The Crown Prince Thinks I'm a Guy

The Day I Offered Myself to the Sun

PART 1: YOUTHFUL DAYS

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When I was a young girl, I used to dress myself up as a boy. The maids didn't mind and instead found it quite cute.

"Look! The little princess is at it again!" they would exclaim in delight, with their powdered faces and pink-stained lips.

I would order a few of these giggling maids to buy me clothes fit for a middle class boy. They would dress me up, and when they laughingly declared me "handsome" or "a future lady killer", I would proceed to sneak out of the castle.

Of course, my parents, the king and queen of the Kingdom of Saule, didn't know of my secret hobby. It wasn't that hard to hide it from them. After all, I was a daughter and not a son.

In the Kingdom of Saule... Rather, in the Aerim Continent, if you were born a girl, you were already tied to a dire future. The common women would only be of use as child-bearers. If a learned woman chooses to be a priestess for the Sun God Solus, then she would be of better use as a healer or a sacrificial lamb.

As a princess, my only purpose was to marry a powerful and wealthy nation's prince.

Donning my commoner boy's outfit, I could forget the drawling lectures by the strict trainers. With the short sleeves of a young boy's shirt, I could finally air my skinny arms, still stinging from the regular abuse of my teachers' whip.

I used to steal away into the kitchen, where I could crouch into the little, secret pathway only a small adult or a child can fit through. I would set out with a childlike determination, hearing the faint hustle and bustle of the city square. Once I felt the warmth of the sun, I used to smile. 'Freedom was near,' I thought.

Freedom came in different ways.

I could speak to other children and no one would chide me. I could join in a bout of chess with the idle gentlemen and they would say nothing wrong about it. If I made a particularly notable move, they would even praise me. I could speak and always be heard.

At one point, just when I had heard I was to be betrothed to a faraway empire's crown prince, my 13-year-old self donned boy's clothes yet again and decided to run away. I vowed to myself that I would live my life as I wished. On that day, however, I came upon a younger girl.

I was just a few ways away from the city borders. For the rest of the world, I was simply a merchant's son on an errand. I had forged the necessary documents long ago, with the help of my one kind teacher. I was just a few steps away from freedom, but this little girl stopped me.

The girl was probably not even ten. Her clothes were dirty and ragged. Her ankles and wrists were bare where she had outgrown her dress. If she were just a few more years older, she would have been gravely punished for her appearance. "Temptress," the masses would call her. They would then stone her to the state of crippling her or up until she slowly died.

Fortunately, with the wispy form she currently had, no man would be tempted to take her in. So, people only deemed her a poor beggar child and granted her their pity.

No one was helping her, though. They only avoided her, and I would have done the same if she hadn't seen me staring. It might be because I, too, was a girl under my rough clothes, so my sympathy showed on my face.

The girl was sobbing and crying, and when she reached me, I knew it was too late to act as though I hadn't noticed her. She grabbed unto my merchant's clothes and asked for my help. I do not remember exactly what she said, but I gathered that her brother was sick and dying.