There was a Princess...

Once upon a time, there was a princess. She was beautiful, smart, charming and kind, and wherever she went, she made friends. Until she crossed the border into a small kingdom bordering hers. The people there were horrible to one another and everybody else. The little princess, for at this time she was quite little, was shocked that people could be so mean. So she fled back to her mother’s and father’s embraces, safe and sound. Or so she thought.

You see, the little princess never forgot that little encounter with the other kingdom, and neither did they. And one day, that smaller kingdom gathered anyone willing and able to fight, and attacked the little princess’s kingdom. The King and Queen were unprepared for an attack, as their kingdom had enjoyed many peaceful and prosperous years, and were taken away from the little princess, who by this time was a slightly bigger princess. 

As her beautiful palace was overrun with these intruders, she was dragged away and locked in a little tower, in her own castle, only able to see a little of the world beyond. What she could see of the world taunted her, mocked her prison and her torment, letting her see just enough destruction of her own home to mourn, but also, just enough of the kingdom to realise no one else had been affected by this like she had. No one else was locked in their own homes, no one else had their families taken away from them, and even when she did see the odd person dragged off kicking and screaming, she often saw new people take their place, people from the other kingdom, but these people acted nicely.

The princess was confused and longed to understand, asking her captors at every chance she got to tell her of the outside world. At first, they were mostly good reports, the farmers were still farming, the sewers were still sewing and the cooks were still cooking. But as time drew on, and our slightly bigger princess became an almost fully grown princess, the reports started to worsen. The cooks were making better food than they had in years, yet all she got were stale crumbs; the sewers were sewing more and better than they had ever sewn before, yet her too-tight rags were still her only protection against the cold; the farmers were farming the best they had in years, asking everyone in their communities to help, making it into a village party, but the lonely princess was never invited, never mentioned, and almost never remembered.

Days passed, but still no one remembered the little princess that had once stood by her parents as they ruled graciously, not taking unnecessary taxes and not locking people up front left and center. The lonely princess still only got stale crumbs, still only had too-tight rags to keep her warm, and was still locked in a tower, her parents far away. Occasionally the princess would try to send letters to her parents by dove, but the dove always came back with an empty tube. 

The princess had never felt more alone and sad. She began begging her captors for any chance of release into the world again, even if she never saw her parents again. Her captors laughed in her face and still only gave her crumbs to eat, jeering as she pleaded with them. But then one day, she got more than crumbs. It was a whole piece of bread, albeit stale, but it was more than she had eaten in a while. She gobbled it up, scared her captors would realise their mistake, but it was ever mentioned. She went a few days without anything changing until one day, there was a telescope left inside her tower door, letting her view the world more.

Now she could see what others were doing more clearly, but that only made her torment worse. She kept begging her captors for some shred of information, asking when she would be allowed out of her lonely tower. They mostly ignored her pleas for freedom, but one day, they told her she had to act less like a princess if she wanted to get out, because she was still a threat to the insurgents as long as she acted royal.

So she studied the world around her with the telescope, looking at how people dressed and acted, what they did, watching how they interacted with each other. And she tried to copy them. She asked for new clothes, those that resembled peasants’ clothes so she wouldn’t be seen as royal, asked for different food, bread that wasn’t so white, meat that wasn’t so moist, and she got them. She got new clothes, ate different things and interacted with her captors differently. But she still felt lonely. 

One day, she saw a slip of paper under her door. It was a letter, from someone she didn’t know, but it was cordial, so she wrote back with her limited access to recreational items, and waited. A day later, she saw a reply. She began talking with this mystery person, sending letters back and forth, learning more and more about this person, and finally, for the first time, not feeling alone. 

Then her captors noticed the letters and stoped them, but a few days letter, a letter came by bird. The princess knew she had to keep this a secret, so she would stash the letters away until the night when she could read them by the light of the moon. She grew hopeful there was a chance of escape, her mysterious letter sender assuring her she would get out of the tower soon. She kept trying to imitate everything she saw through the telescope, copying the peasants so her captors wouldn’t see her as a threat. But as her captors showed more and more signs of letting her go, she became anxious.

What would she do when she got out of the tower? How would she get food? Where would she live? She grew more and more anxious, still begging her captors to let her go, but inside, she was panicking. She desperately wanted the freedom, but did she? How would she function out of the tower she had practically grown up in? Who to trust to take care of her, how to interact, how to dress. These worries floated around her head everyday, every hour, even though she had been studying the people outside her window for a while.

Her mysterious letter sender did little to help her insecurities, even though they assured her she would be ok. She was silently struggling, but no one except her letter sender knew. The question was, what would happen when she got out of her tower? Would she ever truly be free? Would her captors’ influence ever leave her?