She was a princess. Well, not literally, of course, but in other aspects. Cool and aloof and fair and, in all respects, stately. She was the type a bloke admired from afar, to be wedded off to a wealthy man later on, and live in a cold castle surrounded by unicorn tapestries and chilly marble columns and floors.

I couldn't love that type. Whatever rot fairy tales say, mortals don't hobnob, in that way, with angels. Sure, I flirted with her, tried to take her down a few notches now and then. Not that she was so much snobbish, as...

Inaccessible.

I wouldn't have tried. I didn't try. She wasn't even the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. Her skin was a bit too pale, and she never smiled. Her features were good, but not extremely remarkable, and my taste generally runs to girls with darker hair, who looked much stronger and more limber than she certainly was. There were times that one got the impression she might just blow away in the cold winter winds. Physically, I could break her. Most people could break her.

Physically.

I wasn't one of those who tried to break her heart (inaccessible), or her spirit (impossible).

The one time I had her... I don't know what I was thinking. Perhaps I wasn't. She was, though. She was far more entrenched in cold real logic than...

But then, she wasn't like me. We've established that.

She didn't cry, even though... well, she must have known her fate. She must have known that it meant... less than she deserved. She was a princess. She deserved a prince who loved her and praise her in verse to the skies. I was no prince, I didn't love her, and poetry is for pansies.

I remember that the last time we kissed, she was pinned underneath me, and by then, it was truly late. Had... had she been some other woman, in some other circumstance, she would have been making jokes about walking funny the next day. I was relatively gentle with HER, but nevertheless...

She kept her eyes open, smooth, delicate fingers winding into my hair. Her hair was mussed and plastered to her forehead, and the whole room smelled like sex and blood and... peace, somewhat.

I didn't notice that she'd kept her eyes open until I pulled away. I didn't think much of it at all.

And she was gone the next morning, a few stray hairs on the cushions, a hair ribbon haphazardly strew on the floor, silk, very fine, fitting for a (chained) princess.

And she had gone to meet her fate. She'd had her eyes open the whole time. She KNEW.

She's not a part of my life now. She... I don't even think that we could be considered "friends", really. She didn't love me any more than I loved her.

I'm fine, and I'm happy now. Life goes on for me, and I have everything that a man could possibly want.

It's just during the late fall, when the days are chilly and things are dying, on some windy twilights, I look out the window...

And reflect on the irony: I was the closest she ever had to a prince, and I was the one who eventually got 'happily ever after'.

And the most striking of all this... that she knew how it would all play out from the first.