Colette

1: Princess Colette of Ithelea

    I embraced the wind coursing through my system. The wind, my escape. I held out my arms as if I were holding the world. The world, a place I wanted to explore. I chuckled for only a moment, and then fell to the floor crying. I could never live like that. I will never live like that. I will never wake up to a place of paradise such as that cliff.  My mother would never approve. I fell backwards onto the smooth rock. Took a deep breath. And stood back up. My legs carrying a girl full of sorrow, me. The tear in my dress, from the climb, causing the crisp air to brush my skin in a way that made me feel free. I breathed in, as if breathing in that place to remember it. Have that small part of paradise inside of me forever. Colette, Princess of Ithelea. Why me? I thought.

                                   ********

I sat in the silence moving my peas around on the gold plate,  imagining my life anywhere else but stuck in this dark castle.When my mother interrupts my fantasy world asking,  "So where were you when you were supposed to be with your Maths tutor?"
" Whatever do you mean mother?" I say knowing very well where I was.
"I told you to never go back to that place. The future princess of Ithelea doesn't go scalavanging all over the country like a savage!" That set me off.
"I'm getting married in 3 months, to someone i don't even know! And you want me to just sit her and look pretty until the wedding day. Well i'm not going to do that." I slam my hands on the black marble table aggressively "I refuse to do that!"
"I'm not like you." I get up, fixing my torn dress that will have to be thrown away. I feel an ache in my heart from calling out my mother as i did, but it was true. I love my father but he doesn't like to deal with "female affairs". My mother married him. She said to 'keep her family out of the poorhouse.' Thankfully my parents have never said anything like that since my mother married very well.
"May I be excused?" I say with a stern face.
"Yes." My father states
My mother acts as if she was going to object, but then retrieved back to her normal state of responsibility in her chair.

********
Mary raced into my bedroom "I heard that all the way from down in the kitchen! What happened?" Mary said frantically. Her warm blue eyes, wide with both interest and worry. Mary's my nurse. She is the closest thing I've ever had to a mother.
"I'll tell you later. Right now i need to sleep." I say exhausted. I flop onto my blue bed, embroidered with birds. When I hear Mary close the door, I take a deep breath and fall asleep.