"She lived in a
castle with birds flying about, day and night, carrying their music in from the
surrounding mountains. She was not a
frail, milk-skinned princess as most were won't to think princesses should be. The mountain air had seeped into her bones
from the time she was a little child, feeding her with a love for wild things:
a wolf’s howl on the full moon, a Lark’s song on a summer morning, the screech
of an eagle as it dives for its prey.
She was lithe, with ruddy cheeks and tangled hair, and her legs were
browned from the sun.
"A proper princess
indeed.
"Nobody really knew
her real name, except for her parents, because everybody called her Rose. She spent so much time running about in the
woods, among the trees and wild things, and plaiting flowers into her hair that
she didn’t look a bit like she belonged with a Proper Name. Rose fit her much better.
"All day long she
dreamed of faraway places, exotic princes and kings, the feeling of a strange
mountain’s mist upon her face, a foreign land’s dirt beneath her feet. With her head full of cobwebs and stars it
was a wonder that she ever learned anything.
Every day, when she was convinced to come inside, her tutors had to
brush the tangles from her mind with a special little brush. But every day they gathered again: pictures
of tropical birds, colorful plants, lavish spices, faraway ships going to
faraway places… And each time she
dreamed, the urge in her little chest to see the world grew stronger and
stronger until she thought she might burst from the pure wanting of it.
"I should
know. For that little girl was me."
