fairytale
i
once upon a time
as they always say in fairytales,
and this is a fairytale
(a true fairytale
but a fairytale nonetheless).
once upon a time there was a little girl
with charcoal hair and pale skin,
and the little girl loved.
no.
the little girl thought she loved.
she thought she loved her cat
(his name was morrison and he purred so loudly)
and she thought she loved her teddy
(and she did, even though he was getting old and tatty)
and she thought she loved her family.
well,
she knew she loved her family.
but the little girl never loved.
she told morrison that she wanted to fall in love.
morrison just purred
but she told him anyway.
she said,
"when my knight comes,
will he wake me with a kiss,
and look into my eyes as we dance
and save my life?
will he ride a black beauty or a shadowfax?
will he kneel when he proposes?
will he hold me and care for me and kiss me and love me forever?
morrison just purred.
and the little girl kept dreaming
of her knight
and of love.
a love strong enough to slay dragons.
eternal love.
the little girl never expected to fall in love with a princess.
ii
the litle girl grew up,
and here's where the fairytale differs
from rapunzel and the others.
the girl was not the fairest in all the land.
her beauty did not start wars
(and she was glad)
for she was not beautiful.
not like other little-girls-grown-up.
she was not beautiful,
but her smile
and maybe her green-brown eyes
always bright and shining
(with tears?)
were pretty enough to win her some suitors.
but her knight never came.
iii
the girl never expected to fall in love with a princess,
but she did.
the princess was as beautiful as the day.
no.
more beautiful than the day.
she wore a crown of daisies
(a halo?
the girl wondered,
for she had never understood the word 'angel'
until she saw her princess),
and the gentle waves of her red hair
tumbled down her back like a tempest of fire,
and warmed the girl's heart.
the princess saw the girl,
the funny pale girl with pretty eyes and coal-black hair,
and she smiled,
and the girl blushed,
and the princess said,
"hello,"
and the girl said,
"what is your name?"
and the princess said,
"grace,"
and the girl knew,
she knew as surely as she knew the sun would rise,
that she was in love.
she knew she was in love
but what surprised her
and made her heart skip
and her life perfect
was that the princess loved her too.
iv
it was perfection.
the princess woke the girl with kisses
(her lips were soft and warm and tasted like cherries),
and looked into her eyes as they danced
(and the girl almost cried every time she held the princess in her arms
because she did not believe she deserved
this beautiful thing,
this beautiful, lovely, divinely perfect thing).
and there was no doubt about it.
the princess saved the girl's life.
because there was a knight, of sorts.
not quite a knight.
a farmboy? poor and perfect,
with eyes like the sea after a storm?
not quite that either,
but something,
something special that the girl loved.
someone.
her friend.
maybe they were sent by a wicked witch
or a ferocious ogre
or an evil king,
or maybe
(and this idea frightened the girl terribly
because there were so many of them
and they were so strong
and so horrible)
the people who killed her friend
did it of their own accord?
but it didn't matter.
he was dead,
and it didn't matter who had done it.
nothing mattered.
and the girl wept rivers for her friend,
her poor murdered friend,
and thought thoughts,
dark thoughts,
about joining him.
and so, you see, the princess did save the girl's life.
they wept rivers together
and began to heal together,
and the girl was glad to be alive
because she loved her princess more with every hour that passed.
so.
the princess woke the girl with kisses,
and looked into her eyes as they danced,
and saved her life.
she never rode a horse and she never proposed
(oh, but the magic she performed when she was kneeling
was so much more wonderful and powerful than that...)
but she held her and cared for her and kissed her and loved her.
and the girl was happy,
happier than she'd ever been before,
until she realised there was something missing,
one part of her dream that had not come true.
forever.
v
"i love you," the girl always said,
and the princess always replied, "i love you too."
sometimes the princess said, "i love you," first,
(and these times made the girl's breath
catch in her throat.
luckily, the princess knew how to retrieve it...)
but one night,
one summer night that had been stripped of its warmth
by a thunderstorm that sounded like brawling gods,
the girl said, "i love you,"
and the princess just smiled.
and the girl accepted the offered kiss
and followed the princess back to her bedchamber,
and convinced herself that the princess had just forgotten
(because this
this felt like normal,
felt like love).
but she had not forgotten, and she never said it again.
vi
the leaves on the trees started to turn golden-red-brown.
the girl sat beneath the trees whenever she could
because they reminded her of her princess' hair.
one day she was summoned to the palace.
she smiled when she saw her princess,
her beautiful princess.
she tried to kiss her,
but the princess stepped away.
her cheeks were wet with tears.
as the girl watched,
another diamond drop rolled down,
following the tracks left by its brothers.
"what's wrong?" she asked.
the princess didn't answer, and so the girl begged.
"please," she said.
"let me tell you a fairytale," said the beautiful princess.
"once upon a time there was a girl,
a plain red-haired girl,
who dreamed of falling in love,
and there was a princess.
the princess was so beautiful, she stopped the girl's heart.
she had raven hair and eyes like the forest
and a smile that could start wars.
the girl loved the princess
with every fibre of her existence,
and thought her love was strong enough to slay dragons.
thought it was eternal love.
but one day she was out walking by the river,
thinking of how the mossy rocks were so like her princess' eyes,
and she met a knight there,
a brave, handsome knight.
and she did not mean to,
did not want to,
but she could not help remembering the old fairytales,
the ones about young maidens who fall in love with dashing knights.
she tried so hard,
but she could not recall
ever having read a fairytale
in which the maiden falls for the princess."
the girl was silent for a long, long while.
she looked at her princess
and saw that the flaming hair and ivory skin had blurred and merged.
the girl cried.
she ran from the palace.
she saw the handsome knight on the way out
and stopped just long enough to say,
"sir,
i care not whether you wake your princess with a kiss
or look into her eyes as you dance
or save her life.
i care not of the colour of your horse
when you ride together into the sunset.
i care not whether you kneel when you propose,
but promise me, sir,
promise me that you will love her as much as i do."
the knight promised,
and the girl went home
and wept rivers again.
vii
she tried so hard,
but she could not recall
ever having read a fairytale
in which the maiden falls for the princess.
so.
after a long time
(a year and a day, say the fairytales)
when the hole in her heart had started to heal
and she could remember her love
(her life)
without weeping rivers,
she sat under the russet trees
and wrote her own.
my fairytale is finished.
i will be traditional one last time:
~the end~
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