Cut the strings and set me free

Part 4- if the strings snap will you let me float away?

"Beautiful." The Queen murmurs, gaze roving over me, making me feel far naked than I had just in my camisole and drawers, sheer white that had been shorter, more exposed, more decorated than any I'd ever worn, her eyes approvingly shining at the way my breasts spill over, heave with the little thin air I can suck in with struggle.

And I feel the weight of her eyes, far more burdensome and heavier than if the entire nation had been watching me clothe, had seen the way I'd been stripped and showered and cleansed as if I had no autonomy, body scrutinised and buffed and polished to a shine as if they were playing dolls, as if they were seeing what was happening now. When layer upon layer of elaborate ornate fabric was pulled onto me, was cinched to my figure.

The Queen stands before the final layer of the gown is added on, crimson lips curling up.

"A moment." she calls, nothing else requires as all hands cease movement, fall away and bodies bustle away, closing the door and leaving me trapped, left alone with the Queen.

She rises from the armchair stepping forward.

She draws my face to look at her, eyes roving with pride and awe- a sense of flickering maternal joy in her eyes. The barest, most miniscule amount of her in the gaze.

Too little too late.

"I want to be surprised when you walk in. I want to see the gorgeous person you grew into, see the wonderful specimen that is the sole and most glorious proof of your father and I's love. The most triumphant moment in history when you walk in as a bride." She confesses, voice soft and gentle and steeped in memories, as if right before her mind's eye- her own marriage flickers, the sweetness of her gaze far and distant; not for me, never for me.

My hand goes to touch her wrist lightly, she smiles; looking happy and fond, the look stuttering when I don't touch to capture her wrist and hold here there, but to push her hand away, unable to bear the alien, foreign touch of her.

Cold and unfeeling and empty.

"Your Majesty if my father was here he'd see me and see a corpse, he'd see my shroud, not my wedding gown. And he'd see not his wife but an executioner." I dare to utter, finding that in my final moments before my autonomy was completely signed away an inner strength rose, and I found myself wanting to tell her what she did, wanted her to know that until the final moments I wasn't happy, that I didn't want her decision- not for a single moment.

My hand falls limply to my side, lifeless and losing every bit of strength.

Watching as her eyes shutter and when I see her in the next instance, I see a sight far more familiar. I see the Queen.

I see that any hope that somewhere inside my mother had lived, had existed hadn't, that every bit of her role in my life as the nurturing figure had died and withered away.

And I saw no-one to lean to, to hold me as I wept and begged for any other way.

"Do not dare sully his memory so. Do not think he would've wanted anything else." She says, voice level and firm and cold.

I shake my head, a bitter smile on my lips.

"My father never wanted me to be a prisoner in my own body, he never wanted to see me wither and die. No, Your Majesty that was all you." I say, finding that in these moments, this rare instance of just the two of us I felt no reason to hold back, found no meaning to.

Wanted that my final words of independence and freedom were solely mine, wanted that she remembered that as she bargained away the life of someone who of her own flesh and blood, she was also the reason that blood soured and poisoned. That the wound inflicted on my heart and soul was at her hand- driving the dagger into the hilt, an intimacy of shared breath, shared connection as she looked me in the eye and became the reason my life slipped away from me.