Oh, Savanna

I always pictured Washington to be the type of city where the moment you cross the border there would be a large welcome sign with a picture of a smiling sun with sunglasses, or something completely misleading like that.
I had moved here to escape my past, my family, the expectations people had set out for me and all the responsibility I had never asked for, bur rather forced onto me. I had always grown up following all the rules, doing what my country expected of me. I had grown up believing that all I was meant to do was lead my kingdom, that I was meant to be the queen that my mother, Ruth, was. She ruled with an iron fist and a heart of pure gold, which, when push comes to shove, caused people to love her strong personality and her forgiving heart.


I love my mother, I used to idealise her. She was the sheer image of what a lady should be, always extending a loving hand to not only me, her daughter, but her people who she considered her very own children. My father, the king, Christian, was always away, signing declarations and peace treaties between our neighbouring countries. My father was always absent but, unlike my mother, he was my best friend. I guess I was always a ‘daddy’s girl’, due to my lack of friends (being locked away behind palace walls limited my company) and my lack of any siblings, my parents relied a lot on gifts to compensate for my loneliness.
I never enjoyed any of the gifts they had bought me, but I pretended to love them for my parents sake. I sought comfort in my books and my daydreams of a world outside the palace; but I only cared about pleasing them, after all, it is what a princess does; gives up her moments of joy to make other people happy. Being a princess is selfless and that’s a simple fact.


When I was a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to be my mother, be who she was and do what she did. I saw no other life beyond that, that was before I met him. He changed my narrow-minded view of how life should be and moulded me into a free-thinker, he let me show my rebellious side to the rules set out for me. He showed me that there was so much more to life that just following the rules. He not only taught me so much about the person I was and the person I was meant to be, but he saved me from so many tragic events. Events that I found myself reliving day in and day out.

He wasn’t only a prince in disguise or a hero I was so grateful to have. He was my first and true love.


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Notes