May Angels

The grave was weathered.
Hardly visited and cared for, it was only a small square overgrown with weeds and yellowed grass in a Garden of Eden for the dormant. Abandoned, almost forgotten in the farthest corner of the cemetery. Visitors hardly saw it. Only rarely did anyone come by and observe a few minutes of silence. Strangers sometimes looked at this misery and prayed for the deceased. But the family stayed away.
Except today.
Dressed in black, the cheeks moistened with tears, softly whispering a sentence: "May the angels protect you ..."

A long, long time ago a king lived with his princess. He lived in a large castle. A castle full of secrets and dormant adventures. Dragons that had to be defeated in order to free his princess from a high tower and festivals that had to be celebrated in order to enjoy life.
His life was perfect, straight out of a fairy tale, and even if the king lacked a queen at his side, he lived happily with his daughter.
Her bright blue eyes astonished him again and again and her carefree laugh made him smile even in times of greatest need.
He spent happy moments with the princess.
Sometimes they were on a green hill, where they just lay there and watched the sky as it created a new fairy tale. Sometimes they jumped around the campfire in the night and tried to catch the small, glowing fairies. But mostly they were in the castle, building other little castles out of pillows and caves out of blankets and ships out of boxes and boards.
They had their own little lake in the front yard. A lake where mermaids slept and enchanted frogs sang songs in friendship with fish. And a small flower garden, filled with humming bees, which for breakfast, tame, brought their honey to the princess. They had animals here. Exotic tigers that played with them like cats and purred when you scratched them.
Your life was perfect.
The king was always loyal to the princess and the princess was glad to have such a king, to be able to laugh freely and to live in this fairy tale; and so they lived happily ever after until one evening.
It was an eventful day in the fairy tale world and the sun was leaning towards the ground.
She smiled once more at the moon and then disappeared, making the lovely princess's room darker and darker until only the candlelight from her bedside table lit her room.
The king was sitting next to her, already in his white robes, which he preferred to sleep in, and was still reading from a book. He read and read until the Holden's eyes became heavier and heavier and they closed as if by themselves.
Then the king got up. He was quiet when he made his way to his bedchamber, so quiet that he didn't wake her. And the king went to bed, stretched again, and then went to sleep, hoping to meet his daughter in a dream.But suddenly it shook.
The bed shook and from somewhere there was a deep rumble and rumble, as if a dragon was trying to storm the castle.
The king started.
The rumbling and rumbling grew louder. From the lower floors he heard glass and china cracking on the stone floor and the dull sound of books falling. Closer, closer and closer the dragon came, he rumbled and roared and the king was rigid with fear and horror, but then he heard his princess.
She screamed, called for her king, her savior. She was more scared than he was and the king knew that, and so he ran off, hurried to the aid of his princess.
He took the stairs to her room in a sprint, and even if the smoldering breath of the dragon almost burned his neck, he knew that he could do it, he could save his daughter from this monster, just as he could save her had already saved from all the other monsters.
And he opened the door and saw the princess huddled under a table. The kite was faster than him. With a paw covered with thorns, he tried to catch the princess and pull her into the depths with him. But the king would not allow that.
He bravely drew his sword and ran towards the monster. He rushed into battle, slashing and beating at the monster, but the monster was stronger. And the dragon roared and spat fire and raised its paw and then ...

And then her king and her white knight fell and with him the castle fell and changed from the mysterious place that the princess loved so much to the dreary and empty house that it was. The stories broke, shattered, like the glass on the marbled floor when the quake started and only the princess was left behind.
Lonely and alone, weeping for their king, weeping for their world.
And from the calls for her knight, screams for her father and her magical world were extinguished.

The grave was weathered
Hardly visited and cared for, it was only a small square overgrown with weeds and yellowed grass in a Garden of Eden for the dormant. Abandoned, almost forgotten in the farthest corner of the cemetery. Visitors hardly saw it. Only rarely did anyone come by and observe a few minutes of silence. Strangers sometimes looked at this misery and prayed for the deceased. But the family stayed away.
Except today.
Dressed in black, her cheeks wet with tears, the princess stood there, but the princess had become a woman. No longer a small child chasing fairy tales, but an adult who made their dreams come true.
She knew now that there were no fairy tales, there were only dreams that you could or could not live. Life was what you made of him and even if she had to learn it so painfully and took so long, now she accepted it. Even if it hurt, she was grown up now, she was tall, and she was strong, strong enough to finally let her king rest.Slowly she knelt down. In her hand she held a picture of himself and him, a picture where he was still king and she was still princess, and laid it down on the grave.
"May angels protect you, my King," she whispered as she said goodbye to her white knight to give him his well-deserved sleep.

*end*