The Princess and the Poacher

[WP] You hear a rumour that there's a princess around, always surrounded by cute animals every time she sings. In this post-apocalyptic Disney wasteland, you could use a never ending source of meat...

*****

It’s taken months to find her, but Jackson had finally done it. Or at least, he’d found her home. Sometimes, when the journey got tough, he’d wondered if her existence was merely a wishful myth. A folktale spread through the years to give hope to the hopeless. But it was real.

The island was a paradise compared to the rest to the world. No, Jackson realized. It was a paradise compared to anything before or after the world ended. Jackson’s boat reached the sandy shore, and he dragged it the rest of the way. He couldn’t hear the singing yet, but he knew a princess’s home when he saw it. The woods were thick and well growing. Occasionally, he came across a bush ripe with wild blackberries. There were songbirds in the air, something the rest of the world had long lost.

Jackson walked further in and heard the gurgling of fresh water. He paused to take a drink. He could see fish swimming through the clear water. If he had a fishing pole or a net, he could’ve caught his dinner. Instead, he made do with handfuls of the berries and some water.

By the time he heard the singing, he was at the center of the island. In a wide meadow, there was a clearing. A cottage stood at the center of the clearing, and on one of the benches around the princess was singing. The animals sat around her placidly. There were birds, sure, but there was so much more. Cows and calves, sheep and goats, sitting right next to foxes and wolves. He was sick of the harmony the princess preached. Princesses spoke of love and logic, but they didn’t know the reality of the world. If those foxes were hungry, they’d eat the birds. If the wolves got desperate, the livestock animals would stand no chance.

Jackson stood at the edge of the meadow, crouched and out of sight. He loaded his gun and waited for his shot. If he only wounded the princess, enough to make her his hostage and have her sing, her paradise could become hers. He could feast daily on fresh meat and live in the sylvan beauty of the island.

He aimed for the princess’s arm, and placed his finger on the trigger. Before he could shoot, something knocked the gun out of his hands. A bull stood to his side. Bulls weren’t built for stealth, but it had somehow snuck up on him. Jackson placed his hands in the air in surrender. The princess looked over at him and smiled.

“Come here, stranger.”

Jackson walked over, the bull at his back. Occasionally, its horns dug into his skin, urging him forward, and pushed him to his knees in front of the princess.

“I would say welcome, but you are not welcome here,” the princess said. “Leave, before my friends here defend themselves.”

“You think you’re so great,” Jackson snapped. “But you’re just selfish! You’re in paradise, while the rest of us suffer and starve.”

“Yes, the world is full of saints, isn’t it? Tell me, stranger, what intention did you have when you pointed your weapon at me?” the princess asked. “Something absolutely selfless, I’m sure.”

“I’m just trying to live,” Jackson said.

“Why is living associated with killing for you lot? You were dreaming of eating my friends, of slaughtering them and using me to lure more of them here.”

Jackson stayed silent.

“That is the problem. I sometimes wonder if you’re hardwired for violence, but no, you choose it. You destroyed ecosystem after ecosystem because god forbid you live without consuming other animals.”

“Shut up,” Jackson said.

Carrion vultures flew into the clearing and landed on the princess’s cottage.

“I’m giving you two options,” the princess said. “Stay here and live life by our terms or leave and never come back.”

“And you kill me if I don’t listen,” Jackson said.

“Something like that,” the princess admitted.

“Why? Why do you choose these animals over your fellow people?”

“Why do you choose murder over peace, stranger?”

Jackson was escorted further along, where the forest gave away to open fields and a village. The houses were surrounded by vegetable gardens, and on the edge of the forest there were fields of oat and wheat. There were children playing around the village with pets. Jackson didn’t remember the last time he saw healthy children.

A man walked over with a packed bundle. “What choice have you made, stranger?”

“I’m gonna stay,” Jackson said.

“Good choice. There’s an empty cottage that will suit you well.”

He stayed without issue for a few months, but one day he found a peafowl a few hundred yards away from the village. The animals were so trusting it was easy. The bird was roasting on a spit within an hour, and Jackson sat alone, enjoying it. They came as the last of the embers of his fire were dying.

“I knew you weren’t capable of it,” the princess said, as he buried the bird’s bones.

“Why can’t you just let people do what they want?” Jackson asked.

“Letting people do what they want is what got us here,” the princess said. “And I won’t have people like you messing up my Happily Ever After. Not again."

Of Jackson, nothing was ever heard again.

*****

The End