I have finished chapter two of that novel about the princesses… the one where I am trying to take the princesses back from the Disney corporation and give them a new life of their own. Not only is this the first time I ever wrote a novel from a female perspective, I am try9ing to make them real people. They are also kick-ass, tough, smart role models for young girls… even though writing from a teenage girl’s point of view, despite being a house daddy to two daughters, is something of a challenge.

This chapter is the first time I am discussing some of the serious issues that face women in all societies… even made up ones. True, this part is only about body image and self-assessment, but I need to know if it rings true. So ladies… and all you guys who are as in touch with your feminine side as I am… let me know if this works.

(I added one new paragraph to the end of chapter one [which is posted somewhere below if you want to do a search or scroll down and read it if you missed it] and I clipped it and added it to the beginning of this chapter. I will put some *’s around it so you know what part I am talking about)

(Also, as a note… or a reminder… I am playing around with the idea that, as the action takes place in any of the seven kingdoms, I will use the princess or a main character from that kingdom as the narrator and focus the story from their point of view. On the high seas, or in neutral territory, I will revert to my customary god-like narration style… so be prepared for that, if you read both chapters now)…

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And with that, the bow of the little craft touched gently against the dock. Hildy bid the captain good day and set off for the castle on the hill. The guards at the outer wall and the inner keep gate made no attempt to stop the well-dressed young lady from entering. In all the royal castles of all the seven kingdoms except for Skull, people were free to come and go as they wished, to watch the daily workings of their rulers. People often brought small gifts, a rare and tasty fish for the royal kitchen, or a hand-crafted toy for one of the younger members of the royal family. There was often quite a crowd gathered when the king conducted official business. Once Hildy had entered the great hall, she simply slipped unnoticed into the corridor that led to the royal apartments and went straight to her friends rooms.

She gave a quiet knock on the door.

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The Seven Kingdoms

Chapter Two

Lawrancia Thurmundia Middle, princess of the kingdom of Middle, opened the door and immediately recognized her friend despite her plain apparel. Her eyes went wide and a smile lit her face. “Hildy, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be getting married tomorrow.”

She pulled her into the room and sat her down even as Hildy began to blurt out her tale. She sat across from Hildy, listening in stunned silence to the story of the encounter in the passageway, and when Hildy described how the meeting had ended, Lawry couldn’t help herself. She burst out in hysterical laughter. Hildy looked surprised and a little angry, but then she too started to laugh.

“What happened after you kicked him?” Lawry finally managed to ask.

“He fell in a heap and started moaning like a baby,” Hildy answered. The two fell into helpless laughter once more, but soon Hildy’s laughter trailed off, and she looked into her friend’s eyes and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I grabbed a few things and ran. I caught a ship and here I am, and I have no idea what I am going to do now.”

Lawry got up from her chair and knelt in front of Hildy, wrapping her arms around her. She held her for a few minutes without saying a word, then whispered, “You’ll stay with me, for now, of course. We can figure something out.”

“I’ve put my parents in a terrible situation.” Hildy’s voice was muffled inside Lawry’s long hair.

“It will all work out,” said Lawry, with all the self-assurance of youth.

For the next three days, Hildy stayed in Lawry’s rooms, helping her with her chores of keeping the rooms neat. Lawry brought Hildy food from the kitchens. “The cooks can’t figure out why I am eating so much all of a sudden,” Lawry joked at one point, as Hildy went to work on a platter of fish and bread and fruit. “I suppose they think I am trying to put on weight, which certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea. I mean, I would if I could.”

Hildy glanced up. Lawry had always been tall and thin, since they were both children. “Would you rather be short and muscular? That’s how the man who was to have married me described me.”

“You aren’t short, you are an average height,” countered Lawry. “You look fit and healthy and strong. And you can fight. My parents never so much as let me try that. I am trained in the noble arts of sewing and being polite. And as tall and thin as I am, if I ever did try to learn how to fight, someone would confuse me with a staff and would accidentally pick me up and try to use me to hit someone else with.”

Hildy smiled with her mouth, but not with her eyes. “You are beautiful! Tall and poised and elegant. And you know how to talk to people, make them like you. You are just about the only person besides my parents who likes me.”

“I am too tall and too thin,” Lawry claimed, “and people like you just fine. You just don’t know that because you have to talk to them find out what they think of you.”

“My face is too plain, and too wide,” Hildy insisted. “I look like a boy.”

“My hair is too straight, and so pale-blond that it looks like a sheet hanging on a laundry line,” Lawry countered.

The two friends looked at one another in astonishment and burst out laughing.

“Is that truly what you think of yourself?” Hildy asked.

“And what about you?” Lawry asked. “We must be a hideous pair of crones, to hear us speak. You are beautiful. You know that, don’t you? I’ve always thought so. And your face has such character. Those green eyes of yours are stunning, and they go so well with your thick brown hair.”

“Well, your grey eyes and light hair work marvelously with your light complexion. You sometimes remind me of those statues of the old queens we have in our gardens. I don’t mean that in a bad way. You aren’t cold and remote like them, you just have their stately beauty. Also, you are the smartest person I ever met, and your eyes are so open and inviting. I’ve seen the way the boys have always looked at you. You have nothing to be concerned about as far as your figure is concerned. ”

Hildy sounded so insistent that Lawry had to laugh again. “Same to you. You might be stronger than a lot of girls, but I seem to recall plenty of boys lining up to dance with you at more than one festival.”

Hildy fought to keep a serious expression on her face. “Well, if we are both so pretty, why do we have such low opinions of ourselves?”

Lawry laughed, but gave the question due consideration. “I think that it is just a trick that nature plays on women, and a cruel trick at that. We always look at other women and compare ourselves to them. Of course many women are going to be more attractive than us, at least in some way, but we seldom bother to look deeper than that. Very few people are perfect in every way. We might do ourselves a favor and start comparing ourselves to other women in ways that actually matter. I mean, obviously we are both smarter than all the other women in the seven kingdoms.”

They fell into laughter once more.

“And kinder and faster and better at doing sums,” Hildy added.

“You never see men comparing their looks to other men.” Lawry fought to contain another burst of laughter. “That’s because nature has already played too many cruel tricks on men, and couldn’t bring herself to play one more!”

They fell into each other’s arms and gales of helpless laughter.

The next day dawned, and as they ate breakfast, Lawry reminded Hildy that this was the day she was supposed to meet her own husband-to-be.

“I hope it works out better for you than it did for me,” Hildy said.

“Well, it could hardly work out worse,” Lawry answered. She gave her friend a lopsided grin, and they both laughed.

That afternoon Hildy helped Lawry prepare for the official reception dinner. They both agreed that Lawry looked lovely in her dark-green gown. “Maybe it really will work out,” Hildy considered. “You might take one look at each other and fall hopelessly in love.”

“Or,” Lawry said thoughtfully, “I might take one look at him and just kick him right in the… face!”

Hildy bit back a laugh.

“I’m tall enough to do it,” Lawry insisted.

Hildy lost her struggle to contain the laughter. “You really think you’re funny, don’t you?”

“I do. And beautiful too. You said so yourself.”

At last it was time for Lawry to go and see what her future held in store for her. She had hoped to make a grand entrance, sweeping in at the last moment, but as it turned out, her soon-to-be husband and his retinue were late. She walked around the great hall, exchanging a word or two with members of the household staff and with some of the townspeople where they snacked on food set out for them on long tables on one side of the hall.

She went and sat beside her younger sister at the banquet table. Her mother was next to her on the other side, and her father just beyond her. Her sister, who all said looked just like her, was excited almost beyond words. Lowry loved the 15-year-old, but couldn’t help thinking that her 18 years of experience gave her the wisdom and worldliness to be much less swept up in the whole affair. Still, she admitted to herself, it was all pretty exciting.

There was a sudden flurry of activity at the door to the great hall and the prince of Skull and his party swept in. The prince himself led the group of twenty or so advisors and attendants. Lawry was not at all impressed by her first glimpse of the man she was supposed to marry, and the closer he got, the less impressed she was.

Cronan Vardigo Skull, she thought to herself, remembering that all the Skulls still carried their ancestral family name as a middle name, was not only much shorter than her, but was shorter than most of the people in the great hall, including a fair number of the children. On top of that, he was also even more pale than her, which only served to highlight the clusters of angry-red pimples that dotted his face. His hair was black and long and lank and lifeless, but not nearly so lifeless as his eyes. He was well-dressed, she admitted to herself, in a flowing black cloak and a fancy outfit in the black and white colors of the kingdom of Skull, but he wore the clothes poorly, and they hung strangely on his scrawny body as he shuffled along with what she could only consider to be great reluctance. The prince stopped in front of the table and performed an awkward bow to the royal family he would soon be joining. He began to introduce himself.

Her father interrupted him almost before he began. “I would like to know what has transpired on Halfmoon.” Her father wasn’t shouting, but his voice was loud enough to drown out the prince’s words.

The prince was caught entirely off guard by this question. “I don’t understand, Lord, having just arrived here from Skull.”

“So you know nothing of the events taking place in Halfmoon?” the king demanded.

“I know my father was greatly displeased by the treatment of my brother. I know he sent some troop ships there to demand an accounting.”

“Then let me give you a little more information,” Lawry’s father went on when it became clear that the prince had no intention of continuing. “My ships, and indeed the ships of all the kingdoms, have been turned away from the ports of Halfmoon. Turned away by Skull ships, mind you. They have been told that all trade has been suspended. Now, word has been trickling in from people who managed to escape from Halfmoon in small boats during the hours of darkness, that Skull troops hold Halfmoontown. Yet I have received no official word of these events from your emissaries in my court. And I have no idea how such a thing is even possible, let alone happening so quickly. Never in all our history has one kingdom invaded and taken over another. That isn’t the way we fight wars.”

The prince seemed to dislike the treatment he was receiving. “I am supposed to be an honored guest, yet you question me as if I were guilty of some crime. What my father does, he does without consulting his sons. And if our army is stronger than the army of Halfmoon, that is their concern.”

“Perhaps I let my emotions get the better of me,” Lawry’s father replied, “as King Bentar has always been a friend to me. Please, forgive my rudeness and join us for supper.”

Lawry had sat through this exchange in stunned silence. Her own emotions were in turmoil. It was bad enough that her parents had consented to this arranged marriage between her and this pale little fish of a man without ever having laid eyes on him, but the fact that her father had known that Halfmoon had been invaded, the home of her best friend since childhood, and hadn’t even thought to so much as say a word to her about it struck her as horribly cruel.

It came to her in that moment that her parents had never treated her as being as smart and capable as she knew herself to be. They never talked to her as an equal. They had never bothered to teach her anything about helping to rule a kingdom as the queen that she was one day to become. As long as she behaved herself and did as was expected of her, they were quite content to let her remain a child.

Even as the prince settled himself in a chair across from her, she stood. “I’m not feeling particularly well,” she said in a quavering voice, and without looking at anyone, she turned and walked swiftly our of the great hall.

Hildy was shocked to see her return after such a short time. “You didn’t really kick him in the face, did you?”

Lawry grasped her friend by the shoulders. “No, but I should have. Help me gather my things. We need to leave.”

Hildy didn’t ask any more questions, but began racing around the rooms, helping gather what they could while Lawry changed into a plain tunic and threw on an old cloak. Within minutes, they each had their belongings, and were out of the door, heading down dim hallways towards the rear of the castle.