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Duchess was a princess; she’d heard the teasing when she was younger (and pretended not to now that she was older) , “Princess Duchess? Two noble titles? How silly! That’s not a proper name!” She’d heard it all when she was in second grade in elementary school. One of the boys, whose name she now forgets (it was Bartholomew Sprat), convinced some other boys to call her by different noble titles for a whole month. For a whole month, she was called Countess. One time her teacher even called her Dame by mistake, but she was a princess so she rose above it all. If some sweets changed hands and the boy found himself appropriately called ‘Brat’ until he stopped, well, that was just a happy coincidence. Her emerging transformation abilities brought another fresh wave of teasing as she was branded an ‘ugly duckling’ until the fateful swimming class, where she reminded everyone who she was: The Swan Princess. That nickname had faded soon afterwards without her lifting a feather.
Duchess was proud of her name and of her heritage; she was given a name denoting nobility and grace, everything a Swan Princess was meant to embody (her name was the only thing her mother ever gave her, along with her doomed fate). She was a proud Princess and later, when it became necessary to apply labels to oneself when none had been necessary before (because there was no fighting what was coming, and if there had been, then her mother and her mother’s mother had died for nothing), she called herself a Royal. She was beautiful and elegant and came from a long, unbroken chain of royalty, not scraping by with honorary titles and being ‘distantly royal’ like some wanna-be Royals she could name with blonde hair and a nose so big you could mistake her for Pinocchio’s daughter.
It would be well within her rights to be just as popular as the others, from the way the school and the Mirronet went on, you’d think Apple was the only princess in the land. Briar and Ashlynn had their fair share of fans as well, of course, nothing less for the daughters of ‘the Big Three’ fairytales (whoever decided that anyway? That some stories were more important than others? Ones that didn’t require nearly as much personal sacrifice at that?). She wasn’t stupid, another reason for their popularity? They had something Duchess didn’t: A Happily Ever After. Of course, little girls dream of being swept off their feet at a ball or being saved by true love’s kiss; boys at school dream of being the ones to rescue them, and so on. No one dreams of being a tragedy, being betrayed by their love and dying young, and no would-be prince is eager to be duped and have to die for his troubles.
(She knows the other girls' stories aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. Sleeping Beauties are infamous for having a long ‘readjustment period’ when they awaken, where they dress in black and weep over old graves. Not a single Cinderella has lived past her daughter’s 12th birthday, but Duchess hadn’t even had a year with her mother, and she would rather mourn than be mourned.)
Destiny was both a blessing and a curse; this had been hammered into her over the years by every teacher and tutor she’s ever had, once they realised who she was. Swans live 10-20 years in the wild, 30-40 years in captivity. She can’t remember now where she read that, but it stuck with her, the cruel irony of it, that the swans in her family's castle would outlive her. One of those swans would be her for a time, her and whosoever is unfortunate enough to be her alleged ‘true love’ until she lays and hatches an egg. Her own mother had lasted six months after she was born, after the magic fuelled by the destiny system wore off and the Enchantor’s cruel magic was all that remained, supposedly one of the highest on record, as one well-meaning steward had told her. It was a cold comfort to an eight-year-old.
Wild swans have a lifespan similar to hers. If she were the angsty sort, perhaps she would tattoo this fact on her body, a quaint rebellion, insisting on her own bodily autonomy. A futile effort, as it would be taken from her in the end (in the dark nights where she cannot sleep, and there are too many of those to count, she wonders if that’s not the case for all women in the destiny system. Made to have children to one day replace them with no consideration for their feelings on the matter. Perhaps if she were asked, she might give this as an explanation for her less-than-ladylike behavior. When her peers became less bribable with sweets and less likely to cater for a princess (especially when they began to consider her ‘not a proper princess’, children who mumbled this in her earshot found themselves reminded that swans had teeth) she became as sharp and true as the arrow that would one day pierce her breast.
(Perhaps her lack of a happy ending was only one factor in her lack of popularity.)
Once at Ever After High she was surrounded by her fairy tale peers, for better and for worse. She had princesses to be compared to and grades that reflected how she could be found wanting in comparison (her near-failing grade in smiling was a particular low point), but also those who understood her plight. Unfortunately, the majority of characters without Happily Ever After’s were villains, the last people she would ever associate herself with. She may not have a Happily Ever After, but she was a princess (a proper one, not like Raven; she was the daughter of the Evil Queen, but never had Duchess heard her referred to as a princess) and had been raised better than that.
Some of these villains were…tolerable…Faybelle was one. The daughter of the Dark Fairy was surprisingly pleasant company; she was driven and ambitious, traits Duchess would admit they shared. One thing they didn’t share was a tragic ending.
Faybelle was a rarity amongst villains, as the Dark Fairy doesn’t die or suffer torture as a result of her cursing Sleeping Beauty; instead, she simply fades out of the story.
(Sometimes, Duchess wonders whether this is why Faybelle is so loud, cheerhexing on and off the bookball field, taking up space and receiving attention, seemingly never caring whether it’s positive.)
There is another villain who regularly…hangs around her… although his status as a villain is highly debated, regardless, he is the furthest thing from a prince and hardly fitting for her to be associating with.
She is referring, of course, to Sparrow Hood, the son of Robin Hood and local punk in both the figurative and literal sense of the word.
At first, she only spoke to him to use him for her own ends, have him be her minion. It was only fitting she should have one if she was going to be a villain, she’d thought, but when that plot fell through, her…association with…Sparrow didn’t.
She still saw him as a minion; they were so far apart in rank after all.
(Late at night, she would remember the roots of Sparrow’s story, his claim to a noble title, how far apart were a count and a duke really?… When those late nights turned to early mornings, class would be the furthest thing on her mind; it would be Sparrow for who he was, not who he was destined to be.
A dangerous thought and one she would always swiftly crush.)
So yes, perhaps her choice of company left something to be desired, but she was royal to her very bones.
(Of course, those bones would one day be hollow, much like her royal title. What form of territory can be ruled by a bird?
Conversely, what type of bird, a creature long associated with freedom, would let themselves be ruled?
The answer to both is simple:a caged one.)