A/N: Another extremely short story I wrote based off the quote. Originally published on tastyword, where my friend and I send each other prompts to write off of.

Gold

"And though the cage be made of gold..."

The Queen was a figure of perfection. She was beautiful. Her ivory skin sparkled in the moonlight. Her jet black hair tumbled down her back as she gazed out the window incredulously at the moonlight.

As the peasants looked in on her castle, they saw the beauty. The solid gold trims on the floorboards. The heavy velvet curtains. The Queen's intricate gowns and expensive jewels.

"Such a lucky woman." The peasant women would say as they walked to the stream to wash their plain frocks.

The Queen watched them from her high tower window.

"Such lucky women." She would say as she turned back to the thousand meaningless affairs she had to attend to.

When she looked inward to her life, all she saw was misery. A husband she was forced to marry. Children who did not know her. A life where every moment was planned and escorted. She longed to be free. She longed to get away.

One night she did.

Her favorite emerald green gown was laid out on her bed with the jewels she always wore spread out around it. She stole a simple black dress from the maid's quarters. A thin black cloak was all that shielded her from the December cold. She crept down to the stables in the dead of night. The stable boy was asleep. The Queen swiftly saddled her house, a fiery tempered black mare.

At one o'clock in the morning the Queen galloped away from the castle, vanishing into the forests before anyone knew she was gone.

The King spent the rest of his life looking for her. Thousands of soldiers combed every inch of the surrounding lands.

But she was never seen again.

Except for the peasant women, who would often see her, smiling from the trees. But when they stepped closer to speak she would vanish, never to be caught.