The Werewolf and the Princess
written by: Indrani Chowdhury
Prologue
That night,
The moon at first cradled a soft luminescence,
Half revealing, half concealing the clandestine affairs of its dark realm,
Almost monopolizing its right to narrate,
About how it all began.
This cabalistic tale could be dismissed,
Applying the narrow perimeters of mortal reason.
But the moon had witnessed enough seasons,
To know that some things do happen beyond reason.
Canto-1
Reddrik, the Werewolf
That night,
As the moon designed a unique stage,
Where light and shadow played hide and seek with,
The manifold shades of truth and falsehood,
The werewolf firmly stood,
Facing the intimidating royal castle of Armetedia, beyond the woods.
The other wolves while patrolling the dark alleys of their wood,
Uneasily howled, sensing the werewolf’s supernatural presence.
They could feel it in their guts that he was invincible,
And they shouldn’t interfere with his business.
That night,
He then howled, rupturing the pervading silence,
Sending a chill down the spines of the living.
Its deafening sound echoed throughout,
Affirming the presence of his supernatural being.
But though his eyes generated a hellish fire, revealing his ferocity,
It, however, somehow also gave away his vulnerability.
He reasoned that though in this life of his everything seemed new,
Everything was the same.
For tonight, like all those other nights of his past lives,
He would lay his claim.
That night,
While he stood there, burning in his own desire,
His mind travelled several light years.
He reminisced how he first met her,
While participating in a hunting game, in their kingdom of Reddender.
In that birth, he was a prince called Reddrik by name,
And she was a princess Nina, from the kingdom of Dames.
Amid the game as their eyes locked, it changed everything.
For they both could feel a unique tie of belonging.
They were in love, they were in love,
And it echoed in their ground beneath and in the heavens above.
Ah! His heart ached,
As he remembered those promises made to each other,
But that could not be kept.
For right after their betrothal,
He suffered a premature death.
It so happened that while defending the honor of his country on the battlefield,
He succumbed to his injuries after fighting with great zeal.
Many a time in his emotional outbursts,
He had declared that their love was cursed.
And he believed it still now.
As fate had designed such a complicated stratagem,
That hitherto, they could not fulfil their vow.
Every time in his pursuit to achieve her, through fair or unfair means,
He was defeated, beaten, caged, or killed by forces stronger than him.
But though he had kept her waiting so long, pining for him,
In her every consecutive life,
They remained united in her dreams.
For in her every life, she could feel his presence,
In her heart, in her essence.
It was destiny that she would accept him in all shape, size, and form.
It was destiny that she would come to him, defying societal norms.
Canto-2
Amelia (Nina) the Princess
That night,
As the silver moon created an illusionary state with its silver beams,
Half revealing, half concealing the werewolf’s nocturnal schemes,
Amelia, the beloved princess of Armetedia,
Felt again the palpable presence of him,
In the deep recesses of her recurring dream.
It seemed that she, with all her worldly power and possessions,
Couldn’t bar his intrusion into her subconscious domain.
And was it not true that now-a-days,
She almost looked forward to his invasions in her inner realm?
So, though betrothed to the formidable king of Seven States,
This time, she did not hesitate to let him crush her chaste lips in her dreams.
But little did she know that this kiss of his would change everything,
As it would unlock her memory, making her remember the past happenings.
That night,
She suddenly awoke past midnight.
Widely awake now, she sat in her bed upright,
Dreading the reemergence of her inner tirades of emotions,
In those wee hours of the night.
But much to her surprise, a strange calmness engulfed her,
As if she had solved an intricate puzzle that had so long baffled her.
She experienced an epiphany,
Tantamount to an inner reawakening journey,
As her mind was flooded with memories of those happenings,
Which undeniably pointed to the fact that in all her past mortal lives,
She had loved only him.
That night,
The moon now glowed with an iridescent golden sheen,
And the dulcet tone of the soft wind soothsaid that a new story would begin.
As Amelia stood before her chamber’s casement ajar,
Her eyes wandered beyond the palace boundary, darting afar.
There, in the uncharted territory of the woods, she saw him.
What gave him away this time was his eyes, which summarized their connection.
She now knew that he who stood there, pining for her, was her only destination.
She could not run away from him,
Nor did she aspire for it, as her heart rose to mutiny,
This time, she made a strong resolution to unite with him by fighting her adverse destiny.
Her hasty footfalls remained imprinted with the sonorous music of the night,
As she embarked on her journey to become the werewolf’s bride.
Canto-3
Patrick, the Archer
That night,
As the moon metamorphosed to a red blood orb,
And the blood moon oozed blood in the milieu of that part of the globe,
The temperature soared capturing the shift of tone in the environs’ temperament,
It was as if nature buckled up to act as a prop in this saga’s next segment.
For the actions of Patrick, the royal archer was about to begin,
Which would be instrumental in changing the trajectory of this story with a whole new spin.
Long before the princess, Patrick had located ‘it’,
From the eye hole of the palace door.
He shuddered to find the presence of such a demonic creature,
Right from the pages of legends and folklore.
While his mind raced to comprehend the incomprehensible,
His intuition signaled that he now had to rumble with this trouble.
Lo! Who was there? Was it not the princess?
Where was she going on such a night with haste?
And why?? Had she been enamored by this ominous creature?
So, it seemed to him that she was enchanted with it,
And in her trance state, walking towards it, oblivious of the danger!
This is not a time of deliberation or indecision,
For the princess must be rescued with action done with precision.
So, he concentrated and aimed,
His silver arrow with firm determination to upset the werewolf’s nefarious game.
And as he finally released it with full might,
In that sinister setting, a giant owl cried.
Epilogue
That night,
As the moon finally settled in the midst of foggy, obfuscating clouds,
The events of the night got more shrouded in mystery beyond doubt.
The werewolf, however, had seen both the princess and the arrow racing towards him,
But he resolved to stand there, curious to know what this time fate had stored for him.
Would fate again defeat him with its wicked schemes?
Or would their love outlast their painful past, and a new dawn would begin?
That night,
The moon sighed and waited with bated breath along with the wolf,
For fate had assigned it the role of an immaculate record tool.
And as the werewolf stood there without inhibitions,
And with an open heart, bursting with pride,
What do you think would touch him first?
The lethal arrow or his amorous bride?
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