A new story in every chapter.
The Reveries I Keep is a collection of one shot stories from contests I participate in, written under different genres. Set in different places and different time periods, this collection will take you on a whirlwind of...
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A beautiful princess sat in the throne room of the palace and only stared at the suitors right before her with a blank expression. They always came everyday, one after another, and this exhausted her. She had always told her father, the king, that she doesn't want to marry some man she doesn't even like but the king already wanted an heir.
When the last suitor for the day finally reached the princess, she already didn't like him. His nose was too big, his eyes were too close to each other, and his front teeth protruded out from his dark lips. This irritated the princess and she thought he was the ugliest thing she ever laid her eyes upon, so she stood up and with voice laced in spite, she said, "Get out of here! Why would the guards even allow someone who looks like you here in the palace? You dare to violate my eyes with your presence?!"
After this, the man only knelt down, but then he glowed. He glowed so bright, the princess had to shield her eyes from him. When the light disappeared, in the place of the man stood a fairy in green and gold.
"You disrespected me and humiliated me. What if that man is real, what would he feel like after hearing your words? I shall give you a lesson!"
The princess begged for forgiveness, but the fairy started to chant a spell. The princess turned into a beast, and the spell will only get broken if she'll accept her new form and if someone else will also accept her for who she is, whatever she looks like.
The fairy left the palace, confident that the princess will be a beast forever as she will never be able to accept her beastly form and no one will accept her for how horrible her attitude is.
The princess, who was left alone in the throne room, started to weep. "Nobody will love me anymore, now that my beauty is gone and I'm a beast."
That night, nobody saw her. The king ordered his people to search for his precious daughter. The guards, servants and even the cooks looked everywhere, but the princess seemed to vanish into thin air. Instead, they discovered a unicorn in the palace gardens. They tried to kill the beast, but it quickly ran away into the forest.
The unicorn was actually the princess, and she found herself lost, scared, and all alone in the dark. She laid down under a tree and the last thought in her mind before she fell asleep was how she could break the curse when she's left with nothing.
That night, she dreamt of her godmother that somewhere in the forest lies a magical lake. "Look at the water and you'll see your human form as your reflection. Do this so you won't lose yourself and succumb into being a beast." And so the princess went deeper into the forest, for she believed everything her godmother said, even if it was all a dream. Her godmother never lied, so she carried the hope along with her that she'll still see her true form as she trudged deeper into the thickening trees.
Years later, a prince who was hunting got lost in the same forest. He rode aimlessly on his horse that trotted along the mossy forest floor. He almost spent an entire day wandering around, but he couldn't find the way out and continued to go in deeper, until he became thirsty. He looked for a nearby stream, until he came into a clearing where the trees made way to a sparkling clear lake. He rushed towards the water but stopped when he noticed a unicorn on the banks, looking at its reflection in the water. Unicorns were known to be wild and deadly all thanks to their sharp horns, so the prince quickly reached for his sword as he slowly sneaked behind it.
