The Princess and the Pauper,

So this is new, I hope you like it.

I looked up and quickly regretted it, because there right in front of me was the princess, my eyes stared right into her dark tortured ones, it seemed as if she hadn't slept for weeks and judging by the size of the bags under her eyes im quite sure that she hadn't. My eyes looking into hers felt right, like it should be happening, I could see her longing but I wasn't sure as to why, then but the moment was broken as her mother dragged her away, and all that was left of her was a yellowed sheet of parchment, left fluttering to the ground.

The parchment, had words on it, I could read words, I was one of the few servants that could here, I don't know where I learnt to read, but I could, and I would read this, I looked around me and quickly scurried into the dark shed, I waited for my eyes to adjust, before I read the note.

It seemed like a diary entry, it said:

Dearest Diary,

Is life supposed to feel like a top security gaol? Where you have no choice, meal times, learning times, and work time, was all precise down to the exact minute? Is that what life is supposed to be? An endless turn of holding hands to walk down and up the palace stairs, a long list of possible suitors and male dukes to marry, half eaten meals, tested for poison. That isn't living is it? That's a gaol, and I need to escape from it, my father, well he will be severely disappointed, but I refuse to spend life in tight corsets, with vulture like men looking over my shoulder trying to control me, like a game of chess, but I don't even want to play, so wouldn't it just be easier to go? I think it would, so dearest diary this will be my last entry, before I leave you and my sheltered life behind, I guess looking for love, or for a life is what I want, a normal life, so I've decided to go. To leave, for good, and never ever come back to this prissy sheltered life. I will be the missing princess. I will be the story of the happy ever after that never came true. I will be myself. But I suppose, that may marry, marry the one who knows me, when we only just met, isn't that what love is? But then again I'm just a girl, and in this world, there is nothing worse than just a girl. To just a girl is to be weak, to be lost, to be underestimated. To be underestimated is like seeing somebody's shadow, you can't really see any details until they come into the light, but sometimes they stay in the shadows and never reach their full potential. But as my candle wick burns low, I must finish my writing, and prepare for my departure, when the moon grows full, I should like to think I will be ready, so now it is time to say goodbye to the loving, and caring small things in my life, and the larger things, like my family. So goodbye dearest diary, I hope someday someone will read you and understand my perspective on life.

Yours truly,

Max

I re-read and re-read the letter, not quite sure what to do, should I approach the princess, or should I follow her? The question stands. But I have no answer but to follow my princess, because after all, isn't that the code of chivalry? To follow the ones you are sworn to guard? I may not be a knight, but I am on my way to becoming one and I cannot live on to become one if I cannot even follow the code now.

I looked up at the sliver of light coming through the shed roof, I needed a plan, I needed a way to escape, without my escape being recognised along with hers, and I needed to die.

Not really die, but metaphorically, staged, and I knew the exact way to do so, with a little help I would be free by tomorrow, but things these days don't normally go my way, so the best way to kill my self is in a way that I am unrecognisable when gone, The most dangerous way of all, fire.

Fire was real danger in this world – all the powerful people want it, they would do anything to get it, the passionate have it, and try to hide it, and death masters it, while the other fear it.

To use fire as a weapon was one of the most dangerous things of all. It was like borrowing deaths powers and then returning it to death with a throng of people in its wake. That was what fire did.

But all I needed was someone to know I was in here, I just needed to tell someone I was practicing in the shed, and when it goes up in smoke, well I am free to leave.

I packed my things, into one small rucksack, and then I set my plan into motion. Leaving behind my home for the past 4 years, smiling, thinking of what my life would be like, a new path, a new place, a beginning.

I looked back at the flames licking at the building, and thought of it as a metaphor of my life: the building going up in flames was a sign of past work all demolishing to nothing.

Walking down the road I could've sworn I saw a hooded figure, just standing there, it looked as if she was sad, as if there was a regretful feeling about her. When I reached the bottom of the hill I looked up to see that the brown hooded figure was gone, like as if it were a figurement of my imagination, but I knew it wasn't, I knew something, and looking up into the sky at the big round moon, I felt as if something important was missing, but I couldn't turn back now, because my life at the castle was dead, this was my new life, the one I created, I was no more than a poor beggar here, a pauper. But I didn't care, because somehow I knew that it would all be okay, and that my life was somehow going to head in the right direction.

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