Far Off Unhappy Things
Chapter 24: The Princess and the Demoness
By Tintenzunge
Once upon a time in a far off place, there was a land where it was always fall. Amidst the endless autumn forests stood two cities, connected by a bridge. One was called Fair Luson, and was ruled by a poet-king from a beautiful palace. The other was called Fair Lusan, and was ruled by a court of wizards from the top of the tallest tower in the world.
Outside these cities lived a princess. She longed to visit the cities, to walk in the garden of the palace and to attend the lessons taught by the wizards in the tower. But it could not be. The people of the cities were afraid of the princess, for she had bright blue hair and ears as sharp as knives.
“Demon!” The citizens yelled when they saw her.
“Go away!” The baker yelled, throwing bread at the strange princess. “Thief!” He yelled as she took some of the bread he had thrown at her, and ran away with it.
She didn’t like to steal, but she had to or she would starve.
“Witch!” Yelled the guardsman when he saw her, and he chased her out of the city and back into the forest.
The princess spent her days alone in the forest, eating stolen bread and drinking water from the same streams she bathed in. When the loneliness became too much to bear she talked to the flowers that kept her company, for there was no-one else to talk to.
Once upon a time in a far off place, there was a demoness clad all in red. Her clothes were red, her eyes were red and her hair was red- even the hair on her tail and the hair on her large, furry ears.
She was even less welcome in the city than the princess in blue.
“Demon!” The citizens screamed when they saw her.
“Go away!” The baker screamed, throwing bread at her while running away as fast as he could.
“Thanks for the free bread,” the demoness laughed as she ran away with the bread he had thrown at her.
“Thief!” Yelled the guardsman after she snuck by him, swiping his gold coins in the process.
The demoness spent her days running amok in the city, stealing and causing mischief. She spent her nights in the forest, covering herself in autumn leaves as a blanket and laying her head to rest on a pillow of flowers.
One day, the demoness, tired and covered in soot after she had snuck into the blacksmith’s house through his chimney, headed to the stream to bathe. Across the stream from her she saw someone she had not seen before- a princess, but one with strange hair and ears.
“You are like me,” the demoness said. “But where is your tail?”
“I’m no demon,” the princess said. “But the people in the city treat me like one nonetheless.”
“Hah!” The demoness laughed. “You must live the life of a demon then, free of care. We have it good, princess. When we get hungry, we steal from the baker and when we get bored we seduce the blacksmith’s wife.”
“I don’t have it good at all,” the princess said. “I am a princess, I’m supposed to live in a tower instead of the forest. I am supposed to pay for my bread with gold coins. And seducing the blacksmith’s wife! You really are a demon.”
“If you want to, I have some gold coins for you,” the demoness said. “So you can buy bread instead of stealing it.”
“I bet you stole those too.”
“From the guard, even!”
The princess shook her head and wept.
“Princess, what’s wrong?” The demoness asked.
“I want to live with the townsfolk,” the princess cried. “I want to go to school with the wizards, and I want to marry a boy who’ll build me a house. I’m tired of being treated like a demon, and I’m sick of living alone in the forest.”
“Well, then come live with me,” the demoness said.
“But don’t I hate you?” The princess asked.
“Why would you hate me?” The demoness asked in return.
“I- I don’t know. I have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I know you. That I know you and that I loathe you.”
“You’re a strange girl, princess,” the demoness said. “Come with me, I have a beautiful clearing with lots of leaves and lots of stolen trinkets.”
The princess thought for a bit, then conceded. Living together with the demoness was better than living alone.
And for a while she lived with the demoness in red. During the day, she’d play with trinkets and jewelry that her new friend had stolen, and in the evening her friend brought her bread- stolen from the baker, of course. For a while she almost felt like a real princess. Whenever her loneliness got the better of her, the demoness would go on walks with her and showed her the strange and hidden places of the forest. Occasionally she’d bring her new jewelry, no doubt stolen from the nobles in the palace.
“Isn’t this life the best?” The demoness asked the princess one evening, just as they were raking together a great big pile of leaves to go to sleep under.
“I don’t know,” the princess whispered.
“Ruffle me behind my ears,” the demoness demanded. “And brush my tail.”
“I just feel like I don’t belong here,” the princess said as she ruffled the demoness behind her ears. “I want to live in a tower, and marry a boy,” she said as she brushed her friend’s tail.
“Bah,” the demoness said. “What good are boys? I guess there really is no accounting for taste.”
The princess sighed.
But even though she didn’t understand the princess, the demoness felt bad for her. She prided herself in being the cleverest and most tricksy of all demons, so she started to wonder- wasn’t there a sort of trick she could come up with to help the princess?
She thought about it for several days and one evening just as they had laid down on their bed of flowers under their blanket of leaves, she told the princess her plan.
“Will that really work?” The princess asked.
“Of course it will,” the demoness said. Then they went to sleep.
The next morning, the princess and the demoness went looking for bits and baubles that they would need for their plan. They carved a staff from willow-wood, which all men can recognize as the wood from which the wisest of wizards carve their staffs. They cut some of the princess’s hair, and made it into rope. Last, they collected plants with medicinal properties, and crushed them into a pulp and dried it over a fire to make a magic powder.
“I suppose this is the last time we’ll go to sleep like this,” the demoness said that night. “Tomorrow you’ll sleep on a bed instead of on flowers. You’ll have a blanket of cotton instead of leaves. You’ll buy your bread with gold coins instead of stealing it from the baker.”
“Yeah,” the princess said. “I’ll finally be a real princess.”
“Yeah,” the demoness whispered. That night she did not manage to sleep.
The next morning, the townspeople woke up to a ruckus never before seen in town. The demoness had stolen the blacksmith’s clothes, set the baker’s house on fire, and had painted the tower of the wizards in a bright shade of red.
“Hahaha,” she laughed. “Stupid townsfolk. What are you going to do? I am too fast for you to catch. I am too smart for you to trap. I will torment you until the end of your days.”
The townsfolk cried. They knew she was right. There was nothing they could do.
Then the princess stepped out from behind a tree where she had hidden herself.
“Oh no,” the townsfolk wept. “Now there’s two of them.”
“Fear not,” the princess said. “I will chase this demon out of town!” Having said that, she ran up to the demoness, who ran away from her ever so slightly slower than she normally would. The princess hit the demoness on the head with her willow-wood staff, careful to not hit her too hard. The demoness fell onto the ground.
“Woe is me,” she howled. “What misery that just today I run into this fair princess, who can run as fast as a demon and has a staff of willow-wood!”
The princess then took out the rope made from her own blue hair, and tied the demoness her hands and feet together. “See,” she said to the crowd of terrified onlookers. “I have-”
Before she could finish their sentence, the demoness swallowed the magic powder she had held in her mouth. The crowd looked on in horror as the demoness turned into a small creature, escaping the bindings. Before they could resume their wailing however, the demoness ran up to the city gates and said:
“Woe is me, for I have been bound with the princess of blue her very own hair. As long as she lives in this city, I can never return to make mischief! Woe is me!”
Then she ran off. The princess was surrounded by cheering villagers.
“You saved us!” The citizens said.
“Where would we be without you,” the baker celebrated.
“Thank you princess, thank you!” The guard said.
“All in a day’s work,” the princess said. “But I best be going, I don’t want to inconvenience you after all.”
“Going?” The baker asked, confused.
“Yes,” the princess said. “I know I am not welcome here, so having done what I came here for, I better leave before I spoil your good mood.”
“Oh no,” the townsfolk cried.
“But princess,” the guard said. “If you leave, the demoness can return! What ever will we do then? She’ll steal our clothes, seduce our wives and burn down our homes.”
“If you want me to stay,” the princess said. “I want to be a true princess of these twin cities. I want to live in a tower, and attend the lessons of the wizards. I wish to buy my bread with gold coins, and marry a boy who will build me a house.”
The crowd whispered among each other, then ran off to petition their ruler, the poet-king of Luson. He was mighty impressed with the story of the princess and the demoness, and as the poet-king he cherished stories more than anything else. So he had arranged for the princess to be declared Princess of Wizards, and gave her a home in a tower and an allotment of gold coins with which to buy jewelry and bread.
All ended well for the princess, who could now attend the lessons of the wizards with her willow-wood staff in hand and who could chase after the boys of the cities to try and find one to make her husband. Though there were times, occasionally, in the evening when she made her bed- her real bed, with a real blanket- where she thought of the demoness. On those evenings she looked out of the windows of her tower, and looked at the endless forests surrounding the towers. She reminisced about the nights where she had gone to sleep on a bed of flowers under a blanket of leaves, and cried a little when she realized she would never see her friend again.
And the demoness? She spent a couple of days weeping while sitting under the willows, who grew just as sad as she was when they heard her tale. This is the reason willows stand bowed over the water, as if they are weeping- they grieve for demoness and the princess their lost friendship.
But the demoness being a demoness got over her grief, and found another village to torment.
What did she do there? What strange people did she meet on her journeys through the forests where it is always fall? Those are tales for other times, other places.
