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The king and the princess were playing a game of chase after the princess was found after a game of hide and seek.
They were at the kings favorite pond a slight distance away from the castle.
The princess wasn’t watching where she was going and slipped into the pond, and kept sinking.
The king dove in after her, but he kept losing his grip.
He couldn’t swim either.
He tried to use a spell, or his sword, but he couldn’t think. He was just trying so hard to reach the princess that his brain was clouded by a golden fog.
Even as they hit the bottom.
He tried to move, he kept screaming out for help.
But it wouldn’t stop the princess’s body from staying lifeless in his arms.
He kept wailing and crying.
As he couldn’t move.
He wanted to move but he kept crying and wailing.
He cried and cried for days as the scream that came from her throat echoed through his mind, with the golden fog reminding him that this was his fault.
It was his fault wasn’t it.
He cried and cried blood red tears. His tears slowly turned the pond and all of its water to blood.
The tears never stopped until they were rescued. Then the entire pond was nearly impossible to see through.
So much red.
So much grief.
So much blood.
The pond stayed red.
What was a calm and clear pond turned into a body of grief and despair whenever anyone put as little as a fingertip in the liquid depths.
It all ended well enough.
The princess was saved with magic the king swore never to use again.
This time it went correctly because of the water.
The blood’s properties had saved her with his magic.
But her eyes were irreparably red like his.
Which somehow made the king feel worse, knowing that he, her father, did nothing to help.
A permanent reminder that his daughter died because of him.
Yet somehow the voice in his head and his grief subsided when the princess hugged him tightly when she awoke fully.
With red Ivy vines slowly growing from the outside into the room.