Quest 208

[primrosella]

On this day last year, I remember I told a story about a princess with six older brothers that were turned into swans by their evil stepmother. The only way to break that curse was for someone to spend six years without speaking or laughing, and to sew six shirts out of thistles for the brothers in the meantime. The young princess, upon learning of this, agreed to spend those six years in perfect silence for the sake of saving her brothers, working until her fingers bled from the sharp edges of the thistles as she strove to make the shirts for them. Like most fairy tales, that story is only a few pages long, all told, and when the whole story of that princess and her plight can be finished in a matter of minutes, it's easy to overlook just how long of a time six years really is.

Time is a funny thing in fairy tales. One minute a baby princess has just been born, and then the next she's at her christening, and then no more than a few sentences later she's already nearing her sixteenth birthday, daydreaming about the prince she hopes to marry someday. Years run together in a matter of words, and we never think anything of it. A curse to die turns into a curse to sleep for a hundred years, and we never stop to consider just how long a hundred years really is, and just how long that princess would be locked away from the people she loved, sleeping unaware of the world as it went on around her.

Adventures take time, no matter how the stories may suggest otherwise.

Of course, this place is a bit different in that they say time doesn't move in our homelands so long as we stay here. We'll go back to the very instant we left, and no one will ever know that we were gone. That means I'll go back to being seventeen again, with my long-lost brother's hand in my own as I pull him through our castle. That tour, when we finish it, will be the first time he's ever laid eyes on it all. He's been gone for almost eighteen years, you see, and he's never had the chance to see the place that I've always known as home. And I'll go back to my father resting in his bedchambers, recovering from a terrible shock that left him teetering on the brink of death.

Sometimes adventures go quickly because the hero--or heroine, as the case may be--is racing against a ticking clock the whole time. I've had an adventure like that before.

But the only clock ticking here is the one that drives us all mad when we're alone. We go back to the moment we left, and no one will have missed us when we do. So the only ones aware of just how long the adventure lasted...are ourselves.

On this day last year, Rue told me that it's the first year here that seems like the longest, and then all the others go by faster and faster each time. And I think she's right about that. There were times in this past year that seemed to drag on forever, of course, but I remember how it felt as though some great change had occurred, the day I had been here for a whole year, and how from that point on, keeping track of the months as they passed seemed to become less and less important with each one that went by.

I wonder if, when I'm telling this story again someday, I'll find myself letting the time run together the way that fairy tales do. "And she lived there for years on end, and had many great adventures along the way, and then finally the day came when it was time for her to come home..." It's quite a lot of experiences to put all into a single sentence, isn't it? All the friends I've made, all the things I've done, all the laughter and heartache and misery and hope--all summed up into a few short words and a single breath. A year is a long time, for such a short word.

And today, I've been here for two.

Mm, and speaking of time, I think I'll spend this anniversary of mine keeping as busy as I can around the City. Two years ago today I ruined my best dress, so perhaps I'll go look at the pretty ones in the shops today in celebration. And, of course, I'll stay close to the Fountain and keep an eye on the Network, too. Two years ago today, I fell into that Fountain. Perhaps if someone else should end up in the same predicament today, it'll be my turn to go and rescue them, instead.


[OOC: Yup, that's right, it's a Polyversary! As of today, Rosella has been in the City for two years now. My nostalgia, let me show you it. ♥ When I brought her in two years ago, I never could've imagined all the great times I'd have with her, so THANK YOU to everyone that has played with her all this time, and here's hoping for many more great years to come!]