Once upon a time there was a prince. He was a good prince and his family and his kingdom loved him very much. One day, as he was travelling around his kingdom he met this beautiful princess who said she was visiting his kingdom. She was so beautiful and intelligent that he fell in love with her almost immediately. Unfortunately for the Prince, she was not really a princess, she was actually a witch who disguised herself as a foreign princess. Since the prince was so madly in love with her, it was easy to her to enchant him and whisk him to her castle where she kept him as a willing captive.
After a while, the magic waned and the prince started seeing the witch for who she really was. At first, he didn't believe it because he was still so enamored, and so he hid any signs of his gradual awakening from the witch. She, believing her magic was still strong did not worry and continued on without a care. But one day, the spell finally broke completely, and the prince was able to see the witch for who she truly was and he was horrified that he had been so in love with a person who was so evil. After his revelation he decided he needed to escape from the witch's clutches and so he devised a plan that he would escape in the dead of night, when the witch was out doing her evil deeds. When the night came, he grabbed his cloak and he stole out of her castle, fighting some of her minions along the way. When the witch came back to the castle she was furious about the prince's escape and screamed a curse out into the air. While the prince was running away from the castle, thunder shook and he heard her voice in the air...she hissed "You will never be able to receive help without hurting another person, if anyone tries to heal you, they will take your wounds onto their body, as you heal, they will suffer". The prince's stomach dropped as he looked at his wounds already attained from the witch's guards. But he resolved that he needed to escape and pressed on.
The witch's realm lay in the middle of an ancient and angry forest, full of creatures filled with malice, ready to ravage anything in their path. The wounded prince struggled to through the forest, fought many vile creatures and finally reached the ends of the forest of evil. As he emerged, he was barely conscious due to his injuries from fighting the many creatures he came across and from half starving from his long journey. As his vision blurred he saw a village in the distance and limped towards it. Just outside a village there was a little house on the outskirts and it was near this house that the prince collapsed and lost consciousness.
Working out in the field with her animals, the villager who lived in that small house caught the faintest glimpse of the prince right before he collapsed. She immediately ran over to him to see what was the matter and who he was. When she got to him, his face was so covered in blood and swelling that she couldn't tell who he was. Even if she did, the prince was gone for a long time and the kingdom became worried about their prince and where he had gone. Eventually people began to loose hope and the prince was assumed to be dead. Because of this, the villager woman thought him to be a traveler that accidentally ventured into the woods. In her compassion she resolved to save the traveler and tried to get him to her house. As she was trying to move him, she felt a strange chill on the air and thought that she heard some evil whispers. She was nervous, but she couldn't let this poor soul out here to die, so she ignored the chill and eventually got him inside.
Luckily for the prince, this village woman was known for her gentle care and healing prowess. She was often called upon to find medicinal roots, and care for the sick in her village. After she got him settled in her bed, she began to clean his wounds out. As she was cleaning, she felt a strange burning sensation in her face and arms, as if someone was grazing her with a very hot knife. She was a little frightened but she continued. After a while, she had done all she could for the prince for now and she left him to sleep. That strange feeling she experienced eventually went away and she attributed it to possibly grazing a poisonous plant earlier in the day and thought nothing of it.
Despite the efforts of this village healer, the prince had been poisoned in his struggle in the forest and slipped into a feverish coma. The village woman knew that his situation was dire but that all she could do was make him comfortable while his body fought the poison. Every night she sat at his bed side with a moist towel to wipe his brow, warm broth to feed him and extra bandages to dress his wounds.
After a while, the prince's face healed enough to reveal his handsome features and the village healer, little by little became fond of him. As she took care of him, she would read to him, tell him about her day and even tell jokes to him. Soon, despite the prince still locked in a battle against the sickness in his veins, the healer began to love him and told him everything about her. This love that she had for him was possibly what blinded her to the strange coincidences that kept happening to her. She never noticed that after she had nursed the prince that she would gain injuries. Whether she caught her back on a nail or a rope burned her or she accidentally cut herself with a knife, she began to accumulate more and more injuries. Each time, she thought it was an unfortunate event and just shrugged it off. After a while though, the healer began to feel ill herself. Attributing it to a seasonal sickness she kept on doing her duties to her village and diligently attending the prince.
She did notice with much joy that he seemed to be getting better with each passing day. She was so happy that he was getting over his sickness and that he'll wake up soon and finally meet her, that she didn't notice that she wasn't getting better. Getting up in the mornings became harder, she started being unable to attend to the villages and would turn people away claiming she was too ill to be of service. Despite that she would never fail to attend the prince, her lost traveler. Soon she got so ill that she collapsed right as she was taking the last bandage off of the final wound of the prince's arm.
When she fell to the floor unconscious and near death, the prince finally woke up. His body felt wonderful and while he was still a little weak, he managed to sit up and swing his feet over the side of the bed. When he looked down, he saw the healer lying on the floor. She looked so ill by this time she was hardly recognizable. The prince not knowing who she was but knowing that she needed help summoned the strength to pick her up and take her into the village. He called out in the middle of the village for help and announced that he was the lost prince and needed to return to his family and his kingdom but that this women needed assistance because she looked very ill. One of the village elders took her into her home, she knew about the healer's deeds and began to try and nurse her. But very soon after the prince left the little village, the healer died. As the prince was on his way back to his kingdom, he thought about who that healer was and how he woke up there. But those thoughts quickly faded as he hurried home awaiting to see his royal family and all of his friends again.
~The End~
