Princess Naia's Diamond Slippers

In the desert kingdom of Sharum lived a young princess named Naia. Na lived a comfortable life in her palace and had plenty of toys. She often attended grand banquets in the great hall where she got to try exciting new foods and meet visiting dignitaries in all their finery. She liked to dress up in her fancy dresses for these special parties and her father the king made sure she never had to wear the same dress twice. The guests often told her father how beautiful Naia looked as she swirled around the parties wearing pretty new colors.

Naia grew up happy. She played with other princesses and went to the circus and festivals whenever they were in town. There was nothing she wanted that her father wouldn't immediately give her.

As she grew older, Naia's nanny sometimes took her on trips around the city so she could visit shops and get new dresses. The city was a prosperous place and the marketplace was always bustling with interesting vendors and filled with exciting things. Sometimes on these trips Naia would see beggars or poor people, but they were quickly bundled off by the special police. Seeing poor children bothered Naia but she quickly forgot about them when the sparkling toys of the different shops caught her eye.

On her fourteenth birthday, Naia opened a present from her father and was delighted to find a beautiful set of diamond slippers. They sparkled and glistened and were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. She gave her a father a big hug and ran off to try them on and walk around the palace.

They fit her perfectly and were very beautiful. She felt like she was wearing stars on her feet. But, something wasn't quite right with one of them. Something was inside the slipper. She took it off and found a small piece of paper. She carefully unfolded it and discovered it was a letter.

The letter was written in clumsy child's handwriting, like someone who didn't have much practice. It said that the person who made the slippers was a young girl who was being held prisoner in a far off land. She was forced to make slippers all night and all day. She didn't have enough to eat and had to sleep on the cold floor each night. It was a very sad story and Naia started to cry.

She ran to her father to ask him to help her free the girl, but it was no use. Her father said that the slippers had been made in a land far beyond his own kingdom and there was nothing he could do. Naia persisted but the only thing he would do was to tell her the name of the merchant who had sold him the slippers.

Naia put on a simple robe and went to the marketplace to find this merchant. She soon found his store, which was clean and filled with beautiful things. The shopkeeper greeted her with a gracious smile, thinking this young girl was looking for a pretty trinklet. But his eyes turned cold when she asked him where he had bought the slippers. She tried and tried to get him to answer her questions, but he became angry and took a broom and roughly pushed her out of the store.

There are a couple things that you shouldn't do in the kingdom of Sharum. One of them is to use a broom to hit the king's daughter.

In no time at all, the shopkeeper was hanging by his ankles in the king's dungeon. When the princess came down into the dungeon to ask him again about the slippers, he was very friendly and sweet to her.

He explained that he had bought the slippers from a travelling merchant, a man who came to town every couple months with beautiful things at very low prices. It just so happened that the merchant was in town that very day and could found at a tavern on the waterfront.

Naia once again slipped on her simple robe and went down to the tavern. After what happened last time, her two bodyguards insisted on coming. Shin and Seth were two giant men who were completely dedicated to protecting Naia. They didn't talk much but were very tough. For fun they would sometimes wrestle with bears. They used to wrestle with ogres, but the ogres got tired of losing.

Naia didn't want the people in the tavern to be frightened by Shin or Seth, so she told them to wait outside when she stepped inside. Neither Shin or Seth were happy about this, so they peeked inside through a crack in the dirty window.

Naia found the travelling merchant sitting in a dark corner sipping a drink. Seeing her innocent face, he smiled crookedly, showing how few teeth he still had left.

Naia tried to be careful when she asked where the diamond slippers came from, but the merchant became angry when she asked. He became so angry that he threw his drink on her and raised his hand to hit her.

There are a couple things that are generally unhealthy in the kingdom of Sharum. One of them is to throw a drink on a princess and then try to hit her. The door of the tavern exploded into splinters as Seth and Shin burst into the room and threw themsevles onto the shocked merchant.

In no time at all, the merchant was hanging upside down in the king's dungeon. He too was very sweet to Naia when she came to ask her questions.

The merchant had bought the slippers from a tradesman in a poor village across the ocean. It was a dangerous trip and he only made the journey because he could buy things so cheaply there.

Naia wanted to go to this village, but Naia's father would not let her go, even if Seth and Shin went with her. Naia didn't listen though and that night she slipped out of the palace and sneaked onto a boat headed across the sea.

In the morning, the sailors discovered her hidden among the cargo and brought her before the captain. He considered locking her in the hold with the rats but instead he gave her a job helping the ship's cook, a kind man who made sure she didn't get into trouble.

After three weeks at sea, and numerous adventures involving storms, pirates and sea monsters, the boat sailed into a safe harbor with a small village. Naia used her last coins to buy passage on a camel caravan to the village where the slippers were made.

The trip took five days across a hot desert filled with thieves and wild animals. She finally arrived in the village and managed to find the tradesman's shop.

Naia had learned from her previous experiences, so she didn't walk into the tradesman's office and start asking questions about the slippers. Instead, she slipped around the back of the building and discovered his workshop.

There she saw one of the saddest things she had ever seen in her life. There were rows and rows of young children making different kinds of slippers. They wore heavy iron chains and were dirty and very thin. They looked up at her with surprise but kept working. Naia quickly learned that they were savagedly beaten if they stopped working for even a moment.

Naia went to the young girl who was working on diamond slippers and learned that she was indeed the one who had written the note in Naia's slippers.

The girl had grown up in this slavery just like the other children. Their boss never gave them money and only gave them the small portions of food even though he forced them to work all day and late into the night.

People in the village and even in the capital knew that there were shops like this, but these shops brought in money from other countries and there were no other jobs. People were poor and there was no way to feed these children if they didn't work.

Suddenly, something blocked out the sun. It was the tradesman, an ugly man with an evil sneer.

He roughly grabbed Naia and chained her to a table like the other children. He told her to make shoes if she ever wanted to eat again and so she had no choice but to start work.

For two weeks, she worked night and day at making shoes. She knew that they would be sold on the streets of her own home and that people she knew might even buy them. She thought she might be able to slip a note into one of the slippers, but the tradesman was careful now, and punished her the couple times she tried.

One morning a loud sound came from the tradesman's office and the children looked up to see him flying through the air. He crashed into a wooden fence.

Shin and Seth appeared in the office door and came over to the workshop. They began to free the children from their chains and soon the children were smiling and jumping around happily. Then the king entered the workshop and Naia rushed up and gave him a giant hug.

"Oh father, I'm so happy to see you" she said, tears of joy running down her face. "Now Naia, did you think I wouldn't come looking for you when you ran away?" He smiled warmly. "It took some time, but here we are."

"But what will happen to my friends?" Naia knew their families were very poor and couldn't afford enough food.

"I'm going to give money to this village to make sure children have enough food and to start schools so they can have an education. We're also going to make sure that all the merchants in our kingdom buy from honest shops. I'm also going to have my royal inspectors travel to different lands and make sure that no children are kept as slaves to make our clothes."

Naia gave a big hug and they left the workshop. Over the following days and weeks they worked with the local people to ensure the village people didn't need to send their children back to work in the workshop. And as Naia and her father crossed the ocean to return to their kingdom, the streets were once again filled with happy children playing, and the workshop's chains were empty and gathered dust.