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Once upon a time, in a kingdom far more concerned with keeping the peace than expanding its territory, a princess stood in front of her mirror and gave a deep, deep sigh.
“What’s wrong, your highness?”
“I don’t know,” the princess told her handmaiden. “I just… You don’t ever feel… tired, do you?”
The handmaiden made a face, thoughtful. “Well, sure I do. Every night!”
“Not like that, Shelby. Like - like… I mean, I study every day, I love my job, I’m happy with it. It’s just… all this flash, y’know?”
“You want me to bring down the blinds? ‘Cause I can make it darker -”
“No, no, don’t - I mean - the grandeur of it all, Shelby. Look at me.” The princess gestured to her gown, her draping sleeves, her beautiful heels and perfect hair. “I’m a doll.”
“Well, you sure are beautiful, princess.”
“But I want to be real!” She sighed, studied the room for something she could use to demonstrate her point. She didn’t find anything. Just as well - the point was about an absence; of course finding something would contradict her point. “I don’t want to play my days out going to balls and sitting bored out of my skull in diplomatic meetings every day. I want to do something exciting with my life. I want a change.”
The handmaiden sighed, and crossed the room towards the counter, and pulled open a drawer. “Well, it’s a masquerade tonight, right? Take this with you. If you get lost in the crowd, nobody’s gonna know it’s you! You might get some interesting conversations out of it that way.”
“Hmm,” said the princess, “that is true. As long as I don’t let Mother and Father introduce me this time.” Venom dripped from the word; she hated being presented to a sea of eligible bachelors, a crowd of potential suitors who just didn’t have that exciting spark that she was looking for in life. Dukes and nobles from across the kingdom all wanted to be the lucky prince-consort. None of them would have her heart - not because she didn’t find any interest in courting men, but because she didn’t find any interest in courting regally. It was all politics and structure, all sitting six feet apart and letting other people decide on your wedding colours for you. She’d seen it happen to her brother, the future King Lucas and his uninteresting wife, and she wasn’t much excited to be consigned to the same fate.
“How about I tell ‘em you’ve gone down already, and there’s no point in trying? Then you can sneak out once they’ve given up on looking for you.”
The princess hummed. “You think that would work?”
“We can give it a shot!”
So the handmaiden set the dark green mask across the princess’ face, and once she’d been away for long enough to tell the King and Queen her little white lie, the princess finally slipped out of her quarters and headed towards the party grounds.
The night was alive with activity. While everyone seemed stilted and reserved, propriety behind their every step, there were enough of the nobility of the kingdom and its neighbours together in the gathering hall and in the gardens outside to raise a chatter that rivalled the volume of the band that played from back by the stairs. (Well, up front by the stairs, if the princess were actually entering the ballroom at the angle becoming of a princess, but here she was sneaking in through the side door instead.) Nobody seemed to be engaged in a formal dance at the minute - she’d probably just missed one - instead just milling about, mingling, enjoying themselves and the atmosphere.
And the food.
The princess edged closer to the buffet table, curious at the sight. She wasn’t impressed by the cakes and the breads on display, by the jugs of wine and clear water, by the fresh fruits in glass bowls or the selections of carefully prepared and cut meats far grander than the general daily fare that party guests were used to. The princess had seen this at a hundred parties before, after all; she lived in the heart of the kingdom, and she belonged to the family that provided this spectacle at every special occasion.
What interested her, instead, was the only other person at the table right now.
A stranger, masked in black and with brown-blonde braids trailing over their shoulders, was currently attempting to load an entire bunch of grapes into their breech pockets, and when they managed that they turned to pile a plate with bread and meat as well.
The princess couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. “You must be hungry.”
“Huh?” They froze, mid-grab, and as their head whipped back to look at her their braids went flying behind it. “Oh, no, me? No, I’m - I mean - yeah, real bad.”
The princess raised her eyebrows, still grinning, and the stranger cracked -
“Yeah, alright, I’m - look, it’s free, isn’t it? Palace is handing out free food, I’d be an idiot not to take it. You don’t see Lady Green-Sleeves over there worrying about her salary.” (The lady in question was, as the princess observed, actually a marquess who she’d attended finishing school with. Real bitch. Always trying to copy the princess’ homework.)
The princess paused, considered, and then picked up a skewer of fruit for herself. “Fair enough. Are they really not paying you enough that you need to do that? Where do you work?”
“‘M a soldier,” they shrugged, and after a moment of watching her movements, they plucked a grape from the top of their pocket stash. “Fat lot of difference that makes in this country, though. Mostly just work security for this kind of thing, but on a lower scale. So, y’know, not a lot of money in that.”
“Oh,” said the princess. “Right.”
“What about you, then? Clearly you’re in a bit more money than I am. You’re not, like, a visiting marquess or something, are you?”
She smiled, suppressing a laugh at the irony. “No, no, I’m local. I’m a diplomatic ambassador, though, so I do get about a bit. My name’s El.”
“Beky,” said the soldier, and inclined their head towards the patio. “Wanna go somewhere quieter?”
And so they did, the princess and the soldier making their way with food in hand out the doors and past the chattering crowds towards the palace gardens. It really did get a lot quieter once you rounded the bend and found yourself among the neat and uniform hedges, the flower beds, the laurel trees all spaced along the path at regular intervals. Everything about the palace gardens had been perfectly designed by an architect in the princess’ father’s youth, and to this day it remained as even and tidy as it had been the day it was all laid out.
The princess much preferred to walk the hunting grounds. At least animals were allowed to roam free there; at least every fly wasn’t swatted out of the sky with prejudice, every weed plucked instead of being allowed to blossom into something beautiful. But the party was at the palace, and so at the palace she would stay.
“Pretty,” the soldier said.
“It is, yeah,” she nodded. “Kind of boring, though.”
“Little bit - but you don’t get this kind of thing out by the farms. It’s all just dirt and bushes; there’s no thought put into it.”
“Yeah, exactly! Nature doesn’t think, it’s plants. Let things go wild for once. The whole damn palace doesn’t have to fall exactly into step.”
“That’s how we keep the peace, though,” said the soldier, “by falling into step. Fifty years, right, since we’ve been at war?”
“And you said it yourself, there’s no point in doing what you do if there’s nothing to do it for. Don’t you ever think about running away from it all?”
The soldier blinked. “Not… really?”
“Well, I do,” the princess said. “Even just to be a soldier, I think I’d like that far better.”
“You have money, though,” they argued, as if it were the obvious solution.
“Doesn’t buy happiness!”
“I was literally stealing food to live off when you met me, how rich are you?”
The princess quieted. “Okay, so take me home with you.”
“... Bit forward of you.”
“Not - I don’t mean -” she blushed beneath her mask, looked down, realised where her eyes had landed, and looked down even further to the soldier’s scuffed black boots “- show me. If you’re happy with your life, I want to see it. Because I’m sure as hell not very happy with mine, and I just think - I think life could be interesting. Show me the wildlife, let me get dirt under my fingers, give me the chance to meet normal citizens and -”
“Ooh, she wants to live like common people, does she?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Heard somebody sing about it once,” the soldier told her, “it just means… like, you sound like you’re so fascinated by us poor people, you tell me you want to give it a try, but that’s all it’ll ever be for you, isn’t it? A try.”
The princess turned red. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful.”
“I see that,” said the soldier, “and you - like - to be fair, nobles don’t usually… I’ve never had one actually talk to me before. Usually they see my trousers and they think, oh, fuck, a poor, better steer clear of that one. So, y’know, like, the bar is on the floor, but you’re still clearing it.”
“Really? Why your trousers?”
“You ever seen a woman wear trousers to a party like this?”
“Well, no.” She hadn’t actually seen a woman wear trousers unless it was a day for hunting or horse riding. She’d always been told it wasn’t becoming of a lady.
(She thought it very much became the one in front of her, though, although she wouldn’t say as much so soon into their meeting.)
The soldier eyed the princess, waiting for her to understand.
“So what? You’re not wearing something traditional, why does that mean that people should avoid you?” Far more interesting to be here than talking to her fifth earl or duke of the evening, hearing all about his medals of honour or his skill at darts. At least the soldier had outside experience - at least they had something to say about life other than what they’d learned from books.
They just scoffed, though. “You really are sheltered, huh. It’s all pieces of the puzzle, it’s having to add up a million little things to avoid getting judged - or saying fuck it, giving up and looking how you want, and then everybody knows you’re not one of them from the second you walk in. Like, you could tell I was different, right?”
“Yes,” she frowned, “but you don’t seem bad, you just… stand out.” That’s what drew me to you, she thought.
The soldier paused. “Alright, maybe I like sheltered.”
“Hm?”
“Come on, then. Let’s ditch this place. When will they want you back for work? Nine, ten?”
“Oh, if I’m gone past midnight then my handmaiden will have to cover for me, but it’s not like they can do anything, not if I’m leaving of my own volition.”
“Wh- your handmaiden?”
“Yes, Lady Shelby, she’s basically just my court-assigned best friend.”
“Why does that sound familiar,” muttered the soldier, “never-fucking-mind, then, off we go. And if I get arrested for kidnapping the ambassador, you’re paying my bail, alright?”
“No, I’ll just have you pardoned,” the princess laughed. “Lead the way!”
So the soldier took the princess’ hand, warm against the cool night air, and they followed the line of the laurel trees out past the edge of the gardens and towards the land that stretched downhill and kept a degree of distance between royal and common ground.
The trees here were thicker, provided greater cover for the animals that surely lurked within, although the princess had never walked these woods without at least a couple of dogs at her side, and certainly not without a member of the guard. Then again, was walking with a soldier really so different?
At her side, the soldier slowed. “Hang on.”
“What?”
“Pardoned?”
Ah, shit. “Yes?”
“That’s - you’re not - you - wait. Are you - oh, fuck off.”
“What?”
“El, you said? As in Eloise, as in Princess fucking Eloise?”
Oh, yeah, she was definitely busted. She pulled her mask away, gave up the charade of anonymity. “Maybe?”
“You told me you were a diplomat!”
“I am a diplomat!”
“Yeah, a royal one, what’s wrong with you?”
“Sorry!”
“No, no, don’t - you’ve got nothing to - Princess Eloise. You fucking better get me pardoned. Of course the first hot girl that ever talks to me at one of these things is the princess.”
“You think I’m hot?”
“Not the time!”
They ran, laughing, through the rest of the forest, out into the fields of the town, and into the dark.
What they did with the rest of the night, well, that is theirs to know... but the search party didn’t have time to assemble in the morning before the princess was climbing back through her bedroom window with dirt on her dress, tangles in her hair, and a big, tired smile on her face, and passing her handmaiden a dark green mask that had been cracked in two.
And if the princess brought on a new personal guard the very same week? Well, there wasn’t much to be said about that -
Suffice it to say that they all lived happily ever after.