Stardust || A Short Story Collection

Seasons of Solitude

A long, long time ago, there lived a beautiful princess, locked away in a tall tower by a monster. Her captor was so ferocious that the princess did not dare to even step out of the tower, and she waited and waited for a knight to come and save her. A great many knights did come, but all of them were slain by the beast, and as time passed by, the princess began to think that she had been forgotten. No more knights came to fight for her freedom, and the monster itself seemed to have forsaken her. Yet she waited.

In the early days, the princess used to cry and beg and plead with the monster to let her go, but the brute would not hear of it. It had taken her from her grand palace and brought her to this place, a stone tower in a clearing in a forest, so tall that its top was higher than any bird had ever flown. She would dream of a handsome prince on a grand horse, who would ride down the cruel creature and carry her away to her home. But it never happened. No matter how many princes came, no matter how many knights, the beast would find a way to defeat them all. 

As time flew by, the princess began to look forward to these doomed attempts even more, for they were the only new thing that happened there. Life in the tower was so dull that even an occasional storm seemed to be fascinating to her. All day she used to sit near the window of her room and look down at the vast green forest, and look up at the vast blue sky. Back then the monster still treasured her, and she would often notice its sharp eyes on her, keeping watch lest she escape. The cell where she was kept was not as high up as the top of the tower, and sometimes she would think of climbing down the steep tower wall. She never did, though, for the monster always kept a close guard on her. 

But that had been a long time ago. 

Now the princess was alone, all alone. All the time she had spent here — she did not recall how many moons, nay, how many seasons had passed — had taken their toll on her. Once she had been plump and pretty, with skin as smooth as silk and a face like the moon, but now only bones remained. Her beautiful long hair, all golden curls tumbling around her face, was tangled and matted and filthy. The gown she wore had holes in the fine fabric, and her shoes had worn out too. 

Yet she smiled, and waited.

She watched the days come and go from her perch by the window, like the birds that occasionally visited her. The forest was alive, and it changed colours with the season. In winter it was all silent and white, a snowy wonderland so quiet she could have sung a song to the fishes that lived in the glittering silver stream far away. It would seem that all life had vanished in that vast white land. 

But that would be until spring came. With spring arrived fresh flowers and bright birds that chirped and twittered all day long, singing songs of joy and love and life. The princess saw snow still lingering in the clearing where her tower was, and wondered how, until once she noticed a lovely blue butterfly fluttering down to the field of snow. Then she realised, it was not snow but flowers, a carpet of delicate little snowdrops.

Spring was her favourite time of the year, for then there was life all around, and sometimes she got visitors: mostly small birds, such as robins and sparrows. They sat on the window's ledge and told her stories of the land, of all they had seen and all they had heard. She listened and smiled and dreamed of travelling the great wide world with them. Oh, how she wished she could fly like those birds! Fly away, out of the tower, out into the open blue sky... but that never happened. 

Once she saw an eagle flying right beside her window. She had often seen those majestic birds soaring high in the sky, but never so close. That one close glimpse of the bird flying by — of the rich brown feathers that gleamed in the sun, the powerful wings that beat the air, and the focused eyes that never lost sight of their aim — made her think, Life is capable of such wonders. She had spent so long waiting, and for whom? She could break out on her own. She would defeat her captor herself and leave, or die in the attempt. But then she remembered — the monster was gone, and she could not even get up.