Fighting Doesn't Last Forever!

“But, Mother!”   

The obedient, usually kindhearted, loving daughter, dressed in soot-black and crimson-red down to the castle’s cold stone floor of her parents’ bedchambers with sparkling black with splashes of crimson bled into the fabric triangulating down to the end of her dress, paralleled beautifully with her parent’s crow-black sparkling dress extending gloatingly to the floor. Its ultramarine blue showing just at the tips of the dress made the princess ball her fists. “But you've said in the courtroom months ago with Father that I have to follow the real way of a queen when I’m going to be queen in a few years. I don’t understand how you said I can’t play with my friends now, but, in time, I’ll have all the time in the world now to be with the other women!”

“When you are queen, you will listen to the guards and serfs and squires all speak on the etiquette—”

“That I’m reminded, however softly, every single day ever since I was born—”

“And you’ll need to follow when you’re replacing me as monarch. We’ve talked about this, dear, because remember when your horses have broken from the stalls and chased after apples being thrown down to little peasant children from ones high up in the trees? You let those animals get loose. And then we had to discuss your punishment, but you were laughing so hard we decided to let it pass. Only once!”

“Because,” The princess laughed, her cheeks rosy and cheery. “I was just having some fun. What’s wrong with fun?” 

“Dear.” The queen walked over to the princess to wrap her arms around her in a loving hug and kiss her on her forehead, but the daughter turned into a raven the same color as her dress. When both birds—one a raven, and the other a Red-winged Blackbird—stood there on the window sill, it started thundering. Then rain poured down. “Look. The water grows the grass. The grass feeds us when we’re starving. Remember that famine? We lived on grass—”

“And worms.” Her head bobbed.

“And we didn’t have much to eat. Our loving peasants kindly made us bread and cakes and fruit. Grow lemon and apple and orange trees, and in payment, we had them hired to clean our stalls for two pence a day! Now, fourteen years later, we’re watching them turn into nobles and knights and dukes. How’d you like to become that—a duchess?”

The princess rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be—”

“Anything but a runaway bent on escaping the life in which you were born. Stop complaining—you have your life. And now, you must live it. Queenliness is to be expected, not scorned.” The mother turned back into a woman, and left, having pat her daughter on the head. She too turned into a young woman, but she stared bleakly out the window. Her horses had been brought in by stable boys. She thought she could see bleary figures, and rubbed at the window. She tried getting it clear, and pushed on it, accidently pushing a little too hard. The window, unlocked, had been pushed free, and the princess nonchalantly turned into a raven, flying a little and then returning to the windowsill. Shutting it tight, she laughed embarrassedly as some girls down there—with their filthy dresses getting dirtier the way they dragged their belts through the mud—waved up at her.

She shut the window. Curling up, she ensured she leaned against a corner of the window, and then lay down on her bed. Mother’s so direct! So controlling. So demanding. Maybe I'll be queen, but not like her. She was too controlling. Loving, but demanding. Sacrificial, but hating fun—

“Oh—your Highness?” She instantly rose, smiled as always, and curtsied, but upon seeing in the candlelight a stable boy, she wanted to throw herself off this castle’s roof. But she swore that if he told anyone, she’d have her horses stamp on him. The stable boy quivered.

“Y-yes, Your Majesty. Just come with news.”

The princess went around the bed and grabbed the parchment from the boy. She read it, and then used his candle to burn it. “Tell the guards to man every door, gate and archway of this castle. No one’s coming and going.”

“But—”

“Do it!”

“Yes!” The stable boy fled, the girl watching to see whether he went in the right direction. When he did, her mother returned. Arguing about the horses again, the two women bickered heatedly. The princess got so disrespectfully angry that she swiped a candle from the nightstand, and threw it at her mother. The fire started swallowing her mother’s dress, scorching it. Ordering her daughter to fetch some water, the mother danced about, but the daughter turned into a raven, trying desperately to beat out the consuming flames. They just blew, ignoring the wings’ thrusts of air against it. Annoyed, the fire kept licking at the dress.

“You fool!” The mother scolded. She was being eaten alive. The daughter almost tore her vocal cords out of her throat as she roared for some maids’ help. Instantly, women bustled in, and gathered basins of water. The woman yelled in pain from the fire, and the daughter dashed away, her mother’s lividity slamming into her ears. Coming back with water, the daughter and maids doused the queen with buckets and basins and chamber pots. The queen told the maids to lay her down on her bed, and just stood there with wet legs dripping, and a horribly shredded dress that would send the whole castle into a frenzy.

The princess burning her mother! How disagreeably savage.

The princess soon found herself cleaning the stables, washing the floors, mending the dress, cleaning the chamber pots and washing all the castle’s filthy rags of clothes worn by peasants, slaves, serfs and royalty alike. However, the princess returned to her mother with a cobalt dress, sparkling with beauty. And the princess sighing in relief, her mother’s pursed lips and aching face relaxing into a merciful smile.

“Dear, put that ice on my legs, will you?”

“Yes, mother—”

“Do it!” The mother yelled, ignoring the daughter’s apologies.

The daughter did as told, soon arguing with her mother through letters sent back and forth. The daughter wrote savagely, noting the fact that she were a princess and not just a serf or slave or peasant. She had the power to reject such a future. The mother even promised to give her all the wealth in the world. Still, the princess denied any desire to follow her mother. The mother sent guards to capture the princess.

She flew away.

Soon, the princess learned from a letter that her mother had contracted a deadly disease in the leg and died.

The princess looked back at the castle, shapeshifting again. Blinking, the princess remembered all the times her parents had let her get her way, even doing as she pleased sometimes. She even refused her father’s suggestion to hunt. He had consented, giving her those horses. Then she thought, But that's because they regret their decision to let me get away with it. They're covering up their wrongdoings with correction. So I'm just an obedient future queen to them, aren't I?

She returned to the castle. She ordered everyone to listen to only her, the king she ordered to rule somewhere far away. After compromising with her, he finally declared war on his own daughter! She rallied her troops, but he won by the thousands. She lay there, dying of a wound. The doctors came. They recovered her. Her last words to her own mother were, Mother—forgive me. I’m…a queen in my own right. A right to rule. My own kingdom.

She ran away, designing a new castle far, far away from that of the current king’s residence. Without a wife and a daughter, the king grew sad. He missed his daughter. He ordered her back. She threatened either war—proving she’d won by the number of shapeshifting people she had gathered—or death. He graciously resigned. She ordered her guards to be stationed at every battleground, war front and tent entrance as she went to war with her own father. They all met at some creek, and they fought bloodily. The daughter was wounded again, but the doctors revived her. The king looked closely at the bottle, and widened his eyes. "No, no! My daughter, my daughter!"

“Not my father. He'll avenge me!” The princess revived herself with the aid of her doctors, and flew away. She soon reigned as raven queen around some area, and ordered the same guards to go peck out the eyes of the king. They returned, having done the ugly deed. Her father's scribe wrote her letters of argumentation, she sending him letters of indignation. The princess waged war, finally winning. The father, just as he was dying, told hold of his daughter’s hand, and said softly, “We ruled the way we did, and you can rule the way you desire. We just wanted you to know what was right. We didn’t mean to be such a burden on you!”

The daughter thought, and then widened her eyes. So they weren’t overprotecting her. They weren’t forcing her to be a queen. She grabbed his hand.

I was wrong. Wrong to hurt you so. Sorry you had to endure my wrath! Her eyes said. Remorseful tears stained her face.

Clasping it, the daughter nodded. “Yes, yes!” She knelt in the middle of the battlefield. The father didn’t answer. His eyes were closed. “Dead, Majesty!” Someone cried.

The daughter stood there, tears welling up and spilling over. She stormed back to her mother’s room, looking into the glass mirror. Someone on the other side—another princess also wearing the same washed-up garb—said she was her, the princess of the late king and queen. When pitied, the princess clenched her hands into tight fists, the fire of ire rising in her. Flattery as thick as the pig’s bacon from the cook’s kitchen dripped from the mirror princess’s mouth. The real princess pursed her lips tightly, feeling they were sealed. The other princess spoke in a calm manner, scaring the princess and making her want to grab the nearest candlestick or torch to warm her. But no fleece or candle or torch helped her. She was on her own to face this woman.

“Looks like you’re going to be queen!” Smiling, the mirrored princess pointed at the princess.

She glowered at herself. The princess continued. “Please. I’m just doing this for your own good. You don’t want to listen to parents who’ve manipulated you, an obedient girl, into mindless obedience—”

“Lies!” The princess smashed the glass with something belonging to her mother. Then she went out, declaring her mother receive a special burial, and her father received an honored funeral, too. The tears of concern, mostly for her mother, leaked down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Mother. Now I have to face myself, a horrible monster. I don’t know what to do. Please—please accept my apology. I won’t ever make the same mistake with Aunt Jewels or Uncle Maxime or Cousin Red or Neighbor Everest. Please! I wish you were here to save me from that reflection of mine.”

After the funeral, the princess declared she’d be queen. “After all, I have no one to look up to.”

Some smiling peasant girls beamed up at her. The princess looked right at them. The girls nodded assuredly. The princess’s eyes cut away. She slowly turned away from the crowds, hiding herself in her room. Locking herself there for days, she neither ate nor drank nor slept. When she finally came out, the cheers and celebrations being only background noise. The princess, some days later, cheered herself up when she was presented a flying Pegasus.

The mirrored version of herself appeared—she must have fixed the mirror somehow—and the princess heard her say things like Your mother wasn’t truly a good queen and Why should you remember your parents when they were the ones ordering you around? “You don't want to be controlling and demanding like your parents, right? Why should you copy your parents when you can be better than they? Don’t listen to anyone! You're queen now.”

The princess looked at her mirrored self. She nodded, wondering whether she should’ve rejected repentance towards her mother. But I want my subjects to fear me, too! But the mirror princess didn’t shrug back. Instead, she continued. The princess bickered with her, but the mirrored version cut in, telling her she didn’t have to listen to her mother’s instructions on how to rule the kingdom. Instead, she claimed, she was queen now, so, despite not reaching Coronation Day, she could rule however she saw fit—trade her tears of sorrow for a future of control and power, her subjects bowing before her in reverent worship. She heard the beating of wings and a whinny! Her Pegasus. The mirrored version continued, a honey-syrupy voice making her real self step forward in listening. She even frowned, and nodded as she complimented her dress (albeit it being the same exact one as her own).

“Come now, don’t you want to be your own queen—a queen who rules by her own willpower to make her rule a victorious one? Your own mother and father aren’t here to direct you. You’re queen—and a queen does as she pleases. So think carefully as to how you’re going to cast your decisions and make your choices. A real queen rules by what she thinks is right. A kingdom is stable only when a ruler chooses to do what is right—what is right by her own standards. Think of that—making your kingdom serve you--no matter what.”

The princess thought. “I will rule over everyone—”

“You’re not your mother!” The princess’s eyes widened in excitement. “Everyone knows that. So stop being so submissive, and rule by your own hand.” Visions appeared in the princess’s mind of parties, gold, other means of wealth, lavish kingdoms, adornments decorating these kingdoms and other good things. The princess told her whether she’d want those things if she only treated her own subjects the way she thought best—which, she knew, was the opposite of her parents’ way, which was with respect, diligence, duty and love.

Beating wings was joined by savage kicking at the window. The princess ignored them. The mirrored princess was lying on her back on a bench in her world, warning her to listen to her.

The Pegasus bumped her nose against the window. Its whinnies were smothered by the mirrored princess’s warnings. The princess saw the young woman’s face—the real princess’s face—crinkling into worry. “Isn’t that what queens do—strive to outdo others? You’ll be loved, exceed others in wealth and, most importantly, be remembered. You’re different. So act like it. You're obedience is from your parents' lovingkindness. But that's just mere slavery. Ruling means freedom--”

The Pegasus broke through, desperate neighs ripping through her throat. The princess in the mirror watched them fly away. She decorated her dress so it was sparkling black—like that of the late queen. The princess, reminded of the way her mother distracted her, could go to this princess's kingdom, thus ignoring the annoying Pegasus. She went up to it, tried going through it, but failing. Instead, she just lay on her back, waiting for the princess to return.

The real princess heated the glass with hot coals, and they shattered. Then, she had guards shovel it into the blazing furnace of a fire somewhere deep in the trenches of a volcanically hot spring.

But the princess from the mirror had escaped, charging the real princess with enslavement if she didn’t come with her to her palace. The real princess learned she could travel between worlds. She jumped through the wooden frame. But the real princess was too quick. Threatening her with death, the real princess had grabbed a torch, threatening to burn her alive.

“Please!” The princess begged. “You don’t want to do this.”

The princess stayed up late, reading scrolls. Nothing worked. Soon, she told herself she’d reign with mercy and love—

The princess from the mirror walked slowly away, seething at her disobedience. She sent guards to capture her. She sent them on her way with a letter: I’ll serve you if you free me of this mirror.

What is that? The princess wrote back sarcastically. My kingdom!

Our kingdoms. Don’t you want to rule over everyone? We'll rule together.

The princess thought.

The princess thought. She mulled it over for years, hoping her Pegasus would still love her. With the princess considering, the mirror princess took advantage. Soon, the castle was infested with sores and boils as ugly as frog’s warts. The Pegasus’ neighs were reduced to horrible coughing fits, the sounds keeping the princess up at nights weeks at a time. The princess in the mirror bickered with the princess—

“No more!”

The princess burned all her letters of bickering with her parents and of this witch in the torch of one of the guards’ tunnels, but, more importantly, ruled through lovingkindness and tenderheartedness. The princess soon saw all the boils and scars go away, everyone well again. Fevers died. Stomachs stopped releasing vomit. Horses and mules and donkeys and chickens and foxes and ferrets and phoenixes and peacocks and hawks and owls all flew around freely.

The princess and her kingdom lasted—a good five and a half decades.                  

All was well.

The only memories and letters written were those of her mother and father’s loving words. The princess cherished those parental words to this day.