I stand alone at the window, intently watching the rain as it descends upon the city. The fresh water pours onto the brick shingled roofs. Thunder rumbles again in the far distance and I feel the sudden vibration on the castle's cold stone floor under my feet. Behind me is a medium sized bed chamber with a warm roaring fire in a stone hearth. In the far corner, sitting in front, is a wooden bench over a red velvet carpet, and to the left is the end of a massive four poster bed with red velvet and gold embroidered quilts, silk sheets, and numerous decorative pillows, which I had not bothered to touch since the day before yesterday. The front of the bed presses up against the stone wall. Rainwater sprays my face as a cold, chilling wind blows into the room. I shudder, step away and to the cedar framed looking glass that is diagonally across from the bed. My tall figure appears before me and I stare into the bright emerald eyes with dark bags from lack of sleep for days, above high cheekbones a thin nose and full, colored mouth. My hair runs down my left shoulder to my knees, pulled and twisted into a tight, light brown braid. I am dressed in a silver colored gown with gold string embroidered cuff ends and neckline. I hear the music begin from the first floor. My signal. With difficulty, I make myself take forced robotic like steps towards the wooden door, and the whole way down the stone spiral staircase, I run my hand along the cold core, feeling as though every step is one step closer to eternal doom. I enter the great hall with the cathedral ceiling and hanging, festive tapestries. The massive room is stuffed with people; they are all staring at me. Some I know, and some I have never seen before in my life. I look at the alter. The priest stands there with a trapped look on his face, near the best man standing behind my future husband. Prince Hogston smiles at me as I catch his gaze, but it is not a warm smile, it is cold and greedy looking, and is more of a satisfied smirk. I hate him. His straight blonde hair runs down to his shoulders is covered by a large, gold, glimmering crown eighty times the size of mine. He wears a long red velvet cape that covers his entire plump body. Prince Hogston closely resembles a pig as well as his last name. His large nose takes up three quarters of his chubby face with wide turned up nostrils. His mouth is big, and close to his nose, and his eyes are small and far apart. When I am standing on the altar facing him, the priest begins his words. The entire time I am feeling sick and faint. When the Priest utters the words, "Anyone who objects to this marriage speak now or forever hold your peace." I begin to feel like vomiting. I look into prince Hogston's eyes and he narrows them, still wearing the smirk. Oh no, I think desperately I feel dizzy, my vision becomes blurry and then without warning my limbs give out and I collapsed, plunging into darkness with the last thing I hear being screams of surprise from the audience and the last thing on my mind being why I didn't hit the ground… "Sorry I had to tie you up" I hear a man's voice as I slowly open my eyes and sunlight floods my pupils. I am rocking back and forth, my head jerking downward. I can't see a thing, but I know that I am slung over a cantering horse. My head pounds each time is very painful. I whimper silently. "Who.." I drowsily murmur. The world is nothing but a blur of what appear to be hay-roofed houses but I can't tell because it's like my eyes are open underwater. I smell the strong aroma of grass and the smell of rocks and dirt. I breathe in dust and begin to cough and sputter. "Had to tie you to the horse, you kept sliding off, you were out cold, didn't mean to hurt you" the man's voice continues. I had forgotten to be terrified. Where am I? What am I doing here? Why? Who is that? Why does my head hurt so much? Have I been kidnapped? I am slung over the horse on my stomach, with a rope tying my hands and feet together under the large belly of the horse. Fear suddenly envelopes me and I suddenly begin to flail and try to free my hands. I hear the man's voice again, calmly saying, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." I do not stop. Still kicking, I know what is about to happen, but that's exactly what I want. "Hey!" The mystery man shouts. I hear him quickly dismounted and sprint to me. Just in time as I am about to slide under the moving animal he cuts me free and I slam into a sharp bed of rocks before a strong hand grabs my arm right before the horse's back hooves would've trampled me. I cannot stand, my head still feels painful and I still cannot see anything. My legs feel like ribbons and won't hold me. I can feel warm blood trickling down my back from cuts from the sharp rocks. My captor firmly holds my shoulders upright and stares into my exhausted face. I can barely see him, the blurry figure moves his head to say something and his white greenish background turns to nothing, as my body becomes useless and I fall as helpless as a blade of grass, plunging into blackness before I even know where I landed. Now immensely regretting the three nights of sleep I missed. "Who are you and what do you want with me?" I demand in a weak voice, too tired to snap. "I'm supposed to be sleeping with my new husband right now, do you realize what you just did? How did you even get into the castle anyway?" I am sitting on a barren ground with my hands bound and thin blanket around my shoulders. In front of me is a large fire and surrounding me is a tall, green, lush forest. the air is chilly and it's dark out. "Hey, take it easy." Said the same man's voice I had been hearing, it sounds calm and friendly enough. "You've been sleeping for almost a day and a half, looks like you missed some sleep you really needed. I'll cut your hands free if you promise not to bite me." I squint hard in the dark trying to see who it is that is speaking, all I see is a dark figure of a man on the other side of the fire, no identification. "Tell me who you are and why you just kidnapped me," I demand. "Okay" He says. My name is Gabriel, and I am a member of a camp of rebels and outlaws who want a change, we are unhappy with the fact that your Father is starving our people and there are cruel punishments for breaking the unfair laws. We want you to be our double agent in the castle. You're going to help us start a revolution." My stomach lurched. My father is starving people? They are crazy, completely insane,I can't be a double agent, Who do they think I am? thoughts gush through my head. I laugh once hysterically. "You're kidding," I say. "This is ridiculous, very ridiculous, I'm a princess, a pampered chiwawa, not hound dog, you are insane, along with all your other friends who you say exist, I don't wonder why you're outlaws at all." I finish, ending with a toss of my long brown hair that was now in hopeless tangles. I glare at "Gabriel" I am positive this idiot is fibbing. I expect him to answer with strong denial but he just remains silent. I stare at my hands tightly bound together with scratchy rope, well maybe the idea of me becoming a double agent really isn't so crazy after all. In the morning I am bruised and aching from sleeping on the bare ground. There is not the maid coming in to bring breakfast, no fire in a fireplace, and I do not have a brand new dress to change into waiting for me on a bench. It is so much different than what I'm used to. My entire sixteen years of a life has been at the castle, every day was the same. The first time I have ever slept under the stars, without a giant bed with and expensive mattress and covered in tons of three inch thick blankets. The crisp, freezing morning air makes me shiver uncontrollably, I am up earlier than I have ever been in my life. A foul smell quickly enters my nostrils. I sit up quickly. Looking across a tiny fire I see my captor for the first time. His face is thick and rough but young, with thick cheekbones and a visible jawline. His raven black hair is tightly pulling into a ponytail which barely touches his strong upper back. His nose is is not too big but it is not too small, just the right size. Broad shoulders connect to his neck, that bulk out into big chords of muscle. His biceps are massive. Gabriel's large muscular chest rises and falls as he reaches for a medium sized dry stick to stir the metal pot of a black lumpy disgusting liquid of some sort. One he realizes I am awake Gabriel raises his eyes to meet mine. I had expected his irises to be a dark brown since his face closely resembled that of a Native American, but I was shocked to see a pair of bright blue eyes stare into my green ones. I like the way his gaze feels. "How'd you sleep?" Gabriel asked, raising his dark eyebrows. I rose my bound hands to me chest and grabbed the edge of the blanket, pulling in closer around my shivering self. "How do you think?" I snapped. "I am imprisoned here with my hands tied very tightly together. I don't have the slightest clue where I am or where I'm going, or if you're a liar or not, and you wonder how I slept?!" "Do you really wish you were back at home right now? because from the looks of it you were about to vow your eternal loyalty to a warthog." "How dare you!" I shout, though not that infuriated at all. Suddenly remembering how a princess would act. I was taught from when I was a little tiny thing how to be a lady, so it set in pretty quickly. I had been taught over and over again to be surprised at things, and to overreact and to be a stuck up girly girl, to be as feminine and weak as possible or I would never marry. Men liked frail, submissive women to be their Queens, not strong and rebellious individuals who are not afraid to be themselves and stick up for what is right. I had trouble sometimes with this, I asked too many questions when I was little to my tutors and my mother and Aunts. I wanted to know everything. I will never forget how they would yell, and how they'd look at me for "disobeying the rules" and not living up to their impossible expectations, my mother actually disowned me at one point she got so angry with me. I had more trouble with learning this when I was younger, but as I got older I matured more and learned to do as I was told, from certain experiences. Because of that, my true identity is hidden completely over a thick blanket of "how I'm supposed to act." "Okay" Gabriel said flatly. "If you don't believe me about the spy thing that's fine, but once I get to to the camp they are not going to ask you whether you believe it or not, and if you choose not to cooperate then there will be consequences. They aren't very friendly." I remember my mother's face at that instant, remembering how disappointed she always was when I didn't do what she wanted. "You take me back right now!" I shout, struggling to get my hands free and acting like a baby. "NOW!" I finish. "Sorry, I can't do that" "You can't make me spy! Once you turn me back to the castle I will tell my father to set the army on you! I will! I swear I will!" "Do you want some soup?" "NO!" "Sure?" "Take me back!" I almost snarl. "You're welcome to go back yourself you know." Gabriel said with his eyes down at the small plate of soup he poured himself, and was enjoying. "I don't know the way back!" I hollered, trying to look as menacing as possible. "You take me back! and untie me!" "Hey, calm down, besides I know a fraud when I see one." Gabriel fixes his striking blue eyes on me and the corner of his mouth flickers upward. I widen my eyes and bat my lashes to appear innocent and delirious. "You're no princess, I mean you are by blood and you look like one and all, but you can't be one. I saw how you acted already." Like jumping into the ocean I plunge back into a sea of memories. I am sitting on the floor of the drawing room back at the castle. No older than ten at most. I flip through the pages of a thick book chock full of ancient folklore, dated back to the 800's. The pictures are both intriguing and mesmerizing. I flip through the pages, gobbling up each story like it's candy. Then suddenly I hear footsteps echoing in the stone hallway. I ignore them, engrossed in my book. The door opens with a creak and I glance up to see my mother standing there frozen stiff with a pure look of horror across her thin face. The hem of her blue velvet, gold embroidered gown was tightly clenched in her bony fist in fury. Tears welled up in her eyes. "Disgraceful," She snapped. "I tell you a hundred times a day not to ask silly questions about the world, I tell you a hundred times a day not to stare, I tell you a thousand times a day not to daydream, I tell you a ten thousand times a day that you can't read those awful stories." She paused and pressed her lips tightly together, my mother was an attractive woman, which made it even more terrible when she was angry. The pause was to let the needles sink in. It always was. "So now you are disobeying me not for the first time, and I know now that it won't be the last. You'll never be a princess you know, you'll never be royal. I've had it with you. You are the biggest disgrace that this family has ever come to know." She continued. I just sat there, my wide green eyes looking up into her flaming brown one's. "I may be your biological mother but you are no longer my daughter. I am the queen and you will never be a princess, so what good is there? I shall not speak to you ever again Beatrice, for as long as I live. You are a disgrace." Then she turned around and left without shutting the door. I felt as if I had been stabbed right through the heart, and the knife was being twisted. My mother died of Typhoid fever shortly afterwards. When she was dying everyone was allowed at her bedside except for me. My mother had specifically told my Aunt that I was to stand outside the door. I was no longer a family member in her opinion. My face becomes calm again and all traces of any anger or feign anger. I squint my eyes at him and furl my eyebrows in questioning. "A fraud?" I ask quietly. "How?" I raise my eyebrows awaiting his answer. TO BE CONTINUED…