The Cursed Prince

The sun filters through the clouds, a beautiful morning blessed with a warm summer sun and Celeste Jones hums as she walks through the field with her cutters and basket; she heads towards the towering sunflowers and pulls out her phone from her pocket, snapping a picture before picking a few flowers for a morning bouquet. There's a rustle in the forest that spreads along the back of her property and she shivers with the soft breeze that tickles her bare arms and calves. She throws a look over her shoulder, a strange feeling like she's being watched churning her stomach but she sees nothing out of the ordinary so with a shrug, she continues to collect her bouquet of flowers.

The house, as well as the business that came with it, was inherited from her grandmother; a quiet and sweet old lady who seemed to have an affinity with nature, able to grow all sorts of flora and fauna. She had this little flower shop for over four decades and built up quite the repertoire with not only the locals but with those that passed through. Living on a small farm allowed her to grow all sorts and customers were able to come and choose fresh flowers every day, depending on the season, they were even able to pick fresh fruits, berries or vegetables from the orchards and gardens her grandmother tended to. Celeste would visit during the school holidays as she grew up, learning about the different meanings of different flowers and slowly falling in love with nature as she grew older.

It was mid-winter last year when Celeste got the call that her grandmother passed away, causing her to pack up her life and move out to the small farm and keep her grandmother's legacy alive.

She stops to smell the sweet scent of the nasturtiums before a small frown tugs at the corner of her thin lips when she spies the petunias looking a little worse for wear. "What's been nibbling away at you?" She crouches down and touches the petals of a surviving white petunia, the rest missing their petals and it causes her brow to furrow as she tries to think about what could possibly be causing this. A deer, maybe? It would be extremely strange for one to be coming and eating away at her gardens recently when there's never been a problem in the past.

Celeste decides to quickly rush over and check the fence that separates the forest from the open land, there may be a hole in the fence and it's allowing a curious doe to come onto the property.

Taking a moment to drop the basket inside and sparing a glance at the clock, she makes sure she has time. She rushes quickly out the backdoor and heads for the forest line, there's a rustling in the bushes that certainly isn't the wind and she spies something dashing through the trees; stopping to rub her eyes, she isn't sure she saw what she thought she saw – that did not look like a deer.

Her grandmother used to tell her stories about the Fae, the folks that lived in the forest, telling stories about how they are the reason her gardens have always been the best and never suffered a season. She would tell you about their magic that kept the ground fertile and the flowers blooming as long as she returned the favour one day – omitting whatever this favour was but always having a knowing smile. Celeste placed it down to an old lady telling her young granddaughter fairy tales to keep her imagination alive and wild, never believing that there was any truth to what she said because there are no such thing as Fae folk...right? "Ridiculous," Celeste mutter to herself as she turns away from the forest, shaking her head but yet, hurrying back to the house a little faster than normal.

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There's this nagging feeling in the back of her mind all day, pulling her mind into a sweet daydream as childhood memories play like a movie on a screen and creating a little fantasy that only causes her to wonder more about what she saw this morning. There's a strange memory filled with childish wonder, or at least that's what she thinks it is; she was playing at the edge of the forest, singing a pretty tune and keeping safe from the sun when she spied a little boy around her age, watching her while hiding behind a bush.