A long time ago, there was a newborn prince cursed with a body made from ice. An old king passing by took pity on the prince and cast a spell to give him a body of flesh and blood. So long as the prince’s heart burned with fire, his body would be warm and he would never again return to ice.
One day, a great betrayal struck the prince. He learned a dark secret which made him doubt the love which kept him warm. His heart ran cold, and the prince’s body became ice once more.
Snow fell over the entire world, bringing a deep and unending winter. Rivers froze over, and oceans chilled. The entire surface of the planet turned white with ice and snow, and the prince’s body became the great glacier which encased the old kingdom he once lived in.
Many years later, a golden-haired boy was born. Though the world was still in winter, the snow around the boy melted, and plants grew along his feet. He was the herald of spring, there to banish the winter.
The world gathered together and pleaded for him to save them from the prince’s curse. The boy thus set off on a journey to the old kingdom, a trail of spring left behind him. Yet the closer he came to the frozen heart of the prince, the colder the boy felt. Even he could not withstand the freezing chill of the prince’s barren heart. The boy pressed on courageously. Eventually he stood before the heart of the prince, the blue core of ice at the center of the frozen kingdom.
The boy was told to destroy the prince’s heart to break the curse. He held in his hand a mighty hammer which would smash the ice to pieces, leaving the prince’s heart in shards. Yet the boy found that he could not bring himself to injure the prince’s heart. He found its deep blue color beautiful, and he stared into its depths. The boy looked into the prince’s heart, and what he saw was a sadness so profound that it made the boy weep.
The prince had only wanted to be loved. He loved others fiercely, but he had become so deeply afraid. He could not believe in the love of others. His heart closed, and because of that, he became ice.
The boy wished to save the prince, but he did not know what to do. He cried for the prince’s pain, his warm tears falling.
The boy became the companion to the prince’s heart. He journeyed to the prince often, speaking and sharing stories to the ice. He listened to the voiceless sorrow and shed tears for the pain that the prince had not been able to speak.
The boy’s tears were always warm. After many years, these warm tears formed cracks in the ice, and slowly but surely the glacier began to melt. The fire in the prince’s heart would once again rekindle, ignited by the love the boy gave so freely, and as the prince awoke with a body warmed by compassion, the long winter would finally come to an end.
(Twenty-fifth of my entries to my self-inflicted challenge, 100 Lifetimes.)
100 Lifetimes – 25. Legend
Published
Loki is the Philosopher King 