Giana LoCurto and Daniella Graffeo
Once upon a time, there was a castle on the peak of the highest mountain in a small village. The castle was surrounded by a large fence, a gate, and tall bushes, which kept the view of the castle a secret. No one knew what the castle looked like or who lived there. The commoners had their own theories about what went on in this castle. The most common notion was that someone of great power or maybe even royalty was in there. They thought this because there were always scary magical animals surrounding and protecting the castle. Vicious moose, creepy birds, and venomous snakes are just some of the creatures dwelling there.
What the commoners didn’t know, was that a dragon lived within the protected castle and never left. It was never seen or heard. But, the commoners knew not to enter, for they would be killed if they did.
Long ago, there lived a princess of great royalty and beauty, who lacked kindness. She was selfish, rude, and dishonest, which her father, the king, despised. One day, after she had killed her husband, of which she was forced to marry, her father decided to make her change her ways. He saw her as a disgrace to his family, as they were all honest and kind-hearted. He summoned the most powerful witch in the village, and paid her to put a curse on his daughter. The witch did just this. She declared that the girl would be turned into a dragon if she were to leave her secluded castle. This would protect the village from her selfishness, and also keep her and her disgraceful behaviors a secret.
Since the king was so ashamed of his daughter, once the witch cast the spell on her, he told everyone that she had died of a terrible sickness. He never spoke to her again, and she often spends her days alone in the castle.
Because of her selfish nature, she refuses to leave the castle because she doesn’t want anyone to see her in an ugly and scary form.
Upon living her life completely alone, the princess often thought about her childhood and when she had freedom. Her favorite thing to do was go to the beach and collect sea shells with her father. One day, she decided to approach one of the magical moose that protect her castle, and asked him to go down to her favorite beach and bring back some sea shells for her. Being that she is basically their owner, he agreed.
When the moose returned, he brought back several small, medium, and large sea shells. She admired all of them, but a white horseshoe crab shell seemed to have glistened in the light. This grabbed her attention, but she didn’t think anything of it. She stared at these shells for hours, reminiscing about her childhood and her freedom of which she took for granted. As days went by, she began to realize the value of kindness which surrounded her every day during childhood, and how stupid of her it was to not reciprocate that to others.
Upon this realization, she tried to get in contact with her father, which she had never tried to do since the spell was cast on her. After much begging, he gave her the name of the witch that cast this spell, but refused to help anymore, and told her there was no way the witch would be able to undo the spell unless she had truly changed her nature and proved to have learned her lesson.
The princess was able to contact the witch, but she didn’t give her the time of day. She refused to undo the spell for the king had made her promise to never do so. The princess was indeed upset and hopeless, but instead of wishing bad upon the witch, she seemed to be understanding and began to blame herself for why this happened to her. She reflected deeply upon her past and what got her to where she is now, and really began to change her ways.
In doing this, she kept looking at her sea shells to think about her childhood and the happiness she did feel, although she didn’t show it.
One day, she took out the shells and held the white horseshoe crab shell in her hand as it seemed to be glistening in the light, once again. She began to cry and the shell fell out of her hand. It hit the floor, and shattered into a ton of pieces. There was a beam of light projected from the shattered shell, and all of a sudden, the princess felt rejuvenated.
She had realized that the spell had been broken! She ran outside of the castle to see if this was true, and to her delight, she remained a princess!
All it took was a reflection of her past and for her to change her selfish and unkind ways for the spell to be reversed.
As soon as she came to this realization, she went to the royal castle where her father and his new wife lived. The king was so surprised but also delighted to see his daughter in a human and kind manner.
People in the village were so surprised to see the princess, for they all thought she was dead. In the kingdom, it was known she was a mean person, so many people weren’t excited to see her. She decided to prove her kindness to the village by donating riches to the commoners and also gave out food and clothing to the poor.
The civilians were skeptical at first, but the princess continued to prove her kindness and they became more trusting of her.
She lived happily ever after with her family in their kingdom!
