Princess Tiffany stumbled on weak legs, sweat and tears plastering dirt to her face. Her feet were cut and blistered in her riding boots, and not for the first time, she wished she had owned a better pair of shoes—though truthfully there had never been any reason to purchase such a thing. She had never dreamed she would need anything of the sort.

Now her feet paid the price.

Her body screamed at her to stop, but she firmly elected to ignore it. True, she could neither see nor hear her pursuer, but she couldn’t believe he would give up so easily. Not after all the trouble he had gone to, chasing her this far.

She would not stop until nightfall. She would not let herself.

Tiffany adjusted the sack of provisions on her shoulders. That sack shouldn’t run out before this was over; she just had to get out of the mountains, and once her pursuer followed her out there, it would all be done.

Out of the mountains… nobody from the Valley had ever gone so far. Already, Tiffany had ventured well into uncharted territory; soon enough, she would enter the unimagined.

Let’s pause for a moment.

If you were to chart Tiffany’s course on a map, and if you were to pinpoint her current location on that map, you would see that at this point she was actually rather close to the edge of the woods—and the other side of the mountain, as well. She had nearly left the mountains entirely, though she was yet unaware of that fact. She did not know how far behind her pursuer had fallen, though I can tell you the princess herself moved with remarkable speed, and was now several days ahead of him. To this day, I remain greatly impressed by her ability to cover such rough terrain so quickly—and wearing formal riding boots, no less. Amazing. I truly have no idea how she did it. Desperation is far more powerful than it is given credit for.

Once again, credit where credit is due.

I admit, I don’t know many of the specifics of Tiffany’s journey. You may have noticed that her name is not featured in the title of the story. That is because, in all reality, I do not know enough even to write a full chapter about her flight from the Valley.

On the other hand, I know everything—everything—about Atticus Fletcher’s side of the story. That is to say, you can expect him back within the next few paragraphs. But I feel strongly that what details of Tiffany’s story I do know must play their part in this writing, and so I give you this scene.

Tiffany went on like this for many days, having no idea where her pursuer might be, terrified by the thought that he might catch up to her at any moment. She found it nearly impossible to fall asleep, for fear of being taken by surprise in her most vulnerable state. Every day, she stood up and she walked as far and as fast as she was able to go. With such dedication, it was inevitable that she would eventually end up somewhere.

As she eventually did.

Through the trees, as the sun began to set one evening, Tiffany heard an unusual sound. It was not a sound she was familiar with; it seemed to be out of place in the woods, and certainly would have been out of place in the Valley… a fast rumbling, a fleeting whoosh–

The trees ended abruptly.

For a moment, Tiffany stood frozen in shock, her face bathed in a foreign red light.

She blinked, her eyes adjusting, and with a whimper of relief rushed toward its source.

In the meantime, Atticus Fletcher had fallen frightfully far behind.

I did promise we would get back to him, didn’t I? Well, here we are.

Tiffany may not have matched Atticus’s strength or endurance, but she did at least have some idea of her direction. Atticus, on the other hand, had no idea where to go, and had to constantly rely on signs left by Tiffany, or perhaps her mysterious pursuer, to inform his route through the forest. It was exhausting work, and not particularly fast.

But, he reasoned, Tiffany couldn’t possibly run forever. She would be caught eventually by whoever was chasing her, if she hadn’t been already. And whoever he was, he couldn’t run forever, either.

Atticus was reasonably certain he could outlast them both. Moving at such a slow pace had spared him the exhaustion from which both of the people ahead of him likely suffered. At this point there was no doubt in his mind that he would eventually catch up to the others, rescue Tiffany from her captor, and return to the Valley a hero yet again.

The situation was a bit disturbing, however. Atticus knew the Valley had enemies outside of its borders, but in all his life he had never known them to actually act against Douglas’s kingdom. Going after the king’s daughter? That seemed a bold move. And unprovoked, too… it wasn’t only bold, but strange as well. No, there was no good reason anyone would do such a thing without cause. Something must have happened to provoke action.

But what?

(Yes, of course I know the answer. No, of course I’m not going to tell you. Yet.)

Atticus carried on for many days. The idea that Princess Tiffany and the man chasing her had somehow kept ahead of him so long was truly incredible. Mind-boggling, one might say. Over the course of his long pursuit, exhaustion began at last to take its hold, and—though Atticus would never have admitted it—his certainty of catching up to the princess began to fade. His feet dragged as he walked. His eyes closed each time he lost focus. He felt heavy, as though gravity itself had elected to work against him.

To this last problem, there was an obvious solution. Atticus determined that to be the absolute last resort.

But, as each step became smaller, as his pace slowed to less than a crawl, and as Tiffany no doubt moved farther and farther away, Atticus did something… shocking. Something he had never, in all my memory of his life, done before.

He relented.

He kept walking, now at a much quicker pace, the greater part of his burden lifted.

His armor remains in the woods, on the ground, covered in mud, to this day.



Back to Episode 3

Forward to Episode 5

Tune in next Friday, October 11 for episode five…