Princess in a Bubble
Princess in a Bubble (First published on Red Monster)
Inside a sphere on the pedestal of King Annason a tiny but perfect woman sits upon a gloriously large amethyst, gem quality and cut to perfection. She is dressed in brocade and silk and has streaming ribbons in her wavy honey hair. She is a princess, sent to him for marriage but something about her had displeased him and so she had been imprisoned within the eggshell thick glass bubble.
Her hair and clothes move as if there is an air current, though in actuality there can be none. Sometimes she gets up and wanders around, forlorn inside her little world. She is hungry but cannot starve to death. There is no food but nor is there the same concept of temporality for her body, though her mind still knows it and longs for rest.
Very occasionally the King, who is old and wizened and vicious will come and demand a song of exquisite beauty from her. She sings sweetly and dreamily but it is never good enough and he never relents and so he always denies her her freedom.
He married again several times and each wife suffered some horrendous fate without issue. A coco coloured beauty from beyond the southern sea had offended him and so was turned into a wooden chair upon which he sits to address the kingdom’s nobles. Her features are locked within its highly polished grain and sometimes they change.
The blue glow from the candle arbour is another wife as is the very crown he wears but they are waiting, all of them. He is old and the enchantments are likely to break when he dies and they all wish to perish with him in order to be the ones to carry his soul over. They are in the half realm now, courtesy of the spells he wrote, and they know how to show him exactly how much they have suffered due to his selfish ways.
The end
Posted: Thursday, April 29th, 2010 @ 9:14 pm
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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