A/N: I don't really know where I was going with this, but figured I'd post it anyway. I mean, hey, why not?
Warning: it's a bit on the rambly side, in my opinion.
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Love, who cares about love? I think I’d much rather die than be loved, or horror of horrors, be caught in love’s grungy hands. Love does nothing but make fools of those involved, and though that’s what I’ve been told countless times by myriad people -- some I knew, some I know, some passing strangers, some dead writers -- I never truly believed it.
Oh how glorious love sounds. Doves flying and trumpets sounding, sweet nothings meaning everything and three small words making up the world. Kisses and and caresses, hand holding and gentle embraces. Once upon a time, that’s what I yearned for more than anything. I dreamed of living a fairy tale, a princess trapped in a tower waiting for her prince to come, waiting for life to mean something.
Well, the fairy tales never say just how long the princess is forced to wait, and more importantly how much the simple act of waiting hurts. For hour after hour, day after day, month after month the princess imagines her prince. Will he have hair as yellow as straw or black as night? Eyes blue as the sea or green as the forest? Finally, she stumble upon a prince she loves. At first, it’s just his appearance. Brown hair as rich as her chestnut bed and eyes a beautiful hazel, a small forest never to be cut down. Soon, a personality will develop for this forest boy, a beautiful, funny, charming personality. And what would Prince Charming be without a name? In her sheltered tower life, the princess has not heard much. She doesn’t know many names beside her own. Finally, she makes one up, one she thinks sounds as beautiful as his imagined name, one that just feels right. After painstaking days spent staring at the stone ceiling, she decides on Talon, the name resounding in her head like a thousand lovely bells.
The playful imaginings don't last long before evolving into obsession. She doesn’t just fall asleep pondering the multiple facets of his personality. No, she’s worked every one out to their very darkest depths. Instead, she carries on conversations with him in her head. She holds his imaginary hand, and to assure herself of her sanity she tells herself that somewhere beyond the expansive meadow outside her window, Talon -- the real Talon -- is doing the same. He’ll arrive someday, and until then what’s so wrong with forming a connection as deep as the soul?
Years pass, and as a rescue fails to come, she starts to lose a little of her faith in Talon. Suddenly, she realizes one day that she can no longer picture his face as effortless as before, can no longer feel the soft weight of his arm across her shoulders. No longer does she hear his voice in her head, only her own forming his words. Worried, she contemplates what’s going wrong. Finally, unable to think of a better reason, she settles on the conclusion that he’s found another princess to love, someone better and prettier than she, someone that requires no rescue. And for a brief moment, clarity graces her with it’s cruel presence. She sees Talon more clearly in that moment than she had ever seen him before, only she sees someone else too. A girl, with beautiful auburn locks streaming down her back and the prettiest dress in the world. She watches as he gazes into her eyes and listens as he whispers words more passionate than any she’d previously heard. With a horrified gasp, she watches as he leans in for a kiss. He’s forgotten about her, doesn’t care at all about her.
For weeks, she cries herself to sleep. For months, she goes over all their conversations in her head, trying to sort out the real from her daydreams. She scrupulously takes a magnifying glass to her memories and picks out every moment she whispered the wrong thing, every sign that he was growing distant. For years, she beats herself up about it, and never allows herself to smile. By now she’s well into her twenties.
She yearns to forget about him, to find a new prince. She imagines up the opposite of him, tries to love him with all her heart. But he just can’t seem real, she just can’t rid her mind of Talon. Eventually she forgets the name of her substitute prince, can't even remember that there was another prince. All there is is Talon and his new princess. All there is is grief.
So when a prince finally comes to save her, finally bursts through the door, she can’t bear to spare him more than a glance, and the glance she gave him told her enough: he’s not Talon. He carries her away to his castle, and she forces every smile she ever gives him, wonders if he sees the lack of sparkle in her eyes, the kind that was always to be found when Talon was still with her. They marry, and the world exclaims that they lived happily ever after. But she knows she’s not happy. She’ll never be happy, either. Talon will never come back to her, and she’ll never love again.
So love is a wretched thing. It makes more than fools of the people involved, it makes invalids and villains. The end of love is never happy, and once over it’s impossible to sort out what had been. Nothing matters once you fall in love, and even less once that frail love finally dies. Love will never be a happy thing, and I’d much rather die than never be happy. And yet, for all its frailty, love continues to lure unwilling victims and take them on the wildest ride of their lives, so wild that when it’s over, they can never stop being sick. The last sickening drop on the malicious roller coaster does more than toss their stomachs; it tosses their hearts, leaves them broked in the dust, no better than shards of broken glass, dirty and unable to reflect even the pale light of the lonely moon.
