The entirety of the crowd stood in shock, staring at the place where Witch Hazel and her husband had just stood. The first to regain her wits was the good fairy Vyzene who had not yet bestowed a gift.
"Though I cannot undo this spell," she cried, "I can work around it to provide a means of ending it."
"Would you, please?" the King pleaded.
"Certainly, but I must have silence so I can think and word this carefully," Vyzene replied. She walked up to the cradles of Codine and Morfine, and laying her hands on Codine's head first she said, "When a forgotten maid you see/Remember her and then there'll be/ No more cause for her wrath on thee." Then turning to her dear Princess Morfine she put her hands on her and said, "More beautiful and far more fair/ Shall be your face and golden hair/ and when a prince of true love sees/ He'll not sleep til you are freed."
"How shall we know when our prince sees a forgotten maid or our princess sees true love?" Queen Allegra cried.
"I cannot tell you," Vyzene answered. "Nor can they nor will they. In fact, when it happens they shan't even know it. You all shall forget these words of rhyme so that the events may come unlooked for. Otherwise, you meddling and bumbling humans will surely try to interfere, and goodness knows that makes things worse!"
King Adville and Queen Allegra were all in a huff. Meddling and bumbling indeed! They were determined they should not forget the words, but then with a glitter and a puff of blue smoke the fairy disappeared and they found they could not remember quite what she said. This frustrated the two of them greatly, and if they had known it, they would have been quite vexed to know that Vyzene was still in the room. She was as small as a penny and was whispering words of instruction in the ears of the accursed royal children.
She told them that when they turned 16 they would receive a key that would open a box and in that box would be help of some fashion inside. They children never forgot this information and this is what helped them wait out the next 15 years.
--- --- ---
At first, the King and Queen were quite vexed about not being able to hold their own children. Indeed, no one could! Everyone who drew near began to get tired, then drowsy, and if they proceeded to touch them, they would fall asleep on the spot and sleep for four hours straight. This was quite the predicament, because taking care of them was almost impossible. But then one day, a young shoe shine named Beneidryll, who was proclaimed to also have a drowsying effect on people, was able to touch them. Infact, when he did, he grew positively giddy. The King and Queen hired him right away to take care of Codine and Morfine, and this allowed them to not be so anxious about things.
As Prince Codine and Princess Morfine grew, they were told of the dreaded curse put on them by Aunt Witch Hazel, and lamented never being able to see their parents up close or give them a hug. However, as the children grew older, so did the King and Queen. With age comes inability to sleep, and King Adville soon figured out that giving his daughter a hug good-night would set him sleeping soundly til the sun rose. When Queen Allegra found this out, she would draw near them whenever she needed a nap to relieve a head ache.
At first the prince and princess were glad they could be of service to their parents and that they could actually see them up close, but soon enough they began to feel used and longed dearly for the day they could hug their parents with out them falling asleep in their arms.
The years wore on and they remembered the words of Fairy Vyzene and held to the hope of their cure. In the meantime, they were young, they were bored, and they looked for ways to interact with people besides the ever giddy and obnoxious Beneidryll, with out putting them to sleep. They loved each other dearly, and were quite close. But even so, one gets bored with only one other ever and all the time. In vain they tried to think of ways to accomplish this, but nothing came to mind until the tutor shouted from across the large ballroom (for she dared draw no closer) "Have you ever thought of a pen pal?"
... to be continued...
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