The Poison

 Once there was a princess whose leg was poisoned by a monster. She lost the leg, of course, for the monster's fangs' poison was unique and improbably new to the witch who served as the castle's healer.

  It was easy for the king to hate the witch.

  Easier still for the rumors of her foul and malevolent craft to seep into castle discourse.

  It was much harder for the princess to say otherwise. Far harder for her to stay the tide of rumor that set the castle's people on a hunt; the kind with pitch forks and torches and spewing mouths.

  Harder still for the princess to stand on one shaking leg before a small witch's cottage and tell the hunters, go home.

  Little stops a rumor. It stops faster, though, when a one-legged princess defends her healer with her life. It stops faster when a witch continues to do her duty. It stops fastest when time has made rumorous tongues stand still.

  But it does stop. And it did. With only a tinge of sorrow.

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