"If this is a fairytale," she whispers to herself, "then I am the princess."
But she looks at herself in the mirror again, turning her head slowly from side to side, and does not like what she sees.
Beautiful, ugly daughter.
Maybe she's not the princess, the thought strikes her.
Her heart quickens in her chest and she can feel her blood rushing in her neck, in her wrists, in the pulse points behind her knees. The thought terrifies her.
Maybe I'm not the princess, a seditious part of her thinks again, almost enjoying the way her heart half skips a beat. Maybe I'm the evil enchantress, the witch, the one doomed at the end of the story.
It's probably true.
She pulled the Prince's heart from his breast, rinsed it in her father's blood—princesses don't do things like that. Princesses are kind (she never truly has been), princesses help others selflessly (she does not), and princesses are grateful and accepting for what they have (she will never be).
She has done the unspeakable, for something that she even hesitates to call love as she once has. And she is always dressed in black.
Black feathers.
Not white.
But no! That was Kraehe, she tells herself, almost screams at herself, Kraehe, not me! Never me!
But Rue, too, is possessive. Rue, too, can be cruel.
Tell me you love me.
Perhaps, perhaps it would be best to turn back now.
Perhaps, perhaps she has enough strength to defy her father, to forsake Kraehe, to apologize to Tutu and Fakir—but mostly to ever loyal Ahiru.
But something tells her that it's too late to turn time back, because if she turns back far enough she's still Kraehe.