"I'm sorry could you repeat that please?" Vaggie asked.

"I said I think I'm falling in love with Alastor."

Vaggie took a moment to comprehend this.

"Well this is both unexpected and expected."

"Expected?"

"Well it was fairly obvious that you were into him but I figured that it was just an infatuation. I never expected you to actually fall for him."

"Well I'm not sure if I have. I said that I only think I'm falling in love with him. But if it turns out I am, what do you think about that?"

"Does it matter what I think?"

"Of course, you're my friend."

"Yes but in matters of your heart, my opinion doesn't mean anything. Only yours does. So what do you think about him being your true love?"

"I don't know. I mean he is nice...No he's not nice, he's wonderful and I enjoy spending time with him. He makes me feel like there's nothing wrong with me."

"There isn't anything wrong with you."

"Tell that to everyone in the Ninth Kingdom. Tell that to my father. If he can some how hear you now."

"Okay one issue at the time, please. So you like the idea of him being your true love?"

"I don't know. I mean...He's not what a princess should fall in love with. Oh God, I sound so shallow."

"I wouldn't exactly say shallow, more like conditioned. You've been raised since birth to believe that the love of your life is supposed to be a prince or somebody in that category, but what if your parents were wrong? What if there's more to your story than what is generally expected of it?"

"Because there's no story where a princess lives Happily Ever After with a wendigo or anything related to that."

"There's also no story where a princess has your condition."

Charlie became silent.

"I don't want to upset you but you have to admit, even before Alastor came along, you were not a typical princess. You never were and I don't think you ever will be. But that's not a bad thing."

"But I want to be like every other princess. I want what they all have. That's why I try so hard to follow the same formula as them."

"Charlie I never told you this before, but while we were kept in that keep, I listened to those fairy tale stories that you would read out loud and I learned two very important things. Number one, dragons and giants are sinfully misunderstood. And not all princesses are the same."

"What are you talking about?"

"They all had the same goals but their backgrounds and the trials they face are completely different. They weren't all forced into servitude, or poisoned with an apple, or raised by a witch, or put to sleep for a hundred years or had to prove that they actually were a princess. Each one had her own set of problems and the same goes for you. Stories maybe similar but they're never the same. There's always something that makes it unique and different from the others. Maybe what makes your story unique and different is that you're not supposed to end up with a prince."

"I'm not even sure yet that it is love I'm feeling. For all we know it could just be a fleeting a crush."

"If it is, that's okay. If it isn't, that's okay too. You'll have my support no matter what."

"Thanks Vaggie."

"Just promise me one thing. Whatever you decide, base it on your feelings and not what your parents have told you."

Charlie promised and Vaggie stepped out to scout the area for danger again. An hour had passed and the sun had set, Alastor had left to gather more firewood but Angel appeared to be waiting for her.

"So what were you two talking about in there?" He asked her.

"None of your business." She answered.

"Ah so something really good." He deduced with a smirk.

"I'm not telling you anything."

"I know but I'm very perceptive."

"Is that so?"

"Yep and I've learned something about your princess. She's hiding something."

Vaggie paled a little.

"Come on toots, you never thought that at least one of us would pick up on how she never wants to be seen after sunset?"

"No, I figured one of you would get suspicious, I just assumed it would be Alastor. He is the smarter of the two."

"Hey!"

"Then again he's not exactly as nosy as you are. He's not always trying to pry to other people's business. Which is ironic considering that you have your own secrets."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not the only one who's perceptive. That other night we talked, when I told you about my time wearing that cursed collar, I noticed that what you were showing me wasn't sympathy, it was empathy. Meaning you've suffered through hardships similar to mine."

Now it was his turn to go pale but then he smiled.

"You know I find myself liking you more and more."

"I hope that means you're liking me more as a friend and not as a meal."

"It does, and to prove it I think I'm wanna trust you with a secret of mine."

"You don't have to."

"But I want to."

He took a deep breath and reminded himself to stay calm when he spoke.

"Since the days of my great grandfather, my family had been used like livestock. Construction, hauling carts, weaving, and spinning, that was all we were allowed to do. And we were bought and sold like livestock too. I'm one of 12 children but my mother was only allowed to keep three of us. We weren't even hatched yet, when the man who owned us sold nine of her eggs. It broke her heart."

"How did your father feel?"

"The days of being enslaved had left my father without any emotion. He had learned to accept the way things were, he had no reaction when my nine brothers and sisters were taken away. He also never tried to bond with me, my brother Arackniss, or my sister Molly. He saw no point if we were all going to live in misery. My mother, my siblings, and myself tried to make the best of a sad situation. We loved and cared for each other. We tried to stay together no matter what and I tried to keep them from breaking my spirit."

"How did you do that?"

"I had dreams. Dreams of becoming a performer. Of dancing and singing on stage."

He looked at her face and waited for her reaction. She just sat there and listened.

"You're not going to laugh?" He asked.

"No. Should I?"

"No but usually people do laugh whenever I speak of my dream. My mother and my sister are the only ones who didn't. But they were the closest to me so that makes sense. How come you're not laughing? Don't you think it's stupid?"

"No. You have as much as being a performer as anyone else in the world, don't you? I mean do you have the talent for it?"

"I do indeed. I used to put on shows for my folks all the time and they loved it but my father always said no one would come to watch a giant spider dance and sing. He always said that I would be a slave to man and nothing more. But I never believed him. I knew someday I'd get the hell out of there. It was just a matter of time. A lot of time though, a lot of time and heartache."

His tone grew melancholic.

"When my father finally died from being worked too hard, Arackniss was chosen to take his place but Molly and myself were to be sold. Molly resisted and we tried to stop them from taking her away. My mother, Molly, and Arackniss were all shot for defying our master. I would have been shot too but Valentino liked my 'spunk' so he bought me. The next few years of my life were days of hauling carts or booze and drugs, and beatings but that wasn't the worst part."

He tensed up real hard.

"When I was older, he started using me for..." He looked like he was about to throw up. "For his pleasure...And having me...Entertain his...His friends. And if he made the wrong assumption about their sexuality, in other words if he thought they were gay or bi but were actually straight and sent me to them, they would beat me to a bloody pulp. Honestly I don't know what was worse. Pleasuring them or getting beaten by them."

Vaggie felt herself slowly be overcome with compassion for him.

"The only way I could hold on to my sanity was to retreat to my dreams as a famous performer. If I didn't do that, I would have ended up just like my father. Deprived of all life and feeling, and I'd rather die than let that happen."

Vaggie reached out to touch him but then stopped. She knew that victims of that kind of abuse were not keen on being touched. But Angel accepted her hand.

"It's okay to touch me." He told her. "As long as you're not forcing me or beating me."

"I'm so sorry that happened to you. You're very strong not to have been broken by all that."

"I could say the same for you and Charlie. But I think Al might be very close to letting his hardship break him. I guess that's why I want him and Charlie together to work out so badly. I don't want him to just accept that the world won't let him be happy. That's what my father did and it turned him into an unfeeling drone til death. I couldn't bear to see that happen to anyone else especially my friend."

Poor Vaggie was touched by his words that she couldn't hold back any longer. She hugged him, which caught him by surprise but he happily returned the embrace.

"Please forgive me, I thought you only wanted them together for amusement. That you were just being a flirt. But you just want Alastor to be happy and loved, to not have his spirit broken. That's one of the kindest, most loyal, most selfless thing I've ever heard anyone say. He's really lucky to have a friend like you."

"And Charlie is lucky to have a friend like you. You've been there for her longer than anyone. You're more of a family to her than her own parents. That's probably why she trusts you and listens to you more than anyone else in her life."

"I hope that's how she feels."

"I know that's how she feels. Why else would she have begged Al not to kill you at the keep?"

Vaggie smiled and the two just spent an hour sitting together in the grass, watching the fireflies and listening to the crickets.