Week Five Storytelling: The Malady Loneliness

Ece supposed there were benefits to being forcibly kept in the castle.

She just couldn’t think of any.

Ever since she was kidnapped at five on an outing, the Sultan had kept her trapped within the palace grounds.

By the time she was ten, she had learned every guard’s names, histories, and family structure.

By the time she was fifteen, she had read every book in her father’s library.

Even when entertainers visited, Ece couldn’t help but want to leave with them.

Five more years passed with nothing filling the emptiness in Ece’s heart.

After a disappointing twenty-seventh retelling of the time Mustafa rescued a goat from a well, Ece retired to her room, glancing up at the ceiling.

“Is this all there is?”

“Not quite.”

Ece startled, searching for the source of the voice. In the entryway stood a man. His eyes were a deep brown like hers, but his glowed.

“Who…what are you?” Ece asked, more curiosity filling her voice than fear.

“Call me Rafe.” He glanced around the room. “I’ve been sent to torture you with head pains, I’m afraid, until my summoner rushes in with a cure.”

Ece laughed. “How unfortunate for me. Well, it will be something to do.” She leaned back against the archway again.

“Are you that deprived of entertainment?” Rafe padded over quietly, layers of soft silks billowing behind him.

“We are a small country. I’ve heard every story and seen every traveling act at least thrice.”

“You have never heard stories like mine,” Rafe challenged, the deep golden flecks in his eyes filled with mischief.

“Really?” Ece sat up straighter. “I implore you then. Tell me a good one, Rafe.”

He smiled at the straightforward way she said his name.

“I will tell you the tale of an enchanted oasis, and how I managed to charm it at last.”

Ece looked delighted.

“But first you must do something for me.”

“Anything.” Ece’s blind faith surprised Rafe.

“Close your eyes.”

She shut her eyes obediently.

Rafe gently placed his long fingers over them, barely touching her skin.

“It was three years ago, during a sandstorm so bad, that even my fellow travelers had advised we turn around.”

And suddenly, Ece could feel it, the buffeting winds, the sharp sting of sand whipping against her. She could smell the mustiness of the desert kicking up around her.

As Rafe’s low voice whispered in her ear, she lived it.

And suddenly, leaving the palace didn’t seem so urgent.

*

Rafe’s stories were magic. In a matter of moments, Ece could be thousands of miles away in a land she had only read about.

Ece stopped leaving her room. Servants came to bring her food and would stare at their mistress as she sat with her eyes closed, shivering in an unseen blizzard or laughing at an unheard joke.

Ece would only laugh harder as Rafe would pause in his story to merrily waltz around Ece’s unaware visitors.

This went on for forty nights before the Sultan finally decided to visit his daughter.

“What plagues you, Ece? You have not left your room in weeks.” His thick brows drew together.

“Nothing, Father. I am happier than I have ever been.” Ece smiled, ignoring the Sultan’s confusion.

“I was sent here to torture you, remember?” Rafe whispered in her ear mischievously, and Ece laughed.

“Daughter, what is funny?”

“I’m not sure you could ever hurt me, Rafe,” Ece replied to the unseen trickster. “You care too much.”

“Who is Rafe?” the Sultan demanded, glancing about her room.

“What if it is all a trick?” Rafe’s voice was icier than Ece had ever heard it.

“Then it is the loveliest trick,” she murmured dreamily. “Go away, Father. Rafe, tell me about the ocean again.”

Rafe laughed jovially, running his fingers over an unkempt portion of Ece’s hair.

The king watched in horror as his daughter laughed and cried, sniffing at nothing in the air. He hurried from her room at once, determined to find someone to heal her.

*

“You have done well for me, my servant!”

Ece was too caught up in Rafe’s current tale to care what this sorry fool wanted, until the vision abruptly faded from her mind.

“Rafe,” she whined.

He stood in front of her, blocking Ece from the man’s view.

“I am no man’s servant. You will leave at once and never return.” Rafe’s eyes glowed with the weight of his command.

“We had a deal,” his summoner insisted

“You had a request,” Rafe clarified, looking bored with the whole situation.

“Give me the girl or –”

Rafe waved his hand, and the man simply vanished. Rafe’s eyes glowed sadly as he glanced at Ece.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

“Of course,” she replied, grinning playfully.

And then Rafe disappeared too.

*

Ece was inconsolable. She screamed at her father, demanding her release from house arrest. She longed to search the cities Rafe had shown her until she found him.

Ece refused to eat, hoping her father would eventually give in to her demands.

“Ece…” The Sultan cautiously approached his daughter.

“Leave me.”

“I have brought someone to heal you.”

Ece whirled around to glare at her father. “For the thousandth time, I’m not–” her words caught in her throat.

“My princess,” Rafe bowed cordially, “I am Rafael Altan the Third, and I am here to make you well again. Your majesty, I know what your daughter needs.”

“What? I shall give you all the treasures in the world in exchange.”

“It’s a rare ingredient in my homeland, but it must be consumed fresh. The only way she’ll live is if she returns with me.”

Pain filled the Sultan’s face.

“I will allow no harm to come to her. She will travel in disguise amidst my guards. But I am afraid we must leave at once.” Rafe glanced at Ece, his eyes glowing mischievously for only a second.

“Go.”

With that one word, Ece was free.

Author's Note: This story (and the time it took to write it) ran away from me, just like last week's. In the original tale, a man's nasty wife falls in a well. In order to get her out, he lowers a rope down, but he pulls out an imp by mistake. The imp promises that in exchange for saving him from the woman in the well, he will possess the Sultan's daughter and jump out of her only when the man demands it. This goes according to plan, and the man weds the Sultan's daughter in exchange for saving her life.
In my story, I wanted to play on the imp meeting the Sultan's daughter. Instead of the imp torturing the princess, I wanted them to be friends so I had him rescue her from her boredom in a way. Rafe's summoner wanted to win Ece's hand by curing her of a malady he had given her. He never had any power over Rafe who simply liked the idea of bothering the princess.
As always, I tried to pick fitting names. According to random corners of the Internet, Ece is a Turkish name for Queen, and "Rafe" sounds like a trickster's name.

Bibliography: "The Imp of the Well" from "Turkish Fairy Tales" by Ignacz Kunos.

Image Information: "Oasis" by Gero73.