Toni popped her lips. “Ahh. Got it. I understand your frustration. So does the prince love your daughter Splendid?”
The queen’s eyes lit up, almost rolling to the back of her head. “Resplendant! And it doesn’t matter who the prince loves, you simpleton! It only matters that on the advice of some doddering, centuries-old woman, the king has canceled our contract because he wants his son to be,” she made air quotes, “happy,” she said on an eye roll as she began to pace the length of the room in quick, fiery steps.
“Okay, so here’s a thought, and it’s one I’ve considered often when it comes to you villains in a fairytale. Why not just communicate? I mean, say you invite King Dick over for a cocktail. Something holiday-like. Egg nog, a candy cane martini, maybe. Then you sit, you chat, maybe you make some weenies in a blanket, because food really is the universal language, right? Then you do something totally crazy, like say, ‘Hey, KD, you made a deal with me. I don’t like that you broke your promise. It makes my feelings all hurty.’ Then he responds by saying, ‘I’m sorry, Angria. I wasn’t being very sensitive to your feelings, was I?’ There’ll be a lot of ye’s and ’tis’s and whatever, but you get the general picture, right? Why does everything have to be all-out war? It’s Christmas, for the love of Cheetos. Peace. Love. Harmony.”
The queen raced across the floor toward her, her heels clacking against the hard marble in her mad dash. She bashed down Toni’s skirt with a fist, effectively crushing her crinoline.
“Are you mad? He humiliated my daughter! He refuses to budge. That mealy-mouthed mule sent me a message via my liege, and told me my beautiful Resplendant is not the proper wife for Price Iver, and he won’t have any son of his unhappy for eternity. He will not move an inch! Thus, you must be beheaded before his very eyes!”
“Is the prince’s name really Iver?” Toni asked on a giggle-snort. “Who wants to marry a guy named Iver, anyway? Do you really want to look across your Thanksgiving table, which I’m sure is fabulous, and call your son-in-law Iver?”
“Shut up!” she screeched in Toni’s face, shaking the crystal chandelier in the center of the ceiling. “You will pay for this! Everyone will pay. All of Shamalot will see its bitter end when I’m done!”
Toni refused to cower, but wow, this woman was scary with all her white teeth, shiny red lips, and glittering angry eyes. “But wait! What if I told you I love someone else? What if I told you I don’t even know who Prince Iver is? What if I told you I don’t even come from this time, and I can leave and go back home and then you can force the king to allow your daughter to marry the prince?”
That stopped her dead in her tracks. “What?”
Toni licked her lips while she tried to move, but she was cemented to the damn chair. “It’s true! I’ll hit the road, sayonara, later gator. The king can’t make Prince Whatever marry me if I’m outtie, right? We just remove the problem and poof, instant marriage and land and whatever else it is you want.”
The queen straightened; her spine so stiff Toni thought it might crack. “What maiden in her right senses wouldn’t want the riches of the king?”
Now Toni rolled her eyes hard with a grating sigh. “This maiden, lady. I’m good with TV dinners and a drippy showerhead forever if it means I get to live. I’ve been beaten down, spit at, yelled at, punched, dumped in the ocean, knocked out, wore these damn uncomfortable shoes for miles and miles in more snow than I think Siberia’s ever seen. I’m happy to hit the road if it means—”
She snatched up Toni’s right foot, effectively silencing her. Swirling a finger along her calf, Angria eyeballed the sparkly purple shoe, still as perfect as when she’d first been forced to wear them.
Her eyes went from wonder to a narrowed pair of slits in her head. “These shoes? Where did you get them?”
Toni fought to keep her face impassive. She really didn’t know about the shoes? Who was she kidding? They didn’t even really know anything concrete about the shoes either, other than they’d guessed the shoes allowed her to absorb her foes powers.
But they didn’t know that for sure. Still, she felt a little smug the queen was blissfully unaware, and she needed to keep it that way for just a little longer.
“I said, where did you get the shoes?” Angria demanded.
“Um, Brenda, the Good Witch of the South. She y’alled ’em right onto my feet.”
“And what do they do?” she drawled, her interest clearly aroused as she squeezed Toni’s foot.
Now Toni smiled, her grin wide and accommodating as she pointed her toe to show off the shoe. She just might stand a chance at getting out of here and warning the king he was about to see his kingdom crumble because he’d made a stupid decision.
“Wanna see?” she asked, all sweetness and light.
The queen lifted her sharp chin and dropped Toni’s foot, sucking in her cheeks. “Show me.”