Chapter Text
It was the one year anniversary of her kidnapping. Bridgette stood in her room and forced herself to think about it. Most people wanted to forget, but she refused to lose herself. She couldn’t let herself be reduced to the name she gave them, or she’d really be their slave. She had to remember who she really was.
She was Bridgette, not Coccinelle. She loved to smile and laugh. She’d always wanted to fly.
She used to fly, on the trapeze in the circus. The memory came to the front of her mind:
The ladder went up so high she could have touched the top of the tent with just a few more feet. Her hands gripped the trapeze, finding their familiar grooves. She filled her lungs, then down she went. Her stomach tightened automatically, and her body held its tense position, ready to swap with the trapeze artist parallel to her. In that fleeting moment where her hands held nothing at all, she imagined she had wings.
That moment of flight had been everything to her, but the Fair Folk had taken even that. She would never give them her name.
She’d been taken for her skill on the trapeze, kidnapped by two Folk from the Seelie Court and then given as a peace offering when they’d passed through the Unseelie Court.
In the Circus, she’d been Coccinelle, the great trapeze artist. She’d worn a red leotard and black tights, with sparkly wings attached to her shoulders. In the Unseelie Court, she was Coccinelle still, but that was all she was.
The clothes she'd been given to wear when she’d first arrived were long and blood red. They swayed with every stray gust of wind or slight movement, so light in comparison to the bronze shackles that appeared around her wrists and neck whenever she was given a command. Sometimes she wondered if they were always there, magically undetectable but still present.
Bridgette walked toward the court with A, another human owned by the royal family. She’d been taken for her talent with the flute, and she really was magnificent. The soft, mourning notes made Bridgette cry every time she played.
Bridgette and A stepped cautiously into the hall. After confirming that they would not cross paths with any Folk, they started to walk, but as soon as they did, a sound as round and loud as a whale cry came rolling through the entire palace.
«Make way! »
Bridgette and A jumped back to safety, leaving the hall wide open. They bowed their heads.
«The Grey Prince has returned! »
The Grey Prince? In her twelve months at the palace, Bridgette had only ever heard of him, and even then only whispers. It seemed that he was a forbidden topic. That was strange, Bridgette thought. The other royals made sure they were talked about extensively; to want one’s own name hushed like that seemed counter to everything the Folk were. Maybe it was because of his status. The Crown Prince Adrien was always talked about, even though he was still a child. Maybe a Grey Prince who was only a son of the King wasn’t thought of as important. Or maybe he’d done something so horrible that he’d been punished. But what could be so horribly that even the Folk couldn’t tolerate it? All she knew for sure about him was that he’d been gone. It seemed now that he was back, and about to walk right in front of her. She bowed her head lower, but raised her eyes to peer through the black strands of her hair.
The sound of footsteps grew louder and louder until the first wave of guards came into view. There was another wave after them, and then finally, the Prince. Or at least she thought it must be him.
He looked so strange. She would have had to see him a million times before she could have described him. Even his colors were hard to define: his hair was somewhere between silver and grey and blond. He looked like what she used to imagine the Folk would look like, but he looked more human than any Folk she’d ever met.
It was his face, though, that really caught her attention. His expression was sunk into one of pure defeat. His shoes scuffed the floor as the two guards at his side escorted him briskly down the hall, their grips holding him fast. He looked like a prisoner.
A guard at the tail end of the entourage noticed Bridgette and A and approached them.
«The Queen requires tea.»
The bronze shackles shimmered into existence around her. She followed obediently. In the kitchens, she and A prepared the tea. A exited first with the tea cakes, and Bridgette followed with the teapot.
The Grey Prince was there, sitting between the King and Queen. He no longer looked anything like a prisoner, or even a traveler. His clothes were layered elegantly around him, and a thin silver circlet rested on his head.
Bridgette served the royal family one by one with the pot. It was made of glass, and its contents poured out like liquid gold. Surely, though, it had been made by humans, as unbelievable as it seemed. First, she filled the Queen's cup, bowing before and after. Then, she served the King, who never even so much as looked at her. Next was the newly-arrived Grey Prince. Up close, he looked like the others, bored and haughty. After what she’d witnessed earlier, she'd expected him to be different, but that now seemed ridiculous. Of course he'd be like the others.
She poured his tea then stepped away, but she sensed his eyes on her. Looking back, she met his eyes. They were cold and sharp, but he couldn’t tell their color. She lowered her gaze.
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Later that day, a banquet was announced to celebrate the return of the Prince. It would be held the following day. All of the human servants were to be present to attend to the guests, and a few had been selected to entertain, including Bridgette and A. On the day of the banquet, they took their place with the other performers.
Leading up to her turn, Bridgette had to watch the others. Some performed acceptably and attracted no reprimand. Others tripped and were forced to repeat it with shackles weighing them down. A few managed to garner praise, and had treats thrown to them from the drunken immortals.
The laughter never ceased. It grated in Bridgette’s ears like a high pitched ringing, like the squealing scratch of sharpened nails against a chalkboard. Everlasting. Inescapable.
She stepped forward and bowed. She climbed up her ladder and held her trapeze, then swung into the open air. A few twists and turns to begin, then she twirled and flipped and danced on nothing at all. She looked like she was flying, but she didn’t feel light like she used to. Her body felt heavy as lead.
Her performance ended with her landing back on the ladder. She climbed back down and bowed low. She didn’t receive applause, but she didn’t receive any jeers either. A few guests oohed and ahhed but they moved on quickly. She looked up, and found herself right in the line of sight of the Prince.
Everyone turned to great him, bowing with superficial respect. A herald announced his presence.
«The Grey Prince Félix has returned to the Unseelie court after his long and exciting travels! » The herald smirked, as if to imply something scandalous of the Prince’s travels. Everyone snickered.
«My Prince, anything to say to your people?»
Félix stepped forward, his great silver cape billowing behind him. He seemed to be a shadow, shimmering but not fully taking form. But then he spoke, and his words were so sharp as to cut her.
«Are you my people?» he asked. His brows were raised, but everyone went silent. For once, no one was laughing. The only sound was the echo of the Prince’s voice; it was rich and solid, full in a way she’d never heard in any of the voices of other Folk.
«If you are, I will expect things from you.»
All the guests bowed once more, this time out of more fear than formality.
Guests once again milled about, drinking and laughing and gossiping. As Bridgette served tables, she heard many different versions of the Prince’s travels. He’d seduced a Seelie Princess, no, it was a whole harem of faeries… or maybe he’d killed them. Or he’d secretly been in exile as punishment for killing his cousin. No, he’d gotten so drunk he’d been intoxicated for the whole year and had only just recovered.
The gossip was the kind that was normally heard about the royal family. The strange part was that this was the first time she’d heard it. That alone was enough to make her disregard anything she heard. It might all be true, or none of it, or maybe the truth was worse. Who could know?