Princess November: One Princess, One Peasant, One Strict Queen

II. In Any Lifetime

November, who never understood that Peter existed, was tired of her mother's pointless ranting on the way the less rich lived their lives. It was all a broken, biased system built from the generation before Virginia, and the generation before that, and before that.

She'd call the others the less fortunate, but they looked a lot happier than she was. So November always knew them from that point on as the More Fortunate.

"Come here, November." Virginia beckoned her daughter over, who tiredly stumbled towards the palace kitchen. Her eyes flickered towards the sleek, sharp, silver blades for a second, but they quickly darted away.

"What is it, mom?" November asked, her voice having grown husky over the course of the day. She awkwardly cleared her throat. "Can I go to sleep soon? I'm very tired; the butlers have ordered me around all day."

"Quit complaining." Virginia scoffed, looking at her daughter with disgust. "Lay the table for me."

"Why don't you get your little servants to do it, instead?" November asked, finally getting sick of her mother's temper and daring to fight back.

"Because if you want to join those freaks..." Virginia began.

"Then you should be treated like one."

"That's ridiculous." November groaned.

"Where did you get that awful temper, young?"

"You're one to talk about temper." November frowned. "You're making up for your bad parenting by being angry, which doesn't make sense."

"NOVEMBER!"

"Auntie Matilda taught me not to lie." November sighed. Her mother never understood that all she wanted to do was help her to become a better person. She desperately wanted to believe that there was more than a bitter, biased queen who had a personal vendetta against people who didn't live in massive, shiny castles.

"LAY THE TABLE, NOW!"

November winced at her mother's harsh tone, but rushed over to the kitchen drawers to take out the cutlery.

"Better." Her mother nodded, beginning to walk away from the kitchen. "Best be done perfectly by the time I'm back."

"Um... Okay." November had no arguments left within her, giving in and setting the table. Her feet dragged across the floor, and she hit the forks against the porcelain table just a little too hard.

As soon as her vicious mother left the room, November smiled to herself. It was time.

'Normal world, here I come.' She thought to herself, rubbing her hands together excitedly. 'No more Princess-Slave anymore.'

She finished laying the table for good measure, ran to her bedroom and climbed down the first tower. The afternoon was clear and cloudy, perfect weather.

Her small feet were quickly getting scratched against the harsh exterior of the castle, large red blisters forming on the bottom. As painful as it was, November felt so much passion towards this. The pain of some small scratches on her feet could never match the love she had for nature and adventure. She could not, and would not, stop at anything. She was going to know how it felt to live in the world she had always dreamed of.

"Come on, you can do this." November egged herself on determinedly, making sure her footsteps were getting slowly more gentle. "You're getting so close..." She could almost feel real, genuine breeze and less confinement by the second.

Then she slipped.

Even more 'luckily' for her, she happened to land in the arms of one of the castle's strictest female butlers.