The Villain Princess Rewrites Her Fate

The Etiquette Tutor

Last time, Chester had said Lovf failed etiquette and would get an etiquette tutor, and he meant it, no ambiguity whatsoever.

The very next day a ferociously strict bespectacled woman showed up, nitpicking Lovf's every move eating and drinking. If she did it wrong, a little ruler across the hands; if still wrong, a book balanced on her hands and head until she'd memorized the posture.

The evil feudal class system unfurled before Lovf, its cruelty to human nature making her blood boil. She knew by now that a princess in fine clothes wasn't a free ride; eating a cookie off a gilt-edged saucer meant matching that saucer with an equally elegant posture.

The problem was, Lovf still saw herself as a regular person, and it was hard to train herself into a left-right-symmetric, flawless piece of porcelain just because the saucer was expensive.

If she'd had a choice in the transmigration, she wouldn't have picked being a princess in the first place.

Lovf roughly understood why, in the novel, Princess Lovfrida had gone strange after the king disappointed her.

Chester wasn't disappointed in her yet, and Lovf already felt herself going strange.

"Hold it steady, don't move." The bespectacled woman, no, etiquette teacher Madam Melica, lifted Lovf's chin with that little ruler; Lovf sat at the table holding her tea, a stiff smile frozen on her face. "Your Highness, your smile should feel warm and approachable, like a spring breeze. Relaxed, gentle, yet dignified. Smile a little more naturally, please."

Lovf: I can't. I've held this for ten minutes. You try it. If you can't either, can I dump this cup on your face?

She tried to relax her facial muscles, to smile more naturally. But the effort pulled her attention from her sore, numb arms, and her tea hand trembled.

The c***k of the ruler landed on the little girl's pale wrist. "Your Highness! Focus!"

Lovf really felt she might explode at any second, but decided not to cross that wretched father, and forced down her anger to hold the cup steady.

Melica was satisfied, looked her up and down critically, nodded, and started circling the table again. "A lady should be refined, beautiful, dignified, elegant. Every word and deed bears on the honor of her family and her husband's house. She speaks softly, obeys her elders. The children such a lady raises will be healthy and well-bred, the perfect proof of a lady's life's value."

Lovf had been half-listening through the early advice, but when Melica got to bearing children as life's value, a whole stampede of curses raced through her mind.

Where did Chester even dig up this treasure of a lady-etiquette indoctrination instructor??

I read in the novel that Annie, raised as a servant's child, got bullied growing up and barely learned any etiquette, yet everyone praised her grace and poise in society??

Is Annie just naturally gifted, or are the others blowing smoke, or is this brutal etiquette training just pointless??

I spent fourteen years buried in books, and this is so I can be a dignified, refined lady in another world, married off to some noble lord I've never met, bearing his children??

Lovf's hands grew sorer, and her insides more stifled. A suppressed anger and grievance churned in her chest.

Aita, though, watched with open approval, her eyes full of joy that the princess had finally taken the right path. Laila sat farther off, flipping through some book of hers, crunching cookies, looking like she'd rather not see or hear any of it.

"Your Highness, focus." Melica's cold voice came from her side. "You should look straight ahead, that is where the person you are having tea with sits."

Lovf couldn't help a glance at her.

"You should not look around. That will be five strikes on the palm." Melica said.

Lovf set the cup down, took a deep breath: "Madam Melica, may I ask, who exactly decided all these things a lady should be?"

"Your Highness, you should speak softly." Melica's one line choked Lovf half to death. "Ask me gently, in a lady's tone, and I will answer."

Lovf took several deep breaths, squeezed out a perfect smile, and repeated her question.

"What the nobles hold in their hearts." Melica, not seeming new to this kind of thorn, kept her unhurried tone. "You needn't resent me. The nobles all want such wives and daughters. A graceful lady wins the favor of her social circle, that is simply fact, and strict training ensures it."

"Madam, I am the only princess of Radiance, and my father has stated he will not remarry. As the heir to the throne, I hardly seem to need this meaningless respect and affection."

"You are not the heir yet, and I was engaged by His Majesty to teach you." Melica said, stone-faced, picking up her ruler. "Now extend your hands. I will punish you for acting on your own and for looking about."

That little ruler looked like nothing, but it stung badly.

It stung so much Lovf couldn't sleep that night.

The full moon hung high. The little girl, who'd swallowed a bellyful of fire all day, climbed out of bed, opened the door, and wanted to run.

The golden-haired, red-dressed woman still sat on the sofa, her gaze faint, as if watching her.

Lovf waved at her, just a greeting, then opened the door and ran out.

The strange behavior she'd repressed by day burst out in the night.

Lovf decided to sneak to the kitchen for a snack.

She didn't know where the kitchen was, but she wanted to cause trouble, regardless.

She slipped out of her room; the corridor was empty. Cold, pale moonlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, lending a cool brightness.

Lovf crept down the corridor, more than halfway, when something felt off. She looked up out the window, and on the roof across the garden, Laila lay draped with half a giant-dragon-like tail, drinking, with the attendant who'd stood behind her father sitting beside her.

Seeing the little princess look over, their eyes went round with fright, but they still waved at her, smiling.

Laila's huge tail scared Lovf into incoherent stammering. When the king's guard captain scooped her onto the roof and set her among them, she still stared at Laila, speechless.

Laila, though, found this fun, and pushed her tail over for Lovf to touch. "Want to feel it, Your Highness? It's a big black dragon's tail."

The king's guard captain named Gene took it in stride. Lovf calmed a little, realized this world had magic and other races, so maybe a guard captain sprouting a giant dragon tail was acceptable?

She reached out and stroked the skin covered in black, shining scales; it was smooth and cool to the touch, with the full, firm liveliness unique to a living thing.

"I'm a black dragon and human hybrid." A few fine black scales glinted on Laila's face too. "I can't fully become human, nor fully become dragon. In dragon form I keep my human upper body; in human form I can't change the color of my skin or eyes."

Lovf stroked her tail, feeling the cool, smooth, clearly-alive thing under her hand, and seeing Laila speak of all this so naturally, suddenly truly realized the world was far vaster than she'd imagined, and a light lit in her eyes.

Beyond the land was sea, and farther still other forests and mountains. Since a dragon worked so naturally in a human palace, then the other races the book had only glimpsed, elves, warlocks, maybe had homelands of their own. There were other human kingdoms, perhaps with civilizations utterly unlike Radiance's. It was another world the novel had never written.

The world was bigger, and Lovf suddenly felt the grievances of the palace amounted to little.

Though this bigger world had nothing to do with her.

Laila gulped her drink.

"Why is the princess up?" At least the king's guard captain had a conscience, and asked after her.

Lovf held up two reddened little hands: "Hurts..."

"Let me see." Gene took her two little hands, looked at them with concern, and a glow rose at his fingertips and lightly touched them. "All better, all better."

Lovf didn't know what healing magic he'd used, but bathed in the light from his fingertips, the burning in her palms truly eased.

"Why do I have to learn this." She looked at Gene, aggrieved. "Is any of this really necessary?"

Laila and Gene exchanged a look that told Lovf there was more to it.

Laila thought about it, looked at Gene, and decided the five-year-old was being pushed too hard.

She returned to human form, sat cross-legged on the roof, and pointed at herself: "Does Your Highness think I'm a lady?"

Lovf looked at her and shook her head.

"Does Your Highness see that Melica, dare she look down on me?" Laila asked again.

Lovf shook her head, as if she understood.

Laila, expressionless, slashed at the courtyard; a bright blade of sword-energy shot from her fingertip and sheared two shrubs in the corner of the garden clean to the ground.

"Picking and choosing is a courtesy I extend her." Laila smirked. "If I withdraw it, I can." Gene smacked her on the head; she grunted and behaved.

"Please do not speak such crude words before the princess." Gene scolded, but didn't sound displeased. He turned to Lovf, weighty with meaning: "Your Highness, His Majesty engaged Madam Melica to teach you principles. But those principles are not necessarily the ones Madam Melica teaches in her words."

Lovf: ...

You people, why did the vibe suddenly shift like this, did I miss something?

She roughly got it. She'd thought wrong. A feudal society where individuals' power barely differed, and a high-magic society where the gap was enormous, were built on utterly different superstructures. The earth's rule of feudal forces being absolutely irresistible, of oppressor and oppressed, did not apply here.

Laila saw she didn't answer, thought she hadn't caught on, and added, a little unhappy: "Aita cares deeply about you, but her advice is for those delicate noble girls. There are many different paths and lives she's never seen, but that can be chosen. If you wish, you could give up your title and comfortable life to be an ordinary person who needn't know a thing, though an ordinary person must eat and work. In short, living is hard, there are no pies falling from the sky."

Lovf: = =

Alright, stop, I get it, you and Aita really can't stand each other.

But how to get rid of Melica. She was only five, far too weak.

Thinking and thinking, Lovf wanted a drink, and instinctively reached for the bottle beside her that held something drinkable. Gene snatched it up quick as thought, pulled it back, and headed for the room: "Your Highness must not drink, it's late, let me take you to rest."

Lovf flailed a bit, didn't want to sleep so soon, since waking meant facing that troublesome woman again.

Gene saw through it, and soothed her gently: "The princess can't even sleep at night, I think that lady's methods are rather unsuitable for her. I will speak to His Majesty. You may also go to His Majesty and request another teacher, say a learned scholar. His Majesty is very fond of you, and would gladly agree."

Lovf stopped flailing and decided to keep her mouth shut.

She thought whether Chester liked her was truly hard to say. The only thing she didn't doubt now was why, in the original novel, the Lovfrida princess with no extra twenty years of life had ended up as she did with her father. She thought Chester deserved the vast majority of the blame.

Yet Chester did not change her teacher.

Lovf's request to see her father got no answer either. Given Chester still asked after her survival every few months, she figured the messenger hadn't that much nerve, so this round was probably Chester messing with her.

Maybe he thought five-year-olds ought to learn etiquette?

Lovf really thought there was no such need.

On the day of the picnic Aita arranged, Melica was still there. And she followed them out, dutiful to the end.

Lovf knew her day was ruined.

"Your Highness, always mind your bearing, stay dignified, composed. Even if I speak beside you, you should show no distraction."

Under Melica's endless nagging, Lovf's tea-drinking was already standard. Yet Melica had no concept of stopping, and nagged on even when the movements were correct, now and then tapping with her ruler wherever she thought needed attention. A child's tender skin burned fiercely under the strikes.

Lovf almost pitied her, wondering why the current Lovfrida wasn't a real five-year-old. A real five-year-old would have smashed the teapot in her face by now.

Though maybe not. The Lovfrida of the original novel, starved of love, might have wept and endured for her father's command.

The garden tea party, satisfying to everyone but the princess, was half done when, from afar, King Chester approached with Gene.

Melica finally shut up.

Lovf hopped off the table and curtsied to him. Looking up, she caught Gene sneak her a small, apologetic wink.

"How is the princess's study?" Chester asked Melica and Aita.

"Reporting to Your Majesty, the princess's bearing is truly beautiful and graceful, with royal dignity. But she is still a little girl, and a touch willful. I will do my utmost to correct that, please do not worry." Melica said.

A child's tear ducts are truly active; before Lovf had done anything, her eyes went red and brimming.

No, wait, I don't want to cry. Hey.

Chester noticed her red eyes and wronged little look, and looked down at her: "Beauty is a kind of power."

Lovf was suddenly furious, with a sense of being insulted, as if she could support herself by wit yet he insisted she be a clinging vine leaning on a man. Though she knew Chester was right, that beauty was power, right now she was just furious. No one could talk her out of it.

She looked up at Chester, cold: "Yes, Father." Yet her red-rimmed eyes looked utterly wronged.

Chester was silent a moment: "Forbearance is also a kind of power."

Lovf really thought this man was toxic.

Not the world, only you are toxic. Right, Chester, I mean you, you alone in the whole world are toxic.

She looked up at Chester and smiled sweetly: "Father, you are right. But your daughter thinks she has already learned how to forbear. As your daughter, I believe it is time I also learned to voice my displeasure."

She grabbed the teapot from the table and upended it on Madam Melica's face.

She didn't use much force; the pot hit Melica's face, only scared a shriek out of her, then shattered at her feet. It didn't hurt, but the still-hot tea scalded her into repeated shrieks, nothing like the creed she taught, that one must keep one's bearing no matter what.

Lovf didn't look at her. She turned back to Chester, performed a proper leave-taking curtsy, and smiled sweetly: "As your daughter has only just begun to learn, some things are not yet done well. If Your Majesty notices, please point them out gently, for my sake of being only five."

The words "only five" she said through gritted teeth.