Then a thought came back to her which made the color rise in her cheek and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little body and lifted her head.
“Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.”
Old-Fashioned Fruitcake
Oh this is lovely!! I love those ‘prince and the pauper’ stories! I think I wrote one when I was a bit younger, the whole ‘Princess escapes the castle to get out of an arranged marriage’ troupe. She changes her mind, but when she attempts to return to the castle, someone (evil) with shapeshifting abilities takes her place and she has no way to prove that she is the real princess. She is only able to return to the palace once she goes through an epic journey, learns the true meaning of friendship, love and sacrifice yada yada… the shapeshifter turns out not to be evil, but was merely trying to teach her a valuable lesson and how to better understand the problems her kingdom is facing by being in the mix of it. Sadly, she must give up the man she fell in love with, a sacrifice she knows she must do for the sake of her kingdom – until it’s revealed that he was her betrothed all along. Queue music.
The one I wrote was such a corny stereotypical, fantasy story, but I love them hahaha 🙂 🙂
Sounds like a great story to me! Some people seem to think “hero learns valuable lesson” is an automatic negative, but not I! I’m all for valuable lessons – it makes it so much easier for me to learn them the easy way i.e. at second hand 🙂