Kindred

Chapter Three

This chapter is a little later than I would have liked, my health has not been very good lately so updates on this as well as my other fics may be sporadic. Thank you for reading thus far. Also, someone in the comments asked if I was going to do a set on the princes, but I'm sorry to say I probably won't. I just don't find them as interesting as the princesses. I could do one or two on request though.

Also also, here is my obligatory link to my novel: dp/B07BGSPPBY

UK link: . /dp/B07BGSPPBY

…..

Years later, when most monarchies were gone and somewhat forgotten, there would be a term invented for Tiana's particular ailment.

Imposter syndrome.

Traveling back and forth between Maldonia and New Orleans during the first year of her marriage, she had painted on a smile and done what was expected of her. She got what she wanted; her restaurant did well even when she wasn't around to run it, Maldonia's royal family welcomed her warmly and the people seemed to love her. Their wedding date was a national holiday.

How long can all this last?

If life had taught her anything, it had taught her that blissful happiness was always followed by a terrible blow. There was pressure to produce an heir to the throne, Naveen would have his head turned eventually, the kingdom would be overthrown by a coup with the revolutionaries blaming the state of the nation on their prince's decision to marry a common foreigner who worked a menial job.

She knew she was being ridiculous, but it was hard to stop.

When she got the notice that she was to go on the retreat with the other princesses, she felt like she was going to her doom. She'd gotten away with it thus far, but if anyone could suss out a pretender, it would be a real life princess.

…..

"At least let me wash the dishes," Cinderella insisted. "Snow can help...she's looking for a job to do."

"No, it's okay," Tiana insisted back. "I like doing dishes. I used every pot and pan in this place, it's hardly fair to make you do them..."

"It's perfectly fair," Ella argued. "If you make all the meals, you should leave the dishes for the rest of us. Take the night off, do something else. I promise we won't wreck the kitchen."

Ella held up her hands on that last note and laughed softly. Tiana sighed.

"I'm not worried about you wrecking the kitchen..." she said.

"I can set Snow at the door to keep Anna out," Ella suggested.

Tiana snorted, and then felt bad because Anna was such a nice girl even if she was a walking disaster waiting to happen.

And who am I to judge her? She's a real princess...

"Honestly, it's fine," Tiana said as she shook that thought out of her head. "Maybe you can take over breakfast tomorrow, how about that?"

"Deal," Ella nodded, and walked away with that enviable poise that Tiana admired so much.

It was hard to believe Ella had ever been a scullery maid, or Snow for that matter. They did perform domestic work very well but always with a kind of inhuman grace, as though they were dancing instead of sweeping the floors or washing windows. Aurora was much the same, although she had only ever had to keep a small woodland cottage clean.

The others were not that used to housework, although they all pitched in in some ways. Rapunzel had only ever done chores out of boredom and wasn't very thorough when she could be painting or running around the garden instead. Ariel had never even heard of dust before she came to the surface, and was too easily distracted by random objects to be given any hard work.

Elsa cleaned the bathrooms with ease; she covered all the fixtures with a thin layer of ice and then melted it to run down the drain. Anna considered this cheating but nobody else really minded. Anna herself was just asked to dust the stairs and the rafters, because anything delicate nearby would risk her falling onto it, into it or up against it. At least with the hardwood fixtures there was minimal risk.

Merida and Pocahontas couldn't be relied on to stay in the castle for long enough to do any work, so they usually brought back something useful from their forest jaunts. Merida was particularly skilled at bringing back rabbits, hares and wild geese (and equally skilled at skinning and butchering them which Tiana found too upsetting to do herself) and Pocahontas tended to find wild vegetables for the vegetable plot, medicinal herbs and fish. Both of them brought in enough firewood to keep the kitchen hearth going all day and night.

Lazy as she was, Jasmine was more reliable than Belle to get the occasional chore done. She would moan and complain about it as she was doing it, but she wouldn't keep putting it off until she'd finished the next chapter as Belle often did (and mostly by the time she finished said chapter, the job would have been done by somebody else, usually Snow.) Mulan would cheerfully do anything that was asked of her, but she went about it in strange confusing ways. She burned strong incense in rooms instead of airing them, did the laundry with vinegar instead of soap and when asked just shrugged and said it was how things were done at home.

The only real constant was that the kitchen had been marked out as Tiana's territory since the day she arrived. Although most of the other girls could cook, and some were actually very good at it, Tiana took over almost all meals and chores relating to the kitchen. She restocked it from the local market once a week, and in the evenings read a book in front of the fire or sat talking at the hearth with whichever princess had come in to share a cup of tea with her.

In a sense, she knew why she was there. She felt at home in the kitchen, anywhere else in the castle (including her own bedroom) gave her a tight panicked feeling. She knew very well that housekeepers and other castle staff spent their entire lives in the kitchen and in a household like this she was looking and acting like a housekeeper.

Maybe that was why the other girls came down there so often to talk to her, to sit on the uncomfortable rickety stools instead of the plush chairs in the parlour. Subconsciously perhaps they wanted to remind her that she was among equals.

…..

"Could you repeat that?" Tiana asked, pencil poised over her notepad.

"Prinsesstarta," Elsa said again. "It means princess cake."

"I guessed that part. So, what do we need for it?"

"Eggs, at least a dozen. Flour, sugar, cream, milk, raspberries...and marzipan."

"I'll have to get the marzipan in the next town over," Tiana said, frowning down at the list. "Everything else is doable, except raspberries are out of season."

"Oh," Elsa said, looking crestfallen.

"What about those little lumpy ones...you know, the black ones?" Ariel piped up from her seat by the fire. "They're really good!"

"Blackberries?" Tiana asked.

"Yes, blackberries! Although we'd have to get more, I ate the last few."

"Blackberries could work," Elsa mused. "It's not traditional but I don't think Anna will mind as long as it looks like a prinsesstarta..."

"I'll ask Pocahontas to pick up a basket next time she goes into the forest," Tiana confirmed. "Do you have a picture for me to copy? I've never made one of these, obviously..."

"Oh, well..." Elsa stammered. "I was hoping to make it myself."

That little unreasonable shred of panic flared up in Tiana.

"It's tradition," Elsa continued. "It has to look exactly right, I know it's silly but..."

"No, it's not silly," Tiana croaked with false confidence. "Sure, I'll leave out all the stuff for you here, and you can call me when you're done so I can wash up..."

"Oh no," Elsa demurred. "I couldn't ask you to wash up after I've cooked. I'll leave the place spotless, please don't worry."

Great, now on top of being a fake princess they think I'm obsessed with the kitchen. That's just wonderful.

Struggling with her sense of impending doom, she got all the needed ingredients for Elsa to make Anna's much missed childhood treat and left the kitchen ready for her.

What do I do now?

Alone in the hallway, away from the kitchen, she was struck by how little she knew the girls she had been living with for so long. Even the friendliest of conversations had taken place with the kitchen acting as a safety net for her. Being out in the hall might as well have been out at sea; the sense of drifting away was the same.

Early on, Tiana had been hopeful that she and Pocahontas would stick together, being from the same country. But Pocahontas was as alien as any of the others, arguably moreso because she so rarely spoke and spent so much time out of the castle. Tiana knew as much about Native American culture as the next African American, which was to say not a lot, and while Pocahontas had never been less than polite she sometimes seemed to look at Tiana with what she thought was disapproval.

Does she feel like she's not supposed to be here? Is that why she keeps leaving?

Light footsteps sounded behind her in the hall, and she felt a small hand on her shoulder.

"You look a bit lost," Mulan laughed. "You can hide in my room if you want, until Elsa's done."

Am I that obvious?

She let Mulan lead her to her bedroom. At once Tiana felt her eyes water at the incense permeating the air but she tried not to cough. A real princess probably wouldn't cough. Mulan sat at a low table surrounded by thick cushions and beckoned Tiana to sit with her.

On the table, several sheets of silky-looking paper were spread out, some blank, some with beautifully composed Chinese characters painted on them. A small bottle of ink and a brush sat proudly in the middle.

"Do you know what your name means?" Mulan asked, picking up her brush.

"Um..." Tiana thought hard. "Highest beauty, I think."

"Hmm," Mulan hummed, the tip of the brush tapping at her mouth. "Zuígáo dí méi...that's not quite right but it's as close as I can get."

"What are you doing?" Tiana asked, watching her carefully dip the brush in the ink.

"Shúfá," Mulan explained. "It's writing, but it's also art. I'm not very good, but I've done everyone's names. Except yours."

The brush swept over the paper in graceful strokes, and though the characters looked complex Mulan had them painted in the blink of an eye. Four characters, descending in a perfect line.

最 高 的 美

Mulan stamped the edge of the page with a small red stamp, blew on it gently and placed it in front of Tiana.

"There you are," she said. "That's all of you."

It was strange to look on her own name like this. She had written it on cheques, on letters and envelopes, on her marriage registry, a hundred thousand places. She had written it beside the word Princess and felt that awful sick feeling that it was a mistake, that her name wasn't meant to be there.

But this...

Rendered in black ink on fine handmade paper, painted by a girl as graceful as any masterpiece artist, this looked like the name of a real princess.

"Thank you," she said earnestly, though it felt like she could never say it enough.

For the first time, she felt at ease in the castle.