Crimson Heavens

I’ve always been a sucker for romance and happy endings….

I was (and always is by the way), a lover of fairy-tales. My favorite had always been Cinderella, and other similar stories with a “riches to rags and then back to riches” theme. Of course, they usually involve the handsome Prince Charming who comes and saves the mistreated beauty from her awful predicament.

Gothic romance added to my lot of favorite reads, particularly those written by Victoria Holt. Almost similar, but not quite. The handsome Prince Charming had become the head of a distinguished Cornish family, and the patient, almost-meek and mistreated heroine, had become a lady with noble breeding, or a governess, strong-willed and unyielding to the shadows and dark secrets of the manor.

The “Prince Charming + Happily Ever After” concept, which was the major ingredient of the popular anime Sailormoon, had brought me closer to the world of Japanese animation and manga. I started writing stories then too, and the concept carried through almost all of my fictional works. It was then that I realized that wasn’t really the character of the “Prince Charming” that captivated me all these years, it was the “The Savior, Protector and Avenger” and the “Happily Ever After” part was actually just the preferred ending of love developed between two people, living in almost different worlds, through a meeting set up by chance, or for some people, Fate.

I mean, what are the chances of a member of royalty really inviting all the ladies of the land to his birthday ball? And yet it still happened. And Cinderella, despite of having a difficult life, was able to go and both were able to meet. And then, Prince Charming became her savior, her protector and her avenger…punishing all that had done her wrong.

Back then, I may have not seen myself as a “Cinderella”. However, through my grandmama and grandpapa, I had witnessed the possibility of true love between two people who probably would never had thought that there will be a chance for them to meet at all. He was a son of one of the land-owning families in Leyte, and she, lived all her life in Manila and whose family was so poor (according to her) that she walked barefoot to school. But they did meet, fell inlove and got married. She became the heroine and he became, not only her Prince Charming but her Sworn Protector as well of their own fairy tale—they had their own “happily ever after” ending.

I will not tell how exactly I had met my husband, but we can both assure you that our roads would never had crossed if not because of Chance or Fate or any Divine intervention. We did not meet in Kuwait, I came here to be with him and what actually transpired before that was a series of impossibilities that was made possible. But whether it was Fate or Chance or Divine intervention…For me, I had found my Prince Charming and we are living our own fairy tale…hoping for a “Happily-Ever-After” ending.