Jotei

The empress looks out on the empire.

It is large, stretching as far as the eye can see, and as far as the eye can see, it is a prosperous one.

She was never a commoner.

You know that, because diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and rubies and topazes and pearls drop from her mouth when she speaks. They discovered that a while back, and so they locked her into a room, and made her a princess, and speak until her lips and tongue bled, because diamonds and sapphires and rubies and emeralds and sapphires have sharply cut edges, and can rip your lips and tongue and throat into shreds. (Pearls won't, and they make you whiter if you grind it up into a white powder and drink it, but those are made of mermaid's tears--but that's another story.)

For the good of the kingdom, they said. So she spoke and spoke until she couldn't stand it anymore. One day, when the sky was dark, and silver lightning struck the west wall, she ran away, off to a tower, in the middle of the kingdom, right in plain sight, close to the palace, but out of reach.

In the tower they found she could spin hair into gold. She liked spinning hair into gold and turning pig-faced farmers' daughters into princesses for balls, dressed in the gowns of gold and silver and starlight she made from coffee sacks . She could also turn overripe pumpkins into ballrooms, and she liked doing that too.

But the kingdom was in turmoil, and duty called, and princesses, being princesses, are able to turn a deaf ear to love, but never to duty.

So the empress, that time, left the tower, and went back to the little room, and spoke and spoke until her mouth and lips and tongue bled, dripping diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and rubies and topazes and pearls.

She spun hair into gold and when the hair ran out, she spun straw and dry leaves and twigs and horses' tails instead. Once in a while she would turn a farmer's horse-faced daughter into a princess for a night, dressed in the gown of moonlight that used to be a potato sack before the sun went down. But mostly she spoke, until the kingdom was filled with the diamonds and such. (The pearls, she kept for herself, because they were mermaid's tears, and basically, because she could. If you grind them up into powder and drink it, it turns you white, but all this is another story. )

Anyway.

The empire is prosperous. It is large, stretching as far as the eye can see.

There is a speck at the farthest corner, which if you look closely, if, perhaps, you were a baker opening a shop in the early morning, or a country goosegirl feeding your flock by the roadside, and thus, only a few feet away, would recognize as the cloud of dust, made by the hooves of a horse galloping at full speed towards the castle.

The empress does not see this, of course. It is morning, time to go into the little room and speak, while diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and rubies and topazes and pearls fall out of her mouth, all the things that a prosperous empire needs to maintain its borders.

It is her duty.

She is the empress, after all.

Somewhere, in another tower, in another kingdom, a dwarf she once found broken and bleeding by the side of the road and nursed back to health, and sent on his way with a loaf of bread, a slice of cheese and a story, takes out the ring with one wish left in it. He rubs it on his hat until it shines, until you can see the words written in dwarvish on the inside, and speaks the words, thinking of the empress and the fact that it is the empress's birthday.

Someday, your prince will come.