The Princess

Last I saw it, Farhaven was a range of crystal mountains, entirely artificial. I looked down at them from the tallest spire in the city center, and from above, they looked like dozens of rows of disorganized, jagged teeth. A month ago, I lay comfortably in my bed here. I’d had it moved just beside the window because I always dreamed of flying. Seeing the clouds, and feeling the air all around me.

The emperor slammed my door open one morning. Ostensibly, my father. I’d thought as much back then. “Fawn!” He yelled, “Heavens, Fawn, how are you still asleep! The sun is twice high.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have the handmaids wake me?” I thew my sheets aside. He immediately covered his eyes.

“Where are your night clothes?”

“It’s the summer. It’s hot out.” I reached for my undergarments, strewn lazily across the floor. “Did Prince Maroon write us back?”

My father slammed the letter down on my nightstand. The royal, red seal of the Victori Empire bled across the page. “I find the most disagreeable prince in all the realms, the most self indulgent and petty and painfully childish…” he grumbled, “And, he writes back that he finds you… insufferable.”

“Well, I got twice as drunk as he did,” I lay back down, “I almost passed out, you know. And, I started saying, well, he smelled quite atrocious. His chin… My, his chin resembled the product of brothers and sisters! And, his family only owns three castles.”

My father cleared his throat, “Indeed. Those are three castles you may well have had if you contained yourself, “and if you hated him, you would still maintain those castles when he inevitably found himself in some other world.”

“We have,” I counted on my fingers until I had no more to count with, “how many castles do we have?”

“Fawn…” He took a deep breath, “Your mother was less than pleased with me for this. But, I am making a choice. There is another prince you will meet with tonight, and if you ruin this… Your mother implores that you do not.”

“What, will I have to sleep in the dungeon?” I joked.

He grabbed the corner of my nightstand, the point poking into the palm of his hand, “I’ve gotten an offer that would make good consolation for your continuous dissatisfaction. You would not appreciate it.”

That night came quietly. I’ve since forgotten that prince’s name. He had black hair, or brown. And he was a year older than me, I remember us laughing because our birthdays were in the same month. We walked through the garden together, the live plants and the dirt that I hated to touch. I was exactly as I always was, and his opinion of me slowly rotted like all the others’ had. I must have been cursed.

I had more wine, and I complained about what I should. I didn’t think of losing him as anything of consequence. There was always another one. He always dressed like a prince should. Even though this one had been one of the nicest, I mourned nothing. I barged into my father’s room, slurring with bitter breath. I boasted, laughing, about how this one also declined. My father didn’t yell as he usually did. He folded his hands quietly in his lap and sighed. I kept laughing like it had been a game I’d won.

“Ba-ha!” I blundered toward him, “A-ha-and yer not ee-fen mad!”

He stood up sharply, “No, Fawn. I’m rather instead in a state of sorrow. You will hate me come tomorrow, though I suppose that would change nothing.”

“An’ Mother? Where’s she?” I stumbled, then leaned against the wall to balance myself.

“She’s gone back to the village she grew up in,” he cleared his throat, “I’ve sent her away for a week since I cannot bear to face her.”

I slipped down, my eyes shutting slightly. “Huh…” I shook my head, forcing myself to stay awake. My father helped me back to my room. For the first time in years, he helped me to bed.

I heard him whisper as he shut the door behind him, “Gods, save you. Gods, save me.”

I was torn awake by my door being slammed open in the morning. Two knights of the royal guard yanked the sheets off my bed, they put the points of their spears to my neck, “Up! Now! By the orders of the emperor!”

“I c-can’t move. The spears!” I flinched.

One of them grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me onto the ground. He put the end of his weapon against my back as soon as I was to my feet, “Out the door. Move.”

“Can I get dressed first?” I hissed.

“There’s no need for that, Princess,” one of the knights pushed aside the undergarments I’d left on the ground.

I held my hands over myself as I trudged out my door, “This is treason!” I yelled, “My father will have you hanged!”

“No, Princess,” one shook his head, “these are his orders.” I wasn’t taken to the lower floors, only to a wide balcony near my room. There waiting on the edge was my father. Townspeople on the ground looked up at a gold-scaled behemoth conquering all of the sky. Her eyes were wider than the moon and they trained on me.

My father knelt before her as I was brought forward, “Your services will be greatly welcomed.”

“Trade route protection?” She hummed, “You don’t want anything more?”

“I wouldn’t ask too much of you.” Father refused to look at me.

I threw myself back, trying to run back toward my room. The guards wrung their hands around my arms, “Don’t be scared now, Princess. Your father only wants the best for you.” He was still on his knees, his head facing the ground, his eyes dull- almost lifeless.

The dragon descended a couple meters, holding herself just under the edge of the balcony. I flailed my arms toward the guards, to strike them on the helmets. To kill them if I had to. I’d always loved them. I couldn’t even reach them when I had to. “Please- Please!” I yelled once to them, then to my father. I was cast off the side of the balcony toward a sea of teeth. As I fell between them, they looked like the crystalline spires of Farhaven. Those buildings had never moved before, closing between each other, and shutting out the sun forever.