The Song of the Sea

 

Once upon a time, there was a young prince of a kingdom that lay near the shores of the sea. The young prince loved the sea and would lose himself at its edge, enchanted by its mystery. He treasured the way storms gave him courage, and how he found peace in the movement of the waves; the way winds sweeping across its body, carrying the smell of salt and distant lands, could revive the weariest of souls.

 

He loved his kingdom and its people. It was a piece of paradise where the waters were sweet to the taste and trees grew green and tall. The existence of the people was a simple life but a happy one, filled with the peace that only innocence can bring.

           

             One day as he approached the ocean, he noticed a young girl playing in the surf.  Surprised to see another, he chanced a greeting.  The girl, eager for friendship, flashed him a smile and agreed to swim with him, for she had never played with anyone by the waters before.  The day went quickly, as all days do when one is young and pure of heart.  Both the boy and the girl enjoyed each other's company to the fullest.  As the sun set they pulled their spent bodies from the ocean and agreed to meet again, parting with smiles.  

           

            The girl and the boy met again the next day, and the next, and everyday after.  They quickly became completely inseparable.  It was in this innocence that they spent their childhoods, each growing from the other’s experiences.  Through these days, they grew wise beyond their years and their friendship grew to be the greatest two people could possibly have.  Before they knew it they had grown up together, the boy into a handsome young man and the girl into a beautiful young woman.

           

            The prince soon became occupied with the responsibilities of his position, but he still spent much of his free time with the woman.  As the years of his youth came to an end he was finding that his feelings for the girl had grown into something more than friendship, and the girl felt the same.  Moonlight lit their eyes and foam licked their heels as they shared their first kiss and, to them, nothing else mattered.

           

            For a while they both were happy, but time and fate were against them, for clouds of war brewed on the horizon.  The small and happy kingdom by the sea was being threatened by a nation both great and wicked.  Before the two lovers knew it, their kisses became few and far apart as the small nation prepared for the war.  The prince could no longer spend everyday at the seashore with the girl.  Such destruction is the nature of war, for its fruits are a bitter wine to any man that craves the sweetness found in summer’s fruit or found there in the gentle and soft touch of a woman’s loving embrace.

           

            Soon the day of the army's departure was at hand.  The prince stood strong and hid his emotions, his hurt, but the girl let her broken heart show in her tears, and the entire kingdom knew the intensity of their love.  The prince quickly wrapped the woman in his arms and kissed her passionately, desperately clinging to their last moments together.  They both knew that nothing needed to be said.  One look into each other’s glistening eyes was all the promise that was needed.  Wordlessly, the prince and his army left aboard their ships and both lovers knew not what to do without the other.   

           

            On that sad day at the docks, families who might never be reunited were broken, scattered like autumn leaves in a fierce wind.   Women wailed and men beat their breasts in their grief.  Tears were as prominent as spring rains and an indescribable fear came over all, the fear of the unknown that grips all who must part from certainty.  For months and then years, the girl went to the shore hoping to see the sails of her love's ships, but each time no sails adorned the horizon.  Throughout the kingdom, hope faded— but the woman refused to give up on her one true love.

           

            Seven years passed and still the army did not return.  The prince thought of no other woman, and the woman had eyes for no other man, but the woman's father, caring not at all for the prince, hardened his heart.  He refused to wait any longer for his daughter to marry and arranged a marriage to a suitor of his choosing.  When the woman discovered the arrangements, she begged her father to wait a little longer for the prince to return from across the sea. 

           

            His heart softened as she cried and he agreed to one more year, but the war was long and brutal.  No word of the army’s fate passed to the kingdom, and the months droned on in fear and doubt.  One year came and went and still the army did not return, so at the end of the allotted year, the woman was forced into her father's plans.  She was married quickly and quietly, and in the end she was as unhappy as ever. 

           

            Days passed into months and months into years before the prince finally returned, but when he did, he desired to see no other than the woman he loved.  He traveled by horse for a day and a night to reach the house where he was told he could see the woman, but no one had the heart or courage to tell him of her marriage.  On the morning of his second day of travel, he arrived at her home. There, peering in through the window, he saw the woman with her husband.  And his heart was broken, shattered like smooth glass upon sharp rocks.

           

            The girl turned from her husband just in time to see the tears in her love's eyes before he galloped back down the road.  Quickly, the woman made ready her horse and rode after him.  She rode hard under sun and moon to reach the capital, but he was faster.  At last the woman caught up to the prince in the city, but he ordered his guards to waylay her at the palace gates and refused to see her.  Nothing could persuade him otherwise.

           

            The woman approached the prince in earnest, but her persistence only served to feed and inflame his rage.  Each time he refused to meet with her, to let her near; he refused even to look at her because behind his tortured eyes, he walked a life that was in the past.  His mind became his prison, for he thought of nothing besides what could have been and could never be again. 

           

            Over time, his beautiful soul blackened, scorched by his fiery rage.  As the days of his life passed away he hardened his heart towards her and towards all of his people, finding satisfaction only in his insatiable quest for wealth and power, a slave to his pain.

           

            When the prince was forty-two his father died, and the kingship passed to him.  The people did not hold high hopes for his reign, but the little optimism they still clung to faded quickly.  Under his cold rule, happiness and joy soon left the kingdom.  The law became unjust and the government became corrupt and wicked, and all the kingdom hated the king except for the woman who would always love him.  Fueled by his maddening sadness and pain, the now king inflicted villainous acts that could never be undone.

           

            Seasons came and went, and before they knew it both the king and the woman had grown old.  The king had spent his days conquering nations, subduing them to gain his vices: wealth, power, fame, and glory, but the woman had spent her days longing for the king, her love, alone in her sorrow.  The husband that she had married and had never loved faded away.  Through no fault of his own, he became another scar forced on her longing heart. 

           

            Neither the king nor the woman knew happiness and each bore their pain in secret; the king no longer went to the sea and the woman, having lost the desire to live, ceased speaking.  For nearly four decades the woman spoke not a word to anyone, and no one could console her, for she had words only for the king who shunned her.       

           

            The small kingdom became powerful for a time because of the king's conquests, but soon the endless wars took their toll.  More and more of the kingdom's young men died in foreign land after foreign land.  Every time the kingdom's army returned with riches and slaves, fewer soldiers, fewer sons, came back.  The woman never gave up her quest to speak to the king, and yet the king repeatedly denied her an audience.  Nothing could melt his aging and blackened heart.

           

            Finally, in the eighty-sixth year of the king's life he grew very ill.  In his bitterness, he deemed to speak to the woman one last time before his death, if only to show her the depths of his hatred and hurt.  So it was that the old woman and the king finally broke their silence.  The night that she came to him was silent, and for a long time, so were they.  The tension built until, at last, the king could take it no longer.  When he spoke, his voice was as cold as ice overwhelming the warmth of a homely chamber.

           

            "I loved you more than I loved the sea, more than the storms and the waves and the breeze.  Why did you betray me so?  I loved you more than I loved anything," said the king, his voice raspy and thick.  "You destroyed me."

           

            For a moment it seemed as if she would not answer, but at last, she found her voice.  "I had no choice!" the woman cried, her voice breaking from lack of use. "When you didn't return my father forced me into marriage.  I could only persuade him to wait a little while.  I have never loved anyone but you.  My husband can see it in my eyes, my tears.  Why wouldn't you speak to me?”  As she spoke her head fell in defeat.  “It has been so long…"

           

            The king felt his cold heart regain some of its long lost strength.  "I thought you had forgotten me!  How was I to know that your father lacked a soul?" Anger flashed in the king's eyes, anger at himself.  "How could I have been so stubborn?" he screamed, hating himself for the time he had lost.

           

            The woman lifted her teary gaze to the king and spoke hurriedly, the words pouring from her soul and ringing with truth.  "I would have left him for you.  I would have left anyone for you!  I have never thought of another," the woman cried, distraught.  "I have tried to tell you for sixty years and more," replied the woman, "but you refused to see me…refused to forgive me for an imagined wrong."

           

            The king’s eyes searched the woman’s face.  "I…I did not know!  I still…I have always loved you."  Suddenly, all the years of hatred and stubbornness no longer made sense to the king.  Every word that had passed his lips since he returned from the war seemed to him as poison.  Everything in his life, everything he had done now seemed wrong and unjust and foolishly wicked, and he regretted everything except for the woman and their love. 

           

            He looked into her eyes and saw that their soft, sea blue beauty had not faded with age as he smiled his first smile and cried his first tears in many years.  The woman smiled too, as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. 

           

            For four days, they spoke without ceasing.  In those short days, they knew the happiness that had once resided in their hearts, but time stops for nothing and it cannot be regained.  Unfortunately, their happiness was to be short lived, for the man who had been many things in the course of his life: a boy, a prince, a lover, a king and a tyrant, was dying, and they both knew it was coming.  

           

            "I am so sorry," the king said.

           

            "I forgave you long ago, my love," the woman breathed, her voice music to the king's ears.  "My heart is and will always be yours."

      

            The king reached out and grasped the woman's hand.  When he spoke his voice trembled.  "Remember me as kindly as you remember the sea, for the sea is where I belong, and you belong with me."

           

            "Always.  I promise you, we will be together again."

           

            On the fourth night since they broke their silence, the king named the woman as his heir and died, at last in peace.  Immediately the woman tore her clothes and ran out of the castle into a fierce storm.  Clothed only in the night and her grief she made her way to the cliffs beside the shore of the sea.  Nothing in her life had ever shaken her as much as the death of the king.

           

            Now the ebb and flow of the sea was greatly disturbed as if it were as wounded by the death of the king as was the woman who had loved him– as if it were also mourning the tragedy of the lovers' separation.  The raging waters shook the cliffs in their sorrow as violent lighting tore across the sky.  On the great cliffs the woman cried until she ran out of tears, but she did not wail as other women might.  She did not have the heart for it.  Instead, she sang.  Her lament echoed off the cliffs and through the hills, but no one dared to console her, for with her grief there came the most beautiful song that had ever been heard in the world.  No one dared to disturb her angelic melody.

           

            So the woman sang in the rain by the sea until morning, filling the air with her mournful music and drowning in her grief, but when the first light of dawn lit the now peaceful horizon she rose and went back to the castle in the city.  She had things to do and a great many things to undo.  Her love for the king lived on, even though he did not, but she loved the kingdom too.  She had to do what the king would have done had he lived.  She had to set things right in his place.  Perhaps if she gave the kingdom the same love she had showered upon the king then all past wrongs would be forgotten.  Either way, her people deserved the best effort she could give. 

           

            She set herself to her task.  For the last days of the woman’s life, she ruled the people of the kingdom by the sea with justice and honor.  The woman, now a queen, swiftly freed the kingdom’s slaves and sent them back to their own lands with tokens of friendship and repentance, and the kingdom quickly became as prosperous as ever.  Once again, the law was just and the people were free, but the woman was only as happy as her broken heart would allow.  In her beleaguered and aging soul there was a misery that would not diminish with time.

           

            Still, her love for the king did not diminish, and she went to the sea every morning after sunrise and sang to him, her beautiful voice strong against the noise of the waves.  Every morning, more and more people followed her to the ocean to hear her song, her sorrow.  And all who heard her, young and old, strong and weak, quailed and wept at the splendor of her song and her love. 

           

            As it is with all things, time passes through the hourglass of life; the queen knew in the very fiber of her being that her time was nearing its end.  Her love for the kingdom had righted the wrongs that the king had committed in his rage, and the people had forgiven his sins, but the lives of men are but a blink in time’s eye and even the righteous must return to the dust from whence they came.  Her soul yearned for the heavens and her flesh ached for the earth.

           

            So it was that the queen, eager to see her love, left a note naming an heir in flowing script and departed for the sea under the veiling dark of night, intending to arrive before she was expected.  She had reached a mighty age and her mind begged for the rest that death promised.  The thought of seeing her beloved king once again was almost more than her yearning heart could take, but she remained strong, filling her heart with a joy that dwelt deep within her soul.

           

            When she arrived at the shore her body was weak from the walk.  She struggled on her unsteady legs to the water before collapsing onto her knees in the surf.  Calm waves caressed her worn flesh.  The time was close, but her joy was not yet complete.  On the horizon, the first rays of dawn graced her anciently wise eyes, which now glistened with tears.  The orange sheen on the blue water spoke wonderfully of the day to come.

           

            A light breeze blew across the shore, taking with it the last of the woman’s doubts and fears.  As she did everyday, the woman began to sing, her voice surprisingly clear in the midst of her own death.  The song, laced for the first time with the long-awaited joy that would soon be hers, carried across the tranquil waters as only a woman’s voice can, and when her song ceased and the bright light enfolded her, she was smiling the smile of someone who has found something long lost, in peace and at peace.

Reviews

[Bob Carney, "Soon ..]

This is a terrific tale kiddo. Hooked from the beginning and all throughout. Classic in every sense, even the beginning. "Once upon a time..."
I don't recall seeing anything in here that needed a change and I don't have a suggestion for the title. That, like the entire tale, should come from you. Love hurts the deepest and the missed opportunity hurt more than just the two involved, but love heals it would seem. I'm reminded a bit of the Princess bride and that's a good thing. Bravo.

[Dezaraye]

This is absolutely breathtaking. You are so descriptive. Your words flow effortlessly and clearly convey the emotions as well as paint a picture in my mind. I'm stunned. It's wonderful!

[Robert Luna]

I love the changes that you made really makes the piece flow with so many great images that you paint perfectly with your words. I really enjoyed this tell and it warms my heart to see such a talented writer write piece like this. You wrote this with so much of yourself in it which I could feel and really enjoyed.

Great Job!!!

[[untitled]]

This is a beautiful tale, full of joy and sorrow. It has touched my heart and brought tears, but tears of joy at its beauty.

[Gary H]

Really adorable piece of writing. The ending was perfect. Only one point that might be of use to you. A gap between the paragraphs is really helpful when reading on the site. Helps space the work more and I'm sure aesthetically would attract more readers.
Up to you. I was advised this once by a writer who was near the top of the rankings and found this did increase the viewings.
I do hope you get more readers to this as well.
Brilliant.

[Summer Child]

oh, Doug. it's beautiful. you have no idea just how proud i am. very very well done!

[Emily B]

This is a breath of fresh air. You've done a wonderful job with it. I can't give you an criticism on this write, I can see nothing that should be changed. You have a beautiful fairy tale here.