The Princess Was In That Castle
by Ophelia Everfall
Longest lost in days of pain the girl had become a woman in stead of this time alone in her castle’s keep. The chords and tones of her melodies would carry throughout the town—their echoes and legends would be seen and felt through changes grafted to the fate of her people. She’d sing for one after another.
These few had been the ones who showed her a sign—told of who they were and stole her heart’s precious gaze. They’d speak of tales where the future could be bright for this woman beside them and she’d not be stuck alone. Each after the next had found ways to re-open her to that hope. She’d speak to them as they’d come listen to her songs.
They’d fall in love at this distance—as much as they would be able as the people they were—both her and the other—every time it was someone she’d feel deserved it most in one way or another. Her heart was too bright for anyone to open towards it without being enamored most completely and so nobody would as she’d sing from her keep.
Those who’d stay for even a time would be felt most clearly by her heart as she sang. She’d find those who sought to take a place beside such a woman—a rarest who’d aim to possess her in the way she so desired. The woman had only truly been seeking one thing with her song; to be wanted by someone badly.
A few would find her conversations of staggering and brutal honesty enamoring. An even smaller number would wish to meet the woman. She would open her gates in joy and gratitude to the goddess for deliverance from this loneliness at last as she made way to meet them in the courtyard.
It was the fear within these others, for how they felt towards her brightest heart, which saw them most often run before she would even get the chance to hold them or see their face and kiss them how she would later dream of. She’d be left standing under the archway of her open castle gates over and over.
Only one in all of her time singing—after finding such power in her words—had possessed the strength to see her as more than some compartmentalized visage of love held in false understanding of lust. Her love took strength to bear. It was light and dark. It was beautiful and sad. It was just too much for anyone she’d ever met. Even and especially those who would take a leap of chance to enter her castle and spend time with the woman would sneak away at their first opportunity to flee into the comfort of the muted feeling of others.
Other people were less exceptional and brightly colored than this princess. The way she wore it—holding every part of herself in pride and glowing brightly—would cause those other few who she’d see as meant to heal with her, for their own similar griefs, to be struck down by insecurity. They’d see the way she was and feel her deserving of something better—they would feel an imposter and believe that the strength and power of her love must be some kind of delusion; limerence—that she would snap out of it and then leave them. They were all just afraid. She was not the coward they thought of her, nor confused. If one could hold her the way she’d always deserved—even once—she’d offer that person everything and mean it completely because she knew that would be enough to make her happy, and that she only wanted to help someone seen as special be whole alongside what that joy of being cradled in a wanting grip would gift her life.
She’d see them all as cowards in the way they projected their lies onto her knowing of heart. She would hate these people who would leave her to damage herself between the vice of these hateful feelings they wrought and her heart’s undying love. They’d break her over and over; people. She’d send her soldiers after them. She would endeavor to bring these few back or deliver messages which might show them the pain and love betrayed in her heart with furious words screamed towards their fears she despised—then would let them leave as they’d been so born to do, as long as she knew they’d heard them.
The princess would cry. She would scream. Then she would sing again. Her songs only got brighter. Her love only got stronger. The will it would take to hold her was becoming singular. She would seek this one from her tower and wait.
