Faithful Pebble
Part Sixty-Nine
For a moment, Pebble was quiet. For a moment, she moved as if she wanted to say something, ask something. The tilt of her head alone gave it away. She was confounded by what the wanderer had said. Still, instead of speaking, instead of asking, instead of seeking to satisfy the hunger of her curiosity, the girl continued her story. Her voice droned, then lilted. She spoke softly.
"And the soft as silk touch of her snow colored skin," she whispered. "Snow white laid there many days until, as the legends say, her prince came and woke her. He, who was guided by a magic mirror, woke the maiden with love's first kiss. It was ladened heavily with blind affection and stark fascination. These emotions quickly grew into something more as the breath returned to Snow white's body, as her color returned to full bloom once more outshining the light that had encased her in death, in the dark, in her forest of despair and sanctuary. It was a happy ending. So happy was it that the girl, her prince and the seven who'd raised her left the woods and the hut and the darkness behind forever, never to speak of it again. Even their very locations were never passed down." Here Pebble paused. Here the wanderer felt the girl's gaze pierce through him from beneath her hood. But only for a moment. Once more she turned forward. Once more they began their wandering descent towards the forest's secret center. "Only those from that generation remembered the coffin and the hut. Only the town nestled at the bottom of that hill and its surrounding mountains remembered the cave and its light."
"It's light?" the wanderer asked. "Ah, the diamonds."
"A member of my family re-discovered them many years ago," the town's headsman mumbled to himself. He softly practiced his speech from the balcony of his office, watching in bored contentment at the crowd beginning to gather beneath him. His mustache twitched. His stove hat wiggled slightly to every syllable uttered, to each roar of the crowd's mutter as he watched the approach of the oncoming party. In the sun, his guest crested the hills on the horizon. In an hour or so, he would enter the town, a hero, one flagged with the banner of a king.
- Calla