Tomorrows

Once upon a time there was a princess who bathed in glistening moonlit pools, drank the light of the stars like nectar, and danced through orchard groves in twilight as though there were no tomorrows.
            But she was second in line to a royal throne.  Dressed in the finest swaths of shimmering fabric, eating of the most delicious and sumptuous foods, and issuing decrees at the bequest of a sovereign, the princess knew there were tomorrows. 
Such tomorrows that she had once held prominent in her desires. 
Such tomorrows in which she had begun to take little interest. 
For she had come to despise fine linens, choice foods, and blunt power. 
At night she would escape and bath and dance and drink—letting life flow in and around her as it never could within the walls of the palace.  And then she would return, weighted by the sorrow of what her tomorrow held.
            It should not come as a surprise that one night she ran deep into the forest, far deeper than she had ever gone before.  Stumbling upon a small cottage with herbs and flowers about it, smoke curling from its chimney, and a withered old woman tending to the wounds of a tiny sparrow, the princess stopped. 
The old woman looked up and saw the regally adorned lady. 
The two locked eyes and shared a smile.
            And in that smile, the princess knew she had found a place that held her tomorrows.

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