This Enchanting New World

Chapter 8

I flashed back to earlier, back on the Isle, when I was walking over to Daughter Gothel's tower and was being literally pushed down and stepped all over.

That would never happen again. This time, as I walked once again, things felt different.

I had finally risen to my true level of power. I had finally gotten off the ground and climbed the social ladder back up to my true status.

Those people had acted like they were superior to me. They'd acted like I was less important. They'd tossed me aside like some royal rubbish! 

But walking now, with my head held high, my crown still on it, made me realize: the opposite was true! I was superior! They were less important! I was going to be a queen, after all!

Hello, worthless. Did you miss me?, my mother had said. Back then, when I had nothing to my name, I had believed she was right, that I was worthless. 

Not anymore.

I am not worthless.

I have more worth than any of those still on the Isle will have in their entire life.

"Clarissa?," Dizzy giggled, snapping me out of my epiphany.

I stopped in my tracks, startled.

"Uh, yeah?," I asked hastily, trying to preserve composure and poise even though Dizzy caught me off guard.

Dizzy stifled more giggles from my reaction. "Are you okay?," she asked.

"We're in Auradon. Why wouldn't I be okay?," I replied, my calm tone dripping with a degree of disdain.

"You were just spacing out. I didn't know if something was wrong, or you were upset about something, or what," Dizzy exclaimed. "You had this intense, fierce look on your face. I'd never seen you so determined and domineering. It was a little freaky. I thought you had to be angry  about something."

I felt my newfound confidence wash away and a familiar guilt sink like a stone into my heart.

Dizzy's description of my expression sounded exactly like the kind of aggressive villain I was determined not to be. 

A couple minutes ago, I had thought I had obtained power, but my mother's kind of power came from rage, jealousy, and hatred.

Had I obtained that, too?

When Dizzy and I spoke just know, my tone was one of power and disdain, and Dizzy's was uncomfortable.

I thought back to my thoughts earlier. 

They were so uncharacteristic of me. 

What was I becoming?

"Let's go," Dizzy said, motioning to a door gilded in gold leaf with Welcome Princess Clarissa of Andalasia and Lady Dizzy Tremaine!,"We're here."

But suddenly I didn't want to go with Dizzy and join Goth in our new room.