"Princess Blenia" by Christina G. Gaudet

Most princesses are particular about their hair and clothes. Most princesses wonder how old they will be when a man asks them to marry them. "The sooner the better," you could overhear some say. Others have been heard to say, "I just hope I’m not as old as 20 when someone decides to marry me." While her sisters were brushing their hair and talking about such things, Blenia was climbing trees and learning how to fence.

Blenia’s sisters felt pity for her. Some days they would even try to tell her this. "How will you ever find a husband when you’re always outside?" They would say. "Princesses are supposed to have silky white skin, not dark and hard like yours." Sometimes they would feel such pity for her that they would even try to change her. On one of these occasions, Blenia accidentally punched Persilla, the second oldest sister other then Blenia herself, in the nose, while she was trying to fix Blenia’s hair.

No one tried to help her out anymore after that. Persilla wouldn’t dare say anything to their father, King Colin. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. For King Colin was too wrapped up in his work to about anything about what his children did. All day he would sit in his room and sign papers that declared war upon other countries. He didn’t ever notice that what he did, had an effect on the rest of the world. All he cared about was whether he got to own an acre more land than when he started the war.

The only time he ever even noticed what the peasants were doing was when they tried to over rule him. Then he would quickly try to find out who the brains behind the operation were, so that he could be rid of them. He put such pressure upon his knights to find the person behind it all, that they would sometimes accuse innocent people, just to save themselves. Then he would have that innocent person to be killed just to show people that he was not a king to trifle with.

Blenia’s only friends were the animals. She knew how to talk with every animal that lived in the royal gardens. When a new kind of animal came into the gardens, she would hurry out to greet it. The only problem is that she didn’t know the language of every animal, so when she met something new, she would have to learn that language. It was a good thing that when she was determined to learn something, she could learn it well and fast. This is how she learned to talk with the animals, in their language.

She hardly ever spoke it aloud though. She was afraid that if she did, people might constantly be asking her to help them with animal problems. So instead of speaking with the animals aloud, she talked to them through her mind. It is a very difficult technique to learn, but once you learn it, it is easy to use it. Blenia had mastered this technique within a month.

Blenia would often dream that a knight that was dedicated to helping out peasants and less fortunate people than himself would come into Blenia’s life and take her away from her father and all of the trials of being royalty. When she did dream of this, she would stop and scold herself for thinking such thoughts. She would never be able to leave her mother, she was too ill. Also she couldn’t leave Melissa. She was like an older sister or a second mother to her. She had always looked out for her, and leaving her wouldn’t feel right.

No, if she planned on leaving it would have to be on her own time and only when it was absolutely necessary. Before then and the results could be disastrous. If only she could get away without her father noticing, then everything would be all right.