It’s time to show you some of the similarities and differences between the first part of my Prince Lindworm retelling, Waterdrop, and the original which you can read here.
The most obvious example appears at the end of Waterdrop: the rose choice. In Prince Lindworm, the queen is given two roses – red for a son, white for a daughter – and is told to choose between them. It’s made clear that she will only have one child. In my novella, the women can have more than one child from their choice – but they’ll only be sons or daughters.
I also decided to change the consequences of eating both roses. In my version, there’s only one child, the mother dies in childbirth and the magic of the roses has a strange effect on the child. Also, the royal family (or at least, the king and prince) didn’t know about the lindworm until many years after the birth, and Mac thought Isla had escaped the effects of the roses until Aife came along.
The Rider was another nod to the original. Like the witch, he’s a figure of mystery who appears just when people need him the most. He’s like an unpredictable fairy godfather. (Just so you know, his appearance in Waterdrop isn’t the last you’ll see of him.)
If you’re familiar with the original, you’ll notice most of the characters are…well, they’re horrible people who don’t think things through. After finding out about the lindworm, the king and queen could have found the witch again and asked her for help to cure him (it’s been shown that she’s a kindly witch, so there’s no reason she wouldn’t have told them how to cure their son). After the first princess is eaten, they decide to arrange another marriage even though they’ve got no reason to believe the same thing won’t happen and it does. The younger brother insists his parents find the lindworm a third bride knowing full well what happened to the other two. The king finds an expendable girl to sacrifice to the lindworm – and yes, she is a sacrifice. She’s being thrown to the wolves – or dragon, in this case.
Isla’s father was a bit less selfish than that. He decided to give his wife a red rose because he knew she wanted children and had no idea she’d already consumed the white one until it was too late. Mac kept the truth about Isla’s (and Maeve’s) origins secret because he didn’t want his foster-daughters getting hurt. But tragedy still occurred.
Also, keep the shed skins in mind. They’re going to be important in Riverflow.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse behind the scenes! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.