Prancing on thin ice

I was right. Moonshine is hitting it off with Not My Daughter. She gets bored real easy and since all she ever does is talk about her herself, I yelled at her!

This was a might upsetting to Pablo, as you can plainly see below.

He actually starred at me for two whole hours without saying one word. Not My Daughter thinks its kind of funny that he's cold staring me, but I don't. I aint never seen Pablo so upset. To top it off, we aint caught a fish since Not My Daughter showed up. I swear she's cursin us.

Anywho, here's proof of Audrey and Moonshine's budding relationship. Apparently, she has several years of ballet. She has real good form and she sure is good at it. As awful as this lake is, she does a good job making it pretty.

I thought it was kind of funny that she got Moonshine doing some fancy dance moves. Nerd Chick thought it was so funny, she put it in a gif.

Finally felt good enough to write again. Here's the beginning of chapter four. Hope ya'll like it.

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CHAPTER IV

FRIENDS AND FOES

Princess clutches the pearl tightly in her fist and hobbles up the trail. Her chest heaves between gasping sobs. The child passes a wooden sign that declares this area to be “King Henry’s Port.”

Chirping crickets announce the cool spring twilight. Their classic song set her tortured nerves at ease.

“When crickets chirp, danger is…,” she pauses, reflecting on the saying her father taught her. “Danger….” She waits for a moment, focusing on his face, she hears him say, “When crickets chirp, danger diverts.” In her mind, she sees him run his fingers through his hair, his stern eyes lock on hers, “When crickets be still, danger is near.”

Although relief surges through her miniature frame, grief pangs at her heart and makes her head feel stuffy. She is grateful for her father’s guiding counsel, even in his absence.

She walks along a narrow dirt path with tall, yellow-topped willows on both sides of her. Bushy, wild green grass covers their leaning trunks. While she walks, she watches the light breeze sway the cattails and blow their puffy tops apart. She watches their floating seeds sail away until their brown bodies are reduced to skeletal stumps. Buzzing mosquitoes hum in her ears and pester her with stinging bites. She hurriedly runs down the path to escape their wrath. Soon, she hears frogs ribbiting all around her.  

Princess feels her stomach churn. She watches a frog slowly roll its sticky pink tongue out and catch a dragonfly. In a split second, the reptile retracts the massive insect back into its mouth. With two harsh snaps, the nymph-like insect disappears into the green goblin’s gullet. 

“Yuck!” Princess says, cringing in disgust. The little girl repetitiously smooths her burlap dress and looks for a new diversion, now that her aching stomach has been momentarily distracted.

Growing bored with the fading sky, she holds up her gleaming pearl. “What ‘tis your name?”

She lowers her voice to answer her own question, “Setchra.” She then playfully gasps at her own response.

“I know a Setchra! Her’s a mermaid,” she answers herself excitedly. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The night grows darker.

 “I’m tired,” she yawns.

She steps off the path, feeling the familiar, squishy, cool grass. She looks for a place to lie down. Sporadic pines litter the valley. Princess finds a thin pine tree only a few feet away from the road. The evergreen’s branches are longer at its base and taper as the tree rises. The lowest branches are near to the ground and bow downwards, creating an evergreen skirt.

Princess walks to the tree, pinches a narrow branch and, lifting it up, crawls under its needle skirt. Pine needles stick to the bottom of her wet feet and irritate the dark scab on her foot.  Beneath the tree, she leans her back against the itchy bark and pulls her knees up to her chin.

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