One: Where it Supposedly Got Better
Even without blessings of beauty, the Princess Daniel (the seamstress never got round to changing the banners, but she did find time to go on a date with the company representative) grew up to be a very pretty creature. Of course, the truth in that statement would depend entirely on how one defined "pretty." She wasn't fine-boned, golden-haired or amber eyed. She wasn't lithe, midnight-haired or midnight-eyed. Neither had she hair the colour of Autumn or eyes that reminded one of a sea after a storm.
Daniel had brown hair and brown eyes. Not the golden brown, like her grandmother's, that romantics wrote bad sonnets about or the delicious chocolate brown, like the Queen's, that made anyone who vaguely liked chocolate drool. Daniel's hair was simply mousy. The only thing remotely poetic anyone said about her eyes was that their colour was a little like rust on ancient swords (especially those who have spilled much blood).
Her brown hair was at first, stubbornly straight and no amount of curling papers could bring about a royal wave into her hair. Then, at the age of thirteen, just as the queen gave up, it began to curl, just a little. The queen was overjoyed and declared a national holiday ("Daniel's Curls Day" does have a certain ring to it.) She was then severely disappointed when the infuriating hair refused to curl further and what did do wasn't in pretty ringlets or even distantly uniform. So, by the time Daniel was fourteen, her hair somewhat resembled a bird's nest, right down to the boring barky colour of semi-dry twigs.
Even after repeated attempts, the court poets couldn't write a single line of verse about the Princess' beauty as it was. So, in order to win the enormous amount of money the Queen had promised, they fibbed. They then discovered the greater the lies they told, the more money they got, so the fibs grew bigger and bigger. The slight exaggerations and creative licence spawned to grossly inaccurate whoppers. Eventually, it got to the point where "inaccurate" doesn't even begin to describe what they claimed the Princess looked like. One poet wrote five-hundred-and-eighty-three-and-a-half epic lines describing the Princess and some of the rumours (which he started) about her. It was said that a diamond had shattered itself after being in Princess Daniel's presence, because it had felt so muddy and dirty in comparison. Another talked of how flowers turned to her when she walks into the garden, shunning the sun and instead, basking in her radiant beauty. The Queen, if anything, encouraged these rumours.
Since most people didn't get to see Daniel, poets included, there was often argument on what exactly did the Princess look like. Did she have eyes that resembled the eclipsed sun? Or were they like shadows at midnight? What they didn't dispute about whether or not she was beautiful. In fact, it became a common country saying. Someone receiving an exceptionally nice present would exclaim, "They're almost as lovely as Daniel." They were always careful when they used these little sayings in case they committed treason by insulting the Princess. Eventually, she gained her own adjective. "They're almost daniel!"
The royal family reasonably quickly got used to the idea that their daughter's name was stuck as Daniel. It actually took the Queen about seven years, but that's "quickly," compared to how long it took her to realise her daughter's hair just wouldn't curl (thirteen), that Daniel will never be able to mimic a nightingale's song (twelve), that no one would stop her weapons lessons (eight) or stop her practically living in the library (still hadn't got used to this one).
The whole country took it as a new fashion so there were girls named Daniel all over the country and eventually the continent. Naturally, they all spelt it as "Danielle," but it was a comfort the Queen. Other masculine name also came into fashion for baby girls. Some parents even cursed their sons with feminine name, but were careful to keep them monosyllabic, shunning names like "Elizabeth" or "Despoina."
Despite problems aforementioned, Daniel wasn't all that lousy as a Princess. Granted, she took weapons lessons and kept half the royal armoury up her skirts. This was actually the so-called "blessing of caution" kicking in, making her fearful of blood and the prospect of assassination, but ingrained even deeper than the magic was her sense of practicality (a recessive gene, hadn't shown up for centuries). This made her react to her fears in such a way: weapons training.
"Aniel," the Queen would say. (She still preferred Aniel since it was more feminine and insisted most of the castle staff who met the Princess regularly call her that.) "No one's going to try to kill you at dinner, it's just me and your father."
"Just in case some nutter decides to leap in from the windows or some homicidal bravo gets dared to butcher the Princess or some trained assassin gets paid ludicrous amounts to 'take me out' or some murderous maniac decides it'll be good fun to feed me to his starved tigers or even the royal cook you fired figured the best method of revenge would be to chop me up into unrecognisable tiny pieces and serve me up as cold cut before dinner's over. You know it only takes thirty-one seconds without air for you to die. Faster with an arrow at the throat. I'll bleed to death if they try my wrists which have to be kept lady-like and still. With the way the windows are positioned in the hall, anyone can perch unnoticed there and shoot an arrow. You insist on parading my 'swan-like neck' with that red scarf, it's going to be 'swan-like' target soon. I might as well draw a 'shoot-me' target on myself I'm only immune to the seven common poisons and there are some I can do nothing about arsenic's fatal no matter. The silver needle method only works for..." She took a deep breath. "If anything happens, I just want to be prepared."
That was the blessing of intelligence coming through. With a good memory, you'd be aware that it was defective, very defective. It was one of those imitation ones that a nameless, traceless factory mass-manufactured. It dolled out titanic portions to her memory and imagination, but did the same to the way she talked about the things she knew, her will to be assertive about the things she knew, the speed she thought and the way she sought for the things she wanted to know. Her mind was like lightning, jumping swiftly from one thought to the next, her voice often had to lag behind and try, in vain to catch up. This often led to incoherent speeches which had her garbling along at top speed between big unlady-like breaths.
That very same "gift" also led to Daniel living in the library behind (literally) walls of books. She had built a den among the bookshelves.
"To make up for lost time," she explained. Up until she was eight-and-a-half, she didn't know the existence of books. In pursuit of knowledge she had merely interrogated everyone and anyone she knew about everything and anything. Her tutors had taught her music, dancing and painting, not about reading and writing.
"A Princess doesn't need that," insisted the Queen.
Daniel discovered books when one of her dance tutors came into class with a romance novel.
"Now... one and two and..." Her dance tutor trailed off, she knew Daniel's attention was elsewhere.
"What's this?" she had asked, picking up the novel.
The dance tutor had blushed and mumbled her answer.
"What?"
"Leather's Passion."
"What's that?"
"Romance novel."
"What's that?"
"A story."
"Elaborate."
"It's a story where a heartless leather worker falls in love with the stunning village maiden of negotiable virtue. It was impossible, you see, but they did and they were convinced it wouldn't work out and that they were better off apart. But they weren't so they tried, but misunderstanding comes between them when one of her ex-customers shows up drunk (naturally he was only her customer because she really need the money for her sick mother) and the leather worker's betrothed returns from her visit to her cousin (three times removed). He made a vow that he would only marry her if there was a full moon on the eighth day of the eighth month, which you know is impossible." At this point tears started to well in the dance tutor's eyes. Daniel passed her a tissue and impatiently urged her on.
"So that kept them apart, but they decided they couldn't live without each other and didn't care what the other did before so long as they're together now. The see each other again, but since he's a man of his honour, he can't marry her and she understood that. He also can't keep on seeing her since that was also part of his honour, but at least they forgave each other. That love was so enchanting that the moon (this all happened at night, on the eighth day of the eighth month, by the way, how romantic) showed her face to watch. So they could get married after all."
"Why?"
"It's just a story," said the dance tutor, dabbing her eyes furiously, careful not to let it smudge her cosmetics.
"I thought a string of words that narrates a chain of related events, not a block of paper. Explain."
Instead of dancing, Daniel spent the rest of the lesson questioning the dance tutor about books in excruciating detail, wringing out ever half-forgotten fact she ever knew or thought she knew. And she learnt how to read. The dance tutor was very careful about hiding certain sections of the book from Daniel's viewing.
It wasn't until she was eight-and-three-quarters she found the royal library and it took her another three months to convince her royal parents to let her use it. After that, she had hardly spent more than a candlemark away from the place.
Her little den in the library was partly because of her "nesting instincts" of the "blessing of caution." Do not be mistaken to think of it as an old (royal) cardboard box with (royal) blankets. She had made blueprints and built it by strategically re-positioning bookcases and other bits of furniture. She needed the help of several of the menservants of the palace. Naturally, she only asked these menservants very discreetly, only asked them to do small parts of her large scheme and told them that it was "top-secret top-royal" business they were doing. They didn't question her, since she was the Princess and did as she bid.
Daniel's den, or "Daniel's lair" as she called it (she hated alliteration, you would too if you've seen some of the rejected poems about her "beauty" ), was situated just off centre of the library. To the unwary, it was merely looks as though the royals decided it was stylish to have curvy walls and spell out their initials with the bookcases. Strategic mirrors and some spy-holes between books made security easy.
Daniel spent all of her time in her lair, if she wasn't with the weapons master or a dance/beauty/art/music instructor (they were all pretty much the same to her). She took most of her meals there and tried to sleep there whenever possible.
"It's the only place in this palace I feel vaguely safe in," she had said.
The Queen was convinced Daniel was suffering from some unknown curse. It was fairy protocol to inform the unfortunate victim, which Daniel felt was "a defeat of purpose. Why tell someone something bad's about to happen and how it's going to happen. It makes prevention so much easier. Take..." She never finished her sentence, since her mind had flashed to another topic.
With that thought in mind, the Queen decided that Daniel was suffering from a curse and that the situation with her would only last until her sixteenth birthday. Since she did not know what curse exactly her daughter suffered from, she went through history, noted similarities and made lists of what she needed:
1. Fairies (preferably godmothers or godfathers)
2. Talking animals (optional: comic relief and can get useful along the way)
3. Prince (possibly cursed)
4. Magic sword (wielded by Prince, not Daniel)
5. Love (preferably at first sight)
The Queen thought hard, chewing on her quill. As she caught herself doing something so unlady-like, she came up with the final thing to add to her list:
6. Wedding ready planned (just in case anything happens)
"Perfect," she congratulated herself.
Considering how the company had blotched things up before, it would have been wise for the Queen to take the matters into her own hands and make preparations for Daniel's sixteenth birthday party herself. Of course, that would have been very expensive and time consuming. That would also mean cutting many social functions and new dresses. So the Queen called the company representative (who she's been quite friendly with ever since he married the royal seamstress) and ticked a hybrid or a few package-deals (at a 35.5% discount) and made very specific demands.
The royal seamstress just happened to choose that moment to parade her new wardrobe, so it would be perfectly understandable if the company representative made a few minor errors. Which he did.
