A story about a girl who is definitely not the protagonist
By Hallie Stringham
Perfectly princess. That’s all Adete ever wanted to be, and as she stared herself down in the perfectly polished mirror, while balancing five books atop her perfectly postured head, she was beginning to think she had done it.
She did a last check to ensure the books were steady, then began waltzing around the room. Music drifted from the orchestra in the courtyard below her window, floating through the air. She twirled around her desk, spinning with an imaginary partner. Her eyes closed and she swayed, the books on her head still rightly nestled in their places. At fourteen, she was a better princess than any could dream.
Her door slammed open. Adete flinched, her books spilling across the floor. She turned her gaze angrily to the figure in her doorway. Valor, prince of Xeodur. Her witless betrothed.
He rushed in, disregarding Adete’s glare. She almost huffed in annoyance, but Valor cut her off.
“Your parents,” he explained, and the worried look on his face told Adete enough. She hid her face in her hands.
“Are they gone?”
“Without a trace.” She heard Valor cross the room to try and comfort her. Already, her shoulders shook. She took a shuddering breath.
“Not AGAIN!” Adete balled up her fists. “This has to be a joke. The day before my wedding?” Valor stepped back, face contorted in confusion. “I can’t believe this.” She threw up her hands in exasperation.
“...your parents have been kidnapped.” He emphasized the word, as if Adete could have possibly misunderstood him.
“Of course my parents have been kidnapped,” Adete snapped, her patience wearing thin. They had pulled another one of their stunts. And so close to her wedding. She was only fourteen, far too young for gray hairs, but she could still feel the stress itching at her head. How was Adete to plan a marriage on her own? Or, conversely, how was Adete to get her parents on her own? Neither option seemed particularly appealing.
Valor stared at her, dumb-founded. Dumb face. Dumb boy. Dumb marriage.“...What?”
Adete snatched a book up off the floor and shoved it at him. “See this?” He tilted his head, taking much too long to read the one-word title. “It says Fairytales, Valor. You know, princess and dragon and knight?” Did he— did he puff out his chest when she said ‘knight’? Every instinct told Adete to leap out of her window. She may suffer a broken leg or two, or three possibly (it was a high drop), but anything—ANYTHING—was better than this room at the moment.
“Of course I know what a fairytale is.” He looked bitter, as if it wasn’t a reasonable assumption on Adete’s part.
“Yeah, well, my parents are obsessed with them, and they would do anything to be in one.”
Valor’s brow knit in bewilderment. “How does getting kidnapped help that?”
“Valor. Please. THINK. Who do they tell stories about? Brave people, who save other people. My parents want to be featured as side characters.” She was an inch from losing it.
His nose scrunched. “No, they tell stories about brave men. Like knights. When have you read a book where the princess saves the prince?”
Look, there goes Adete’s sanity!
“...PARDON ME?!” Adete leapt back, her perfectly pink dress swishing against her perfectly pale stockings. Sweet and holy heaven above. This boy would be the end of her. Surely.
Valor gave her a confused look. “I said, ‘people only tell stories about brave men—’”
“No, no, no, I heard you.” Adete pressed a palm to her face, massaging the bridge of her nose. Although the pose was just to show Valor the extent of her quickly dwindling patience, the pressure of her fingers felt wonderful there, and she held them in place a moment longer than strictly necessary. Finally, she dropped her hand and fixed Valor with her most indignant, ruthless, death-filled stare.
Lo and behold! He dropped to the floor, legs quaking in abject fear and submission! He slowly looked up with a quivering jaw. “Forgive me for my misdeeds, milady,” he begged, tears beginning to coalesce in the corners of his eyes. Adete looked down on him off the tip of her nose, considering.
“I suppose,” she began imperiously, her pink dress far more imposing than it was previously, “I could forgive your wrongs this once.” She held up a finger to silence him as Valor began to weep tears of joy. “However! You are not to ever assume that traits, such as bravery, cannot be held by all sexes. Am I understood?” Valor’s shoulders shook with jubilation.
“Yes, your majesty. I will no longer let prejudice cloud my vision and judgment!” And with that, Adete helped Valor up, and they lived out their days as equals.
SPOILER ALERT: that definitely didn’t happen.
Adete stared as intimidatingly as she could for as long as she could take in the silence. Valor, the good little dummy his awful parents trained him to be, just stood there and stared back.
…it was frighteningly awkward.
At last, when Adete’s eyes watered and she could no longer keep the nervous fidgeting from her hands, she blinked.
Valor followed suit.
She blinked again.
He mirrored.
When Adete smirked at her new, small discovery, Valor smiled back.
When she folded her arms, he shortly did the same.
Unfortunately, when Adete recited that she was going to throw herself out the window and sprint away from the castle while never looking back, Valor didn’t mimic. He just looked sort of concerned. Oh well. It was worth a shot.
“So.” Adete leaned back on her dresser, pointedly ignoring the growing worry on Valor’s face. “Where are my parents?”
“Well, there was a note…”
“Of course there was a blasted note-”
“What?”
Adete waved her hands dismissively.
After a short silence, Valor drew a small parchment from his pocket. He unfolded it. And unfolded it. And unfolded it a final time. Clearing his throat, Valor read aloud, “To find that which you seek, scale the highest peak.” He looked up at her, waiting for her input.
“Have you ever heard of Nanoscopic Hill?”
Adete lived in a valley.
Adete stood atop the highest peak in all of Tracia, her perfectly pointed hand shielding the sun out of her perfectly peered eyes. She angrily clutched the elaborate dress fabric at her side as she impatiently waited for a sign. “Valor, do you see anything?”
“No, nothing at all.”
“Me neither.” Adete sighed. “Do you think we should—” she glanced over at Valor, pausing.
Surely she was mistaken.
No, she definitely wasn’t.
“Valor, don’t look directly at the sun, you imbecile!” Valor looked at her, disoriented. She waited for him to explain himself. And then she remembered he didn’t even have the social intelligence to close the bathroom door behind himself (learned that one the hard way). “What were you think—” Valor doesn’t think. “What were you doing?!”
“I was looking at the sun.”
“...why?!”
Valor looked back up, squinting. “If anywhere there’s going to be a dragon…”
Adete rushed over, sticking a hand in front of his eyes. And also kicked his shins. “You are such an idiot! You could go blind from that.”
Valor stared at her, blinking. “What?”
“Read my lips, Valor! You, could, go, BLIND.” Valor continued to stare. “What now?”
“I can’t see your lips.”
Adete pressed her hands to her face. “Sweet heavens, I’m going to go mad.” She turned and stomped away from the sightless Valor, intended to put as much distance between them as possible.
However, on her third step out, her shoe caught on something in the grass. She tripped and fell forward.
Adete stood up, spitting out a couple blades of grass. She quickly did a once around to check if anyone had seen.
Nope, Valor was still blindly looking about.
She smoothed her hair and walked back a few steps to where she had fallen. It was… a rock. Adete looked around for any hints of significance. Nope, it was just a rock. She resisted the urge to kick it out of anger. It would be very un-princess-like. Unless…
“Valor!” He turned a blank face to the sound of her voice. “Come here.” He ambled his way over, hands out on either side for balance. He stood there, dumbly waiting for instruction.
Adete pointed authoritatively. “Kick that rock.” It took him a few tries, but Adete eventually got the satisfaction of seeing the malicious pebble tumble down the very short hill. She exhaled triumphantly. Then, she saw something strange in the dent it had left in the hill.
She bent down, shifting her dress so she could see the dirt. There was…
A note.
A blasted note.
Did one even need parents?
She chewed her cheek in rage as she drew the paper out of the earth. She carefully unfolded the parchment, trying very hard to keep the soil off her hands. Then she unfolded it again. Then she unfolded it a final time.
“Valor, there’s a note. It says, ‘To take the final steps, go to where you rest.’” Adete frowned. “That doesn’t rhyme.”
She turned over the note, where it said, “It’s a slant rhyme.”
She frustratedly discarded the note. “Valor, we have to go back to the castle. That’s where I sleep.”
Valor furrowed his brow. “Okay.” As Adete started walking, he didn’t follow. He just… stared at where she had been standing. How long had he been looking at the sun for?
Adete silently debated between leading him to the castle, and just leaving him there, but when she realized she’d have to touch him to get him anywhere, she decided to go. He’d probably find his way back. Eventually. Or not.
She wouldn’t miss him.
Adete rapped her knuckle against a perfectly painted door, and then twisted the perfectly proper doorknob. She cautiously entered the room, looking all around her.
“Mom? Dad?” She turned in a circle. “Hello?” Her eye caught on a drifting closet door.
She bounced over and threw it open. Staring back at her, eyes wide open, where the King and Queen of Tracia. The Queen cracked a tentative smile. “Adete, sweetheart, we— we didn’t expect to see you so soon.” She shot a wide-eyed look to the King, who smiled at Adete and nodded. The Queen craned her neck to look around Adete. “Honey, where’s Valor?”
“Oh, I left him behind at Nanoscopic Hill.”
The Queen’s smile faltered. “You— you left him behind?” She shot a wide-eyed look to the King, who smiled at Adete and nodded. “That’s— that’s okay.” She rummaged through her pockets. “That’s perfectly all right.”
From a sleek pocket in her dress, the Queen withdrew a long needle. “I think this will work—?” She shot a wide-eyed look to the King, who smiled at Adete and nodded. The Queen sighed. “Adete, come here.”
Adete cautiously stepped forward. “What are you doing with that?”
“Give me your hand, Adete.”
Adete paused. Good princesses do what their parents ask them to do. But usually good princesses have good parents. “What are you doing with that?” Adete repeated, not offering her hand.
The Queen shot a wide-eyed look to the King, who began to nod, before the Queen stamped his foot with her heel. He looked at the Queen in alarm, seeming to finally come to an understanding. He reached over and grabbed Adete by the wrist.
“Hey, woah, these gloves are new,” Adete protested, pulling at his fingers. The Queen stood up, brandishing the needle. Adete felt a little faint.
“Adete. Dear child. You have honestly done a horrible job getting into any kind of storybook—”
“I did a great job staying out of them, though.” The Queen put up a hand to quiet her. “Oh, don’t start that with me—” Adete was cut off as the Queen pressed that hand to her mouth. Unbothered, the Queen continued.
“So, me and your father—”
“--your father and I—” Adete's voice came muffled from behind the Queen’s hand.
“--decided to take matters into our own hands and enact your curse.” She paused, for dramatic effect. “Yes, you, had been cursed. As a child. Me and— Your father and I were helpless to stop the evil fairy as it cursed you. But, fortunately, the fairy told us all the terms of the curse before it left. It was very convenient.” The Queen raised her needle. “When you are pricked with this, you’ll be sent into a deep sleep, until you find true love. Which is why it would have been more convenient if Valor were here, but I digress.” The Queen finished her sentence as if she had more to say, but instead just thrust the needle down into Adete’s finger.
Adete hopped back as the King released her, desperately pulling off her glove. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” She closely examined the finger and cried out, “Mother, how could you do this to me!” She thrust out her glove. “There’s a blood stain!”
As Adete rubbed the tip of her glove to try and salvage the fabric, her parents whispered conspiratorially in the closet.
“Was it not supposed to be enacted immediately? The fairy told us it would have immediate effects. Were we swindled? Its services were far too cheap. I knew it was too good to be true!”
The King, unsure of how his wife wanted him to react, stared at her lifelessly.
Adete continued to wail. “I am too perfect to wear a soiled glove. Oh, Mother, why?!”
And thus the Queen reached an epiphany.
“Adete?” she asked hesitantly. “Who’s the most perfect person, in your opinion?”
“How can that matter right now?! It’s ruined!” Adete threw the glove across the room in tantrum.
“Adete,” the Queen demanded more sternly. “Who is the most perfect person?”
Adete sniffed. “It would have to be me.”
The Queen groaned. “Darling,” she turned to the King. “Her true love is, well, herself!”
The King was almost positive this was a good thing. The Queen often talked about how she wanted “self-love”. He decided to shoot the tearful Adete a thumbs-up.
As Adete tried to pry off the other glove, because she may as well match, the door to her room swung open again. Valor stood in the gap, blinking as he stared into nowhere.
“Valor, we’re postponing the wedding,” the Queen said dully. “It turns out Adete doesn’t love you.”
Valor turned to her voice. “Okay.”
Well, Adete reasoned, at least he’s not pushy. Maybe she could learn to live with him after all.
Then he tripped over her night table as he tried to enter the room blindly and Adete retracted all feelings of goodwill.
“Mother, does this mean we’re done?” Adete asked. “It does seem as though you failed to write a story.” Perhaps the days of chasing fame and fairytales were over.
The Queen smiled worriedly. “Yes— yes, of course. We have written nothing! Nothing at all.” She began to back out of the room, sending suspicious glances to Adete’s curtains. Adete sighed. Her mother was certainly not the queen of subtlety. She walked over and threw open her drapes.
Behind it, huddled with paper, was a scribe. I didn’t even look up as I continued scribing. I could only assume that Adete was giving me an astonished and completely rage-filled glare. I continued to scribble on until Adete made a grab for the parchment and
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