Rosella spent only a precious few moments analyzing the situation of being locked in her room before
setting her sights on her open window, silk curtains billowing from a gentle evening wind. Having read one
too many of her fantasy novels featuring princesses with wanderlust mixed with watching the hypnotizing lull
of the curtains, Rosella had a sudden vision of her mode of escape. She would tie a rope together out of her
bed sheets and curtains and climb out the window, safely to the ground far below. Excited by her idea, and
quite certain that Genesta and her fairies were no doubt in terrible peril, Rosella went to work, tearing the
sheets off her lavish bed, then pulled the curtains down with a ping-ping-ping! they came undone from their
metal loops.
Taking great care to tie tightly secured knots, Rosella inspected her handiwork. The multicolored rope
snaked around her room nearly 50 feet in length, she was nearly certain of it. Looping one end into a great
knot around the thick leg of her bed, Rosella, approached her open window, arms full of the makeshift rope.
With a grunt, she threw out her arms, as if letting loose a bird back out into the sky, and watched as the cloth
snake uncoiled wildly against the purple sunset, fighting the wind, gravity on its side.
It was difficult to tell in the fast fading light, but it looked like the rope was just about long enough. There
would be a short drop to the ground at most. She hoped. Rosella looked at her skinny arms giving each of
her biceps a tiny pinch. There was no way she would be able to climb back up once she was out there. A
princess spends her time trying on dresses and combing her long beautiful hair, not building upper body
muscles. “How inconvenient for this occasion,” thought Rosella. Her decision had already been made
though, and she climbed gingerly onto the ledge of the window, careful to gather up her vermilion gown in her
slender hands so as not to plummet to her an early death.
And so Rosella began her rappel down the wall of the castle quickly finding out that her smooth wood
bottom heels provided virtually no traction on the equally smooth wall of the castle. She held on with all her
princess might, allowing just enough slack through her slender hands to take hurried if a bit clumsy steps
down. Despite the fact that Rosella had not predicted the velocity of descent on account of her lacking any
traction, the situation seemed to work out in her favor. She wasn’t dangling at the bottom of the rope, for
more than a single whimper, before the burning pain in “pipe-cleaners” she called arms gave out, and
princess Rosella dropped. Luckily for her, her clear blue eyes did well by her, and the drop was only a few
short feet. Though, as any princess in an elegant gown would, she landed on her backside with a comical
yelp in pain.
Not allowing too much time to waste on her own misfortunes, Rosella mended herself with a soothing rub of
her fanny and then quickly turned her attention toward getting back to the magic mirror. As far as she could
tell, there were two routes that she could take to get back inside. There was a drainage stream that ran under
the castle with various metal grates leading up through the first floor of the castle. Her other path would be
the drawbridge of the castle itself, certain to be guarded by two knights. The question was, which way to
take?