Prince Enthralling dreamed of the beauty that would be his as she begged with her mother in the stone tower. He dreamed of black silk against his fingertips and red lips. She dreamed of black nightingales dying in their golden cages. He woke to a golden morning and waited for his sweet voiced nightingale to come to him. She did not come. If she will not come to me then I will bring her to me he thought.

            "Ugly Child, let down your hair

            So I may climb that raven stair."

Called the Prince to his Princess. He smiled in anticipation as the dark tresses once more fell down the walls of the tower. Grasping them, he climbed nimbly to the top.

            "Be gone from here, Prince," she hissed, seeping her venom into the words. Prince Enthralling had walked into the Tower on the wings of darkness to claim his True Love but met with The Witch Queen instead.

He looked at her and saw a mad witch. Powerless to his youth and strength and beauty.

            "Ah, ah! You thought to find your lady love, but the pretty bird has flown and its song is dumb; the cat caught it, and will scratch out your eyes too. The Princess is lost to you for ever -- you will never see her more," cried the wicked witch as the Prince alighted to the top of the Tower.

            "There is nothing for you here. Your beauty is gone. Did you think that I would so easily let you steal her soul and tear it to shreds? I will not let you steal her Song and leave her as a broken, bitter, witch," continued the Witch Queen

The Prince felt himself falter at the strength of her words. Her appearance was deceptive. She was much stronger than she looked, her love for the girl giving her a power that was perhaps greater than his. But that power and courage was tinged with the darkness of her own past and life. Story saw the two sides flame against each other. The Prince would lose this battle for he had not the passion and strength of heart to win. He would not give his whole self to the battle as the Witch Queen would. For she fought for the love of a child that was real and he fought for an imagined love of fragile crystal.

            Just as the Prince felt himself faltering before the power of the Witch, a golden warmth hit him in the chest. It spread through his body, waking his muscles and nerves. It woke his blood-lust, his anger, his hate, his passion. Story gave the Prince the power of a Hero.

Yet still he was not strong enough. Even after story had given him all it could, they were merely equal. So strong was her love for her child that she would stand alone against a Golden PrinceHero. But his name was, after all, Prince Enthralling. And his words could both enchant and destroy.

            "She betrayed you," he taunted, "you fight to save her but she betrayed you. Do you know why I am here, witch? I am here, because she asked me to be here. She has already given herself to me. Her soul is already mine. She hates you because you tried to deny her love. We will destroy you."

Moriana's strength wavered at the ice in his voice. There was no doubt in his voice as he spoke those cruel words, and for a moment she almost accepted his word. Even as her strength faltered she remembered another Prince, long ago, who had whispered words of love to her. I will love you forever… Nothing shall ever part us, my princess. She remembered that his words, too, had rung with truth. And yet he had lied. Those lies had stolen everything from her, and she would not let this one's lies steal everything from her daughter.

            "Fool. Think you that you will destroy me with your barbed words. You are a lie, Prince. Your whole existence is false. You are a dream that story decided to dream up. Handsome, noble, sweet, gentle, strong… But it is all a lie. And for what story adds to you to make those lies appear truth she takes away in heart. You have no soul, Prince."

            "I am false?" Asked Prince Enthralling, incredulity slipping into his voice, showing why he was of royal blood. "You tell yourself you are not a witch and yet you have banished the child you call your daughter. You think that you do it to protect her but in truth it is the evil in you that makes you act so. Your soul is dark and tainted, witch. You rob Shian of joy and love and you say that you protect her. You have tried to fill her with your darkness and your hate. Are you jealous of her beauty that you would treat such an innocent so? Do you deny it, Malevolence? In my weakness I believe that part of you thinks that she cares for this child, but you do nothing other than bring her pain. If you truly cared you would not harm her so with your words and your darkness."

His words came to Moriana over a distance. When he had started speaking she saw that while he did not speak the complete truth he did not lie either. She had caused Shian pain. Shian's beauty had caused her pain. She had felt jealous of the life that Shian had ahead of her. A life that had been stolen from her. In a golden flash, she remembered her recent treatment of Shian. Was that love? Ignoring her, pushing her away, taking away her hope in false dreams and yet not replacing them with anything? Was that what one who loved her would do?

The Prince saw the thorny golden vines start to wrap themselves around the Witch Queen. Half truths always worked better than lies. He should know, after all he was Prince Enthralling. He only needed to weaken her a little more and she would fall to him.

            "If you truly cared you would have given her a choice. But you lock her away instead because you already know what she would choose."

            "No…" whispered Moriana, yet it was too late for his words had the desired effect and sent her spinning into despair.

Golden light blinded her from the Prince and his drawn sword. She was weakened but still dangerous. If she could not see, she could not fight. She was pulled from her despair and her darkness by a shining bolt of pain. Confused, she looked downwards towards the source of pain. The Prince still held the hilt of the sword gifted to him by story, its golden blade embedded in the body of the Queen in front of him. The blade started to glow, and spread like acid through the Witch's body.

            I failed…thought the Witch Queen as Story ate away at her trying to get to the part of her soul that she had not given to her Prince. The part that she had kept for herself. As it touched it, Moriana was made aware of its existence. She had thought she had no soul left but she had been wrong. It is so beautiful… that is why Story desires it…It is not filled with despair and evil, but with hope she thought, even as it away at her beauty. She lifted her eyes to the Prince as she felt story finish her off. I am a Queen. I am a queen and not a victim…

            The Prince shivered in the cold tower. The story that had given him strength had left him with the disappearance of the witch. Looking around the room, he felt a sudden urge to be gone from this place of darkness and hope and other things too large for him to contemplate. It made him feel small. He did not like it.

The Prince was beside himself with grief at the loss of his Princess, and in his despair he jumped right down from the tower, and, though he escaped with his life, the thorns among which he fell pierced his eyes out. Then he wandered, blind and miserable, through the wood, eating nothing but roots and berries, and weeping and lamenting the loss of his lovely bride. So he wandered about for some years, as wretched and unhappy as he could well be, and at last he came to the desert place where his Princess was living.

            Armed with the knowledge Story had stolen from the witch, Enthralling descended to the dungeons to free his princess.

            "My Lady?"

Shian looked up from her grief to see Prince Enthralling standing at her open door. It had unlocked itself a while ago but Shian had not ventured out. Her mother was gone. She felt her soul as it was hungrily devoured by a great, cold emptiness. Story, her heart told her.

            "My Prince! Did you see…did you see what happened to my mother?"

            "I am sorry, my Lady, but there was no one here when I arrived."

            "She has gone. My mother died… I don't know how… Oh, Prince Enthralling, what shall I do? My mother…" said Shian on the verge of tears. But she would not cry. She was the daughter of a great woman.

            "I am sorry about your mother, Shian," answered the Prince, hesitating before wrapping his arms around her. Her beautiful black hair had been hacked off by the wicked witch and for a moment she looked very ordinary but the Prince knew that her hair would grow and by the time he was expected back at the palace, she would be the beauty of the land once more. "Will you come away with me? There is nothing left for you here but pain and I offer you love. Come with me, love, and be my Princess."

Love is darkness, whispered her mother's memory. Shian did not believe that. Yet in some ways, it was true for now she found herself tumbling into darkness at the loss of a mother that she loved.

The Prince took her silence for confirmation and gently led her out of the tower, his arms wrapped possessively around her.

            "I will take you home, my love. Do not be too sad for soon you shall live in a palace of gold and have everything you desire," said the Prince, leading Shian to where his horse was waiting.

…and at last he came to the desert place where Rapunzel was living. Of a sudden he heard a voice which seemed strangely familiar to him. He walked eagerly in the direction of the sound, and when he was quite close, Rapunzel recognised him and fell on his neck and wept. But two of her tears touched his eyes, and in a moment they became quite clear again, and he saw as well as he had ever done. Then he led her to his kingdom…

             I shall have a golden cage whispered her mind. From stone to gold…Her mother thought that it was just Men and Princes and Story that she need be wary of for they would trap her heart and tame her wild beauty. But she did not see that in trying to protect the girl, she trapped her in a different sort of cage. A cage of fear and mistrust. A cage of safety, yes, but it was not freedom. Although she had tried to teach Shian to question the world and to question the stories she also pushed her own interpretation of them onto her so that she might learn to be safe. To protect her. In doing so, she had helped Story for all it needed to do was change Shian's cage. Shian looked up into Prince Enthralling's eyes, realising for the first time that he had led her outside. The rising sun burned golden-red in his eyes.

            "My Prince, in my sorrow I have left something of great importance inside. I cannot leave without…"

            "Shian, whatever it is, you have no need of it for you shall have the very best of everything at my palace," replied Prince Enthralling with a hint of impatience.

            "Oh, please, my Prince, it was a ring my mother gave me. I cannot leave without it. Would you get it for me? I left it in the dungeon," begged a wide-eyed Shian, letting sweetness drip from her voice.

He left. He was a Prince, after all, and how could he refuse this one simple request from such beauty.

            A beauty that he so much wants to have for his own. Shian saw the cage that the Prince wanted to put her in. He did not love her; he loved her beauty, for how could he love someone he did not even know. She realised that she too did not love him, she had only thought so because her mother had tried to tell her she should not love him. She could not go with him to his palace for that would be a lie. And she could never be happy knowing that. And yet she could not stay here because the tower was filled with her mother and her half-truths. Sorrow and bitterness had made her mother see shadows where there were none and so the truths she had taught her daughter had been tainted.

            Once upon a time it had been a woman's greatest achievement to win a Prince with her beauty and goodness. They were the heroines in all the stories. Perhaps it was time a new hero arose. One whose heart was not twisted by the manipulations of Story, of What has Always Been. One who could see the world choked on glittering golden tendrils of story and have the heart to go on. Shian rode off, the golden sunrise behind her.

… Then he led her to his kingdom. And then the Prince and the Princess lived….

…and then they lived happily….

…and then they…

…and then… Damn. Damn! DAMN!

 If one has the courage to ride a path of her own making, then will not more take heart and follow.

AN END