Alina lied.

Her leave had been approved, and a month-long vacation to Switzerland with her family would have been exactly what she needed. But she stayed back instead.

A broken heart, disappointments at work, and the notion that her birth into a well-off family dismisses all claims of experiencing human experiences of sadness and loneliness made her want to be cut off from the world.

Once her family left and she locked the doors, she stared at the empty apartment. She walked around like an abandoned ghost. No purpose, no plan, until she found herself in the store room.

The last time she was here was never. Even the house help rarely opened the doors of this cramped, windowless room. Turning on the flickering light, she scanned the tucked away knick-knacks, seasonal items, forgotten purchases, and memories she was too old to recall with clarity. Her eyes caught the well-hidden pile of books behind the large blue suitcase, which was missing a wheel.

A puff of dust blew into her face, and a strong musty smell mixed with the sweetness of dried glue and scented inks tickled her nose. She sat on the floor, careless of the thickening layer of dirt, and untied the books.

“My stories…” She turned pages fondly, cringing at a few of her little self’s words and laughing at others, but admiring the vastness of her imagination that built worlds full of magic, princes and princesses falling in love, defeating evil, and having their happily ever after.

As she reached the end of the pile, she found a brown leather book starkly demanding attention among the pastel-covered notebooks. She ran her fingers down the uneven stitching, then her embossed name on the unfamiliar handmade book. Inside, a page or two later, was a note that conveniently had the writer's name faded. If it wasn't for how perfectly preserved everything else was about the letter, she wouldn't have thought of it as odd.

'Dear Alina,

I always loved how you lit up talking about the stories you wrote. I wish I had the chance to read them myself instead of overhearing about them in the conversations you had with your friends.

It is your last day at school, and I still cannot gather the courage to speak to you or give you this gift directly. I picked up this hobby recently, so I hope you won't judge my workmanship too harshly.

I hope someday you'll find this book worthy of your story. And when you are ready to write it, I will be right there with you in that magical world.

Yours truly,
D….'

Alina felt butterflies in her stomach and couldn't stop smiling.

“Magical world,” she hummed, taking the book with her and settling on the soft velvet couch after a stop in the kitchen.

After chugging her cold apple juice, she looked for a pen on the side table. Writing stories was how she escaped life when she was a child. Everyone thought she was too young to understand the world around her, the screaming and shouting, the sly games among families, or the sleazy looks from uncles four times her age, and the very concerned aunties who were afraid a ten year old wasn't being prepared well for taking care of her future husband. 'She still doesn’t know how to cook?' The surprised face of one of the aunties flashed before her.

“Have I ever been at peace?” She stared at the ceiling as anger swelled up within her chest. “Cruel world. Unreasonably cruel.”

She didn't have a happy story to write. When she was a child, she told herself, there was something worth looking forward to, worth celebrating. But in her adulthood, she felt lost and unprepared.

Her fingers gripped the leather-bound book tightly, her nails digging into the aged softness. Whoever D was, he or she had just fuelled the torment of her emotions with their kindness.

The story started with a fire.

***

From atop the hill, it looked like a large bonfire. The towers crumbled, and thick smoke rose from the burning roofs of thatched homes. But from this distance, the screams were muted.

The city burned.

It wasn't just her home. It was all she ever knew.

The princess watched from the thickness of the forest while her maid pleaded with her to run. But she stayed, watching the prince on his horse, admiring her world turning to ash. The callous fire illuminating his unapologetic face.

Cruel and cruel, he was nothing more. But wasn't she the cruel one, too? Had she accepted the proposal, become the bargain, settled into silence and numbed herself to whatever was to come, her family, her people, their stocks and animals would have all been fine.

The maid tugged her, and she finally moved.

'Crack.'

The sound of the breaking branch wasn’t loud enough to draw anyone's attention. But the prince’s ear perked up to it. He turned to the forest and announced, “I will burn every inch of the world until you are found.”

His soldiers shouted their approval. Her feet felt heavy. The maid cried, begged as she pulled her to move deeper into the forest.

“I will be haunted or hunted. There is no escape,” the princess whispered, defeatedly.

“You cannot give up, princess,” her maid tried to convince her. But no reasoning nor hopes of revenge felt meaningful.

“Leave for safety,” the princess said to her maid, firmly. “It is my command as the queen of Valennor.”

The maid froze. A heavy tear dropped. The old woman had raised her like her own child, watched her grow and become a person she was proud of. Her heart wrung like it had in her youth on the day she had buried her newborn child, a daughter who would have been as old as her princess.

“I will not leave without you.” She gritted her teeth, holding on to the queen of an ashen city. “Let us leave before he finds you.”

The tales of the prince’s cruelty were not just heard, but witnessed too. His punishments were always bloody. There was no place for mercy. Many princesses had fled their cities in fear of him taking them. Some kings sent their daughters away to be raised as ordinary, until the day they were to be married. It didn't matter that the prince was the heir to an ever-expanding empire. No one considered him capable of humanness, let alone of ever falling in love.

But he fell in love. At least, that’s what he thought when he saw Princess Amara tending to a hurt kitten in the midst of a busy marketplace.

“You will deny me my first and last right as your queen?”

Tears blurred both their eyes. Her maid obeyed, walking away as slowly as she could.

Amara waited until she disappeared into the forest and the sound of her footsteps could no longer be heard.

The queen of Valennor turned her back to her only subject and walked to the edge of the forest, to the place where the prince waited, coloured in the haughtiness of the orange flames.

A smirk curled up on his lips as she stepped out into the open. His soldiers howled and jeered at her.

“You found me,” she announced, holding his gaze.

“And the world will not burn,” he got off his horse and walked towards her, “for now.”

***
Alina dreamt of the fire that burned down Velannor.

When morning arrived, her eyes stared blankly and wet at the slow-turning fan. It was her story, yet it felt more than words in her dream.

“How dreary,” she mumbled to herself.

Unlike the stories she had written as a child, the story she was penning now pulled characters from her real life. Her nanny, whom she had to say goodbye to over her mother’s jealousy. Every city she had to leave behind because of her dad’s changing jobs. She had no place that she could call home for too long. Every time she tried her best, her parents found it nothing close to the achievements of her brother. And if she had ever surpassed him, they downplayed her win to favour him. She didn’t hate him or his life full of friends and excitement, and thrill. She was just waiting to be chosen. When she thought she had found someone, even his love turned out to be purely self-serving.

She was like Princess Amara in that sense. The world only saw how beautiful her life looked, but not what it cost. A princess locked in an open door tower.

Alina dragged herself out of bed. The many self-help videos and articles she had read told her to do so. She was also determined to continue writing the story, though it ached her, because that's what the articles and videos said too: find a creative outlet for the pain you hold inside.

Breakfast was a bowl of chocolate cereal and milk. It was more convenient than cooking or ordering in. As she scooped the dripping cereal into her mouth, her eyes remained fixated on the leather notebook.

“Something the prince would have—” she coughed as she choked on the milk.

Patting her chest and shutting her watery eyes, she tried to compose herself.

Despite the resolve to take care of herself, she had already fallen asleep on the couch after her childish breakfast.

She woke up to the savoury smell emanating from the kitchen. “Another vivid dream,” she told herself sleepily. But her stomach’s gurgling reaction to the smells claimed otherwise.

Shakily, groggily, she sat up and planted her feet flat on the floor. Her body craved more than just the sugar she had fed it for the last two days.

When she arrived at the kitchen, she stood straight and stiff, eyes wide open and fully alert. Her mobile phone had fallen between the gaps of the couch’s cushions, and the knife was already in his hands, busily chopping some veggies while onions were turning pink in a pan.

“You are awake,” he said, without turning back.

She recognised the build, definitely the voice too. She rubbed her eyes until white little floaties appeared when she opened them again.

“I won’t be poisoning you. Have a seat.”

'I should run for help. Naah, this isn’t real. It is just another dream. The veggie omelette looks good.' She shook her head to organise her thoughts.

Then he turned around. It was him. The prince from her stories.

'I have officially lost it,' she told herself as she sat down at the breakfast bar while he brought her the omelette along with freshly toasted bread and a glass of apple juice.

He nudged the plate toward her and raised his eyebrows, encouragingly asking her to eat.

A joyful hum left her mouth, and she quickly slapped her hand over it.

“The camps don't have food to my liking. So, I taught myself to cook.” He gestured with his hand for her to continue eating.

As she ate the food, she continued the conversation she was having with herself in her mind. 'How would he know to use a gas stove? Or the toaster? The refrigerator should have sent him into a shock with its ‘sorcery’. Why is he acting so normal?'

“You have questions.”

Alina nodded, chewing on her last bite of the omelette and toast.

“I do too.”

She turned her head slightly to the side and looked at him suspiciously from the corner of her eye. The charming smile on his face caught her off guard.

'Girrrrl, are you that desperate?'

She shook herself, hoping it would bring her back to reality. But he was still there, his head resting in his hand as he looked at her amused.

“You aren’t real.” It sounded like a question.

He pinched her hand to answer it.

“Ouch! That hurts.” She looked at him angrily.

“I answered one of your questions, now you should answer mine.”

He waited till she rubbed the pain away.

“Why am I cruel?”

“That’s how all princes are in such stories. Cold and mean and cruel,” she said nonchalantly as the pain slowly eased.

“Then why is my princess cruel, too?”

Alina looked up at the prince from her hand that she was still rubbing.

He continued. “She didn’t cause anyone any harm. Instead, she sacrificed more than anyone could ever know. So, why is she cruel?”

She thought about her life and all the things she gave up on. It wasn't enough. Her colleagues believed that without her father's connection, she wouldn't have landed her job; passing at the top of her class and the years she spent building her career in a completely new city had nothing to do with it. Her new boss told her that a pretty face like hers shouldn't be working. The HR, of course, wasn't going to register a complaint against the owner’s son. She had just rejected the proposal from a family friend. Her parents were embarrassed by the fact that she held some standards for herself instead of nodding her head shyly for the mama’s boy who was essentially getting pocket money from his father disguised as a salary. Her brother was on his third vacation this year, and it was her first in the last three years, yet she was a spoilsport for not getting a leave.

She rubbed her fingers on her stamped name on the leather notebook. The story was only starting, but she had no intention of saving Princess Amara. She was going to make her suffer and feel worthless, no matter how brave the princess was going to be. Just like her.

“Because,” her voice was soft, “she didn't sacrifice enough.”

“I don't think so.” The prince leaned back, folding his arms across his chest.

The leather and gauntlet he wore looked uncomfortable to Alina. Despite the running air conditioner, the kitchen was still warm.

“Aren't you hot?” she asked.

When the prince smiled in response to her genuine concern, her cheeks flushed pink with the rushed blood.

“No, I, I didn't mean it that way.” She fumbled with her words and her hands. “It is just that, you know, you must be uncomfortable in that attire. I wasn't trying to flirt. You aren't even real,” she slapped the book as she looked straight at him with her last, confident statement.

He chuckled. She felt more embarrassed.

Turning her face away from him, she tried to cover her embarrassment with her hand and hair.

“Are you afraid that I will be as cruel as you are trying to write me as?” He leaned close to her.

'He is definitely flirting. She cringed at herself in her mind. They are going to admit you to the hospital for hallucinations. Is this classified as hallucinations? Focus brain, focus. On what?'

She pushed him away by pressing a finger to his forehead.

“Don't make it creepy. I'm already worried about my sanity.”

“I am sorry.” He sat back in his chair while keeping a respectful distance. After allowing her to get her breathing back to normal, he asked, “Until when will you keep hating and punishing yourself, Alina?”

“You…know my name.”

“You have done enough,” he said comfortingly, ignoring her surprise. “You deserve to enjoy your life. Stop chasing the validation, stop choosing suffering.”

“I am at a hospital, and this is a hypnosis session. Isn’t it?” She chuckled.

“You aren't at a hospital, and this isn't a hypnosis session.” He stood up and headed to the kitchen door. “It's a wake-up call.”

Stopping at the door, he looked over his shoulder at her.

“The princess chooses to save herself, and the prince chooses to save her too. No strings attached.”

***

Alina woke up and straightened her back as she stretched her arms above her head.

“Weird dream.” She wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked at the breakfast table. A soft impression of her face was made on the leather notebook. “This would have been great while I was still studying.”

Her eyes moved to the empty plate with remains of the breakfast and the glass with dew on it.

She gasped.

The next few days, she spent writing the story in hopes of meeting the prince again. When he didn't return, she made him more cruel in her story. But that too did not work. So, she attempted to take away the princess. His princess.

She couldn't.

The words wouldn't come to her, and her hands wouldn't move to write that tragedy.

She still hadn’t named the prince, so she had no way to call out to him, as crazy as it made her seem.

Her anger and frustration took over her. In her rage, she threw the book on the bed and the letter dropped from between its pages.

“Ah, the secret admirer.” She picked it up. “Do you know how much your gift has begun to torment me? Is it some hallucinogens or some dark magic?”

She lay down on the carpet, opening and holding the letter up to the light.

“I hope someday you'll find this book worthy of your story. And when you are ready to write it, I will be right there with you in that magical world. Yours truly, D...”

She blinked. Was it her mind or the light? She wasn’t sure. But she saw a faint outline of the name reveal itself with a yellowed stain.

“D…r..a..v..e..n. Draven.”

The name didn't ring a bell. She searched for her memories, and a faint memory showed up of a boy punching the male PE teacher.

“Hmm… I will be right there with you in that magical world.”

She called his name in her dreams.

***
*A year later*

Alina adjusted the tassel cushion on her sofa. She had prepared most of the dishes, but the castle-shaped cake was an order she placed with a friend she had recently reconnected with.

Her new home was almost everything she wanted. The view of the sea was perfect, and she had to thank Shanaya, her boss at the new company, for recommending the place and the fair pay that allowed her to make the big move.

The bell rang, and her first group of guests arrived. Her besties from high school.

“Aaahhhh! Finally!” The three of them wrapped up in a hug.

Soon, her other guests arrived. Her roommate from her college days, who, against all odds, had become a highly sought-after cardiologist despite all the hate and prejudice. Her two colleagues from her first job as a librarian, who always stashed the latest fantasy novels for her, arrived next. Then the son of a family friend, of whom she was very fond of but had to forget because of the grown-ups and their silly fights, came in with his soon-to-be wife. She brought with her a bracelet she had made herself with little teardrop beads reminiscent of rain. So many more people arrived, all dressed up as their favourite characters from cartoons, series, movies and books.

The music played, and Alina smiled and laughed. Conversations flowed as if they had never ended. Time spent apart was irrelevant. Evening brought in the cool breeze through the open balcony.

The bell rang.

Alina rushed to open the door.

“You are late, Draven.” She smiled, admiring how perfectly close he was dressed as the prince from her story.

“Saving the best for the last, my princess.”