This, my dear child, is not your typical fairytale. So if you are looking to read one, I suggest you go to the children’s section in the nearest library. The story, however, does take place in a land of enchantment - the same land from which all fairytale characters come from. You have heard of all the princes’ and princesses’ stories, but the one I am about to tell you is like no other. Have you ever heard of the grand Prince Zachery Blanchard, or the lowly miss Shaiya Dupane? No, right? Well now you are going to.
King Harold Blanchard was a righteous man who ruled the grand kingdom of Perlaine with benevolence and fair judgement. When one would do wrong, the King would not lock them up in a dungeon, but rather send them to help build monuments of the land - under supervision of course. He refused to rule his kingdom through fear, but rather, through inspiring love in all of his subjects. Nevertheless, no one is perfect. His one weakness was his poor control over his lust. He had had a wife - the beautiful Queen Castiny Blanchard. Whilst childbirth, the doctor could save either the mother, or the child. The Queen, without hesitation, gave up her life in order to save their son, Zachery. After the Queen’s death, King Harold continued to justly rule the land. He was lacking the feeling of being loved though. Though his wife left him with a beloved heir to the throne, she also left him with an eternal void carved into his painfully beating heart. Trying to fill that void, King Harold succumbed to affairs, which managed to temporarily stuff the gaps. He had lain with many a woman, but only impregnated one of them - Ferline Dupane. She agreed not to tell anyone so long as the King let her keep her job and provide for their child and her.
Being the future king, Zachery was home-schooled. He was fed-up, and wanted to meet new people. Expressing his desires, his father threw him a ball where he invited all the children of the land. At the formal, Zachery met with many children of varied ages. Although he got what he wanted - the opportunity to make friends - he still felt something was lacking. He needed to get away from the party, so he decided to take a walk outside. Starting to yell at a girl - of around the same age - Zachery reprimanded her for picking a single rose from the garden that his mother had once tended to. He was infuriated as the girl had picked a rare sapphire rose that did not grow on bushes, but rather on trees. A single tear rolled down the girl’s cheek as the prince chastised her. Upon seeing the droplet, Zachery profusely apologized to her, and explained as to why he was angered. He expressed regret as he told the girl why he acted the way he acted, and that it was an over-reaction. Upon seeing the girl smile, Zachery, himself, picked another rose from the symbolically ethereal tree and placed it in her hands. The girl simply smiled, and disappeared around the corner, leaving the prince feeling confusingly content.
A couple of weeks later, Zachery was pacing around the palace when he turned around the corner and bumped into a fair lady, whose head was buried into a book with a cover laden with intricate gold work. He asked her where she had received the book from, and she answered him saying that it was a gift from the king for her fifteenth birthday. They got talking, and she revealed that her mother was a maid of the castle. Whilst they were talking, Zachery could not quite place where he knew her from, until he saw the bookmark. He recognised the lady to be the quiet girl from the night of the ball since her bookmark was a rose from his mother’s garden. Both of them felt lonely, and were happy to have found a friend who lived under the same roof - a roof that could actually account for dozens of roofs.
As the girl got to know the prince, she became particularly fond of him. Knowing she could never be with him, she was devastated and decided to confide in her mother. Aghast, the mother told her daughter that the enamoured feeling she had for the prince was immoral. The girl knew that her feelings for the future king could never be acted on, but she failed to understand why they were unethical. That is when Ferline explained to her daughter that she - Shaiya - was a bastard child of the King’s. Angry at her mother for not informing her before, she ran to confide in Zachery. She rushed into his arms weeping as he tried to understand what was wrong. Making him promise to be discreet about her tellings, she informed Zachery of their shared bloodline. Confused as to why her mother only told her about this now, he questioned Shaiya. She hung her guilty head in shame. Explaining that she should never have to feel ignoble, especially with him, he lifted her chin and buried his smile into her eyes. After repeated trials of trying to explain her dishonorable sentiments, Shaiya finally managed to croak her feelings for him. Zachery simply smiled at her, pushed the hair in her face behind her ears, leaned in, and softly laid his lips on hers.
In the eyes of the public, they portrayed themselves as platonic friends. But when no one was watching, they stole kisses from each other at every opportune moment that they could snatch. This mutual agreement of secrecy continued on for an entire year.
On Shaiya’s sixteenth birthday, Zachery took her to Toura lake to go light a lantern and set then it free. She sat on his lap with his head resting on her left shoulder as they watched the lantern disappear into the horizon. After the lantern was no longer in their line of sight, they laid back on the grass and gazed at the brilliant moon whilst holding hands and speaking of sweet nothings. Wanting to express their intense love for each other, they decided to lay together. And so they did, their hips dancing together - rocking to and fro - under the fragmented moonlight that broke through the leaves of the trees.
Morning-rays-come, Shaiya felt confident that people would accept the both of them as one. Sharing her thoughts with Zachery, he begged to differ. Heartbroken, she had no choice but to swear to confidentiality if she wanted to be with him. They continued to the castle and returned to their old ways of stealing loving glances and intimate touches.
Years passed by as they maintained their relationship. However, she grew tired of being his sin. The sea of love Shaiya had for him, gradually evaporated - one drop a day. The sea in her heart started out by running a vibrant sapphire. The day her heart dried out, unveiling an inky void, was the day Prince Zachery woke up to a dehydrated sable sapphire rose from his mother’s garden. Shaiya was never heard of again.
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