I’m the Youngest of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and I Tried to Tell You Something Was Wrong
Isn’t Anyone Else Concerned About All This?
I’m afraid, eldest sister, that I told you so. You’re the oldest of the twelve of us, of course, and you’re in charge. You obviously thought it would be no problem to keep it a secret that we were all spending our nights dancing with twelve mysterious princes in an underground castle hidden beneath a convenient trap door in our bedroom. Even when our shoes were dashed to pieces, from all the dancing. Even when our father noticed our shoes were dashed to pieces and wanted to know why. Even when our father started hiring nobles from neighboring kingdoms to find out what we were doing at night, and then straight up having those princes executed when they failed to figure out what we were doing because we actually drugged them so they fell asleep and missed out on the entire late night supernatural ball journey. You seemed pretty sure that we had it all covered.
So the night he hired the soldier to follow us, you thought once again, we had it all under control. But I told you something was off.
When I thought I heard branches snapping as we passed the trees with leaves of gold on our way to the underground ball, you told me I was imagining things. When I thought I heard branches snapping as we passed the trees with leaves of silver, you told me I was too sensitive. When I thought I heard branches snapping as we passed the trees with leaves of diamond and then saw a twig slowly levitate through the air, you told me I needed to adjust my medication. Of course, the fact that we were seeing trees with leaves of silver, gold and diamonds on the regular was apparently nothing at all to worry about.
It didn’t stop there. I felt something tug at my gown, and you said it was only a nail in the floor. In a stone cavern! Why would there be nails? When we reached the dark lake and our strange enchanted princes came in their boats to get us, I told you mine was heavy. Even though the extra weight made us paddle much more slowly than the rest of you, and we began to tip and slowly spin in circles with me at the top of the boat hanging on for dear life, all you said was “We’re all tired too, stop being dramatic and row.”
While we’re on the subject, who even were those princes? Why was there one for each of us, and why did they wait for us in a ballroom in a cave under our home? We talk about it like it’s a totally normal thing, and we just don’t want to get in trouble with our dad, the king, for sneaking out, but it’s not a normal thing! It is almost certainly a supernatural thing, but everyone else seemed very unconcerned about that whenever I tried to bring it up.
Just like when I swore someone was drinking my wine at the ball, and everyone else’s wine, but you said I must have had too much wine already.
And then when I suggested I saw the drunk soldier our father hired creeping along behind us with his hands tucked up to his chest like a velociraptor because he clearly thought he was still using the invisibility cloak he got from that beggar woman in the forest who was almost certainly some kind of secret enchantress, you said I was being a silly goose and that was the end of that.
Part of me was also glad to see him, knowing our father wouldn’t have him put to death because we knocked him out and he didn’t learn our secret. But maybe not that glad.
So now here we are, in the throne room, with the hungover soldier presenting our father the king with branches from the trees of gold, silver, and diamond, and a goblet from the ball, and telling him all about the underground castle and the dance that always ruins our shoes. And now he’s going to choose one of us to marry, and the beggar woman forest enchantress who is conveniently here now is going to put all the princes to sleep. Why our father the king didn’t just ask the enchantress to figure out what we were doing at night instead of hiring a bunch of wandering nobles and soldiers and peasant boys, I’ll never know.
I can say, eldest sister (and soon to be wife of the soldier who betrayed our secret) that you were absolutely right about one thing: us sneaking out at night was absolutely a bigger deal to everyone than the supernatural castle operating under our home. Maybe now that you know I’m right sometimes, we can figure out what’s going on down there.
