Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
TWO PRINCESS PERSEVERANCE Pt. I
( MARCH 'O4 )
✷
MALLORY WAS ALWAYS told by her mother that she had been a surprise child.
Bad surprise or good surprise, she'd ask to which Tabitha replied, Good, always good. After the difficult delivery of Jesse and then a near death experience birthing Caleb three years later, the doctors had told Tabitha it was in her best interest to tie her tubes and hope her body won't fail her later down the road. Still, a bonny baby girl was born a year and a half after Caleb. Tabitha, the careful daughter of a very superstitious man, had thought nothing when she named her daughter Mallory; no matter how ill-fated the French felt the bearer of the name to be.
Mallory was never one for believing in omens, or at least, she never used to be really. Sure, she's till wary of Dáskiya with her supposed strands of slimy kelp for hair and her threat of throwing you into her big woven basket for soup but now, she thinks her mom sorta set her up? Ill fated? Like, seriously? Her mother defends the choice for the sake of some character in a novel, some Princess Mallory of Whateversville Kingdom that rescued her own betrothed from an ancient curse despite the superstition on her name binding her to an ill fate.
Tabitha was like, obsessed with those books while pregnant... Looking more on it, Mallory guessed her mom wanted her to be just like that princess. Rising against all the odds and the bad bets set on her from the start. Still, ill-fated doesn't give her the best of head starts.
She'll never pester her mother about it though. It's not like Tabby had much company as a pregnant woman taking care of two little boys. Her husband was far too busy traveling with his band up and down the west coast to bother offering a helping hand. Sure, Tabitha might've had grandma Hillary, and her best friends (Mallory's aunties) Sarah Black, Marietta Door, and Alma Longfree but her husband might've made a world of a difference for a young woman scared of possibly dying during the birth of their child. Thankfully, that didn't happen. Nine months later a baby girl was born. Named Mallory, for a princess, not for an ill fate. Logan Dunne was not there to witness it but his best friend Charlie Swan would have been damned if he didn't. Mallory had gotten used to his constant substitution wherever her father was concerned—then Logan died and suddenly, it was clearer to her Charlie was no longer subbing.
