The Princess's New Reign

Princess Lily, clad not in the shimmering silks she’d previously demanded, but in a surprisingly scratchy wool tunic and sensible, if slightly too large, woolen breeches, felt a peculiar sensation. It wasn't the usual delightful swell of power that accompanied her every whim. Instead, it was a dull ache in her knees from bending to tie her own shoelaces, a task she’d previously delegated to a trembling footman. The tunic, a drab shade of moss green, itched her neck with an insistent, almost mocking, persistence. The breeches, meant for someone considerably older and perhaps a touch stouter, bunched uncomfortably around her waist, feeling like a woolly boa constrictor that had decided her midriff was its new nesting ground.

“More glitter!” she’d shrieked just yesterday, her voice echoing through the marble halls as she surveyed her latest masterpiece of a tower built entirely from sugar plums. Sir Reginald, bless his perpetually flustered soul, had merely wrung his hands. “Your Highness,” he’d begun, his voice a reedy whisper, “the Royal Confectioner has informed us that we are quite out of edible glitter. He suggested, perhaps, a sprinkle of… toasted almonds?”

Lily had huffed, a sound like a tiny, disgruntled dragon. “Almonds? Toasted almonds? Are you mad, Sir Reginald? I am not some commoner snacking on nuts! I am the Queen! And Queens require shimmer! Fetch me the royal glitter, or face my displeasure!”