Our Era

I. Invaded Space

"King MePhone thinks all there is to running a kingdom is throwing parties and eating cookies. So why does any of it matter?"

XXX

The daily routine of a princess wasn't nearly as complicated as it should have been. Most of it was just studying and relaxing around the castle's luxurious grounds, broken up with the frequent ball or the even-more-frequent bout of staring at one spot for a long time and thinking.

And all thoughts ultimately led to the same wretched place:

'It's all fake. It'll come crumbling soon.'

Princess Marshmallow blocked out the thoughts and returned to reading. The Delicacies of Etiquette was a massive volume, required by the king himself. It was the only thing a princess could do, faced with the collapse of everything: obey the king and hope it'd come in handy.

'It's just like Bow's execution, except it's war. Thousands of innocent people will be killed, mostly commoners, with their cute little farms and families to feed and nothing else to their names... But I have just as little I can do about it, right?!'

She tried to refocus on her book once more. This chapter was about tea parties. It included sections about how to hold a teacup, how to brew tea, and the kinds of flowers to be left on the table for each different occasion.

It was all pointless.

'When an invasion could happen in months, nothing matters more than drinking chamomile with lilies on a Thursday, of course, right?'

Finally Marshmallow slammed the book shut and groaned, leaning back in her cushy red chair. She felt restless and twitchy.

Everything was so gray inside the castle. The rich, warm tones of the upholstery drew her eyes to the one shock of blue in the whole room: the window.

'How tempting.'

Marshmallow hoist the book over her head and walked over. It was a vertical drop; far below, there was the top of one of the protective walls of the castle. If she chucked the book out, there would be a nice slapping sound as it hit the stone, but any unlucky guard who happened to stand there would be injured quite grievously.

But there were no guards present.

She picked up the huge book and went back to the window. Nobody was there. Nobody would even hear it but the princess herself.

Tossing the book out the window would've been a relief, a weight off her shoulders.

Yet she hesitated.

It wasn't necessary or productive. It was immature. If someone found the book down there, she might get in trouble.

'Screw all that. The place the rules whence came is uninformed and does nothing but eat cookies. Forget King MePhone!'

She might've actually gone through with it, if there wasn't a knock at the door.

Knock knock.

'Alas, unwanted company wins out the day.' She threw the book onto her overly-fluffy princess bed and cleared her throat. "Come in!"