In the middle of the night the princess was woken by a terrible noise, it sounded like a howling wind, rustling trees, creaking doors. She jumped up and ran down the many flights of stairs from her room to the front door of the castle, but when she opened the door the noise stopped. She ran down into the valley and saw that although the windmills still stood motionless it was obvious that they had moved. The wind had been here, but where had it gone?
As she stood staring bewildered at the valley, she felt a change in the air, something was different, but she could not figure out what is was. She curled up in a ball and fell asleep on the hill, too scared of missing the wind again to go back to her bed.
When she woke in the morning she was startled to see a young man sitting not far from her, staring down into the valley.
Her jaw dropped, she was mesmerized. He was with a doubt the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She crawled over to him cautiously and stared. She wanted desperately to say something, to tell him her name, to learn his. She wanted to ask him why he was here and where he had come from. He wanted to know what he was thinking in that moment and in all of time. She wanted to know everything. She furrowed her brow in frustration and tried to think desperately of something to do, to make this ok, some kind of symbol to make him understand why all she did was stare. As she fought with herself and her decision the young man reached out and held her hand. He placed it on his heart and let her read it. She felt all his feelings and knew all she could ever know about another human being. She lifted his hand to her heart and let him do the same.
She was loved. He was loved. No language could ever replace the feeling of total contentment and unbelievable happiness that came with their silence.
They walked back to the castle and began piecing it back together, restoring it to it's original beauty. The princess was glad not to have to rule the kingdom alone anymore and was happy to share her life and her heart with her prince.
Together they had built a new life together, a beautiful and strong life... until one day, as the princess was out walking in the sun a light breeze kissed her cheek, then the breeze turned into a wind and the wind into the gale. She ran to the valley calling her prince as she ran and she found all her windmills turning and spinning with joy.
They held hands as they stood by the valley and they both knew then that it was the wind who had brought them together. Who had forced the prince into the princesses kingdom with its terrible howling gale.
Time went on and the princess couldn't have been happier, she felt her life was complete, she spent her days in her prince's arms and when she could find the time would skip down to the valley and talk to the wind and tell him how content she was and how she could never thank him enough for all he had brought her.
The wind however, was not so content. A little ball of resentment had been caught up in its breezes and every time the princess brought the prince down to the valley it got worse, and every day that passed without a visit from the princess it grew bigger. The ball grew and festered over time until eventually it took hold of him and he began blowing the princess and the prince around the kingdom.
The princess, sensing that something was wrong as her feet had barely touched the ground all day, went down to the valley and sat with the wind. She sat all afternoon and all night. The prince, worried, brought her down some food, and as the night wore on a blanket and then a pillow. He wanted to sleep on the hill with her but the wind howled loudly and violently every time the prince neared the valley.
She stayed on the hill for days, talking to the wind, reconnecting. The wind blew through her heart and told her of his pain and jealousy. She sat and waited, hours, days, weeks, as he told her of the trouble in his soul. Then, at the end of the 17th day he read in her soul what he had been searching for. He saw the flame, the undying, unfaltering love she had always had for him.
She went back to the castle and spent the night with her prince, she lay in his sleeping arms and wept. Just as the sun was making it's way into the sky she crept down the hill to the valley.
The wind greeted her cheek with a soft breezy kiss.
She stood on the edge of the valley and began to scream. She screamed silently and loudly, with love and with sorrow. She screamed into wind until slowly she began to dissolve. She screamed and her toes began to disappear, her finger tingled and drifted into nothingness. She was becoming one with the wind. She screamed and screamed until the last fragment of her mouth joined with the wind and they sailed together through the valley and out into the world.
When the prince awoke and saw his princess was gone he walked hesitantly down to the valley, he noted how eerily silent everything was, not even a creaking door. And when he reached the valley all he found a single windmill, standing motionless, waiting for him.
