The Lost Throne

Alex

I stared at the gown as it glared back at me. The purple curves of the dress nearly caused me to be ill. It made my throat itch and my heart sink to the pit of my stomach. It wasn't an ugly dress — my father would never allow me to wear an ugly dress. In fact, it was nearly perfect. No frayed edges, perfectly fitted to my waist, and the sleeves were long and modest enough to please my father. It didn't please me, though, because I never understood the point of wearing dresses. They were uncomfortable, and they never hugged my body correctly. It would accentuate the wrong parts and hide the parts of me I liked.

Whenever I would try to tell my father how I was feeling, he would just tell me that beauty was pain and that I would have to deal with it for the rest of my life, so I'd better get used to it. He didn't understand what I meant by "uncomfortable." He would dismiss my claims and even went as far as to laugh, as though I were joking. I wasn't joking, but he was the king, and his word was law. If he wished for me, his pure daughter and future inheritance to the throne, to wear a dress, I would do so. I was sure he had a lot of responsibilities as the king, but he believed that he was always king first and father second. He rarely acted as though he were my father.

I stared at the dress for an uncomfortable amount of time before I got off of my bed and made my way over to it. I ran my hand across the purple silk and the white ruffles at the end of the sleeves. The bosom of the dress was low and exposed a lot more than it used to. ("You're a woman now," was my father's explanation for this.)

As I was staring at the dress, I could feel more unease than ever before in my soul. I looked in the direction of my wardrobe and something seemed to call to me. I was not allowed to explore my wardrobe, seeing as my maid Saskia was the one who dressed me, so needless to say I was surprised when I was greeted by walls covered in dresses and suits. There weren't just outfits of mine, but old outfits that my mother and father used to wear. Dancing dresses, business suits, and even casual streetwear outfits. I ran my hand across some of my mother's dresses and tried to sense her through the tips of my fingers. I could almost smell her on some of the dresses, the light lilac scent that she often had following her.

As I wandered the closet, my curiosity got the best of me. I wandered to my father's side of the wardrobe. There was a suit, one that looked old and worn, as though it hadn't been worn in a few years. The seams were fraying and the jacket was wrinkled, but it looked like it would fit me. I grabbed it off of the wall and patted off the dust. I admired it as I walked back into my bedroom to take a closer look at it in better lighting. The suit was purple, similar to the dress that I was looking at, and the buttons were small and golden. The shoulder pads were black with gold details, made to not stand out too much, but pop just enough to accentuate status. I noticed the handiwork was that of Marco's, my father's old seamster.

I quickly and quietly put on the suit, thinking that I would quickly remove it after trying it on. After all, who knows what my father would have done if he had seen me? I was sure to be careful with the ripping seams and lightly smoothed out the wrinkles of each piece that I put on. It only took a few minutes, and when I finished, I checked it out in the full-length mirror.

I pulled my hair out of my face and sighed, and there was a feeling that something was off. I let go of my long, curly hair, and let it fall in front of my face. I huffed and watched it float up and back down. As I admired myself longer in the mirror, I had a realization that this suit wouldn't look good with how my hair currently was. Not that I'd ever liked my hair long, but my father refused to let me cut it above my shoulders. I always had arguments about it, my excuses ranging from the weather being too hot for long hair, or that the length of my hair made my crown nearly impossible to put on properly so it wouldn't fall off. Maybe I didn't like the feeling of it, or the fact that it always made me hot, or perhaps it was something deeper that I didn't understand. Perhaps I was just different from the other princesses.