A Fairy Tale
Oct. 25th, 2004 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOnce upon a time, there was a wizardly but naive Prince who lived with a beautiful and magical Princess. He had lived with her for a decade, and he loved her with all of his heart. But the heart is not always the ruler of a man.
One quiet evening, as the Prince sat and read a book, the book began to speak to him in a gentle and beautiful voice. The book told him that it was the keeper of a lovely and gentle soul, a princess entrapped with by the curse of a cruel prince in the distant past. The Prince became entranced by the story and the voice, and, with the permission of his own true love, undertook a great working of magic to break the curse.
Yet as he tried to break the curse, the curse instead affected the Prince. He entered the book and met the entrapped princess in her tiny domain. She was beautiful in a striking way, a way that enslaved in his heart and afflicted him is both his head and groin.
His wise Princess, his true love, sought to withdraw him from the book, and her magic was great, and her love for him greater, and at painful cost she freed him. Yet, in her love for the Prince, she could not destroy the book, and it remained in the castle, and the Prince would read from it now and again, and speak to the trapped soul, and the terrible cycle of entrapment and release would repeat, each time with greater consequence and more terrible pain for both the Prince and his Princess.
The Prince came to understand that the book was not cursed. As he fought with the temptation of the book's inner soul, he came to understand that she was not a princess at all but a malevolent spirit, a dark faerie who whispered to men that they were heroes, enthralled them with ancient fairy tales of rescue and redemption, and promised that they would be remembered in similar tales someday, "if only you promise to rescue me." When he spoke these thoughts aloud then the book, the evil faerie, became enraged, and the battle that erupted that day in his simple study required all the skill of the kindly Prince and his beloved wise Princess, and their castle was shaken, and its towers fell.
The book is somewhere out in the world, still. It is still inhabited by a temptress spirit, and it still whispers tales of heroism and rescue. It still tells of an evil prince who placed a curse on an innocent princess. The story has changed, a little; now, the prince was enthralled by an evil princess who forced him with dark magics to break bonds of true love, and the story seems all the more compelling that way to those who have since heard it.
The Prince and the Princess rebuilt their castle and went on to live as happily ever after as people can. Yet to this day the Prince picks up each and every book and speaks to each and every spirit with suspicion, even with fear. He still reads and he still speaks with spirits, but his hands are scarred where the accursed book burned him, and his eyes dimmed with pain from the faerie's parting spell.
And when he is with his Princess, he is cautious to close each and every book, lest one be enchanted, lest one distract him from what is bright and good in the world.
One quiet evening, as the Prince sat and read a book, the book began to speak to him in a gentle and beautiful voice. The book told him that it was the keeper of a lovely and gentle soul, a princess entrapped with by the curse of a cruel prince in the distant past. The Prince became entranced by the story and the voice, and, with the permission of his own true love, undertook a great working of magic to break the curse.
Yet as he tried to break the curse, the curse instead affected the Prince. He entered the book and met the entrapped princess in her tiny domain. She was beautiful in a striking way, a way that enslaved in his heart and afflicted him is both his head and groin.
His wise Princess, his true love, sought to withdraw him from the book, and her magic was great, and her love for him greater, and at painful cost she freed him. Yet, in her love for the Prince, she could not destroy the book, and it remained in the castle, and the Prince would read from it now and again, and speak to the trapped soul, and the terrible cycle of entrapment and release would repeat, each time with greater consequence and more terrible pain for both the Prince and his Princess.
The Prince came to understand that the book was not cursed. As he fought with the temptation of the book's inner soul, he came to understand that she was not a princess at all but a malevolent spirit, a dark faerie who whispered to men that they were heroes, enthralled them with ancient fairy tales of rescue and redemption, and promised that they would be remembered in similar tales someday, "if only you promise to rescue me." When he spoke these thoughts aloud then the book, the evil faerie, became enraged, and the battle that erupted that day in his simple study required all the skill of the kindly Prince and his beloved wise Princess, and their castle was shaken, and its towers fell.
The book is somewhere out in the world, still. It is still inhabited by a temptress spirit, and it still whispers tales of heroism and rescue. It still tells of an evil prince who placed a curse on an innocent princess. The story has changed, a little; now, the prince was enthralled by an evil princess who forced him with dark magics to break bonds of true love, and the story seems all the more compelling that way to those who have since heard it.
The Prince and the Princess rebuilt their castle and went on to live as happily ever after as people can. Yet to this day the Prince picks up each and every book and speaks to each and every spirit with suspicion, even with fear. He still reads and he still speaks with spirits, but his hands are scarred where the accursed book burned him, and his eyes dimmed with pain from the faerie's parting spell.
And when he is with his Princess, he is cautious to close each and every book, lest one be enchanted, lest one distract him from what is bright and good in the world.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 01:32 pm (UTC)It ruins things for the rest of us, since it's hard to ever hold out an open hand to someone who appears to need help quite so freely or willingly when you've been burned that way before. And love and lust have a way of making the situation more intense, more painful when the truth comes to light, because there is that additional commitment of 'self'.
And, naturally, whenever someone who tries to help does finally wise up or have enough or even get pushed away, they become the new villain in the latest retelling. I wish I could say that I didn't have that t-shirt hanging in my closet, but I suppose it goes with the territory.
In completely different news, I'm going to be in Seattle for two weeks as of Wednesday. Would you be in a position to recommend a good but not hideously expensive seafood restaurant that might not be completely impossible to get into on Saturday night?
no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-25 06:20 pm (UTC)"It's for sheep to graze in."
no subject
Date: 2004-10-26 01:27 am (UTC)(Sorry, gut reaction. I had traumatic over-exposure to sheep on my honeymoon. It was months before I could see sheep without screaming afterwards.)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-26 12:17 pm (UTC)