So, I decided to kickstart my fictionpress account with a few short stories, this being one of them. This is a story in 2 parts: a small prologue and a fairytale. Have a read and leave a review to tell me if you like it.

The Swan Lake

Once upon a time there was a quaint little village on the edge of a vast and beautiful lake. The village thrived on the lake by fishing and irrigating their crops for an excellent harvest every year. The lake – which was known famously around the country as 'the Swan Lake' – was home to a very large and very elegant population of white swans. However, on the very edge of the lake, near the town docks, there was another much smaller but just as elegant a population of black swans.

The black swans were rather frightening to the people of the town. They were unlike their beautiful white cousins, who were gentle and amiable. They were vicious. They bit, hissed and stole from the people of the village. It was agreed all over, that a black swan was a dark and evil thing.

The Girl in the Well

Once upon a time a baby girl was born without eyes. Her horrified parents tossed her into the old, deep, dark, empty well at the edge of town without thought, leaving her to die disgracefully.

As the years passed the girl grew bigger and bigger in the mud. The warmth shone into her little place only once a day and she basked in it. Every day at this precise time, for as long as she could remember, a large friend would come to her and feed her things. It gave her wriggly things, hard things, crunchy things, juicy things, not-so-juicy things and lovely, soft sweet things from the village above the well. It brought her long, soft, thin things that she could wrap around her body to keep warm when it got cold. It always came, even in the months when she could hear all of his friends fly away and not return for a very, very long time.

One day when the friend came down to feed her something else came down as well. It was hard and cold and it hurt so very much when it hit her on the leg. There was something very long attached to it and when she pulled it, it wouldn't come down. So she just ate the juicy things and the wriggly things that the friend had brought her today and wondered why it wouldn't come down. When the warmth disappeared the friend did too.

It got colder and colder as it usually did and suddenly it got warm again. The girl knew that this was strange but she supposed that the warmth had decided it was a good idea to come earlier than usual. She spent her time playing with the new object in her world; putting it on her head, throwing it and sitting in it. As she was sitting in her object it was suddenly pulled upwards and she had to hold on tightly to the long thing. It all suddenly became very clear to her. She was not meant to pull the long thing down, it was supposed to pull her up. How marvellous! When it got to the top it stopped with a thud and there was a little squeak right beside her.

"Goodness gracious, child! What have you been doing in there? Where is your family?"

The girl found a strong thing above her that she could hold on to. She felt quite pleased with herself.

"You're a terrible mess. What will your parents say?"

The girl was amazed by the lovely sounds that were being made from something. If only she could make lovely sounds like that. So she tried.

"What is this? You speak in tongues? Devil Child! Back you go into the pits of Hell!"

Something pushed her – something not-so-fluffy and soft as her friend. The hard thing fell back down into the little place where the girl lived but she clung tightly to the strong thing and tried to make more beautiful sounds. It was so, so, so warm out of the little place. Perhaps that is what the warmth had been trying to say to her all this time: "Come out of your little place, little girl."

"Go! Go! Go!"

The thing that was pushing suddenly started to hit her and she didn't like that one bit. She tried to hit back but she had to do it with her feet. She hit a big bump and an awful sound came out of the thing, which was a very disappointing thing to hear after all of the beautiful sounds the thing had been making. The thing made more awful sounds that got further and further away. The girl then found a hard, cool thing to put her feet on and when she jumped off that hard thing there was another hard thing that had a soft thing on top. It was a soft thing that she had never felt the likes of before. She lay down on it and rolled around on it and eventually fell asleep on it while it was so warm.

When she woke up it was still warm but not as warm as when she had fallen asleep. She tried to explore this new place. It was a very big place with so many new things. She was half curious and half afraid so she didn't venture far from the hard, cool thing.

Every single day was warm. Her friend came as usual to give her things to eat. Every single day was warm.