(written for the M&M Vday Exchange!)
There’s a common misconception about the Princess and the Pea tale. The story itself is indeed about a rare kind of love, but the misconception lies in the truth of harm.
After so many false princesses had deceived the Prince, so many fake promises, he couldn’t believe that the Princess was a girl drenched in rainwater and complaining about an aching back from the pesky pea that kept her up all night. He couldn’t believe someone so imperfect could be so delicate, so easily bothered, but she had suffered through a painful process just to present him with a goddess-like smile upon hearing his proposal.
They get married on a Sunday morning, the pea in a glass case at the alter, beaming proudly at their intertwined hands.
They move in together, the pea resting on a cushion in their bedroom, yawning at the growing silence of the space expanding between their bodies. A Princess needs her space to sleep, and who is the Prince to deny her the space on their stack of mattresses so high that neither of them can keep a watchful eye on the pea from their position up near the ceiling?
They argue, the pea peeking out from its position behind the drawer, where it had rolled to hide from the angry voices. In a fit of passion, the Princess smashes her whole weight against the drawer and drives splinters into the pea, and neither of the two royals can hear the bloodcurdling scream of the vegetable. Maybe the mattresses (too soft, too firm, never good enough for the Princess) strewn all over the room muffled the noise—they, too, have been ungratefully dragged into this myth of a marriage.
See, the victim of the story here is neither the Prince nor the Princess but rather the pea.
The Princess had never wanted the pea nor the Prince’s palace because she could only be satisfied by keeping the gaping hole of yearning for a better life alive. And if she’s living a perfect life on top of her hundreds of mattresses, how could that ache flicker inside her heart the same way?
The Prince had always loved the idea of the pea, the tiny reminder of pain, control, and power in his family’s hands, but he couldn’t ever fit the idea of a whole girl in his head, meaning the girl, upon utterly losing her shit, shattered the constructed image of a Princess, who should only complain if she has to prove her worth to a man.
The pea only ever desired one thing: to become more than an object for two broken people to project their impossible wants onto. As if both the Princess and Prince could ever prove that objects could even become more when they’re the main characters throwing around household objects and spitting splinters like there are no souls outside their own twisted ones.
