Once a long long time ago, in a land far far away lived a prince. But he wasn’t really a prince. He dressed like a prince, he looked like a prince, he even spoke like a prince. But he was not a prince; he was a princess.

Maybe god had had a mistake and turned her X chromosome into a Y. Or maybe he wanted to give this particular prince(ss) an extra conflict in life. But for whatever reason, a girl’s soul was stuffed into a boy’s body.

Growing up, she knew she was a girl, but nobody else seemed to know nor believe that she was placed into the wrong body. Still, she tried to tell them that she wanted to put her hair in fancy hair-dos like the other girls, tried to tell them that she wanted to wear dresses that had frills and lace, tried to tell them she wanted to put on makeup and play with dolls. But nobody listened. They cut her hair just like a boys, they made her wear tunics and pants that made her itch, they made her wrestle and tumble like boys do. She wasn’t allowed to do anything that the gender binary didn’t allow.

But the Prince(ss) still told all who would listen that she was a girl. Soon she became shunned throughout the castle. Even her parents avoided the sight of her. When she left the castle, villagers stared and whispered.

“Look there goes the Abnormal Prince!”

“I feel bad for the King and Queen, having to deal with a boy

that’s wrong in the head.”

“Bah! His head is fine. He just wanted attention, as if he doesn’t have enough already!”

“Can you believe the loon wants us to believe he’s a girl?”

“I think he might just be a witch.”

“You think the miller's dog is a witch!”

“It had red eyes! That can’t be normal!”

The older she got, the less she went out. In a few years, she avoided leaving the castle entirely. She turned down every invitation for a hunting trip or a town meeting. Instead, she took solitude in the forest bordering the castle. The Prince(ss) tended to the trees and sang to the birds, and if she was hungry she’d shoot down a qual or a deer and bring it back to the castle.

As she grew older, her parents thought that it was time for the Prince(ss) to be married. Having a wife and kids might clear her head and convince her she was a boy. But no well respected lady in the kingdom was willing to wed ‘The Abnormal Prince’. So the King and Queen had her betrothed to a foreign princess. One who had no knowledge of the Prince(ss)’s ‘problem’.

When the Prince(ss) found out about this wedding, she did the one thing that boys were never allowed to do, cry. She had liked the Foreign Princess, and would have loved to marry her, but she was not going to live a lie. She was a girl, and she refused to believe otherwise.

The night before the wedding, she ran to the forest. She knew she could never run away, her father’s knights would drag her back kicking and screaming before the sun came up. Still, she gathered comfort in sitting with the trees and crying without fear of being overheard.

At this point, when the Prince(ss) was sure she’d have to live her life as a Prince, the most miraculous thing happened. Through a puff of green smoke a woman materialized. The woman was tall and willow-like, wrapped in a dress of moss and petals. Her skin was almost as dark as the Prince(ss)’s and looked as if it was shaped from the soil itself.

“Hello, child. I am your godmother, a forest nymph-”

“Wait, aren’t you supposed to be a fairy?”
Her Godmother glared at her. “Not all godmothers are fairies you know,  the rest of us are just as important!”

The Prince(ss) quickly apologized for offending her.

“It’s all right. Now, I have watched over you since you were a child, but I have never seen you cry. Tell me, why are you upset?”
The Prince(ss) wiped away her tears and replied bitterly, “I am stuck inside a boy’s body, and now I am to be married! I want to be a girl on the outside, just as I am on the inside.”

“Why hadn’t you told me this before?” asked her Godmother. With a wave of her hand and some green smoke the Prince(ss) was changed. The prince(ss) was replaced with a beautiful princess in a shimmering wedding dress. She looked as the prince(ss) had, same eyes, skin, height, but she was undoubtedly a girl. For the first time in her life, her looks matched her soul.

The Princess thanked her godmother over and over again as she rushed back to the castle. Those who spotted her stared in shock. For not only was an absurdly beautiful girl running through the forest in a wedding dress, but this girl was The Abnormal Prince. Who had been telling the truth all along.

And when the Princess walked down the aisle to meet her bride, she did it with her head high with pride and joy. And when the wedding guests dared look at her, they did it with their head low in shame and respect. Nobody doubted what she said after that for they had learned that she will always be truthful. Even if no one believed her.

The only person happier than the Princess at the wedding, was the Foreign Princess. Whereas she has seemed annoyed and slightly bored about the marriage to the Prince(ss), the Princess seemed a lot more her type.

The Princess, now the Queen, made sure to make her kingdom a one where gender roles didn’t rule. Little boys could play with dolls if they wanted and little girls could wrestle and tumble. And if a little girl turned out to be a little boy, everyone listened.

And the Queen and her wife lived happily ever after as the rulers of the kingdom.

The End