Day One

I lived in a perfect world, and I hated it. Sure, perfection was a good thing, so why was there a problem with that? I wasn’t anything like my world. I wasn’t the perfect, upright, traditional girl that people saw me as. My mother, my father, even the whole kingdom looked at me and automatically thought I never lowered myself to a level other than that of nobility because of my upbringing. I struggled to comprehend why that was so. How could they think that I never left my way of life, my wealthy world? When I was always elsewhere—in another universe—how could they see me as royal? I was not a princess and neither was I connected to the royal line in any way, but my apparent high-necked formality brought me to a terrible fate—I was to marry the king’s only son and heir.

To explain why I loathed the idea so, I must elaborate both on the prince and myself. I craved simplicity, which was impossible to obtain in a life like mine. To be united with the heir to the throne would make it absolutely unreachable to say in the least. But when I was young I found an escape from the monotony of nobility with a pen and paper. I could create a new, adventurous life for myself while still living up to the standards of my parents. There was but one problem with my solution, and that was the fact that I was a girl. Females in my country—especially noble females—were prohibited from engaging in any activity that required the use of our minds. They feared us, I think, and the power that we could have if we thought of new ideas. Because of that law, I was not allowed to pursue my dream and write. But that is not to say that I didn’t try.

And the prince… I must admit, I’d only seen him once before and it was merely at a glance, and I found him to be positively angelic; a face carved of stone. Despite his obvious beauty, I cared little for him because of the stories I’d heard from other nobles of his complete lack of intelligence. The prospect of having to spend my life with someone like that was a constant nightmare in the back of my mind and there was nothing, not even the enthusiastic reassurances from my parents, that could persuade me that ‘Alad the Dunce’, as I called him, could be my one and only true love. Not when I considered myself an expert in the realm of thought and intelligence, and he seemed to be so far from that. Oftentimes I would write stories about him; short, intensely hateful works that depicted the prince as unusual creatures with no brain, usually involving a dragon that burned him into a crisp. Yet I couldn’t help but fantasize about the life I would lead as queen. I would never have to deal with my repressive parents again and I would, to an extent, be able to control my own life. Because of those fantasies, I was almost able to endure my future. But were it not for the prince, my life would have taken a completely different turn, for I soon met Lik, the spirited stable worker that changed my life forever.

I remember the first time I met the stable hand. I hadn’t known that my parents had hired him so I was in my usual place in the huge pile of hay that we had in the back of the barn. My parents hadn’t been in there for years so I knew I wouldn’t be disturbed, but I could never have expected Lik.

I was working on something that I had started writing a short while before and I was completely oblivious to everything around me, which probably explains why I didn’t notice the boy come in. So while I muttered to myself, finding the most perfect phrases to illustrate my dreams, he approached me.

“Their eyes met,” I said to myself, “and she felt her heart stop.” I crossed out a word then continued. “It was at that moment, when time seemed to pause its flight and float on warm tendrils of air, that she knew she loved him more than she had ever loved anything before. He was her entire life, and she, his. Nothing would be able to separate them now that they were together.”

“What are you doing?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Luckily I didn’t, and I let out a loud gasp instead. He was only a few feet away from me, staring at me in uncertainty. One of his eyebrows was raised as if to ask me for proof of my sanity. “I’m sorry!” I managed to choke out before I rushed out of the barn as if my life depended upon it. It probably did, too, for if the boy told my father that he found me in the barn writing I would never get the chance to write again… Writing was my life.

All throughout dinner that evening I was terrified. I couldn’t even eat because my stomach was twisted into so many knots I thought I would be squeezed in two, and attempting to eat would just make me sick. I waited most impatiently for either my uptight mother or my stiff-backed father to mention the barn and my deliberate disobedience to the law of the kingdom because if they were going to punish me, I wished they would do it soon. I was not, like other people I knew, an anticipator, and my impatience and worry were going to kill me someday. Even just waiting for one of my guardians to say something to me was torturing me.

I spent the time staring at my roast chicken, wondering if the animal had had a family back home before it’d been butchered for the sole use of our enjoyment. Maybe Alad would make a good chicken in one of my stories … The king, his father, could be a turkey, because they looked more impressive and were probably a lot smarter than a stupid chicken that didn’t have the brains to stay away from an axe. Then I realized that I was almost to the point of actually becoming insane so I stared at a spot on the wall instead.

My father set his fork down then looked at me with a most peculiar expression on his brow. It was not anger, as I would expect, and neither was it his every day scowl. Why was he stalling? I stared at him and he stared at me until finally he opened his mouth to speak. I held my breath.

“Lanna,” he began, and immediately I relaxed; he was calm, a rare occurrence. “Your mother and I have been discussing this arrangement that we made with the king, concerning your marriage to Prince Alad.”

“What about it?” I narrowed one eye and waited for whatever it was he was going to say to come out of his mouth. Had I done something wrong or had the prince? With any luck they’d forbid me from ever seeing the idiot again.

My mother deemed it necessary to take over the role of spokesperson and reached her arm out along the table toward me. I reckon she would have touched my hand had we not been sitting ten feet apart. “Dearest,” she cooed, using a name that I longed to remove from existence. “We’ve noticed that you seem rather…worried as of late. Is something wrong?”

Wrong? My life was going to end before the next month passed! But I figured that as long as they weren’t going to lock me away I’d squeeze anything for my freedom from their unusually soft manner. “Oh, Mother, I am merely afraid that Alad will not find me worthy to be his wife.” I poked my chicken with my fork so I wouldn’t have to look at her and reveal my lie, but the chicken only made me feel sick and I had to look away from that as well.

The proud woman leaned over to her usually taciturn husband to say, “We may need to give her more time alone so that she can realize her true worth. No daughter of a noble should feel that she is anything less than a princess!”

Ha! I even surprised myself with my genius ideas. Time alone was just what I needed. As soon as I saw my father nod in agreement I jumped to my feet—lady-like, of course—and softly entreated, “Might I go amongst the horses? Father, it is so much easier to be left to my thoughts when around creatures so gentle.” I could easily get some writing in during the time I had alone and I was dying to continue on with the story of my real true love that I had been working on earlier.

So happy was I that, as I hurried to the barn after my father’s assent, I forgot about a certain boy that had been there that afternoon.

“Didn’t think you’d be back after that introduction.”

For the second time that day the air sped into my lungs in an enormous gasp that would have quickly transformed into a scream had I not been distracted and staring at the boy’s rather handsome face.

“Forgive me, miss.” He touched his rough hand to his golden hair then bowed slightly.

Had I not been faint I would have acknowledged him. Instead I gasped, “I think my heart has stopped beating.”

At this he smiled and took a step toward me. “I might have a way to fix that.”

I noticed with growing fear that he was moving steadily closer, though my eyes had never left his ruddy face. I could see flecks of gold in his liquid brown eyes until I realized just how close he was. In the next second he grabbed my hand and lifted it up to eye level as if to examine it.

“You’ve got ink on your hands, did you know?”

His words brought me back to reality and I snatched my fingers away, half tempted to slap this bold stable hand. But I wasn’t brave enough and I stepped back several paces to distance myself from him. “How dare you?” I hissed, doing my best to glare at him. I was never good at angry expressions, though, and I could see that he found my countenance amusing.

The boy merely shrugged. “I told you I could start your heart up again, and it worked, didn’t it?” He glanced at my hand again. “You write, eh? Letters to that pretty prince of yours?”

I felt my eyes narrow to slits and my hands clenched themselves into fists. I wasn’t usually an angry person but his words infuriated me. “Are you being sarcastic?” I growled. I had sensed in his voice a sort of mocking tone and it really aggravated me. But something told me—“You knew that wasn’t a letter?” I asked quietly. I saw the boy visibly relax when my hands did the same. I suppose he knew that I had the power to have him dismissed and he feared that I would do so.

He chuckled softly and dropped himself onto the pile—my pile—of straw. “Their eyes met and she felt her heart stop,” he quoted perfectly. “It was at that moment,” he continued, but then he changed my words by using his own, “when time ceased to exist, when nothing made sense except for his image in her eyes, that she realized that her life could never be the same. He was her life, and she knew that he was all she needed. She understood, now, that she loved him.” He smiled a little, blinked, and then muttered, “You don’t want to make love seem superfluous. You just need to let it flow a little more sound more natural.”

I was breathless. The beauty of the words that came from his lips left me dumbfounded, but before I could find enough air to squeak words of awe he was on his feet.

“Forgive me, Miss Lanna,” he said with another bow. “I am expected at the palace tonight.” He pulled the barn door open and stepped out into the darkening night.

“Wait!” I finally called. When he looked back into the barn I shook my head incredulously. “How did you do that? You’re just a farm boy.”

He touched his head with a smile. “You’re just a girl,” he retorted smoothly. “At least I’m allowed to do it.”

I scowled but asked, “Why didn’t you turn me in to my father when you obviously know that I am not supposed to write?” I still didn’t understand it. I thought peasants would do anything to get a noble in trouble with the law. It was their sport…

The stable boy took a moment to answer. “I don’t think a smart girl like you should be pushed down when she’s trying so hard to climb. You’ve got skill.”

“Not like you,” I argued.

He flashed a brilliant smile and as he turned away to sidle toward the gate he replied, “Well, we’ll have to change that, won’t we?”

I watched him whistle up the path to the road until the darkness swallowed him. The words to my story that he had taken were still ringing in my head, but none more so than one phrase: ‘nothing made sense except for his image in her eyes.’

It is strange, I think, how much a life can be changed by a simple string of words.