Naveen woke to find a pair of clothes neatly arrayed beside him. He jerked up, horrified. He'd fallen asleep! Fallen asleep while trying to find out as much as he could about Vorpal from all the items here in her treasure room. The lyre... he'd been looking at the lyre.
And he'd had the strangest dream. He'd felt as though he'd been surrounded by her tentacles, felt their tongues licking his body.
He lifted the hem of his dress. Oh god. The underwear! Had Vorpal noticed he hadn't been wearing any, had she found the stained pair he'd desperately tried to wash himself? Was that's why there were more clothes here for him?
He looked them over. But these were no woman's clothes. They were the fashionable clothes of a young man - laced top, leather pants, and normal, white, plain underwear, with a jacket. They were the sort of thing he would wear on a casual day, free of duties, when he could go hawking or ride in the forest - a brief time of freedom, although his mother the Queen was always sure to have some soldier or other shadowing his every movement, Still, such moments were always long-awaited and passed all too quickly.
Now he was free of his mother... but still a prisoner. And yet, this imprisonment did not weigh so heavily on him. Even with Vorpal's teasing, her arrogant pride, he did not hate spending time with her.
The strangeness of the realisation made him shake his head. He took the clothes, washed and put them on.
They fit perfectly.
The bathroom was misty, the scent of fragrant oils and shampoos lingering in the air. Ah, but Vorpal must have bathed while he was asleep, safe in the knowledge that he would not be able to use the time to escape.
He wondered if she was still asleep. He moved towards the doorway, his heart pumping, a strange tension flooding his body. Oh, but he should leave her to sleep. That last time, when he had watched her... that had scarcely been the princely thing to do. And yet...
But Vorpal was awake. She was sitting at her dresser, applying make-up. When she noticed him, she turned.
"Ah, so you're awake at last."
Her lips wore a frown, but her eyes sparkled at him. Those eyes! They really were beautiful. But why, now...
Oh, but she was wearing eye shadow.
"Thank you," said Naveen, lowering his eyes. He did not want to stare. "For the clothes."
"There are those regal manners again," said Vorpal. "You are most welcome."
As the prince entered the room Vorpal put the finishing touches of eye-liner. He was trying to avoid looking at her. Her heart skipped and she fought back a smile. Ah, but males were all the same! They loved to see a female in make-up.
How long had it been since she'd worn it? It had always seemed such a foolish affectation. And yet it made her feel powerful, now.
"I have been a bad host," said Vorpal. "A guest of the Queen of Hearts should not be mistreated. So I thought tonight we might share some food and drink."
She swept a hand at the new table which stood in the centre of the room where the old one had been. Small plates gleamed there, arrayed with colourful delicacies, and at one end sat a large wooden cask, no doubt of ale since two tankards rested atop it.
"Magic?" gasped the prince.
"Ha ha, no," said Vorpal. "I had my friend Dovedale deliver us some Wonderland food - there is always more than enough at hand, given my friends' love of tea-parties. But worry not - it is of the benign kind. I stressed this. Sometimes we delight in flavours and texture of food in their own right, you know, not for their effects."
The prince stepped toward the table, his eyes never once having left the food. Vorpal felt a twinge of regret. For all her joking, she truly had been an awful host. He must be starving.
"Please help yourself," she said. "But I should warn you - the meal is not free."
The prince turned, frowning, his eyes suddenly full of disappointment. Vorpal decided the joke had not really been worth the effort.
"Why that face? I'm merely speaking of entertainment. Perhaps you would be kind enough to supply it? You said you played the lyre," she said. "I have one."
Naveen blushed. Surely she knew that he knew! "You... you play as well?"
Vorpal laughed. "Alas, no. Although these talons would perhaps make good picks, don't you suppose?" She sighed. "Not a musical bone in this entire body, though I can appreciate beauty, of course. I took the lyre as for the beauty of its appearance." She gave a lazy point with a single leathery wing. "It's in the far cave, where I store all the treasures too large or fragile for my bed."
Ah, the room he'd found before on his exploration of the cave. So it was indeed a treasure room.
"Go on," she said. "If we are to live together for even a little while, I will not have you stand on ceremony, especially since we will be drinking together. I can't stand it. Please find the lyre and bring it here."
He already knew where to find it. He took hold of the lyre, carefully wrapped in an its cover, and brought it back into the living room. It was heavy and he walked slowly.
"Yes," said Vorpal. "That's the one. Go on, Open it."
He tentatively pulled the cover away. The gold he'd glimpsed in his initial examination, now unmasked, set its glow about the room. He gasped.
"It's so beautiful!"
Vorpal sighed. His words of praise pleased her. It was true, she did have good eye for beautiful things. Her eyes slipped over the newly clad prince. Ah, even though he'd been a delight for the eyes in that dress, his slender form was equally beautiful in clothes more appropriate to his gender, shifting his girlish beauty into a boyish and rakish charm.
His eyes slipped over the strings and they sang out. He looked up, his face alight with boyish delight.
"Oh, but this is already tuned!"
"It is enchanted," explained Vorpal. "A fine treasure."
And finer still in your beautiful hands, she thought to herself.
The boy-prince let the tips of his fingers dance across the strings again, as though he could not resist touching the instrument. This time it was no mere test, but the chords of a song. But as soon as the gorgeous trill began to fill the air, he stopped.
Vorpal started forward, frowning. "What's the matter? You don't want to play for me?"
"Oh," said the prince, startled by her intense reaction. "Oh no. It's just I have no idea what I should play."
"What was that piece you began just then?"
"Oh that?" He blushed. "Just a stupid practise exercise."
Vorpal's amber eyes narrowed. "I know little of music, truly, but that was no exercise. It was the beginning of a longer piece. I do not know it."
"No," said the prince. "No, no-one knows it. I... it's a stupid little thing I composed."
Vorpal's eyes went wide. "You... you wrote that?"
"Well," said the boy, and he looked away. "Like I said, it's a silly little thing."
"I want to hear it."
Naveen opened his mouth, ready with another excuse, but the look of eagerness on the jabberwock's face made the words die on his lips. "Very well," he said. "But please forgive me if it does not please you."
"I shall reserve my judgement until I have heard the rest," said Vorpal.
She lay back, her tail twitching. His blushing had moved her, where previously such a thing would have annoyed her. Instead, his modesty had been most becoming. She squirmed on her treasure pile, found a comfortable place.
The prince, ever attentive, waited until she was settle before he began.
His fingers slipped over the string and a gorgeous melody sprang forth. It was different from the section he had played before, but Vorpal could hear shadows of the developed theme in the introduction.
As the music flowed, she felt her heart follow every note. It was a beautiful song, but forlorn, as though something was lost, or rather, something which was long desired had yet to be found. That, at least, was what she felt flowing beneath the melody. But as the song continued, as the prince closed his eyes, grew more confident, his fingers striking every string with delicacy and exactness, the energetic under-note she had heard before grew more pronounced, began to dominate the song - no, not dominate, but rather take the pride of place. The forlorn melody never truly left, shifting in and out, as though dancing with the more fiery dashing of notes.
At last the piece came to its end, with a flourishing climax, the prince's fingers a blur across the shimmering strings. As the final, triumphant cords fled away, that earlier gentle melody reappeared. It had been there, all along, a hidden counter-point, but subtly changed, unnoticed beneath the rousing clashing of the triumphal notes. It had lost it's bitterness, and a sweet, gentle, almost languid tone melted away into the air with a final shimmer, like gold trickling through her talons.
Vorpal jerked forward. Ah, but her heart had followed that melody all the way, drawing her into strange half-sleepy trance. Her eyes had never left the prince's fingers, and now as he drew them away from the still humming strings, her gaze fell on his upturned face. He was flushed, his eyes wide and open, his soft chest heaving. He had given his all to the tune, just for her.
Just for her? You silly, sentimental wyrm!
Yes, it had all been for her. Now, as he looked up at her, his face was eager, a mixture of boyish pride and an embarrassment he was valiantly trying to mask.
Ah. He was wondering whether the song had pleased her.
Vorpal closed her eyes, unwillingly, and sighed.
Naveen's heart leaped in his chest. High up on the hoard of silver and gold and gems, the jabberwock lay, languidly stretched out the full length of her voluptuous body, her tail whipping the air. He knew now what that signified, that she was happy. She was smiling to herself, too. But her eyes were closed, those exquisite glimmering eyes. And so he was not sure, was not sure whether his song had...
