It is difficult being a princess under a curse. Especially a curse that she herself could not even describe. Just a curse that left her… there. Not in a tower, not in a dungeon, not even in a witch's cottage. She hung in the yard outside, tending the flowers and the animals and doing a bit of reading and sewing.
Every now and then past would gallop a brave knight or a handsome prince. They would stop at her fence—nothing terrible or frightening, just a fence—and they would talk. They talked about the usual things: the weather, the kingdom, various adventures along the way. They were nice and she was nice and she knew that they thought her beautiful.
But the fence and the curse was always between them. The curse that kept her from them.
She had put the curse on herself, probably by accident. Of course by accident. She only knew what it did.
She had dropped the glass slipper and ran, too fast for the prince.
She had gone home to her sisters to stay, never returned to her Beast.
Who in their right mind would ever swallow an obviously poisoned apple?
And it always wasn't just her.
Someone else's foot had fit the glass slipper.
Some animal lover had found the Beast.
The Prince met some other nice girl in the woods.
The princes and knights that talked at her fence always moved on to other princesses.
Time had gone by. She was older now, no longer the childlike maiden a princess should be. Some people said it was far too late. Maybe she was too old for princes. Fairy tales were for children, anyway. Little girls. If you did not get your prince, you were doomed.
Well, maybe she didn't want a prince. But she still wanted her castle, complete with the white picket fence. Maybe she wanted a king, someone with power enough for a queen. Not a princess.
So she put on her dress of sunbeams to catch a king's eye and a sword to fight for his love, then she hopped on her own white stallion.
Curse or no curse, she still wanted her fairy tale.