She did not speak now either, but her movements were eloquent enough. She was upset and angry and refused to marry him. This much he surmised from her brother's words. In the end it was a single fluid movement she made that decided him. Her hands to her heart, her thumbs hooked together to form a shape like an eagle unfurling its wings, and then her arms shot upward and the eagle pushed away soaring from her heart to the sky; its wings fluttering. His restless heart recognised the sentiment at once. Freedom. She wanted freedom. And so did he.

----

"What if she's not beautiful?" Asked the nightingale, "Would you marry her then, O Prince?"

"She has to be beautiful," said Lala, his white beard impatient with age, "She's a fairytale princess."