I wrote this short story over a year ago as a submission for the “Being Aro” anthology. It wasn’t selected, but now that “Being Aro” is out, I dug up my story and decided to share it here. I hope you enjoy!

Frog Princess

It all started when a girl spotted me trudging through the moat, stagnant water up to my knees, holding up a skirt full of frogs. 

“What’re you doing?” She crouched on the drawbridge, a gangly fellow seventeen-year-old with curly chesnut hair, voice without accusation – just curiosity. 

That tone is what convinced me to trust her.

“The frogs are classified as pests now,” I said, stuffing another amphibian into my skirt-bundle. “If the groundspeople find them here, they’re under orders to kill them.”

Without a word, she clammered down the embankment and scanned the water. Then she lunged down – splashing me in the process – and came up holding a frog. She picked up the bottom of her tunic and cradled her own amphibian bundle.

“Like this?”

“Exactly.”

We continued spotting and grabbing frogs until our garments were bursting. Then we scrabbled up the bank of the moat, snuck across an unsupervised castle supply path, and turned onto a meandering road winding through the forest. There were other newer, better-paved roads going the same direction, which meant we had this one to ourselves. 

We walked over an hour in shy silence to reach our destination: the quaking bog, the only place I knew frogs lived and thrived.

We reached it just before sunset, the cool spring air beginning to nibble our bare arms. I was relieved that I hadn’t misremembered the details in the year since I’d seen it. From afar, it looked just like a small lake, cobalt surface reflecting shadows of the trees and sky.

We carefully picked our way down the sloping hill until we reached the base of the bog. We knelt side by side in the mud and opened our bundles. The frogs croaked as they jumped away– croaks I decided to interpret as messages of amphibious gratitude. 

The two of us stood there for a long moment. As the frogs retreated into their new world, the silence opened space between us. 

“I’m Jo,” she said. 

I smiled. “I’m–” I stopped when I heard a faint, distant pounding that sounded like–

Hoofbeats.

“I see her!” came a shout, followed by more cries and thundering hooves as a team of calvary guards galloped down the hill and circled the lake. 

The four horses charged right up to the edge of the bog. The head guard jumped off his horse and came so close his steel-toed boots dipped in the water. 

“It’s past your curfew, Princess,” he clucked, then grinned like he relished how much trouble I was about to be in. “We’re under orders to bring you home.”

I held my expression steady and my chin up, unwilling to let my frustration show. Instead, I turned to Jo, as if I hadn’t completely lost control of the situation. “I think we should head back. Want to ride with them?” 

Her eyes searched my face. “You’re the princess?”

“I am.” I couldn’t tell what she was thinking or feeling. “I was about to tell you.”

“You’re the princess,” Jo repeated, tone still indiscipherable, though no longer a question.

“Yeah.” I stared down at my feet in the bogwater.

“With a legion of guards and horses.”

“Yeah.” There was nothing else I could say. One more almost-friend spooked away because I was surrounded and monitored at all times, unable to have one normal outing. I couldn’t blame her, so instead I berated myself for having hope.

“And we had to walk here?” She clucked disapprovingly and then flashed a smile. She wasn’t scared, or upset. She thought it was funny. “Yeah, let’s get a ride home.”

And that’s how, at age seventeen, I made my first friend.

~~~

A few weeks later, I had plans to meet Jo in the livery barn. I was technically still grounded from our bog-scapade, but my parents and most of the guards were in the banquet hall meeting with advisors. When I tested the boundary – sneaking out of my room, crossing the drawbridge and ducking into the stables– no one came after me. 

I found Jo in the corner of the tack room, staring intently at a bit of cheese strategically laid a few feet from the wall.

I joined her, crouching behind the giant bags of corn and oats stacked high above our heads. 

“Any luck?”

She shot me a look and I remembered the plan: no talking.

I mouthed, Sorry!, and fell silent, watching the cheese. This was our third stakeout testing various set-ups – different types of cheese set up in different spots – with the goal of luring mice out of the walls. We were sort-of abducting them, but it was better than them being mouse-trapped or poisoned.

It hasn’t worked, I thought. Then I corrected myself: It hasn’t worked yet. 

It turned out Jo had more determination and patience than I did, which was both gratifying and frustrating. The frog rescue had been my idea, but she had expanded the mission to protect all the castle creatures classified as vermin.

So yeah, maybe a tiny part of me resented being shown up in the empathy department. But a bigger part of me was glad to have a friend — especially one who cared so much about all the castle creatures.

All of which meant if she could sit for hours at a time watching a crumb of cheese, so could I.

Except, as the minutes drew into an hour, my mind kept circling back to the latest conversation I’d had with my parents. 

“Conversation” was maybe too generous of a term for what would have been a fight, if one of us had raised our voices. Unfortunately, we were the kind of family whose fiercest battles were fought at normal volume with pleasant tones, meaning I often walked away with confusion twisting my gut at how an innocuous discussion could leave me feeling so terrible. 

My brain dug itself into the memory until I couldn’t pull myself out. I sank and drew into myself and I–

“Hey.” Jo was looking at me, mouth pressed in a line. “What’s wrong?”

I mouthed, The mice, without making a sound, glancing back at the cheese.

“Are probably not coming out today, just because we swapped cheddar for swiss,” she said, voice at a normal volume. “We can try a different cheese tomorrow. What’s wrong?”

After the whole ‘you didn’t tell me you were royalty’ thing, we had promised not to lie to each other, so I didn’t say ‘nothing.’ I took a breath and matched her volume. “We’re hosting an assembly next week.”

“I’m sorry,” Jo said, clocking the discomfort on my face and offering a sympathetic frown. “Having company is the worst.”

“That’s–” I elbowed her lightly, though I knew she was trying to make me feel better. “That’s not the problem.”

“Which is…”

“It’s an assembly of eligible suitors.”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” I sat in the comfort of her understanding the problem. A few days after the bog-scapade, as we were getting to know each other better, I’d confessed to her what I wanted (freedom), what I didn’t (romance) and my biggest fear (being trapped in an unhappy marriage.) 

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to choose someone over the course of a few days.”

“It’s simple,” she told me, meeting my eyes so I could see she how serious she was. “Don’t marry anyone.”

I let out a frustrated laugh. “I can’t not marry. I’m the only daughter of the crown. This isn’t about me; it’s about the future of the kingdom.”

Jo held my gaze. “The kingdom will sort itself out. What matters is that you’re living the life you’re called to live.”

I put my head in my hands and rubbed my eyes, trying to hide the tears forming. Whether they were from the despair I was feeling or the unbridled kindness she offered, I wasn’t sure.

I heard her scooting across the floor and, a moment later, she put her arms around me. I wiped my eyes, trying to reconcile what I was feeling.

“I don’t know how to do that,” I said. “Even if I decide not to marry, the assembly’s still happening. People are still going to try and marry me, if only for my dowry and influence.”

“They can try,” Jo said. “But they won’t succeed.”

~~~~

“Maybe,” I said the next day, as we examined the undersides of the banquet hall tables, looking for cobwebs so we could rehome the inhabitants before they were squashed by the cleaning crew, “you and I could get married. Just on paper. For convenience.”

Jo gave me a look like she’d been waiting for me to bring it up. “It crossed my mind, too. But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Even though it was a hypothetical, just-on-paper union of two people who didn’t feel that way about each other, the hypothetical, just-on-paper rejection still stung.  “Why not?” 

“Cup,” Jo said and held out her hand. I handed her a cup, and she used it to gently encase a thin, almost translucent spider clinging to the bottom of a chair. She put her hand over the container and we took it outside.

On the bark of an ancient oak, Jo set the spider free. My question – Why not? – hung in the air as we watched it skitter away.

“I have a crush on one of my classmates,” Jo said finally, slowly, watching the spider take a few tentative steps on the tree. “And I think he might like me back.”

“Oh, okay.” I’d known Jo liked boys in an abstract sense, but this was my first time hearing about anyone specific. And she was my first friend, which meant I didn’t know exactly how I was supposed to respond to that information. “That’s good?” I immediately knew it was the wrong tone. “Sorry. I mean, that’s great!”

“Colton’s really sweet, and really kind, and cute,” Jo said, smiling softly at the memory. I watched, a little fascinated by the spell she seemed to have slipped under.

I pivoted back to the original topic. “So you can’t fake-marry me because of your real-crush?”

Jo nodded. “If I fake-marry you, I can’t keep flirting with Colton. And either way, I don’t have the money or connections that your parents are looking for in a match.”

I’d been prepared to argue that we could have an open-fake-marriage and she could still flirt with whomever she wanted, but I paused, because she was right. This wasn’t just a love match. In fact, if I were being honest, it barely about love at all, and not because I was aromantic. This marriage was a political calculation. By those standards, Jo would come up short.

“Okay,” I said, by way of agreement, though my heart sank a little. 

“What you need to do,” Jo said, and I perked up, relieved she had a master plan to get out of this, “is talk to your parents. Tell them you won’t get married, and either you can rule alone or they can find someone else to give the crown.”

I deflated. That wasn’t the type of plan I was looking for. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Jo raised her hands, gesturing at the castle. “You can do anything. You’re the princess!”

“Yeah, and they’re the king and queen!” I shot back. “They’ve made their expectations crystal clear. My whole purpose is to find a partner among these suitors and continue the family line. There aren’t other options. I’ve tried to talk to them dozens of times. I can’t rule alone, and I can’t abdicate without losing everything.”

“I think you have more power than you realize,” Jo said. She took my hand and squeezed it. “But I hear you. And I’m still going to help you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be as easy to save as the frogs. Or the mice. Or the spiders.”

“No, you won’t be.” She smiled. “But I do have some ideas.”

~~~~

On the first day of the assembly, I sat at the head of the table, staring down two lines of suitors. They were seated a dozen down each side, all of them facing their plates and trying to look at me without looking like they were looking at me. 

I was trying not to stare, too, and mostly failing. I’d expected a monotonous blur of vanilla-bean chivalry, but the group was a mixed bag. Young and old and somewhere in between, male and female and somewhere in between, well-dressed and simply-adorned, aesthetically pleasing and aesthetically… not. 

Somewhere in those ranks, I was supposed to find someone to marry. 

Unless our plan worked.

A castle attendant coughed and gave me a pointed look, signaling it was time for me to say a few words to start the meal. I looked down at the card where those words were written and knew I’d hate the way they’d taste in my mouth. Like drinking a medicinal drought, best to get through it quickly.

I stood and it gave everyone an excuse to look at me directly, expectantly. I looked once more down at the card, swallowed, and began to read. 

“Thank you all for joining me today.” Years of engrained politeness and diplomacy training helped me maintain a neutral tone and a smile, which were key if we were going to pull this off. “For six generations, my family has lived in this castle and governed the providence. Now it’s time for the next generation. The next match.” I raised a glass of watered-down wine. “To partnership.” 

The group of suitors toasted back and drank. It was also the cue for the castle staff to wheel in trays towering with a pre-plated feast: each tray held a bowl of our signature pumpkin soup laden with local nuts and seeds, a slice of thick-crusted sourdough bread smothered in whipped butter, and a side of mushrooms stuffed with cheese and herbs. 

I sat and thanked Aya, one of the servers, as she placed my meal in front of me then moved down the table. When everyone had their food, I took the first bite, twenty four people watching it pass my lips before they dug into their own plates. 

The suitors nearest me tried to engage in light conversation, asking about my hobbies and interests. I tried to split my attention between meeting their gazes and watching the rest of the group. 

“What do you do for fun?”

“Oh, y’know,” I said absently, as I watched one of the suitors at the other end of the table excuse himself. 

“No, I don’t,” the person who’d asked the question said. “That’s… that’s why I asked.”

I watched another suitor stand up from the table, walk away, then start running toward the door. 

“I like to read,” I said, turning back to address the person I was talking to, whose name I’d already forgotten.

“Oh, what books d– pardon me.” Their face lost all color. “Uh, excuse me. Where’s the restroom?”

“Down that hall and to the right,” I pointed. They departed, joining a mass exodus of suitors filing out of the room. 

I glanced over at the servers. Most of them looked bewildered; only Aya met my gaze without a question in her eyes. If anything, she looked slightly pleased. I met her eyes in acknowledgement but kept my face arranged in gentle concern. 

One of the guards stepped forward. “Should we call a doctor?” 

“I don’t think that necessary,” I said. I knew it wasn’t. The inedible seeds we’d sprinkled atop their soup weren’t life-threatening. Just toxic enough to send someone to the restroom for… well, hopefully the rest of the evening. Maybe part of the next day. 

~~~

When I came downstairs for breakfast the next morning, only half of the suitors remained. The rest, whether because they were still unwell or had recovered but remained too wary to eat our food again, had hastily taken leave.

My parents apologized profusely to those who’d stayed and ordered a full audit of the kitchen’s food supply. I already knew they wouldn’t find anything – Aya and Jo, working in cahoots behind the scenes, had been very careful to hide trace of the offending seeds. But it did mean I had less supervision during my one-on-one meetings with each of the remaining suitors. 

The way I’d heard the story fifty thousand times before, my parents’ one-on-one was the moment when their chemistry clicked and the match was clear. I already knew that a love match wasn’t in the cards for me, but this was my chance to convince the remaining suitors that I wasn’t “the one” for them, either.

For that, I had a couple cards up my sleeve.

First, I strolled around the castle gardens with a tall gentleman in well-tailored garments whom I immediately found snobbish to the point of unpleasantness as he droned about his kingdom without asking me a single question. So I pretended I’d never heard of his kingdom, its world-renowned pastries, or its signature opera. He grew subtly, then openly irritated as I feigned ignorance, mispronounced things on purpose, and mixed in some praise toward its neighboring rival. The conversation went so terribly (which is to say, so well), he ended it early, with a weak excuse about having to get back home in time for a regional holiday I knew wasn’t for several weeks. 

My next meeting was tea, and conveniently (which is to say, just according to plan), Jo’s crush Colton was our server. I was more rude to him than anyone has ever been to a server. I asked for random things, got upset when he took more than two seconds to bring said things, sent away a giant tray of biscuits because the “cookies gave off the wrong energy,” and gulped my tea then spit it back into the cup because it was “a weird color in my mouth.” The woman I was meant to be drinking tea and falling in love with was (rightly) horrified. Though she made it to the end of our session, she left the castle less than an hour later with a similarly flimsy excuse about a just-remembered prior commitment. 

One by one, I muddled through the meetings on my worst behavior. I learned that it didn’t take the full thirty minutes to make someone wish to stay as far from me as possible. Combined with the so-far-unexplained food poisoning, the overall picture of the assembly – according to Aya and Colton’s intelligence from whispers among the castle staff – was that our castle was a place none of the suitors wanted to live. And that I was no one’s dream wife. 

~~~

I had to feign shock and dismay the next morning when the head guard informed me all the suitors had left. 

I walked back up to my room to change from my corseted, lacy gown to my moat-and-bog digs, I had a rare moment alone and allowed myself to grin. Our plan had worked. I couldn’t wait to tell Jo, Aya and Colton – my co-planner and co-conspirators. I’d proven there was no suitable match, and I had the next conversation with my parents mapped out: Mom, Dad, I tried your whole romance and marriage plan, but it didn’t pan out. Can we talk about some other ideas I have? I know it’s always been a couple on the throne, but why can’t it just be me? Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m alone.

I paused in the corridor, thinking. I’d planned to approach them that evening, but maybe I should go now, before they entered a day of meetings and had the chance to strategize with their advisors. 

Instead of turning left toward my quarters, I turned right.

There were a few guards at the door to my parents’ study, which told me they were inside. Technically I was supposed to wait and let the guards announce me, but the rules were a little looser given I was their daughter. I used that gray-area hesitation to barge past the guards. I opened the door to my parents’ study to find my dad shaking hands with someone I didn’t recognize. A new diplomat, perhaps, or a farmer. My mom shot up with an expression suggesting I wasn’t supposed to be there.

I backed out of the doorway, my manners kicking in. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt.” 

I started to turn back toward the door to exit, but the stranger stood quickly.

“Don’t go.” His voice was deep and serious. “I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

I forced a smile and stepped forward, that damn engrained politeness overpowering my fight-or-flight instinct. My brain raced, trying to weigh the risks. All the suitors had left, and this man hadn’t been one of them. He was probably an overzealous constituent wanting to say hello. I told myself not to be nervous. 

“Is that so?” I said lightly, as he took my hand and engulfed it in his own. I noticed his palms were smoother than mine. So, not a farmer. He had dark hair, neat clothes, and perfect posture.

“What is your name?” I asked. It seemed a safe question, but when I glanced over at my parents, both their faces were bone-white. 

Before I could say anything to them, the man kissed my hand and then straightened, looked into my eyes, and smiled with confident determination. “I’m Victor Cant. Your soon-to-be husband.” 

I turned to my parents, waiting for them to react to his unfounded arrogance. Instead, they cast their eyes down, refusing or unable to meet my eyes. I remembered the handshake. I jerked my hand away from his. 

I had spent the past week perfecting the art of repulsing prospective suitors, but this was completely different. It was no longer an ask, it was an order. All I could say was, “No.” I moved away from the three of them, mind racing.

“Can you… give us a minute?” my mom asked Victor. He nodded with a patronizing smile and exited the room, leaving me with my parents. The walls pressed in on me.

“It’s past time,” my dad said, finally addressing me straight-on. He wore the expression he’d used when disciplining me as a child: patient dismay. “You’ve had the opportunity to choose, and what you chose was to absolve yourself of that decision.” 

His tone was so much worse than anger, or even guilt, because it meant he’d already thought through this and decided what he was going to do. When my dad decided something, it became law – literally. He prided himself on never changing his mind. 

“I don’t want to marry,” I managed to get out. “Don’t I have any say in this?”

My mom sighed like she’d been expecting me to ask. “We tried to let you decide on your own, and to pursue a love match,” she said, fingers on her temple like she had a headache. “We tried to help you to find someone. An external selection was never our first choice, but we had to make alternate arrangements, knowing something like this could happen.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why do I need to be in a relationship?”

“Because it’s not just about you and what you want,” my dad said. “Maybe this isn’t what you would choose out of all the options in the world, and I am sorry for that. But being born into the royal family has certain privileges and certain corresponding responsibilities.”

My mom nodded. “You were raised in a castle,” she said, like I didn’t know that. “You have always had access to everything you could want. In exchange, your responsibility is to give back to the kingdom by stepping up to lead – with a partner who can support you– and continue the family line. This isn’t something you can do alone.”

She finished speaking, and the air was heavy. I didn’t know what to say in response – didn’t know if I should fight back, or break down and apologize. Was I the one in the right here, standing up for myself? Or was I stubborn and ungrateful for my privileges, absolving myself of the responsibility that came with them? 

“I will consider what you’ve said,” I said. And then I turned and ran, faster than I’d ever run, faster than the guards, who couldn’t catch me. 

By the time they contacted the cavalry to pursue me, I had made it across the drawbridge and into the forest.

~~~

Nestled in a patch of shrubbery on the hill overlooking the bog, I had no food, no tools, and no books. Just time to face the storm inside me. Amid the torrent of anger and fear, I was surprised to discover a small but clear current of relief. I was facing my worst fear, but it was finally out in the open. The nebulous threat to my freedom I’d been grappling with all my life was now something tangible: an arranged marriage to Victor. It was something I could grasp, and something I could fight.

First, I needed to evaluate if there was any truth to what my dad had said, because his words had caught me by surprise. Did I have a responsibility, that came with my royal privilege, to take the crown and the wedding band in sacrifice of my own personal desires? Wasn’t that, in a way, what my parents had done, and theirs, and all our predecessors who put the needs of the kingdom above their own? 

I thought about it. No, I realized. I’d never signed up for that job. As much as they’d insisted I’d had a choice, I hadn’t – not really. If I had, then “no one at all” would have been a perfectly valid option.

And if I didn’t have a choice, then why did I have a responsibility to follow through on their plans? I could choose a different path for myself. I didn’t owe them the rest of my life as repayment for what they’d given me.

The problem now was that my parents refused to consider any succession of power that deviated from what had been done before. I knew they both felt a deep responsibility for the kingdom and believed keeping control within the family was the best way to ensure stability and trust among the people who lived there. Why they thought Victor was the right partner, as a total stranger, escaped me. Maybe because marriage was the status quo.

I tried to set aside what I’d been taught and told all my life, and approach it from the ground up. First question: did I want to rule the kingdom? Answer: Maybe. I wasn’t someone driven by having power and being the leader, but that part of the deal wasn’t the problem for me – I enjoyed being diplomatic, and I felt I could make the kingdom better if I took the crown. It was only the marriage part that I struggled with.

Second question: could I rule alone? Or perhaps a better question: did I want to rule alone? Answer: Not really. I’d spent so much of my life alone, surrounded by guards who were paid to enforce the distance around me, and it wasn’t something I enjoyed. I’d managed, until a few weeks ago, when I discovered what it was like to not be alone.

That thought crystalized into an idea, cemented as I watched from my shrubbery-hiding-spot as Jo, Colton, and Aya exited from the road toward the bog, where we’d agreed to meet if things went south. 

Things had definitely gone south. But I knew what I needed to do.

~~~

I barged back into the castle, and even though I’d been on the run, the guards were too surprised and unsure what was happening to apprehend me. I found my parents and Victor in the study. I couldn’t read their faces, and I wasn’t going to wait.

“I thought about what you said,” I said, quickly before they could get a word in, “and you’re right.”

It was more or less exactly the last thing they expected me to say, judging by their eyebrows, and it bought me an extra second.

I forged on. “I can’t rule alone. Partnership and collaboration are so important to being a leader, because we need to take into account different perspectives.”

Victor’s face relaxed into a smile. “You’re so ri–”

“Not you.” I fully interrupted and ignored him, and felt a twinge of satisfaction. “Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet my ruling partners.” 

Jo, Colton, and Aya entered the study, dipping into formal greetings to my parents.

“I’m going to consult them, and I’d like your help to assemble a committee of advisors like yours, with expertise on the topics the four of us aren’t familiar with.” I took a breath. “There’s more than one kind of partner, and more than one kind of leader, and if you want me to lead, then these are my conditions.”

“And if we don’t?” my dad asked.

“Then I leave, right now, and I’m not coming back.” I looked straight in his eyes so he knew I wasn’t bluffing. I would destroy my life and build a new one before I’d accept their plan.

“It’s an interesting idea,” my mom said, slowly. In that moment I knew I’d won. It wasn’t a yes, but it was her version of it. And while my dad maintained that he never changed his mind, the truth was that my mom could change it for him. If she was on board, I suspected I wasn’t going anywhere.

In which case, it was time to start building the world I wanted to see. My first order of business: a decree to stop hunting the frogs.

/

/

/

Afterword: 

If it hadn’t been for Colton, Aya and Jo

I’d been married a long time ago

Where did you come from / where did you go

Where did you come from, Colton, Aya and Jo

###

[Author’s note: Yeah, “Cotton-Eyed Joe” was actually the inspiration for this whole story.]