Opal listened to it. All of it. Taking in everything he said in silence, watching his face intently. When he finished there was a long pause, and then she said, “Give me a moment. I need to think about this.”
Because this was important, very important. So, without letting go of his hand, she turned her face to look into the darkness and breakdown everything she’d just been told.
Henry didn’t want to be a prince. Opal sort of felt he only had that opinion because he’d never been poor. If you had no money, that was a kind of a cage too, and far harder to break free from. But she could see how much this learning meant to him. And if he couldn’t do that if he was being a prince, that would feel terrible to him.
But a prince needed to get married and make new little princes. Everybody knew that. Except if Henry wasn’t being very princely, then princesses hoping to marry him would notice that right off. Marrying on of them would mean giving up all his star charts and books.
That was pretty selfish of him.
Except, his people were so poor, they were going to starve. And there she was, spitting out gems. He thought the only way to get money to help his people was to marry it. Either a rich princess that would make him miserable, or a peasant girl with a “gift”. And the peasant girl wouldn’t make him give up what he loved.
So it was only mostly selfish.
Except he sort of thought he was helping her out too. And he had. Opal had no idea what she would have done if Henry hadn’t found her that night. Obviously she couldn’t go home. And how long before somebody bad came along and tried to use her? Wasn’t it better that somebody good used her?
So it was kind of selfish.
And really, most people were, a little bit. Nobody was selfless all the time. Everybody hoped for good things for themselves. Her included.
It was several minutes later when Opal let go of his hand, stood, and crossed to the lamp. She needed it to see what she was doing. After removing the apron of her skirt, she laid it on the chair, then knelt down with the light to begin picking up the gems she’d spewed out without thought during her outburst. Henry’s people needed them. And they were sort of her people now too, weren’t they?
Quietly she said, “If it’s alright with you, I’d like to stop being followed. At least by so many people. Maybe one or two instead? I’ll make sure to talk enough ot fill a basket every day, but it bothers me to be followed all the time.”
She continued to both catch the stones falling form her lips, and pluck up the discarded ones from the floor, both hands quite busy. “And I would really like it if the gems went right to you, or to whoever uses them to help your.. our… your people, instead of your father. I know he’s helping too, but he also had a new crown made last week, and I know he used some of the ones that I spit out for that. I saw. New things are fine. He can have some of the gems too. I just want to be fair. If it’s to help people, I want it to help people.”
Finally, she stood, fathering the corners of the apron to keep the gems bundled. And only then did she look at him. “And I’ll never tell you that you should stop this. You love this. But maybe, sometimes, I could go with you? So I don’t suffocate either?”
That might be too much to ask for. But they were being honest tonight. So she was mostly honest in what she wanted. She loved much about her new life, but she hated some of it too. And she missed the freedom to roam the woods at will. And occasional escape would help that.