A Jeweled Cage

The rough grains of sand splashed against the Arabian Princess's soft feet as she stood on her balcony looking out over the shifting brown hills.  The sun shone like a fiery red ruby dying in the distance.  The wind ripped though the air, picking up the princess's thin fabric that clung about her neck.  Her eyes traced the horizon as her nose wrinkled as she smelled the distinct scent of a sand storm.  Small steps echoed from inside and a small young girl stood at the archway into the balcony as a silent reminder that her bath had been drawn.  Princess Arnela stepped into her jeweled cage with a heavy step and sigh.  She longingly looked back out over the balcony ledge with eyes that held sadness and a deepening urge to just let it all go.  She let her light fabric fall around her as she approached the small pool and put one dainty foot slightly in the warm water.  She gracefully slid into the pool and sank into it's soft smells of fine oils that her handmaidens rubbed over her silky skin.  This was the part that she would miss.  All the little luxuries of the palace.  The door to her room was flung open as her father, the sultan, thundered across her room and to where she presently was being helped into a light robe probably make of some expensive fabric.  The sultan's face was a wild shade of red as he pointed a plush finger at her.1

"You will marry him Arnela!"  Princess Arnela just laughed and walked back out into the night air.2

"That man?  He was worse then the last!  I will not marry him father!"  The sultan's face grew almost to a shade of purple as he began to shake, his chest heaving heavily and his eyes throbbing almost as if they were about to jump out of his head.3

"I am the sultan and whatever I say is done!  I say you will marry that man and you will do it happily honoring the wishes of your father, the sultan!  If not, then it is punishable by pain of death!"  Princess Arnela rolled her eyes and leaned over the edge of the balcony.4

"So it shall be written, so it shall be done."  Princess Arnela felt her feet leave the ground as she toppled over the side of the balcony.  Her expensive fabrics felt like wings around her figured body and she glided through the air on a wild ride toward the ground.  The sultan ran to the balcony and looked over in horror as he watched his beautiful daughter plunge to her death.  The sultan closed his eyes and turned away, but her never heard her hit the ground.  When the guards went looking for her body below, she was no where to be found.  No one could find the crystal body of the princess.  To this day, no one really knows what happened to her, or where her body is.  Some people debate that she disappeared in thin air, others say she turned into a bird and flew away, but there will never be any proof of her for only I know where she really is.5