VELVETEEN PRESENTS THE PRINCESS vs. Public Relations
The Princess scowled at her reflection. Her reflection scowled back.
The brightly colored birds that were in the process of arranging her hair in a complicated chignon—she thought they might be lorikeets, which made sense; lorikeets were the best at really elaborate braids—didn’t scowl.
Their beaks weren’t made for it, and besides, they had other things on their minds, like making her presentable before she had to face her public.
“I know y’all have only my best interests at heart, and I know you’d never do anything that I wasn’t comfortable with, which is how I know that those are rhinestones you’re tucking into my curls, and not actual diamonds,” she said, her voice as sweet and deadly as rhododendron honey.
“I have to look humble and like I appreciate my station, and that means not accessorizing with more money than some families see in a year.”
One of the birds stopped braiding long enough to chirp something apologetic, before it returned to hairdressing. The Princess sighed.
“I know rhinestones never look as good in the photographs; that isn’t the point,” she said.
But she didn’t tell the birds to stop, because really, looking good in the photographs was the point.
Even if it meant wearing so many jewels that she felt like she was about to be the target of a complicated heist. Even if it meant putting on the sort of undergarments that pushed her boobs up until they became a virtual shelf.
Even if it meant spending a perfectly good afternoon—one that could have been spent on visiting children who needed a moment of her attention, or fighting crime, or hell, just watching television away from the public eye—answering questions for a bunch of vultures who wanted nothing more than to see her fail.
The media conglomerate that paid for her insurance and kept her away from organizations like The Super Patriots, Inc.
was generally happy to let her do whatever she liked with her time, especially since her powers came with their very own innate morality clause.
But occasionally they asked her to step up and face the press, and when that happened, she didn’t really have any other options.
A raccoon slunk shyly forward, holding a tube of lipstick in each paw. The Princess looked thoughtfully between them before picking the slightly darker shade. It was still more “rose petals at dawn” than “blood of my enemies,” but every little bit helped.
“All right, darlings: thank you for all your efforts. I’m as pretty as I’m going to get.
” Pretty enough to stop a heart, if she used it right.
The Princess gave her reflection one last lingering look before she stood and turned away from her mirror.
This was the life she had always wanted, the life she had dreamed about and wished for on every star.
If she had to pay the piper every once in a while, well.
There were worse prices to be paid. Carrabelle Miller took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and marched off to face her public.
* * *
Since its founding, The Super Patriots, Inc.
has managed to control a dominant share of the world’s superhumans, largely through control of the legislature and active recruitment of individuals too young to be licensed heroes without a corporate sponsor.
Those individuals not under the control of The Super Patriots, Inc.
have traditionally been branded as supervillains, save in the rare cases where doing so would have been too difficult to be profitable.
Consider the case of Michael “Flying Good Guy Man” Ward of Columbus, Ohio.
Exposed at a young age to the same radioactive maple syrup as was responsible for such heroes as Majesty and Action Dude, and such committed villains as Property Damage and Boom Boom Pow, Michael was exactly the same sort of individual who was usually sought out by the company as an asset.
Michael had also been born with Down syndrome.
The company neither extended an offer of support for his parents, nor an offer of employment for Michael, who went on to become a beloved hero in his local community, receiving his license directly from the state at the age of sixteen.
He flew, fought, and served the public good, all without The Super Patriots, Inc.
guiding his steps. While the company never admitted their mistake, they did become more flexible regarding disability among their recruits.
Consider also the case of Sandy “Maid on the Shore” O’Neil, whose powers activated while she was sailing off the coast of Florida with the rest of her graduating class.
There were no fatalities, but the entire vessel was swamped, and Sandy herself was marooned on a small island of her own creation.
Such powerful local area manipulation should have made her a perfect candidate for recruitment, had it not been for the fact that Sandy’s powers had been discovered when she saw the boy who had assaulted her the week before prom come up onto the deck.
He had been allowed on the trip by teachers who thought he deserved to enjoy graduation as much as anyone else—as much as the girl he had hurt.
The Super Patriots, Inc. looked at Sandy’s case and decided that she was too “controversial.” She has been on that island ever since.
Any boat which comes too close is gently nudged away.
She seems happy enough; there is really no way for us to know.
And finally, there is the Princess.
Born Scott Miller, the child who would become the Princess showed no signs of superpowers until the day when the Miller family visited a popular theme park designed around a series of beloved fairy tales.
The afternoon parade began as normal before transforming into the greatest spectacle of magic, wonder, and glitter the world had ever known.
Scott—who had been going by the name “Carrabelle” since her eighth birthday, when she had finally gathered the courage to explain her true gender to her parents—was lifted by birds onto a float that had materialized out of confetti and pieces of the neighboring gardens.
There was a large song and dance routine, which everyone in the park seemed to instinctively know by heart.
Several animatronics came briefly to life and explained their positions on topics ranging from climate change to the state of social media today. It was an eye-catching spectacle.
It was understandable when The Super Patriots, Inc.
showed up at the Miller house the next morning, offering a contract, offering pleasant threats coached as promises.
It was perhaps even more understandable that young Carrabelle was already gone, taking refuge in the safe castles and safer lawyers of the corporation that owned the park where she had awakened.
She understood fairy tales well enough to become their living embodiment: she had been watching for an evil queen or a wicked vizier since the first bird said her name.
Most of those who were not acquired by The Super Patriots, Inc. were passed over, for whatever reason. Carrabelle Miller was the one who had the sense to run away.
* * *
The doorway appeared first. Vines grew out of the seemingly solid floor, climbing up the wall until they formed an arch and burst into large, bell-shaped flowers in every color of the rainbow.
The flowers began to trumpet, and more vines burst forth, lacing quickly together until the arch contained a door.
For a crowning touch, a red-capped mushroom sprouted where the doorknob should have been.
The flowers stopped trumpeting. The mushroom turned, and the Princess stepped through into the courtyard that had been reserved for the press corps.
For a moment, no one spoke. That was understandable.
The Princess would have been a beautiful woman in jeans and a sweatshirt—in fact, she frequently was a beautiful woman in jeans and a sweatshirt, since she didn’t see any point in dressing up for the birds.
But this was one of her contractually obligated press conferences, and she had pulled out all the stops.
She liked her corporate sponsors, she genuinely did.
That didn’t mean she wanted to be summoned to a meeting about how she was disappointing them by not keeping up her side of the bargain.
When you make a wish, you pay the price. Carrabelle Miller had known that at a far younger age than most children. She was happy to keep paying all her life, as long as she never had to give her wish away.
Her dress was platinum and dark blue, technically, with a scattering of what looked like diamonds but were probably rhinestones, no really, across the bodice and the long, sheer cape that descended from her shoulders to trail behind her.
And that was all well and good; that was what would come through in the pictures.
It was a beautiful dress. A smaller version was probably already in production for the company’s official Superheroine Princess doll line.
But in person, it was nothing so simple.
It was the color of midnight and moonlight, the color of running down the palace steps barefoot, with all the weight of the story crashing down behind you.
It was the color of wishes made from high towers, and of wishing stars glittering in a cloudless sky.
It was perfect, and as she walked across the small courtyard to the podium, it genuinely stole the breath from the assembled reporters.