The Little Butterfly Hair Comb

A little princess was playing by an old pool. She wore an emerald green frock, covered by a mossy brown apron, and there were butterflies embroidered on her little silk slippers. At the top of the hill, her nursemaid was asleep under an old oak tree, her bonnet rising and falling as she slumbered, a pile of discarded knitting balanced, half-finished, upon her lap.

"I am the princess of the butterflies," Nyniue told a passing frog, as she leaped from stone to stone around the rim of the old pond. She was practicing dancing for her eighth birthday party next week, where she would wear a gown of pale lavender and her thin silver crown.

She stopped to peer into the murky water at her refection, frowning at her freckles. The glint of her little butterfly pin caught her eye, shimmering there in the pool, it's ruddy refection distorted by the movement of the water. She touched where it rested at the crown of her head, then playfully splashed her refection.

As she straightened to resume her dancing, her heel caught on the hem of her long skirts. For a moment she teetered, caught somewhere between the pond and the sky--then SPLASH, headlong into the pool.

When the nurse woke, languidly stretching from her afternoon nap, all she found at the edge of the pool was the little butterfly pin and a mud-laden silk slipper, balanced half in and half out of the water.

These small fable stories were written by me, inspired by pieces I curated from a vintage online shop I used to run. You can read more here.