Pretty Pretty Princess

by McKenzie, Shane

  “Really? And have I been missed? Has my father spoken of me? My mother? Or did they forget me the moment they sent me away to live with the goblins?”

  “M’lady—”

  “Spit it out, lady!” Tessa said, her head poking out from the water as swirls of black filth spiraled across the surface.

  “Your mother the queen is dead. She died five years ago. Some say from a broken heart.”

  “Broken heart my fuzzy ass. That bitch sent her own daughter away the second she saw a little blood dripping down her thighs.” The rat was pulled back under water.

  “Do you believe that? That she died of a broken heart?”

  “No. It’s one of those things people say to make others feel better. I’m not sure how she died. Nobody is sure. But I can tell you this because I saw it for myself. She was sorry. Guilt weighed heavily on her mind for what they did to you. Queen or not, she was a woman, and it is not the women who make those kinds of decisions. She was taught as a child that the traditions of her family and of the realm were carved in marble. It wasn’t until Death shackled itself to her, sucking the life from her body bit by bit each passing hour that she understood the true nature of all she had done. And she hated herself for it. Wanted so desperately to see you again so she could—”

  The strength and beauty that Sonia had seen behind the glassy madness fogging the princess’s eyes shone through brighter. The goofy countenance she had been wearing, as if there were specters whispering jokes into her ears at every second, melted away and she sat up straighter, her expression tightening into an austere mask of stone.

  “My mother told me everything would be all right. That it was my duty as a princess to be sent away. That it was tradition. That she had done it, was rescued by my father from a pit spiraling with fire worms in the depths of the Dark Wilderness. Her mother had done the same, and her mother’s mother, and so on. She said it with iron in her throat so that I would not question her. And you say she was overcome with grief? That she had no say in it? For what she herself told me was my destiny? That the gods would curse me and my family, the entire kingdom, if I refused? Forgive me, Sonia, if I feel no remorse.”

  She spoke with a voice so sure and steady, so alive with power and confidence, that Sonia stepped away from her, hand to her chest. She was seeing the princess as she was meant to be seen. Still trapped inside the body that had been eaten away at by time, shrunken by cruelty, but the real Pretty sat in the tub now. The queen who was to rule Trulia.

  Her awesomeness was so potent that Sonia had to fight the urge to drop to her knees and worship her. But she could not fight the tears that began to fall.

  Our queen is home. Finally, the realm will be cleansed.

  And the men who pride themselves on vileness will suffer.

  “And my father? What of him?”

  “Your father has made his sorrow public for many, many years now. Forgive me, Pretty, if I speak—”

  “I am your princess and you will speak to me as such.” This came out of her mouth like a fiery whip that lashed across Sonia’s resolve.

  “My apologies, m’lady. But your father’s sorrow is only an act. At his age, I believe he has seen the evil in his past deeds, so he attempts to fool the people and the gods with false tears and heartache. He is no different than any king before him.”

  Pretty let the words float around in her mind for a while, staying silent. Then she turned toward Sonia. “You knew my mother well?”

  “No, m’lady. Only during her final days. She confessed to me all deeds she had done which she considered evil, and she spoke of your imprisonment more than anything. If she knew you were here, home, safe . . . Nothing would have made her happier.”

  The princess scowled and spoke through her bared teeth. “Home? What is a home, Sonia? Is it where you were born? Where your family dwells? Or is it the place where most of your years were spent?”

  Sonia found it near impossible to look the princess in the eye. “I . . . I do not know, m’lady.”

  “I have never understood the concept of home. I thought maybe I would once I was back here, but I feel nothing. Only more confusion. And anger.”

  Dense waves of steam rolled from the tub as if she were heating it up more. Boiling it with hatred.

  “Pardon my frankness, m’lady, but Trulia is not only your home. It is your kingdom. As his firstborn, you were to rule in your father’s place. Once a knight pulled you from the Goblin Dragon’s clutches, he was to bring you back here for the both of you to sit upon the royal thrones.” Sonia approached the tub, fell to her knees beside it. “Since I was a child, my parents told me stories about you. About the most beautiful woman to ever live who was to come back home one day and be our queen. We’ve all been waiting for you, m’lady.”

  Sonia wanted to say so much more, but had to bite her tongue. The time would come soon enough.

  The princess snorted, lifted her rat hand from the water and stared at it. “And what if being royalty no longer interests me? What if the thought of sitting on the throne that once held my mother makes me sick to my stomach?”

  “Then I fear we may all be doomed.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Sonia.”

  “If not you, then that only leaves your brother. Prince Balthazar has the blood of the king in his veins, but . . . ”

  “Speak.”

  “He is an idiot. A child in a man’s body whose tantrums can lead to many deaths. If he sits on the throne, we will be at war within weeks. If not war with another kingdom, then within Trulia itself. The golden walls will drip with blood. And the kindness your father has shown to us common folk will be quickly forgotten.”

  War is inevitable, Sonia thought. But our war is the only war that matters. Our war is for the betterment of the realm and all those who live in it.

  The princess went silent as she thought about this. Lowered her body until her nose hovered just over the water’s surface. Her fierce eyes slowly rolled toward Sonia, then she sat up again, grinned and tilted her head.

  “Why such a serious face, Servant?”

  “The water washed all the shit off your tits, that’s why. She’s so wet now, she could probably fill this tub.”

  “Tessa!”

  Sonia scratched her head, then stood, smiled down at the princess who had that glaze about her again. The rat, sopping wet, glared up at her with empty, purple sockets.

  “Turn your back, Pretty, and let me scrub you. Then we’ll get you fed, yes?”

  “Do you have any beetles?”

  8

  Francis continued following the king because the old man didn’t say otherwise. Being alone with him, besides the marching lines of guards in front and behind them, he felt awkward and at a loss for words. This is what he had been working for, and now that he had it, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Part of him still expected some kind of trap to be sprung. It didn’t dawn on him until just then that his only forms of defense were both sent away by the king, or tricked into doing so. Gavin was probably pork belly deep in sow by then, and the princess was being given the royal treatment.

  He wanted to get me alone. But why?

  After traveling from kingdom to kingdom and being greeted with nothing more than hostility, Francis couldn’t help but be suspicious.

  But I saved his daughter. If it wasn’t for me, she would still be picking flies off shit at the top of her tower. Then again, he was the reason she was there in the first place.

  The king reached his chambers, the guards spreading out to make room for him. He turned and smiled at Francis, his eyes as red as fresh gouges. “Come, my son, into my chambers. Let us speak in private.”

  “Yes. Of course. If . . . if it pleases my lord.”

  “It does. It does indeed.” The guards behind Francis stayed close, their golden boots clanging against the floor as they followed. “Fools, I said in private! Stand aside, you’re making the man nervous.”

  “Yes, m’lord!” the guards shouted i
n unison and stood aside, becoming golden statues against the hallway walls.

  “Now,” the king said and opened the door, making room so Francis could walk in first. “We have much to discuss, do we not, young prince? Tell me. Which kingdom do you hail from? I’ve not heard of a prince risking his life to save a princess in some time. That sort of thing is reserved for knights. Brutes in metal suits. But you! My prince, you are special. Yes, yes you are. I can tell, you see. So, go ahead, then. Where are you from?”

  Francis chuckled nervously and took a seat once the king had done so. Rubbing the back of his head, feet tapping, he looked into the pink eyes of the king and shrugged. “Granada, my lord. I am from Granada.”

  “Granada?”

  Francis hung his head and nodded, waiting for the usual insults and name calling. But there was only silence. When he looked back up at the king, the old man was smiling, standing and leaning forward.

  “I’ve heard of you. Prince Francis of Granada. Banished for being less of a man than was expected of you, yes? Rather stick your face in a book than a helmet?”

  “My father and mother are very traditional people. As most kings and queens are. And somehow this meant that my thirst for knowledge and my fear of death were translated to a thirst for semen and fear of heterosexuality. Which I can assure you is not true. However . . . saving your daughter had nothing to do with—”

  “My boy. My darling boy.” The king giggled as he crossed the room toward a large display case of weaponry. Swords of all sizes and shapes, maces, lances, axes, spears, and two massive shields with Trulia’s crest. He tapped his finger, which was wrapped in a thick, golden ring, against each blade. One at a time as if playing a song.

  The cabinet opened to reveal row upon row of leather bound books. More books than Francis had ever seen in one place. He stood so fast that he knocked his chair over, and in the next instant, the door swung open and the tip of a sword was pressed under Francis’s chin.

  “Out!” the king shouted, quickly shutting the cabinet doors. “You imbeciles! Get out now!”

  “Yes, m’lord. Apologies, m’lord.”

  The king waited a few moments after the guards trudged back out and shut the doors, then dashed toward Francis, helped him up, and hauled him back across the room toward the books.

  “I was exactly like you, Francis. Only I didn’t have the courage to be myself the way you have. I was far too terrified of what my parents, especially my father, would do to me. So I faked it. I became a master at the art of faking. I pretended to be the son they wanted me to be, all the while wishing I could run away and be myself. When I heard of you and what the king and queen of Granada had done, I was quite inspired. And ashamed that I didn’t have the balls to do the same at your age.”

  As chuffed as Francis was to hear the most powerful king in all the realm claiming to be cut from the same cloth as he, he couldn’t help but be smothered by the hypocrisy.

  “May I speak freely, my lord?”

  “Please do. Please do!” The king’s cheeks were as pink as raw chicken and just as shiny.

  “You say I inspired you. The only thing I did was be myself. I refused to change who I was to fit old traditions. And because of this, I was banished. Thrown out of my home and forced to wander the Dark Wilderness.” The king only smiled harder, rising on his toes as the words rolled from Francis’s mouth. “Pardon me saying this, my lord, but you are nothing like me.”

  The smile slowly ran down his face until it became a straight, lipless line.

  “If the traditions of old displeased you as much as you say, why then was your daughter sent to waste away in that tower? And have you actually seen the Goblin Dragon or its horde?”

  The king sat on the floor, wiped the tears from his swollen eyes. “I have not.”

  “And yet you hired that fucking monster to guard your own daughter? For twenty years? Why? Why not send your own men to bring her home after so long? Was it so important to show off your riches and power? Do you treasure your pride more than your own child?”

  The king wept openly now. So loud that Francis expected the guards to come storming in again and dimple his skin with their sword tips.

  “I have no excuse for what I’ve done. But it wasn’t just the old traditions or my wife the queen’s insistence that we honor them. And it wasn’t just the pressure of being king of the most powerful, richest kingdom in the realm. Though I won’t lie, all of that played a part. At the core of it, it happened because of my own cowardice. I sent my daughter away because I was afraid. Deathly afraid.”

  “Afraid of what? Being ridiculed? My entire journey, when I speak of where I come from, I’m tormented and abused. Called names that I don’t even understand most of the time. But I am not ashamed of who I am.”

  “No,” the king said. “I was not afraid of ridicule. I was afraid of my daughter. And the power she possesses.”

  Francis’s exhausted mind had nearly forgotten about the flies and rats that she controlled. Tearing apart the Goblin Dragon and the army of goblins as easily as if they were kittens.

  “You’ve seen it. I can tell by the look on your face now that you have seen it.”

  Francis nodded.

  “In the beginning, my wife and I were afraid for our own safety. The safety of our people. When one thinks of swarms of flies and hordes of rats, one thinks of decay and filth and rot and evil. At one time, as much as it kills me to admit, we discussed handing her over to the holy men and letting them cleanse her flesh with the edges of their holy blades.

  “But I could not let that happen. No matter how scared I was, this was my child. My baby girl. Thank the gods we did not succumb to that ghastly urge, for after only a short time, we discovered that our child was not only the most beautiful babe that had ever been sprung from a womb, but also the sweetest. Yes, she could control these grotesque creatures, these scavenging, feces-feasting pests, but she used them for good. Not a nugget of horse shit could fall to the street before her minions devoured it. She kept our gold sparkling and our shoes clean.”

  “I don’t understand. If this is true, then what was there to fear?”

  “My fear of her became my fear for her. If anyone found out about her powers, they would most certainly bellow witchcraft, dark magic, and sentence her to death. And not a knight’s death. Nothing quick, Francis. A witch’s death is a slow, torturous one.”

  “And because you feared she would be killed, you sent her away.”

  “Yes. Chose the most fearsome beast I could find to guard her. Not to display how much gold I possessed. Not to present an impossible challenge for knights. But to keep them all away. To keep her safe.”

  “You sentenced her to a life of slow torture regardless. That’s what you did. When I found her, she was eating flies from a mountain of shit. And did you see that fucking rat grafted to her hand? Her mind is near gone. And what do you expect? She has been alone for nearly as long as I’ve been alive.”

  “Gods forgive me,” he said and covered his face with both hands, weeping heavily again.

  “You say you once feared her, but learned she was not as she seemed. That her beauty was intoxicating. Even in Granada we heard the tales of the Princess of Trulia.”

  “All by plan. We wanted the realm to think of beauty when they imagined our daughter. Because if the truth was ever revealed, we hoped it would be enough to save her.”

  “And maybe it could have been enough. You never gave the people a chance!”

  “You blame me for that? For expecting the people of this realm to look beyond their beliefs and teachings? To see the true beauty behind my daughter’s eyes, ignore her ominous abilities? Francis, you should know better than that. Her beauty would not have mattered. Nor her royal blood. It was a risk I could not take.”

  Francis wanted to argue this, but he couldn’t. The king was right. If knowledge of her powers were to spread across the realm, the people would not have rested until the Trulia witch was burned. The king was
the first person he had encountered who could actually look past old beliefs and tradition and see the world for what it really was, whether he was too cowardly to admit it to anyone else or not.

  “And now? Are you not still fearful for her? It was the very flies you speak of that flew us from the tower to your kingdom’s gates.”

  “My fear is as potent as ever, Francis. But nothing is more potent than the love I feel for my daughter. And the shame I feel for what I have done to her. She is home now. That’s all that matters. And if the other kingdoms heard word of her powers, let them come. Let them all come. I’m tired of pretending to be something I’m not. You being here was meant to be. To make me see. And now, at this time, I am nothing more than a coward with a crown and a belly full of sorrow. And a father who would die defending his child.”

  The music seemed to seep in from the walls like sap. So low at first, Francis thought he was imagining it. But as it grew in volume, and as the king lifted his hands and stared up at the ceiling as if searching for the gods’ eyes, he knew it was real.

  But this was not Francis’s song. And though the king could be blamed for the mistreatment of the princess, there was no denying that his grief over what he had done was genuine. Or so it seemed.

  He admitted himself that he is a master in the art of faking.

  But Francis didn’t have the energy to believe that. He wanted so desperately to trust this man, to help him in bringing his dreams of P.E.T.P. to life.

  I’ve done it. I’ve finally gotten through to someone. And now, with the king of Trulia and the legendary princess by my side, we can change the world.

  Francis took his seat and listened. He did his best to hold back his own tears, but they were far too insistent.

  SHAME ON ME

  Please understand, to be a king’s not easy

  So many eyes are watching, always watching

  Most of the time, the throne feels like a hot seat

  Oh Gods shame on me,

  She’s my baby girl