Charming Life

[Othon Sdcd]

Asshe takes Damsel-in-Distressing, Darling Charming's homework assignment is to wait and sit perfectly for one hour and she's sick of it. Her roommate Rosabella Beauty assures her that her tedious waiting isn't as bad as the treatment of ogres and beasts. Rosabella is quite glad that she doesn't have to take Damsel-in-Distressing because it's not really of her story, to Darling's slight jealously.

When she was younger, what bothered Darling was that people of the Charming kingdom never looked beneath her surface as all they did was shower her with compliments. As she was a child with above-intelligence and advanced learning, nobody seemed to care. And "traditionally", as a damsel, she was obligated to do nothing and watch her brothers have all the fun. Each time when Darling did try to be like her brothers, her father would immediately stop her. Her mother gave her a lecture on why she can't be like her brothers and that she has her part to play as a damsel.

As soon as Rosabella leaves from the dorm, Darling gives up on the waiting assignment and won't let her remaining minutes go to waste. Instead, she pulls out workout clothes hidden deep in her wardrobe (which would have been forbidden in the Charming household) and starts doing thirty push-ups, and continues to do fifty sit-ups and ten chin-ups. As she starts doing her lunges, a bouquet of flowers land at her feet. Darling gets these at times and waves thanks to the boy who threw them up to her, not wanting to be seen in her current get-up. Although waving is considered polite, Darling was constantly given flowers to the point where the cleaning ladies got angered as soon as they had to clean out the wilted flowers. The boy bravely "confesses" his love to Darling but she turns him down, knowing all too well that he, and several others, do that just to marry their way into the Charming family so that they can get privileges.

As soon as the boy leaves, Darling continues exercising and she's been practicing how to do so in small spaces - using the Grimmnasium would be too risky. Suddenly, Darling hears a disturbing noise. She gets changed and heads down. The noise is coming from Dexter, dressed up in armor and riding on horseback. Dexter is helped back upright and it shows that he's not cut out for the class, to Darling's dismay. There she meets Apple White, who gives her the love letters accidentally sent to her dorm. Apple expresses how much she enjoys answering the love letters. Darling, on the other hand, disagrees and would rather give her destiny to any girl student who'd want it. With Dexter just sitting there and with Seeing that Hero Training has come to an end, she tries to find a way to get to the garden in the nick of time. She uses a large vine to get to class by swinging all the way down, despite getting calluses on her fingers.

The Charming Castle was on top of a craggy, steep peak. Uninvited visitors usually have a hard time reaching it. The castle itself is natural disaster-proof. But a notable thing of this castle is the tower; a tower that's old and dusty and a tower Darling has to spend most of her life in until she is to be rescued. When Darling was younger, a few suitors showed up at the Charming Castle's front doors and King Charming easily dismissed them. Daring and Dexter chased the boys out. This would normally happen if Darling went to another village or ball, and until Darling is to be sent to Ever After High, King Charming has decided that she is to be kept in the Charming Castle until then. As the years passed, Darling realized how the damsels have not really been thinking about how to escape towers.

Back at the school, Darling gracefully makes her way through the premises until she reaches the school gardens, she notices that Ever After High is holding their annual Parents Weekend. Rest assured though, she is aware that her parents won't be attending. Headmaster Grimm strolls on campus and finds Darling. He tells her about how her father called in to check on her, but Darling informs the headmaster that King Charming won't be attending Parents Weekend. Making her way to the fields, she finds an upset Dexter slumped down. He expresses his worry because he's falling behind as the one student who can't joust. Darling reassures him and is sure that he would rather joust than wait and do nothing.

When Dexter was a boy, he always had trouble traveling around Charming Castle because he kept bumping into walls. The physician insisted that Dexter wear glasses, but not because his eyes are imperfect. Instead, he classed them as "overly perfect" vision. From that day forth, Dexter was the first Charming to ever wear glasses. But at present day, Dexter shows that his glasses are a hindrance when jousting. Darling suggests that the helmet should get modification to fit his glasses in as well. Dexter is just slightly relieved that even if he jousts on Parent's Weekend, his parents are not to see him fail if he does. Darling receives a text from her mother that they have rescheduled their cruise so that they can attend Parents Weekend. Because Dexter is less-than-confident in the jousting fields, Darling offers a switch.

Dexter and Darling visit the Village of Book End. They find a blacksmith's shop and enter it. There they meet the blacksmith, or "smithy" called Betty Bunyan, daughter of Paul Bunyan. Betty immediately recognizes the Charmings and tells Dexter about how Daring's armor is quite flawless whenever he brings it in. Unbeknownst to Betty, Dexter is quite hurt by the comparison. Darling gives him words of support and explains to Betty about their helmet issue. Betty notes that if Dexter needs it by the weekend she is unable to do it on time, but Darling asks if she would make the helmet if Darling requested it made. Betty takes that fact into consideration and will try her best to make the helmet.

Darling walks in the Damsel-in-Distressing room with an accepted love note given by a boy student in hand. Duchess insensitively and sarcastically notes how lucky Darling is to get such love notes. After the headmaster gives a short announcement to the girls of the class, Maid Marian enters with not much welcome from the headmaster. Maid Marian herself isn't too keen on teaching such a class, but she asks the students to turn in their waiting homework as they proceed onto the next syllabus, which is listening to a cassette tape of recognizable sounds.

Equipped with her workout getup, Darling slips out of the dorm room at night when everyone is asleep. She sneaks over to the stables to fetch her pet, Sir Gallopad, as her plans for the night are to escape school campus and return before dawn so that the wall of briars can disappear and scatter. Darling and Sir Gallopad rest in the Enchanted Forest. The next morning, Darling stumbles across a strange arrow left nearby when she wakes up, but she leaves it where it is and leaves. She does as follows and heads back to school. As soon as she returns to her dorm, Darling thinks about the odd arrow that was shot next to her, but it wasn't there when she fell asleep so someone else must also have been past curfew.

Darling and a few others have a late breakfast in the castleteria. After a short announcement from Headmaster Grimm and a weather announcement broadcast, Dexter calls Darling over and notifies her that he is coming down with illness and makes Darling promise not to tell anyone that he is to visit a doctor soon. Darling is expecting Dexter's jousting armor and helmet to be done, so she calls Betty for a delivery to Dexter's room as a nice surprise. However, Betty does not answer the phone and Darling decides on checking in on her herself in Book End. After causing a few accidents and collisions by her presence in Book End, Darling makes her way to the shop and finds that Betty has left to visit her father who has a bunion removal at the hospital and will be back in a few weeks, and Parents Weekend would be far from over. Considering that the armor would be hard to carry out in the open, Darling fits all the pieces together and steps out with the helmet on.

Darling wears Dexter's armor out as it is easier to carry that way prior to leaving Betty a note. Darling enjoys how she isn't getting the unneeded attention disguised in the armor as she walks around in Book End. While wearing Dexter's armor, Darling runs into Daring, Hunter and Professor Knight. They soon make their way back to Ever After High where they do jousting practice, much to Darling's excitement.

After entering Dexter and Hunter's dorm room, Darling discovers that Dexter has caught the princely pox and will recover in a few days, but the situation bears both good and bad news because Dexter didn't care about jousting, but he had to get better. Darling also tells him about his status in class as the most improved because of her help. Because of his current state and now that expectation of Dexter's jousting skill has been raised, Dexter is quite angry and speechless at Darling, who is really sorry. She then reveals that she still continued training in secret after they left the Charming Castle for Ever After High, but that still made Dexter upset because now he's not the second best anymore. But now Darling wishes to make it up to Dexter, somehow.

At Damsel-in-Distressing class, their next part of the syllabus is calling for help. As everyone eventually gets the hang of it, Darling finds it rather humiliating to take part. Because of all the ruckus, the headmaster even notifies them that they're disrupting other lessons, but because it's part of the curriculum he lets them off. After class, Maid Marian requests to speak with Darling and is aware that she's not the princess everyone thought she was, also acknowledging the fact that she's acting Rebel.

When Darling was a younger age, she was able to judge a book by its cover, quite literally. Although Darling liked reading, she also liked going on real adventures like her brothers. Dexter read once in a while, and he also read adventure books, but Darling still read the traditional princess stories which she considered boring. The librarian, Madam Grimm, recommended adventure, mystery and hero books to Dexter but quite the opposite to Darling. As soon as she left the household, Darling went to bed and found a book by her room's doorstep. It was the Secrets of Sherwood Forest book by Maid Marian.

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