I've always considered "after happily ever after" stories to be a bit cliché. So when this idea came into my head this morning, I thought, well, I better make it short. I wanted it to be 500 words, then 600 words, skipped 700 and made 800. Hopefully not the same old stuff you've grown accustomed to expect from these types of things. I wouldn't call it my best, and I'm not completely happy about the title, but I can live with it.
With no further ado!
She wakes up alone. It scares her, for a moment, as she listens, in vain, for the slight breathing of her guards. She hesitantly opens her eyes. They are not there. Her eyes are squeezed shut again, and she feels like a little girl. When she opens her eyes again, nothing has changed. She lays there, eyes wide open and heart beating, fast and frightened.
Then she scolds herself, harsh at first, and then gentle. She had grown accustomed to them. She laughs when she pictures herself, still the cinder-girl, not able to sleep because there are men in her bedroom. She gets out of bed and dresses herself, something she hasn't done since she came here, picking the comfortable brown dress with no lace. It is still fancier than anything she used to own. She opens the door a crack, wishing it empty, but palace corridors are always filled with people. What shall she do? She casts a quick glance around her bedroom to find the servants' door. She does not know what it leads to, but her maid had told her it was not used anymore. She opens it after a few tugs and enters.
It is dark and full of spider webs, but she has not changed so much that they would frighten her. When she reaches the end of it, she is disappointed in how long it takes for her to move the door. Once she is in the light again, she inspects herself. The muscles in her arms and legs have all but disappeared. She pokes her stomach and knows that she has something there that she did not before. It had come with the rich food, and the needle-point. Not that she minds, she tells herself. It is a mark of wealth. It is a mark of laziness, her father tells her.
She has not changed so much to forget her father, and knows that he would not be pleased. She had tried, she reminds herself. She had tried to convince them, tried to go outside. She is the same ghostly color she was before. She is in the old kitchen, she thinks, peering at the large sinks and ovens. It comforts her to be here, somewhat. It is like going home. She reaches into the nearest sink and pulls out a pot larger than she had ever seen. "Princess?" someone asks. "What are you doing here?"
"I got lost," she answers, and they lead her back to her room. Her maid takes off the brown dress with an unhappy click of the tongue and dresses her in a pearled and laced white thing that itches. She tells her that she is a princess now, not a cinder-girl, and that princesses are always beautiful. But she knows that she is beautiful in anything she wears. They do not like to remember that she was once one of them.
As her maid does her hair, she thinks that she will ask him again, if she may go outside with him, perhaps to ride one of the horses. Perhaps this time, he will not say, "I have so much to do today," and turn from her, so that she only sees his back as he signs another law. Perhaps the guards will not take her by the wrist and lead her back to her sitting room, where her ladies-in-waiting are doing needle-point and are ready with one for her. She does not wish to join them today. She knows what she wants. She wants to be free again – if only just for a little while.
She has not changed so much that she would be content like this. As she threads her needle, she thinks that though she has not changed so much yet, there will come a time when she will be happy with this life, unless she does something – something soon. She speaks to her maid. "I wish to see the prince." She has never once called him her husband. She is going to convince him, today, that they should spend some time together.
She figures if she tells him one more time, he will finally hear. He will look up and see her standing there and remember how the danced at the ball. He will not care how many laws he has to sign. "That can wait," he will say. And when they are alone, he will call her by her real name. And when he does that, she will forget every time she had to be content with a handful of words and the back of his coat. Because he is her husband, after all, and she loves him almost as much she did the night of the ball.
But when they arrive at his room, she finds that he is gone.
A sad little fic, isn't it? I'm still not sure what to think about it. If you could drop me a line and help me out, so I know if I like it, that would be lovely.
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