"Just say whatever comes to mind."

 "I will... Start telling a lie. And eventually I will be talking about the truth. Would that work?"

"Whatever works for you."

...

A long time ago, there was a great kingdom.

It was vast, and stoney. A feature of the landscape. Travellers would mistake it for a mountain if the tops were peaks instead of roofs. It was a very old kingdom, ruled by a King and Queen who, to every visitor, was benevolent,.

They heard their every woe, the adults and children alike, and they always had much to say. 

The King was not the socialite, he preferred to manage the efforts of the Kingdom. He'd spend his days instructing the Generals or the Architects or musing with the Scholars or the Philosophers.

The Queen was. She'd visit the parties of the nobles and the virtuous, those who stood close, and she always made time for the family she grew up with.

It was a powerful duo, whom to every questioning member of society, gave a picturesque visage of rulership.

The Royal Family was not two people, however. It was three.

High in a far-away tower was a princess.

You may think the rulers cruel, having tossed her in such a high place, but they did no such.

At a young age, the Princess had learned that the King had been an adept magic user, and utilized that ability in most of what he did.

She saw this incredible power most, when he would show her magical worlds.

Doorways that he could carve out of chalk which would lead to impossible places.

Kingdoms like theirs on faraway islands. Visages of the future. Realms where they could play god.

She sought this power. She sought to play with it, and later to learn it.

But the only place they kept the tomes for such things was in an incredibly far-away tower, up a significant flight of steps.

Not out of any forbidden energy- When the magic was new, it was the only place they had space and it wasn't important enough to move to the main castle.

And as the King grew clever, he memorized their contents and needed them no more- And moving it was a great task that no one was willing to do.

So, the Princess, rebellious, and determined, made her way to the tower with her books and her pencils and her bedroll.

She made her way to the top, and there she stayed.

The King and Queen first admired  and encouraged this fascination.

"Look at her go," they said. "Finally, after all these years, she's doing something worth while." They said.

But the Princess-Witch did not want to learn the magic of crop growth or mason-hammers or smithy or alchemy.

She just wanted one magic.

The magic to carve doors to other worlds.

"Ah- Sorry, just got a text."

"All good, take your time. I'm still following. Both the story and its inspiration."

"Mm."

So, the Princess... studied.

She was given food and water from the castle, and of course she made the tower into her home.

But it didn't take long for that strict upbringing to find flaw in how she was living her life.

"You are wasting your time!" they said.  "You are pursuing nothings!"

So.. the Princess got fed up.

She quit magic.

She threw down the chalk and the books, her instructors had talked to her about all things that weren't magic, she had not made a single fellow friend being such an isolationist, and she lost any sense of want for this dream.

She hated it.

She erased her doors-in-progress and just decided to live in the tower.

Soon, she found herself daydreaming.

And sometimes she's pick up the chalk again to draw another door.

But.. it'd only get so far.

She'd realize she needed a color she didn't have.

She realized she'd have to learn to mix that color.

She'd get overwhelmed.

She'd stop.

She picked up a different choice instead.

One particular instructor, yet another man with no lesson in chalk, had captured her attention.

He had said unto her,

"You want so much to do something else. Take this, and write about it."

It was a pen.

So, she did.

And she liked what she had written.

She liked that she knew how to string words together.

She liked the swoosh of the letters as she learned how to write in other languages, tongues, and phrases.

Soon, she no longer felt like the Soon-To-Be-Witch.

She was the Not-Soon-To-Be-Witch.

Then, the Not-To-Be-Witch.

Then, the Couldn't-Be-Witch.

Then,

She simply couldn't.

She didn't want to touch chalk anymore. It was scary and mysterious.

She didn't want to talk to the King and Queen about continuing her lessons in magic.

She was perfectly content to just put up pages of things she had written.

She wondered if it was her calling.

She didn't know. The Magic had never felt like a calling either.

She wasn't sure if a calling existed.

Her parents, hearing this, were heinous to her.

Demanded, begged that she resumed her lesson.

They screamed and hollered at her about how unfit a princess she was going to be.

She would shrug at them, but that would make them angrier.

What they didn't realize, you see.

Was the Princess never expected to become Queen.

She didn't think she'd live that long.

Not that she couldn't-

It wasn't as though she were cursed, or wished to cut short the life she had.

She simply expected fate to come knocking before she even turned twenty.

But then she was twenty.

Then she was twenty-one.

Twenty-two.

And so on.

Suddenly she was an adult.

And when she was an adult, new tragedy struck.

Tragedy she found so terrible, that she became further torn.

The King had grown ill.

A terrible curse that afflicted many, and no cure had been made.

And the Princess, she held three things in front of her.

The Magic she never wanted to use for success but for joy,

The paper that she loved to write upon and give her world a spin,

And the fact that now she had to live through this.

She was comfortable, ready even, to face the idea of death.

She would never take her own life, though.

She was too afraid of that.

She simply saw herself as unable to save herself.

Unable to be her own knight in shining armor.

And sometimes knights would come along.

And swear they could save her.

Thinking she a damsel.

Some would climb and curse her out for being so high.

Some would climb and get to the top and politely she'd turn them away because it simply wasn't right.

Some would get to the top and become annoyed that she didn't treat their triumph as perfection itself.

Some would get annoyed she didn't treat them as perfect.

And every time a new knight came by and dared to climb,

Her heart would go aflutter, and she'd be excited.

But it would always turn out that they can't save her.

Because, of course, she has to save herself.

But she won't. Not now, anyway.

Because it bores her.

Because she hates it.

Because she has considered herself unable.

And she has considered the ability unreachable.

So she sits.

And she thinks.

And she writes.

And she waits.