It is a quiet assignment at first. In the highest tower, the princess watches the clouds and the sun rise and the sun set, while he watches the door and escorts her to every happenstance beyond it that might require her presence. Her chambers are elegance, bordering on extravagance, but there’s an emptiness in her heart rivaling that of any Garland has ever seen.
She asks him about the world.
He tells her what the son of a peasant would know – of the earth and its bounty, and the sky from below the palace gates. The desperate warmth of the fire in winter, and the spray of the surf at the edge of a sea where mermaids were once said to frolic but no grown man now would believe in them.
She tells him she wants to see them.
He reminds her how impossible that want is.
Still, summer fades into autumn and the townsfolk celebrate their harvest. When orders and harsh words fail to sway him, Princess Sara begs him – not her father, not her mother, not her tutors who have the king’s ear, but him – to spirit her away from this place, for just one night amidst the glow of the lanterns and the beat of the festival drums.
And there’s now a crack in his armor, because what else can he do?
What else can he ever give her?
She kisses his cheek when he yields.
And again, later, after the dancing and the crowd and the fun of the games has left her breathless, beneath the oldest tree at the border of the city, when she asks to see the ocean and he promises her nothing less than the world, she kisses him like in the softest fairy’s stories.
At the end of the night, when she’s safe again in bed, even knowing what is likely to come, Garland finds that he cannot bring himself to believe it was a mistake.
But even without her finery, the princess is obvious for what she is, and when the king hears of what has transpired, Garland is summarily stripped of his station, though not his rank. It was to be expected: the King’s word is higher than that of his eldest daughter. Still, it leaves as bitter taste in Garland’s mouth as Sara’s kiss was sweet.
And as he guards an outpost on the frontier, from an enemy Coneria no longer has, Garland thinks only of how he once promised a princess the ocean.
Garland/Sara, PG
She asks him about the world.
He tells her what the son of a peasant would know – of the earth and its bounty, and the sky from below the palace gates. The desperate warmth of the fire in winter, and the spray of the surf at the edge of a sea where mermaids were once said to frolic but no grown man now would believe in them.
She tells him she wants to see them.
He reminds her how impossible that want is.
Still, summer fades into autumn and the townsfolk celebrate their harvest. When orders and harsh words fail to sway him, Princess Sara begs him – not her father, not her mother, not her tutors who have the king’s ear, but him – to spirit her away from this place, for just one night amidst the glow of the lanterns and the beat of the festival drums.
And there’s now a crack in his armor, because what else can he do?
What else can he ever give her?
She kisses his cheek when he yields.
And again, later, after the dancing and the crowd and the fun of the games has left her breathless, beneath the oldest tree at the border of the city, when she asks to see the ocean and he promises her nothing less than the world, she kisses him like in the softest fairy’s stories.
At the end of the night, when she’s safe again in bed, even knowing what is likely to come, Garland finds that he cannot bring himself to believe it was a mistake.
But even without her finery, the princess is obvious for what she is, and when the king hears of what has transpired, Garland is summarily stripped of his station, though not his rank. It was to be expected: the King’s word is higher than that of his eldest daughter. Still, it leaves as bitter taste in Garland’s mouth as Sara’s kiss was sweet.
And as he guards an outpost on the frontier, from an enemy Coneria no longer has, Garland thinks only of how he once promised a princess the ocean.