Disquiet on the Vienna Line

“Welcome to the palace, your highness.” Karim stands on the other side of bars that hold Estelle inside a cage, her wrists bound, her feet bare, her cloak gone.

If Karim had thought her wild before, he would not have known wildness until now.

She charges the bars, swiping her hand through the orifice large enough to allow her forearms to reach. Karim was too quick and stepped out of the way of her claws.

“How did you find me?” Estelle hissed.

“The whisper of the woods, I’m afraid they sold you out.” He tsked, turning to leave her in this cold and desolate place.

“What do you mean?” Estelle shook her head. She grabbed the bars so tightly her knuckles turned white as marble. “I am to be Queen!”

“You are delusional, a murderer teetering on serial, and contain one very unlawful gene.” Karim sneered.

Estelle blanched, releasing the bars, her toes digging into the cracks of brick beneath her feet.

“Murderer?” She whispers.

Karim didn’t answer. He didn’t even look her in the eyes. He merely turned away, taking the torch with a flame.

Estelle was then plunged into darkness, cold, and confusion.

At the age of three, Estelle had made her first kill. She was moved to her fifth foster home earlier that year, and her guardians had no money to feed her or the other children. Estelle had no choice but to sneak into the Weiden Woods for game.

A bunny was perched on a rock just beside a tree. She had borrowed the man's bow and arrow, fully intending to use it until she had realized she had not a clue as to how the contraption operated. So, she plunged the arrowhead into the bunny’s head and brought it home. It was a shack, really, but the man and woman had at least given her a blanket. Then a beating. They said it was not ladylike to kill animals and bring them home.

Estelle had felt a bit of remorse for killing the adorable creature, and although her stomach had grumbled for days and days and days. She couldn’t bring herself to offer it up for supper. She cleaned the blood, found some scraps off Giselle’s fabric cart, and made a bow. She skinned it, stuffed it with some cotton from the woman’s pillow, and wrapped the bow around her small incision.

Seven lashes on her back with a belt from the man’s cryptic closet.

Estelle didn’t cry. She may have flinched, but only when the woman kicked her new friend out the front door. Tears filled her eyes, but never quite fell. She named her bunny Elle.

Elle and Estelle would rewrite her story, go on lots of adventures together, and Elle would never leave her.

She made her second and third kills that night. Evanescent mommy and daddy left the cryptic closet open. She tied them to the bed and put an arrow in each head. For Elle.

Her flitting brother, Rok, helped her rewrap her bleeding back from the belt lashes after and then they ran away.

It wasn’t long they lasted on the streets, weeks maybe. Until a member of the guard found them.

Estelle remembered the face of the guard when he found her atop a cardboard box a few streets away from where she lost her living Elle. It was pure horror.

Rok was with her, but he wasn’t alive. She was never really sure when he died, but it was some time during those weeks they had starved and stolen apples from carts.

She had looked at Rok then, sleeping next to her as the guard wrapped a warm, fuzzy blanket around her shoulders. Her flitting brother was gray. Yet they had only spoken yesterday.

Estelle was six when she was in her eighth home, with only a provisory man who made her call him Papa. He touched her a lot in places she didn’t quite like. She knew it was wrong but could only lie still lest she felt the burn of metal in place of a soft petal.

She bit off his finger a few months later, once she realized she no longer wanted her Papa to put it in her. Though she wishes it were his head she could bite off.

Estelle was thirteen when she met a boy, Tommy, a very cute boy. He was in the orphaning system with her; they were supposed to be siblings, but they were truly friends. Maybe a little in love. They played, stole scraps, apples, and oranges, and he helped her make a new friend with a new bunny. They had Elle and Ivan. Their guardians didn’t like their friendship very much, so they got regular whippings and beatings and punishments.

Tommy didn’t come home one day, and she never saw him again. She didn’t like that feeling. She lost another friend.

Some time during her teen years, she met Melinda, the librarian. This is when she learned of the Royal Belvederes, of magic, of stories, romance, love, life, and adventure.

It is also when she discovered that with the reign of the Belvederes came the ruination of magic. It was outlawed. She had always wanted to see the Pimsy Plum that lost its purple leaves in the spring and sprouted orange feathers in autumn. She wanted to ride dragons, sing songs with the little dwarves, adventure with a knight, slay a beast, and find so many more whimsical mysteries of the world.

Yet it was all gone, it was all myth, legend, and no more.

She supposed there were still some traces of magic left for she could not always understand curious encounters. Such as the time she had brought an apple to share with Tommy, but then there were two in her pocket. She only had enough room for one. Small things such as that always had her wonder if the little nimble knacks were helping her. She assumed they hadn’t since their forest had burned long ago.

That is why citizen identification cards were so imperative to the Royal family. It kept everyone and everything in order. That is why certain colors were banned from being spindled into fabrics. That is why she never went to the Imperial Imports and Inquiries when she turned of age at 18. She didn’t want to ever be identifiable to the Royal family because she wanted her nimble knacks to help her and her hopes to fly as far as a dragon could breathe its fire into the sky.

Estelle sat in the cold dungeon with her hands cuffed in her lap, head against the stone, flipping through each memory she had until now, only coming up blank.

She is not a murderer; she is a survivor. She had no magic because if she had, she would already be a Queen or a princess or off to a new land with a better adventure. Had they mistaken her for someone else?

A loud slap hit the stone floor outside of her cage, and her eyes quickly darted in the direction of the commotion. A plate. A plate of steaming porridge was brought to her. Her mouth watered as she moved towards the substance. Her stomach growled in anticipation of her first warm meal in almost three years. This was not a dungeon at all, she was not a prisoner. She must have bumped her head, and her prince had saved her. Because this was the most wondrous meal she never had.

Her voice felt raw after licking her wooden tray clean. “Could I have another?” She asked no one in particular as she could only see darkness beyond the metal bars.

“No.” A deep voice answered her call.

She grumbled and moved back to her spot against the wall. She could not complain much due to the mere fact that her belly is full and she is still breathing, which means there is still hope.

Estelle noticed some markings on the wall some time after staring at it for a long while. 568 slashes. It must have been the person who was here before her. 568 days is a long time to be getting such a warm meal. She decided she liked it here.

She fell asleep at ease for the first time in a long while.

Estelle woke up to cold water splashing down on her. She blinked a few times and sucked in air, choking on the remnants of water still pouring down her face. Coughing, blinking, coughing, blinking, she was finally able to look up at her perpetrator. Karim. She scoffed.

“Morning, crazy.” Karim beamed down at her.

“Good morning to you, too.” Estelle tried to smile, but she knew some of her teeth were missing. Karim blanched in response as she figured he may.

“Time to see the squire.” Karim grabbed her arm, lifting her as though she were a feather, and holding her at a distance as though she were a flame.

“Squire?” She side-eyed him as he dragged her out of her cage. Her hair dripping, her toes barely touching the ground.

“You need to be cleaned before stepping onto Royal grounds.” He sneers.

“Did you not just complete that task?” She quipped.

“It would be best for you to be less talkative.” Karim stopped moving. He looked her up and down, “You are a prisoner, a foul and reckless psychopath. No one will save you.” He looked pleased with his assessment as he faced forward again and continued to drag her.

“Where are you taking me?”

He squeezed her arm to the point of pain. Her mouth clamped shut.

Karim dragged her through darkness, cold, more darkness, more cold, until she saw light. Not from the sun, from a lamp.

“How can you see?” She tried to ask after some while.

“If you speak again, I will have the squire cut out your tongue.”

Estelle was quite confused. Karim seemed warm and willing to help her in the Weidan Woods, and now he acted as though he loathed her. For what she wasn’t sure of, but she was certainly sure she was starting to feel the same way. He is most absolutely not a prince.

A few more moments of silence until they reached the torchlight.

“Here you are.” Karim tossed her into the room housing the light and slammed the door shut.

There are no windows, just another cage with a wooden door posing as metal bars. Estelle heard three knocks before she could puzzle the pieces together.

“Come in.” She whispered, afraid she might truly and well lose her tongue. Why would someone knock if she were a prisoner, as Karim claims?

He will be the first she throws into her dungeons when she is named Queen.

Three very short women burst through the door, singing.

“Bippity bop, tippity top, of the dop dop dop. For our King we will sing…” The three ladies sang in harmony scurrying across the room.

None of them looked Estelle in the eyes as one stripped her bare, the other started scrubbing her skin relentlessly with cold water and soaps.

“Me oh my, dear!” One of the ladies squeaked.

Estelle winced. She knew one of the little ladies was looking at her back. She knows the marks are bad only because it hurts to lie on her back. It quite hurt a lot when she had leaned into the bark of the tree in the Weiden Woods, but her mind was too distracted to let it register. The pain always lingers.

“Hush!” One of the ladies who was scrubbing Estelle's underarms slapped away the other who was likely gawking at her back. “We must only fix what he can see.”

At that, the little lady in front of her pulled a hairbrush out of her sack that she hadn’t noticed was dangling from her shoulders. Except it wasn’t a hairbrush at all, it glistened in silver and blacks and whites, and magical clouds of dust flew from it as she moved it through the air.

“Dop dop dop…” The little lady began to sing, and she moved this magical wand around Estelle.

She could do nothing but look in awe, amazement, and wonder. She couldn’t feel a thing, but she felt it on the inside, as though her heart could burst with joy. Magic!

“This will do.” One little lady put her wand back in her satchel, and all three of the little ladies scurried out the door, slamming it behind them.

Estelle began to feel around; her bones didn’t seem as pointy, her teeth were all there, and her hair was not black. Oops. Her very white and silver strands were back to normal after the magic did its trick.

Next, the door swung open as Karim stepped through. He hesitated at the threshold for a moment, scowling at her.

“Silver hair?” His brows lifted. He shook his head as though he were brushing away a face or a thought or an idea, she wasn’t sure. He is odd.

“Do you like it?” Estelle twirled, and as she did, she saw her bright blue dress swish around her. She hadn’t even noticed it before! It is beautiful, just like the paintings of the sea and the ocean she has always wished to see with her own eyes.

“Don’t ask me that.” Karim huffed as he grabbed her arm, stopping her mid-twirl, and yanking her through the door.

She huffed, the cuffs on her wrists making their appearance known. If only he would take these off, she would look like a true princess! If the little ladies had only given her a crown, she would look like a Queen!

“What have we here, hm, Karim?” The Royal Prince of Belvedere sits before his prisoner and dear friend, tasked with the dealings of knaveries within Vienna's lines.

“Our little murderous sociopath, your Highness.” Karim bows to his prince and dear friend, tasked with the dealings of debauchery within Belvedere walls.

“Who might you very well be?” Estelle’s eyes beam in delight at the sight that beholds her in an embrace warmer than the burn of an insult.

“Silence.” Prince Elias looks down his nose at this preposterous prisoner before him, disgusted with what his family has done. He nods his head to Karim.

Karim pulls Estelle to his ear, his breath but a whisper in the wind, “I am sorry for this, little one.”

“Whatnever do you mean?” Estelle can barely finish her final word before Karim plunges his dagger hidden in plain sight through her heart of light.

“Karim!” Elias barks.

Estelle’s body, quickly losing its semblance of life, smacks the black marbled ground of the magnificent golden throne room. Blood is best not to be seen if there is no contrast to its gleam.

“What.” Karim’s teeth ground together in utter annoyance, “You wanted her executed, lest you need a spectacle for your court? I thought you preferred more limbs, not none.”

“Fuck you.” Elias scoffs, standing from the throne and stepping down from the dais. He slowly lifts his prisoner so as to cradle her, for it would be a shame to die alone.

“What are you doing?”

“It is not her fault the King deemed her unworthy of royal blood.” Elias brushes Estelle’s hair back, revealing the mark beneath her right ear.

When magic was banned in the kingdom, it could not stop impurity running in the blood of the people of Vienna. A sure sign of weakness for the Kingdom that abandoned magic long ago would be the tainted blood of royals.

“No,” Karim whispers. “That’s…”

Fifteen years ago, Karim set his heart on the little royal girl born to the Belvedere bloodline. The first princess in over a century. Now he is watching as she tries to catch her breath, blood filling the lines between her teeth.

Elias passes his sister to his dear friend.

“I didn’t have a choice.” Elias frowns, looking down as his dear friend holds his sister he never got to know. “Momma did not have it in her to let the King murder Elle. Her little girl…”

“What did she do?” Karim puts his hand over Estelle’s, Elle’s mouth. Her breathing stopped as her body twitched with not an ounce of fight left in her.

“Gave her to the orphanage in the slums. No one there has enough time to worry over the royal mark of magic.”

“No.” Karim shakes his head, a small tear falling onto Estelle’s, Elle’s cheek. “What happened to Elle?”

“I wouldn’t know, and don’t want to. She clearly couldn’t handle her mark.” Elias no longer shows emotion on his face. He faces the dais, turning on his heel, making his way back to the throne.

“You didn’t have a choice?!” Karim shouts.

“No, lest Daddy got hold of her.” Elias frowns as his golden bottom reaches the blackened throne.

Estelle is a princess, the firstborn daughter in a century to the Belvedere line.

Death called her name and peppered her with pretty compliments at every beating heart that stopped before her. Until her own could no longer hold up, her title damning her for an eternity, where salvation cannot be met. Vienna is not a kind place, it is not a fairytale, and there is no room for magic anymore, lest disquiet breach the line. Then what? A story may begin as it ends, with a princess and a friend. Death until they part, and never ever with a beating heart.