Mountain of Glass
The Princess and the Glass Mountain. The exiled prince wins the hand of the princess and returns home. But his home is not as he remembered. The people moved on and he has a younger brother he never knew that does not take his appearance well. Rated: PG

Part 1

(incomplete)

Part One: To Win A Princess

            Rain dripped off Xavier’s midnight colored hair to run in rivulets down his face. He shook his head in an attempt to remove the drenched locks from his eyes. His horse anxiously pawed the moist dirt beneath it’s hooves, eager to be given the command to charge. Beside him, a fellow knight gripped his reins tighter, as ready as Xavier’s horse to be off.

            It wasn’t always as such for him, starring down opposing forces across the downpour of the battlefield. He had once carried the title of prince rather than sir, and had been a carefree child that knew nothing of exile and death. However, a single act had changed the path he walked forever.

            His father, a great king of lands far away, had been a great huntsman. There was no known creature that had escaped the point of his arrow or the blade of his knife. One day, when he had grown tired of the usual prey, he spotted a new creature.

            It resembled a small man, but it’s build and mannerisms proclaimed it a dwarf. Intrigued, his father had pursued the dwarf and finally caught the small fellow. He had been a strange sight to see, covered in twigs, leaves, dirt, and the like. Whatever the king had asked him, the dwarf refused to answer. His father had brought the creature back home and ordered him caged, decreeing that no one, not even his own flesh and blood, would escape death if caught releasing the dwarf.

            This had meant nothing to Xavier at such a young age. One fateful afternoon, he had been playing with a golden apple, throwing it up in the air and catching it again, when the apple managed to fall through the wooden slants of the dwarf’s cage. The dwarf caught it, refusing to give it back.

            “Please,” the young Xavier had pleaded. “Give me back my apple.”

            “Perhaps,” the dwarf had said in his high-pitched inhuman voice. “If you were to let me go.”

            He had been resistant at first, knowing that it would anger his father, but the dwarf had been very persuasive to a young boy. He had stolen the keys from his mother, unlocked the cage, and returned them again without his mother even suspecting. As the dwarf disappeared into the trees, his strangled voice echoed after him.

            “Since you have saved me, when you are in need, I will be there to help you.”

            The dwarf had not kept his word. When his father had found out that it was Xavier that had released the dwarf, he had ordered the young prince to be put to death in the forest. However, the soldiers ordered to carry out the King’s command took pity on the young prince and released him, telling him that his father had changed his mind and exiled his son instead. Xavier had known this was not true, but obeyed them, knowing exile was better than death.

            Lost, alone in the woods, he had come across another castle in lands far from his father’s borders. He had been taken in as a squire and later knighted. Which led to his current predicament. His horse fidgeted beneath him just as his king, clad in golden armor, signaled.

            The cry of “Charge!” rang out across the battlefield, and his muscles moved without his conscious thought. A slight pressure from his heel and his stallion sprang forward, leading the cavalry towards the enemy.

            The resounding ring of metal dragging across metal hung over the battlefield as a hundred swords were drawn at once. The worn hilt of his blue steel sword comfortably in his hand, Xavier remembered to breath. It was ever thus, until the cool metal rested on the other side of his leather gauntlet that such instinctual things as inhaling and exhaling fled his mind in anticipation of the battle.

            Within the first moments of blades clashed, Xavier felt the bite of metal from behind. He gasped, spinning with his sword, but cutting through nothing but air. His attacker had moved on to more unharmed prey. Xavier slumped to the ground, his warm blood mixing with the cold water that had pooled in the hoof prints in the loose dirt. He truly thought that he was going to die.

            Xavier sat on a windowsill, perched with one leg drawn up to his chest and the other hanging off into empty space. He had been lucky, the opposing soldier’s sword had pierced his shoulder, causing him a great lot of pain and blood loss, but it would not prove fatal. Even so, it was bound tightly so that the wound would not reopen. He could barely move his left arm.

            “Does it not worry you that you might fall?” a soft voice asked from behind him. He turned his head to see a small, dark brown haired woman standing a few feet away from him. She was clad in a long dress of gold and burgundy trim of extremely fine quality that left her creamy white shoulder bare. Her appearance screamed of her noble birth.

            “Not at all,” Xavier responded. He was about to turn away, but the barest hint of a smile graced the woman’s lips and he was entranced. Her previously blank expression had left her face plain, but when she smiled, it lit up her features the way nothing else could.

            “And if you were pushed? What of that?” She asked, what could pass as humor showing through in her voice. She was as polished as a noble lady could get.

            “And who is here to do it?” Xavier asked, watching as the touch of smile grew on her lips. She shrugged.

            “Not I,” she replied, a mischievous glint shinning through in her light blue eyes. The docile lady was melting away before his eyes.

            “Then I shall be safe.”

            “Perhaps.”

            Xavier paused before swinging his leg over the windowsill and kneeling before the woman. “What is you name, my lady?”

            “Ah, I knew you would ask that of me,” she said regretfully. The smile faded from her lips. She curtsied, and held out her hand, ever proper. “I am the Princess Krystallos, kind knight.”

            He tenderly kissed her hand, wishing that the playful look would return, but knowing all the same that it would not. The princess? “I am called Sir Xavier, among other things, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

            A cynical smile took the place of her previously pleased smile. “I am sure. It was nice to speak with you,” she said, dipped her head, took her hand back, and turned.

            Xavier watched her retreating form, captivated by the polished princess.

            Princess Krystallos, daughter of King Rian, stood before her father with her head bowed, her dark curls falling over her porcelain face. King Rian sighed in exasperation.

            “Do you like any of your suitors?” he demanded, his hands resting upon hundreds of papers spread across his desk. They were all offers for her hands, each one from a far off prince or lord that had heard rumors of her perfect pale face and calm demeanor. For no other reason than that they had sent an offer for her hand.

            “No,” she answered simply.

            “And why not?” King Rian was not an unreasonable man, however, he wished to see his daughter married to a man that would treat her well. He feared that if she choose the man herself, he would marry her only to advance himself. He had seen it happen many times before. Too many, in fact, for it had been that very thing that had brought Krystallos’s mother to him.

            “These men have never even met me, father. They have only heard tales of my face and wish to possess a woman talked of for miles. They would do nothing to win me.”

            “Do you wish for them to compete for you?” King Rian asked. If that was what her daughter desired, a man that would fight for her, then he that he would allow.

            Krystallos lifted her head. “No. I do not want to brute that would win that fight.” She paused, wondering what could be done. In truth, there was only one man that she wished to even consider marrying, but, although he was a knight, he would not be able to compete in that fight. “Anything like that would be as ridiculous as placing me upon a mountain of glass and telling the knight that reaches the top that he may have my hand,” Krystallos said sarcastically, thinking aloud.

            King Rian frowned. “Perhaps we should just do that!” he snapped. “At least that way, it would get you wed.”

            Krystallos’s eyes widened at her father’s outburst. The only words that could escape her lips were, “If you wish.” Never before had her father snapped at her, and she was at a loss of how to respond except to agree. She had been brought up as the perfect lady, and this was how she felt that the perfect daughter would react.

            “Fine. It shall be done,” King Rian said in regret. He had vowed to never hurt his daughter, but in her cynical comment had reminded him of his long lost wife and he had reacted as he always had with her. He had erupted. And nothing could be done about it now.

            Xavier found her in the courtyard, staring into the constantly rippling water of a marble fountain. She wore a pale blue dress and her curls had been tamed into a long braid that hung down her back.

            “Afraid that you shall fall in?” he asked, continuing their banter from before.

            “No,” came Krystallos’s answer, devoid of warmth.

            “And if you are pushed?”

            “No one would dare push a princess,” she said and turned to face him.

            “What’s wrong, your highness?” Xavier asked, catching the sorrow hidden on edges of her features.

            “You have not heard?” There was a touch of curiosity in her voice. “About that glass mountain?”

            “No.”

            A single dark eyebrow rose. “That’s a surprise. My father has decreed that any man that wishes to marry me must reach the top of a glass mountain in order to win my hand.”

            Xavier laughed. “A glass mountain? Glass is slick, there is no traction whatsoever, not to mention that it breaks.”

            Krystallos shrugged. “Then I will never marry.”

            The King was crazy. There was no denying that. However, plenty of men, young and old had lined up at the base of the glass mountain that had been quickly erected for the single purpose of finding a husband for Princess Krystallos.

            Xavier watched from the sidelines as knights, lords, dukes, counts, even foreign princes sat aside mounts, awaiting their turn to ascend the glass structure. Every eligible young man with enough money to purchase armor and a horse was present. Unfortunately, although Xavier owned a horse and armor, he was not considered eligible due to his injury.

            The first of the young men had gone, and none of them had made it more than ten feet up the mountain. They had fallen with a clatter of metal against glass before they impacted with the ground. Many doctors had been called to the city for just such a reason. But still the men were attempting the reach the top.

            “You fancy the lass, do you not?” a strange voice asked from behind him.

            Xavier turned only to see the same little man that he had caused so many of his problems. “What do you want?” he hissed.

            “To help you.”

            Xavier laughed. “Now, after so many years, you wish to help me. I would have been much better served had you stayed in your cage.”

            The little man shook his head. “No, you would not have. This is your destiny. Would you rather face it as the knight that the princess wishes will reach the top of her glass mountain, or as the foreign prince that knows nothing of her?”

            Xavier remained silent, considering the dwarf’s words. Was it true that the princess really wanted him?

            “I can help you,” the dwarf said.

            “How?”

            “Follow me.” This time, when the dwarf drifted into the forest, he did not disappear.

            The dwarf led him to a cave. The rocks outside were nothing remarkable, and hid the entrance from sight. Without the dwarf ahead of him, Xavier would have never guessed that there was a opening hidden there. But the inside was more of a surprise. It was littered with things, human things.

            There were chairs, tables, desks, footstools, chaises, even beds. Rugs lined every inch of the floor, books were strewn about on every flat surface, and trinkets lay on the books. Old paintings, some covered in a thick layer of dust, hung on the rock walls.

            “This way,” the dwarf said, leading him through the room to a small alcove that was, amazingly, nearly vacant. A small white horse stood watching him.

            “This is Arien. He is only half horse, and he will carry you up that mountain better than any full-breed steed.”

            Xavier held out his hand, letting the slight horse nuzzle his skin.

            “Thank you,” Xavier said.

            “Ah, but that is not all that I give you,” the dwarf said. He hobbled over to a dusty trunk and opened the top. Inside, a suit of armor made of the finest bronze gleamed.

            “My god,” Xavier said, moving away from the white horse and moving to admire the armor.

            The dwarf smiled. “It is the least I can do.”

            Xavier arrived just in time. Half the men that pined for the princess had already fallen from the glass mountain, and the other half had pulled out of the competition. Seeing their comrades injured for no reason had made them rethink the sense behind riding up a glass mountain fully armed.

            Arien remained calm beneath him, unlike his own stallion that was constantly anxious to move. No one recognized him in his bronze armor that, once donned, was as light as if it had been made of leather rather than metal.

            A page, one he recognized as Hale, stood at the foot of the glass mountain. “Do you wish to climb it?”

            Xavier nodded, not daring to speak for fear that Hale would recognized his voice.

            The boy moved aside. “Proceed.”

            Arien moved back twenty feet before galloping forward at a break-neck pace. Had his black hair not been hidden by his helm, Xavier might have felt the wind in his hair. Every click of Arien’s hooves upon brought them another foot up the sloped glass until his footing began to slip. Arien was still intent on moving upward, but Xavier reined him back, knowing that if they continued, they would fall.

            Arien wheeled and they galloped back down the slope. Their speed increased as gravity aided their descent and Arien could not stop when they reached the bottom, but continued on into the forest.

            Ever noble and peasant alike stood in silence until the last gleam of bronze disappeared into the distance. Even Princess Krystallos stood to watch his retreat. From her vantage point at the top of the glass mountain, she searched the crowd again for her favorite knight. When she did not see him, she smiled.

            Xavier had returned the bronze armor and Arien to the dwarf, then headed back towards the castle. On the way, he worried what would happen next. If the King continued his silly competition, he didn’t know how he would make it up the glass mountain without Arien’s help.

            Once he reached the castle, the entire population was abuzz with talk about the mysterious knight that had made it halfway up the glass mountain. He excused himself from every question and searched out the princess.

            “Your highness,” he said when he finally found her. She sat alone in the library, having changed out of the magnificent gold dress she had worn on top of the glass mountain and into a much simpler one of sea green.

            “Do not call me that,” she said without looking up from her page.

            “And what should I call you, my lady?”

            “Only that is fine.”

            “Very well. Did you enjoy this morning’s festivities?”

            Xavier’s question made her look up, and amusement glittered in her eyes. “Quite.” She smiled. “And you?”

            He shrugged. “It was… interesting, to say the least,” he said. “Does your father intend to do it again?”

            Krystallos nodded. “He feels that the bronze knight can make it all the way up the glass. He just needs another chance.”

            Xavier shook his head. “And what if he cannot?”

            “I’m sure that if he can make it that far up, and wants me enough, then he will do anything to reach the top.”

            The second day of competition dawned and Xavier was still at a loss for how to reach the top of the glass mountain. All his thoughts led him back to the dwarf, but he did not think that the little man would help him again. He had released him only once, and his debt had been repaid.

            So again, he stood alone at the edge of the crowd, watching the proud few that again tried to reach the top, or at least beat him and make it more than half way up. And they truly were only a proud few that would try.

            “Giving up so quickly?” a very familiar voice asked, from behind him as before.

            Xavier turned, surprised to see the dwarf yet again. “There is no point…”

            “Ah, without me, you are right. But with me help, which you have, you could be a king.”

            “But you already helped me once.”

            “I began to help you. I will continue to assist you until you reach the top. You need only follow me.”

            This time, Xavier’s armor was silver. It was lighter than before, making him feel as if he was wrapped in feathers. This time, when he charged Arien up the glass mountain, they nearly reached the top.

            “My lady, I tried,” he called before allowing Arien to wheel and lead him back down the mountain.

            Krystallos stared after him, a smile on her lips as he again disappeared into the forest.

            The third day Xavier vowed to make the last. The armor, golden as the sun to match Princess Krystallos’s elegant dresses, was the lightest yet, lighter than air. Arien pranced beneath him, anticipating the climb up the glass mountain.

            Every other remaining competitor had dropped out, realizing the futility of challenging the mysterious silver and bronze knight. When he showed up again with Arien, they parted before him, all silent.

            Reining Arien in a good distance away from the foot of the slope, Xavier barely had to tap his middle with the heel of his golden armor before Arien plunged forward.

            Only the tap of Arien’s hooves sounded while Xavier and his mount continued upward. There was a collective gasp as he tittered upon the edge of the glass mountain before a single powerful kick from Arien brought both of them to the flat top.

            The people gathered below him burst into applause as he dismounted and bowed to the princess. She signaled for silence, then placed her hand on Xavier’s shoulder and asked him to stand and remove his visor.

            He did so, glancing up to see Princess Krystallos smiling at him.

            “My lady?”

            “I knew that you would be the one to reach me,” she said.

            “Did you?”

            “Of course,” she assured him, taking a step towards him. “I believe that your feat deserves a kiss.”

            “Only a kiss?”

            “For now.”

            King Rian said upon his throne, his daughter and her champion bowing before him.

            “Stand,” Rian ordered.

            His knight stood and looked him in the eye. “Your majesty.”

            Rian sighed. “To tell the truth, I did not think that this would at all work. But I suppose that since it has, you would not pass up marrying a princess. Now, tell me what kind of son-in-law I am to have.”

            “My name is Sir Xavier, and I was once a prince.”

            “Is this true?” Rian demanded of his daughter. Krystallos shook her head.

            “I do not know, I haven’t heard mention of it before.”

            “It is true. My father is King Ethan and I was exiled years ago.”

            Rian laughed. “You are the boy that let out the dwarf! And I thought that was just an old wives tale. Silly Ethan. Do you know that he has been searching for you? Would have helped had he included your name.”

            “My father is looking for me?” Xavier asked.

            Rian nodded. “And we deliver you to him. But only after a royal marriage.” He chuckled. “We shall not let the one suitor that Krystallos accepts get away so easy.”

~ Part Two: Coming Home ~    ~ Home ~