The princess stared indignantly at the room around her. The stuffy palace court triggered the princess (albeit her being sat in the royal seats near the top). It unlocked rude, hypercritical thoughts which ran through her head, reacting to the ignorant and stupid comments delivered by the people beneath her. She could admit that she was easily grouchy, bad-tempered, and irate, but only when she had a justified reason, and this one was no different. There were always thoughts swirling around the princess’s head, and they were getting overwhelming.
The meeting’s minutes felt like they multiplied endlessly. Finally, the bell rang, signifying the end of the meeting. The princess rushed out of the stuffy room into a soothing view of the picturesque cliffside, overlooking an assortment of houses, different shapes and sizes stacked up next to eachother, all under the shadow of a grand stone castle, wrapped in jasmine and ivy, causing the kingdom to smell as beautiful as it already looked. Trees danced around in the warm summer wind, and the serene sound of running water filled the air. A blanket of cornflower blue sky was spotted with birds chirping happily to no end, golden rays of sun cascading down; all immensely contradicting how she felt now. She thought back to the events that had ensued minutes before.
The Princess had been planning her debut to the Kingdom’s government for almost six months. As she tried to clear her mind, distractions flooded her head; judging the way people dress, looked, spoke.
“Why on earth was he wearing that colour?,” she thought. “And him; his hair could grease a pan. My ideas are going to be miles better than these people.” It had taken a lot of convincing her father, the King, to let her speak, because Princesses, let alone women, were not permitted to voice their political opinions.
Unconcentrated, caused her head to whip around in surprise when her name was called. She stood at the stage, but as she spoke and her eyes buried in her notecards, she could already hear low voiced chattering overlapping her speech that she had worked so hard on After ten seconds of disrespect towards the Princess, her own Father had piercingly talked over her, raising a fresh topic whilst giving her a disappointed look through his peripheral vision. Shame made itself evident through a rising redness on the Princess’s cheeks and she let herself lose concentration as her father rambled:
“…And please remember, anything after the boundary gates is OUT OF BOUNDS! Please do not…”
The Princess decided to walk away her frustrations. She walked and walked, immersed in her own thoughts, just muttering to herself.
“I wish people would listen to me! I have such insightful thoughts in my head, and if only they were not dismissed as childish…,” spat the disgruntled Princess.
But an unfamiliar voice interrupted her monologue. She tripped on a tree root, tumbling down, hitting the ground hard. But it was not the usual yellow pebbled pathway that swirls its way through the Kingdom floor. It was mud, viscous and brown. The Princess realised she was not in her Kingdom anymore but nearing the forest; the out of bounds woodland that held nothing but trouble.
She felt a sharp pain in her ankle, wincing, reflecting on how her actions had led her here, to this unknown place, where she was sure to-
Frightened, the Princess whipped her head around to track the voice that had caused her accident in the first place. A stumped, old woman stood in front of her, flashing a cunning sneer, with an eerie, almost green tinge encompassing her pale skin. Her eyes glinted a shade of dark red, her ears pointing behind her matted black locks, contrasting her pale skin. The Princess had an instinct to get out of there, run away as fast as she could to the familiarity of her castle.
“Would you like to come inside? I can heal your ankle up in no time,” smiled the old woman. “Please, Princess,” remarked the woman with a sly grin. “I know what led you to me – I know what you crave; people to listen to your thoughts and ideas. Am I correct?”
The Princess looked bewildered, shocked on how this woman knew so much about her life, her innermost thoughts, and feelings, of which she did not tell anyone. But something intrigued her, questioning:
“How do you know about that? Who are you?” stammered the frightened Princess.
“You have so many questions: but I have an answer to all your problems. Please come in”, the woman spoke, gesturing to the hut behind her while her abhorrent features shone in the moonlight.[ZS3]
The Princess was on the verge of declining the offer when an almost unbearable pain shot up her leg. She reluctantly nodded and was helped inside by the strong old lady, contradicting how she looked. The old woman’s house was draped in bottle green poison ivy, spotted with bright ruby berries. The windows glowed with an auburn light from inside, and the roof pumped out fragrant air, radiating warmth. Darkness had fallen, and the Princess only realised how cold she was. A tall, dark, oak door was half open, full of the answers and solutions that she craved, and relief, a possibility of saving, washed over her. The Princess was led inside.
“Make yourself at home,” the old woman muttered, and she walked through a door at the back of the house.
When the Princess looked around the old woman’s dwelling, she gasped: rows and rows of glass bottles and jars covered the oddly large expanse of the walls, an explosion of colours meeting her eyes. On the other side was a substantial bookcase, collecting dust, but filled with exquisite books of all shapes and sizes, stretching from the ceiling to the floor. An unfamiliar yet enticing smell had the Princess following the scent through the dwelling to a tall, bubbling cauldron, with the old woman hunched over it, spooning some of the bubbling liquid into a slight glass bottle.
The old lady inhaled pensively. “I have the cure, or the medicine, to make everyone listen to you. With this- “, gesturing to the bottle she clutched, “- and a few other ingredients, I can make your dreams reality.” With this, the Princess started to look at her options; to accept the fact that she was never going to be taken seriously with her political ideas without a little help. Perhaps this was her ‘little help.
Scrunching up her face, the Princess whispered:
“Yes. Make everyone listen to me.”
The old woman obliged, filling the bottle with green, blue, and silver powders, each of which made the liquid in the bottle glow with colour and flashes. Once it had stopped erratically bubbling, the old woman gently handed the flask to the Princess, who was shaking with anticipation.
The Princess’s hand shook as she took the bottle from the woman’s wrinkled hands. Heat radiated out from the glass. She brought it up to her nose, a scent of burning wood wafting up her nose as she inched her hand up towards her lips.
As she sipped, the drops of liquid felt like fire down her throat. The Princess’s eyes started to shut, involuntarily, and as she tried to fight back…
Darkness. Silence. Stillness.
With a start, the Princess woke in her cozy bed, confused as how she got there. ‘Where was the witch?,’ she thought. ‘Did the potion even work? That old hag was lying to me, I bet.’
“P-Princess? What are you talking about?,” a voice uttered from the other end of the spacious room. The Princess’s chambermaid stared at her with a nervous look on her face.
“What do you mean, what am I talking about!” the Princess snapped. “Go away, maid.”
Unfortunately, peculiar incidents in the Princess’s day did not stop there. In the afternoon, whilst with her tutor, she thought:
“This tutor is imbecilic! I could teach myself this without this idiot being here.”
But to her surprise, the tutor stared at her, shocked and offended, and promptly walked out!
More and more incongruous affairs happened to the Princess, up until the next session of royal court the following week. More ready then ever, she sat in her chair, contemptuously listening to the, in the Princess’s opinion, deliver their discourse.
“I cannot believe my father lets buffoons like this even attend the royal court. When will people learn that my ideas are better then any of these peasant’s?,” the Princess thought. But to her complete horror, an uncomfortable taciturnity spread around the citizens in the room like a disease. Their eyes all pointed towards the Princess, dazed, looking at her with appalled expressions.
“Surely they couldn’t have… heard me?” The Princess thought, panic wrapping her face like a blanket.
“We did, Princess.” Her father said, as the Princess’s eyes popping in disbelief. “This court is adjourned.” And as the people began to disperse, heart sinking, hands shaking, and head aching, the Princess realised when her problems had begun. Her problems being that ever since she had seen her, people had been able to hear her thoughts. Who is ‘her’?
The woman in the forest.
She tore herself away from the suffocating courtroom, racing down the yellow pebbled road that meandered through the Kingdom. Rain poured onto the Princess’s hair; an anomalous grey sky above, filled with storm clouds as far as the eye could see. She ran and ran and ran, until she arrived at the familiar viscous brown mud, sludgy from the downpour flowing from above.
However, there were nothing but trees in front of her for miles on end… the old woman’s hut was nowhere to be seen!
The Princess came to the realisation that she would have to solve her problems herself. She sat down, apathetic to the mud enveloping her dress, breathed deeply, and concluded that if she could not control when her thoughts came out, she would have to control her thoughts.
In the coming days, the Princess made haste to purposefully treat people better, whether it be in her head, how she thought about them, or how she acted. Word had spread about the scandal in the royal court regarding the outspoken, brazen, rude Princess, but despite this, she was determined to amend her newfound reputation. And soon enough, after weeks of despondent and timorous looks in her direction, people started to warm up to her again and matters started to improve, with an established respect for the Princess’s ideas. She realised it was half about what her idea was, but additionally about the way she delivered it; politely, pleasantly, and respectfully, even if she did not agree with it. Changing the fundamentals of how you think is not easy, but over a prolonged period, the Princess managed to terminate her grouchy, bad-tempered, and irate mannerisms for fair and sweet ones.
Unfortunately, after however many times of returning to the out of bounds woodland to spot the old woman again, but everything regarding her had dissipated mysteriously, leading the Princess to wonder if she was but a figment of her imagination, put in place by an ulterior, omniscient motive with an agenda to make her more pleasant. Nonetheless, the Princess gathered courage and stepped foot in the court accompanied by her novel mannerisms and was given immense respect and encouragement with her ideas. Sometimes, she tracks the scent of burning wood, all too familiar to her from that night with the old woman and feels grateful for her inner voice transformation.