Ugly

So, this isn't really a fictional post. Just a thought: one that I can't fully describe in a oneshot.

Last weekend, I had the privilege of walking the beach with three ladies full of imagination. Once we'd walked the beach, we settled on the rocky divider between the public beach and the channel for the boats, and we watched the sun set. Colors splashed the sky as you might expect them to in a sunset over the water. A few sailboats and motorboats interrupted the calm surface of the water, but they didn't bother us.

After a few minutes of silence, my youngest sister began begging me for a story; the scenery had inspired her as it had inspired me. I held off for a few minutes, but eventually gave in. I was pressed to retell "the one with the dresses out of nuts". I did intend to tell just the story requested (which was incidentally a hodge-podge of many fairy tales, including Catskin, Goose Girl, and Cinderella) but my muse became distracted and the story ended up being a new twist on Catskin, and that was all.

I was reprimanded for telling the story wrong, but half-jokingly, and then the lady next to me was supplicated for a story. After a few minutes, she gave in and told us the first part of the tales of the Selkie Prince. Then it was the third girl's turn, and she made up a lovely tale from her head (a concept from it inspired me so, that I might write about soon). Finally, it was my sister's turn, and I waited with anticipation to see just how much we were alike.

I was not disappointed. The story she told may have been a little cliche, but she knew no better. It was well told, with description and plot in all the right places. It went something like this, though my memory dims. The sleepy silence on the pier does not aid one's memory.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl. She was the daughter of a rich lord who owned a lot of land in the country. The king was jealous of the land, but he did not want to steal or kill to gain the fertile grounds, so he devised a sly plan. He met with the lord, and together they agreed that marriage between the lord's daughter and the king's son would be most beneficial. The lord gave most of the lands to the king and the son as his daughter's dowry.

Now, the daughter was quite angry with her father. She did not want to marry the prince, for he was ugly. He was short, and he was chubby. His nose was too big. His eyes were squinty. But all her pleas came to naught, because, though her father was distraught that he had caused her so much distress, there was just no going back on a deal with the king. And so it came to be that in a few months, the daughter was married to the prince.

The prince loved her as soon as he laid his eyes upon her, but she did not love him. She was extremely unhappy, even though he loved her, and she wished she could run away, but she knew she couldn't. One day, as she was taking a walk in the wood, she came upon a Tree of Heaven. She collapsed beneath it and sobbed out her tale of woe to its flowering branches. When she'd finished her story, a tiger pounced out of the tree. Though she was scared, she soon found that the tiger was like a tame kitten under her hand.

When she returned to the palace, the prince was fascinated with the tiger and tried to train it for battle. The tiger didn't listen to the prince; he only responded to the girl's sweet voice. He followed her around and did everything she commanded it to. The prince wouldn't give up, however. He continued to try to train the tiger, but the tiger turned wild on him and injured a man. The prince ordered the beast killed, much to the girl's great anger and sorrow.

She went back to the Tree of Heaven and told it what had happened. This time, a lion pounced out of the tree. It would not listen to her, however, when she called to it and tried to stroke its mane. It listened only to the unspoken desires of her heart. The murderous anger and grief pounding in the girl's heart gave it direction: it loped into the palace and found the prince. Before the prince had time to call for assistance, the lion had killed him.

The girl threw her arms around the lion's neck and kissed it, and it turned into a charming, handsome prince before her very eyes. They were married, and they lived happily ever after.

I was quite startled by the ending; I had been expecting (foolishly, I suppose) the girl to realize that she could be happy with the ugly prince, since he loved her so! The girl's wishes obviously put a rift between them, and if she had just opened her eyes and realized that her husband loved her very much and only wanted to make her happy, none of this would have happened!

Saddened by the cruel destruction of the ugly prince, I covered up my nettled attitude and listened as the lady beside me told the second part of the Selkie's tale. Was I ever like that at that age? I wondered. Was being pretty all that mattered to me, then? Did I really believe that as long as two people were pretty, they would be happy together? We were consequently there at the beach in order to attend a wedding, in which both people were fairly pretty, though the woman was, in my opinion, far more so.

She possesses that natural beauty that needs no cosmetics or pretty dresses to bring it out. I have always thought her quite beautiful, and when she came back from getting her make-over for the wedding, I was set entirely off-balance. I don't believe I'd ever seen her with more than lip gloss on, and here she was: lipsticked, eye make-up-ed, blushed, mascara-ed, and eyebrows plucked. I didn't recognize her, and I didn't like it. It didn't fit her character at all.

Maybe the prince's face fit him, too. Maybe he wasw ugly, but he wouldn't look right any other way. Once you got to know him, he was a great guy. He was easy to love, a loving man: a passionate one. He might have been a lover of beauty, and an optimistic personality might have been his. He fell in love with his wife, a beautiful, sun-kissed woman who knew how to conduct herself with deportment and kindness. She knew how to be a princess, and she was beautiful even in sleep. He counted himself lucky to have a radiant bride, supposing that such a sweet face could hold no other expression.

But all her eyes saw in his awed, hopeful expression was a nose too large to be stately, eyes set too close together, and a man in need of a few more inches of height and a few less around the waist. She didn't see that his smile, though crooked, was genuine and fair. She didn't see that the other women at the balls stayed to talk with him, not out of pity, but because he complimented them, and he meant it expecting nothing in return. She didn't see that the men smiled around him, and that the air couldn't help but be warmer wherever the prince walked.

Everyone loved him except his own wife.

His odd and ugly looks were a part of him no one would wish away; a man so kind and with a flawless face would be too good to be true. This way, he seemed human. People feared her, with her angelic appearance, but the prince's rustic, homely face made him approachable. He was an earnest man, one intent on his people, and one wanting to do right.

And by the hateful wish of a beautiful girl, he was killed. Where is the justice in that? The prince could have complained to the tree, and perhaps a lion could have killed the girl. That would be more just. But, the prince never complained. Though he must have known his wife hated him, he didnot separate from her, send her away in shame, accuse her of having a lover, or even ship her quietly off to a summer home by the sea. No, night after night, he slept next to her in bed, though she was cold as ice with loathing. Day after day, he ate across the table from her. Week after week, he danced with her at balls. Always, he had hope that she would love him.

And his hope brought about his downfall.

Without intending it, it seemed my sister made a great life point; optimism and hope cannot always save you. But the prince lived well and fully. I don't think I could have said the same for the girl. If I had to choose between a shorter, happier life or a longer, bitter one, I would choose the shorter in an instant. I suppose I shouldn't grieve for the prince. After all, he didn't grieve for himself. And maybe, in ten years, the girl will realize how she wronged him, and perhaps she will change.

Or perhaps I am too optimistic.