(jaylor au) clandestine meetings in beautiful rooms

Welcome To New York

I'd always loved spring, it had always been my absolute favourite time of the year. It was the time where things began again, where everything for a fresh start. Perhaps it was the way it looked from my window - as that was pretty much all I knew. All I knew was inside of these walls.
"Taylor!" One of my ladies calls to me as she pulls up her skirt to run towards me. "I'm going to get you!"
It was rare to see us like this, running around outside. I usually would never be allowed to do this. I wasn't even sure why exactly my mother had allowed me to go outside with no guards today. Although there were still guards present - of course there were, because she could never allow me to be truly free. She wouldn't let me set foot outside the palace walls, as much as that suffocated me sometimes.
"No-" I start, but am cut off when one of my maids approaches me. I hadn't even done my hair this morning - it was hanging loosely at my shoulders, and I couldn't help but grin. I loved being like this. I wonder if all of the others, the ones who live outside of the palace, the ones who aren't titled Princess or are the daughter of the King and Queen. It felt liberating, being free like this. In a way, I'd never been able to before. Not since... everything happened all of those years ago.
"I beg your pardon ma'am, but your mother asks that you be dressed in an evening dress and in the dining room in an hour."
"Thank you, Ella." I sigh, turning to face my ladies, which are the girls who are supposed to be the only friends I need. I can't help but feel lonely. "Come," I say, motioning for them to follow me. "We will continue this later and I am totally going to win!"
"Yes, Miss Taylor," Abigail says, walking behind me. They are not laughing anymore, it's back to business, our moment of freedom is over. Sometimes I wonder about asking them if they feel as trapped as me sometimes.
My ladies are lovely, but Abigail is my favourite. I've known her since the moment I was born and we were tutored together. They're the only people I know inside these walls, the only friends I have. The only people in this palace that my mother hasn't got control of, filling them with promises to keep me safe. Suffocated. Isolated.

I have five ladies in total, there is Abigail, Ella, Selena, Blake and Gigi.
The girls help me to get changed into a formal gown, a suitable attire for whatever my mother has planned - and that means a corset. Which, by the way, is one of the worst things in the world. As if being trapped inside these walls isn't bad enough, now I can't breathe, either.
"Miss Taylor," Blake grins, "I do believe that we are finished."
"Okay, thank you," I murmur and have to focus really hard on not fainting.
I look at myself in the mirror and see that the girls have chosen me a dress that only arrived two days ago. My mother had it ordered from Italy a couple of months ago, even when I insisted that I did not want another unnecessary dress. There wasn't enough food in the city as it was, I wasn't naive to that fact. I heard my father talking to the people, heard him come back from the visits to see the people that I was never allowed to go on.

No matter how hard I always begged to attend the village with them, I was always left behind. The dress is nice and I love the way it shimmers in the light, almost as if I am covered in pixie dust. Oh, the stories of old folklore that my mother used to read to me seem like centuries ago, not a few years. Twenty-Two years, to be exact. I have to admit, I know I sparkle in this dress. I know that it compliments my figure, know that it hugs my curves in the right way. It is the sort of dress that my mother would never let me wear on a normal occasion, meaning that it is not the ordinary event I would be attending. For a brief moment, I wonder if maybe, after all these years, she is letting me go into the village with my Father. But that hope fades as quickly as it arrives.