The seasons curse

𝓞nce upon a time a King and Queen made a deal to save their Kingdom from draught and famine, they made an agreement with a powerful and vengeful Witch, her powers were as strong as they were equally terrifying. As time went by their promise to the witch was never fulfilled, they refused to repay their part of the deal. As revenge for failing to meet her request, the enraged witch cursed their most precious person, their oldest daughter, heiress to the throne and future Queen of their Kingdom. The Princess had long auburn locks, 

 eyes that were compared to those of sirens and rosy lips. Compassionate, fair and talented in the eyes of the entire kingdom and the pride of the King and Queen. Because of her parents’ mistake, the Princess was cursed by the Witch to carry the 4 seasons of the year within her, this spell made the Princess dangerously unstable and she was trapped within an ever changing emotional state. The entire Kingdom would also suffer the consequences of this curse, as the seasons would become more extreme depending on how the Princess handled them. The Witch let them know that as the typical tale goes, only true love’s kiss would break this spell. The Witch knew very well that under this spell, no man would want to stay or put up with the Princess. Desperate to save their daughter from the curse, towards the end of Spring and just in time for the beginning of the Princess’ Summer season, her parents invited many suitors to their castle so they could witness the Princess’ fragile beauty, many of them expressed their interest. Some were intrigued by her, sometimes she was welcoming, soft and warm, other times she appeared callous and hard to impress. The

Princess knew that one by one the suitors would start to walk away, once Winter arrived they would all run because of how unstable and unpredictable she was, every Fall she would allow herself to trust one and whenever she had finally opened herself love, at the beginning of the Princess’ winter season, the suitor only ended up leaving.

Even the most haughty Knights and Princes ran out of the castle, as if she was worse than any enemy they had ever faced or hardly defeated.

And maybe she was, but she was not to blame for how her curse forced her to act.

This made the Princess less trusting, her fear of abandonment grew like a crooked tree, strong but bent to twisted ways. She became unwilling to open her heart.

Her parents began to lose all hope to bring her out of the whirlwind. Their daughter was fading away and the Kingdom was struggling.

“Why can’t our Princess make anyone stay?”

The Queen and King asked.

The suitors said

“The Princess is too much work, she doesn’t behave like I expected her to and her emotions are a lot, she’s untameable and unpredictable. Sometimes docile and graceful, other times rebellious and insane”

Little by little, as she felt more inadequate and unloveable, the princess started acting erratic and she was not able to control her emotions…

Being heavily medicated only worked for a while to help push back the inevitable beginning of her longer seasons, Winter and Fall. 

During Winter the Princess became a tragedy buried beneath snow white skin, pale lips and barely there eyes, she carried razor blade marks on her wrists and mascara running down her cheeks. 

She liked ripping butterflies apart without any remorse while the suitors watched to scare them away, it became a defense mechanism to keep cowardly love away from her. 

In Spring she covered the walls of the castle with pink and red roses, they made her happy. By Summer the Princess was finally once again herself, this is when her suitors fell for her, they usually ignored every warning she and her parents had given them about her curse because she seemed as bright and happy as a Sun nymph.

“She’s seems completely normal to me, I can take the challenge”

But these seasons never lasted for long. During the Princess’ longest Winter, the Kingdom was suffering, the crops were affected, their economy followed as they were not able to export any food. There was no chance of survival if everything kept going the way it was, the people wanted to put an end to it, even if it meant betraying their King and Queen. The most fearsome and merciless Pirate of the Seas was set on a mission to murder the Princess that night, he was valiant, unconventional and completely opposite from any man who had been near the Princess. With the abundant reward he had been given in mind, he was not scared to fulfil his job. As the King and Queen were in deep sleep, the Pirate and his crew took care of getting the guards out of his way, he checked every corner of the Castle…Until he finally found himself standing in front of the Princess’ chamber, he slowly approached her bed. Completely unaware that the Princess had been wide awake, he attacked. He was taken aback when she fought him back, as he was expecting her to be asleep. When they locked eyes at first the Pirate’s eyes softened, he wondered how someone with such beauty had not been able to keep love by her side. In the midst of the distraction, he saw the Winter in her, crimson liquid running down her wrists, swollen eyes and the tears that seemed to endlessly layer from dry to fresh on her face. The Princess fell apart in front of him, her anxiety began to rise as she helplessly cried and held onto him…

The Princess asked him to finish what he had begun, she wanted to be freed from the excruciating struggle the curse inflicted upon her, she no longer wanted to continue living this way. She wrapped her arms around his neck and as her last request she wanted to feel the warmth she had lost a long time ago. But as the Pirate embraced the Princess, he could not bring himself to slice her throat…

He could not take her life anymore, he had fallen in love with the immense depth the Princess could feel during her most unstable season of the year.