By Jasmine Wang

Everyone looked up in awe as they saw the tsar walk into view. He looked as majestic as ever, as if he were actually glowing. The tsar was clearly a prideful man, and as he looked around to see all of his people, he saw one girl not paying any attention to him. Curious as to who this girl was, he began walking towards her. However, the moment she saw him walking towards her, she leaped up, in an unusually graceful manner, almost like a bird, and began running. Her running away only made the tsar more interested in her, so he summoned all his guards to follow him in this chase. With all these men, clearly overburdened by the amount of armor and other supplies they had to carry, running across some relatively uneven terrain, it sounded as if there was a bull stampede. Suddenly, the girl tripped and fell down. The tsar was so close to reaching the girl, he could almost touch her, yet, almost as suddenly as she fell, she quickly got back up and was somehow able to run even faster than before. The tsar’s hands just barely brushed through her hair. While the chase continued, the girl began to randomly slow down and speed up, almost as if she was teasing the tsar. The tsar, deciding that he would not be teased and led on like that, somehow mustered up the rest of the strength and speed that he had and caught up to the girl. The moment the girl turned around, however, she immediately began to ask for forgiveness in a sickly sweet manner. Some might even say she sounded sarcastic. Despite the tsar’s love for being begged for forgiveness, the girl’s actions made an emotion that was long hidden away by the years of being stared at by the public rise up. Perhaps it was anger because no one had treated him with such a level of disrespect before, but he thought that it was something else. He thought that it might be joy. He was happy that someone had the courage to talk in a joking manner to him. It awakened an old childhood memory of his. Although he couldn’t quite pinpoint what the memory was, he ordered his guards to bring the girl back to his castle. He decided to go without the guards as he still had some more matters to attend to. As he was walking back to the next village, however, he realized what that memory was. He ran to the nearest village and borrowed the first horse that he found. The villagers were, of course, happy to give it to him. He made the horse gallop as fast as possible all the way back to his castle where he found the girl, about to be thrown in jail. He grabbed the girl by the hand and said something. No one knows what he said, and what became of their relationship after that is also unknown. Perhaps they got married and had a majestic wedding. Perhaps they became the closest of friends, but just friends. Perhaps they never spoke again. Perhaps no one will ever know.