Once upon a time...in the lands to the east...lived the Ice Princess!
She was heir to the wind and the snow and was thought to be the most Beautiful Girl in her empire until...she lost her face! Her piercing silver eyes, her graceful arching brow, her delicate scarlet lips...all gone with the rise of the morning moon. "But where could it be?!" she shrieked, "A girl without a face is a monster!"
"The King of Crickets has it!" answered a voice that floated on the frozen air. But as the Ice Princess glanced about, there was no other mouth around. She was completely alone...
"Why have you come before me?" chirped the King of the Crickets. And the Ice Princess thought, "I want my face back, and a little voice told me you took it!" But with no mouth to speak, and no voice to sound, she couldn't say that at all.
She moved her arms and waved her hands and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know what you mean!" said the King. The Ice Princess felt like crying, but with no eyes she couldn't.
Upset, the Ice Princess began to walk away. "You know," called the King of Crickets, "This would all be much easier if you had a face. Perhaps I could give you one of mine." The Ice Princess stopped still. Her frozen heart raced. She turned back to his Highness and thought of a smile.
The King of the Crickets checked his vast bounty. And there inside he saw the most beautiful face of all. "It's the face befitting a Princess!" he said as he placed it on the icy young girl's head.
And as her face sparkled and came alive once more, tears melted from her eyes and she exclaimed, "That's because I am a Princess, you boneheaded bug!"
The Ice Princess was happy at last. She called eveyone she knew around her and they celebrated the one thing that mattered more than having a pretty face.
Having friends who are more like a family.
--Marrow