Many princes followed her. It was something about the way she smelled, apparently. She'd heard that in whispers down the long corridors; her ladies gossiping no doubt.
Whatever it was about the princess, she rather wished it all to stop. How tiring to be followed around all day! She could scarcely recall a single time she was to be left alone, save for trips to the stool closet. It had been that way ever since she was born, she figured. She was a princess after all, and tradition is to pamper such girls all their lives. She remembered always being in the safe, warm nest of the nurses arms, the pillowy skin soft against her pale cheeks. Yes indeed, the princess had been swaddled and fed, ribboned and cooed at all her life. Was it unnatural, she thought, not to covet these affections after such a life? How so ever she tried, she could not quiet away her restless heart.
Now that the princess had reached the age where her hips swelled and her lips were stained a permanent red, her followers had grown exponentially. Not only her ladies and maids anymore but men, hundreds of men! Princes from all over the world came to see her, though she didn't see them. No, all she saw was one typically handsome face after another among the sea of coiffed hair and shiny buttons.