THE INTRODUCTION
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DO PRINCES AND PRINCESSES STILL EXIST?
A Study of 21st Century Royal Families
Research Paper by: Katelyn Sarocha
Eighteen words. The title and her name. That was all Katelyn had managed to write for the past two hours.
She let out a deep sigh and laughed at herself. It wasn't really necessary for her to finish the thing in a day anyway. She had her whole life in university to do it and, as it stood at the moment, she still has a years ahead of her.
She saved the document and shut the lid of her laptop. Her mind said that the research paper wouldn't write itself on its own, yes, but she had all the time in the world to write it. As her friend and trustworthy roommate, Bethany, told her, she should enjoy her freedom for a change.
Why was she being such a study-freak anyway? Yes, she did have all the time in the world. She should be partying and getting wasted and not staring into her computer for two hours, wondering if Prince and Princesses still exist. Well, technically they do but metaphorically speaking they're extinct because they only exist in fairytale stories.
Why did she choose that as her research topic anyway? Did she have some deep-seated feeling of wanting to be Cinderella? She suspected she had, when she was a kid watching all those cartoons shit, but then she realized that the real reason why she wanted to study 21st century royal families was because they seemed to her to be completely... pointless.
Why do they continue to exist in such a time when they're not needed anymore? That was the question she wanted to answer the most.
She sighed again and got up from her chair. It was past two o'clock in the morning but she usually goes to bed in the weekend at around four.
She then decided to grabbed her jacket and her keys and to have a little walk outside. It was nice to walk in the grounds at that time of the morning. There was no one around and it was pretty cold. She liked to do that when she couldn't sleep.
She started to walk around, pulling her university jacket tighter around her. The trees were swaying in the wind, the grounds were quiet and the stars... well, this time, they're non-existent. She wished that the sky was a little clearer because the whole place would have been extremely poetic.
She stopped and sat down on a bench overlooking the lake in their university ground. It wasn't man made. The lake is literally part of the property. Isn't that amazing?
It had been three months since she first set eyes on that lake. She decided to arrive a months ahead of the start of semester because she wanted to get acquainted with the new world she entered. She was from a million miles away after all—OK, maybe not a million because she's exaggerating, but the school she chose to continue her studies under a scholarship program was very far from her home country which is Thailand. She remembered how she decided to go in this little European country with just 42,000 local people (not to mention the foreigners and international students under their scholarships) and 101,000 total head counts in population survey that lies between United Kingdom and Ireland, floating in the middle of the Celtic Sea and is called Kingdom of the Isle of Britton. And her reason was, she wasn't proud of it, she wanted to run away from everything in her life.
She was deep in thoughts when she saw someone walking by in front of her. A blonde girl who looked like a student too, but she seemed to be younger than her.
The girl smiled as she passed her and she smiled back. She walked away and she watched. But then, a few minutes later, she came back, looking rather sheepish as she stared at her for a moment before approaching her.
"May I ask if this seat taken?" The girl asked quite formally and it surprised Kate. She supposed she must be one of those posh language majors to be speaking like that. She held back her laughter and shook her head without saying a thing. The girl sat down beside her and added, "I did not think someone would still be awake at this time of night—or should I say morning?"
Ugghhh. The accent.
She shrugged her shoulders and just smiled.
"I can't sleep 'til it's four o'clock," she shared in a little less formal way, hoping she would ease up on her a-little-bit-too-formal tone. "Katelyn, by the way." She added, holding out her hand to the girl.
"Abigail but of course, you can call me Abbie," she answered, shaking her hand briefly, as though she was not accustomed to handshakes. She let it go and just went back to looking over at the lake. After a while, Abbie spoke again.
"What are you looking at?"
"The lake," Kate answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It sparkles in the light. How fucking sad that there are no stars. I bet it would be more beautiful that way." She said carelessly and Abbie looked offended for some reason, like she wasn't used to people swearing.
She gathered then that maybe she was some sort of rich-privileged-kid. She might have looked cute but she was starting to hate her already. She hated spoiled brats.
"I-I'm sorry. I-I'm just not used to people swearing in front of me," she said, as though reading her mind. She shrugged her shoulders again, not saying a word. "I suppose you think that's weird?" she asked, just to continue the conversation.
"Yeah, kind of. I mean, who doesn't swear anyway? Even the most primped up, majestic people swear." Kate said reasonably. "It's a form of human expression. At least, that's what Stephen Pinker said." She thought back to that time when she read that article. She smiled a little, remembering how enlightened she felt then. She also felt slightly ridiculous for some reason.
"I'm sorry. Honestly, I do swear, just..." Abbie trailed off, looking into the lake too.
"Never mind," Kate said dismissively, getting to her feet. It was only three o'clock. She still had an hour but she couldn't stand sitting next to the spoiled brat any longer. She figured she could get some work done by the library. "I really need to get back to my dorm. I'm kinda sleepy. It was nice meeting you by the way, Abbie."
"You too, Katelyn," she said with a smile before she drifted off toward the general direction of the university library.
After a while, Kate stopped walking. Convinced that the spoiled brat was nowhere in sight, she dropped down on one of the benches again, this time a little farther away from the lake. She stared at the quiet, peaceful grounds, thinking about everything that has happened in her life so far.
Why did she want to ran away? Basically, it was just because of one thing.
She killed a person.
Kate clutched her stomach, recoiling from the jolt of pain that seemed to shoot through her. Then she could feel her tears flowing from her eyes. Luckily, there was no one around to see. She knew clearly what she had done and yet no one in the world can know about it.
There's also a lots of time when she had thought of killing herself but then that would just make things worse. Instead of killing just one person, then she would be killing two. She had enough reasons for God to hate her. She didn't need any more reasons for HIM to banish her into hell.
She knew she was going there sooner or later anyway.
Why couldn't morning come sooner? She thought.
YOU ARE READING
The Princess and Me
Fanfiction"Do Princes and Princesses still exist?" That was the question that Katelyn (Freen) wanted to answer as she set about doing her research paper. She had no idea, however, that she would get caught up in it. Princes, Princesses, Royal Family. A Princ...
