Swan Obsession

With a frayed old broom in her hands, Bridget, Rothbart's old assistant swept the tower room. It was a pointless task really; all she was doing was pushing clouds of dust back and forth, but she was curious to know what her master was up to, cooped all day up in his musty room.

Her job seemed to be getting increasingly easier as time wore on. Eighteen years ago, when Rothbart had first tried to execute his plot to take over Odette's father's kingdom, she spent all the waking hours of her day at market places, bogs, forests, fields, or wherever Rothbart commanded her, in search of the more common ingredients for his potions. She had scaled small mountains, her rickety old bones shaking with the cold, and swam in icy cold lakes, all to help him succeed in his ambitions, yet now, all her master did was sit in his tower room and brood over that swan. Whether Bridget worked all day, or slept, he was too lost in his own thoughts to know the difference. A frown came to Bridget's face as she thought of the swan, swimming serenely in the lake. She had only seen the swan in it's princess form a scant few times, but she was a beautiful princess indeed.

Bridget knew that Rothbart intended to marry the princess, and she wished she were a few decades younger so that she could be the one to marry Rothbart herself. Foolish princess, she thought, shaking her head. The silly swan had no clue as to the magnificent man she was rejecting. Yet, as Rothbart's assistant, it was her job to be loyal, and so, loyal she would be.

Rothbart sat before the hearth in a massive wooden chair, ornately carved with gargoyles. His pose was relaxed, hand stroking his chin thoughtfully, but behind his indifferent pose, Bridget could tell he was tense with controlled energy. He paid no heed to the swoosh of her sweeping, not noticing the dust as it glimmered in eddies under the sunlight that shone through the slit window. He was staring, as Bridget suspected, at spherical smokey orb before him, and within it, swam the image of a pure white swan. What happened to the days when Rothbart used to obsessively spy upon the kingdom he hoped to conquer? His obsession had changed, as the years wore on. Now his obsession was with the swan princess.

Well no more of this! Bridget couldn't stand for it. As his loyal assistant, if Rothbart would not take matters into his own hands, Bridget would. Determined, she set the ragged broom down against the wall, grabbed a tiny bottle filled with a thick liquid off the shelf. As an afterthought, she decided to also bring a patched and torn blanket. She was aware that Rothbart wouldn't even detect her motions, and as quickly as her rickety bones could take her, she dashed towards the lake where the swan circled in the cage that was her own body.