The Princess Awakening By Bea Augustine The stories about the mystery were all over.

The gatekeepers were humble and respectful and, one by one, or two by two, the young magicians left the tower or entered, all day long, without uttering a word. All of them wanted to know why the little princess was still asleep, what was that venomous influence that was exerted upon her. They knew she used to talk in the rare moments when she was awake and, yet, they could understand only a few words and even the old magicians could hardly devise a magic to wake her up. The forests near the tower were silent and no one dared to go there after dusk, like some of the older ones used to do before, to watch for evil creatures and traces of evil spirits. The metropolis was away, the town was calm enough, and the peasants were minding their own business and all just waited to expel the evils and to learn from the princess what had happened after her unexpected and troublesome arrival. She was only 13 and was bound to be the ruler of the land one day, all the magicians - young and aged, respected her future power and were content to share their knowledge with her and were supportive of the court. In the past, there had been magicians who were only seeking power, however, these were soon excluded by the society and had to leave and head off to far-away lands, losing all the reverence they had appreciated before. Rules were respected and el declogo para vivir y actuar was quite simple: the princess had the utmost power and was supported by the magicians` society in all her battles or politics towards other lands. Now that she was asleep, for more than 10 days, the magicians kept on chanting their sacred verses to extract their sense and make the princess wake up and to reassure the kingdom that all evil would be defeated without compromise or delay. The inhabitants of the land were calm; the peasants were doing their chores and contributing their lot, the evils had been seen expelled and no one wanted more misunderstanding. The magicians could oversee everything, there were proper keepers everywhere and life was almost as calm as usual. Revelations were not expected any more, after the princess uttered her first word, in her sleep, and all of them understood the evils had intended to ruin their peace and to destroy the stability of their land. When the most respected of the magicians had tried to talk to the princess, she had only whispered: Gold. They asked her for details and she only smiled half-awake; then, they walked around minding their rituals and later, after capturing an ugly evil creature, they could understand that the evils wanted to expropriate the treasury and take away all their gold supplies. The lockboxes, however, were safe and, still, the magicians were not gold bugs, so they were into devising a new form of ensuring that the resources of their land were properly safeguarded and enriched. They needed, of course, to reconcile with each other on the prospects that each one had and on the rebates they were to offer in order to make sure all the future evils would simply be kept away from the beautiful lands they lived in. Of course, they had to manage the bean counters or simply let them go, however, this was not so urgent, they could simply have a short delay. Still, they were on an inflection point in their projections and the time had come to take a decision; they kept it secret, only a few of them knew the details that were yet to be shared among them all. The future was totally different than what everyone had anticipated or cherished for, although they were all safe. Now, magicians would simply teach the youngster to never tolerate any form of evil or any evil creature, no matter how insignificant or immature it seemed. The projections for the future were all based upon the wide-spread consciousness and awareness that the evils would endanger the stability and the affluence of their lands. The cautious ones had proved to be prudent and rightful enough; the youngsters would never allow evil games and new threats.