A Velinwood Bedtime Tale for the Smallest Monarch
Princess Emma of Contradictions (and Cutlery) had decided, quite simply, that it was the perfect night to harvest prickly pears. She announced this to the Court by standing on a chair and waving her wooden spoon like a divine omen.
Jack of Knives, who was trying very hard to pretendhe was not the softest uncle in history, said nothing at first. He just… sighed. Deeply. The kind of sigh that means:
I love you, but this will end in bandages.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Get your boots.”
Emma did not get her boots. She got her cape, which she believed offered better protection against “cactus-related destiny.” The two of them,
the small chaos-heir and the man who carried knives (for emotional reasons)
walked into the velvet dusk.
The desert moved like a sleeping creature. Pink shadows stretched across the ground.
The prickly pears glowed like jewels someone forgot to put away.
“Uncle Jack,” Emma whispered, “do they bite?”
“Yes,” he said.
“They do NOT,” she insisted.
Jack shrugged. “In this kingdom? Everything bites.”
She considered this. Nodded. Accepted it as natural law. They approached the first cactus, an enormous sugar-loaf tower of green lobes with purple fruits blushing at the edges.
Emma poked one with her spoon.
The cactus… wobbled. Threateningly.
Jack, without looking up, said in the most bored tone known to man:
“Please do not start a fight with the succulents. I don’t have the patience tonight.”
Emma took this as encouragement. She tapped another fruit. It fell off, bounced twice,
and landed perfectly in Jack’s open hand as if the universe liked him best (which it does, but don’t tell him that).
He held it out to her.
“Careful,” he warned.
She took it anyway, boldly.
It pricked her thumb; tiny, sharp, a surprise. She gasped. She stared at the wound.
She looked up at Jack.“Does this mean I’m cursed?” she whispered, delighted.
Jack crouched down to her height. His eyes softened in that way he would deny until the end of time.
“No,” he said. “It means you’re part of this place now.”
Emma beamed like the moon had personally approved her existence. They harvested three more pears. Emma named each one:
Princess Fruitabella
Sir Stabby
Moonberry the Third
and
Susan
(She insisted Susan was the bravest.)
When they walked back to the Court with spoons and pears and pride, Jack glanced at the tiny heir beside him and said quietly:
“You did good, kid.”
Emma—ruler of the wild, keeper of spoons, terror of bedtime—
said:
“So did you.”
And that night the princess slept with a prickly pear under her pillow
for protection. And Attitude. And perhaps a snack for later.