EARLY MORNING, ON ONE OF THE MANY BALCONIES, IN THE DAYS AFTER THE MASQUERADE, CATHERINE QUESTIONS SANTICARNO'S DESCENT INTO PURGATORY / OPEN
she should've stayed in bed, that much is true. half-dressed, used to the absence of warmth, catherine finds herself resting her sadness and body on the very edge of an ornate balustrade, as her brown, tired eyes, still heavy with sleep, seek the comfort that only daybreak can bring. here's the thing about women and the sun; one always needs the other. but here and now, enveloped in something red, the princess' lodestar loses all its charm, forcing her to widen her eyes.
she sighs and laughs, as if to empty herself from all the expectations that didn't reach the point of fruition. disappointment then, has her by the scruff of her neck, followed closely by the folly of all that's transpired in the days that stretch between them like a silken thread ready to snap. "is this all there is to it?" to life? or to the sun?
a girl as ancient and elusive as the moon, with blood bluer than the most precious sapphires chipped away from the ural mountains.
she grows like a flower, always facing the sun, seeking the warmth of life in spite of the eternal winter. as a child, she protests. tells her mother how much she loathes when her fingers turn cold. when she reaches a greater height, she learns to tolerate it, and then, even love it, knowing far too well that the true warmth in life she ought to seek within herself.
it's why she lays in the snow. counts the stars and hair wisps within her grasp, despite the barrage of worries that pour from her mother's mouth. they tell her that she'll grow sick β she only laughs.
her first love comes in the form of music β as it befits a woman of her ilk. any instrument, every song, she learns to play by heart and tug on every string, whether of a highborn man or not.
she falls in love again, the following winter, though it's worth stating that it's almost always cold, in spite of the changing seasons. true incentive she finds in numbers, counting and measuring the little spaces between people and heavenly stars, and vows to teach young women, regardless of their stature, the very same things that she knows. numbers, arithmetic, music. the universe sings to all.
first she's a girl, and then an elegant bird, with gestures sudden and light, and at last, she's a watchful tigress, graceful no matter where her foot falls. false, let's revise. first she's a girl, then a princess, between the frost and fairy tales she tells, and at last, she's herself, undiluted, vivid as the sun, refusing to yield before the sheer dullness of things, half doses and small pleasures that threaten to leave her cold.
there's no moderation in three things in life: art, love and war.
a girl eats the world and the world eats the girl. by now, she thought she'd be full.
her first god is her stature. if you're not someone, then you're no one. she learns it from her mother, who teaches her how to stand tall and never look back, and seek power even in sorrow.
it's worse, of course, that she gets to be the first; the first child, the first daughter, the first one to grow, and the first one to be wed as if she were nothing more than a neatly carved piece on a wooden board. her sister will suffer through a kinder fate. darling girl, who should've been called atlas, is victorie instead.
it's what she promises to bring; on every field, at every age. anointed and blessed, victory is her only prerogative. to outwit her tutors is one thing, to beset the whole court completely another. she triumphs at both.
she tastes her first betrayal when she's forced to join hands with a man that she could never love β yet splendour and conquest and eternal devotion she promises to find in the hands and bed of another.
so they take her name and give her another, and tell her that history is made only by those willing to seize it by the throat. this is a story within a story. history will absolve her.
her children are an act of rebellion. they come kicking and screaming, and how much they look just like her, and just as much as him β not like the man whose name they carry, but the one who watches over them in secret.
love or power? love and power is what she answers, for one doesn't go without the other. her head or heart? only time will tell.
