The Maid of the Cursed Princess

It hardly seemed an atmosphere conducive to continuing the tea party any further.

The soirée had concluded abruptly with the Crown Princess’s unilateral pronouncement and dismissal.

Yet Sibylla couldn’t even muster indignation at her arrogant demeanor, for her parting words hadn’t even registered as a proper farewell.

Without any prompting, Sibylla rose from her seat and fled the scene as if in retreat.

“Will you not attend her? It would be unwise to let the child you are meant to safeguard out of your sight.”

“…”

Nevertheless, Dorothy remained behind, silently regarding the Crown Princess with an owlish, penetrating stare.

“You are the Witch, are you not?”

“I don’t know what you speak.”

Undeterred by the Crown Princess’s feigned nonchalance, Dorothy’s unblinking gaze bored into her relentlessly.

“…I must say, Medea certainly doted upon you excessively for you to so brazenly invoke the name ‘Witch’ upon merely discerning it, with nary a shred of tact nor discretion.”

Unable to withstand that persistent scrutiny, the Crown Princess – no, the Witch – sighed as she donned the ivory witch’s hat that had been tucked beneath the table.

“Unfailingly addressing commoners like the Princess and chamberlain with honorifics, yet resorting to such discourteous informality with an elder many times your senior…”

“You have long since surpassed the age to concern yourselves with such trivialities, have you not? Both you and Éclair.”

With her signature peaked hat resembling Éclair’s (or her mother’s), coupled with her characteristic aura, the inscrutable ‘Crown Princess’ had reverted to her true, unvarnished self as the unremarkable, cantankerous Witch in the blink of an eye.

“So tell me, how did you see through my guise so swiftly?”

“Your eyes held the same sensation as Éclair’s.”

The jaded gaze of a world-weary, long-lived soul.

Beings so oversaturated by stimuli that they wander endlessly in pursuit of novel thrills to slake their parched yearning.

That was Éclair. That was the Witch.

“Your eyes were utterly vacant. Like a desiccated well, just as Éclair’s had been.”

Though she had changed somewhat since their first meeting, when Dorothy had encountered her, Éclair had been a hollowed husk ever chasing fleeting amusement, her very soul seeming thoroughly corrupted.

“Oho, I see why Medea took a liking to you. There’s something rather vexingly entertaining about that undercurrent that appeals to her, isn’t there?”

Chuckling merrily at Dorothy’s assessment, the Witch rose and approached her from across the table.

“You’re quite right, amusement is ultimately my sole driving force. Unlike that childish Medea who can be so easily charmed… I have an exceedingly high boiling point, so finding ways to stoke those simmering embers is quite the arduous affair, you see.”

The Witch’s amethyst eyes met Dorothy’s crimson ones – one pair glistening like the night sky yet utterly hollow within, the other obscured behind an impenetrable veil, appearing equally vacant.

“Every so often, embers that still smolder would emerge amidst human society and catch my intrigue. Even the person who became my husband was one such soul.”

“The Crown Prince hardly seems an amusing sort.”

“You would be correct, he is quite dreary. So dreadfully dull for a human that he paradoxically becomes entertaining.”

Crown Prince Charls’s demeanor had been utterly inhumane – it was uncertain if he even possessed the capacity for emotional sensations, his mechanistic coldness more akin to soulless machinery.

Yet that very aspect had piqued the Witch’s interest.

“Of all those I have borne witness to, that man most closely resembled Jason, that philandering so-called hero – save for his lack of promiscuity and ascetic lifestyle, along with an inability to conceal his true self from others.”

The era when Jason had lived was akin to myth, when myriad heroes had each woven their own epic saga. Thus the Witch, then called Aquileia but now Adelaide, had endlessly assumed new guises and identities seeking to recreate that same sense of awe.

“And Prince Louis, so diametrically opposed to his brother in every conceivable manner, proves equally entertaining in his own right.”

While not precisely as she had anticipated, the political strife within Orléans had provided sufficient spectacle, witnessing brothers pitted against one another in pursuit of their desires despite their ostensibly cordial ties having not completely deteriorated.

“But now… it has all become rather immaterial.”

Yet even that was inevitably bound to grow stale with repetition.

“For I have discovered far greater amusement.”

The Witch’s fingertips grazed Dorothy’s jawline.

“Even among witches, few spurn fables and tales of love as Medea did. Especially whimsical love stories akin to fairy tales.”

A seemingly perilous intimacy, yet Dorothy felt no seduction nor was swayed by the charged atmosphere.

It wasn’t for any disinterest or naivete regarding romance, but rather because the Witch’s eyes sparkled with the gleeful wonderment of a child discovering a new plaything.

“No matter how many times one indulges, such fanciful yarns never seem to lose their enchantment, do they?”

The target of her amorous allusions was unmistakable, even to the socially oblivious Dorothy.

“Thus I have decided to intervene, rather than dangle hints while feigning powerlessness like that coy Medea.”

“…It seems more an attempt to meddle than assist, from where I stand.”

“Does it, now?”

Withdrawing her hand from Dorothy’s jaw, the Witch returned to the table and deposited the feline that had been sitting there back onto the floor.

“I consider anchoring those who deny their own hearts and seek to flee a form of aid in its own right.”

“…Nonsense.”

The fairy tale romances witches coveted would likely never come to pass.

At least, that was Dorothy’s assessment, for no matter how fervently the witches might pray for it, daunting pragmatic obstacles loomed like an impregnable barrier.

“Come again.”

“I have no intentions of doing so unless the Princess graces this place once more.”

From the curt parting remark as the maid departed, the Witch discerned the unspoken meaning – ‘I don’t love her.’

Just when would that pathetic qualifier ‘not yet’ finally be appended to their bond?

Slowly or swiftly, it was inevitable that it would eventually.

“…Perhaps tormenting him directly might have held some amusement as well?”

Harrassing and taunting the one still retaining memories and vestiges of masculine identity from his former male self until he lost them entirely – that could have proven entertaining in its own right. And yet:

“No, no, that’s not it…”

Such paltry decadent indulgences were hardly necessary.

“For I believe you will undoubtedly…”

Provide far greater delight by unfolding a tale bound for a happy ending.

* * *

Locating Sibylla after her abrupt departure hadn’t been difficult, for her range of movement within the palace grounds was rather limited as of late.

While she had gradually increased her outdoor activities recently, the chamber she shared with Dorothy remained the locale where Sibylla spent most of her time confined within Hyperion’s palace walls.

“…Princess.”

As Dorothy had anticipated, Sibylla lay curled upon the bed in an armadillo-like ball, her body hunched inward.

“Princess, I have returned.”

“…”

Under normal circumstances, Sibylla would have promptly responded to Dorothy’s address unless she genuinely couldn’t hear.

Yet currently, Sibylla remained unresponsive, feigning slumber or unconsciousness.

“…I am well aware you are merely pretending to sleep, Princess. Have you forgotten who commanded me to share her bedchamber in Hyperion, and with whom?”

But such transparent ruses couldn’t deceive Dorothy, who had become intimately acquainted with Sibylla’s sleeping habits from lying beside her night after night.

“…Did you know? About her true identity?”

Ultimately abandoning her futile dissembling, Sibylla posed the question to Dorothy without even turning her head from where it lay buried in the pillow.

“No, I didn’t.”

Dorothy had been unaware of the Witch’s former name or the extent of her longevity.

The Witch’s tendency for spontaneously inventing new aliases on a whim, dismissing names as meaningless trivialities, had shaped Dorothy into someone utterly indifferent toward people’s names. Who could have anticipated that among her myriad appellations was one tantamount to anathema for the Orléans royals?

Her age was much the same – while Dorothy had sensed the Witch was considerably older than any ordinary human based on her childlike yet ageless appearance and mannerisms, she could never have foreseen it reaching back to the Kingdom’s foundational myths.

“…Yes, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

Sibylla accepted Dorothy’s explanation with a somber tone, for even if one was a parent’s child, it was unreasonable to expect a mere human unbounded by blood relation to comprehend the true nature and lifespan of an entity defying conventional wisdom.

“And yet… hatred doesn’t diminish so easily.”

Yet for Sibylla, whose life had been utterly ruined by the Witch Medea’s curse, she could never regard her or her adoptive child Dorothy with anything but revulsion.

Was she not the one responsible for this withered, cursed form, for inflicting such unspeakable torment upon her?

…And yet.

“…Even so, I can’t bring myself to hate you.”

Sibylla’s heart, already harboring love for Dorothy, found itself caught between two diametrically opposed sentiments. Unable to reconcile love and hatred, her emotions had ground to a halt like a rudderless ship adrift upon the open sea.

“If only, if only…”

If only she could have utterly forsaken that fleeting joy to embrace pure hatred, or conversely bury the past to fully embrace love.

How much simpler that would have been.

“…Give me time.”

Sibylla required time. Time to collect her thoughts and sort through her turbulent emotions.

“…Yes, I understand.”

Perceiving Sibylla’s intentions, Dorothy exited the chamber of her own volition, not at her master’s command.