A/N: Well, I've been thinking about writing about this pairing for so long but the words never came. But now they had. I don't really know what to think about this one, it seemed better in my head but that's what I always say. It's rushed towards the end and I appologize for that but I hope you like this and if you find some mistakes or something confusing don't hesitate to tell me so I can fix that! :) Thank you for reading, I so apprecirate it!
The illegal princess
she doesn't want to be like this anymore
DarachCaitlin
She remembers when she was little and wondered why she had to wear fluffy, pretty dresses when everybody else could run around in shorts and t-shirts, why she had her brown hair in thick curls falling down her shoulders when everybody else had ponytails and short, comfortable bobs, why she had to be stuck within these thick, thick walls when everybody else laughed and played outside in the morning breeze.
She's the exception. But why? What did she do?
Nothing.
It just happened.
But she doesn't want to be in this fairytale anymore. The fairytale when she sits and smiles and accomplishes nothing. The fairytale where none of her dreams get fulfilled, where she gets so much it vanishes into nothing at all, where she doesn't have to try, doesn't have to struggle. She wants a cup of tea and she gets it. She wants a new dress and she gets it. She wants a husband and she gets it.
(But she wants neither of these.)
She wants to be. To live. To taste meaningful experience in her mouth and delight success. But there's no success in her life, it's only this.
Where she's the doll no one wants to play with.
She falls on her knees and let her eyes wander between the floors in the dollhouse, touching the material of the walls, soft, old, dusty but so filled with memories and what she has never become that it's been a part of her ever since she was small(er.) It's a gift, one of her maids has told her but she has no idea where it comes from or who sent her the gift. But it's important for her. It triggers her fantasies and tells her something words cannot. Darach once asked her to throw it away because she's too old to play with dolls anyway and it created something she (and he) wants to forget. No one touches the dollhouse, no one. Clipping the bond is like drowning a big chunk of her mind to oblivion.
Neither of them speaks of the accident ever since that day. That day when her fingers started to glow and her heart started to hate. But it made him understand the reality, the reality she wants to hide but understands that she can't anymore.
He overprotected (for her) and she cried (for him and her.)
She cried without tears. You can do that too.
Caitlin touches the doll in her small hand, delicate, slim fingers hugging the doll's chest, feeling the soft material of the dress with her fingertips. The doll's face represents everything she can't have, the simple gestures in the well-made face, the bright, jolly smile that she can't mimic with her own stiff lips that tells everyone she won't reveal with words. She doesn't mean to be this way but some part of her selfish robotic mind wants people to care for her. Not too much but to the level where she can handle it.
The doll in her hands is beautiful, despite the broken wire and holes in the long, paper-thin hem. The doll is everything she can't be. She's not beautiful; she's not someone to look up to. She's a spoiled girl that learns to drain the sanity from her victims because she can't deal with the feeling of being left alone in the world filled with thugs and monsters that want her to be everything she cannot afford.
Carefully, with precise movement – Darach would have called it extreme strictness if he actually had the chance to describe her in such negative terms – she places the doll on the thin, fragile chair with a flip with white fingers. Pushes the empty cup towards the chair and fills it with tea using the extremely small and pretty tea-pot decorated with amaryllises. Licks her lips while everything around her – every aspect, every color on the painting – seems to diminish, disappear, for one moment and she's there with her dolls, her friends. Her only friends, that doesn't leave her, that will never deceive her. Darach is kind, Darach is wonderful but one day he might be gone. He might find her too craving, too demanding, too different. He's different but he's still human and humans judge, humans want, humans dream. She doesn't dream about a change. She stopped going that when her own sins clipped the straw and let it fall, fall, fall (and die.)
She lowers her gaze and focuses closely on the kitchen area; to the left lays the minimal stove that sparkles in the light from the lamb above, the counters, the refrigerator. She likes the size, it reminds her of the childhood she doesn't even remember. Only one thing. She is fond of things. Things would never leave her. It's she that leaves them. She trusts, craves and sings for the material, since it's what she has and she can't have humans. Humans don't trust her. She doesn't trust them.
She's a princess stuck in her own twisted fairytale where she has created the rules that don't even benefit her in the end. She's angry but she has to control, to keep, to crawl, to bow. When Darach directs her she has to obey, she has to fall to her knees and she only does it because he is he and she wants, wants, wants to curl her fingers around his and tell him that she doesn't mean to be like this.
But she is. She is, she is, she is.
She reaches out her hand, her hand that looks like it's dipped in snow, or milk, and lays one of her fingers around a doll with strawberry-blonde hair and a cursed smile. Her lips turn stiff and she points them down, finger staining, nails crossing. It just stands there in the narrow corner of the kitchen with that grin that makes her blood boil and teeth clench. No one grins at her. No one laughs at her. No one moves away from the storyline in this book, her book, their book. She clenches the doll with her fist, hard, then throws it out the open window and lets it fly to the world it doesn't belong.
The doll has been with her for ten years and she still let it lie and rot and succumb to its own demise. Because she does like this. People trusts her (because she's a princess) and she lets them, to a point, a limit, until she walks away and leaves all to the forgotten and mourning. They don't miss her, they only miss a part of her but that part will never be herself. She's not a doll you can use as a mannequin. She lets them but she doesn't want to. Hem slamming and heels smattering beneath her feet but it's not her. She's only a painting in which untalented artists try to dig forth talent even when it's hopeless and only makes the result looks like the error it is.
She's a princess but feels like a demon.
And she continues to play with the dollhouse. Because that's the only thing she knows, only things she understands – playing. Playing with the world, playing with him.
She will never admit it. They can guess and they can muse but she will never admit that they may be right. She's a girl that wants to be right and loathes when the tower falls over her and creates her reality to a festering, gnawing lie.
The walls rise up by her side, white, solid, reminding more of the castle of a princess than a maiden's closet. Her pink dress is cold and she crosses her arms, shivering, pondering. She's never walking around in the hallway like this, usually her maids and one butler (Darach) follows her like she's the master and they're the dogs. Without doubts she can say that she doesn't enjoy the sudden center of attention. She doesn't like being the lamp in the light but still, something about the fact that they never leave her alone, that they treat her like thin prochain that cannot be broken she understands that she will not be alone.
(The problem is that she still is.)
A gentle scent reaches her nose and she lifts her head, follows, understands that it comes from the outside world, world with dancing flowers and wind filled with particles that she will never reach, never be. Not the air-conditioned room that stings in her eyes and makes the flood in her broken lenses pour.
She wants to be. She wants to live. She wants to be free and not chained with her broken dreams.
"Lady Caitlin," she hears from behind, a voice filled with cuddle wool and faked reverence. For them this is a job and nothing more. They work and walk home to their lives, where she doesn't and doesn't want to belong. "I'm so sorry, it's time for your lunch, m'lady," she hurries to say and lifts her hem in a bow. "Will you please follow me? Darach has prepared your meal."
She rolls her eyes when the maid doesn't notices and knots her fingers to fists when she hears the gray, winkled lady address Darach. They simply call him Darach. He's more than that; if she deserves a title than so do he. But as usual she keeps quiet. Zips her words and willingly becomes the marionette the lady could play with. Follows, and smiles and answers and continues to play along with the lie that's going to last forever.
"Thank you. I'm looking forward to it," she murmurs and gnaws on one of her brown curls, follows the stupid, imbecile maid like a lost puppy.
She used a white lie. It's a lie filled with transparent secrets and hidden desire. She doesn't look forward to the meal but she looks forward to see him.
She cups her fingers around the mug and watches the smoke rise up in the ceiling like thin, pale fingers. The lamp hanging in the ceiling is decorated with crystals, sending a soft sparkle down to the table, reflecting in her ring. She doesn't know where the ring comes from but guesses it's a memorial and since she doesn't have much memories to remember she clings to those she has. The mug is warm and she likes it, every room, every corner of this castle is so empty, cold and filled with manners, everything that seems normal appeals to her. She hugs the cup, looking up, dreaming. It's easy to dream. No matter what happens she always remembers to dream.
(She knows it's futile to dream but somehow he teaches her to continue.)
She clips with her eyes, one time, two, then she hears footsteps from the hallway. Despite the sudden interruption she doesn't react because those footsteps belong to someone that has been with her even when she doesn't deserve it. He's there and raises her up even when she refuses to get up. He's that kind that the world doesn't deserve, so kindhearted and blissful no one seems to value it.
But she does.
"Is the tea too hot, m'lady?" he asks after he closes the door and closes the distance between them. She smiles softly at the dumb question, even more because it's not a part of his job description, it's a part of him. He wants to raise her up to the high she doesn't belong and she lets him since it's better than he doesn't notice her at all.
"No, the tea is not too hot," she murmurs and clenches even harder to the mug, eyes wet and lips still pointing up in a thin curve.
After the awkward (for her) silence she lets her gaze sink and lets her mind wander to prohibited places that both scare and enthralls her at the same time. No matter what his job description says what he is he's not her butler and she's not his princess. She doesn't want the reality to be that simple and content-less. She's sick of fairytales and she can only hope he is too.
"Can I…" she stumbles and her cheeks redden and nearly spills the tea in her lap in her attempt of taking another sip. It burns. It's too close. It's too abnormal. She can't. She can't. (But she wants.) "Can I ask you a question, Darach?"
It feels weird taking his name in her mouth. Personal. She can tell that he's dumbfounded too since he tries to win time by cleaning his glasses with a napkin. Her cheeks are filled with fire. Hidden desire. Everything she can't have. But she wants. And since she is a spoiled princess getting everything she points at why can't she have this? Is this so wrong? Can it be that wrong? She doesn't know.
He fumbles with the napkin, eyes glancing carefully in the ceiling, like he struggles for words and then lets his arms hang, hands in pockets. "You can ask me about everything, Caitlin."
She smiles even more. Caitlin. He called her Caitlin. Not princess nor m'lady but Caitlin. That's the only name that's hers. She's Caitlin. Nothing more and nothing less. Restlessly she moves on the chair, trying to string along the reasonable in her mind but nothing is there and she decides she can't lose more than she already have. She has to try. That's the last thing she can do.
"What do you think of me?" she quietly squeaks and he gives her a surprised look. That's the only emotion she can see, the only emotion that's not hidden.
There's no regret, there's no turning back. This is what she wants and she's sick of pretending and dreaming about rings on the finger and shared memories that's not one-sided, that's not for granted. She doesn't want a husband, she wants to love. She wants to have the man that she wants, that wants her.
"What do you mean?" he briefly asks, correcting his glasses over his slim nose – she notices that his fingers shake, like he's standing in the snow of Snowpoint.
She licks her lips and clicks with her fingers. Her hair is sweaty and her stomach is racing. Caitlin doesn't like that she can't read him. She wants to. It's easier. But she can't. Only guess. And she hates to guess.
"I mean, what if I don't were a princess and you're not my butler? Would it be any different? Would you treat me the same?"
He delivers the answers so fast she understands that he uses the words to paint the reality and nothing less. "Caitlin, don't think your position change everything. Maybe it does, but not between you and me." He takes her hand and lets it rest there and she's surprised it feels so right, that he feels so right and this feels so extremely right. "Even if you were a simple girl on the plains it wouldn't have changed everything. For me you are Caitlin and you will always be Caitlin."
"Darach, it means so much-" the sentence breaks and she drowns in his eyes, dark-gray and filled with memories and wisdom, with everything he's been through. If you just glance at him he looks like nothing special – another wallflower in this world of transparent people – but if you look closely, narrow your eyes and try you'll see that his eyes are very pretty. Like colorless gemstones. She waits and she hesitates since what she wants and he wants doesn't have to mean the same thing.
"I thought you knew that. I guess there're a lot of things I fail to say to you," he clings harder to her hand, like he's afraid she will slip away from him and masquerade into a puddle through the ground. She can see in his eyes that there's so much he wants to say, so much he has to say but it will never happen. Never ever happen. He tilts his head down and she gulps, swallows, doesn't know what to say. What is there to say? Nothing.
She craves something she can't have. He's not a doll. He's a person. He's everything she isn't.
His fingers are so soft, so warm and she wants to take one step and melt with him. Melt and feel and forget. Sin and destroy. She's full of contradiction that's pushing her to a forbidden place. A place where everything rots and bad dreams havoc. She wants to taste his mouth, she wants to lick his lips, feel, feel, feel.
She wishes to have the only thing that he can give her and sill he realizes her hand and backs away, hands held up and an excusing smile created. "I'm sorry, I can't."
I'm sorry, I can't. She can taste every letter, every meaning and it only means that he gives up. He wants but gives up. It makes her want to flux to oblivion.
"Darach, please don't," she whispers to the closed door, the door that's keeping her out and he uses as a shelter.
There's no ending and there's no answer. With her mind filled with gnawing roaches she grabs the mug and throws it at the wall, feeling nothing when the burning tea pours over her fingers.
(Feel nothing. Feel anything. Feel everything.)
With a thick layer – or so it feels – in front of her blue eyes she gazes down at the battlefield which the outcome she can already predict. She doesn't even like being a judge but since she can't battle, she can't use her pokémon like she should; she's a risk and could destroy everything she has to do something. When someone asks her about it she says it's okay but it's not okay when you only get the second option. She clings harder to the cold metal of the rail that's keeping her away from the field. The only good thing about this is that she has a chance to study her butler without it could be assuming as something else than professional. Darach is skilled but it's obvious that battling is not everything for him. He's a man that cares, not battles. He only does this for her.
So many things he does for her. He catches her and points her hand at the stars, refusing to let her believe what a selfish person she really is. The only thing she can do is watch and pray for his victory and it's not enough. But as long as she's trapped inside the massive, thick walls of the castle it will remain this way.
The challenger – a thin boy with too big shoes and a grin wider than a Snorlax – shouts at his Gallade, screams and spits and she signs, comprehending that he's only her because of luck and not because of skill. Many trainers use their luck to dash through the walls and of course it's a strategy among others but she will never be the one that accept luck to be similar to talent. Darach's Empoleon plugs back, watching, before releasing a huge blast of water at its target. She knows it's over. It was over before it even started. She curves her mouth and lets one of her feet hang in the air. Throws a look at Darach and sees how bored he is. She feels sorry for him. It shouldn't be this way. It would've been her. She who stood there ready to fight, to destroy. But she can't. She can't, can't, can't. That's all she can do.
He uses his gallant speech filled with raised etiquette to the challenger who is too busy swearing and scolding his pokémon to even listen and she silently frowns, feeling so far away from what she wants than ever before. This isn't her home. This isn't what she wants. In front her she see Darach's face, sees that he is looking at her – one million questions ingrained in his face – and she tilts her head away, hiding a smile with one of her hands.
She's so sorry she can't answer his questions.
She sits in front of her dollhouse (again) and feels like the hole is wider, larger, more consuming. The hole searching for something she can't find in this massive castle of emptiness. Darach can only fill the hole, not remove it. And it doesn't solve anything. It isn't the key that can unlock the door to freedom.
With her lips shut she grabs her two dolls and weighs them in her two hands. Two dolls. Two persons. Her life has been one. Not two. She has people around her but feels alone. She feels so alone and lost and only wants to find the exit of the labyrinth. But she can't do it alone. She can't do it alone and that's why she's stuck.
Why is it like this? Why are there questions she can't answer? Just why?
Without thinking she pulls the two dolls closer, lets their arm touch, face to face. There is something about love's tenderness and softness that enhances her in a blurry dream of what she dreams and thinks about. Because she knows she's not an exception. Even with her too big dress and scraggly curls she's not an exception. She's a girl that wants to love. She's not soft. She craves.
That's what she does.
She presses the dolls lips to lips, slowly, imaging them to feel, to love, to smile. Today she doesn't care that this is wrong, this is futile and that the maids will never accept this because this is her time and she can do whatever she thinks fit. Only today.
(And only today she imagines who it would be to meet his lips. Only today.)
Her fingers touch a picture of a five-year-old girl with a bright smile and shining eyes, a smile without grief and distress, a smile she can't seem to create anymore. She wants but can't. When she was small she didn't know any better. She thought this was enough.
Today she knows it isn't. It's never, ever enough.
It takes a month before she's alone with him again.
And it's month that makes her realize that the world is black and not filled with colors. Not her world.
As usual she sits with a cup of tea in hand, dreaming, her mind in the clouds with chipping Starlys and Staravias when he arrives, restlessly sweeping down at the chair opposite to her in a manner that's not like him. He's stressed and more unreadable than ever which makes her gulp and fingers tense. What's wrong? She hasn't done anything. What can it mean? She doesn't know, can't guess and that's make the floor open to her to fall through.
"Lady Caitlin," he blurts out, in a tone she's never heard before. She wants to close her ears and run away, to a place where everything is the same forever. If he's not the same then who is? "There is something I must inform you off."
She doesn't say anything, only stares, only whishes (only creates selfish hopes.) Persistently she stacks the bricks in a tower reaching up from the sky. She has done this in ten years. Building and ignoring.
The next thing he says makes the tower fall over her. Everything vanishes. Everything.
"I'm afraid this is the last time you will see me," he murmurs and clenches his hands on the table, palms turning white. She flinches.
"No," she quietly squeaks, thinking this is a dream, it has to be a dream. Her whole life is a dream, this is too. It has to be. She tries to meet his eyes but he looks away, then she realizes, slowly she realizes, maybe, maybe…
"Why?" she says with a voice she barely registers. A word she never thought she would use. Pleading. She pleads. It's not her. Not like the girl that gets everything she wants. But she doesn't now. The only thing she wants it's not hers. He's going to vanish and never come back. No. She can't let that happen.
"I got fired," he explains matter-of-factly, lifting his head, meeting her eyes for the first time. "I lacked discipline and failed to support you like I should. I'm not worthy to be your butler." The last sentences he says bitterly, sourly, and it warms her heart, warms the ice the reality has created. "I'm leaving tonight, m'lady. I… I don't know what to say anymore…" He lifts his hands and his eyes become open and vulnerable.
After his speech she ignores everything. She cuts the string and doesn't care about etiquette and what she shouldn't do. She gets up on her feet and walks towards him, reaching a hand and helps him up. She nags on her lips and then throws herself in his arms, her forehead resting in the pit between his chin and chest. He doesn't respond and it doesn't even matter anymore since this is the only thing she needs. There's so much she can't tell him with words; she has to do this with gestures. Her fingers knead his hair and she clings so hard to his body she thinks she's gonna crush him. After some seconds she feels his arms around her waist – he's much tenderer than she is – and she smiles, she wants this so last forever. Wants to be with him forever. This is the only thing she needs.
But it doesn't last forever.
He slowly sets her down and ruffles her hair, smiling a smile that's too sad to be legal. Then he walks away.
"I need you, Darach, I need you," she murmurs and hides her face in her hands.
I need you.
(She doesn't even know if he heard her.)
For the first time in ten years she notices that her pillow is wet when she opens her eyes to face the morning sun.
(She bleeds memories, memories of him.)
The next month is filled with a thick fog, a fog rolled in front of her eyes and makes her see nothing and feel numb and limp. She doesn't do anything, just sits, just dreams. She doesn't know how her new butler looks and she surely doesn't care. Why would she? Darach is her butler. And no one else.
She sits in her room and plucks with her hem. One thing she likes about the new butler is that he's intelligent enough to leave her alone. With the lack of other entertainment she decides to dig through the boxes which are stappled in the far end of the room, filled with everything she has stated as unimportant. And maybe it is. Nevertheless she sneaks to the boxes and lets her hand touch old dresses and letters that isn't even marked as hers. What is this? she muses and feels sad, that she's so alone and without friends. What is this life? She wants to be out and play, not being stuck in this hell. But she's too weak to fight. Too weak to change. That's one of her talents and she surely knows how to use it.
But after ten minutes of fruitless digging through papers and notebooks she feels a note that's of the same paper that Darach liked (likes) to use. Her heart races and her fingers tremble when she lifts the note, reads, falls.
If you would like to call me here's my number.
- Darach
She smiles, she laughs, she screams. He's not gone. He's there. He's not gone.
She lets her eyes scan the number and presses the numbers on a device she's never used before.
"I miss you, Darach," she whispers in a manner she could never use when he was trapped within the walls with her. "I want to see you."
He coughs and she can't help but to feel his voice sounds strange in a telephone, like he's talking through a piece of paper. "I'm sorry but you can't do that. This is your home, Caitlin, this is where you've been raised."
She clenches her fingers harder to the phone, the wave of anger, of lust and thirst rising. "No. It's not my home. Not anymore. It was when you were here."
"Caitlin…"
She wires a brown curl with her right hand while continuing with her cheeks wet from tears. "I don't want to be here."
"I'm so sorry I can't help you."
"I love you!" she screams in the phone and hangs up, throwing it at the wall.
It breaks. The pieces hail.
And her tears corrode.
Two months later she packs her bag which overused dresses with holes and convenient shoes. She zips the back and pushes it in front of her, leaving, now finally she's leaving.
The town is crowded, it's dirty but she doesn't care. The peoples are obstacles and nothing more. Somewhere in this area he is and she's gonna find him.
She has no map and she doesn't know where he lives but it doesn't matter. One day she's gonna find him. One day she's gonna tell him everything. One day. The fact that she has left the castle doesn't bother her, they will come up with something, after all she was just the doll and it's easy to find a replacement (a better, a prettier.) She only has one purpose and she's not going to give up. Not now. She continues to push the bag over the street and coughs when her face drowns in a cloud of exhaust gas.
In the end she only wants to be normal and she's only normal when she's with him.
He makes her normal and she's gonna turn every stone and drown in the town's penalty to find him again.
One day she does.
fin