(Not) a clichéd fairy tale

Chapter 10

Liarya

"Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-five," I'd been lying on my bed for an hour now, staring at the small clock hanging just above the door.

Tirian had been gone for two hours now and I was terribly bored. My travelling bag only contained clothes, writing paper and a fountain pen, nothing i could kill time with while he was away.

"Fifty-one, fifty-two, argh, just forget it!" I muttered to myself and turned my eyes away from the clock. Bored, I let my eyes wander round the room.

The desk was empty, the door was closed and two coats were hanging on the coat rack. The mirror was also uninteresting and I certainly wouldn't get too close to Tirian's bed. Then my eyes fell on the washbasin, which was still full of water. So I quickly got up, unfolded the screen and positioned it so that it reached from the wall next to the mirror to the wall next to Tirian's desk. Then I got rid of my clothes and laid them out as best I could on the floor next to the washbasin.

I checked the temperature of the water with the tip of my foot and to my surprise it was quite warm. 

I quickly climbed in with my second foot and then slowly sat down. The water came up to just above my chest. My hair was still sticky from the pitch and I tried to wash out the black pine resin.

So there I was, sitting in what felt like an eternity in what was now cold water, trying to get my hair free of pitch with normal soap. So far I hadn't had any success and I was slowly losing my patience.

"Damn, why isn't it working?"

The next moment I heard the door open and I immediately sank into the water up to my neck. Surprisingly, my whole body fitted quite well into this incredibly huge wash bowl quite. My eyes fixed on the screen, as if at any moment my roommate would magically come through the privacy screen.

"Princess, I've found hair dye. And a hairbrush." His words made me breathe a sigh of relief, but this inner joy was immediately cancelled out.

"All well and good, but it's no use anyway because the dye won't come out of my hair." I complained and heard Tirian laugh slightly.

"Of course, it's not that easy to wash out. That's why I brought something else. So how about you get ready and then we'll see if we can fix your hair?" he asked and I got out of the wash bowl and dried myself with one of the two towels.

My hair remained wet and when I had finished dressing, I folded the screen back up and leant it back against the wall. The sight that presented itself to me made me giggle slightly.

Tirian stood with his back to me and looked fascinated at the empty desk next to my bedside table. So I crept up quietly and when I was right behind him, I took a deep breath and said as loudly as I could: "What's that interesting thing on that empty desk?"

This action didn't have the expected effect, however, because Tirian whirled around and held a dagger to my throat.

"Woah, calm down!" When he realised that it was me who had startled him, he quickly put the dagger away and cleared his throat before raising his left hand.

"Uhh, what's in there?" I asked curiously and tried to take the brown leather bag from him, but he was quicker and held it up so that I couldn't reach it.