Scheherazade's needles click in the early morning light. She sits in her favorite chair next to the arched window, drinking up the new sunlight and enjoying that perfect moment of morning peace. All is still in the room, and her husband and King sleeps peacefully in their bed. Birds hop about on the balcony, kissing the morning air with gentle, uplifting songs. Sunlight spills into the room in soft arcs, catching motes of dust in their beams like prisms of gold before spreading across handwoven rugs made from the finest wools in her kingdom.

She sets her knitting in her lap and bends to untangle a gossamer thread of gold that had caught on her satin slipper, resting her hand on a thick book sitting on the arm of her chair. She smiles to herself, thinking of the gift she is making as she picks up the book and turns it in her hands. It had been left, as per her instructions, just outside the royal suite's main entry. It is simply bound, but heavy, and rich with context. She had requested it be made for her in private, as a surprise for her King. In its pages are all the stories she had told him, night after night; the same stories that at first had saved her life, and then won his heart. It feels like ages have passed since we first met her, a young virgin, being brought to his chambers and telling him wild tales of flying carpets and raging oceans. She smiles sweetly (perhaps remembering the delight in his eyes as she spun such tales) as she works the golden threads with her needles, creating intricate scro lls and spirals in a sea of black stitches. If we were to think on it long enough, we would understand that these golden stitches rising up from the blackness represent the beauty inside a king who was lost in his own darkness and fear. The same beauty that our Scheherazade had seen, found and nurtured; saving the man who now lies across the room, sleeping softly.

Time passes, clocked only by the morning's rays of light moving deftly across the carpets in her bedchamber. The soft light strengthens as early morning gives way to the strong, warm light of day as she binds off her stitches and sews the seams closed. She slips the cover she has knitted over the book, admiring her work for only a moment, as her husband has begun to stir in their bed. Deftly, she slips back into bed with him, sliding her gift to him under his pillow as he rolls to hold her in his arms. She slips down to a peaceful state of dreams, wrapped in his strong arms and smiling. Perhaps she is thinking on his delight once more, receiving her stories as a treasured tome he can have with him always. Perhaps she is seeing him trace the scrollwork she had knitted in with his fingers, looking up at her with admiration. Perhaps still, she imagines him reading her the stories night after night, as she had once told them to him. But it's here we shall leave them, for such morning discoveries are a private moment between a Queen and her King. Let us float away on the beams of sunlight that first brought us to Scheherazade and her knitting, to sail once again across a sky overlooking a kingdom, and a King, far brighter because of a Queen's love.