Consequence

sin

Image

Once upon a time, in a kingdom very far from here, the largest tower the world has ever seen was constructed. It was built to protect the daughter of a rich and noble king from enemy attacks. A war had been going on with the neighboring kingdom for years, and the king didn’t want to take any chances with the safety of his daughter.

So for years the princess waited in solitude for the war to end, when her father was to send the most loyal and worthy knight in the land to fetch her. The knight’s reward was the princess’s hand in marriage.

The princess romanticized and dreamed of the happily ever after she would receive when the wretched war was over. Only on her eighteenth birthday did the princess start questioning if the war would ever end.

As if God himself had heard the sorrow of the princess, a knock came upon her window.

“Oh!” exclaimed the princess, “That must be my knight!”

When she opened the window, however, it wasn’t a knight she saw. It was a young solider from the country her kingdom was at war with.

“Please,” plead the solider, “I’m wounded. If you’d please give me a place to stay, I’d be forever in your debt.”

The solider tried his best to bow as he clutched his bleeding side. The princess was amazed that he was able to climb all that way with his injury.

The princess knew that franchising with the enemy was forbidden, and even punishable by death. But, for some reason or another, the princess was intrigued by the solider. Over the course of several months, the princess nursed the solider back to health, and they quickly fell in love.

“However can I repay you for being so kind to me?” asked the solider on his last day under the care of the princess.

“Take me with you,” answered the princess, “I’ve been cooped up in this tower for too long.”
The solider agreed and the two set off towards the window to make their escape. When the princess threw open the window, however, someone else was there to meet her.

A knight in shining silver armor carrying a shield bearing the flag of the princess’s kingdom climbed through the window and kneeled before the princess.

“My fair maiden,” said the knight as he kissed her delicate hand, “I have been sent by the king to fetch you.”

“The war is over then?” asked the princess.

“No, I’m afraid not. But enemy troops have been spotted in this area, and the king fears that his daughter is no longer safe in this location,” replied the knight, whose eyes soon fell on the enemy solider.

“Princess!” the knight jumped, pulling his sword from its sheath. “You have been invaded! Stand back while I slaughter your captor!”

The princess leaped in front of the solider, not letting the knight get close to him.

“No,” she exclaimed, “You won’t lay a hand on him. I love him.”

The solider smiled, but the knight did not. He did nothing but put his fingers to his lips and blew out a terrifically loud whistle. Soon, the entire room was filled with knights. They tore the princess from her love, even after she fought with all of her might. She cried and cried, but the knights wouldn’t stop torturing the solider.

“This’ll show you to brainwash princesses,” said the head knight, before he did the unthinkable. He reared back, stabbing the solider right through the heart with his mighty sword.

The princess cried out in agony, as if she was the one that was getting stabbed. Her heart hurt as she wept over the body of her fallen solider.

The head knight felt no sympathy for the princess, and promptly insisted on dragging her back to the kingdom.

“Unhand me!” she demanded. “I can walk on my own!”

The princess fought free of the knight’s grasp and something peculiar happened then: as the princess started the climb down the tower with the knights, she was overcome with emotion. So overcome that her breaths became shallow and eventually, she stopped breathing all together.

What happened next seemed to take place in slow motion. She pushed off of the wall. As she fell, the princess decided that she didn’t want to live if she couldn’t live without the solider.

When the king heard the story of his daughter’s death, he ended the war. He also arranged for the princess and the solider to be buried next to each other in a beautiful meadow. The two spent eternity by each other’s sides.

Essentially, they died happily ever after.
♠ ♠ ♠
Yet another freewrite from the depths of my journal.