The first thing on the Princess’ list was to rekindle the intimacy she shared with the King.
(Read the previous story of the Princess is the Frog here)
She thought it was the most important thing to do, but seemed he, on the other hand, did not. Days of silence settled and even though the Princess did not sleep much waiting for an answer to her last letter, she waited.
She knew silence and time where notions the two of them did not seem to have in common. When she was impatient, he was careful.
She grew scared, he grew distant.
When she finally had news from him, she turned into being the careful one. And yet again tried to keep her cheerfulness, her lightness of being. Feeling somehow that if she spoke more, that if she dug deeper, he would go back to being silent, and maybe this time for good.
The peace was easily restored between the two Royals. But the Princess could not help but feel restless. Something was still lurking behind a lot of miscommunication she thought.
Still, she became creative in trying the keep the conversation light and fun.
It was hard work not always successful it has to be said. But still she kept on. And in between, she managed to secure an invitation from him to visit him but for a few days.
She resolved into making sure nothing was going to ruin this reunion this time.
And the Princess did what Princesses do best, she took a lot of care in her preparations. And when I say a lot, I mean that hours spread over days over weeks of carefully planned treatments up until the day when she was to join him in another foreign realm.
Indeed the King had been away from his own Kingdom to fulfil his duties and so she had organised a way for her to meet him where he was temporarily staying. An organisation of travel and dwellings the King had lavishly handled, to the Princess’ happiest surprise.
When the Princess arrived and first saw the King, she had every intension of bursting out with joy. But when she felt his… odd… embrace, she refrained those intentions.
Luckily, she thought, they had a bit of a journey to go through together before getting to their temporary dwelling, and so, by means of conversation, she again hoped the intimacy would be rekindled.
She did not believe she was very successful in that enterprise. And so when the King wished her a goodnight, she was doubtful this was going to happen for her.
And well it did not. She spent most of the night pondering like a pondering thing in a pond.
Why was she feeling him so cold now? His words were now even fewer than before, and his charming and warm manners had vanished. Or at least he had kept them from her throughout the entire evening of their reunion.
Why was he so bent on ruining everything? She thought.
The next day would bring new light she hoped.
And thus she did manage to find sleep. It was a light slumber occupied by dreams of a man she could not see stealing one of her most precious possessions: a necklace bearing two small hearts, one of silver and one of red crystal.
When she rose the next morning, she did not like the feeling of someone stealing her heart away without her having any knowledge of it.
But still, the Princess was a relentlessly hopeful creature, and so she was sure that everything was going to be alright, even though she could not see it now, the reasons for the King’s coldness and lack of speech, she chose to believe it would all be ok.
That evening when they met again after the King’s many duties, the King showed more care and spoke more. And in speaking, he relieved her of a strange fear.
Still, when that second evening came to an end, she could not help but feel him, lukewarm towards her at best.
Not the kind of feeling a Princess would expect to excite in a man after traveling across countries and making many arrangements relieving herself of her usual Ruling duties, but for the sake of him.
She observed him, she tried to feel with her heart what was wrong, but she did not want to pry out the answer out of him, she did not want to go into a long speech or become the stereotype of the hysterical woman.
In clear, she was trying very hard not to turn into a frog. Again.
And so she tried to appear careless, remained silent and waited patiently to feel his warm embrace again.
Whatever his inner thoughts and feelings, the King was, it has to be noted, a real King when it came to his duties and etiquette towards the Princess, he spared no expenses and chose enchanting places to take her to.
And that was, well also dumbfounding for the Princess. No Prince had ever done that for her. For that, she was incessantly grateful and impressed. Not that any material thing could replace the heart-warming feeling of a deep conversation or the intimacy conveyed by an uncontrollable laugh, but, still, it helped.
The food was divine, the wine was sweet and rough, just as she liked it, and the evening finally did end with a heart-felt goodnight.
There, patience comes to those who wait, the Princess thought. Or whatever the saying is.
The time it took for them to reconnect she thought, was too dangerously close to the time for her to get ready to leave. Patience, fine, but what a waste she thought… And she could start feeling the sadness that came with a departure.
She could start feeling something odd stirring up inside the King too that evening. Contrary to the previous days, he was now in full animation and incredibly talkative. Yet his speeches more than not turned the Princess speechless. His words were provoking and sharp, and if he did stir up an answer from his guest, it was in the same ironical and stinging tone.
Sometimes it made her laugh. And she liked seeing a new side of humour and wit coming from him. Yet, she could not help but feel this was a show completely fabricated and tailored to the cold man the King wanted to appear as. And so the next day she chose her weapon against this character: sweet smiles and observations of how beautiful everything around them was.
She wanted to be grateful for everything that was good around them, and for the ballades they took to see more and more enchanting places. The autumn’s fiery colors had blessed their walks, along with ancient towns bathing in a cloudless sky. Indeed, everything around them was a blessing and the Princess wanted to enjoy every last bit of it.
When they sat down to nibble some delicious local treats, she could not stop thinking of how exquisite everything had been on this day. She smiled without reason it seemed.
Until the King continued a very unlikely speech of how they had missed this and that sight on their journey. The Princess had forgotten about it and she answered that it did not matter to her, they had seen other absolutely lovely things that had made her day. Well, he continued, he should have to take others to see these missed sights, as he was sure they were too good to be missed. The Princess only smiled in response and changed the topic to how delicious the food was.
Slowly but surely, the evening went on and they touched on many subjects: how some of the King’s friends were less of a friend to him than he was to them, how he was going to make his family’s feud settle and make everyone focus on the good in each other and not the bad, and finally how he was a very unlucky person to have such health difficulties in his family.
That did it.
The Princess’ smiles left her lips, and a rage she had not known yet presently exploded into the King’s face: “Oh poor you! She said, Everything is just awful in your life. How can you not see how much beauty you have to be grateful for?!”
And then she started crying.
And there was no stopping the flood of tears.
“Why are you crying?” Asked a very anxious King.
Well, the Princess was not quite sure actually. All she knew was that she could not hold it in. and then in between sobering she answered: “because I just think it is so sad that you have all these amazing things in our life and you refuse to see them.”
And then she cried some more.
The King had no answer to that.
Just a tight embrace.
But the Princess wasn’t sure any sort of embrace was enough after all.
They did not talk about the incident the next morning at breakfast. Instead he spoke of future plans and a new castle that did not involve the Princess. They did not talk of the incident on the journey back where she was to be left and go back to her own Kingdom. They did not talk at all when he took her in his arms for one last embrace before her departure.
And then he said: “I’m sorry I made you cry.”
To which she answered: “that is not what I wish you to be sorry for.”
She did not cry this time, but as his hand let go of hers, she felt… she felt her heart breaking. A sound, net, clean crack. And then a wave of sadness.
Thankfully she had no time to give in to sadness. Bad weather had hit the road she was to take to go back to her Palace and so she did not know when her departure was to take place. She sent an urgent missile to reach the King and inform him of the facts that she was stranded. When his answer reached her he was already too far gone he said, and would not come back to keep her company. What a shame she thought. To have one more night so close to him and yet him not being by her side.
She tried not to read too much into it.
But of course she did.
Back to her Kingdom, her Palace and her Duties, the Princess was busy and happy to be back into her nest. The letters from the King continued and for about a week or so where as numerous as before. After that week passed, the Princess felt a silence settling in. She tried hard to fight it and sent more letters than usual. But eventually gave up and stayed many a day without a single word from the King. If it hadn’t been for a dreadful attack on the King’s Kingdom she heard about, she would not have sent anything more, but she worried for him and so she did.
The reply took much longer than she had anticipated, and on top of feeling wretched because of these odious crimes, she finally felt disrespected by the King for not taking care of letting her know if he was, well, breathing.
And so when she finally heard back from him and his nonchalant tone said all that needed to be said. She replied to him she was happy he was alive.
And these were the last words they ever exchanged.
And thus, without any more explanation, our story of the Frog Princess and the charming King come to an end.
The end.
