━━ ⦗the swan princess! ⦘
❝ you're beautiful!
thank you, but what else?
... what else is there? ... ❞
███████████ 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝
the courageous odette teaches the
once and future king a less...
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chapter sixteen! 016. a remedy to cure all ills
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ODETTE KNEW HER mother truly wasn't her mother by blood. Not only were they differing complexions, but at a young age, that never clicked in her mind. What did, were their eyes. Ivette Mason's eyes were dark▬onyx, like stone. Something so cold, and yet the warmest gaze Odette will ever know, and will always remember. But her own, they were amber; striking and blazing like a fire. Full of life, full of fire, full of daring▬it was the fuel of her courageous and adventure-seeking delight; running through the hallways, being dared to explore the scariest parts of the castle and sneak off into the forest. Their eyes were completely different. Ivette's were tired, and dreary, but managing to glow whenever her daughter smiled. They had seen many years that doubled in experience from the life she lived in such a short time. She aged faster, it seemed. Odette could count the wrinkles around her eyes and her lips on both hands when she was eight; she mesmerised them and tried to count them on herself. Until her mother laughed and swept her up in her arms to kiss the worry lines off her brows. She told her, "Odette! Dearest▬do not fret, you want to keep away the lines for as long as you possibly can!"
But she had just wanted to be like her in every way. Her mother was a beaming light▬the gospel and every breath of wisdom. What she said, Odette believed and listened. What she advised, Odette did. Maybe she was desperate to find something similar between them. For every daughter seemed to look like her mother. Every child was an image of one, or both of their parents. They either had their hair, their smile, their noses or their eyes. Odette needed to have something like her mother▬and so she must have her kindness, she must have her strength, her wisdom and her bravery. Her ability to see the best in everyone and to always give second chances.
But no matter what she did, there was always one kid in the castle, or on the streets, or even someone older than her that told her, "My▬she's not your mother! You're nothing alike."
Each time it hurt like a blow to her young heart, even though she very much knew that was the truth. She didn't have her mother's hair. She didn't have her smile. Nor did she have her nose. And she never had a likeness with her eyes.
But she still tried. She would sneak to look at herself in some lord or lady's mirror and try her best to smile the exact same. She tried to hold the same posture. Asked for the same colour dresses and copied the way her mother walked.
Yet, it never worked. They were nothing alike. Odette was the daughter of two people she never knew▬never remembered. Not even the colour of their eyes. Did she have her mother's hair? Was her father's nose her's? Were her amber eyes a gift from the woman who carried her in her arms for just not even a week before she lost them forever.
And as she grew up, it was impossible to find anything about her that could be linked to Ivette Mason. Odette tried to morph her nose by squishing it into a point, she tried to plump her cheeks to make her face wider. She once covered her hair in mud in hopes to get her mother's beautiful dark colour.
