Pas de Deux

FROM THE UNTOLD STORIES OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER

PAS DE DEUX

           I can almost see them dancing (my eyes never quite recovered from the fall from the tower [I do wish she’d grown her hair back]) and I can’t help but grieve. Although this ball was planned to find him a wife, it was planned just as much to celebrate his relative... normality. I’d tried so hard to give just one generation of this family as normal a life as was possible, considering – a protection as delicate as the slippers she wears to break it.
           I know her story, I’ve suspected the Duchesses cruelty for some time, and I’d wondered why the doves were acting so strangely, seeming to aim for the same people time after time – have to keep on my toes, with all these odd going ons, especially with my goal in mind. (Such a bother, an enchanted kingdom, you wouldn’t believe.)
           But I know also what will come of it, (the cobblers wax, broken and bleeding feet, soup spoon eyes, a young girl in a sleep like death,) my mother’s mirror told me, showed me before my rage took it. Brilliant move if I’ve ever made one. An appropriately royal screw up. It’s seven years bad luck, but for me, for my family, or for my kingdom? I should have known better, and yet... The gods mock us. We’re devils playthings, are we? Well? No. I refuse. I’ll have none of it! I am the law. Not that they’ll listen. Not that they’ll ever care. Not that the last word will be mine, heavens no. It never was and never will be. It’s hers, always hers. Nothing I can say or do can change that. And all the kings men, as it goes.
         ...
          So, princess, make us dance.