Once upon a time, the princess said yes.
There were doves and dancing, flowers cascading from balconies, villagers cheering with a kind of glee usually reserved for the opening of a liquor store after a drought. The king wept into his beard, the queen glistened with regal satisfaction, and the prince—the charming one—held his bride’s hand like it was the most precious thing in the world.
And then they lived happily ever after.
For three months.
Four, if you count the honeymoon period, which mostly involved breakfasts in bed, diplomatic visits to boring lands, and a lot of awkward, ceremonial sex that made both of them wonder if they'd actually been more satisfied before they got married.
Let’s rewind a little.
Aurora—yes, that one—had kissed her dreams goodbye the day she married Prince Edward of Glorivale. Not that she minded, at first. It was all very romantic: true love’s kiss, heroic rescue, overcoming evil curses. A therapist’s nightmare, maybe, but classic fairy tale fare.
But you see, no one tells you what happens after the evil is vanquished and the crown sits snugly on your head. No one warns you about morning breath, in-laws with opinions, or the fact that being a queen-in-training involves more handshakes than decisions. And dear god, the meetings.
Edward, to his credit, tried. He really did. He meant every word of his vows. But he was raised by nannies and knights, not women with thoughts. He thought “respect” meant opening doors and funding her embroidery club. He didn't understand why Aurora flinched every time someone called her “His Highness’s Wife.”
“Shouldn’t it be ‘Her Highness’ too?” she asked, once.
Edward smiled politely, like a man who’d been taught not to argue with women, especially when they were hormonal or reading.
So, naturally, Aurora started a rebellion. Not the fire-and-pitchforks kind, but the passive-aggressive kind that begins with refusing to wear corsets and ends with repurposing the royal library into a debating society. She started reading political theory. She let her hair down—literally and metaphorically.
The court was scandalized.
“She’s thinking,” whispered Lady Belinda to Lord Roderick over lukewarm scones.
“She’s reading Plato,” muttered a maid who’d peeked through the keyhole.
“She’s dangerous,” said the Archbishop, and then offered to pray for her soul.
Edward, who found most books suspicious unless they contained battle strategy or horse grooming tips, was both bewildered and vaguely turned on.
But as the years passed, the novelty wore off. Aurora wanted reforms; Edward wanted tradition. Aurora wanted land redistribution and public schools. Edward wanted to hunt pheasants. They still loved each other, in a dysfunctional, overcooked kind of way. Like old soup that used to be delicious but now just tastes like reheated obligation.
Their first real fight was over a bakery.
Aurora wanted to remove the grain tax so villagers could afford bread.
Edward said, “Darling, economics isn’t really a lady’s concern.”
She stared at him like he’d slapped her with a scone.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said sweetly. “Did you mistake me for someone who takes your opinions seriously?”
He blinked. “I—what?”
The argument lasted four days. It ended with Aurora sleeping in the west wing and Edward writing a passive-aggressive love poem titled Ode to My Politically Ambitious Wife, which the court poet refused to publish because it had six metaphors and no rhythm.
They didn’t divorce, of course. Royals don’t do that. Instead, they became one of those couples who appeared in public holding hands and smiling for portraits, then returned to their separate chambers and spent the night reading angry poetry or stabbing roast ducks with unnecessary violence.
Meanwhile, the kingdom noticed.
The villagers, used to fairy tale perfection, began to whisper.
“Maybe love isn’t enough,” said an old widow baking pies for no one.
“Maybe true love’s kiss is just a really good first date,” said the town tailor, twice divorced.
“It’s all a racket,” said the castle gardener, who’d been single for thirty years and proud of it.
Aurora started writing essays under a pseudonym. She called herself Sleeping Awake and published scathing critiques of monarchy, arranged marriage, and the structural failures of enchanted kingdoms. Her essays were circulated secretly in taverns and schools. The people loved her. Edward suspected, but said nothing.
Then came the war.
Because of course, there’s always a war.
Some neighboring kingdom got grumpy about trade deals and decided to invade. Edward, finally feeling useful, rode off on his white horse, gleaming in armor, looking every inch the Prince Charming he’d once been.
Aurora watched from the tower, sipping tea laced with sarcasm.
War, it turns out, did what therapy couldn’t. Edward came back thinner, quieter, and with a limp. His best friend died in his arms. He saw villages burn, children cry, kings lie.
“I thought I was saving them,” he said one night, drunk and slumped on Aurora’s divan. “But I was just preserving a story that doesn’t work anymore.”
Aurora put down her book. She didn’t gloat. She didn’t say I told you so.
She sat beside him, rested a hand on his knee, and said, “Welcome to the resistance.”
For a while, they tried again. Not the pretending kind. The real kind.
They talked—really talked—for the first time in years. About fear, and failure, and what it meant to be married to a stranger you once kissed awake. They laughed, bitterly, about their old wedding vows. They made new ones—quietly, without witnesses. Less poetry, more honesty.
“We’ll be partners,” Aurora said. “Not soulmates. Just people trying.”
“Trying is enough,” Edward replied, then winced because his knee hurt and his armor had done permanent damage to his back.
They started co-ruling, awkwardly at first. Aurora gave public speeches that made the aristocracy sweat. Edward started attending peasant festivals and accidentally invented the concept of “dad dancing.” The people adored him for it. Someone even knitted him a sash that read: Prince of Second Chances.
They didn’t kiss much. They didn’t need to.
They built schools instead. Hospitals. Rewrote trade laws. Made room for dissent.
It was clumsy, unglamorous work. Not at all fairy tale material.
But it was real.
Years passed.
Edward grew greyer, and softer around the edges. Aurora cut her hair and published a memoir titled After the Kiss: Rethinking Happily Ever After, which won awards and pissed off several royal families.
One day, while reading beside the fire, Edward looked at her and said, “Do you regret it?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You mean us?”
He nodded.
She thought for a while. “I regret the wedding. The pomp, the fantasy. The illusion that love would be easy, that happily ever after was a finish line instead of the start of the hardest thing we’d ever do.”
“And me?” he asked.
She smiled—wry, weathered. “You? I regret not seeing you sooner. The you beneath the armor and the charm.”
He reached for her hand. It was older now, lined with work and wisdom.
“No one warned us,” he said.
“They did,” she replied. “We just didn’t listen. We were too busy trying to be the ending of a story instead of the beginning of a better one.”
They sat in silence after that.
Outside, the kingdom rolled on—messy and flawed, but better. Because its rulers had stopped pretending to be perfect.
Because happily ever after, it turned out, wasn’t a state. It was a choice. One made every day. Some days were good. Some were godawful.
But every day was real.
And that, Aurora decided, was enough.
Not a fairy tale.
But something much more human.
The End (of the myth, maybe, but not the story).
React
