The Princess' Friends

Once upon a time, there lived a young princess who lived in a mighty castle, surrounded by a huge kingdom, governed by the Royal Seal King Gunthry and Queen Maureen. The princess had two brothers named Thane and Leo. The Royal Family lived a predominantly normal life inside the castle gates. Thane and Leo, the youngest of the three siblings, had court lessons to prepare themselves for the crown they would inherit when the boys would become of age, and the princess had courtship and art lessons to prepare her for that one fateful day she would carry the family line the way her brothers would carry the family name.

Behind the polished image of a perfect family lay a secret the king and queen had buried deep — one that had never once crossed the castle gates. It began when the princess was just six years old. In a moment of childlike daring, she had scaled one of the towering pillars outside the castle walls — climbing higher than any child her age should dare — before plummeting without warning into the brittle shrubbery below. Her two brothers, frozen in horror as they watched, were certain in those first terrible seconds that their sister had not survived the fall. By some miracle, she had. It took both the skilled hand of a physician and the quiet intervention of magic to piece the young girl back together.

With each passing year away from that dreadful fall, the children drifted further apart. The brothers became entwined in a rivalry as fierce as it was poetic, both hungry for the crown, while their sister blossomed into a gifted artist, seemingly untouched by the shadow of the throne and the accident that made the princess slightly disabled in some areas of development.

Yet those closest to her knew better, her mother knew better. The fall had left its mark in quiet, invisible ways — in the moments she struggled to find words that once came easily, in the way her hands trembled when she held a brush too long, in the blank spaces that would sometimes cross her eyes mid-conversation, as if a part of her had never quite come back down from that pillar. The king and queen had taken great care to conceal it — from the court, from visiting dignitaries, from the kingdom at large. A princess with weakness was a liability they could not afford. And so the secret held, year after year, sealed behind smiles and carefully chosen silences.

As the children grew up, so had the imagination of the young disabled princess. The first mistake came at age seven — just a year after the fall. In a moment of unguarded honesty, she had voiced her fear of being taken, of disappearing, to the full assembly of her parents' court. The room had gone still in a way that told her, even then, that she had said something she should not have. The second came at age nine, when she made the error of confiding in her brothers about Abel — the imaginary friend who had begun dropping in on her during her mid-morning walks, checking on her head wound in her mother's absence with a gentleness no physician had ever managed. She had told the story lightly, expecting laughter. Instead, it was Leo who carried it straight to court, retelling it to their father with the eagerness of a boy expecting to be smiled at. What he received instead were looks of quiet, careful fear — the kind adults wear when they are trying very hard not to show it. It was a mistake the princess vowed, from that day forward, never to repeat.

More dramatic/suspenseful: It happened twice, and twice was enough to teach her silence. The first time, she was seven — barely a year removed from the fall — when she let slip, in front of the full court, that she was afraid of being taken. She could not explain why the fear lived in her the way it did, only that it did. The court had received it poorly. The second time came at nine, when she told her brothers about Abel — the figure who visited her on her mid-morning walks and tended to her head wound while their mother was occupied elsewhere in the castle. She had meant it as a confidence between siblings. Leo, well-meaning and unsuspecting, brought it to their father like a gift, expecting soft laughter and gentle teasing. What crossed the king's face instead was something far colder. The princess read it clearly. She never made either mistake again.

The first slip came at age seven, a year after the fall, when she openly expressed her fear of being abducted before her parents' court — words that landed far more heavily than she had anticipated. The second came two years later, when she confided in her brothers about Abel, an imaginary friend who would visit her during her mid-morning walks and tend to her head wound while the queen was away. She had told the story without thinking. Leo, the younger of her brothers, brought it eagerly to court — expecting it to be met with gentle teasing. Instead, he watched a look of quiet, unmistakable fear settle over their father's face. It was a look the princess never forgot, and a mistake she swore never to make again.

At age fifteen, while Abel was away, she found herself thinking silently to herself about all of it and how strange some of the scenerios had gotten. She began to think how unalone she might have been in anything and in a prolonged moment alone she found what she believed to be another friend silently forming someplace in the corner of her eye....