It was a most unusual curse that befell the princess on a frosty November morning. Her parents had warned her not to venture into the woods beyond the castle walls, but that never stopped her before. She donned her furs and crept out in the predawn light, in search of the forest clearing that had become her own kingdom, where she dictated the fates of caterpillars and foxgloves alike and no suitors dared cross the threshold lest they meet their doom at the hands of her sparrow-knights.
The sun was already cresting the trees by the time she found it, the clearing with the stone in the center. But as she ran her fingers over the boulder that had become her throne, she found the runes that defaced its surface.
The pain seared her hand and radiated across her body. The princess opened her mouth to scream, but crumpled to the ground before she could make a sound.
When she awoke, she discovered the stone had grown many times its size, towering to the sky; she could not see the forest beyond it. A rustling startled her to her feet. A falcon the size of a cottage stood before her and cocked its head before snatching her up in its talons and soaring toward the tiny chirping noises in the trees high above the clearing.