There was no noise from where Prince Dominique knew Alexis had been sleeping, but he had no way of knowing if this was because Alexis was still asleep, or if it was because he was also playing dead. Finally the bear lumbered off and Prince Dominique finally stood up and started to rant at me.
“What kind of story writing is this? I went along with the bear, even though other princes get monsters, but instead of a brave hunt, the bear comes to me? Do you even know how this sort of thing is supposed to go?”
“You’re the one who told me that you weren’t a fairy tale character,” I said, crossing my arms. “I stopped writing a fairy tale, if you had been fine with being a fairy tale character I would have made it some monster from the abyss that you would have slain with your lance on your first meeting with it. You chose this, now deal with it. I should also warn you; maybe you shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to leave the capital of your cousin.”
“Why?” asked the prince, suspiciously.
“Well, had you went and talked to Prince Edmond, I was going to be nice and have him tell you the bear’s weakness, I had the scene prepared and everything. But no, you had to leave right away, so you can figure it out yourself.”
“No, tell me, what’s the bear’s weakness? You can’t just skip over an important plot point because I got hasty.”
“Watch me,” I said, and kept writing. I figure so long as I keep him occupied with constant action he won’t have time to come up with new ways to threaten me.
The next day, having only recently escaped from danger, the prince was less than eager to face the bear. He couldn’t dismiss his quest completely since he had made a deal, and everyone would look down on him if he broke it. He could on the other hand think things through, and make sure that he wouldn’t die while trying to kill the bear. This meant more work than he had first calculated, but with my hint that the bear had a weak point he felt more hope than he would have otherwise. Perhaps it is for the best that I told him, or he might have lost all confidence and run away, and that would make this a very pathetic story. I mean I can write a plot, but if the character won’t do it, there isn’t a lot I can do. The most I can promise at the point of total mutiny is that I’ll destroy the manuscript. That’s only ever happened once though.
Prince Dominique set up traps all around the camp as a first step. Now that the bear knew that it could get food in the camp, Prince Dominique didn’t want it barging in without warning again to help its self. It was a slim chance, be he did hope that the bear would fall for one of the traps and they wouldn’t have to fight it at all. Next he set to sharpening his sword, and made sure that Alexis had been taking good care of his lance. He didn’t try to do anything with the dogs; he didn’t really think that they would be much good against the creature that he had seen the night before. Dogs were good for hunting normal animals, but this didn’t seem to be a normal animal and he didn’t want any of the dogs to be killed when they didn’t stand a chance of wining. This was going to take more brains than brute strength, which had been the tactic he had at first favored.
To be continued...
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