Frozen Beauty

Long ago the golden Queen of Summer and the Silver Queen of Winter had a dispute over who was most beautiful and to settle the dispute they went to the Kingdom of Old King Izembek and asked him to choose which between them was most beautiful and the king, thinking about it for some time, finally said,
"The silver queen of Winter sparkles like diamonds and the queen of Summer shimmers like gold and so, in outer beauty, they are truly the equal of each other but the Queen of winter has a heart of ice while the Queen of Summer has a heart that is as warm as the sun and as passionate as fire so, in a contest of inner beauty, the queen of Summer must surely be the winner".
And hearing this the Queen of summer smiled a golden smile like a beam of sun, embraced the king warmly and placed a golden kiss upon his cheek but the Queen of winter, angered by what the King had said cursed the Kings own daughter, Crissella, turning her into a statue of ice.
"And a princess of ice she will ever remain", said the Queen of Winter, "So that whenever you look upon her you will remember the insult you made to me and your heart will ache with regret".
Then saying this she turned herself into a whistling winter wind; blowing out of a palace window and back to her land of Ice and snow.
And seeing his daughter turned to ice, the King broke down into tears,
"What have I done?", he said, "Now I shall never see my daughter alive again; never see the warmth of her smile; never hear her happy laughter like a songbird".
 But the Queen of Summer, feeling sorry for the king, consoled him.
"Do not fear", she said, "I will give you three gifts that will help you defeat the Queen of winter and restore your daughter".
And, extending her arm, five beams of sunlight shone from her splayed fingers and the sunlight became a white unicorn with a horn of gold and, beside it, a sword and shield of gold.
"Behold", she said, "A Unicorn as swift as a sunbeam; a sword of solar power and a shield of impenetrable gold".
"But where would I find a man brave enough to face the Queen of winter?", asked the King.
"The unicorn will know its master; the sword and shield their owner", said the Queen of Summer, "Invite your bravest men to try them and you will see".
Then, saying this, the Queen of Summer became a beam of sun and, shining through a palace window, returned to her land of golden light.
But then the King invited the bravest men in his kingdom to try and ride upon the unicorn and to wield the sword and shield but all who tried to mount the unicorn fell through it as if it were merely sunlight and none could pick up the sword or shield for when they tried, like a daydream, they only slipped through each mans fingers.
Unfortunately, so many tried and failed that the King began to despair that they would never find a champion and courtiers in the palace took to walking right though the Unicorn .
But then one day a serving boy who was carrying a tray with wine filled goblets upon it to give to the king tried to walk through the Unicorn but instead bumped into it and fell backwards, spilling the tray and the goblets with a loud clatter.
At first he thought that the king would be angry with him but the King only smiled and asked him to get upon the Unicorn and then, to the kings amazement, he saw the boy climb upon its back.
"What is your name?", he asked the boy.
"Daylan", he replied.
"Not anymore", said the King, "From now on you will be called Sir Daylan".
Now Sir Daylan, riding upon the unicorn as swift as a sunbeam and holding the golden sword and shield, travelled in the twinkling of an eye to the Queen of Winters land of Ice and Snow.
But then no sooner had he arrived in her land when, suddenly, the wind rose, turning into a blizzard and, instead of snowflakes, it blew around needles of razorsharp ice that scratched and cut Sir Daylon all over and may have blinded him had his golden shield not become an orb of sunlight that, surrounding him, protected him from the icestorm.
Then, with his golden shield raised, Sir Daylan rode onwards until he found a cave to shelter from the storm.
Unfortunately, within the cave was a giant yeti that was fast asleep and when the Queen of Winter, just by closing her eyes and thinking, awoke it, it picked up a club of ice and began chasing Sir Daylan around the cave trying to smash him with it.
But then, looking above the Yetis head, the boy saw a long sharp icicle and, when he reached out his sword towards it, the swordblade stretched out like a beam of sun, melting through the icicle so that it fell, piercing the yeti through its hairy heart.
And then, dismounting his horse and going further into the cave, Daylan realised that it lead to a corridor of ice that became a slide and sliding down, along the corridor that spiralled round and round he came out again in the palace of the winter queen.
But then he saw, infront of him, a giant web of ice like a snowflake and, squatting upon it, an enormous, glistening spider made of living ice that began crawling  upon its eight, giant limbs towards him.
Moving sideways, he tried to walk around it but, as he did, the Ice Spider shot out white threads of snow that bound Sir Daylon tightly and the thread, freezing, became as hard to break as a block of ice.
But then, as the Spider came slowly closer to him he dropped his shield upon the web and out of the shield grew eight sunbeams, like golden spider legs and the sunspider, leaping upon the spider of ice wrestled with it before, binding it up in a web of shoots and branches, it squeezed tightly upon the ice spider, shattering it like crystal.
Then, with just a touch from one of its golden legs, the sunspider melted away the cocoon of ice that bound Sir Daylan and, its legs shrinking back into it so that it became a golden shield again, the boy picked up it and the golden sword and continued to cross the snowflake web.
And, on the other side, he saw a giant heart shaped lantern made of red crystal with a flame inside and infront of it a knight in armour of ice.
"What is that?", he asked the knight.
"Its the lantern of the heart", said the knight, "Within it is the fire that used to burn within the Ice Queens breast before she gave up that flame for power".
"Then I must free the fire within it", said Sir Daylan, raising up his sword and moving towards the lantern.
As he did, however, the ice armoured knight drew a sword of ice and when he did, the ground below Sir Daylans feet became too slippery to walk upon so that when the boy stepped forwards he only slipped and fell upon his back.
Twice Sir Daylan struggled to get back onto his feet and twice he slipped and fell down again and when the Ice Knight saw that Sir Daylan was helpless, he launched himself upon him, swinging at him with his ice sword.
Fortunately, Sir Daylan still had his magical golden shield and, when he raised it to protect himself from the ice sword, the sword shattered against it.
But then the Ice knight raised up his right arm and another ice sword grew from it.
Sir Daylan knew that, to fight the ice knight, he must get up onto his feet and so, raising his sword, he dug its blade into the ice and then, leaning upon it, he stood up.
But then the Ice knight began to charge towards him and so, quickly laying his shield on the ground, he slid the shield towards him like a curling stone knocking the Ice Knight off of his feet and when the Ice Knight fell onto his back, raising his golden sword, Sir Daylon plunged its blade through the ice knights breastplate and when he did this the knight started to melt completely away becoming just a puddle of water.
Finally, looking back up at the glowing lantern of the heart again, he raised his sword to shatter it.
But then, as he was about to bring down his sword upon it, he felt a gust of cold wind blow past him and, suddenly, standing infront of him was the queen of Winter herself.
"You have come a long way now", she said, "But you will go no further".
"I'm not afraid of you", said Sir Daylon, "I have the power of the Queen of the Sun".
"The Sun?", replied the Winter Queen, laughing, "There is no greater power than that of Darkness for the power of Darkness is the power of death".
Then the Winter Queens own shadow becoming ginormous, it turned into a jet black giant that seized hold of Sir Daylan in one of its massive hands and lifted him above its head.
Then opening a mouth full of giant, long icicle like teeth, the shadow giant prepared to eat the boy.
But then, noticing how close he was to the ceiling of the Winter Queens palace, the boy raised up his golden blade and drove it through the ceiling and, when he did, he let in the sun and with it the power of the Sun Queen that, touching the Winter Queens icy heart made it shatter.
Then the giant of shadow faded and the Queen of Winter, just like any ordinary snow, melted away and where she had stood, instead stood the Queen of Summer.
"Take this", she said, picking up the lantern of the heart and handing it to Sir Daylan, "And touch Princess Crissella with its flame. Once the fire touches her, the Winters spell shall be broken and her life restored".
And so Sir Daylan returned to the Palace of King Izembek and used the lantern flame to turn the Princess from ice back into flesh and when he did, as a reward for his courage, the King proclaimed that they should be wed and then, becoming Prince Daylan, he and the Princess lived happily ever after.