Member-only story
The Queen Who Never Smiled
Was it a curse or something else?
The stories went that Queen Alda had been cursed when she was just a babe. Ever since the day she was born, she never laughed or smiled, her face as blank as the surface of a pond during winter.
Once, her father — the departed King Luka — even held a competition open to the whole kingdom to see if revelry would shock a twitch of the lips upon the young girl. Jesters and farmers alike crowded the castle square, each one eager for his chance to score the king’s bounty of a thousand gold coins.
But the girl just watched as the would-be performers each tried to spook a stray smile from her. Even marvels like puppetry and animals performing tricks did nothing to move her. Every man went away empty-handed, and so it was that no one claimed the prize money.
“Why are you so sad, my love?” the king asked his daughter that night. “Can’t you smile just once for me?”
Alda stared back at her father. “I’m not sad,” she said, though her face did little convincing. One would have thought a storm cloud was hovering over her head. “I don’t know why I can’t smile, Father, but do you love me any less for it?”
The aging king sighed. “What would your mother say? What would she think if she saw you here, looking so unhappy?”
