Patty Liu - Silent Reflections

“I told you so,” Princess Wendy muttered.

“Oh don't you even start with me. You're lucky you're a princess, Wendy or I'd-I'd...”

“Or you'll what, Antony? You know I'm right. That darned giant forgot all about us and left us here in this freaking tree. Mind you, we're also about a million miles up and it's night and I'm getting cold. The guards and the villagers have no idea where we are. I'm just glad the moon is full and bright so I'm not sitting in complete darkness up here. This is a great mess you got us into, Antony.”

“WHAT?! I didn't get us into this mess. If it was anyone's fault, it's yours!” Tony exclaimed. “You're the one who told me giants weren't dangerous.”

“And I'm right about that. Giants aren't dangerous. They're just idiotic nimrods who have memories the size of a pea,” Princess Wendy said restlessly. “Now what are we going to do? If we try to climb down the tree, we won't be able to hear each other anymore. And I don't have my writing slate with me.”

Tony just sat and listened to Wendy complain. He kept his mouth shut and just took out a small folded picture of Virginia that he always kept in his shirt pocket. She probably doesn't even know I'm trapped in this god forsaken “Silent” Kingdom, Tony thought. My grandkid is just about half a year old. I don't even know if it's a boy or a girl. Princess Wendy is right. This is a fine mess that I got us into. Tony sighed and started spacing out.

“Hey, what a pretty little white dove you are,” Tony heard Princess Wendy say. He raised his head and saw a white dove gently land on the hand that Wendy held out.

“Thanks Lady, you ain't so bad yourself,” The dove said.

“EEK!” Princess Wendy snatched her hand away and dropped the bird.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Watch it there! It's a good thing I can fly or I'd be smacking the ground below at a hundred miles per hour,” the dove retorted and flapped his wings. He flew over to Tony and perched himself on Tony's head.

“Antony, the dove can speak,” Wendy whispered.

“That's right, Lady. Why don't you tell the guy something he doesn't already know?” the dove said again.

“You know... nothing that ever happens in the Nine Kingdoms is ever going to surprise me anymore,” Tony blurted out and rolled his eyes upwards to look at the bird. “But anyhow, MY question is why in the world you're speaking with a Brooklyn New York accent?”

“Born and raised in the Bronx, Pops. Pip is my name,” The bird retorted. “By the way, just to let you two know, you're about two hundred feet up in a tree.”

“Why don't YOU tell US something WE don't already know, you bird,” Princess Wendy said sarcastically.

“Ohhhh, har har har, everybody wants to be a comedian,” the dove cooed.

“If you were born and raised in the Bronx, why are you in the Nine Kingdoms?” Tony asked.

“Well, you asked for it, Pops. It's a pretty long tale and no interruptions if you want to be hearing it.” Pip cooed a few times and fluffed his features preparing for his tale.

“It all started on a dark and stormy night. I was flying to Manhanttan to visit an ol' cousin of mine. I was flying around when the landscape ahead me got all blurry and the next thing I knew, bright flashes of light were flashing in front of me. I found myself flying around and around in this dark and dank cellar so I flew to the nearest window I could find. I peered out and discovered that 'I’m not in Kansas anymore'. It wasn't raining no more and the landscape was all green hills and such. I thought I was in Ireland or something cuz I gots family from there, you know what I mean? They're always telling me about how green Ireland is and how there's the ocean and the hills. So I just flew around for a few months, you know, to check out the sites. I pretty much realized that I wasn't in no Ireland cuz there weren't no ocean to be found and I kept hearing people in villages refer to the place as the Fourth Kingdom, or the Second Kingdom. So yeah, I'm in a bunch of numbered kingdoms.

“One day, I was flying around minding my own damn business when a tree jumped right in front me. I smacked into it pretty hard and hurt my wing pretty bad. Good thing this broad found me and nursed me back to health. She was an odd little thing. Always mixing things in little bowls and muttering to herself. I stayed with her for awhile.

“She fed me these weird colored seeds one day and I went totally postal. Flew all around her cottage and knocked a bunch of stuff over. Those damn seeds I ate turned out to be some magic spell or whatever. She told me that it was supposed to make me speak but it didn't. Instead it made her able to see things out of my eyes from this puddle on the ground. She started ordering me around telling me to fly out and look at things. So I figure, why not? I don't got nothing better to do. So I flew all over the place. Her mind was, like, connected with my little birdbrain, too, somehow. I could hear her thoughts. She told me to fly here and there and everywhere. Eventually some kids saw me and knocked me out cold. I woke up with them damn brats jabbing me with sticks. Well, obviously with my background I started calling them every name in the book that I could think of. They all screamed and began to cry and ran off. That's when I realized that I had spoken out loud and they had actually heard me. The original spell that the broad cast worked out, actually. And here I am,” the dove finished his tale and started pruning his wing features.

“Well, uh... that was quite a fine story you told there,” Tony said, because he couldn't think of anything else better to say. He peered over at the princess, who was trying to cover a laugh with her hand. He chuckled softly to himself, too. He started to fold up the picture of Virginia that he had out when the dove called out to him.

“Yo, wait a minute there, Pops. I seen that girl.”

“What girl? You mean her? Virginia?” Tony held up the photo.

“Yeah, her. Yeah, I think her name was Virginia. I saw her at the king's palace,” said Pip.

“Wait a second here. You didn't tell us that part,” Tony exclaimed.

“Well, you didn't ask. But yeah, she was there at the palace talking with the king. She was with this wolf of a man that was devouring everything in sight. She also had a little baby she kept bouncing up and down in her lap.”

“Virginia! She's here. In the kingdoms. And Wolf was with her.” Tony was overjoyed with the news. “If she's here, then they must know we're in trouble. Wait a minute, she brought the baby? Was it a boy or a girl, Pip?”

“Couldn't tell, Pops. You humans all look the same to me when you're babies.”

“Princess, if I'm right, Virginia will be looking for us. I know it.”

“You mean, THE Virginia? THE Virginia who killed the evil queen? You're her father?! Then, then... that means you're King Wendell's faithful manservant who helped save his kingdom," the princess exclaimed and she covered her mouth in shock. “Oh my!”

“Well, yeah. I thought you knew that.”

The princess shook her head.

“Oh well, now you do.”

“You guys are heroes, though!” the princess exclaimed again.

“Well, I guess we are, in a way,” Tony said with a sly modesty.

“Hey Pops, think you should know something else,” piped up the dove on Tony's shoulder.

“What?”

“That broad that cast the spell on me?”

“Yeah, what about her?” Tony asked impatiently.

“Well, errr... I don't know of a better way to tell you this.”

“What? Just say it.”

“Ahem, ahem,” Pip cleared his little bird throat. “That broad's on her way to kill your daughter, Pops.”