One Day I'll Fly Away

Original by
Randy Crawford

Cover by
Vaults

One day I'll fly away, leave your love to yesterday
What more can your love do for me?
When will love be through with me?
Why live life from dream to dream
And dread the day that dreaming ends?
 

Note: I wrote this story with moonsun in mind, but you are free to use your imagination. Though this was definitely inspired by the recent teasers for PaintMe, I never use names. I hope it's a sweet story nonetheless :)
 

The princess sighs at the windowsill
The birds sing outside in lifelong pairs
It’s sweet, she thinks, if it didn’t wrench her heart
She lays her head on the pillow and watches
Two larks fly by
She shuts her eyes and goes back to dreaming
Of a prince, a knight—her other half
She wills the Sandman to be kind
To be creative and romantic
To bestow her partner with starlit eyes
And so she dreams and dreams
And dreads the waking dawn

The knight sighs from the bottom of the tower
She catches a glimpse and loses the spar
Her captain scolds her
The knight waits for the princess and dreams
She dreams of a world for two
Just her and the princess holding hands
Free to love
Free to be
She dreads waking up from blissful daydream
Her captain slaps her across the head

The princess watches from her pedestal
The knights practicing down below
Her father speaks to her idly
He notices she is unhappy but duty lets them pretend
Everything is alright
People are watching after all
But he doesn’t miss the way she lights up
Ever so slightly at the sight of an eager knight
He sighs and lets them be
It wasn’t ideal but it could be worse
Maybe it’ll even pass

Just two days past the knight had caught the princess’s eye
On a bright afternoon, in a meadow among the trees
The knight had run to her haven, screamed at the top of her lungs
She made her mistakes, foolishly
Though nothing was new
Perhaps she wasn't meant for this
The cuts and aches
The battered heart 
Her proof

If only the captain were not so unforgiving
If only she were not so unforgiving
If only weight on her shoulders were not so unforgiving
She ran to the meadow and laid down to sleep
To forget the bruises on her body
And the sound of shattered hopes in her ear

But moments later, a rustle
The knight bolted up
Looming above her was a familiar shape
A white-maned pony
With a fawn-coloured coat
The pony nudged her
She laughed and embraced the speckled muzzle
Then from behind emerged the one
Who haunts her dreams
The princess greeted her shyly
The knight stumbled into a kneel
They found each other in their mirrored tales
And unknowingly chanced the comfort of love’s embrace

Since then, they return every three days
Blissfully unaware
Of their dream coming to an end

The war comes
Destruction beneath its heavy boots
The knight joins her friends on the battlefield
The princess wants to fly away
Back to the meadow with her knight
Backwards to yesterday
Forwards to tomorrow
She sits useless on her pedestal
And waits for her wings to grow

The war roars louder when they take a shot at the king’s heart
It hits his chest, a narrow miss
The kingdom waits for him to open his eyes
And for once, the princess steps out of her golden braces
And braces for the world ahead

The princess bravely flies
Like a dove she sings
For peace
For her people
For her knight

Finally the war is done
The bloodied battlefields silently welcome
The comfort of the Valkyrie’s embrace
Battered and bruised, the living goes home
Mourning but grateful, guilty, for a chance to live again

The king awakes
The princess returns home
She has seen too much
But there is no time to mourn
She finds the strength to help her kingdom recover
To be a leader
To shed the facade
Of the fragile doll she was told to be

The knight comes home broken
Her captain’s scarf clutched in her red hands
She fought with everything she had under the ungrateful sky
But she made her mistakes
The biggest being alive
While her captain lay buried
The knight holds the scarf to her chest
And vows to be stronger
For her captain
For her people
For her princess

The knight sees the princess again
Practically a queen now, so greatly revered
She politely bows
Silently wishes
To be worthy enough to share in her quiet strength
The princess nods back
Duty awaits

Two years fly by while the princess rules alongside the king
The king is tired—perhaps it’s time

The knight trains tirelessly to be the strongest in all the land
She earns the rewards and accolades and the reverence
Gains the awe of the land as its protector
None of which she ever wanted

They see each other once in a while
A smile and a nod is all they can afford
While at night they dream and pray
For the dreaming to never end

In another year, the princess becomes queen
Rumour spreads across the lands that she is searching for her king
Suitors start to line up
Handsome princes bearing extravagance and promise
Of the gold chains she loathed so much

The old king looks on amused
As he sips his tea
Wondering what became of that young knight
All those years ago

The new queen bites her lip
As she considers the obligations to her country
Against the obligations to her heart

The knight sighs as she passes through the palace halls
Wondering if somewhere somehow, within these walls
There still lives the princess who captured her heart

And both, as they wander aimlessly on a rainy afternoon
Wonder if it were love that they once shared
And if she still feels the same

They meet again without prying eyes of the quiet hall
The queen stands on the bottom step and greets her knight shyly
The knight stumbles into a kneel and looks up to see
Bright eyes, tinged with affection
Tinged with wariness
They’re older now
They’ve both seen too much
They’ve both seen the way fickle time plays its cards

I love you

They smile at the melody of their voices in unison
They smile in understanding of the unspoken history behind those three words
And as the princess takes the knight’s hand
They smile as their dreams wake into reality

End