Mom always told me to stay away from the forests towards the West at all costs. She said there’s a Prince there that takes young girl’s hearts and eats them. She told me of his stone castle hidden within the thick wood and the heavy underbrush where its a thick roof to a fantastic world of his dreamlike unknown. I remember when there was full, lite up moon she told me to watch out for wolf’s howls that could hypnotize you and into the Prince’s arms.

? I always wondered how the old women came back from the forest of the West though. They’d go in at the brim of dawn, come home by the edge of dusk laughing together with a basket full of flowers and herbs. Is it because the Prince doesn’t want an old heart? I don’t know, Mom never told me that part.
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?? ? ? ? All she said was to listen to the old tales of the past and never forget that the Prince will come one day, with lightning kissed eyes and jet black hair with jewels sewn in the threads. He’ll come with the sweetest smile on his face and laughter rolling off your spine with his. “Don’t listen to his rich molasses words, my darling, because he’ll eat your heart. Don’t listen to him, just look for his serpent tattoo on his right hand, or black diamond on his index finger. You’ll know he’s the Prince if he has those,” Mom said to me before she passed last spring.
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?? ? ? ? ? Today is the seventeenth spring of my lifetime, and the Prince has come…