Episode 39 - Turn Back
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(Extended pause) I was happy once. I swear I was. It was when I broke away from TikTok and when I could sit with myself as I knew her to be. When there was no expectation that I challenge myself or push myself into any sort of growth I wasn’t ready for. As shameful as it is to admit it, I enjoyed being stagnant. I know I should not have been. I know that human beings are meant to strive for improvement or self-betterment. I’ve heard all the lectures and fables and cautionary tales about how sitting in our current situation will lead us to be swallowed up by the earth beneath us, but I didn’t care about any of that. For a moment I was happy. It was something I had hardly known throughout my admittedly sad and miserable existence. But maybe that’s being dramatic. Things weren’t that bad, but they weren’t joyful. We hardly ever had any sort of reason or occasion for joy. So we were left in whatever state things always were, and the default mood in the family home, no matter where we were living, was a sort of anxious indifference. We were always waiting for the next… We were always dreading… (exhale)
I don’t want to make what happened all about me. I have no right to, I know. I’m not a victim. I am collateral damage at best, but given where I stand on the line between perpetrator and victim, maybe I can’t even call myself that. I don’t know. I just know there's a good reason to not get it wrong.
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The princess frequently received journals as gifts from both her brother and the rest of the court, but she hardly had a use for them. She was not the type to sit down and record her thoughts. She simply did not see the appeal. Journaling seemed to create a liability more than anything else. With it, suddenly there was a record of that which she needed to keep hidden, and because she was a human like any other, some of those thoughts or actions could be held against her by those who wished her ill or for their own success and elevation above any other concern. A journal could be a particularly appealing key to such ends, she knew. She was not foolish. And if her mother had been right about anything, then she was right in saying that this tendency was inconvenient to all that wished her harm. Those were not her words, of course. Those were the princess’s words, but the message remained the same.
However, Princess Eathebel found that those journals could be useful. As she sat in anticipation, she could use them as sketchbooks for the wedding dress she would soon wear. Never before did she think she could possibly be excited at the prospect of a wedding, but she had also never imagined that she could love the person she’d be marrying. And yet, she was.
Or, rather, she assumed that she was. After all, she had her husband picked out for herself, and she could scarcely imagine any other barrier to her happiness. The king did need to approve the match, of course. The laws did say that no member of the royal family could marry without the king’s permission, but that was a formality. That’s all it was, she would tell herself as she debated sleeve styles. Would she go with the more contemporary open one or the tight ones that regularly floated in and out of style? She could hardly decide. Each was beautiful in its own, but this would be a memory that stuck in her mind for all her years. It had to be just so. It had to be perfect.
Better to focus on that than the formalities, the princess thought. When she next spoke to her brother, during their next audience, she would tell him of her desire to marry and the spouse she had picked out for herself. It would be best to tell him of both at once. In doing so, there would be no room for error, no room for miscommunication, assumption or any other dreadful thing. They couldn’t have that now, could they?
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I know you’re still listening. I know that no amount of inhospitality or direct call outs can chase you away. You’re far too stubborn for that, right? The why is a bit more complicated. Because many factors shape you, and but in you, they all seem to lead you to stubbornness or to stoke the fire that was already burning within you, one that you were probably born with. You were born to stubborn parents, weren’t you? And your mother sometimes mumbles under her breath asking what it was she was expecting. Why would she expect anything other than a bull from two other bulls?
No, this isn’t my other podcast. Your mother just has terrible privacy settings on her social media profiles. And yours aren’t super solid either, by the way. I was still able to confirm that she was your mother through your profile. It might have been obvious from hers, but you know, I like double if not triple checking things before I say them. Also, I didn’t want it to be you. From your first attempt at contact, I came up with this mental image of who you might be, and it wasn’t a very good or well thought out image. I did it all in about five seconds as, like, a sort of placeholder. Or that’s what I meant it to be. But I think I got attached. Too much so, probably. Definitely. And now, as I realize she is not coming, I miss her a bit.
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“It’s just the first draft,” King Ezin explained as he presented the parchment to Queen Evanora.
She pretended to understand what it was she was looking at. But it had been some time since she had looked at her own marriage contract. When it was her time to wed, she was kept abreast of the negotiations. It was her right as a human being to have a say in who it was she would be spending her life with. Or so everyone in her kingdom believed. Such an idea was not as widely held as she had always assumed. She disliked that, but it was something she could not change. Queen Evanora looked over the document. It guaranteed a pension to the princess in the event she was widowed or mistreated to the point that a separation was best. For that, it gave the princess more protection than many other women could ever hope for. The queen was relieved to see as much, relieved to see that her husband would not let his sister be completely adrift. But the spouses had never met, never crossed paths, and had hardly ever been in the same castle. The duke was far too busy for that, King Ezin had said. Queen Evanora hardly knew what to make of it.
“Is he objecting to any of this?” the queen asked.
“No, the king answered, “of course not.”
She nodded, accepting it, accepting him at his word. “How is he?”
There was a point to her questioning. There was something she wanted him to see for himself. The queen did not know this duke. The king did. So it would be up to him to assess the situation, to discern if the duke could be not just a good ally but a good husband. It would be rude to ask as much, of course, so she could only beg for him to see what she was not allowed to say.
He studied her carefully before kneeling at her feet.
“He is a good man,” the king assured her. “He is careful and kind. And he was nothing but a saint to the first wife. May she rest in peace. He is a bit older, but that isn’t a detriment, I don’t think. Please, Love, trust that I would not send her out to slaughter.”
And the queen did trust that, but it was not her marriage being debated.
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Why do I miss her, you might be wondering? Or not. I don’t mean it to be insulting. It just seems like the inevitable question. And I know a lot about questions. She was more passive, I’ll say that much. I could have pushed her away from the subject, and she would have looked elsewhere. That would have been convenient. But at the same time, she would also have been more decisive, at least when it comes to the whole ‘is this ethical conversation?’ because you don’t know if asking me about this is. You don’t know if you should be pushing the issue, if my proximity from these events makes me more innocent or more guilty or if my suffering is a shield or an excuse.
These are important, preliminary questions, in fact. But there are also the sort of thing your thesis advisor wants you to work out for yourself, but you don’t know if you can. Or–rather–it may not be possible to. I think we both suspect it’s not.
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It started with a joke, a gentle jest amongst sisters. A husband was coming. A good husband, each thought. That was a reason to be happy.
The princess Eathebel wore the largest grin that had ever been fitted onto her face. As it stood, it hardly fit, and it looked somewhat unnatural with the rest of her features. Queen Evanora was not bothered by that. A life of sadness can make happiness hard to hold, but there was a time to hold it. And she earnestly believed that time for sister in law had come.
“I love him,” the princess whispered to the queen. “I think I always have.”
The comment was sudden and jarring. The queen held her expression in place. Something wasn’t right, she knew. The princess had never met the duke.
“We’ll finally be together,” she said. “I just need to tell my brother.”
The queen nodded. It was a reflex. It was her body not knowing what else to do with her focus being on stifling the reaction of her features. She could not spill her husband’s plan. It would take away what little advantage she had.
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Can I ask you another question? Or I will anyway. I understand you need a thesis subject, but should this… I don’t know. Shouldn’t that thesis do something more than hold a place on your resume? Shouldn’t it contribute something? What do you hope to contribute that I could not offer up on my own?
Not to put you on the spot of course. Maybe the answer really just is that it will tell the story I can’t seem to bring myself to tell. I do think that’s worth something, after all. Maybe it’s just worth checking. To be sure, you know?
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Queen Evanora had never asked herself for the details that lurked in her mind of what had almost unfolded the day her daughter almost died. And yet, as she watched her sister in law from her place next to the king at the head of another banquet, it started to come together. The princess had an assassin, didn’t she? She had someone in the shadows helping her, doing her bidding. The queen had caught a glimpse of those eyes once. They were a lifeless gray with a sharp edge to them. She hardly knew anything else about this figure, but there was no need to know more. Those actions spoke for themselves. They spoke of someone to be feared and held in line with her magic.
Which she had done, she reminded herself. She had guarded her husband and daughter against him all those years ago. It was why this had slipped her mind. There had been no need to think about it. Not until that moment, but now it was at the forefront of her mind. And she rest of it was racing. She could hardly catch another thought. All she had was the knowledge of the threat before her.
Because it wasn’t just the killer she needed to fear and control. It was the one that controlled the killer too.
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I would caution you against this or pursuing this in any way. I had a terrible experience with my thesis, so there’s that perspective, but it also goes beyond that. You don’t know what you’re getting into. I can’t entirely guarantee your personal safety, just that the threats I always had to deal with are somewhat irrelevant now. My aunt is still alive, albeit barely. But no, I won’t… I won’t say anything else. There are pieces of this game that are off the board, but those weren’t the most dangerous ones. Those aren’t the pieces that changed me, that broke me. Those are still out there, and how are you so sure they won’t have that effect on you?
I don’t think the more… callous true crime content creators necessarily started off that way. Some of them did, yes, but not all. I think some of them had to become that. It was the only way they could make it through. But you can’t defend yourself that way. You’re not capable of it. This chilling of the heart. This forgetting that these people were, in fact, people. This dehumanization is a shield. Or it can be. I’ve seen people use it. But I don’t think you have one. I don’t think you’re capable of making it or wielding it. And perhaps that’s admirable. But it does leave you vulnerable. Or I don’t get the impression that you could.
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The Princess Eathebel carried her journals in hand as she walked. She did not need them, but it was a way to disguise the shaking of her hands. There was a storm passing over the castle, and the thunder was enough to shake the walls. She did not like storms. She liked calm and peaceful nights. She liked things to be easy, simple, delicate. And she would do whatever she could to get there, particularly now that she had no inhibitions about any of it.
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Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or donate to the show’s Ko-Fi account.