Time for a fairy tale! ![]()
The Water of Forgiveness
By McKenna Tehney
Once upon a time, in a kingdom across the sea, there was a princess who could never say a kind word about anything. From the moment she awoke to when she set her head to sleep on her satin pillow, her mouth would spout a non-stop stream of insults and put-downs. She would insult everyone from the cook who brought her breakfast-in-bed every morning—“Your scrambled eggs look and taste like curdled yogurt”—to the attendant who brought her freshly washed clothes to wear—“What do you use for laundry soap… skunk extract?”—even to the sweet little old nanny that had helped the Queen take care of the princess from the day she was born—“Hey old hag, when are you going to retire and leave me alone? I don’t need you anymore!” But the nanny who had bathed her and nursed her was a remarkable sort; she loved the princess still, even though she was often reduced to tears by the things she said.Some of the things that she said would make even the most foul-mouthed sailor blush, which was quite surprising to many people considering that she was widely regarded as the most beautiful girl in the land. Dozens of suitors who had heard of her beauty (and of her bitter tongue) came from far and wide to try to win the heart of this foul-mouthed beauty, thinking that they could tame her terrible tongue, but one by one they were sent packing for home, often in tears. “How can someone who looks so fair speak words so foul?” cried one rejected suitor as he ran whimpering from the courtyard, even as the princess shouted at his back, “And don’t even think of coming back, you sniveling, sniffling, weak-jawed, sorry excuse for a soldier!”Indeed, this was the question that everyone in the kingdom asked, not least of whom were her parents, the King and Queen. “Who will ever be able to win the heart of my daughter?” sighed the King as he watched the court attendants lead another bawling suitor away from the presence of the princess.
“Does she even have a heart?” whispered some of the court attendants
amongst themselves when they thought that no one was listening. But the princess did hear the whispers, and
sometimes at night she would cry herself to sleep, wondering why her words were
so vile all the time. But she still
could not say anything nice the next day.
To be continued...
