Ecuador Joannan silmin - Ecuador in my eyes: queen with the frozen heart

Once upon a time there was a queen with a frozen heart. She wasn't a bad queen; in fact she was a good queen. But she had tried not to get hurt for so long time that she had forgotten how to feel.

It had been gradual, bit by bit. But at the end her heart was frozen. Only a little corner of it still remained alive and kept the blood in her body circulating. Because we all know that if that would not happen, she could not keep living and breathing.

It had been so slow that queen hadn’t even noticed what happened. Not even the people around her could exactly tell what had happened to her. She had been so full of life and love. Filled with joy till the brim.

She used to dance in the garden and sing with the birds in the meadow. She would wander in the forests and swim in the little, dark ponds whose water was fed by creeks running down from the mountains. And she would shiver from cold afterward, feeling so alive and so happy.

Especially she used to love spending time with her brave and wise husband, the king. Together they would rule the land, and together they would run off to some mischief. To return laughing to fulfill their responsibilities for the people. Because they used to love each other, their country and the people who lived there.

- Were we missed, the king would ask every time they would return from their travels.

- We always miss you, the courtiers would answer, and especially Her Highness the Queen.

And they would laugh because they knew that their people loved them. And they trusted that the love would be eternal.

The land where the queen ruled was beautiful. It was full of lush forests, imposing mountain peaks and cool, refreshing rivers. It was a rich land. With fertile soil and hard-working people.

It was a land with old bones, a spine full of mountains that reached the heavens. Not many people had traveled to the roof of those mountains but the king and the queen had. As part of becoming the rulers of the land they had travelled it through and visited the most important parts. Not important just for the people but for the land and for its other dwellers.

It was also a land firmly planted in the ocean, with its toes and ankles hidden in the sand brought in by the countless waves through countless millennia. Too many for humans to count but earth counts different from the people and it had witnessed each and every one of those waves. The small, playful ones and the huge, dangerous ones that had tried to come inland to kill and destroy. It knew the ocean, its fury and its gifts. And even though they were not friends, they were not enemies either.

It was also a land who carried countless trees of endless forests on its arms. Too many trees for humans to count, so many that they could get lost under them and never to be found. But the land knew each of these trees and had been there to see them grow up, become huge old trees, with wisdom and memories to go back ages behind. And the land was friend with all of these trees, because they were part of the land.

As the people of the land were part of the land. And the land worried for all of them. It was its responsibility. To make sure they were taken care of. And it had known the king and the queen for good rulers. And it had accepted them and given them their blessing. Together with the blessing of the heaven, and the blessing that the wind and the sea had brought.

The land knew that the High Magic had accepted the couple as the rulers of the people and the land was happy. It was happy because it was so close to the people and wanted them to be happy and have good lives. It missed the people who left for the sea, who threaded the ocean and the ones who braved the airs. Most of all it missed the people who left for their final voyage and whose bones were given to the earth, for the land to embrace them.

To be continued...

This is the first part of the story.