Autonomy is a Virtue

Through the closed door, I can still hear the men. I release all the air in my lungs as slowly as possible while waiting outside. I continue pushing until I can feel tears start to swell from my eyes and am forced to take another breath. The bundles of papers overflow in my arms and spill out one by one as I catch my breath. A knight stares at me, finding the right moment to open the door so I turn away from him to face the wall.

Mulling over how such oddly shaped bricks can fit together. Agonizing over how I, as a princess, looks in this knight’s eyes. I can hear the footsteps of someone coming so I hurriedly try to pick up the fallen papers off of the floor. I stand up and can feel the breath of someone on my neck.

“Let me,” Idris quietly whispers.

I face the wall again and stretch out the papers to the side of me without letting him see my face. The door opens and I can hear Idris being greeted in joyous conversations. There is a good guarantee that the knight is still waiting on me. I turn around to see that the knight has been watching me the whole time. I’m sure he witnessed a good show. A bird’s eye view of a cowardice 5 ’10 woman is sure likely to be great entertainment. Facing the door, I stand long enough to let my eyes disengage a bit before nodding at him.

Shoulders back, chest out, and with a content face, I walk in. The room is covered in men chattering about nothing. My smile fades a bit as I watch the long row of men leading to my spot. Then I stop in place to see that the sun shines on my seat without missing an inch.

“This little joke sure is draining,” I fretted about in my head.

I could be blind and still feel the warmth emitting from my chair. This must be my punishment. I let my feet direct me towards my hell. On my way, the knights greet me with low bending bows. The nobles choose to greet with 5-degree head nods. A princess only being greeted with a slight tilt of the head, it’s funny. Even funnier that they wouldn’t act this way in front of my father. Closest to my seat are the elites. They continue their quiet conversations without interruption. I don’t like formal greetings anyway. I take my seat at the head of the table. As usual, no one has even taken a glance at the papers Idris passed out for me.

The room looks full of life. How nice it would be if I could simply join in. As I look around, I’m blinded with every turn to my right. Closest to the ceiling are a row of windows that are never covered. I shade my eyes and look out the few windows that the sun hasn’t taken over. These windows protect nothing. There is no curtain for any sense of privacy. There are no true bounds within these walls and it’s scary. This room can always be perceived from the outside. It’s tiring to have to be so vigilant. There is not a moment of rest.

“Your Royal Highness, how is your father?” Asks a knight.

“Fine, Sir.” Listlessly, I nod to him.

He bows before leaving and I can’t catch a glimpse of his face. I can only see that he had black hair. He must be new; I can’t seem to recognize his voice among the knights. Was that the same man who opened the door? He likely just wanted a second viewing. While deep in thought, I look up to see Idris staring at me. He seems worried, his eyes follow the knight. Maybe I’m being too distracted.

I force my mind to quiet and announce the beginning of the meeting. Immediately, the knights of the army and some elites cease their conversations to listen. The nobles loudly continue their banter. Idris takes his seat beside me, and these same nobles quickly hush. Idris has no royal title, but they treat him as if he’s King. It’s pitiful. Their desire to be dominated by a man is a true fetish for these men. It’s fascinating how they don’t see the irony in it. They are true hypocrites.

My seat is the King’s seat but, to them, this seat is only honorable when it seats my father. No matter how much of myself I give to fulfill my father’s role, it is never enough. This seat has tormented me for three years and I’ve let it. The shining light on me might be aiding in my torment. Maybe I’m being burned alive for being a specimen to royalty. I know, as said by the faith, the citizens would love that.

The council meeting commences. Certainly, this is merely a time for the nobles to vent and whine. No wonder they don’t want me here, I’m able to see how pathetic they are. They repent for the problems they, in fact, created. I’m simply here to host a gathering that lets the nobles voice their man-made frustrations. The meetings can be rather repetitive because of this. My only motivation for attending is out of concern for plans on maintaining the well-being of our citizens.

To pass time, I entertain myself by adding to my collection of notes. My notes cover the personal habits I study in people. How they show their dominance. How they utilize their seduction as manipulation. How they invoke fear for their own gain. These meetings are the best times to witness a competition among men for dominance. They are one of the sole reasons my notes have flourished over the years. In this meeting alone, I’ve seen that many men like to louden their voices. Others choose to isolate their eye contact with their selected followers. Some have a habit of lightening their delivery to attract others. Few prefer to just remain quiet and listen. My notes are never ending. Especially, when they use these same practices in moments of insecurity, anxiety, or pure dishonesty.

I remember when I didn’t selfishly use this time for my hobby. I relentlessly tried to lead as my father would, but dead eyes can take a toll on a person. When I truly saw these eyes in all the men, I was left paralyzed. Three years have passed, I’m now seventeen, and I haven’t forgotten those eyes. For my sake, all I do is appease the men by saying the repeating phrase, “I will have him look into it.” While assessing the room, the General of the Army, Jason, locks eye contact with me. Idris taps on my leg, and I give him an assuring head nod. Idris steps in the middle of the men’s therapy session and they all turn to listen. He swiftly sits back down.

“The General of the Army has something to say,” I announce.

“In days’ time, our knights will return to the south outskirts,” Jason warns.

“Why are we being given short notice on your return,” asks a noble.

Jason remains silent. The noble hits the table for Jason’s attention, almost as if he were a child. Throwing his chair back makes me chuckle at the similarity. I cover my mouth in shock at my outburst.

“Although not in the same manner, I would also like to know what calls you to return in such urgency.” I wait for his answer.

The noble scowls at me before fixing himself up from his tantrum. His childish behavior is replaced by the eye contact of a predator. He locks eyes on me and simply watches. Jason clears his throat and I direct my attention to him, yet I can still see the noble in the corner of my eye. He is analyzing me but with a smirk on his face now. It’s unsettling so I remain looking at Jason. Idris grabs my hand from underneath the table. The noble’s smirk becomes a smile and my hand flinches. Idris looks to the noble and quickly does the noble turn his head to Jason. Idris squeezes my hand and I squeeze his back before he hesitantly slides his away.

“Deanna has made a name for herself in an impromptu battle with them,” Jason says with conviction in his voice. “The citizens took Deanna as a threat from the royal kingdom.”

“Deanna being used to employ a threat? We have been trying to give the south outskirts the benefit of the doubt even after the announcement of their revolt,” my right begins to twitch, and my blinks become rapid.

“This is why we should have just taken away their citizenship from the beginning,” the predatory noble proclaims.

Most of the nobles laugh in agreement and begin to make jokes on what Deanna could have possibly done to them to cause such an uproar.

All I can do is sigh, “I will make time to speak with Deanna.”

The men continuing their jokes over me gives me a throbbing headache. I hold my head in my hands, but the headache only gets worse. I can’t sit like this for too long, they will notice. I look up, fix my posture, and sit in silence. The men are still laughing, coming up with preposterous scenarios about Deanna. Nobles can be so barbaric to the point that it’s shameful. I clench my jaw to ease my growing tension. With my mood heavy, I announce the end of the council meeting.

Idris turns towards me and opens his mouth slightly before he is interrupted by two laughing men walking towards us. He stands up from his seat before the men get any closer and redirects them away. He gives me a small bow before leaving and the men follow suit with a head nod. Jason and his men bow to me as their salutations. I have no recollection of when the elites left. I’m the last person in the room.

“Think of mother,” I repeated in my head.

Instead of letting my mind ruminate on ill thoughts, I compose myself. Like my mother, I should appear unfazed by the men. Maybe the shining light on my seat was actually her. A radiant light in the afterlife but a shadow in her walking life, how ironic. I wish I could have learned more from her for days like this one. I force myself to speed up my composing and go directly to my father’s chambers.

Before turning the corner, I stop and look out the window. I take my usual deep breath, releasing all the air in my lungs before going in for another. I try to repeat my breath, but a knight’s armor disrupts me as the sound comes closer. I wave my paper a bit to signal to the knight that I’m here, yet the armor still draws nearer. I don’t want the knight to discover a 17-year-old that still embodies a child. When I finally step out, the knight stops and returns to his post amongst the other 20 knights stationed in the King’s Hall. I can feel the droning stares that are etched behind my back as I walk by.

It feels like with every step a dagger drives deeper into my back, yet I must continue to stand tall pushing against it. Breathing becomes hard as so does standing. The tension in the room is filled with persistent eyes but not just from the knights. The walls are covered in portraits of all the royal families before us, each family member had their own deathly stare. Each portrait is bordered with stainless steel that was chased with dozens of our protectors, anacondas. The anacondas swarm the borders, and their eyes are unnerving.

“Why does this hall have so many eyes?” I question myself.

Everything is watching me, but I don’t dare look back to acknowledge it. My father’s door is plain but sturdy with metal being embedded into various parts of it. The comparison of his hall to his door is funny, it’s unfitting. Every door of the castle has more character than his simple door. Be that as it may, his door is the heaviest and can’t be opened without strengthened assistance.

Stepping past the guards, I knock on the door and wait for a response. The room seems flooded in silence, so I direct the guards to proceed in opening the doors. A guard follows the order but is grabbed by another who seems in distress. I look away from the door handle to find myself looking into a mirror. Pitch black eyes take hold of my consciousness and seemingly, I forget the presence of their owner. I regain myself and see the knight who asked of my father’s health, who witnessed my miserable state.

The guard shakes the mirror knight’s hand off.

I stare at the hand the knight now clutches in front of himself, “It might be helpful to learn this routine.”

The mirror guard helps the other in opening the door and I quietly let myself in. I prepare what I can without waking my father up. I can see that he has written an abundance of notes in his time of being bedridden. Searching for his reading glasses takes a bit of extra effort since they lay under his spread-out notes. The shuffling of papers on his desk is followed by the long creaks of his bed. He wakes up and makes an attempt to sit up with much hardship.

“The meeting was a bit much today.”

“What did the men have to say?” asked father, he still carried a scratch in his throat.

I hand him his reading glasses and a record of today’s meeting, “The men took the citizen’s revolt as a joke.”

“The revolt is a shocking enough thing for the men to laugh.”

“The villages no longer trust the power of your rule and it’s something to laugh at?”

“That’s not possible,” He firmly vouches, flipping through the records. “I am their protector.”

I turn to the fireplace and jokingly mutter, “Defense, every time.”

The sound of him flipping through papers stops. Although I can tell he heard me, what I said was not wrong. As a Kingdom, we have not been acting in our full power. He must be aware of it. Truly, I want to take his silence as his agreeance. I turn back and see that he is eyeing the papers on his desk.

“How humored were the men?”

“They walked out laughing! Is Deanna’s battle so funny?”

“Deanna’s battle?”

“She came off as threatening and a battle took place,” I calmly answer.

Staring off at a distance, his eyebrows drop, and he leans forward.

“I’ve already set intention to do so.”

We proceed on as we usually would. Reserved only for me, I sit by the fireplace on the floor and open my journal on the people. While he writes his suggestions on the records, I write down my interpretations of other’s behavior. The room is filled with the sound of paper flipping and pens scratching on cotton paper. Father breaks my concentration.

“And the elites?”

I scratch harder and more quickly, letting a minute pass by.

“No matter your avoidance, the elites share our power. You must take notice of them.”

“I’ll take my leave,” I knock on the door and am left in agony waiting for it to be opened from the outside. The moment the door is slightly ajar, I swiftly leave the room.

My father’s neutrality is what has maintained our peace, but it has also allowed others to walk over us. Now, our Kingdom only knows how to obey and compromise when we shouldn’t have to. It’s my father’s choice to remain using neutrality. He is not bombarded with the consequences of his choice. He lives as a King while others are oppressed because of his fear. It’s maddening.

The citizens, who make up most of our Kingdom, desire freedom but aren’t allowed to it. A freedom to live lavishly. A freedom to live without the necessity of wonder. My father has these freedoms. In fact, Deanna is acting in an ungrateful knowing that she has the same. Freedom is what makes the person. Simply, it divides the advantageous from the poor. Luckily or unluckily, autonomy grants the feeling of most forms of freedom. Autonomy determines the quality of a person, as well as the prosperity of a Kingdom. Our home, the Lapsarian Kingdom, will one day be known for its autonomy again, at least this is my hope.

Our home depends upon the Delan Kingdom for food and resources. Because our only valuable resources are metals, we don’t have enough sufficient land to be cultivators. Nonetheless, our citizens are adequately fed which can be attributed to our Army of Knights. Our knights who excel in combat have proved to be useful. We are able to trade their skill for resources and food to feed the citizens.

Lapsarian and Delan trade resources for skill as long as we fight in Delan’s war with a third-party kingdom. Although this trade brings substantial benefit to us, it does come with its many other important risks. Our main concern is the chance of a greater war coming onto us. Through the decades, our army has been known to be the best amongst kingdoms of the continent in terms of skill, so most are cautious of our actions. If we were to openly pick sides and join this war, then there would be great backlash that we can’t afford to take on. We must keep our knights’ identities anonymous when they participate in Delan’s war. However, the south outskirts have put the knights’ identities at risk.

The south outskirt villages have the only known people to proficiently craft quality weapons using the Kingdom’s metal. Our metals are sturdy and unbreakable and contribute to our army’s strength. Each one has greater qualities than the last. Still, the metals have mass difficulty in molding and require craftsmen of expertise. After great exploration, people of the south outskirts were tasked with creating valuables using such metals. The knights now have an abundance of quality weapons to keep up with their talent.

This long-serving interaction between our knights and the craftsmen has been beneficial, not only to the Kingdom, but especially to the people of the south outskirts. We prioritized consideration over their share when we received our compensation from Delan in the forms of money, medicine, extra distributions of food, and anything else that maintained their health. Yet, they have taken up the idea that they are living off scraps. Citizens of this village believe it is best to openly join the war if their quality of life can be improved. They decorated our weapons in a way that separates our knights from Delan’s through symbols. An identified distinction between the knights could cause an uproar from other Kingdoms. Now, there is controversy over the people of the south outskirts keeping their citizenship after acts considered to be terrorism.

After such accusations, they have started a revolt against my father’s rule. They refuse to make any more weapons unless used to openly join the war. Father has used his best efforts to convince them to change their minds, yet they profusely refuse. Most of the knights who have background in these villages have stepped down from their positions as the Kingdom’s knights to honor their family’s wishes. This new battle having Deanna, a princess, in front headlines only adds to the problem. The reality of these growing problems is that we are living in constant compromise.

A dim lite hall leads to my study. There are no windows or portraits, only lanterns hanging from the walls. It’s calming. I walk into my study and sit at my desk located in the near corner of the room, facing the door. I only have to be aware of two angles rather than four. I close my eyes for a few minutes and smile to myself. This moment feels so good that I don’t want to get back to work yet, I still do. My serenity is obstructed by the slow opening of my door. Idris trying not to bring attention to himself does everything but so. He makes more noise than intended to by trying to quietly close the door.

“Cala?” He rubs his hands on the sides of thighs while inching towards me.

I glance at him and continue my work.

“Have you spoken with your sister?”

I sigh and hold back.

Idris gently pushes my work out of reach, “You seemed tired of the men.”

A light chuckle escapes, “You did well.” I pull my work back in front of me.

He stares at me and plays with the edge of the desk.

I grab his hand and squeeze it, “You did well.” I slowly slide my hand down to his fingertips and let go.

Idris, in a more uplifting mood, takes a seat across the room on the cushioned windowsill. I try to return to my work, but I can see him in the corner of my eye. He is watching me, looking at my hands, my lips, my eyes that are staring back every so often as he focuses on me. His stare makes me paranoid at what new feature he might choose to focus on. His eyes light up a little the more conscious I am of him.

“Cala, rest for the night,” he beckons me to come sit beside him. He whispers without the room having a second of silence, “Calaaa.”

I roll my eyes with a smile at how ridiculous he sounds and give in to sit beside him. He’s staring more intensely. I open the window for fresh air and some satisfaction of escape. Idris attempts to close the window, but something flies in. A ladybug lands on his hand.

“Is my wish finally being granted?!” Idris looks up to the skies with his dazzling smile.

“Shouldn’t it land on the woman’s hand?”

He gently picks up the ladybug and places it on my hand. I stifle my laughter, only giving my attention to his gift. I glance up and see that his smile fades. He stares at the ladybug as if it were the knight from earlier. I brush the ladybug out the window and close it. Idris regains himself and escorts me out with a smile.

Ever since our societal debut, his jealous habits have grown more frequent and are done without fail. He keeps me company on most days, always nearby. I’m surprised that I don’t think of him as an annoyance like when we were younger. Our first meeting was by the dock seven years ago on one of my and mother’s outings. He promised my hand in marriage to himself after the first few moments of laying our eyes upon one another. He promised my hand in marriage to himself. It’s absurd when I still think of it. I remember being repulsed but a little intrigued. It’s a shame to see that he is more sensible now. Though he still does talk about our future marriage with great assurance in his voice.

“The ladybug will be waiting for our good news,” Idris deeply bows to me before he takes farewell.

“Tsk,” I close the door. My cheeks are tired.

A stack of letters awaits on my desk. It’s exciting to be able to see all the different stories I get to read this week. Letters from different regions of the world can be taxing to read but it’s nice getting a glimpse of other people’s adventures. For hours, I read and reply through the letters until I can’t fight my yawning anymore. I start to bask in the moments my eyes waver and fall. I choose to stop writing for the night.

I slip off my ivory dress that is adorned with floral lace. This ivory is much better than white. Clear white is too “pure” of a color. I wouldn’t dare let anyone see me in white. I would avoid any shade of white, but the color is fitting for a princess. I kick my dress out of the way and look for my scarf. After searching for 10 minutes, I find it underneath my bed. It takes a bit of effort to tie up my mid back length mini twists.

When I was younger, I hated my hair. I wanted nothing to do with it. My black hair contrasted the lightness of my skin. It was a flame for the moths to surround but the moths did not just gather around. They condemned me for not being fit for royalty. However, Deanna was not treated the same.

“She was divinely protected,” said everyone.

They just knew she would make an excellent Queen. I remember sitting outside for hours on days letting the sun beam on me. I would be drenched in sweat and nearly faint when Deanna told me to go inside. Every time she did, I could see how much her skin shined in the sun. That made me want to stay even longer. By our faith, only the darkest of skin is blessed for royalty. One’s shade makes all the difference.

I straighten my scarf a bit and my hand brushes past my ear. I look at the floor and can see my earring lay in the rolls of my dress. I take my other earring out and put them both in my jewelry box of pearls.

Mother gave me my first set of pearls. They were earrings. She smiled so brightly when she put them in my hands. The whites of her teeth dazzled when she put them in for me. It was her birthday but all she wanted to see was how pretty I would look with pearls. After putting them in we sat by the fireplace as usual. She always sat in her chair, and I always chose to sit on the floor. For hours, she would go on and on with her many stories. Stories of her time in the castle were the best. I loved how confident she sounded. How full of life the Kingdom sounded when it was seen from the top of the castle. The Kingdom looked beautiful in her eyes. The story of the Kingdom was told almost every night. In the sanctuary of her room, I found a love for the stories of Kingdoms and a love for pearls. She doted on me often, but I think the pearls were her prettiest gift.

In her last years, mom confined herself to her room. The last time she came out from that room was Deanna’s societal debut, she died that night. Our sanctuary was now gone. I had to look for my own stories of Kingdoms since I couldn’t hear them from her. I had to buy my own pearls since I no longer received them from her. I miss her. Her stories made me realize one thing. Like her, I want to have my own stories to share.

My first story will be the one of me becoming Queen.