The Curse Of The Wild

Cassandra

She said it would be all right. Said that, even Snow White, Rose, and Cindy made it. They got their happily ever after. But they were something special, they had their fairy godmothers. Now I am all alone and the only company I have...is the wild.

It all started when I was making dinner for Mother, Father and my brother. Like Cindy, I was the outcast, the orphan. They only took me in because of the money. Times were hard and those stuffy royals forgot all about us commoners so we were all left in poverty. When I go outside to go fetch water, I talk with the animals and I may look weird to some people, but it is completely normal.

"Hello Cass!" Said one of my best bird friends, Swift.

"Hello to you too, Swift. How's the trade looking like?" I ask. Ever since the Prince of our kingdom was cursed, almost every other neighboring kingdom has avoided us like the plague. That means trade has gone down dramatically. But not for the royals though, they still get their fancy smachy things while we suffer.

Swift sighed, "Not good friend, even Robin Hood himself is having trouble finding us food. He's gotten some load from the others but.."

"It's still not enough" I shake my head. If only the royal family could find the witch, get the cure, and free everyone from the miserable life. But I know everyone has been trying, and even though the other kingdoms won't trade they still look for the cure. I chat a little with Colm, the cat, and go inside to prepare food. If I knew what was going to happen then I would have never gone back outside.

Darion

Trade has gotten worse these few months and it's all because of me. As soon as I was born, I was cursed. The witch is not your normal “Evil Queen” or “Evil Stepmother”. No. This witch is far worse than anyone has seen in centuries. My curse you ask? Whenever I say anything the world would turn dark. And not just turn to night, everyone in the whole kingdom would get awful nightmares of their greatest fears. “Then don’t talk” you might be thinning, but how would you feel to not talk your whole life? Whenever I got scared as a child, I couldn't just go up to my mother and say what I was feeling. I had to either use sign language or write it down. Even at 14 years old, I still can’t talk. One time, I accidentally said the food was good to the chef and everyone in the room collapsed with agony. I screamed in horror as I tried to help them. And ever since that day I have never said a word. So as you would guess, my name changed to Darion, which literally means “Silent one”.

I started to get tired of the palace, where everyone kept pronouncing words by each symbol and doing sign language back like I couldn't hear them. Some people might say being royalty is the best because we get everything we want. No, it's the worst. We have to follow a bunch of rules, we don’t have freedom to do what we want. So we're basically prisoners, I would do anything to be a commoner so that night I vowed that as soon as I got the chance, I would escape the palace.

Cassandra

Today’s the day. On the royal heading it read “The royal feast”. And to you who doesn't know what it is (if you don’t how are you reading this??) It's this big festival where the whole kingdom and some other kingdoms come

together and eat this HUGE meal. Also, it's the day where I steal all the food for me and my animal friends.

“Are you ready to go?” chirps Swift, “You know, this party is going to be the biggest one the kingdom has ever had and there will be some sort of surprise at the end.”

“Surprise? What type?” I say turning sharply towards her.

“No one is sure. I just heard.”

“From who?” Then I realized my mistake and quickly prayed she wasn't going to do it.

Then her beak started to stretch into a smile. For all of you who haven't seen a bird smirk, I don’t recommend it.

“A little bird told me!” She said rolling on the floor and waving her wings like a mad man… bird? I groaned and picked up some left over wheat from the farm and headed to my house. I took the long way into the woods because, naturally, they hate that. But what's life without risk, yea?

While we were walking through the forest we passed a few birds and occasional wolves, don’t worry their friendly. When you're not on their bad side. Swift kept telling me a lot of bad bird jokes and I tried to make her stop but every time she found the worst joke. So most of the walk was like this:

Swift: What did the snowman say to the robin?

Me: I don't know but maybe if you stop the jokes we could stop at “Aladdin's Magic carpet” shop and take a fly?

Swift: Hard pass, you never wait up for me. Anyways back to what I was saying, I have snow idea!

Me: *Sighs*

Swift: Why did the bird fly into the library?

Me: Oooh! What a cool branch, look and the nice edges and-

Swift: Because he was looking for book worms!

Me: Wait. What is that?

Swift: What is what? *Starts turning around in my direction*

Me: *Shoves a worm into her mouth* Now will you stop?

Swift: *With worm in her mouth* Heyyy, not fair

I started to laugh hysterically while she tried to swallow the worm but I made sure it would take at least 2 minutes. It was hilarious. Then a couple minutes later a hear a swig snap. I whip around looking for the source of the noise.

“Did you hear that?” I say still scanning the forest.

“I’m not falling for you games Cass” She huffed and turned away.

“No, this time I'm dead serious.” Then another twig snaps and Swift seems to hear it and cowers behind me. By the sound of it, the source must be large, weighing about the size of a human. I draw my hunting knife out slowly and curse myself for not bringing my bow.

“Stay behind me,” I whisper to Swift.

“You don’t have to tell me twice” She says and flies behind a nearby tree with a family of squirrels. They seemed frightened so I quietly sent them a sign that it would be ok.

I started walking towards the source, which now I'm certain is human. By the sounds it is making, I estimate about 110 feet away, so not far. I can now hear the source. Male, around 164 lbs. 14 years, so 1 year older than me. Soon I can actually see him so I jump out and bring my knife to his throat. For some reason he doesn't scream, but I can tell he’s scared.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him, without looking at his face. Rule number one for being in the wild; don’t look at their face and they won’t look

at your. Just a safety precaution in case they can report you to the Goblin patrol. Again he doesn't say anything and I start to get really annoyed. Why doesn't he talk and say what he wants? After 5 minutes without talking I take my chances and spin him towards me. I drop my knife in shock at who’s in front of me.

Darion

She’s fast and strong. I never really thought a girl could be so agile and so good with a weapon. When she holds the knife to my throat I have to admit I was scared, but I can't express it by talking or screaming so I just stood there in silence. I could practically hear her fuming, as I did not respond. A few minutes passed and I guess she gave up, so she spun me around to face her. It took her a couple of seconds to recognize me, but when she did her face pounded and she dropped her knife.

“You- your the..” She seemed to be having trouble finishing a sentence. There was something different about this girl. She didn't seem to care what she wore, had no makeup on, and she didn't seem like the kind of girl who would be swooning all over the “Silent prince”. She just stared at me like she was waiting for a response so I nodded and smiled shyly at her and waved an awkward wave. She seemed to realize her mistake so she quickly tried to apologize.

“Oh, sorry. I totally forgot you can't speak.” She kept on trying to apologize but I waved them off. I saw a silver necklace dangling from her neck. It was very beautiful but she didn't seem like the type that could afford it.

Where did you get that necklace from? I signed to her, hoping she understood sign language. Fortunately she seemed to have learned and when I signed again she blushed and touched her necklace.

“My late mother got it for me,” She said and I could hear her voice crack, “It was a couple of years ago before the trolls invaded and-” She stopped and looked at me confused like she was wondering why she was telling me all of this.

“Why are you- the prince- here in the forest?” She asked glaring at me, “Shouldn't you be off doing- whatever you rich royals do all day?”

I almost opened my mouth to gasp but thankfully I didn't. I was shocked, no one has ever spoken to me like that or even said anything bad about us royals. But truly I can see why she was angry, royals like Snow White’s family give royals a bad name. I shake my head and try to explain what I’m doing here but I can tell it would be in vain. Instead I stretch out my hand wanting her to follow me. She hesitates but looks me straight into the eye and takes my hand. I guide her around the forest and start taking her to my favorite spot in the whole kingdom. After about 10 minutes she starts to complain how her legs hurt and I can tell I am going fast.

Almost there, please stay with me. I sign and she groans and nods. Soon we get there and when I tell her to look she gasps and squeezes my hand so tight it almost turns purple. She gapes at the waterfall and can't take her eyes off it. The water rushed off the cliff making small rainbows everywhere and had the smell of fresh rain as it tumbled down the mountain. At the bottom it had a breathtaking serenity-pool at the bottom where a few mermaids swam at the bottom, since they were so shy you could only see their tails glow in the sun.

“Woah” She said when she finally could form words again, I gave her a strained smile and she jumped when she realized she was squeezing my hand. I flexed it a bit until I could feel it and gave her a smile, I could tell she was shocked that I knew about this place. She glazed at the sky and gasped and picked up her bag of wheat but then she got a mysterious look in her eyes and put it down.

Have somewhere to go? Step-family? I signed to her as she sat down and shook her head.

“I’m not going back there,” She tells me and looks down at the falls, “They treat me like garbage and I’m not going to endure that when there are so many beautiful places to explore. I mean, look at this! I’ve passed through this forest so many times and I never found this place.”

I stared at her in shock. She seemed so determined and fearless it made me think if I could ever be like that. I have all these great things and I have my family and-

“Wait, do the royals know you’re here?”

I look away starting to go down the cliff until we get to the bottom and I sit down and run my hands through the water. The girl (who I still need her name) stared at me and crossed her arms, not admiring the falls.

“You still haven't answered my question Darion.” I flinch at my name and shake my head dejectedly.

They do not know, snuck out when weren't looking

“WHAT?” She yells and a few birds fly out of trees. I grimace as she pulls me up and makes me look her in the eye, she is really strong and I make a note to myself not to get on her bad side.

“They treat me like I’m deaf, I want to be like a normal person, like you?” I sign, “You do not realize how much freedom you get, to be able to do whatever I want, and not be watched every second is dream”

She looked kind of shocked with my answer and confused.

“You have a whole castle to yourself where you can do whatever, eat waver

and-”

I shake my head sadly. Not true, being royal is tough, lots of rules have to follow and have to look a certain way to pertain image. Very stressful.

I see she’s about to say something about how maybe being like her is stressful enough but before she could finish and before I could respond and shadow engulfs the whole waterfall and when we can see again in front of us is standing the last person in the whole world I would want to see.

The witch that cursed me.