Hymn, The Princess in the Stained Glass Dress

Chapter 3-Agatha

I wasn't born yesterday, I was born today. The crowd had begun to gather hours before noon. Most of the crowd was visitors from beyond the capital city. The people engulfed the town square. Children, and adults alike were everywhere. It was hard to move through the streets without getting stepped on.

After hours of being pushed and prodded, and feeling my tolerance level drop to an almost nonexistent level, the time had come. People silenced and watched the timekeeper strike twelve.

When she stepped out onto the balcony, the entire city stopped. The stained glass dress was more beautiful than anyone had ever described to me. It had no sleeves, scandalous in and of itself, but no one seemed to notice or perhaps care. The small pieces of glass seemed to be strung together in a type of broken pattern. It had a natural curl and wave that accent the body it covered. The glass swirled in circled down the front of the skirt, and patterned panels down the rest.

When the high sun touched the dress, it shot tiny ethereal rays of colored light down to every nook and cranny of the city. It bathed the people in a red, yellow, green, blue and purple varieties of soft light. It was both blinding and enchanting. When she would shift the crowd would move and float on the moving light. I felt absolutely overwhelmed with the purity of the light.

The woman in the dress then rose her head and gazed out in front of her. Her eyes never touched the people, but their eyes never left her. She was definitely islandic. Her eyes were large, gold, and twinkled almost as brilliantly as the dress. It was hard to see if she shared the moles that most islandic people did. Her hair was a deep ebony, only made blacker by the reflection of light.

She raised her arms and opened her mouth. The sound that escaped her lips completely unearthly. The entire city, no anyone with ears, stopped existing for the entirety of the song. No one moved, spoke, functioned as the words poured from her lungs and filled the open air. For a moment, I didn't worry about anything else, only the song she sang. I recognized it, the song. It was fairly popular, and sung often but somehow, this time was different than any other. The way the walls were built around the square, it took her voice and carried it to the furthest reaches of the capital. People at the harbor, to the king's castle could probably hear her voice.

When she was done, and her mouth closed and she reentered the tower, I released a breath I didn't know I was holding in. I felt, disappointed. I was disappointed it was over, and I'd have to wait until tonight to hear her again. Surely, I'd return tonight to hear her again.

I felt a hand hit my shoulder, it was Marcus. "Aye," he whispered to my alone. He knew what I had just gone through, and he understood.

"Everyone listens, everyone pays attention. There is so much power in that voice. They gave it so much power. Why does she do it? Sing for them? Sing their songs?" My head was swimming with questions. I tried to make sense of them all, but I could only barely function.

"She's a prisoner Agatha. Rumor tells, she was unyielding to their attempt at conformity, so they made an example of her people." Marcus gazed onto the empty balcony.

Looking at the balcony, I noticed how high it was. When she was singing, the tower seemed to be right beside me, but now I see it's nearly ten to fifteen meters high. The capitals temple was extremely large, but like most temples, service was held on the ground. The building was almost one hundred meters long, perhaps longer, but you never see a tower on the church. When I came here as a girl, I remember climbing the spiral stairs in the back of the temple. I remember the grand window, where the window once was. The temple looks the same, the same grey and tan bricks on the walls, with the black dirt leaving arrows down the side. The same plain shrubs creating a border along the side. There were more grand windows lining the floor length of the temple, depicting scenes from the Oblideus Book. However, there was new life in the walls, and new meaning.

"That makes sense... The only Islanders I see now are the ones that have forgotten who they are completely... I heard the rest of them are far away, on the island they were taken from."

"Yes, as slaves." Marcus finished. I nodded softly to myself.

"There has to be some way for her to help her people..." I trailed off into my own mind.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out." Said the man of many words.