Isabelle

 prompt : polly juice 

Her long, pale, fingers delicate and elegant touched the top of the vial before her.
Feeling the cool glass beneath her fingers she carefully weighed her options.

One sip, the old crone had whispered. One sip and a life forever changed.

She thought of the freedom that would come and what it would be like to cut loose the corset that strangled the very breath from her tiny figure and kept her tightly bound in movement and in life.

Oh to have the power to choose her destiny, to choose what to do with her life. Whom to love, whom to marry, where to live and how to devote her energy.

She fingered the delicate, white lace trimming her emerald gown.  Her father was so fond of this dress. It was the perfect compliment to her creamy pale skin and fiery red hair he had told her.
She both loved and hated him for this compliment.

Oh to be a woman. What a curse! With only the power to choose the colour of her dress and what ribbon to run through her hair - to be a commodity, a piece of property to be traded at the whim of powerful men.

She ought to have been born a man. She could change so much in this kingdom!
Her father at least loved her enough to listen to her ideas and even implemented many of them. But not so with her soon- to- be husband.
In her first and only meeting with him- when their betrothal was arranged- he made clear with leering eyes and wandering hands that she would serve one purpose and one purpose only.

And so,  on the eve before her fate was sealed, she stood in this old witch's home holding in her hand a potion to change that fate.  One that would give her the place that ought to have been given to her by birth if only.... if only she had been born a man.