emit a nopu ecno

the frustrated prince

hurled the slipper

forcibly into

the brick and mortar of the castle wall.

it would have shattered

had not his vizier

slowed its flight

with time-slice magic

and plucked the slipper from the wall

before

it more than bent with the impact.

the prince brightened with an idea.

“use your magic to reverse time

back to the party and her in my arms

but let me keep my memory of now.”

“that i cannot do,” said the vizier.

“time may be slowed, or sped,

but what is done cannot be undone.”

the prince growled.

then he brightened again.n

“speed me up, then.

make me so fast

that I can search my kingdom

dwelling by dwelling

and be gone before anyone sees me.”

“majesty,” said the vizier,

“i could do that, but think it through.

your subjects deserve dignity

and privacy. your search

would shatter their privacy,

would destroy their dignity,

while you feasted your eyes.”

there was a silence.

the prince’s face looked

like a gathering storm. at last he said calmly,

“well, but after all, they are MY subjects.

slow time for me. now.”

with an inscrutable face

the vizier put his hands to his temples

and spoke an incantation

in a long-dead language. “prince,

it is done. time outside you will slow

from hardly at all to stock-still

depending on how fast you move. do not

go faster than a brisk walk.” he paused

and then said with some bleakness,

“farewell.”

the prince grinned lasciviously

and vanished from the vizier’s sight.

“if he follows my instruction, he will live,”

the vizier mused. but he will not.”

as if on cue,

there were screams from the greensward

not fifty feet beyond the castle’s drawbridge.

the charred form and burning raiment

of the prince of the realm

had suddenly popped into existence

near a group of villagers.

the vizier went up to the battlements

for a proper view. “he couldn’t wait,

the lustful knave.

he ran,

and became like unto falling star,

burned by the air

that flensed him as he sped.”

he sighed.

“we are better off without him.”

he allowed himself a playful smile.

“well, after all,

there was always

too much friction

between us.”