Lunacy

[Yugikun]

Once upon a time, there was a princess who spent all her days locked up in a tower. Her parents — the rulers of a vast kingdom, spanning the entirety of the land — were as cruel as they were powerful, had trapped her inside in an attempt to mould her in their image, to try and make her as cold, as uncaring as they were. There were methods the princess used to resist her imprisonment — a songbird that came by once every year to regale her with its tales, a ragtag group of thieves who she always snuck out of the castle to meet — but they were always futile, temporary at best, because in the end, she always ended her nights stuck in her tower. In the end, there was nothing she could do to make her escape. There were hopes that she could break out, be the warrior, the artist she truly wanted to be, but in the end, she knew that she would be destined to take up the throne. All hopes of escape, all hopes of a happy ending were just fairytale. A story made up so that the little girl would dream when she fell asleep each night.

…

She looked up from her map. Saw the building perched down below. Looked at it, for a second, questioned how such an ugly building had been made a place of worship, had been grafted with the name of ‘temple.’ There’d been a hope as the girl had walked down these slopes that this place would be interesting, given what it’d been called, but seeing it before her eyes — how fake, how shoddy it was — only brought betrayal, the further unkindling of a flame that had just minutes ago been burning brightly.

Oh, how this brand new world was becoming more and more disappointing with each passing minute.

((Roxanne Herbert, continued from I’m a Princess, Cut From Marble, Smoother Than a Storm))

Even then, though, her movement did not stop. Her footsteps went from angled to flat as the ground turned from slopes to plains. The less important functions — the map moving from her hands back into her bag — went by without note as she concluded her journey to this so-called temple, looked upwards, placed the entire building in her view. The building remained as unappealing as it had been before, as it always would be. Nothing had been gained from a closer look, none of the detail could be considered new, different.

...Well, that hadn’t been truthful. There was an aspect of the building that Roxanne could only see now, a piece of the whole that had only become visible when viewed from the ground up. A part — at the top of the building — that had been placed flat, where one could stand themselves without their feet falling from underneath them. Where one could view all that laid around them without the people of before coming in to invade, ruin, clog everything up with their insignificance. A place far, far above the ground, where an ending could be produced if she took just one step forward, one final rush of adrenaline before the sudden, definitive stop. The idea of that felt new. Exhilarating. Something Roxanne wouldn’t have done back in the tower, the kingdom of before.

And, admittedly, it also felt silly. Inconsequential. A brave new world of possibilities, of concepts that had not existed before, and the first thing she was setting herself out to do was only to climb a building.

But of course, the smallness of it all was what made it perfect. A brand new world of possibilities, of concepts that had not existed before. Of things that she would not do so long as she remained unknowing of her freedom, her bounds. She placed the left strap of her bag onto her shoulder, let her smile grow even brighter as she took another step to the admittedly-now appealing building.

A whole new world stood right here, in front of Roxanne.

It was time for her to take her first step.

---

There was more to the tale. A twist in the myth, a retelling of the story of the princess. One day, she’d been given a slightly larger taste of freedom than before. Her Prince Charming brother had turned his wits on their parents — convinced them to let her go, if only for a short time — and she’d been placed on an adventure to a foreign land, given a taste of what she could’ve had if only she’d had the luck to be born poorer. It’d been fun enough, she supposed. She knew that even away from her parents her freedom was limited, that she’d be within their grasp once again once the taste had faded from her mouth, but she’d done her best to enjoy it while it lasted. She’d seen the sights, talked with others, while not establishing any new bounds to her freedom it’d still felt good, still given her fulfilment.

And then — as they were coming back, moments before her parents’ fingers had grasped her again — a dragon swooped in from the sky, killed the guards meant to take care of her, placed its talons around the princess and took her up into the sky, to its lair. It said to her: ‘despair, mortal, for I have come to bring you suffering. You will be taken from the world you know to a land of risk, danger, unpredictability. You will be made to kill, made to die, made to feel nothing but despair about this situation and there will be no way out. You were at the cusp of finding yourself, walking on the path you so desire, but now your life is mine, mortal. I am invincible. I am unstoppable. Fall before me, as every man before has.’

And the princess, in response, only looked the dragon in the eyes. She smiled. Beamed. Said ‘thank you, Mr. Dragon. This is the only thing I’ve ever wanted.’

And now the princess was here. Now the princess was her. She was laid down on the platform near the top of the temple, staring at the sky, the clouds that still laid above her. Exhaustion reigned over her in a way no feeling had ever had before, but the laughter from her mouth — the light, tingly feeling present — told her that climbing the temple had been worth it, if only for what it meant. The words that made what the meaning was were unknown, unimportant, but she at least knew the short of it. Now she was back where she started. Now she could stand herself on the edge, one step away from oblivion, and now nobody would interrupt her, bring their world into hers.

...Where had she been again? It’d only been a few minutes, a mile at most since Princess had interrupted her, and yet now, laying down, it felt like an era, a world away from where she was.

She closed her eyes. Breathed, for a second. That fact didn’t bother her. If it meant that she could be here, if it meant that the previous seventeen years would become a blip in comparison, then she was all the more thankful to the dragon, all the more happy that she’d been dragged away from her fairytale, dropped into something darker.

And then she sat up. Stood up. Felt her legs weighed down by exhaustion, but stopped her body from buckling before things ended prematurely, stupidly. She opened her eyes. Saw what laid in front of her. The cliffs. The sky. The sea. The ground below. If she looked up high enough, she could pretend she was where she’d been earlier. She could let the train of thought from back then continue its journey, arrive at the destination it should have before someone jumped in front of the tracks, brought everything to a screeching halt, delayed everything for a couple of hours while she scrubbed the blood off, dealt with all the onlookers who wished to gawk, see what had become of the corpse.

Because Roxanne remembered being friends with this girl when she was younger. Her name was Anna. She was small. Had frizzy hair. Liked to read and did well in school and could play the piano and flute better than anyone else. She didn’t really have any friends, not because she was mean or because she was gross or anything but because she’d never tried to be anything her parents didn’t want her to be. Never tried to go against their rule and never tried to do anything for herself and always did what they said. Always thought she was wrong when her parents told her so.

She was pathetic. A bottomfeeder. Nobody around her cared about her. Maybe they thought she gave good contributions in class and maybe they loved one of her performances but they never liked her as a person. She was a puppet. A slave. A being with no free will of its own. A girl who always just cried whenever nobody else was looking and who always just dreamed of the day when she’d be gone. When she’d be free of this. When someone would come in on a silver horse and ride off with her into the sunset. The girl had dreamed. The girl had hoped, but the person never came. Her freedom never came.

She remembered seeing that girl when she was younger.

She remembered being that girl when she was younger.

But now Roxanne had decided what had happened to her. Now Roxanne knew. There was a girl Roxanne remembered being friends with when she was younger. Her name was Anna. They hadn’t talked much, in recent years, but when Roxanne had woken up on this island Anna had woken up beside her. Roxanne tried to talk, tried to save her, but in the end, Anna had been too scared of everything to be anything special. She’d rushed towards the cliff before Roxanne could stop her. Thrown herself off. By the time Roxanne had made it there herself, there was no body to be found in the sea, the rocks below. There was nothing to be by herself.

The point was, Anna, the girl from before: she was dead.

And everything that she’d cared about now stood in question. All the people that’d been of significance before this — Alex, Beryl, Teddy, Marcy, Violet, Tony, Demetri, MacKenzie, Liberty, Darlene — now stood inside a fading spotlight, stood to engulf themselves in darkness, pending whatever they did in this new land they all found themselves in. All that had ever mattered to her would only happen in the next few days. All she would be was this.

And honestly?

She couldn’t wait.

She paused. Took a step back from the view, from the sea and the sky and the cliffs and the ground below, now that their purpose had been fulfilled. She went towards her bag, opened it up, pulled out something she’d felt when she’d been using it before. A shotgun — nothing more specific than that mattered. She hoisted it to her chest. Aimed towards the sky. Enjoyed a moment without any wind, animals, noise, before pulling the trigger.

There was the sound of an explosion, right in front of her. There was something like a fist, a jab hitting her right in the chest as her body was thrown in the opposite direction of the bullets, Roxanne going from her feet to her back in what felt like less than a second. There was a moment of silence from her, as she heard the remnant of her shot, felt the ringing in her ears, the pain in her chest and her body and the back of the head, before she smiled, once again. Laughed. Felt the tingly feeling shine through all the pain and exhaustion.

Because this was it. This was what she’d been hoping for all her life. She’d been taken from the world she knew, the world she’d hated to a land of risk, danger, unpredictability. She would be made to kill, made to die with no other way out. She’d been at the cusp of losing herself, walking on the only path she’d been allowed to, and now her life had changed.

And even if it wasn’t permanent, even if it would only last for a couple of days, she knew that it didn’t matter.

Because she could be her.

She could be free.

And this temple? This cliffside? The clear blue sky? The wind on her face? This brave new world that laid around her?

She was going to make it hers.

And nothing was going to take it away from her.

((Roxanne Herbert, continued elsewhere))