She Blows Kisses

 

     Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who wanted to marry, so she blew a kiss into the wind. And as her breath traveled into the air, it slowly turned into a butterfly, its wings the pinkest color.

     It flew away, and the wizard beside the princess said, “Whoever the man whose lips that butterfly would kiss, he’s the one you should marry.”

     And the princess smiled and watched the butterfly vanish from her sight.

     After a week, a man went to the castle, with the pink butterfly nestling on his hand.

     “This butterfly just landed on my lips,” he said.

     And the kingdom held its grandest wedding.

     But just a few days after the union, a woman visited the castle and demanded to see the princess.

     “That man you married,” the woman said sternly to the princess. “He killed my son.”

     “And why would he kill your son?” the princess, instantly agitated, asked.

     “At first, I didn’t know,” the woman answered with debilitating grief in her voice. “It seemed that he was provoked when a pink butterfly landed on my son’s lips. He grabbed a knife and stabbed my son, and took the butterfly.”

     The princess was stunned.

     “But according to that man’s mother, her son, lover of a dame here in your castle, knew what the butterfly’s kiss meant, that it could mean him and the dame inheriting your kingdom.”

     That night, the princess blew another kiss into the wind. And as her breath traveled into the air, it slowly turned into a dragon.

     The fiercest dragon you would see.

     And it flew over a house, and breathed fire into it, burning it, including everything inside it.

     And the wizard, while he stood beside the princess, said to her,” Your husband and the dame, had just been turned into ashes, together with the house they were sinning in.”

    “Very well,” she said, her voice dripping with satisfaction, and then with melancholy. “Gather some flowers for me, and I’ll visit the grave of the man the butterfly kissed.”