I know that I am beautiful. Sometimes it is wonderful, to be able to stop a man dead in his tracks, to have young lords compose poetry purely about the hands under your gloves.
But sometimes…
Sometimes it is terrible. Everyone loves beautiful things, it's true. But everyone wants to own them, as well.
Once I saw a bird, a pretty blue songbird, for sale in a London shop. It sang, for certain, in its cage. But the melody was not one of flying amongst the clouds. It was one of heartbreak, of watching others flit about in the sky while it had to stay here.
The cage was glorious, taking away attention from the fact that it was a cage. Flower carvings of all sorts formed the bars. The wrought iron was covered in bright lacquers, every color of the rainbow.
My heart broke for that bird, and for myself. My cage was subtler. It is not bright, nor beautiful. It is a controlling father, corsets, and the ability to strike love, or more likely lust, into the hearts of males.
When I went home that night, I stared at myself in a small mirror. I tried to find something that was mine, something that no else had already claimed. Of course, there was nothing. My mother always took time to remind me that I was nothing but a pretty face and that I was worthless apart from my looks.
And even when I threw the mirror upon the cold flagstones and it lay shattered on the floor, the reflection in the pieces was still beautiful.
Felicity helped me to forget. She wasn't afraid of her fate like I was, even though she was beautiful herself. I'd like to see anyone try to cage her. She'd break their arm and say they fell down, fluttering her eyelashes in girlish innocence.
She made me believe that I could find my true love. She made me believe in myself, because I believed in her, and she believed in everything.
Because, when you're like Felicity, it's easy to believe.
Even when she betrayed me just for a little taste of power, I still believed in her. She was always there, with a smile and her stormy eyes sparkling, to make things right again. So I would go along with anything just to see her happy.
Fee said that we would run away, that I wouldn't have to marry that horrible Mr. Bumble. But my prince said that I shouldn't believe in her anymore, that she was planning to betray the Order. Or rather, she was planning to betray Gemma. Felicity would never betray me.
Just being loved by someone, loved just for me, made me stronger. It made me stop believing so much in her, and to start believing in myself. Not because someone else believed in me, but because I was worth believing in.
I should have known. She was my strength, my sword arm, my everything. Now that she is gone, I can't believe in anything.