You have been married to the prince for two years and for two years you have been [[bleeding|1]].
You have been married to the prince for two years and for two years you have been dancing. Courtly dances, proper dances. Dances that a princess should know. He loves you when you dance the right way. When you dance like she did. Your feet hurt. Your feet hurt. [[You are a good daughter.|2]]
"You won't need to walk when you're queen."
Your mother wasn't wrong.
But you will have to dance. And you never could dance as well as she did. [[Even before your mother cut your heel off.|3]]
<shudder>A mother is not a surgeon. She does not know how to saw through bone the right way. You wonder if the marrow is still open to air. You are afraid to peel back the scar tissue to look. You are a good daughter. [[You are a good daughter.|5]]</shudder>
A good daughter does not complain about the pain. A good daughter does not mourn the part of her that was cut off. A good daughter does not hate her <shudder>perfect, perfect</shudder> husband.
You are a good daughter.
You are, you are, [[you are.|6]]
At night, you lie there awake and you try to remember how to breathe. What it's like to breathe without pain.
The dark shape of your husband lies quiet and still next to you. You know [[he doesn't sleep well, either.|7]]
He is kind. He is wonderful. He does not love you. Not when you aren't dancing the right way. Because you're ugly, and you know this. Because you can't <i>really</i> dance the right way. Because you aren't the woman he fell in love with.
But despite all this, he is attentive and sweet. He is trying his best. He is the kind of husband any woman would want.
<shudder>So why can't you?
So why can't you?
[[So why can't you?|8]]
</shudder>
You are a good daughter. One day you will be a good queen. A good mother.
<shudder>Won't you?
Won't you?
[[Won't you?|9]]</shudder>
At night, you lie there awake and you think about what you are. What you will be.
What else you can be, maybe.
Sometimes.
[[When you're weak.|10]]
<<nobr>>
A
<<cycle "$good" autoselect>>
<<option "↲good">>
<<option "↲bad">>
<</cycle>>
<<cycle "$daughter" autoselect>>
<<option "↲daughter">>
<<option "↲sister">>
<<option "↲wife">>
<<option "↲queen">>
<<option "↲mother">>
<<option "↲stepsister">>
<</cycle>>
<</nobr>>
<<button "Confirm" "11">><</button>>
<<nobr>>
<<if $good is "↲good" and $daughter is "↲daughter">>[[It is all you know how to be.|12]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲good" and $daughter is "↲sister">>[[You barely know what that means.|13]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲good" and $daughter is "↲wife">>[[If he can try, so can you.|14]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲good" and $daughter is "↲queen">>[[It is all your mother ever wanted for you.|15]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲good" and $daughter is "↲mother">>[[You will need to be one.|16]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲good" and $daughter is "↲stepsister">>[[Maybe it's not too late to try.|17]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲bad" and $daughter is "↲daughter">>[[You are bleeding. You are bleeding. You are bleeding.|18]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲bad" and $daughter is "↲sister">>[[You worry you've never been anything else.|19]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲bad" and $daughter is "↲wife">>[[You can't help it. You hate him.|20]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲bad" and $daughter is "↲queen">>[[You never wanted to be one.|21]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲bad" and $daughter is "↲mother">>[[The very idea makes you want to rip your own throat out.|22]]<</if>>
<<if $good is "↲bad" and $daughter is "↲stepsister">>[[It is all you know how to be.|23]]<</if>>
<</nobr>>
<shudder>A good daughter.</shudder>
Your mother loves you. You should know this, and you do. You do.
Life is not much better as a noble's wife, and a queen has power. A slice of your heel is worth all that. There are girls who would give so much more to have a fraction of what you have now.
Your whole life, this is all your mother has ever wanted for you. A slim chance at contentness. After all, happiness is far too much out of the question for something like you.
[[As if the wrongness had been carved into you where everyone can see.|12a]]
<shudder>A good sister.</shudder>
What does that mean, when it comes to something like this? Have you been a good sister? You had followed so carefully in her steps, did what she did.
Literally, sometimes. You'd been the one to hold her down when your mother had first bought out that cleaver, sharpened to gleaming. Knew the shape of her screams and how similar they'd sounded to your own when she'd held you down in turn.
Sometimes you can still feel the shape of her nails digging into your shoulder. Had she whispered an apology, the blood pooling in her shoes staining the edges of your gown, or had you just been [[delirious with pain?|13a]]
<shudder>A good wife.</shudder>
He doesn't love you. But that's ok. You can't love him, either. That doesn't mean you can't be a good wife the way he is a good husband.
Princes rarely marry for love. Girls like you can't. In a way, it's a match made in heaven.
The question is what you tell him. The question is what you can tell him. The truth is out of the question if you want to live. Not as long as she's still out there, the girl he really loves. Not as long as he's a prince.
Even the kindest prince has an army and an executioner at his beck and call.
[[It's out of the question. Isn't it?|14a]]
<shudder>A good queen.</shudder>
You can be this, can't you? Your mother has been raising you for it your whole life.
How to speak to people. How to sneer at them first so that they don't look down on you. How to raise your brow in just the right way so that they can't keep their eyes on you. So that they can't see all the things wrong with you.
[[The only problem is that you have to dance.|15a]]
<shudder>A good mother.</shudder>
You think about it. What the king and courtiers and nobles are expecting from you. It was the reason they even had all those balls in the first place, wasn't it?
You think about it. A squirming bundle in your arms. Maybe you could get it over with. Leave it with the nurses and the maids. It might all be over then, you'll have excuses. You won't have to dance anymore.
You think about it. His touch. The prince. <shudder>Handsome and lovely and kind.</shudder> And you. Ugly and deceitful and cruel, the scars on your heels still bleeding. Still bleeding.
[[Just the thought makes you feel ill.|16a]]
<shudder>A good stepsister.</shudder>
You never were one.
Even the first time you saw her, when she had been thirteen and you fourteen. That had been when you'd first learnt how to smile at someone's face in public and kick them in the shin right after. All the skills you'd need to be a queen, if your sister failed.
When you were seventeen, you no longer had to pretend. Could do what your sister did and more. Could be cruel and awful. Make someone else hurt.
And she'd still been so <shudder>nice</shudder> the whole time. Singing while she cleaned. Talking to the birds and to the mice. It made you so, so angry. How happy she could be.
Like she had something you never had. Something good and right right where you were [[rotted through.|17a]]
<shudder>A bad daughter.</shudder>
For so long your mother has trained you into sho she wanted you to be. And what now? Now that she has her big house and servants tending to her every need and all the luxuries she could ever want. When was the last time you'd even seen her?
She'd been so good at making you into everything she'd wanted. Been so good at pretending that everything she did was for you. And what now? Left you in the arms of some prince and fucked off into luxury.
You'd wanted to be a good daughter. You really had. [[You really had.|18a]]
<shudder>A bad sister.</shudder>
The thought comes to you suddenly. An epiphany of the ugly kind.
You're a bad sister. Aren't you?
You still remember holding her down as your mother had bought out that cleaver. Remember her changing her mind far too late, while the blade was halfway through her flesh, metal scraping against bone.
It doesn't matter. She got found out. Flinched one too many times or bled too much. Your perfect perfect sister. Perfectly composed, all the way up until the one moment it mattered.
Had you been secretly glad, when she'd stumbled back indoors with the blood pouring from her foot and [[tears ruining the perfect make-up on her cheeks?|19a]]
<shudder>A bad wife.</shudder>
There are secrets you will never be able to tell him, the chunk of your heel rotting in the garden or burnt to ashes being the least of them. Not if you want to live, at least.
Sometimes you think you might not always want to.
He is kind. He is good. He is so, so sad it makes you desperately, howlingly angry.
His <shudder>ugly ugly</shudder> wife that he doesn't want. Stuck with his sadness. How long before that turns to rage? How long before that rage turns on <shudder>you?</shudder>
[[You are waiting for the other shoe to drop.|20a]]
<shudder>A bad queen.</shudder>
Who are you kidding? You were never really the one that your mother had been training to rule. That had always been your sister.
You were second. Backup at best, scrap at worst. Your sister's mirror, kept around just in case.
How do you rule? How do you look all those people in the eye - all those subjects and citizens - and pretend to be [[something you're not?|21a]]
<shudder>A bad mother.</shudder>
You can't be. You won't be. You would rather tear your own throat out.
You don't want to touch him. You don't want his hands on you. And the very thought of holding that small, squirming bundle, that squealing child makes you want to puke your heart out.
You think you might understand it now, the look your mother sometimes got in her eyes, looking at you.
[[But you'd tried to be a good daughter, hadn't you?|22a]]
<shudder>A bad stepsister.</shudder>
Of course. This is what you have always been.
The ugly stepsister. The evil stepsister. The villain and foil. There to fawn over the prince with such repulsive desperation that it drives him right out of the ballroom into the garden where she's waiting. No matter what you want, you will always fawn over the prince.
You play the role, [[you're good at it.|23a]][[Weak. Weak. Weak.|10]]
<center>[[↻|0]]</center>
<shudder>Sometimes you wonder what she did to the bit of you she cut off. Good daughter without her Achilles heel. Cut off the part that was wrong and buried it in the garden. Burnt it in the ashes of that great ugly chimney. Smouldering cinders of flesh and bone. Good daughter. Good daughter. When you bleed through the stockings you have to hide it from your husband. One night you bled right through the bedding and stained the mattress. [[Even the maids couldn’t help you then.|4]]</shudder>
You would not be where you are without her, and you know this. And you know that she is not the perfect mother but you were never the perfect daughter either.
You still remember the gritty smudge of cinders between your fingers, the one time you'd been curious enough to touch your finger to the exposed red brick of the chimney.
But none of it really matters. You are good at this. You are good at being a daughter. Her daughter.
This is who you are. [[This is all you have ever been.|24]]
Courtly dances, proper dances. Dances that a queen should know. He can at least pretend he loves you when you dance the right way. When you dance like she did. Your feet hurt. Your feet hurt.
But your mother taught you how to do this too, how to smile through the pain. How to bleed without anyone seeing.
You were raised for this, [[even if you didn't know it at the time.|24]]
Your sister. One step before you in both cruelty and determination. A better daughter than you ever were. Someone who wanted to marry the prince in the right way.
You don't think you were ever friends with her. Not really. Not beyond the superficial. The being one step behind and inseperable. The learning to be cruel in the same way.
Where is she now? Married to some noble? You hope she doesn't have to walk. Doesn't have to dance.
The sister of a princess has more options. More power. Surely. But you haven't seen her in so long.
<shudder>You miss her.</shudder>
No matter what you were, [[you can be sisters again, can't you?|24]]
Arent there things you can do?
More than just lying here night after night. Still and silent and cold. There are ways you can claw out some sense of happiness. With teeth and nails if you have to.
Maybe just for him. It's the least you can do. Or maybe for the both of you.
He is <shudder>kind and attentive and perfect.</shudder> And he knows you now. He knows the way you cringe at his touch. Maybe he knows what's wrong with you. If he has, he hasn't said anything.
He is kind. [[Isn't he?|24]]
Or maybe you could do the opposite. Make something up. You're good at that, and you know he is more than ready to accept any excuse.
Find a child. From some noble household with a distant relation. Any ugly line you can draw. These people are obsessed with blood.
There are border skirmishes, sometimes. Ruined families and children left behind. The kinds of things that happen, in a kingdom. Maybe you could even help someone in the process. What would it be like, to be kind to a child like that?
Could you be a good mother? Would you even know how?
[[You were a good daughter, weren't you?|24]]
Is it too late to change?
Is it too late to be something else? Oh, you know all too well the cruel, ugly thing inside you. The animal that wants to hurt and tear. And the same way you have that awfulness inside you, she has something good.
Him too, you think. You see it sometimes, glimmers of it through the sadness he tries to hide.
Where is she now? Still in that big old manor your mother and your sister no longer live in? The last lingering remnants she has of the life she'd lived before all this. Maybe she is happier now, with her mice and her birds and her freedom. Maybe you should write her and ask.
[[Maybe it's not too late.|24]]
What now? You lie awake and you ache. And you ache. You dance and you ache. She hadn't cared what bone she was sawing through. What marrow she was exposing to the air. Just needed to get it all done fast enough that the prince didn't get suspicious.
Didn't even take the time to bandage your foot or stem the bleeding. It was a wild stroke of luck that the prince didn't notice, even as you disguised your sobs as joy. Even as you stained that glass shoe crimson.
Your beautiful, cruel mother, and her two ugly, cruel daughters.
[[Her meal tickets. Whatever she needed to do.|24]]
Do you even know what it means to be a sister? All you'd ever had was competition and jealousy. Knowing she had been exactly what your mother needed you to be.
Knowing that whatever was ugly and cruel inside her was still normal. Was ugly and cruel in a clean way. Wasn't wrong the way that rotting thing inside your chest is.
Where is she now? Married off to some noble? Does she have to walk? To dance? Do her feet ache the same way yours do? Does she wake up screaming the same way you do? You think about it sometimes, and you don't know if what you feel is guilt or schadenfreude.
[[Maybe you don't even know what it means to be a sister.|24]]
You learn to push the limits. You learn how to be unreasonable at all the wrong times. How to be stubborn and angry and nothing at all like the woman he fell in love with.
If you push him far enough first, you'll never have to keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He will never love you. [[And you will never love him.|24]]
Dressed all in gold and jewels. Pure and lovely and shining. Makeup on a pig.
They'll see right through you. They'll have to. It would be impossible not to. But it would be far too late by that point. You'll be their queen.
A queen nobody wants. Not your husband, not your citizens. Not your father-in-law. You can already see the regret in his eyes when he looks at you.
He's wondering if they did the right thing, forcing him to marry you when he didn't want to.
[[Nobody ever asked what you wanted to be.|24]]
The ugly, trembling thing in your chest. The horrible, toothy thing lurking behind your ribcage. Would your child inherit that? Did your mother pass it down to you?
No, probably not. She'd loved your father. Had loved your stepsister's father too, maybe. Had been capable of it.
Whatever she is, you are so much worse. Would the cycle continue?
[[Is it normal to feel hate like this?|24]]
A backstory. You were never meant to be this. This blood was always yours. You will never stop bleeding because that's where you were when she found her happily ever after.
You dream of it sometimes. You don't tell anyone. Every time you close your eyes you know exactly what it feels like when birds peck them out. Every time you dance you're just glad your heels aren't touching red-hot iron.
This is who you are. [[This is all you have ever been.|24]]