━━ ⦗the swan princess! ⦘
❝ you're beautiful!
thank you, but what else?
... what else is there? ... ❞
███████████ 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝
the courageous odette teaches the
once and future king a less...
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chapter one! 001. destiny's beginning
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HER FAVOURITEmemories were early summer mornings. As the sun rose over the mountains in the distance, casting golden glows across pastures, slopes and treetops, it stretched far towards the stone foundations of Camelot. Midas' fingertips would touch the wooden thresholds of the Lower Town, rise over modest homes, taverns, inns, the markets and the commoners' blacksmith's forge until it reached the drawbridge▬and then she'd watch it pass through into the Upper Town where rigid stables warmed up at their straw floors, brightened the homes of rich merchants and high-classed commoners, and finally broke through into the strong facade of the glamorous castle. The golden sun soaked into the stone and she'd feel it with bare feet and her fingers spread out against the window casings. She knew the part of the castle that warmed up the first▬where she could see the mornings passageway out of night to wake up the roosters, glare into the early risers before a day of work, and finally reach the beds of those who could sleep in; she saw and watched it all with a soft smile upon her lips, never feeling so fortunate and at peace than a warm spring morning.
People came to Camelot to achieve dreams. They searched for the destiny of a stable life▬a job, a family, a future safe in fortress walls that protected them from the dangers pass the forest. Safe from bandits, slave traders and famine▬but most of all, safe from the evils of dark magic that still tainted the lands beyond that of Camelot after the Great Purge twenty years ago. They arrived with innocent, rose-coloured eyes that saw a life that could only be better than they've ever experienced. The footsteps of young minds with bright hopes and love filled the cobblestone streets, inhabited the rooms of the inns and brightened the days with bright blue skies. She loved Camelot for its people, for its beauty, for its possibilities.
She loved the view from the window. Ever since she was a young child and her mother would hoist her up onto her hip in the early mornings before she was to set off to work to show her this exact view.
"See the way the sun rises over the shadows?" she would say, kissing her young daughters cheek. "When all else is dark, there is always the morning to show you the way▬to give back all that is lost, to return the beauty of the day. That beauty is true wealth, Odette▬just like you."
She was always positive in the face of misery, her mother. Even as she lied on her death bed, barely able to breathe▬shivering under rat-eaten fleece blankets with feverish cheeks, she had smiled at Odette as if there was nothing more wonderful than seeing her daughters face. She told her she brought her the greatest gift in the world the day she had found her in that storm, and never once did Ivette Mason feel a breath of anguish when her chosen flesh and blood was near. She was her own little rabbit foot, her own riches, her own purpose that meant more than scrubbing stone floors for the rest of her life. And it was that which gave Odette her hopeful nature▬her own breath of golden sunlight, to be taught that there was always something to smile about, always beauty even in the darkest of shadows.
