Chapter Text
A Different Time. A Different Princess. (1/13)
The princess lingered where she wasn’t supposed to down by the river so she could watch the new arrivals. The variety of expressions and experiences they talked about intrigued her. In the Underground Realm there was only peace and she did not understand these various expressions of the newcomers. The princess liked the crunch of the leaves under her feet and the thrill in her skin of being where she was not allowed. She had grown up here in the twilight but she longed for the blue skies of the travelers. She wanted to feel the softness of the gentle breezes on her skin and smell the wonders of the land. The thought of the sun’s caress on her early morning face made her close her eyes and smile in vivid imagination.
Usually one of the fauns fetched her back to the castle. This she always made a game of hide and seek on the way home living on the thrill of being caught until she had to return for the lecture of her father, the king. He was a gentle man who loved his only daughter with everything he had and more. Her mother, the moon, shared her beauty with the girl and he found he could refuse her very little. In later years the princess preferred to be caught by her betrothed, the Lover. Smooth skin, silver hair, a commanding voice and the princess would squeal her delight at being caught down by the river and run away. She fully expected the Lover to chase her, but only on rare occasion did she let herself be caught.
Sparrows used to follow the newcomers into the Underground Realm. They hopped about along the water’s edge delighting the princess as they chirped and fluttered. She was especially tickled when they would bathe in the water slowly sliding in and about along the riverside. When they had gone too far and slipped they would pull back flapping their wings and shaking to dry themselves off once again. They would flutter away and away to the world of the sun where she dreamed of following them.
One day defying her father, the king, and the promise of her Lover, the princess followed the fluttering wings of the birds into the base of a labyrinth. In the center was a beam of light that the princess spun herself in circles in until she fell down drunk with the pleasure of it. When her breathing had returned she made her way up and up and up the stairs around and around the spiral of the labyrinth following the light and the birds. Wondrous smells floated on the breezes and she could feel the warmth of the sunshine as she reached the surface.
Once she was at the top the beauty before her blinded her. It was all too much to take in and she wept at the wonders filling her vision. Each step brought a new discovery of bug or bird. Her feet walked on soil and leaves as she soaked in the bounty of this new world. She turned once to find her way back only she did not remember what she was looking for. Instead she saw a field of flowers and a house beyond. Every step brought her closer while the house moved farther away. At last the princess fell asleep where she stood bathed in the protection of the moonlight but not knowing who she was.
Blue skies eventually turned stormy, soft breezes bore the power of the whip, and the sunshine scorched her skin and the earth. The princess wandered looking for a home and her body suffered cold, sickness and pain. After many journeys she died. Her soul tried many times to return in another body, in another place, at another time. Ages have passed and still the king waited for his daughter. The lover and the faun searched endlessly over and over for her. The right time, body, and place have not been found.
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The wood floor of the apartment had a thin layer of dust. It had been vacant for a week and the paint was mostly dry. Footsteps in the hall made the door rattle in its jamb. “I know, I know. It’s a long walk, but we were just lucky to find an apartment at all.” The deadbolt turned and the key twisted the lock and the door swung open. The empty apartment greeted them with the silence of a small closed up space. Awkwardly they shifted their boxes and stumbled into the room. Setting the boxes she was carrying down against the far wall Andy took her first look around. She peeked into the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and the living room. It felt small, but she trusted Nate. He had grown up visiting his grandfather here in New York and he knew more about the city than she did. Standing at the window Andy looked down on the roof of the next building. There were yellow outlines on the roof and she shuddered to think what they could be. Nate slipped his arms around her. “Here we are, baby. After all this time we’re together in the City.” Nate kissed her neck tickling Andy with his stubble of a beard.
She wiggled away from him and turned in his arms. “You have to shave that.” It was a command, but it was delivered with a naughty little smirk that Nate couldn’t refuse.
Pulling out of the kiss Nate held Andy’s hand. “I know it’s just boxes and a dumpy apartment, but this is what we’ve been dreaming of. We’ll make it happen.” Andy pulled him in for another kiss.
“Come on. Those dreams won’t build themselves and we still need a bed to sleep on tonight.” Nate chuckled low and with one more peck he stepped back toward the doorway. They had a lot of boxes and a lot of steps to take before the nighttime. He knew that Andy wanted a bed to sleep in but he was fairly certain that they were going to have to rough it at least for the first night. He hoped that he could distract her with a great dinner, wine, and his special charms.
The apartment wasn’t much, but in precious few days they were able to turn it into their first home together in the city. Most of the boxes were unpacked into used or cheap furniture or stored out of sight for the time being. Andy loved bookcases and they each had enough boxes for a library so they were the décor for the time being. Nate’s various cooking and food related books were in the cases nearest the kitchen, but the rest of their collections blended together spanning high school books, college texts, literature anthologies, and not to be missed novels. Lesser treasures found places to lurk and nick knacks slowly took up residence in nooks and crannies. Alarm clocks and lamps were propped on milk crates covered with tablecloths. Piglet, Andy’s protector, since she was little was propped up on top of her alarm clock.
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The townhouse was quiet by design. Assistants thought it was about their own personal terror as they timidly tip toed into the darkened foyer and opened one door and another until they eventually found where to put the book and the dry cleaning. They listened for any sounds of their tormentor by day, Miranda Priestly, but they only heard their own heartbeats and the clattering of their heels as they stumbled hurriedly for the door. Had you interviewed these witless assistants after their first time in the townhouse they would have told you that their darkest fear in that moment would have been that Miranda Priestly would appear before them on the staircase and the hounds of hell snarled behind them blocking the path to the door. They would have told you how their heart beat double time and their fears chased themselves back on the tails of the echo. They would not have told you about the joyful flowers throughout the house, or the calm colors and clean lines. They would have been so stuck in their own worthless worries that they would not have been able to pick up on the subtle smell of fresh cooked brownies lingering in the air or the angelic sound of two girls asking their mother for another story.
Those assistants, had they taken the time or had the courage, would have been able to see past the ice queen of work to see the home of a woman dedicated to her family and her existence. It was not all the hearts and flowers crap that is in a hallmark card, but the cleanliness and care with which every detail of the townhouse was woven together to create this living space. Had they heard the twins asking for a story in those sleepy tones from the front lines of the war on sleep, then they would have had to revise their description of the twin terrors into something more human, if not humane. Had they paused a moment to hear the soft steps cross the hall or if they had tilted their ear a little more to hear the intoxicating melody of the mother telling the story about the lost princess— Well, if they had done any of those things then they would have had to reconstruct their portrait of the Dragonlady.
No one wanted to do that though. La Priestly, the Dragonlady, was a legend and to survive the perils of working for her for one year brought one eternal glory, fame, and bragging rights. Not to mention the respectful fear of any boss you would have in the future. Surely to survive you would have had to become a little like the dragon yourself.
So no one wanted to listen or really look, because they preferred to see only the Dragonlady as they imagined her to be and nothing more.
They needed her to be evil incarnate to scare the children (new assistants) with at bedtime, and they all took a certain sadistic pleasure from putting themselves through the gauntlet everyday to show their unending dedication to fashion, Runway, and Miranda Priestly.
It did not matter. Miranda Priestly had waited for lifetimes and she likely had many more lifetimes to wait. The opinion of underlings, colleagues and the press in this life amused her and had its purposes so she let it be, fostered it even. Only Nigel knew, and he chose his battles against her capriciousness much more carefully than Don Quixote ever chose his windmills. Nigel knew the bedtime stories told in the townhouse—he was there when they had written many of them together in another life and time.
Not that anyone would have asked, but he would have been the first to tell you: Not all fairytales are for children, and not all lullabies inspire sweet dreams. He would have given you a smile then and looked at you with up turned eyes as he peered at you, judging behind his spectacles, but then again fairies are real, and even with the last grain of sand falling in the glass and the door shutting in front of you—there was still the possibility of… He would shrug at this point. Not a happy ending perhaps, but a satisfactory one all the same could be found despite the goose bumps caused to get to that end.
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Sitting up in their beds and refusing to lie down and let sleep claim them, Caroline and Cassidy chorused a call to their mother that she could not refuse book or no book. If she was home then it was story time. They knew even though their mother would never say so that she loved story time as much as they did. Published stories were fine with them, or even simple stories made up by their mother about a bunny or bear. However their hearts settled and they lay down flat when their mother began to tell them about the lost princess, the faun, and the tragedy of the story of the labyrinth. Never had they read such stories, nor heard anyone else ever speak of such delicious detail and heartbreaking tragedy.
When they were young the story was simple and the labyrinth was a maze. As they got older and asked more questions the tapestry of the story was woven ever tighter and more complex. It never had a true end, for the twins always fell asleep before Miranda finished the tale so far. Of course that was no accident that they never got to hear the end, because as Miranda knew there was no end, only another new beginning.
With a sigh Miranda would trail off once she knew that their eyes were dancing in far away places tucked safe under their lids. She would bend slowly and kiss them one at a time going from bed to bed. Then she would stand at the door and watch them sleep wondering why she had begun to tell them that story in the first place. It was beautiful, but it always left her heart longing. She had not yet found the ending that she was looking for and as such she could not begin the story that she really wanted to live in. Instead she had created this life just as she had crafted others before it. Only this time felt more permanent and lasting. She had yet to live this long in a version of the story and it was weird to feel herself getting older. She had chosen to have the twins after much deliberation. For her to love them and care for them did not void her place as Lover, instead they were her companions while she waited seemingly forever. Of course Nigel had been through it all, but he found his satisfactions elsewhere under the moon and she did not question him on it.
“Mother, please tell us about the princess.”
“Yes, please, do tell. She’s our favorite.”
Miranda would not always relent, sometimes her heart could not take the wear and tear, but every other month or so the children would remember the princess and Miranda would feel the story begin before she had even sat on the bedside and both would lose themselves in the story of another time and another princess.
“Very well, then. Lay down, Bobbsies.” Once they were snug in the covers and not a second before Miranda would turn the light out and sit to the side of the bed and begin the tale. Her voice was rich with emotion. It wove a tapestry over the years so vibrant that the girls were immediately closer to sleep and completely enveloped in the mystery and darkness of the realm. Over the years the stories had become more intricate and giving the girls more details and leading them to ask more questions of their mother. She never told these stories from a book, but she had been telling them this way for so long that the twins never once asked about that. She had no need of a book having watched and repeated the tales over and over in her mind and now to her children. The events fresh in her mind even after so long seeped into each telling allowing the twins to go on the journeys with her.
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A long time ago in the Underground Realm, where there are no lies or pain, there lived a princess who dreamt of the human world. She dreamt of blue skies, soft breeze and sunshine. One day, eluding her keepers, the princess escaped. Once outside, the bright sun blinded her and erased her memory. She forgot who she was and where she came from. Her body suffered cold, sickness and pain. And eventually she died. However, her father, the king, always knew that the princess’ soul would return, perhaps in another body, in another place, at another time. And he would wait for her, until he drew his last breath, until the world stopped turning…
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Returning to her cold and quiet room, Miranda slowly unbuttoned her blouse as she stepped close to her dresser. Looking at herself in the mirror and pushing the ever-present lock of hair away from her forehead. “So long.” She whispered to herself in the mirror. Taking in a deep breath she reached a smooth hand to what would appear to be an artistically beaten up antique metal box. With a slight flick of her fingers she lifted the latch and the lid in one motion. Three small luminescent creatures flew on tender wings up and around Miranda’s shoulders. Watching them in the mirror she gave them a sad smile. The pearly, almost white one, appeared in the mirror to be talking into Miranda’s silver mane. She nodded and held her arm up with an extended finger for him to land on. “I know the princess has died many times, since she left the Underground Realm.” Miranda brought up her other hand and gently stroked the little fairy. He seemed to nuzzle up into her touch like a favored pet. “I will continue to live and wait for her.” Miranda said softly before she lifted her hand up shooing the fairy off.
It buzzed away swirling around with its green and blue playmates. She gave them a stern look and they hovered. The exchange existed only as body language but the meanings were loud and clear. Miranda’s look scolded the fairies while their sagging wings and lowered heads apologized. The white fairy turned away from her leading the others to the doorway.
In a voice layered with fatigue both timeless and emotional Miranda cautioned them, “Don’t wake the girls.”
A twitch of wings and the leader buzzed out.
The green one hesitated and then flew back to Miranda kissing her on the cheek. “Oh.” She said, surprised at his gentle caring action. “Make sure he leaves Patricia alone.” She called after her departing attendants.
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