I was the other one. No, not that one either.
You’ve never met me. I didn’t make history, I didn’t have a name or a title worthwhile, but I know the stories and I was there. Everything that was said was true. All of it, even the variations. Because the truth is stranger than any of these things could express.

It wasn’t a frog, but it could have been. Certainly that was the easiest descriptor, because something bulbous and black and foul cannot be named, not when it used to be the Prince, not when it was my brother.
Yes. I am the sister.

All we had were questions and an empty chair at the banquets. A bed that was no more used than wetted by the oozing skin of someone once considered kindred, my friend and companion. Was it a curse? A natural anomaly? A prophecy we did not take to heart?
The thing, this Prince, could not answer. It belched meaninglessly, carried around the manor on a veiled sickbed normally used for ailing elders. It had eyes, somewhere… we could not tell exactly which of the protrusions were ocular, as they all seemed to be staring at us.

This creature of slime was not malicious in action, it seemed to have no interest at all. Not passive, no, but distracted. The handmaidens offered warmth and comforts, the finest velvet under this new mobile throne, but any semblance of personhood was never roused within my brother. He sat, gulping out of openings that disappeared back into its bulk when the gasping ceased. There was not one single mouth, nor one tongue. There was too much of everything.

Still, we kept the charade. My parents would talk to the creature over dinner, hoping it would respond to food or react to our kindness. An entire kingdom pretending nothing was amiss, resting the crown on a nearby gilded pillow, ignoring its squelching as easily as it ignored us. Neither heat nor cold bothered the thing, no food could tempt it.
Only once did I see it move of its own accord, a lone tendril inching across the silver plates presented before it, digging to find a prize. The room was still, all eyes fixated on this new arrival. I cannot speak for the rest, but my body felt locked with apprehension, and fear.
The curling limb squirmed to the center of the banquet, and quicker than anything I had seen, flopped itself into the pan of pork drippings beneath the roast. It rolled and slapped the wet fat, shuddering in the oily debris and lay satisfied. Slower than we could see, leaving a trail of dark gristle, it retracted. The room stayed still, and silent, and after our food had turned cold it was cleared and we retired for the night.
The dreams I had… I thought they were so horrible, but upon waking I recognized they were not different nor separate from this new reality.

That was when the noises began. Deep in our chambers, a sound reverberated through the empty halls, out into the valley outside and below. It was not so much audible as felt, a rumbling belch that rattled the windows. In the moonlight I sat upright, the dawn nearly peeking onto the horizon, and I felt the fear well up within me again. This was not a dream. It was long, this call, several minutes passed before quiet resumed in the manor. Though I heard no other noise, I knew there was not a person in the house who remained in slumber. One long call, then silence again.
The next night, two.
Then every night. The damp ululations vibrated the very hairs of my scalp, long utterances that echoed almost from another world… and the portal was, used to be, my brother.
Our mornings became weak affairs, the eyes of my parents sunken, my father looking wan and gaunt. Still, we continued the royal charade.
What else could we do?

The town below sent messengers and well-wishes, hearing these unearthly disruptions as clearly as we had. The gifts piled up in the entry hall, borne of both concern and care. Even as a moaning blob of otherness, he was still our Prince, and we must be reverent. Even in this monstrous form, he was extraordinary and important in a way I could never be.

Then began the nightly visitations. Knocks upon our door, the gates clattering and being forced open, always accompanied by a grim visage of women, their eyes glazed from lack of sleep or being currently entombed in slumber. Their arrival was consistent, summoned by my brother’s visceral calls into the moonlight. It wreathed these enslaved pilgrims in mystery as they slammed their fists against our doors, blank-faced and expectant. The first night, the pale girl was shown in and walked  through the halls, almost in a trance, disappearing into my brother’s chamber. We had long been used to disruption in our rest, and in the entry hall of our manor, my parents and I, chilly in our bed robes, watched the girl enter, and leave.
It was as though she had spent no time there at all. No words were spoken. We avoided each other’s eyes.
Then we retired to our beds.
For once, the calls had quieted. We slept.

The parade of women continued, different each night, varying times and myriad circumstance. Some were dressed as fine ladies, hair glossy and gems shining. Others wore tattered clothing, bare feet pale with cold. Some were frighteningly young. We did not bother to greet them; oftentimes I would lay with my gaze fixed on the ceiling, waiting for the ghastly chorus to be over, for the transient mouths to seal themselves and recede so I may return to my rest. Other nights, I would join the servants in the entry hall and watch the parade go past. Only one woman per night, but if sleep was truly evading me, I took a macabre interest in the happenings.

It was my mother and I who saw the woman who didn’t leave. She looked older, well-traveled, and I glimpsed a carriage at our gates which looked dusty from the road, but otherwise well-kept. This figure strode into the manor, her face sharper and more keen than many of the others I had seen. She looked at me, acknowledged I was there. Her confident steps clicked down the hallways, and this time my mother and I shared a glance. Something was different. The long-exhausted sense of fear roiled within me, awakened and angry.
We waited for the mysterious woman to exit the bed chambers. But she did not.

There is a new member of our household, now. We do not know her name, have never heard her speak, but it is clear. She is the new Princess, and at her side is the Prince, back as himself at least… looking as such. But mealtimes are silent meetings, their distant gazes not meeting ours as they slurp oily, fattened soups and lick glistening silver spoons teeming with lard.

My brother is back in a recognizable form, the guttural calls replaced with occasional midnight burbling, the only sounds I’ve heard either of them make.

So it seems my brother, the Prince, has indeed found his bride. They shall reign over this land in a way we never knew before. At last, there is a proper Princess that roams these halls.
At night, when I consider this woman with the travel-lined face and opaque stares, I am glad she is the Princess. But then I wonder…
The Princess of what?