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Cinderella had married a stranger. A very pleasant stranger, but still someone she knew nothing about. Someone who married on a whim.
She stared at the glass slipper on its pillow in the ballroom. Her first ball, she'd been filled with the romance of the thing. Waltzing with the prince until she was dizzy. At her second, she'd been dizzy with lack of food and wonder at what had happened.
She'd been taught to spot while dancing by now so that she would not get dizzy. She'd been told to not dance too close. She'd been instructed on her posture and form and smile. She was to smile, but not smile too much. She'd been told to speak softly or best yet not to speak. She had no one to talk to. She had no friends at court. She had a stranger for a husband, who was always rushing about doing something that caught his fancy to do.
She'd started singing the other day and a courtier, she blushed that she didn't know his name, coughed. He'd coughed and she'd stopped. The birds had flown away. Except the one in the gilded cage, who sang Cinderella's song for her.
The courtiers all around her politely clapped for that song, but they were whispering.
That was what it was to be a princess.
~~~~~~~
The previous Queen, her Mother-in-Law, had had a tiny village built where she'd pretended to live on a farm.
Queen Ariel knew very little about farms, but she was fairly certain the walls did not have oil canvases and that there were not tinkling fountains with boxed gardens meandering up the hill.
She didn't spend much time there.
She negotiated with her Father for fair seas for her kingdom's ships. When the Duke of Berrisford, said, "Perhaps your Majesty should restrict herself to more feminine realms." What he meant was she should have had a son by now, and not merely a daughter.
She smiled and replied, "Duck Berrisford," for she affected not to understand the phonetic difference between Duck and Duke, "Had King Eric married a princess from a neighbouring kingdom, she would have brought an alliance with her kingdom. The alliance I bring is the sea." She smiled pleasantly. She was a pleasant person.
Admiral Johnson had hissed that since the Duke of Berrisford's lands were covered in sheep, maybe he should be silent. Unless he didn't want his wool crossing the sea.
She had her allies at court. That was how it was at any court. The Sea King's or a King of the land.
Still all eyes were on her wondering if she could bear the kingdom a son. If they could afford to lose an alliance with the sea, even if King Eric could be persuaded to part from love and set her aside.
Queen Ariel smiled and commented within hearing of Viscount Tellisford on how her Father doted on his grand-daughter, Princess Melody. Tellisford is a terrible gossip, and the laws that prevented a woman from ruling were worth only the paper they were written on. A mermaid could walk. A law could be changed.
That was what it was to be a Queen.
~~~~~~~~~~~
She was the Evil Queen. What they meant was she was ruthless. There had been three attempts to depose her and place that child Princess Snow White on the throne. She'd crushed each of them and left the bodies to rot in cages on her castle walls.
They'd accused her of witchcraft and magic. They would have stripped her kingdom from her and confined her to a prison. This had been done to other Queens and far worse to women not lucky enough to have the protection of being queen.
The difference was she actually had magic. It was not something natural to her. She'd had had to study it. In the same way an architect studied mathematics to build a castle or a miner studied the soil in order to understand how to dig. She'd used it with the same precision. Now they all bowed to her face and called her Great and Terrible. Behind her back, she was the Evil Queen. They didn't even want to grant her a name. As if she'd tell them hers. Names had power and the only power she intended to flourish was her own.
She studied and she crafted all the tools that she'd had. Beauty was not something that happened while singing innocently by a well of wishes. People often mistook prettiness for beauty, but Beauty was not pretty. It was terrible. She'd become Queen on that power. That and a drop of love in the King's eyes.
Of the old King, they called him Good, which was another word for weak. She'd been content in her forest once, but she'd cast the runes for the future and saw where that Good, Weak King would lead them. There were hungry kingdoms on all sides of them. Kingdoms that had been sending raids across the borders. Burning villages until those borders stank with the dead. It would not have been conquest. It would have been yapping dogs snarling how best to tear apart the kingdom's carcase.
That was when she'd left her forest behind and become beautiful and terrible.
In other kingdoms, they called her the Evil Queen. What they did not do was try to cross into her kingdom to take what was hers. They'd learned that lesson well. She didn't bother with guards or soldiers.
She kept only a huntsman to provide her with the materials she needed for her spells. She watched her own people on her Magic Mirror and if they tried to move against her, she swept them up in darkness to be dealt with. She watched her neighbours on her Magic Mirror and if anyone so much as tried to cross without permission, they paid the price for it.
She'd cast the runes and knew the cost of doing any less.
That was what it was to be a witch.
~~~~~
Princess Fred knew what her story was meant to be. Her Mother had spoken out of turn and angered some elemental spirit, which meant that she breathed or spoken, because it was practically impossible not to take a step and not upset an elemental spirit. Everyone knew it, and yet somehow it was Mother's fault.
She didn't blame her Mother. She was a little annoyed they'd wasted their time trying to confuse the spirits by naming her Fred, which was how she'd been blessed by the fairies with honor and strength at her birth, but that was over now.
They led her up the mountainside and chained her to a giant boulder. Her Father wept. Her Mother had been given something to keep her calm. She seemed half dead. A zombie then, whose grief would consume Father until the kingdom burst the terrible child of that grief.
Princess Fred tried to pull herself together. She'd been awake all night. When she'd tried to sleep nightmares plagued her. Not, oddly enough, of what was going to happen, but of strange fancies. Zombies raping citizens. Men bearing children. Serpents biting adults, who transformed gender and became as children again.
She blinked again and she was alone on the mountainside.
She waited. She almost wept with relief when a lone knight in gleaming armor rode up. He raised his gleaming visor and said, "I am here to rescue you." He pulled his sword and looked at the chain and said, "Oh, um… I don't really want to dull the blade. I don't suppose you have the key."
She stared at him. This was her rescuer? He left.
The second knight wore armor painted blue. She hoped he'd have less a care for his sword.
He was a handsome enough fellow, but his words left something to be desired. "I'm here to kill the dragon. I heard some nimwits chained their princess to a great honkin rock, and there's nothing a dragon likes more than to snack on a princess."
Princess Fred tugged on her chain. "Are you going to rescue me?" Princess Fred felt it was worth asking.
She got a snort. "Not likely. You might bolt before the dragon shows." The knight tilted his head. "Be best if you screamed a little." His smile looked like any other smile, which just went to show what smiles hid.
Princess Fred screamed in a half-hearted way, because the Blue Knight seemed the sort to motivate if a scream was not forthcoming. Not wanting to be idle, she also piled up rocks, which there were certainly plenty of on this rocky outcrop.
Soon the Green Dragon of the Wilding Wood flew into view. Now admittedly the creature was there to eat her, but Princess Fred had to admit that the Green Dragon was a sight to behold. Wings with wide green spines and a sort of greenish gold dapple to the webbing. Her belly scales were a sort of burnt amber, while the rest of her were of dappled green. She had a sort of ruff of golden webbing around her shoulders that made her long neck almost look like a flower. Princess Fred stopped her half-hearted scream and sighed.
The Blue Knight said something like, "Come to Papa," and readied his lance. He seemed to know what he was about, but the Green Dragon was no young wyvern, but a full blooded dragon. As a gout of flame went by the rock, Princess Fred decided that the best thing to do was apply a rock to the bolt holding her chain to the boulder.
She had managed to get herself free when she saw that the Blue Knight had pinned the green dragon to the earth with a javelin through her neck ruff and was preparing to cut the creature's head from her body. The dragon blinked eyes as wide as dinner plates at Princess Fred and she just couldn't leave things like this. True, the Green Dragon was intended to eat her, but Princess Fred couldn't let the Blue Knight kill her.
She hit the Blue Knight on the back of the head with a rock. For such a burly fellow, he fell unconscious fairly easily. She was glad the gift of strength was finally useful. She tied him up with his own belt, because she really didn't want to have to deal with him again.
The Green Dragon yowled at her. Princess Fed tisked her tongue and said, "Now stop that, I'm going help you, I just need to see how best to do it. The Green Dragon was silent and waited quietly. She tried pulling the lance out of the earth, but it was firmly stuck. The Green Dragon whimpered. She patted her nose. She blew a hot stream of air on Princess Fred's palm.
After some thought, Princess Fred appropriated the Blue Knight's sword and used it to shorten the lance and carefully pulled the ruff off of it. A sort of odd blue ichor oozed from the wound and got on her hands. But with the Green Dragon suffering, she couldn't stop to think of that. She stuffed the wound with clean moss. Wiping the sweat from her face as she worked as the sun was quite warm. It wasn't as if she intended to get Dragon's blood in her eyes and nose and ears and well really all over her face. It was simply that while common wisdom said Princesses glowed, Princess Fred was sweating like a woodsman.
So, when the Green Dragon said, "Thank you." It was something of a surprise.
"You can talk," said Princess Fred.
"No, it can't. Now untie me you silly girl," said the Blue Knight flopping on the rock like a beached carp.
"All Dragons can talk. We speak the Dragonic Tongue. Although, I also speak Elf and High Troll," said the Dragon batting her great dish plate eyes at Princess Fred. "I was sent by the Spirit King of the Wilding Wood to eat you as punishment for what your Mother said, but now that you helped me that seems rude." The Green Dragon steamed quietly. "But if I don't, the Spirit King of the Wilding Wood will be displeased and that would not be good."
Princess Fred considered this. "Would you like to run away with me? I've heard that there are some very interesting places to see out west."
The Green Dragon sent a puff of flame in the general direction of the woods and laughed. "How odd. I know dragons are supposed to want to sit in caves and hoard things, but that's always seemed so dull. Gold plates just aren't that interesting, but running away. Do you think I could?"
Princess Fred said, "If I can do it, then you certainly can."
The Green Dragon slapped the earth with her tail. "Let's run away together."
They did. There were a lot of things to see out west.
This was what it was to be two women on an adventure.