I am Autumn. That's what everyone tells me. I am Shazi bint Caspar Akbari the future queen of the kingdom of Autumn. But that is all I am. My only friend is one of my lady's maids and even that doesn't count because she has to relay everything I say back to my mother.

I was born to be queen. It's all I've ever been taught. No one thinks of me as anything else, not even me. Until now. Until tonight.

I yank on my plainest uniform and a cloak before checking the hall. Silence.

I tiptoe down the stairs. One of the maids passes by. "Do you need anything, Princess?"

"No, thank you. I'm just stretching my legs."

"Very good, my lady."

I smile to myself and continue to the back courtyard. I scale the fence, well scramble up, it is much harder to do than it looks.

Freedom. I've never been outside the palace grounds before and I suddenly feel like a caged animal let loose. However, it's not long until an arm of that cage reaches out.

"Shazi?" I don't recognize the voice. It's a young girl, only a bit younger than me.

I keep walking. "Shazi? Don't you recognize me?"

I whirl around wanting to knock this person out for cutting my freedom short. However, I finally recognize her. "Elaheh?"

She releases a smile and nods.

"I haven't seen you in forever!" I grab her and pull her into a hug. We knew each other when we were little. Her mother was a cook in the palace, but when she passed away Elaheh had to move in with her aunt.

"I didn't know they let you out of the palace?" she's joking.

"They don't."

"Oh, you wanna come in for some apple tea then, the city guards will be passing by soon on their rounds."

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

"My house is just over here, come on." She takes my hand like she did when we were young and leads me down the street.

"I'm sorry for the mess," she mumbles straightening her piles of books and papers. "I just earned soldier rank and there is so much paperwork. Oh, I'm, yeah, not complaining or anything. Sorry."

"It's fine," I reply wandering around looking at her cozy little house and wishing I could live like this. "You don't need to censor yourself around me... In fact I, well, I actually came out looking for someone to talk to." I surprise myself by how true this statement is.

"Of course, you can tell me anything."

"Is it all right if we just sit here for awhile, first." She nods.

"I've been realizing lately that I am not really a person."

"Okay?" she hesitates. We are lying on our backs on her kitchen floor looking at the stars through the hole in her ceiling.

"Everything I do is for Autumn. I hold magic for Autumn. I will marry to make Autumn stronger. Whenever I speak, it's for Autumn... How do I know where Autumn stops and I begin?"

"I don't know," she pulls two pumpkin-spice cookies out of the container we've been eating out of and hands me one over her head. "I guess. You just need to allow yourself days or nights or minutes like this, where you can say and act how you want and just do random things like lay on the floor and not think about being queen."

"Everything would be so much easier if I were born a boy." I slap my hand over my mouth, I've never said that out loud before.

"If you were a boy, we'd probably kissing by now," she laughs pretending I didn't just say the worst possible thing anyone could ever say. "But, it's good that you're a girl. It's weird for boys to lay on the floor eating cookies. Seriously though, like it or not Autumn needs you and you will be queen. And you do have magic. You just need to remember that that also gives you the power to say no to people and change things for the better. I dunno, that probably didn't help."

"Do you like being a soldier?"

"Yeah, I mean I haven't been doing it long. There's nothing else I can really do, so yeah it's fine. Why?"

"I was kind of thinking it would be nice to have someone to talk to, someone that knows how to be a person—a real, normal person—working in the palace. And if you wanted, I was hoping it could be you?"

"Of course, Shazi. But, it's almost morning you should probably be getting back."

"You're right. See you're helping already!" She nods. "Okay, I'll talk to my father this afternoon and ask him if I can get you hired as my new lady's maid."

She nods again and ushers me out the door. I run back to the palace, climb the stupid fence again, and rush back to my room hoping to get at least a few hours of sleep.

~theeShadyLady~

A/N: Elaheh (pronounced eh-lah-heh) means "Like a Goddess" in Persian :)