Myrielle and Fredrick slinked through the castle like a couple of high schoolers hiding from the pain-in-the-ass hall monitor. Their recent make-out session had left them floating on air, weightless amidst the euphoric haze that springs from one's chest like a 'Care Bear stare.'

"Can you give me a tour of the castle?" she said playfully, ignoring the fact that the prince and the ice queen and the contest awaited her return.

Fredrick put his arm around her waist and smiled. She was basically his chosen one and nothing could stop them now. "Would you like to see the place where I administer the prince's ridiculous weekly hair treatments?"

"You mean the lavatory?" she said, scrunching her nose. "It's an interesting suggestion but...I think I'll pass."

Fredrick's casual 'boyfriend vibe' took a sudden hit of embarrassment. If he really hoped for Myrielle to change her mind about the contest and run away with him, he needed to minimize his focus on knocking down the prince, and maximize demonstrations of his leading-man charisma. He ran through his leading-man qualifications in his head: no fortune, no home to call his own, and the title of a servant. The failed mental experiment left him feeling even more apprehensive.

"Does the castle have a library?" she asked, trying to get things back on track when she noticed his strange silence.

His eyes lit up. "You enjoy reading?"

She nodded. "It's my favorite hobby, aside from digging up worms and feeding them to rats." He looked at her strangely. "I'm kidding of course!" she lied, since at one point in her childhood she had done just that.

The relief in his laughter was obvious. "Of course you were only kidding; I knew that."

"Good," she said firmly, "because only a fool would give away worms when they could be a main course in themselves." He looked at her strangely but she definitely wasn't kidding. "For the protein!" He seemed a bit nauseous. "Well we're peasants after all, with very limited options, since the food we could be having is locked in the fat king's kitchen," she said sneering.

His eyes widened at her treasonous words. "We must never verbally comment on the king's figure!" he whispered.

Myrielle snorted. "What figure? He's a blob."

Fredrick maintained a serious expression. "Be that as it may, he's cultivated a reality where he eats for ten, but according to the rest of us and our regular compliments, he's healthy and fit as a fiddle."

She shook her head in amazement. "These royals are stranger than I thought." She sighed. "And I'm really starting to doubt I could ever be one...or want to be one."

Her words seemed to be magic to Fredrick's ears, and he squeezed her hand tight before leading her up to a secluded winding staircase. "No one ever goes to the royal library," he said. "Which is a shame as it contains so many valuable first editions."

The fascinating mention of library nerd-porn was an instant turn-on for Myrielle. She nuzzled his neck. "Can you show me all the first editions?"

They wound their way up the narrow staircase, and when they reached the top a set of massive doors at the end of a long corridor was their prize. "I regularly visit the library to clean off all the dust and for general maintenance," he said. "And...if I'm being honest...to borrow a few titles for myself."

She pulled his arm and dragged him towards the doors. "Let's go inside and borrow some for ourselves!"

An echo of sound reverberated from the stairwell, which made Fredrick and Myrielle freeze in their tracks. It may have been a footstep, or it may have been a squirrel running headfirst into a wall, but the uncertainty alone made them nervous.

"What if someone found us?" she whispered. "Is there a secret escape?"

Fredrick tried his best to be a source of steady calm, but he could already feel the sweat trickling down his back. "I'm sure it's fine," he said assuredly, "but stay right here while I go check."

Fredrick creeped his way down the winding staircase, confused as to who or what might be hot on their trail. This area of the castle wasn't known to most of the staff, aside from his second-in-command backup servant. He suddenly gasped. Fredrick had always been paranoid that the younger, up-and-coming superstar servant would one day take his place. The reality of this occurring wasn't exactly far-fetched, and even though he dreamed of running away with Myrielle, he wasn't intent on doing it by being unceremoniously replaced. But would he even get the chance to go out on a high note? Or would he be caught for shirking his duties to socialize with a contestant?

By the time he made it to the bottom of the stairs he was no closer to finding an answer. The area was quiet and deserted; perhaps he and Myrielle had only imagined the sound? He waited ten seconds more, and once he felt certain that the coast was clear, he made his way back up the staircase. What he didn't notice was that once he was out of view, the sound of shuffled footsteps emerged from around the corner...

Back on the upstairs landing just outside the royal library, Myrielle heard someone scurrying up the staircase. Her heart stopped in terror until the top of Fredrick's head emerged.

"Are we safe?" she said. He nodded and she smiled, but her relief was soon replaced with the overwhelming reality. "That's a strange thing to say though, isn't it?"

He approached and took her hand. "What do you mean?"

"That we could somehow be safe," she said. "In what scenario does this night equal safe?" She couldn't help but laugh. "What are we even doing?"

Fredrick took her in his arms and embraced her for a long time; miraculously it calmed her down.

When he let go he searched her eyes. "What if we could be safe?" he said.

She was about to roll her eyes but managed to stop herself. "Okay, I'm curious; how could we be safe?"

"Well..." he started, "if I turned over my servant's jacket, and you turned over your position in the contest...maybe we could make a fresh start. In the village."

"If you had told me that two weeks ago I would've laughed at you," she said.

"And now?" he said hopefully.

"Now things are very different," she said. His face lit up. "Except..." His face darkened. "My mother's been making all the clothing for the contest, and in doing so it's brought the family business back to life."

"But that's wonderful!" he exclaimed.

"Wonderful with conditions." Her expression darkened. "If I quit the contest...Fairy Godmother said my mother will have to forfeit the dress-making contract." She sighed. "Which means the business will go back to being dead."

Fredrick's heart sank as he heard her dilemma; there really was no argument to putting family first. Unless...maybe...perhaps...there was? Of course there was! And that argument was love! It was clear that Emotional-Fredrick was still calling the shots, as he puffed out his chest in solidarity with love. Judging by Myrielle's expression she was having a similar epiphany.

"One thing my mother did tell me though...was that coin doesn't equal happiness."

"That's true!" he said excitedly, incredibly eager to concur on a philosophy that justified his broke-servant life.

"And..." she went on, "...even if she couldn't keep her business once I quit...maybe she could re-open it at some later more prosperous time? Once the kingdom flourished with visitors from the seven lands?" She smiled. "Resulting in an increased demand for fashion?"

He stroked her hair. "Is this something you would truly consider?"

She sighed. "I could always take my chances and hope I lose, but that would mean more time with the prince." She frowned. "And spending even one more minute with the prince would feel wrong, especially if it meant I couldn't spend that minute with you." He kissed her but she pulled away to finish her thought. "And also he's a terrible human being." He kissed her again and she pulled away. "With awful conversation skills and a smile so insincere it makes me instantly require ten baths." She shuddered.

"In addition to insincerity he's vengeful," he said. "So we must ensure that your departure from the contest and my leaving the servant's post happen as two separate unrelated events."

"How long will I have to wait?" she said, suddenly tempted to cut out his dimples and keep them in a box as a trophy.

Fredrick felt her hand pressing down against his chest and he didn't want to wait another minute. "We'll have to wait until the contest is over, and the kingdom basks in its newfound attention as well as its relief from the debt. With everyone on a high I should be able to leave without incident."

She nuzzled one of his ears. "But how much longer?"

He sighed. "At least another month."

They kissed desperately, for what would likely be their last kiss until they reunited in the village.

Against all his physical urges, Fredrick managed to pull away. "We should probably be heading back now. And remember, when you announce your departure, you must say that the thought's been plaguing you for some time, which is why you seemed ill at dinner."

She nodded. "In other words it has nothing to do with you."

"Nothing," he confirmed. "I'm uninteresting and invisible and unworthy."

She cringed and nodded. "Ugh, definitely all of the above, you're simply awful!"

They laughed and turned back towards the staircase, which was precisely the moment when they saw it, or her: the raw-faced, beastly Bella standing proudly on the top step. She'd taken off her shoes and had been carrying them all along for the sneak-attack approach. She laughed as loud as a wicked queen who would finally exact her revenge, a short-lived laughter that abruptly stopped when her face started burning with pain. "Ow!"

Fredrick and Myrielle were frozen in place, barely able to process how their perfect plan was suddenly at risk. "Are you lost?" he inquired, his voice strangely calm.

Bella looked at him and sneered. "I'm exactly where I needed to be to make sure I heard everything." Her sneering face locked in on Myrielle. "And by the time I'm done...I will make sure you're left with nothing."

Bella roared like the beast she'd truly become, before sprinting down the stairs and disappearing into the darkness...

[WRITER'S COMMENTARY: Well then...looks like Myrielle and Fredrick's conflict-free escape plan was a little premature. Muahhahahaha....thanks for reading and stay tuned! :-)]