Time Turner
. . . fiction by Odyssea
. . .Upon The Brimming Water. . .
In the moat around the keep, there are swans swimming. They move upon the placid waters like a dream, the water flowing around them silently and swiftly. In the autumn, they fly away, leaving the keep well protected by sheets of ice and snow. In the spring, they return, wheeling in over the forest in crescents of white.
The villagers nearby no longer attempt to hunt these swans for food; those that tried suffered horrible luck for years. Instead, they cross themselves as the white birds move serenely overhead, and, at night, when the fire grows low, regale each other with tales of the old keep and the princess legend says lies within.
Far away, across the mountains and the great lakes, the legend tells of a princess imprisoned in a malicious spell, doomed to eternal sleep, unless some courageous knight braves the perilous challenges and awakens her with a gift. But the legend here, within a stone's throw of the decaying keep, is different.
There is a princess, to be certain, for what tale begins without a princess.
Yet the spell is not malicious, instead a protection against the pain and sorrow of a royal life, of being goods bought and sold for the price of power. Someone, who loved the princess very much, freed her from that life.
There are no thorns here, no dragons with roiling fire. There is a keep, set amongst a large moat near a rise in the hills. The drawbridge is down, the doors to the keep wide open. There is no obstacle, save the swans.
A brave man can brave the spell, for one must be brave to undertake this challenge. But he is not a knight, nor a prince, nor a king. He has no fearless warsteed, no glinting sword.
He has humor and heart, courage and wit. A man who looks not for a kingdom, nor riches. But a man who looks for love and happiness, the contentment of a simple life.
He will come.
Meanwhile, the swans swim.
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