Creative Challenge: Post 9

It had to be done.

“Nooo! Nooooo!” Arietta cried pitifully. It broke his heart, but it had to come out.

“Just hold still. I’ll do it quickly!” he said. It hurt him almost as much as it hurt her, but delaying it any longer would only make it worse.

“Nooo! Nooo, Papa, Nooo! Don’t!!”

Her little fingers covered her mouth, protecting her wiggly tooth, and the shiny adult one growing in under it crookedly.

It had to be done!

“Just…” he paused, then smiled. “Did I ever tell you the story of the Black and White Princess?”

Her eyes went wide, as they always did at the prospect of a story. Her hands stayed en guard, but she opened up a little bit.

“No. I don’t remember that one,” she said timidly. She crawled up on his knee, and sat watchfully, in case he tried to do something.

“Well...Long ago, there was the land of the Black, and the land of the White. The two got along together very well, until a prince from the White fell in love with a princess from the Black. The princess, however, did not love him back, and the two countries went to war for many years.

“One day, many generations later, the young Princess of the land of White, named Arianna-”

“That’s almost like my name!”

“Yes, so it is!” He laughed. “Well, one day, Arianna decided that enough was enough! She went on a secret journey, slipping away in the night, to cross the boarder and head to the land of the Black, to try and gain an audience with the King. However, she ran into someone on the way-”

“A witch?”

“No…”

“A monster?” Her hands came away from her face, eyes shining with wonder.

“No. It was the princess of the Black!” A little gasp escaped her mouth. “She had been doing the exact same thing: going to the other side to convince the kings to stop the wars.”

“They were very brave.”

“Yes. But the Black princess realized that, if they both disappeared, their fathers would think they had been kidnapped. So, they decided to switch, and pretend to be the other, so no alarm would be raised, and at the same time, tomorrow evening, tell each king what they had done. The princesses were both very beautiful and similar in appearance, except…”

“Except what?”

“Except that the princess of the land of Black had a tooth missing, just like your wiggly one. It had fallen out the night before.”

“But then they’d know! They’d see as soon as she smiled!” Arietta said in horror.

“They would! So the White princess had to be very brave. Her tooth was also wiggly, so the Black princess took her fingers like this…” he carefully inserted his fingers into Arietta’s mouth, who waited, unresisting, to hear the rest of the story, “…and pulled hard-” He pulled with a sharp tug. The tooth came without much resistance, and it took Arietta a moment to realize what had happened. Her tongue flicked to it immediately, and she stared at her father in awe.

“And then they matched!” he continued, not missing a beat, setting the tooth on a table. “So they switched places for one day, and then, when the time was right, told both the kings their plans. And the kings saw that, if their daughters and people were so concerned about the war, that it should be stopped. And they did! The princesses returned to their castles, but remained fast friends for the rest of their lives.”

Arietta’s face showed that she barely remembered the tooth. So pleased was she by the story that she clapped, and only realized that she was supposed to be upset once she caught a glimpse of the tooth on the table. She slid off his knee and went to go look at it.

“Thank you, Papa,” she said quietly. She smiled at him, now with one less tooth.