[LJ Idol] Crowned
Written for LJ Idol round fourteen, challenge prompt: twitterpated. Fractured Fairy Tale.
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Crowned
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Anna wasn’t extraordinary. She didn’t have any special talents, like the girl down the street who could talk life into flowers and make them bloom twice as long, or the boy who could whistle so well that the birds whistled back. She had no faults but no real strengths either, excepting a weakness when it came to refusing her friend’s most unusual request.
“Are you mad?” She tried not to shout; even a small whisper could carry across the large barn, and they had no idea who could be listening in on the other side.
“Yes-but love makes you do crazy things,” Max said. Only a week had gone by since the coach bearing a set of royal pennants had been attacked by thieves on the outskirts of their tiny village. Max had gotten there just in time, and what followed had brought them to this moment-an urgent request in the middle of a barn, when the weather was so hot Anna’s hair stuck to the back of her neck. She didn’t feel like a Princess.
“Cecilia was on her way to be married to the Prince of Domino-is on her way,” Max continued, looking down at his hands. “But she can’t bring herself to go, and I…I don’t want her to leave, either. It’s simple, really-no one from Domino has ever seen Princess Cecilia, that’s why the match was brought up in the first place, to unite the kingdoms, and…”
“And so you think I’ll pass for royalty?” She could imagine it, sure, but those dreams always ended when she tripped over her own skirts or picked up the wrong spoon at supper and scandalized the entire kingdom.
“Cecilia thinks you can, and I believe in you too. You’ll have all of her dresses and jewels-well, the ones that the thieves didn’t take first-and there’s a few more days before people start wondering what’s happened to her, where she can teach you all about it. If the traveling Princess never arrives… there goes whatever peace we have right now.”
Three days later, when the coach was repaired and a new coachman hired to drive it, Anna watched the village shrink behind her as they made their way to the Castle. Done up to look like a Princess, Anna thought she did look rather like Cecilia-a reassuring thing, but she could hardly tell one dress from another. All originality gone, swept up in thick fabrics and impractical shoes. She supposed it was a good thing, though a sad one.
And the castle-she nearly fainted when she saw it. Rows of walls and gates and trumpeters and curious onlookers clustered around the carriage so that they could hardly move. The crowd thinned somewhat when they pulled up right at the main door, and before she knew it Anna was being ushered out of the carriage and into a series of rooms, each finer than the last, and still grander than anything she had ever seen.
It was easy not to focus on the people-they were only dresses, really-until the crowd parted and two people were left in front of her. She didn’t need to see their crowns to know who they were. Anna tucked one ankle behind the other and bent, hoping her knees wouldn’t creak or wobble.
“Princess Cecilia, it is wonderful to have you here at last,” the Queen said, coming forward and motioning for Anna to follow her. “But to arrive alone, and with such little possessions, I had thought-”
“Tell them about the attack right away-everyone loves a good adventure, and it will distract them all from your own arrival.” Cecilia’s advice lingered in her mind, and Anna smiled at the suggestion. “I would have arrived much earlier, but our coach was attacked by thieves-”
“Good heavens!” the Queen said, leaning forward with renewed interest.
“-and I had to sacrifice much of my belongings to get away safely. I was fortunate just to make it here, and I hope you did not worry on my account.”
Only discreetly shadowed by several guards, they continued through a courtyard and then into another room, and then a balcony that overlooked a large garden. Anna wanted nothing more than to run into it and lose herself beneath the branches and leaves, to block out the castle and the noise and pretend she was back home-not out pretending to be royalty, not out to seek her fortune, but just home.
“Now where is Tristan?” The Queen’s lips pursed as she scanned the courtyard below, looking for any familiar faces. Anzu hadn’t felt nervous until she said his name. “I haven’t seen Tristan before, so you haven’t either, but I have heard stories. The whole family is very honorable, so I’d expect the son to be very… very princely.”
“Tristan! Come here-there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Turning around so only Anna could hear her, she murmured, “I’m sure he has a fascinating explanation regarding his apparel. I met his father at a grand ball, and I’m afraid you get, well… this.”
She looked up to see three young men on horseback come riding in, completely unaware of their audience. Each was dressed simply, in the kingdom’s colors, and two carried swords, the third a bow. Each was completely covered in mud, including the horses, whose feet kicked it up with every step. Anna could barely even see their faces.
They hadn’t stopped laughing since they came in to the courtyard but when he saw the Queen one immediately fell silent. Tristan, Anna guessed, and she was right. “No, there’s no time to freshen up, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do just as you are.” With a well-practiced, withering look, the other two quickly went away.
“This is Princess Cecilia, who has finally come to us after an encounter with thieves on her journey. Cecilia, this… is my son.”
He wiped a smudge of dirt on his chin.
“Smile!” Cecilia’s voice urged her. Anna had to wonder what Cecilia would have made of this.
…
That first introduction was easy compared to the first dinner with the family. The food was delicious but Anna had lost her appetite. She didn’t know where to look or what to say, so she settled for being as quiet as possible, and stared into her soup as if it held her answers.
She excused herself as early as she could, and headed for the garden. Even if she wasn’t alone, she wanted to feel alone.
“Cecilia, wait!”
Tristan ran up to her before she could pretend to disappear. Without the mud, and the horse, and his friends he looked very princely, but quite less like himself. “I just wanted to apologize for… for earlier. My friend Joey challenged me to a race, and as the Prince I had my honor to consider.”
“So you had to accept?”
“I had to win,” he said, and the answer was so unexpected that Anna started to laugh.
“Then it was worth it,” she said, agreeing with him. She chanced a look at him and caught the smallest, hopeful smile.
“Do you ride?” She didn’t know if Princess Cecilia did or not, but Anna certainly did, and if anyone was to know her she figured Tristan would be the one. She nodded, and the smile stretched into a grin. “Then we’ll go out and see the kingdom tomorrow.”
That was the first of many rides out into the lands surrounding the castle. There was one to the orchard, and to the lake, and one where they raced each other across a field and got so dirty that they had to sneak back into the castle before the Queen could see them. On rainy days there was the castle itself to explore, with its libraries and galleries, and secret passages to the kitchens, and a room Tristan swore was haunted by the ghost of his father’s tutor. As the days turned into weeks Anna found herself smiling more and thinking less of home. She had done the right thing, if it meant happiness and love for her friends… and perhaps even for herself. She dared to even think of it, that somehow she would give herself away and be lost to them forever. She didn’t want to hurt the people she was beginning to think of now as her new family.
It was worst whenever he called her name…not Anna, but Cecilia. Something in her knew that no matter what she felt, it was all still part of a lie. They weren’t married yet, there was still time.
…
“This dress was mine when I was your age, and that necklace too should be a perfect length for you.” The Queen watched as Anna twirled around, loving how the skirt would bell out around her feet. The necklace was a pendant that would sparkle when it caught the light. “Before we go, I just wanted to say how glad I am that you’ve come here. Tristan has changed… this whole place seems changed.”
“I haven’t done anything,” Anna protested, clenching folds of fabric in her hands. The dress was beautiful. She really was too kind to her.
“But you have.” The crown the Queen wore wasn’t large, as crowns go. It was intricate, with diamonds clustered around a large cut sapphire. Anna would have been afraid to wear such a crown, but the Queen moved as if it wasn’t there at all, never adjusting it or straightening it, no signs of weariness underneath its weight.
Anna followed her down a long corridor and into the largest room she had ever seen. Somehow she had missed the ballroom in her earlier explorations of the castle, or she had passed through it without ever realizing it could shine so brightly with just a little bit of polish. Candles were everywhere, making the room shimmer with the light reflected off of the crystals that dripped from the ceiling like rain. The floor was so smooth she could see her reflection in it, and the twirling dresses and suits nearly made her dizzy.
She turned around and there was Tristan, nodding and smiling at every group that he passed as he walked over towards her, saving a special smile for her alone. “You look…”
“Nervous?”
“No… beautiful.” He paused. “I’m nervous.”
Anna looked around but couldn’t spot the King or Queen in the crowd of dancers that took up most of the room. Cecilia’s voice echoed in her mind, “Don’t abandon the guests! Never abandon your guests!” but all the same they both wandered outside, where they could still see the party but were very much alone.
“It’s too much,” she said, looking back inside for a moment. “I don’t belong in there.”
“Of course you do.” Tristan took one of her hands in his. “Everyone’s here to see you, to welcome you into the Royal family. Everyone loves you.”
“No they don’t. Not really.” Not if they knew the truth. The real Cecilia had already found her love, so she sent a village girl to deceive the entire Kingdom. Anna almost would have laughed at it.
“I know of one person who does.”
She went very still, then, hoping that someone would burst outside and call them back in, or berate them for neglecting the other guests, or anything else because she could hardly bear seeing that look on his face when she didn’t deserve any of it… but she wanted it. It was the happiest she’d ever been, perhaps in her entire life, and Anna desperately wanted to hold on to it.
He leaned in and she closed her eyes and he kissed her, just like that.
Anna promised to tell him later that night… he deserved to know the truth. “Are you ready to go back inside?” he asked, and she nodded; he took her hand and squeezed it just once, and they walked back into the ballroom.
Cecilia had a large list of advice regarding dancing: “Keep your head up, don’t look at your feet!” topped the list, along with “For heaven’s sake, just don’t fall over.” She took the same position as she had practiced earlier and, after focusing her eyes only on Tristan, started to dance.
“You have a good connection with someone if you can dance together,” Cecilia had said after watching her and Max fail miserably the first half-dozen times he tried to move her around the floor. So far, things were looking good. They hadn’t hit any other couple, or tripped over their own feet, although he had only spun her around once since they had started. She noticed him looking just as pleased as she felt and smiled reassuringly at him.
“Not too bad, right?”
In that instant, all of the candles in the room went out.
“It is too bad.” The voice, dark and sinister, came from right behind her. She was pulled out of his arms as one of the guests started to scream. She saw Tristan reaching out towards her, and then she saw nothing at all.
…
“You have caused me a lot of trouble.”
They were in a tower built at the edge of a cliff; as Anna shook her head to clear it she could hear the lap of water against the cliff, but it was too dark to see outside. The man who had taken her pulled back his hood; he was quite young despite his long, silvery-white hair.
“First you escaped me in the forest, and when you made it to the castle I thought I’d lost you. But it all worked out in the end.”
Anna straightened her dress, smoothing out the creases in the fabric. It was his doing, then, that had caused Max and Cecilia to meet, which had brought her all of this way. “Who are you?”
He continued to move about the room, consulting from a book and making adjustments to several bottles of liquid, paying about as much attention to her as to a bug-something harmless, and unthreatening. “I’m a wizard,” he said, “but it doesn’t much matter, because you won’t be around for very much longer.”
“I won’t let you hurt anyone!” She looked around for anything she could use as a weapon, or for any means of escape, but there was nothing but shelves of potions-some of them full and several empty bottles scattered around them. A large window looked out onto the sea but she couldn’t possible climb down that way.
“My dear, you’ll be dead.” The wizard rolled up his sleeves. “It’s a fairly easy potion, but it requires something quite difficult to obtain-royal blood.”
“You… you need my blood for your potion?” Anna blinked, stunned.
“Just a little-of course, always better to err on the safe side,” he said, chuckling to himself. “And then nothing will be able to stop me. I’ll be powerful enough to rule the entire Kingdom!”
“It won’t work.”
“Pardon?” He frowned, checked the open pages of his book once more. “They always say that, but my potions always work…”
Anna moved to the other side of a shelf of potions, keeping it between her and the wizard. “Even if I can’t stop you, you won’t get away with it. Tristan will-”
“They will do nothing. They’ve never managed to find my lair, and they never will. I’m thinking of moving,” he said, walking around the shelf towards her. Anna darted away, keeping the distance between them. “The castle looked lovely tonight. I’m thinking of making that my future home.”
They continued to circle around the tower. Anna took a deep breath. “Your potion won’t work because of me. I’m the daughter of a miller, not a King.”
He started to laugh, turning to the side for a moment to catch his breath. “I’ve heard that one before, too. Children of millers and weavers and blacksmiths mistaken for royalty. You’ll say anything to save your own skin.”
Anna grabbed the shelf with both hands and pushed, scrambling backwards in case some of those potions were more dangerous than others. Bottles crashed to the floor, breaking in swirls of purple and green mist, and one fiery red-tinted potion exploded, sending a wave of smoke and fire out of the tower’s window. Anna could feel the heat on her skin.
She could hear his screams, enveloped in the fiery potion, and then-silence. She ran to the window to see him thrashing in midair, his cloak caught on fire and wrapped around his legs. His body hit the water, the magical fire still burning even though he was submerged.
She sat there, alone, in the center of the tower for a moment. Even though the room was still very warm, she was shivering in her fine dress, the dress that the Queen had worn when she was young. It was ripped and torn and frayed at one end where the seam had come undone. She traced it around the fabric, under and over each thread, over and under a trim of lace. What would they say when they saw her now.
…
It had taken her hours to find a hidden door in the tower room. She climbed down the stairs in the dark, slipping in a few places, and then when she left the tower for good, Anna was in a part of the forest she had never seen before. Even from the tower she couldn’t see the castle, so she started walking in the other direction until she came to the road. There were no carriages out this early and so she was content to walk until she came across something. It didn’t surprise her that a wizard like him had no neighbors.
She had nearly worn through her slippers when she saw the carriage, pennants with the Kingdom’s colors emblazoned on each side. She ran towards it as fast as she could, leaving her shoes behind when a rock in the road tore a hole through the fabric. She was Anna, not Cecilia, who didn’t much care for fancy shoes.
“Cecilia! Princess Cecilia!”
The driver of the carriage was Tristan. He stopped the horses, leaping down and running towards her himself.
“Anna.”
“What? I don’t understand.” He held her at arm’s length, though she could tell he wanted to embrace her again.
“That’s my real name. Anna. I’m not of royal blood-that’s why the wizard wanted me, he needed royal blood for a potion-but he’s gone now, and I’m safe, but I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. You deserve to know the truth.” She shut her eyes because she couldn’t bear to look at him.
“Anna?” The Queen had left the carriage and walked over to them. She smiled, and reached an arm out towards her. “Did the real Princess fall in love along the way?”
Anna nodded, wondering what all of this was leading up to.
“It happens far more often than anyone realizes. My own mother was not of royal blood-on the journey to the castle she switched places with the real Queen-to-be, who had fallen in love along the way. She pretended to be royal, fell in love with the King-to-be, and everything worked out fine. True love has a way of doing that, you know.”
Anna opened her eyes, at Tristan and his mother, at the family who had shown her nothing but kindness. Cecilia had said a similar thing: “True love has a way of working out, you’ll see.” She did.
“Let’s go home, Anna.” Tristan reached out his hand. She hesitated for only a moment before taking it, and together they climbed into the carriage and went home.
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The End
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