they thought I misbehaved too often." He tried to laugh slightly as he continued, "I mean, really, can you see me as a snot-nosed gentleman waiting on ladies with expensive purses and dresses while I carelessly hold the door open for them as they gossip and bicker for the next hour?"
Rose shook her head slightly, and Daniel continued in a slightly more cheeky tone, "Or even sitting straight faced at dinner while trying not to laugh at my grandmother who in fact has a nose like that puppet kid with the bloody annoying cricket, and her choppers falling out of her huge lips while she's trying to sip her soup through a spoon that's smaller then my nails? I mean really, in my mind that's a bloody waste of time; and it's a lot duller than what I do. Don't you think so? You know, being trapped her in this princess role and all?"
Rose smiled and started walking again, she flicked her hair away from her eyes as she replied, "Don't make too much of a mockery, or I might start to think you mean it. However, I am glad to hear it wasn't anything serious, though."
"Yea, nothing serious," Daniel repeated instantly, he averted her direction while feeling his gut twist uncomfortably with guilt. "So, where are we going anyways?" he sputtered trying to change the subject and avoiding the growing twist towel in his jumping stomach. He felt a quick flash of relief when his avoidance trick actually worked as she sighed before turning her eyes in another direction.
"Nowhere in particular," Rose said and gave him a little, half-smile that made his gut grow tighter. They headed down the small, thin deer paths. He passed by green pines, ancient birch and oaks that reached higher than most of the mansions back in Kingston. He glanced over to the thickest sticker bush he had ever seen, the bush was at least as thick as his upper torso, and shaped like a demented prickly car from hell. Daniel smiled as he imagines the bush making a sharp honk and driving straight after Ted, leaving Ted's scraggly broken glasses in the dirt.
Out of the silence he caught the faintest glimpse of something gray and furry disappear back into the dense brush like soup going into his great-grandmother's lips. Slowly peeking through one of the many holes arranged by the battered leaves, he could see one, lone shining eye staring back at him.
His teenage mind automatically sprung the thought "hey, I don't know what that is… let's check it out!" His grin spread wider than Queen Marie Antoinette laughing before the stroke of the guillotine on her latest victim. As he approached the now quivering leaves, he didn't notice Rose quickly turn her head northward, hearing the slightest sound of howling further up the mountain. Her brown eyes scanned the horizon while he timidly pulled back the dark leaves to find the biggest puppy he had ever seen. He watched the giant, scared eyes look at him. The tiny pup gave a loud cry as he reached his hand down to touch its soft nose.
Daniel laughed; he started to grab the pup's small scruff but hesitated as he heard Rose's stern voice.
"We need to go, Daniel," Rose said nervously, glancing around quickly, "now."
Daniel hadn't heard Rose use that tone since his first night at dinner, and he found his guilt swell within him, this pig-headed girl started to sound just like his over-bearing useless mother. The small quirk of guilt that had been slowly bubbling and building like magma inside an active volcano suddenly transform into hot magma nous form of rebellion, the way it had all of his life.
"It's just one damn, baby wolf," He sneered and grabbed a dead stick off the ground as he slowly start to poke the frightened animal, "cute little thing, though."
Rose nervously watched Daniel lift his stick away from the little creature, almost touching its small delicate nose, "Daniel," she stated sternly, "Don't you dare touch that creature again! You are being exceedingly foolish, and I must put my foot down to your childish behavior!"
Daniel froze before turning around slowly; his anger redirecting immediately to the girl standing resolutely in front of him.
"Foolish?" he practically shouted, "You think I'm being foolish? You're the bloody fool! I've already explained to you, your so-called highness, that you have no authority over me! You are a-"
Daniel would have continued except he was interrupted by a long, low howl much too close for comfort. Rose and Daniel stared at each other for just a moment before they both ran to the two nearest, white oak trees and scrambled up the branches, barely reaching five feet before a pack of wolves walked into the clearing, prompting both the hikers to scurry higher into the branches. The wolves quickly realized where the two of them were hiding and started circling the trees.
"Oh wonderful, Daniel," Rose said exasperated, "I'm so glad you're not a 'bloody fool' because we might just have ended up treed by a pack of very angry wolves if you were!"
"Don't you blame this on me," Daniel shot back, "I didn't lead us to this area."
"And how exactly am I supposed to know where the wolves are? You should have listened to me when I said we had to leave!"
"Naturally, I should have followed the demented little twit who fancies herself so brilliant when she doesn't even know how to put on a bloody pair of pants!"
"You are the most cruel, selfish dolt I have ever met! I don't know how you tricked me into ever believing otherwise! C'est de ta faute! Je ne peux pas croire que je vous avez suivi dans ces bois maudits, en premier lieu-"
Daniel couldn't stop himself from cutting her off, "maybe you'd get some sense of reality if you quit playing the moronic princess and actually left this hellhole!"
Daniel realized he had made a colossal mistake the second the words left his lips. Rose's face turned white, and her hands clenched in defiance of her wet eyes; her voice shook slightly as she responded, "Well, I've seen what your reality has made of you, and it isn't anything I want."
"Rose, I-" Daniel started, desperately searching for the words to apologize but Rose cut him off.
"Just shut-up, Daniel, and leave me alone," she said and climbed around her tree until the trunk was between the two of them.
Daniel looked toward her before he turned and punched the trunk of his tree as hard as he could, causing his knuckles to start bleeding.
"Damn, Bloody Hell!" He cussed as he waved his hand in pain, "Damn it! Why did I ever come out here with that stupid, repressed-"
Suddenly, he clung to the trunk, feeling a powerful rumble shake the ground and into the hearts of the trees. Daniel looked up at the trembling hillside and realized a large avalanche of stones was heading directly toward them. The huge, heavy stones fell rolled down with the force of hundreds of charging rhino's. The wolves also looked up in fear, watching the stones crash and destroy small trees or smash anything in their path. They let out frightened yelps and howls before running away as fast as their legs would take them. Daniel watched them go without feeling anymore relieved; even though this was the end of their imprisonment, nature was full running them into a stony, painful death.
He held tightly to the coarse, biting bark, praying that the tree could withstand the unstoppable force coming to end his already aggravating day.
He closed his eyes, ready to hear the crashing sound of his tree falling to the flat ground squishing him along with its hefty fall. There was a gigantic crash that echoed through the woods, Daniel could feel dirt touch his face and go up his nose. His arms shook from the strain but didn't let go of the rough bark, he felt his heart hammering beneath his rib cage as if trying to leave his soon-to-be-dead body behind.
His lungs seemed to hold in every ounce of air around them, daring not to even breathe as the echoes faded behind the mountains. Daniel slowly opened his dirt covered eyes, blinking along with his frantic heart to see the stones had stopped into a ditch a few meters away from his tree. Shakily he let go of the wide trunk, his arms throbbing in retribution quickly turning sore as he heavily leaned against the trunk. He looked up just in time to see a black bird fly down and land on the tree across from them, facing his pulsing right arm.
"Did you see that?" Crow's hoarse voice cawed in the dense branches. All Daniel could see of the pesky bird were his shiny, black button eyes. "I've been saving that escape plan für immer, and I just saved both your butts! All hail-"
Crow froze as he finally took in the scene. He immediately looked at Daniel and cawed, "What the Hölle did you do to her? Why is she crying?"
Daniel automatically came to his own defense, "I didn't do any-"
"Ruhig sein! I have no need für deine liegt!" Crow snapped his clacking beak, with a shrill caw he flashed like a black lightning cloud almost pinching Daniel's pointed nose with his small sharp talons. Daniel quickly touched only feeling soft feathers whisk by his cheeks, crow landed like a parrot to his perch right onto rose's right left shoulder.
Daniel stared after him, feeling ready to go another round with thee boxing tree and his scratched up knuckles. He couldn't believe that all he had been through in the last few hours had culminated into being told off by a wannabe-human pillow stuffing-to-be. He tried to calm his temper enough to eavesdrop on what Rose was telling Crow about him but he realized almost immediately that they were speaking in German.
Daniel stared at the trunk; he only felt the everlasting sting of building guilt, along with the most obnoxious biting conscience telling him the painful truth of his ill behavior towards Rose. His mind rushed from one excuse to the next trying in vain to come up with the perfect reasons and ways so that the hiding girl behind the next tree over was in the wrong.
"What gives her the right to tell me what to do?" His fingers clenched as he swung his fist through the air like an angry monkey that had lost his mango to the neighbor next door. "She should just sod off! I mean, who the hell does she think she is? Going around demanding everyone to follow her orders; does she think she's the Bloody queen of Sheba?"
Daniel swung his arm again, his hot face quickly turning pale as his leg slipped off the branch. He felt his lungs scream before slamming right into the branch below, his hanging legs only inches away from the ground.
Through the painful moans in his mouth he heard a soft clout on the ground, sorely pushing his aching chest up he saw Rose walking away from him, the annoying black parrot still squawking on her shoulder. As he was carefully swinging down, a sick sting poked inside his stomach, he could feel a growing sense of guilt creeping into his already pain washed eyes.
A new thought struck Daniel as he painfully walked behind them, "What if she never talks to me again? She's the only one who didn't look down on me in this hellhole, well except Ted but he couldn't hold a conversation if his life depended on it, and how many tortures can I inflict on him before I get too bored to even throw another spit wad… Maybe I should just apologize and get it over with,"
Daniel paused in his steps at the horror of the idea. It didn't take him long to think of a better solution, "then again, the only other company she has is that flea-ridden parakeet and that wimpy little twig, so it shouldn't take long before she comes to me on her hands and knees. In fact, I bet it won't even take a whole day before she'll be begging for my forgiveness. I'll just have to wait her out; after all, I have way more endurance than any damn women."

Rose walked through her flower garden, ignoring her tagalong hiding in the shadows. She walked slowly, running her fingers through the leaves as she went, stopping here and there to water her flowers, and occasionally glancing out of the corner of her eye to see if stalker had moved. It was the same routine she had done all week since their fight in the forest: eat breakfast, ignore Daniel, read in the library, give cold shoulder to Daniel, eat lunch in her room to evade Daniel, clean and take care of her plants, shun Daniel, finally eat dinner and leave quickly to escape the persistent pest.
Daniel, for his part, had mostly just followed her, sticking to the shadows just enough to give the impression of secrecy. The first day or so he had tried to approach her but he quickly realized it was a bad idea to wound his pride, so he was now openly leaving the next move to Rose.
Rose knelt next to a particularly dry-looking rosebush and started pouring the cool liquid on its roots. She glanced up again and noticed Daniel had moved from his place in the shadows; he was now leaning against a column just inside the perimeter. Rose stared at the slightly wilted roses in front of her and sighed out loud. She stood up slowly, wiping the dirt off her knees, and walked toward Daniel. He stood and watched her get closer, cautiously smiling as she came within talking distance and stopped.
"Why are you following me?" She snapped, folding her arms across her chest.
"Why do you keep heading everywhere I want to go?" he tried to joke but quickly straightened himself from the threatening look that remained on her pastel face, "I just was hoping to talk to you."
"About what exactly?" she shot back almost striking him like an angry adder.
Daniel regarded his words carefully, "About the day with the wolves," he paused, "when I was a total jackass."
"Oh yea," she said coldly, "I remember that day."
"Look," Daniel finally couldn't stand the tension; he looked up at her trying to avoid the glare from her eyes as he bit his tongue. "Oh bloody hell I know I'm going to regret this." he grimaced.
Even though the words tasted like snake venom Daniel finally managed to spit out, "I know I was being an arse and a bloody idiot, so of course I really didn't mean what I said."
"You didn't," Rose tried to urge him on without losing any of the chill in her voice.
"Of course not," He said, "I was just having a bad day and then you told me what to do and-"
"So it's my fault?" Rose cut him off and Daniel backtracked immediately.
"No, no, no, no, no," he spluttered, "you weren't wrong, and…" he faltered as he finished, "I should have listened…"
Rose looked at Daniel's downcast expression, recognizing the unspoken apology that Daniel was too stubborn to say out loud. Her expression slowly softened as she realized again how much Daniel had changed since he had been there; sure he said some horrible things to her, but was they really any different or better than the things she said when she was upset with her mom, or, for that matter, the things she had said to him in the woods.
"Yes," she slightly softened her voice, "you should have." Daniel looked at her with a little smile playing at his lips, clearly seeing the end of the road to their week long silent treatment.
"I guess I could have been slightly less commanding," Rose finished and Daniel stopped himself from pointing out how correct he thought she was and she continued, "How about we just forget this whole mess and move on?"
Daniel smiled and said, "Absolutely!"