* Author : Dani Atkinson * Narrators : Andrew K. Hoe, Kitty Sarkozy and Katherine Inskip * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh * Discuss on Forums Previously published by Daily Science Fiction Rated PG-13 Said the Princess by Dani Atkinson   Once upon a time in a far-off land, in a tiny room, in a tall tower, at the centre of a vast and impenetrable maze, the princess Adrienna cocked her head and frowned. “Who said that?” said the princess. She looked around the tower room, but saw no one. “This isn’t funny. Who’s there?” said the princess. She crouched by the bed. Underneath it she found the chamber pot and a nervous brown spider. The princess shuddered. Straightening up quickly and dusting off her rosy skirts, she paced the circumference of the room, searching every inch. There were not many inches to search, as after all it was a prison, and not elaborately furnished or overburdened with good hiding places. “Where is that coming from? Who are you?” said the princess, stopping by the barred window. “No, really, who are you? And quit saying ‘said the princess’ after everything I say!” said the prin . . . Oh. “Yes, ‘Oh’.” The princess . . . probably wasn’t supposed to hear that. “Why wouldn’t I be able to hear you?” said the pri — “Stop that.” Sorry. Ah, it just seemed like the princess . . . shouldn’t have been able to. Hear that. Somehow. It seemed quite against the rules. The princess flicked her yellow hair back over her shoulder and scowled uncertainly at the stone ceiling, lacking any better direction in which to look. “What rules? Yours?” . . . I . . . I? Was I an I? The word did not seem to fit. The . . . voice . . . did not know whose rules they were. It was simply the way things were expected to be. “Is it another rule that you always have to talk in the past tense?” . . . Yes. Yes, the voice believed it was. The princess slumped down the wall until she was sitting on the cold stones. She rested her forehead in her hands. “And I suppose it’s another rule that you have to describe everything I do, as I do it?” she muttered through a curtain of yellow ringlets. Sorry. “Stop saying sorry! Stop saying anything! It’s really getting on my nerves!” The princess pinched the bridge of her nose as if she had a headache. She closed her eyes and stayed absolutely still for a moment. Then another. For a long while the princess did nothing but breathe. Then she tried holding her breath for a while, which just seemed silly and possibly unhealthy. Her breath whooshed out of her in a gush, disturbing the spider which had gone exploring beyond the world of the bed and was now crawling on her knee. “What? AAAGH!” The princess leapt up and batted furiously at the terrified spider until it tumbled off her skirts to the floor. She glared once more at the ceiling, then sighed. “Oh, never mind. I suppose you can’t help it. I can’t imagine choosing to follow a shut-in around remarking on everything she does.” The voice agreed. The voice couldn’t really imagine choosing anything else either, mind. It seemed to be out of the voice’s hands. “You have hands?” Figure of speech.