Kingdom Curses

The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished, and the fish drifted to the surface of the stream. The kingdom was in ruins, lost, without her heart guiding the village.

The people relied on the monarchy, without anybody to rule, the kingdom would crumble. Right down to the very stone it was built upon. Without the Queen, the crops would die, and all livelihoods would cease to exist.

As a young Monarch, the beautiful Queen had not yet found a prince to marry, and an heir had yet to be born. Her entire family were slaughtered in the War of Crescent, a most bloody war between the neighbouring kingdoms. Although their kingdom of Evergreen lost, the people learned to grow from their tragedy, and the young Queen Marigold ruled with the villagers’ best interest. Each monarch’s heart was attached to their kingdom, if anything should happen to their ruler before an heir was born, their very existence would be forgotten.

This was a race to find the missing Queen Marigold.

First the river ran backwards. None of the villagers or soldiers could stop the water from running. It couldn’t be touched with human hands, and so the people grew weaker without anything to drink. The same for the fish that swam up to the surface in their schools, before eventually dying on their side. The villagers dared not eat them in case they were ridden with poison.

The second to die were the crops on the farmers fields, each season more unsuccessful than the last, before nothing seemed to grow at all. The land was a barren waste of dirt. Before the collapse of their kingdom, nature had one more thing in store, one more thing for them to suffer through. In the night whilst they slept in their homes, upon straw bedding, the stone walls began to collapse on top of them. The old and lame died instantly, others managed to escape, before the entire kingdom was completely flattened. The castle crumbled before their eyes; the soldiers that passed through the gates crushed under the pressure.

It had been decades now since the Queen had vanished, and all hopes were lost, most likely she was dead, as they would be in a few weeks without the basics to live. Left in an abandoned mess, the stones and weeds turned into trees, forming a large forest where once the kingdom stood. The silence was deafening, until eventually nothing lived or grew.

Crack! The water underneath shuddered, but nothing alive was around to hear. CRACK! Louder than the first. Like a mirror being shattered to pieces, the once frozen water from underneath the river smashed.

She was alive. Barely, but alive and breathing. The Queen Marigold lay upon the side of the bank, regaining her breath. She had no idea, but she had been trapped underneath for more than one hundred years and hadn’t aged a day. Soaked through, her hair limp and dark, she pulled herself towards the mucky water. Through the ripples, Marigold could see her withered reflection.

Trying to stand up, she didn’t realise how weak she was. Her feet could not hold the weight of her body. Her head spun, her mind foggy, the queen couldn’t think clearly. All she knew was that she needed to reach her kingdom. Her dress ragged, her skin as pale as frog spawn, she shivered in what little she was wearing. The sparkle in her eyes that used to glow, clouded, the whites in her eyes blotchy and bloody.

Marigold reached for her jewels that sat upon her neck. Gone. All she crawled at was her damp neck. Kneeling on the waters edge, she dipped her fingers into the misty waters, the river was too murky to see anything among the reeds and chemicals, and she struggled even more now she realised her sight was fading. Marigold looked around her for any escape. Surrounded by moist caves, she couldn’t remember how she had ended up in such a damp place like this. She tried once more, lifting herself up and pushing upon a large rock by the side of her, she sat for a while regaining her strength.

Looking down, the queen was bare footed. Everywhere she could see, tiny pebbles that would scrape into the back of her feet. She would have been trapped if she had no faith in herself. The Queen knew the pain would be indescribable, but she had no other choice, for all she knew, her kingdom was waiting for her.

Hobbling like an ancient woman, Queen Marigold took her time on the sharp rocks, cutting into the side of her toes, every step she took was torture. The slimy rock walls aided her as she walked in a straight line, towards the exit of the cave.

She was not greeted by the sun, but the cooling breeze of the night. The pale moon, icy in colour, gleamed in the darkness. The cool air skimmed past her as she exited. Finally out, the queen let out a sigh of relief, however troubled she felt by the amount of cuts upon her feet.

Fortunately, the rest of her journey was less painful. Grassy hills rolled on for miles, and however tired the queen was, the pain in her feet did not bother her. The real pain, however, came when Marigold reached her kingdom gates, now taken over by dirt and rubble. Not even nature could win against the curse. Queen Marigold quivered; it was at that moment she knew she was too late.

Even though her once beautiful kingdom now sat abandoned, she wanted to wander around. Her people may have died long ago, but not everything was lost. Now that the Queen stood in her kingdom’s grounds, there was hope, things could be rebuilt.

On her own, without anybody to assist her, the queen began to work. The Kingdom gave her energy, the power to create something new from the rubble. She felt her skin, her life glowing, as if being reborn from the literal ashes of the villagers. Although heartbroken, mourning for her people who died before their time, she focused on building. Like a person possessed, she chiselled away at the foundations, stone by stone. This time her kingdom would be stronger, more resilient than the last, after all who knew how many centuries it had stood for before.

As the days turned into weeks and then into months, the queen wondered how she could manage the weight of it all. Before she had wandered into the gloom, falling into a pool of her demise, the legends were only hearsay. No other monarch had dared to leave the kingdom for any period. Her father, and their grandparents before them, repeatedly told the same story, but that was all they were to her, perhaps she should have listened to the voices of the villagers.

A curse that sealed their family’s fate, had become reality. However, the earth had a way with humans, it took all that Marigold had, but replenished her with all she needed. One lonely Queen walking around crumbled stone and a damaged castle. Eventually she created something new.

The more she built, the more it attracted new villagers longing for a home, they in turn had their own families, and the Kingdom grew from stretch to stretch.

Queen Marigold, who thought she would be destined to die alone, found unexpected love with a blacksmith’s son. They married, conceiving an heir to take on the responsibility of the new kingdom. As the child grew, the queen knew how important it was for her son to know the story and how vital it was that they should stay for the good of their people. Once a myth, Marigold pretended not to hear, now part of their foundations.