Boys, they're handsome and strong
But always the first to tell me I'm wrong
Boys try to tame me, I know
They tell me I'm weird and won't let it go
Biana's always hated being controlled. She's expected to be a princess - wear ball gowns and hold her head high, even when it hurts - and she hates the way everyone stares at her if she makes one wrong move, one mistake. It's easy to forget she exists; the only daughter, the shallow, pretty girl with the fake friends and faker smile, the bejeweled girl who's nothing more than someone's something - Alden Vacker's daughter, Fitz Vacker's sister, Sophie Foster's friend.
She hates them, most of the time - the expectations. They haunt her at night, dreams of the perfection she strives for but never quite seems to achieve.
No, I'm fine, I'm lying on the floor again
Cracked door, I always wanna let you in
Even after all of this shit, I'm resilient
It's not until she starts becoming Sophie's friend for real that she realizes how different her life is. Biana's always thought that every elf lived under pressure, in constant fear of having her flaws discovered, but Sophie is… different. Strange. Maybe it's her brown eyes, or the easy way she talks, like nothing but surviving Foxfire midterms matters, but Sophie's life seems simultaneously so much easier and so much harder than Biana's.
Biana guesses it's because she hasn't had a real friend in her entire life - the only people who are close to her only are because they like Fitz, or her family. Maybe if she'd had a friend before Sophie, she might've noticed that no other elves have ribs that jut out or knives hidden under their pillows. But she didn't, so the pain and hunger - starvation, really - are normal for her. Nothing out of the ordinary.
'Cause a princess doesn't cry (no-oh)
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh, oh)
Over monsters in the night
Don't waste our precious time
On boys with pretty eyes
She holds her head high, always. Wears her pretty dresses and paints her face unrecognizable with makeup, putting on a fake smile. Biana's a princess, royalty in her flowing capes and gleaming tiaras. In a sick way, she loves it - all the attention, the smiles from elves she barely knows, a nod from her idol, Councillor Oralie, the looks from the boys. But most of the time she feels attacked, like a target is pinned to her back; look at me, her face, her family name taunt. Look at me.
But Biana tolerates it all, breezing past elvin reporters snapping photos of her in a tight dress, sending sultry winks to boys twice her age, taking at all like a queen. She's painted as a good girl - happy and sweet, bright and lovable. She's exactly who's she's trained herself to be. Even though the reports and the rumors circle in her head at night, making her sick to her stomach with nervousness, she's a princess. She doesn't cry.
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh)
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh, oh)
Burning like a fire
You feel it all inside
But wipe your teary eyes
The rumors and the gossip spread - saying she's not who she appears to be, that she's a slut, a whore who can't live without the spotlight. She hates that - beats herself up for presenting the image of a bad girl somehow, while being as perfect as humanly possible. Her waist gets thinner and the mirror still tells her she's fat, her skin is slit in two with blood trickling from the wound and she still thinks she deserves the pain. She doesn't recognize herself after a few months of this - without makeup, her eyes are always ringed with lavender circles, and her blue-gray lips tremble. But still, her eyes are never red - she never wakes up with them puffy and bloodshot, because she doesn't cry.
'Cause princesses don't cry
Don't cry, don't cry, oh
Don't cry
Don't cry, oh
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, oh
'Cause princesses don't cry
The rumors cease - Biana knows her father stepped in, pulled some of his many strings to stop the gossip from taking over - but still her continues to hate herself. She thinks it's somehow her fault that the rumors started in the first place. Something she did wrong, some mistake she made that can't be taken back. It's not until she nearly collapses in a game of base quest that she notices just how far she's taken this.
The near-constant hunger is always itching at the back of her mind - but she stops almost completely, telling herself that being skinny is healthy, that she'll be accepted and continue to be loved if she can just lose a little more weight, make her waist a little skinnier. She tells herself that the bandanges and the scars that are finally fading are good for her - that she deserves the pain, if she's done something to make the elvin world hate her.
When the hunger is devouring her whole, the pain is ripping her in two - she doesn't cry. She deserves it, Biana tells herself. She deserves the pain.
Girls, so pretty and poised
And soft to the touch
But God made me rough
Girls, so heavy the crown
They carry it tall
But it's weighing me down
It's hard to walk tall when Biana's crumbling at the edges - hard to stay standing when she feels so weak she might fall apart at any second. But she does it anyway, because she's a princess and it's her job to be beautiful. No one seems to have noticed the shaky way Biana walks now, her jittery, nervous steps so different from the confident stalk that she used to have. No one has mentioned the portions on Biana's late getting smaller and smaller, until the only thing she's eating is vegetables and occasionally a bit of bread. The sweets she used to crave - ripplepuffs, custard bursts, and mallowmelt - make her sick to her stomach now.
She wonders why no one else ever talks about the pain. Is she the only one weak enough to feel it?
No, I'm fine
I'm lying on the floor again
Cracked door
You're only going to let them in, once
And you won't come undone
She sitting on her bed doing homework, like she usually is nowadays. She doesn't have the energy to do much else, though she is forcing herself to take a shower every day. She still has an image to present if she's ever called out of the house by her mother. She's sure at least Fitz has noticed that she hasn't left the house in weeks, but he says nothing, only chattering about his first telepathy session with Sophie and how much he loves spending time with her. Biana can't remember the last time he talked about her like that.
Later that night, hugging her pillow to her chest, it's the closest she's come to crying in a long time. It's the last straw for her - knowing that her own brother cares more for the blonde elf with the brown eyes than his sister. Blood gets on her sheets, and she reminds herself to change them and scrub the stain before anybody notices - not that anyone would notice Biana Vacker, anyway. But still, she doesn't cry.
'Cause a princess doesn't cry (no-oh)
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh, oh)
Over monsters in the night
Don't waste our precious time
On boys with pretty eyes
She's weary - sick of the stares and the rotten feeling of bile in the back of her throat. It's the first time she's been outside in months, but the air feels good, soothing her skin. She closes her eyes - the same Vacker teal eyes that the girls in her grade are always gushing about when they're attached to Fitz's face. She's grown tired of fighting the urge to let go, and often wonders if anyone would notice if she was missing, if anyone would attend the planting of a dark brown tree with bright teal flowers hanging down like tears rolling down her cheeks.
At least, she thinks that's what tears would do. She wouldn't know - Biana is a princess, and a princess doesn't cry.
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh)
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh, oh)
Burning like a fire
You feel it all inside
But wipe your teary eyes
There's a familiar burning in her chest when they leave - a sort of relief, in a way. Banishment is a way to escape the rumors, the cruel words that cut her deeper than any knife ever could. But then her mother murmurs in her ear her plan and Biana nearly breaks right there. With her friends, she might be able to be an elf again - a healthy one. She might be able to eat a slice of mallowmelt without feeling guilty. She might be able to fall asleep without the scent of blood in the air.
But her mother… it means that she can't start again, not this time. Maybe not ever. She hates her mother for it. Della cries that first night - Biana can hear her muffled sobs through the thin walls of the treehouse - and wonders if her mother doesn't think she's a princess, because to Biana's knowledge, princesses don't cry.
'Cause princesses don't cry
Don't cry, don't cry, oh
Don't cry
Don't cry, oh
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, oh
'Cause princesses don't cry
She doesn't cry when she and Fitz are the same once more - sorted into the same hemisphere, wearing the same clothes, the only distinguishable difference being the ability pins on their vests. The anonymity of Exillium is freeing - she could be anyone, and the other Waywards wouldn't know.
She doesn't cry when Calla tells her that her ability is basically useless. Not when she discovers the truth, not when her brother and Sophie are holding hands, not when Keefe ignores her to talk to Dex or Sophie or Fitz. Not when she realizes that she's the youngest, the least important once again. Biana doesn't cry anymore - it's in her blood, smeared over the woven grass mattresses. None of the gnomes mention the rusty stains. She still doesn't matter, which doesn't make her cry.
I'm fine, I won't waste my time
Keep it in a jar, gonna leave it for the next one
Yeah, I'm fine, I won't waste my time
Keep it in a jar, gonna leave it for the next one
It's like her emotions are in a bottle - blank. Keefe mentions offhandedly that she's feeling bored, which she knows isn't true. She's tired, and sad, and scared, but none of those emotions she can name because it's been so long since she allowed herself to feel. She's unknowingly back to eating almost nothing - an unconscious effort to get the bog with the bangs to look her in the eyes.
She's so tired of being lonely. Forgotten. The hunger - it's not because she wants to be skinny. It's because she wants to feel something - anything. Even if it makes her cry. But, Biana's forgotten that nothing makes her cry, because she doesn't cry.
Yeah, I'm fine
I'm lying on the floor again
It's nothing like she imagined it would be, coming home. It's so much worse. The looks and the rumors and the gossip start again, some saying that she's a disgrace, the real reason the Vacker family had a student attending Exillium. Some elves even say that she got pregnant and had a baby - those are the hardest. The habits she still has from the early days of her pain are still ingrained in her mind, and they only get stronger when she hears someone call her fat.
More, Biana tells herself. Just a little more. She refuses to eat for three days, and on the fourth she only eats a cracker because she can't drag her body out of bed to get in the shower. She gets worse every day, painting her lips bright pink to hide the blue of them, cinching the waists of her favorite gowns together at the back so you can tell how much weight she's lost - how her skin seems to hang from her body. She's fine. Still breathing.
'Cause a princess doesn't cry (no-oh)
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh, oh)
Over monsters in the night
Don't waste our precious time
On boys with pretty eyes
It's when Keefe gets back that she's not fine, and that's only for a moment, because he only has eyes for Sophie as they embrace for what must be the hundredth time. Biana's jealous - she doesn't show it, of course, but she is - jealous of the unconscious beauty Sophie possesses, of her charming worrywart energy, of her unending fight. Biana wishes she was a more like Sophie.
But, then again, Sophie cries. And Biana doesn't; she's a princess, and a princess doesn't cry.
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh)
A princess doesn't cry (no-oh, oh)
Burning like a fire
You feel it all inside
But wipe your teary eyes
She's a zombie, droning through her days, the pain of the night the only time she ever feels. Her knife - her trusted, beautiful, shining knife - has been her only true friend for years. She wonders how it's come to this - how she became this broken girl. Biana knows she's not okay, knows it's not healthy for her to weigh as much as Dex's little sister, knows that the bloodstains on her clothes and bedsheets are singular to her, yet that makes her stronger.
She knows pain, Biana does - it's a part of her. She's accepted that she's never going to be good enough, but that doesn't stop her from trying. And trying to be good enough means eating less and cutting more - means she can't even show what she's feeling. So she wipes the nonexistent tears from her eyes and stares into her mirror, wondering how much force it would take to break it. Probably as much as it's taken to break her.
'Cause princesses don't cry
Don't cry, don't cry, oh
Don't cry
Don't cry, oh
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, oh
Biana's not crying even as she faces her enemies. She's not sobbing or hyperventilating, just staring. A lifetime of practice has allowed her to read facial expressions easily. She knows that Fintan, so much for his games and his trickery, is scared. She is, too, as much as she hates to admit it. Biana Vacker is scared.
But, unlike Fintan, who lets the tiniest wisp of a tear escape from his eye, Biana doesn't cry.
'Cause princesses don't cry
Don't cry, don't cry, oh
Don't cry
Don't cry, oh
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, oh
Staring into the mirror, months later - when Elwin has told her so many times how beautiful she is, how being this skinny isn't healthy - Biana's still broken. Still paper thin, with sallow white skin and eyes that seem too big for her face. She knows that no one's ever going to be able to fix her, that the array of scars will never fade. They'll join her secret stash of scars over her hips and thighs, weighing down on her like the pressure of being a Vacker.
Biana hates herself for who she's become. She probably always will.
But she won't cry about it.
'Cause princesses don't cry
Well. That was the hardest thing I've ever written. I heard this song on the radio a couple days ago and I've been struggling to put into words how I felt when I heard it. My first thought was, 'I have to write a songfic with this song.' The second thought was, 'For Sophie.' But then I remembered Biana, because I have a tendency to forget about Biana.
Never again.
Please, please, please, if you're struggling with an eating disorder or self-harming or you have depression or you just want someone to talk to, please, message me. I promise you won't be a burden - this is what fanfiction is for, meeting people and sharing our love of writing. I don't care how significant your problem is and I don't care how much of a burden you think you are, I will always reply to messages about mental health. Always.
Please know that you are worth so much. You are beautiful, you are strong, you are good enough, you are loved. You aren't alone. If you ever need me, I'm here. I usually reply to messages within 24 hours. Please, please, please know just how much each and every one of you are loved.
Love,
Ally