the prince of the forest

A theme park day, I’m in! I-I haven’t been to the theme park in forever. The last time I went... woulda been ‘bout a year an’ a half ago, in December. That was fun! Yeah, I remember it was December ‘cause it was snowin’, an’ they had a temporary ice rink opened up, an’ lights everywhere... an’ Thumper got sick all over my shoes after eatin’ too many candy canes. 

Okay, so maybe less fun than I first remembered.

It was hotter than Snow had realized, and her stroll through the Hundred Acre Wood with Bambi quickly turned into resting under a large oak tree. Its leaves provided plenty of shade, and they talked for what felt like hours. He gave her insights on his life as a prince, and she tried to remember every detail about life back at the cottage. Sometimes Snow couldn’t believe how fortunate things were going for her friends these days: Rapunzel seemed to be thriving outside of her tower, and she had enough beautiful murals on her walls to show for it; Thumper never had many complaints and had visited her many times since school let out, Alice was smiling more often than not lately, Tiana was falling in love, and Aurora and Bambi, royalty! Why, it felt like dreams coming true, that’s what it was. 

She carefully looped one purple wildflower around another, just like Alice had taught her. By the time she was through, she had a crown that she placed on Bambi’s head mid-sentence. 

He moved his head downward so that Snow could put the flower crown on his head. “Alice taught me how to make these so many times, but I never could remember how.” Still, he pulled out a couple of wildflowers of his own, blue and white, and made an clumsy attempt at weaving them together.

Bambi had heard about this Rapunzel girl from both Thumper and Snow now, and was beginning to wonder when it would be his turn to meet her. He was about to ask whether or not he could come over to Snow’s, before Snow reported that the girl had already gone home. Four flowers down, the next loop was proving particularly difficult to thread, and Bambi drew it up to eye-level so as to see the stems better “Aw, I was just ‘boutta ask whether I could meet her. Thump said she lives somewhere where it’s hard to see other people. Why doesn’t she move, d’you think?”

He wasn’t surprised to hear Thumper didn’t like wearing flower crowns. At the mention of carrots, Bambi paused in the middle of flower-crown making and reached into his backpack to retrieve a box of fresh vegetables, already cut and ready to eat. Grabbing some before offering the box to Snow, he replied through a mouthful of lettuce, “‘Fanks, Shnow. You look nice too!” Bambi tied the last blue flower onto the crown before presenting it to Snow, his loops not quite as well done as hers. “S-sorry, I tried. These flowers sure are pretty… I should pick some later before we go home, I haven’t given Faline flowers in a while.”