The beautiful princess went back to her royal family, hoping one day to find her true prince, bidding the toad a warm farewell.

The toad, who would be forever grateful that such a beautiful princess had believed in him for a while, and had shared with him for a time a love such as he had never known before and dreams that no toad in all of time had ever dared aspire to, once again resigned himself to the fact that he was only a common toad, and could never be the prince he wished he could become. He had always known that no matter how fervently you desire it, some wishes never come true. He sadly gathered up his broken dreams and foolish hopes, and once again packed them up in the place they had come from. He sealed that place with a special incantation that a kindly wizard had once taught him. The wizard had warned him though that once the words of the spell had been canted and the spell cast it could never be broken; whatever had been placed behind the incantation would remain there for all eternity. The toad wished fervently that the wizard had spoken truthfully as he croaked out the last word of that spell.

As the toad turned to leave a single tear fell from his eye; a tear for the love he felt still deep in his soul for the princess. Where the tear hit the ground a wondrous flower, the likes of which had never been seen anywhere before, instantly sprang up and bloomed. The toad looked at the flower in awe, and silently wished it would be seen by all that passed through this part of the realm.
It was a testament to the beauty that love could bring forth.

As the toad made his way toward the darkness of the forest, he occasionally glanced back the way he had come. Although he knew it was stupid to do so and could never come to pass, he found himself wishing he could somehow overcome his toadiness and spend the rest of his days with the princess, basking in the warmth of real love and honest caring. For the first time in a long time he found himself honestly laughing at himself. Imagine what all the other toads of the world would think... a common toad with delusions of grandeur? Better for him to come to terms with his reality quickly, he thought, and live a toad's life in a toad's world.

Having finally resigned himself to his personal fate, he sadly made his way into the depths of the Forgotten Forest until he found a place of solitude to pass the rest of his days in.