Please ignore the typos! My grammarly is not working on my laptop! :(((
"Agatha, you worry too much" the king complained, taking his wife's hand into his. The king and queen had just ended the banquet, sending everyone off with well wishes and small keepsakes, praying they would push the display their daughter delivered far away from their minds.
"Worry! Wouldn't you be worried too Rowand! Did you not just witness what happened! She scared off all her suitors" the queen lamented.
"Just a minor inconvenience."
"A minor inconvenience?!!" the queen's voice raised, "Rowand! Did you see how violently she smashed her violin! She left a trail of blood on the floor!"
"You don't think the preparation and pressure leading up to ball led to that? You were putting so much stress on her so she probably just... snapped." the king shrugged, lifting the blankets to commence his slumber.
"No! It was not the pressure of her snapping. Something about her...is ....different." the queen reflected, thinking back to all her daughter had done in the past.
"She is no different than her Ella and Elaine. She is the perfect little princess." the king shrugged, "the doctor is coming in the morning to assess her wounds. She will be fine"
"But you remember when she was 4 in the forest?"
"So what? I kill for sport and slice open game? She did it for a purpose. You told her to never loose her ball and she got it back"
"She poisoned her sister. I knew it was her who put those nuts in her Elaine's soup"
"That was never proven Agatha and she wasn't poisoned, it was a minor allergic reaction" the king said, defending his youngest daughter.
"What about when she was 10? Remember she tried to cut my hair off? So when I refused, she cut off the heads of every doll she had? I find her smiling to herself, humming and whispering."
"ENOUGH Agatha!" the king shouted, making his wife jump back in fear. "You are painting your insecurities onto her. She is perfect and because of this, you are trying to find a flaw even if it is over-exaggerating her simple actions. Wasn't it you who held her in your arms? Whispering how perfect she was and promising to love her no matter what?" the king reminded his wife.
Queen Agatha pouted as she heard her husband's wise words and nodded. "I suppose you are right Rowand" she whispered but Queen Agatha only said this to silence her husband.
She thought of her christening and the moment that strange witch came and gifted her daughter that golden ball. She said keeping that ball on Anai was the only curse she had bestowed but maybe...there was more to it?
____
The next morning Queen Agatha ventured to her daughters room, timidly entering into the room to witness the atmosphere. She saw her daughter sitting on the floor, turning the pages of a picture book she had unearthed from some distant chest. On her hands were thick white bandages, hiding the scars from last night.
The doctor sat at a distant chair in the corner of the room, writing a couple of notes in his journal. The queen hurried over to him and he quickly rose, bowing to greet the queen.
"How is she?" Queen Agatha whispered.
"She is fine. Much better than last night."
"Any idea why she...? Her outburst was very unusual"
"A Stress induced upheaval. It seems as if the weight of the banquet and all it wntailed finally reached her headspace."
"Weight? She barely had any weight. I had the dresses sown for her, cloths imported from far away lands."
