A Princess

Once upon a time, in a kingdom doubtless very far away, there lived a young girl of negligible importance. She was the oldest child of seven and looked much like her brothers and sisters. Above her upturned, freckled nose were two pale brown eyes set slightly too far apart. Above these was a set of somewhat-too-bushy eyebrows in the same mousy, mucky colour as her tangled mop of hair.

She wasn't a terribly bright young girl, nor was she very strong or agile; when she came of marriageable age her parents, unwilling or unable to keep her at home, were at a loss. They argued far into the night on her fourteenth birthday. Her mother mostly sobbed, and she could hear her father's bellows through the walls. When the bellowing died down to urgent and quiet conversation, the girl relaxed and fell asleep.

She awoke to find her mother, tired and disheveled, sewing in the main room. Her father was nowhere in sight but there was a hammering noise outside. Undisturbed, she went out with her six siblings to do household chores for the day.

The following day was much the same until, in the evening, her mother pulled her aside. "We're going to play a game," her mother told her. So on the third day, bright and early, the girl was stitched into a new dress. The cheap fabric was draped around her, decorated with flower garlands from the garden. She delighted in the smell of lilacs. She loved the cheap, shiny jewelry at her neck and wrists.

When her parents carried her on a litter handcrafted by her father, she imagined she was a princess on a magical journey; thus she was not surprised much at all when they arrived at the doorstep of His Grace the Duke.

The Duke's gaze never once left her as he spoke with her parents. She was sitting calmly in the litter, chin tilted upwards as she imagined a princess's chin would be. Her mother had told her she must act like a princess for the whole day, and she knew for a fact that a princess's chin was very important.

The Duke was obviously very impressed with her chin. He invited her to stay for tea, and she told him "that would be lovely," as a princess might. The girl's parents didn't stay for tea. Instead, they picked up the litter and began the journey home. When their daughter's screams rang out sharply over the field, the mother turned to her husband, smiling as her gaze passed over the silks and gold jewelry loaded onto the litter. "Six to go," she said. And they lived happily ever after. The End.

-Faiora
450 Words
July 27, 2007