Story with No End

Prince meets beautiful maiden and must make the choice of his life time.

A Story Without an End

On a very cold night in the middle of winter when I was seven years old I became very sick with a fever so high I could not stand on my own two feet without feeling feint. That night a man who had come home with my mother came to my room and asked if I might like to hear a story to help keep my mind off the misery of a terrible sickness. I said yes though I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to stay awake and the man said he would recite the tale until I fell to sleep and when I awoke he would finish the tale for me and so he began...

A long time ago in a place far away in the Kingdom of Ending the Queen gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy. The prince was to grow up and become the king of Ending someday, but a young foolish maid of the palace stole the baby prince in hopes of one day becoming his bride and fulfilling her dreams to become royalty. She took the baby to a cabin in the Ending woods and raised the prince to become a fine young man, but she kept him isolated so that he would not fall in love with anyone else. Each night the foolish maid told the prince a little about the palace and his responsibilities as a prince so that when she was ready to wed him he would be ready to return to the palace as the rightful prince and heir to the throne.

One day when the prince was twenty-two the foolish maid needed to take a trip into town, but she did not want the prince question where she was going so she sent him into the woods to chop firewood for that night’s dinner. While he was busy she snuck off into town. As the prince ventured deeper into the forest he thought he heard music and it was the most beautiful music he had ever heard. He thought it sounded like the music his mother sung to him when he was young, but it was more pure and clearer. He followed his ears to a clearing where a beautiful young maiden in ragged clothes was cutting stalks of wheat. Her skin was dark from the sun and her long dark hair was pulled back in a braid. He had never seen another girl before and so he was intrigued and amazed. Her eyes seemed tired from a long day of work, but despite her tired expression her voice was strong. The prince noticed her worn hands and his heart went out to her. He strode into the wheat field and put his hand on her shoulder and gently took the scythe from her hands. The maiden stopped singing and turned to face her visitor. “I do not know what to call you, but if you are tired you should rest,” the prince said.

“You may call me whatever you like. I have no name and I may not rest until my work is finished.” The maiden replied.

“Then let me finish your work for you.”

The maiden laughed. It was light and cheerful laugh. “Please sir excuse me for saying so, but you do not look like the kind who is conditioned to work until the sun goes down and the sun has barely risen above the horizon. You cannot simply finish my work for me.”

“Then let me ease your burden and assist you.”

The maiden laughed again, but she did not refuse the assistance of the prince and the two worked side by side sharing laughter and light conversation until the day was done. The prince returned to his cabin in the woods where his mother awaited him and he started the fire. He did not tell his mother of the maiden he met.

Day after day the prince continued to visit the maiden in the wheat field to assist her with her work and he kept her a secret from his mother until one day over dinner she asked of him. “Beloved,” she said, “why is it that now you leave before the sun rise and do not return until the sun sets and yet you return with only enough wood for one night’s dinner?”

Unsure what his mother would think of the young maiden, but unaware of his mother’s attempts to keep him from meeting other girls, he told her the truth.

“Beloved, she is a slave, a women unfit for a prince. She will work the rest of her life in that field and if you ever want to return to the palace you cannot speak with her. Do you understand?”

The prince nodded solemnly. He understood that when he was ready to take his place as the heir to the throne he would need to uphold an appearance of high status and it was unspeakable in the kingdom of Ending for a man of high status to associate with slave, the lowest form of a being that there ever was. Not only would the appearance of a slave in the royal palace be a disgrace, but it would mean the end of that slave’s life for showing such disrespect.

“Why is it that you call me beloved?” The prince asked.

“Beloved is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with. There can only be one beloved for each person.”

“I see,” the prince said. He returned his attention to his meal.

“I saw this announcement today,” the foolish maid said as a change of subject, “it is a invitation to the palace for a masquerade ball. This is the chance we have been waiting for to return to the palace.” The foolish maid planned to take the glory for being the one who returned the stolen prince to the palace and she believed then that the king would be so pleased that he would arrange for her to wed the prince and become true royalty. She planned fulfill her foolish dreams on the night of the masquerade.

The night of the masquerade came and the prince arrived at the ball with his mother and the maiden. Their identities were hidden by artistic masks, that is why the prince asked the maiden to come. He was sure she would be well enough hidden amongst the crowd. He brought her a dress from his mother’s closet, but his mother was not aware that the maiden had been invited. The prince had never seen so many people before and he was overwhelmed, but excited.

The prince and the maiden danced in the courtyard. “May I call you beloved?” The prince asked the maiden suddenly.

“Sorry?” She replied.

“You said you have no name and that I may call you as I like. May I call you beloved?”

The maiden laughed her lighthearted and cheerful laugh. “Yes, my beloved. You may call me beloved.”

Now, neither of them having any experience made them quite a sight to see so they slipped into the standing crowd to keep from drawing attention and found a place next to the foolish maid to be out of the spotlight.

At midnight the princess stood upon a stage and the crowd grew quiet. “Good evening,” she said. He voice was powerful and carried far. “I have invited all people of Ending to this ball and specifically asked my brother to return. Yesterday, I received news that our father has become terribly ill and he will not likely live beyond the summer. Please brother if you are in the crowd make yourself known so that our kingdom will have a king in these years to come.”

In the moment of excitement the foolish maid called out, “I have brought him here. I will bring him to the stage...”

I must have drifted off to sleep because I did not hear what came next. So when I awoke I ran downstairs to find the man so that he might finish the tale, but instead of the man there was only my mother at the breakfast table. She explained to me that I would not be seeing that man again because she was upset that he had gone into my room in the middle of the night without her permission. So the man was gone and I had no recollection of his age or appearance or his name and no way of discovering the end to the story. I could not simply allow the prince to be left in such a predicament and I set out creating and ending of my own, but it had to be a happy ending since every tale deserves a happy ending and the only way the story might end happily is if the prince could return to the palace and marry his beloved and be reunited with sister so that he could rule the kingdom of Ending as the good prince he was. Yet, his beloved was a slave would never be allowed in the palace and she would never be accepted by the people of the kingdom. Regardless, I created my ending that satisfied all necessary requirements for the tale, but you didn’t ask for that part so unless you write your own ending to the story the prince will be forever be frozen in a moment that will change his life forever.