Work Text:
There was once a princess who became a rose each month.
It was the result of a curse laid on her in her cradle, when her mother, the queen, had held out a rose to her. The rose had a thorn on it, and that had pricked her finger, and that was the beginning of it all. Not that they knew, not then. It was only when she grew old enough for her monthly blood to flow, that the transformation became apparent.
Each month, when the first drop of blood gathered itself from her womb, and began the slow slide out of her body, her limbs became narrow, as though the skin were shrinking into the bone. Her skin flushed green. Her hair span out from her face, and her lips grew shut, and then, from one moment to another, a rose lay on the floor where she had stood.
The palace courtiers laid her carefully down, in a ceremonial rose bowl that the King had ordered to be made for the purpose, and kept her dipped in water for the seven days the rose spell lasted. And then, as quick as it had happened, she would be standing awkwardly within the bowl, naked and shivering.
The princess asked the King and Queen to summon all the wise people of the kingdom, to see if they could find a cure. And so they put out a proclamation, asking anyone of wisdom, science, learning or insight, to come to the palace and to do their best for the princess. And so they came, one after another, with spells and potions, wise advice and infallible nostrums.
The princess swam in the moat daily, and no cure was seen. She ate rare flowers, and no cure was seen. She conversed with learned people, and no cure was seen. She gazed at the moon, she ran 5 miles beneath the stars, she abstained from eating, she did good deeds for the poor, she wrote long lists of all her talents, and still no cure was seen.
The King and Queen were empty with grief. The princess was more tired, her skin paler and her eyes more wary, each month that it passed.
And that was when the travelling magician came.
He told the princess that it was a hard case, a bad case, one of the most serious cases he had seen. It could become worse very quickly, he said. It was lucky that he had arrived...