"Trials of a Princess" drabbles by Andrew Pettigrew

A Duel of Fates

Trials of a Princess #3

The children were playing. Wooden swords clattered as they fought against each other, each determined to emerge victorous.

'You fight like a girl!' the boy sneered, slicing his blade downwards.

'And you fight like a drunken bear,' his sister returned, sidestepping neatly. 'Except the bear is more charming by far.'

'You should be bowing to me! One day I will be king!'

'And one day I will sprout wings.'

The children fought on, but they were children no more. Though their swords were blunt wood, their ambitions were razored steel. For now it was the crown itself they battled for.

Becoming the Wolf

Trials of a Princess #2

'Become the wolf,' her teacher instructed, her beady black eyes boring into the princess' innocent stare.

'Don't want to be a wolf.'

'Why not?'

The girl shrugged. 'They're mean, nasty, ugly.'

'Little fool,' the teacher hissed, and she slashed her bronze knife across her student's cheek, peppering the stone floor with scarlet.

The princess cried out in pain, clutching her face.

'You are a fool,' her teacher announced. 'The wolf is mean, nasty, ugly — that is true. But that is because it's a survivor.'

She raised the knife again.

'And I am here to teach you how to survive.'

The Price of Fear

Trials of a Princess #1

The princess was happy. She was playing, swathed in a cloak of fairies, crowned as an elven queen, infinite dreams at her fingertips.

The girl shrieked in glee and flung her arms wide. Her doll, the doll she'd had for years, flew up, up, and then crashed back down. The porcelain face shattered, tiny brittle fragments bleeding across the tiles, her cloth body collapsing with the weight of the girl's fear.

'Yes!' she cried. 'I shall rule! I shall bow to no man! I will be free!'

The doll was dead, defeated, vanquished.

And the princess revelled in her power.