More Than A Princess

Parade of Princes

Life as a pampered princess is boring. 

Princess Lyvia knew very well how boring it was. All she ever get to do was to learn to sew embroidery, learn to dance and simper like some empty headed fool when some prince or suitor is near. 

It was all so annoying. She is a princess and yet, she felt like a prisoner more than a princess. A prisoner in the proverbial golden cage. 

With good food. 

Loyal servants attending to her every whim and fancies, except to let her set out on an adventure on her own outside the palace walls. 

It was a good thing that she is best friends with the chief guard’s son, Elliot. He taught her how to use a sword, how to defend herself and best of all, kick-ass combat skills. 

She has been training secretly in her lace-choked unbearably feminine boudoir.

 She never understood the need to behave “like a princess”. She is a princess. So, whatever her behaviour, she is still princess. Even if she donned men’s britches and swung a sword around for sport, she is still a princess. 

Doesn’t that constitute “behave like a princess”? 

Today, of all days will be an extremely boring day. 

It seemed some suitors, some princes from a few kingdoms over, are coming to ask for her hand in marriage. Thankfully, Lyvia’s ever doting parents, the King Edward and Queen Xenia, gave her the freedom of choice. 

She gets to pick which suitor she likes. 

So far, despite numerous suitors coming with their insipid proposals over the years, she is now the oldest unwed princess in all of the seven kingdoms.

 She is now the grand ‘old’ age of 22. Princesses much younger than her are already producing the third heir to the throne by that age, she was told repeatedly, while she rolled her eyes, repeatedly in her mind.

She had rejected each and every one of her suitors. 

They were either too handsome, too ugly, too boring, too big, too small, too tall, too thin, too fat, too poor, too cowardly, too anything that she can think of. She just does not have the interest of being married off to produce offsprings like some prized sow.  

So, today will be no different. 

Lyvia buried her face in her soft pillow and groaned. It will be wasted hours listening to the boring princes while trying not to yawn and pretending to simper prettily. 

“Princess Lyvia, your gown is ready, you may proceed to your royal bath,” her handmaiden, Jinna, said as she entered her room and throw open the heavy brocade drapes. 

Lyvia groaned again, squinting at the light filtering into her spacious room. 

“Must I Jinna? Can I not go? Maybe pretend that I contracted some highly infectious disfiguring disease?” she covered her face with her blankets.

Jinna smiled at her, pulled off her blankets and dragged her out of bed. 

“It won’t do Princess. You know you have to choose a prince one day, maybe today is the day you will find one to your liking,” she said cheerily as she ushered Lyvia to the royal bathroom. 

Lyvia groaned but allowed Jinna to remove her clothing and help her into the warm, rose-scented bath. At least, she enjoys soaking in the bath. 

After her relaxing bath, she was pushed and prodded and forced into a constrictive gown of velvet and lace, showcasing her cleavage and pushing in her generous belly to present an illusion of a tiny waist. Next, her luxurious jet black curls were teased and coiffed to perfection and finally, her face powdered and rouged. 

Two hours later, Lyvia stared at her reflection and wondered who in their right mind would want to marry her. 

At best, she looked like a plastic doll. That is, a doll that comes alive and murders people in the most gruesome way. She has a white powdered face, heavily rouged cheeks, blood-red lips and her black hair was arranged around her face further enhancing the paleness of her face. Her blood-red gown, her mother’s favourite colour, did not help matters. It made her seem like she had recently murdered someone and was covered in blood. It always surprised her that her suitors did not recoil in utter horror at the sight of her. Instead, they would fall on her feet like she was the most beautiful being on earth. 

“There, you look gorgeous! Maybe today is your lucky day!” Jinna gushed as she arranged Lyvia’s curls around her shoulders. 

Lyvia mumbled unintelligibly and barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Jinna may be her handmaiden but she is also one of her closest friends, since other princess friends are few and far in between. 

Not to mention how insipid they are. She didn’t want to hurt Jinna’s feelings. Jinna did try to make her look “presentable”. She looked at Jinna’s reflection. If anything, Jinna looked more like a princess than her. She has translucent fair skin, naturally rosy cheeks, baby blue eyes, cupid’s bow pink lips and soft shiny blonde curls. 

Next to each other, they are like night and day. While she’s dark with alarmingly sharp, almost masculine, features and brown skin, Jinna was fair and soft with feminine features. 

“Thank you Jinna, I don’t know what I would do without you,” she finally muttered and tried to muster up a smile, turning her face into an even more ghastly vision of a pale-faced spectre with bloody lips. 

Soon, Jinna escorted her to the main hall where they will be receiving the suitors and where she will probably die of boredom listening to them talk about themselves. Lyvia sat primly on her high-backed cushioned chair and plastered a fake smile on her lips. 

“Presenting the Prince of Oshbetia, Prince Felipe,” the herald announced and in walked a tall and pale man with a moustache. 

She hates men with moustaches. 

They looked like they rape maidens and cattle for fun. She barely nodded at him as he introduced himself and commented on her “beauty like no other”. Once he was done, she signalled ‘next’ and tried not to yawn. She heard her mother sighed imperceptibly next to her.  

After what seemed like an eternity and the last of the millions of prince introduced themselves, the main hall was finally empty. Lyvia heaved a sigh of relieve and stretched out the kinks in her neck and back, as much as her tight fitting gown allowed anyway. 

“Why is this so difficult? I saw a few good princes that you could have chosen. Why are you so picky?” her mother asked.

“The Prince of Penshire is handsome, tall and intelligent too, so why not him?” she persisted.

Lyvia rolled her eyes. 

“He’s weird, mother, and I am pretty sure he is gay,” she replied.

“So what? So, he can have his harem of young men by the side, as long as you are married and give him an heir, all is good,” her mother said.

“I am not a pig whose sole purpose in life is to give birth to a bunch of squalling piglets mom,” Lyvia groaned as she got up to walk away. But the Queen is not letting her get away so easily. She grasped Lyvia’s arm firmly. 

“Lyvia, listen to me. You have to find a suitor and get married soon. You are beyond marriageable age, you know your father, the King, is losing his patience,” her mother said, a tone of desperation sneaking into her voice. 

Lyvia stopped trying to shake her mother off. She sounded serious this time. 

“What is he going to do? Force me to marry some prince even if I don’t like it?” she joked and gently pushed her mother’s hands away. 

Her mother blanched and looked at her, worry and sadness glimmering in her eyes. 

“That’s what your father said. He seem to mean it. Maybe you can try giving one of the princes a chance today, at least to appease him temporarily,” she said. 

Lyvia sighed. 

She wouldn’t put it past her father to force her into doing something. Like how he forced her to learn embroidery although she had no interest at all. 

Forced her to learn dancing and singing, because these are what every princess should know, and she could not say no. She was terrible in every single one of those so-called princess skills. 

She still can’t sew any embroidery without it looking like a m******e and she sure as heck can’t dance daintily nor sing a tune. Her warbling was enough to scare even the spiders out of the palace while her dancing was akin to a herd of horses in a stampede.

Now, her father wants to force her into marriage and she knows she can’t stop him. She needs a plan. An escape plan. 

Or maybe she should just resign herself to marriage...she sighed loudly again. Why was she born a princess? 

All she wanted was some excitement in her life and some adventure. Go on quests, fight dragons and save the kingdom. 

Was that too much to ask for? 

Not for the first time, she wished she was born a prince instead of a princess. If she was born a prince, she would not be expected to look like an ornament and simper delicately at suitors and become a sow to produce a bunch of squalling heirs. 

“Ughh,” she shuddered in horror at the thought of giving birth and having a horde of children hanging off her skirts. Perhaps, the gay prince is the only escape. At least he won’t want to touch her much and might not expect a horde of heirs. 

“Ok, mother. I guess I will try to give that Prince of Penshire a chance,” she said finally. 

Queen Xenia’s face lighted up in delight and she grasped both Lyvia’s hands in joy. 

“Oh my daughter. That’s a good choice. I do like him, he is so charming and handsome,” she gushed. She signalled to Jinna to inform the prince’s people. 

“Jinna, tell the prince to meet Princess Lyvia at the sitting room so that they are more comfortable,” she said. 

Jinna, taken aback by Lyvia’s sudden decision to meet a prince, did not show her feelings but nodded primly to the queen and hurried out. 

Queen Xenia ushered Lyvia to the sitting room, fussing over her tight red gown and her drooping curls. 

“Oh dear, you must sit up straight, otherwise, your belly might show and push out your chest, men always love a heavy bossom, that is one thing I did right, you have such lovely curves that any man would love,” her mother chattered excitedly as she brushed an imaginary speck of dust off Lyvia’s ample chest that was threatening to spill out of her low cut gown. 

“So, I’ll leave you here my darling, do be good and give him a chance,” she blew Lyvia a kiss and left the room, her skirts swishing behind her. 

Lyvia, who has been sitting primly with her back straight on the straight-backed chair breathed out in relief the moment the door closed behind her mother. 

She slumped back on the stiff chair and stretched her legs out. That darn chair is so uncomfortable. She squirmed to find a better position and just as she found a nice comfortable position, the doors swung open and in walked Prince Henry of Penshire.