Disclaimer: Glee and it's characters are not mine. And everyone else is just made up, so any correlation between non-glee places and people (alive or dead) are merely coincidences unless differently stated in the text.
The Prince and The Hummel
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a prince was born. He had golden hair, like his mother, and emerald eyes, like his father. They named him Samuel, because not every king to be have to be called Edward, or Henry, or Charles.
As prince Samuel grew up, he liked to explore the kingdom. From the fisher villages to the east, to the wast farmlands to the west. From the mountains to the north, to the mellow meadows to the south. With an aide by his side he could go anywhere. Anywhere but one place.
Outside the castle, beyond the city, lay a forest. In the forest, he was told, lived a strange being called a Hummel. Noone had ever seen the Hummel, but people who had ventured into the woods had occasionally heard it sing. It was a sad song, they said, and it left them with a feeling of sadness and loneliness that took a long time to recover from.
Every year the king and the queen celebrated prince Samuel's birthday with a great feast. People came from near and far to participate in the games and dances. There were glee men and jugglers, fire breathers and animal tamers, dukes and scullery maids, all dancing and feasting together.
For his eleventh birthday, prince Samuel was given a horse and when the festivities took off he took his new friend for a ride. For the first time he rode out alone and for the first time there was noone there to stop him from going to the forest. So he did.
The forest was green and calm and beautiful as he rode through it. Suddenly he heard a voice, singing. And indeed it was a sad, sad song. Prince Samuel tied his horse to a tree and started to follow the voice, as he wanted to see what made that beautiful, heart wrenching sound.
On a rock, in a clearing, a strange creature was sitting. It was blue as the night sky and it's eyes golden. It had pointy ears, a long tail and it was singing. A yellow bird sat on it's finger, chirping along with the song of sadness, but as the prince entered the clearing the bird took flight and hid. The Hummel did not flee. Amazed it studied the prince as the prince studied the Hummel, touching each others ears and hair.
The Hummel could not speak like you and I, but let it's feelings and mood be known in song. All day the prince and the Hummel played among the flowers of the clearing, and when the sun began to set the prince had to leave.
As the air got cooler, it was still spring you see, and the Hummel looked so cold, the prince took off his red scarf and tied it around the Hummel's neck. The Hummel looked at the knitted fabric and touched it like it was the finest of silks. It's eyes shone as the prince said goodbye and promised to return next year.
When the prince had left, the Hummel went and found a big piece of milky white crystal. The edges was jagged and sharp and unpleasant to hold. It took up another rock and started to work on the crystal piece. While it worked, it started singing.
As prince Samuel rode back towards the castle, the Hummel's song rose high against the sky, a song of happiness and life that could be heard all the way to the castle. The king would have scolded the prince for going to the forest, and send him to bed without supper, but with the joyful song in the air he could not stay mad, noone could. And the Hummel kept singing until the sun went down.
The next year, at the prince's birthday the song started again at dawn. It was a song of hope. As the city and the castle celebrated, prince Samuel rode to the forest to find the Hummel in the same place as last year, scarf still around it's neck. They played and sang and ate fruits the prince had brought with him, and when evening came he bade the Hummel goodbye, promising to return next year. And he did.
Every year on prince Samuel's birthday, the Hummel's song was heard across the land. It began as a beacon of hope and ended in happiness, as the prince had spent a day in the forest. And on his sixteenth birthday, the prince, who had grown tall and handsome and strong, bade goodbye to the Hummel for the sixth time.
Still wearing the scarf it got on their first meeting, the Hummel urged prince Samuel to wait and it brought to him a beautiful, milky white, crystal sphere. It was like holding a piece of frozen fog in your hands. As the Hummel gave it to the prince, it touched itself over the heart and then it did the same with the prince. The prince promised to return, as he always did and rode home again, followed by the happy song of the Hummel.
When prince Samuel returned to the castle, there were much rejoicing, as the king proclaimed that he had found a bride for his son. On that day, a year from then, he was to marry the princess Fabray from the neighboring kingdom. As the princess was very pretty, the prettiest in all the surrounding lands, the prince was happy, but did not think more of it, as the wedding would come even without him thinking about it.
On his seventeenth birthday, prince Samuel married the princess Fabray, all to the sound of the hopeful song of the Hummel in the forest. But as evening came and the wedding dinner done, the song went from hopeful to worried and as the sun began to set it turned sad. All the guests lost their will to celebrate and the wedding festivities turned somber. When the sun was gone and the moon rose the song went silent.
The next morning the newlyweds were sent on a honeymoon and when they returned there was so much to do that the prince forgot all about the Hummel. Until next year.
As soon as the first rays of the sun were seen at the horizon on the day of prince Samuel's eighteenth birthday, the Hummel's song of hope started. But the prince could not leave, because his wife was bedridden all day, and by noon the song turned worried as the prince became a father. In the evening, the newborn princess Beth was shown to the people, and the Hummel's song went sad. And as last year it went silent as the moon rose in the sky.
The years went by, and every year on the same day the song of hope was heard. But every year it lasted shorter before it turned worried and the sad part came earlier and earlier.
The final year, when king Samuel, yes he had become a king now instead of his father, turned twenty-two, there was no hopeful or worried part of the song. Just a whole day of sadness, a sadness which had never been felt before. As evening came, king Samuel heard something crack in his pocket and the sound, that sad, sad, song fell quiet.
As he checked his pockets, the young king found his milky white crystal ball, broken in two.
As the sun rose the next day, the king took out his trusted old horse, who were now so old it barely could move faster than the king walked. He rode to the forest and ran to the clearing. As he had feared. It was empty.
By the stone, however, stood a small tree blossoming with blue flowers. A yellow bird had already made it's nest among the slim branches, but it hid as the king approached. Around one of the branches the tattered remains of a red scarf was tied. King Samuel wept as he buried the broken heart of the Hummel by the base of the tree and brought a sapling with him to the castle, so that the Hummel would be with him for the rest of his days.
THE END