The ball was gorgeous. Girls of all ages were dressed in dresses in all colors and styles, but none of their beauty could even compare to Tael and her gamboge hair and azure shawl. The prince saw her and knew that under her beauty there was, even more than on the outside, beauty.
They met, and danced until late. At the twelfth stroke of midnight, Tael saw her stepmother and two sisters step through a door to the carriage. She spun around and ran, as her life depended on it, through the woods next to the dirt road, only in her dress for her shoes and shawl had fallen off onto the steps of the palace.
She scampered up an oak tree at the front of the house and disappeared into the home through an open window and bounded into her bed just as her stepmother barged into the room, an angry scowl on her face. She saw Tael, still in bed, and huffed out.
The next day, Tael sat up in bed at the sound of a knock on the door. Before she could even leave the room, it was locked. She peered out the window, to see the royal carriage. But Tael was trapped. She sighed and turned around, singing a sad song as she made up her bed.
From her room, Tael could hear fake laughs and real, muffled screams. But not after long, the house was quiet except for Tael's mournful singing and footsteps as the prince himself left the small home.
But the prince and his royal servants stopped dead in their tracks underneath Tael's window.
She, too, stopped to sing.
"Hello?" The prince called up. "Who is this, whom I hear, singing from the house?"
"It is only I," Tael shouted down. "The maid, Tael."
"Please come down!"
"I'm sorry, your highness, but I'm not allowed to. I work here, and only do what my stepmother and sisters tell me to do."
"This is an order, from the prince of this land. You see, last night, at the ball, I danced with a beautiful girl with gamboge hair and an azure shawl," the prince held up the shawl, "And I'd like to return the shawl to her. The girl also left her shoes, and it is an order that all of the girls in the kingdom try on the shoes, leaving me to marry the girl and return the shawl."
And so Tael climbed down the tree and presented her foot to the prince, who slipped a shoe on to the pale, slender foot. It fit perfectly, and Tael stood up in the heel and kissed the prince, and he kissed her back.
The tale goes on to say that Tael and her Prince got married the next day, and, instead of living in the castle, lived in a small cottage near a willow tree on a river, and every day, Tael would place an orange tulip in the creek to float down through the town.
No comments:
Post a Comment