Once upon a time, in a glamorous palace, lived a Princess. In fact, she lived rather well. All day she would lay on her sofa and read fairy tales. If in these fairy tales, she happened upon sorrowful or spooky places, the Princess was distressed. When this occurred, the royal cook made the favoured delicacy of all princesses for her - chocolate in the softest of white marshmallows. After such a treat, the Princess calmed and could read on.
All was well, except the King, the Princess"s father, had decided that it was time to find his daughters husbands, starting with the oldest, the Princess herself. He began hosting balls in the courtyard of the palace. Princes from all four corners of the world would gather, eat, drink, dance, and have boring conversations. After the appropriate amount of time, they would ask for the hand of the Princess, and she would refuse them. Her father would be angry; her sisters would pout - they were tired of waiting their turn. The royal cook had to send for help in the kitchen, as he couldn"t manage making that many marshmallow-covered chocolates on his own.
All the Princess wanted, though, was for her romance to happen as it did in the fairy tales. First, a dragon would kidnap her and imprison her in a tower. Then a courageous knight, in love with her portrait, would defeat the dragon and free the Princess. Then they would run so fast that no one could catch them. And only after this adventure would they marry and live happily ever after. This was what the Princess imagined, although both dragons and brave knights probably existed exclusively in fairy tales. But didn"t love, portraits and other such romantic notions have to exist?
One day a Prince arrived at the castle, one unlike any of the others. He serenaded her, singing of her beauty, reciting her poems of falling in love with her portrait, and bringing her armfuls of flowers each day. The Princess was over the moon with joy, but she still wanted more and asked him to escape with her. Honestly, there was no need to escape: he was a wealthy prince of noble blood, and the King couldn"t wait for him to become his son-in-law, as soon as possible. But the Prince agreed, much to the Princess"s delight, that they certainly must escape!
One day, while the Prince was once again reciting his poems about her, the Princess shyly asked him about their plan. The Prince slapped himself on the forehead.
"Of course! Our escape!"
On the other side of the paper with his poems, he scribbled a map and handed it to the Princess.
"When?" clarified the Princess, breathless with excitement.
"Tomorrow at dawn!" decided the Prince.
She cried out - there was little time left - and, to the dismay of the Prince, ran away to get ready to escape. She approached the matter seriously: she packed a purse with some coins, bundled up marshmallow-covered chocolates, prepared her simplest dress and her sturdiest shoes. At sunrise the Princess set out for their meeting place, with the page of poem in hand.
It was unfortunate that she had been shy and had not told him of her own escape plan! It was even worse that she had not drawn the map herself. The Prince had drawn their meeting place so confusingly, especially some ill-fated ruins that the Princess couldn"t find (or perhaps they were boulders?), where, according to the plan, a carriage was supposed to be waiting for her. However, instead of immediately turning back home, the Princess continued to walk and walk along unfamiliar deserted roads, through woods and meadows. She hoped to run into the ruins or the carriage with the Prince, who was probably searching for her. Finally, she grew tired, and realized that she was lost, and was ready to be found by just about anyone, perhaps a knight or her father the King. She would have even been pleased with a farm wagon. A farmer, for some gold coins, would drive her to the palace. Alas, the Princess didn"t encounter anyone on the road, and couldn"t remember her way back. Sitting somewhere on her own would be foolish. The only thing left for her to do was to go forth in hopes of encountering someone or catching a glimpse of life somewhere. Later in the evening, by which time she had used up all her strength, the Princess noticed a trickle of smoke behind a field in the distance. Fortunately, the smoke was coming from the chimney of a farmer"s house.
The Princess knocked on the door. It was opened by a young, disheveled woman with a wailing infant in her arms. Two more squealing children clung to her skirts. The farmer woman snapped crossly that everyone had gone to the market for the whole week and taken everything with them, so she had nothing to sell, and slammed the door shut.
The Princess had read that princes should not despair under any circumstances. What princesses should do, the books hadn"t said, but she assumed that it was the same as princes. Despite this, she broke down and started to cry - of despair, it seemed.
The woman flung open the door, poured the daily dishwater outside, and, astonished that the young girl was still there, invited her into the house. The Princess quickly wiped her tears.
The farmer woman told the Princess of her troubles: her husband, his brothers and both her in-laws had gone to the market, and hadn"t taken her or the children, because all three had gotten sick at the same time. She was out of patience and completely fed up. The Princess, blushing, told her own story: she had planned to escape with the best Prince in the world, but had gotten lost and wanted to go back to her castle.
"Where this castle is, I don"t know," shrugged the farmer woman, "but my husband will return in a week, and he"ll take you to town, someone there might know."
"In a week?!" gasped the Princess, horrified, but there was nothing she could so, and so she stayed with the kind woman.
For her lodgings, the Princess paid with coins from her purse. She could have spent the week twiddling her thumbs, especially since she didn"t know how to do anything useful. The baby started to cry in his cradle, and the Princess took to rocking the child, while the farmer woman did housework. She distracted the older ones, too, and they let go of the hem of their mother"s skirt. The Princess gave them her marshmallow-covered chocolates, informing them that this was the favorite delicacy of all princesses, and that it helped with any misfortunes.
The children chewed the sweet treat, getting the brown chocolate all over their little faces, which were covered in red spots. They finished eating and wondered:
"What are princesses like?"
The Princess didn"t think there was anything interesting to say about herself, not counting her failed escape, and thus she began to remember all the stories she"d read. And, without fail, in all the stories where there were princesses, there were also brave knights and dragons, too!
Motionless, the children listened about great lizards, covered in scales and spewing flames, and about the priceless jewel, "The Dragon"s Tear", which could not be owned, but only guarded, so that it would not cause quarrels among people. However, the invaluable gem didn"t interest the youngsters. The lizards were a different story!
"Why don"t dragons burn themselves with their own fire?" queried the oldest, glancing at their furnace.
The Princess pondered this. Once, in the palace square, some traveling players were giving performances. One of them swallowed swords and another blew fire. The King, her father, had said that these were simple tricks and that anyone could do them. He even singed his beard showing his daughters how to breathe fire. The Princess smiled at this memory. When she looked up, all the children were fast asleep. She fell asleep as well, clutching to her chest the precious page of poetry.
***
Three days later, the Princess heard the clatter of hoofs and the creaking of wheels in the street. Her heart was filled with joy. Alas, it was not the Prince in his carriage who had come, but just the farmer woman"s faraway neighbour who was going to the market in town.
"What palace? I don"t know of any palace." He flatly refused to drive the Princess home. "If you want to come to town, though, hop into the pumpkin cart and I"ll take you."
Kissing the children goodbye, the Princess waved to the farmer woman and headed to town.
The neighbour turned out to be kind-hearted and helped the timid Princess make arrangements with some merchants from the capital city. She gave him a coin and jumped into the next wagon. Hopefully, this was the last voyage of her adventure. She would return home, she and the Prince would marry, and would later reminisce about their unsuccessful escape with a smile. And on the wall, they would hang in a frame the paper with the map. The poetry side up, of course.
The wagon was shaky, and the Princess felt very ill. One moment she was hot, the next, chilly; she felt herself nodding off, but was tortured by thirst. When a band of highwaymen attacked the merchants, it took the Princess a lot of effort to clamber out of the cart. Her head hurt, her skin itched. One of the highwaymen recoiled from her and gestured for her to throw him her coin purse. Thus, the Princess lost her last few coins. She sat on a rock from exhaustion. Something was happening around her, but her splitting headache prevented her from understanding anything. Thank goodness no one harmed her. When she came to, the wagons were gone. The poor Princess was left on the road all alone yet again.
The Princess began to cry. She didn"t remember at all that princes and, probably, princesses were not supposed to despair. How long she sat like that, she didn"t know. Some more wagons appeared, but the Princess was too hesitant to stop them, since the highwaymen had taken her wallet. With the last of her strength, she quietly scrambled into the next cart. She was lucky that the wagon was rolling slowly and that no one noticed her. She drifted off.
She woke to someone shaking her by the shoulder roughly. When she turned her head, the person flinched away, just like the highwayman and ordered her to get out of the cart. The Princess wanted to ask for help, explain that she needed to get to the palace, but her lips were paralyzed and her voice trembled. She was thrown to the ground, near some enormous wall.
The Princess leaned against the cold stones. Her despair knew no bounds, what was expected of princes and possibly princesses, she barely remembered. She readied herself for death.
It grew dark.
Some people approached, illuminated her with a torch, and started to argue.
"How about you let me take her!" chimed in a young, clear voice. "How much?"
Some bargaining commenced. She heard a handshake. If the Princess hadn"t felt so terrible, she would have been horrified that she had just been sold.
Someone threw her over his shoulder like a sack, then threw her into a wheelbarrow, on top of some rags and it began to roll. Later, she was thrown over his shoulder again.
"You"re always bringing home useless junk, Garbage man," creaked some old crone. "And throwing money around. Well, what shall we do with her?"
The Princess"s teeth started to chatter from fear and cold. She heard a chuckle, "First, I"ll warm her up!"
With no time to figure out whether this statement implied anything threatening, she was thrown yet again over a shoulder. She found herself in a different room. In the darkness two giant eyes appeared. Snake-like eyes!
"Look what I"ve brought you!" Another chuckle.
A smoking maw opened and closed.
The Princess was frightened.
"Please," she pleaded, "don"t feed me to the dragon."