(No, this isn't the last one. There's more. I just thought this was a good cut off point to post.)
Lili slept in a turbulent cycle of waking and dreams that night. At first, her mind was sore, and she could not remember the dreams. They were short bursts of thought that made her feel weak and worn. A black horn, a ruddy hand, a sweat-soaked thigh, feeling pressure on the back of her legs, and a surge of pleasant energy. Her sheets were clumped together, clamped between her knees. In the dark of the night, she wobbled from her bed to the case of books. She pulled "Beauty and the Beast" from the crowded shelf, and held it tightly to her chest, pushing herself into it, returning to bed with the book clutched in her arms. In the morning she remembered nothing, but the book reminded her of some other story she had heard long ago, and she tried to piece it together. So the nights continued, on and on, until the book was so worn that it started to fall apart.
A year passed. Jack visited less, and Lili almost never went into the woods. Her duties as a princess were becoming harder and harder to escape from. Her parents had betrothed her to the lesser prince of the kingdom's most valuable trade partner. She no longer felt like protesting it—her royal duties were inevitable, and it wasn't exactly true to say that she did not want to marry. She had thoughts every night, filled with longing to be with a man. The prince was handsome in an expensive sort of way, as these princes often are, and he was a little older—twenty to her eighteen, and already a decorated member of his kingdom's navy. He had a prominent chin, but a soft face, and boyish freckles. Lili had met him on only two occasions, and thought of him more as an ornament than a person. Could that be how she looked to other people when visiting foreign courts?
She was not angry at her parents for bargaining her away. She was not angry at her groom-to-be, who seemed more eager to to leave on his next voyage than to converse with her parents, but she was not resigned either. She just let the days pass, doing nothing extraordinary, until before she knew it, her mother had asked if she had wished to invite Jack to her wedding feast.
It felt like a very important question. It felt like something Lili had been avoiding. "I wish to invite him myself," said the princess, turning to her handmaiden, "Prepare my traveling attire."
Her mother chuckled, "I confess, I was alarmed when you first introduced that spirited lad to the palace. I thought you may have had your mind set on marrying him!"
Princess Lili smiled, "Do not take what I say too seriously, dear mother, but he was quite fond of me when we were children. There was a time when I would have wished for us to be married, though of course that time is long past. I simply wish to give him the message myself, as a true friend should. He brightened my girlhood years with his company, and we have not visited in months.
The queen nodded, "Tell him how happy you are, tell him all the good things about Prince Westerguard, and he is sure to come and celebrate those things with you. Does he still feel toward you the way he once did?"
"I confess, I do not know," Lili said, looking away from her, "I suppose he may have put those thoughts away to respect me. The way he behaves has certainly changed like that."
"Then he is wise, and kind," said the queen, "I would count him as a savage no more, should he walk among the courtiers, but as one who has done what is right toward my daughter. I'm sure your father would agree."
Lili tried to smile back at her mother. Jack was always a boy of the wilds, but he was never a savage. Compared to the courtiers, he was not savage at all. He was brilliant, a creative genius, and they shared the gifts of their imagination together. She remembered pretending all sorts of strange things in his company—talking to finches and deer, sneaking up to peer at unicorns through the bushes, being chased by goblins through a snowstorm, and even a daring rescue from a curse that threatened to cover the world in darkness forever. How funny they were, the ideas children had, and how she wished she could have ideas like them again sometimes. The prince didn't seem to care for such things. All he talked about was battle and strategy. Though perhaps she was being unfair—all she had talked about with him was her kingdom's finances. They really had spoken only sovereign to sovereign, kingdom to kingdom, and didn't know each other at all. Maybe that was why he did not seem special.
After donning her traveling cloak, Lili longed too much for some last small bit of adventure before surrendering herself to the rest of her future life. She asked her guard to remain outside her chamber and wait for her, and slid down through the window as she hadn't done in a long time.
She wound across the soft growing plants on the trail past Nell's cottage, whose invitation it would be alright to let her attendants take care of. She hadn't planned to stop there, but her feet slowed and her cloak hung heavy to the fallen leaves as she smelled sweet baking things. She thought of the day when she had fallen asleep at Nell's cottage as a child... There was another memory, too. One that wasn't clear before, but she now saw it in her mind as clear as the oaks and pines along the path. She was slumped in a frightful looking chair, sighing quietly in exhaustion, feeling pleasing things in that terrible place, thinking of that day at Nell's when she slept next to the fire after a bowl of sweet, sticky porridge. It was like a rush, like a wave that hit the princess squarely in the face. There were memories that this forest had kept to itself. Memories that she was not able to take with her when she left it. She continued deeper into the woods, no longer looking for Jack.