Something I've been working on just for fun. It's a fairy-tale styled comedy bit inspired by stuff like Shrek, Patricia C. Wrede, a bit of Terry Pratchett, etc. I'm not sure where it should go next, however. So any help would be appreciated! Be warned - it's a fair chunk of writing.
The Most Boring Princess in the World and a Self-Made Man
Once upon a time, there lived a very ordinary princess. This princess was so ordinary, in fact, that she was considered very peculiar. She was not particularly beautiful - her lips were more like lips than rose petals, her skin was not especially pale or pristine, her eyes were dark and didn't shine or glitter, her hair never grew past her shoulders and was more dull than it was silken, she was neither willowy nor buxom, tall nor short, and her feet were frankly on the large side. This wouldn't have been much of an issue if she had had a beautiful younger sister to despise, but the princess was an only child. She did not overflow with uncommon compassion, animals tended to bite her, she couldn't sing, could barely dance, and had never in her life been blessed or cursed by any sort of witch, wizard, or fairy.
All in all, she was a great disappointment to her family.
There were occasional advantages to being a disappointment, at least. By the time the princess was sixteen - when most of her peers were getting kidnapped by ogres and dragons or else kissing frogs and goodness only knew what else - the princess’s parents had given up on her ever being extraordinary enough to count as normal. So the girl was left to her own devices, which she decided suited her nicely; the lessons on how to weave spider silk and how to faint properly into a prince's arms were getting to be old hat, anyway. As she was a fan of literature, she took to spending a great deal of time in the library, pouring over books and scrolls, and more often than not clucking her tongue at the poor penmanship displayed. The princess could be a harsh critic, having been criticized harshly for most of her life.
Now, it just so happened that one day, as the princess was reading, she let out a sigh and said 'I wish I wasn't so lonely'. This was a natural sentiment, of course. People who spend a great deal of time around books tend to spend not so much time around people, as reading is generally a solitary practice - except in the case of students, who seem to do it in packs.
From one of the high shelves above her head, a book heard the princess speak. With a great deal of self-satisfaction, this book wriggled its way off of its shelf and fell with a 'bang' onto the floor in front of her.
Startled, the princess first swore, and next bent over to pick it up. As she held it in her hands the book flipped open to specific page. Curious, she read the words on it.
"Say these magic words," the princess read aloud, "and you shall summon to you your perfect prince. He will be everything you wish him to be, and will love you forever." She then read the words of the incantation quietly in her head.
Now, most princesses would have said the words out loud - perhaps without even considering the possible ramifications. But part of the reason why this princess had managed to avoid getting cursed or kidnapped or anything else in her life was an unnatural habit towards good sense. Being well-read, she was also perfectly aware that such magical happenings usually resulted in pure disaster. So, with little hesitation, she snapped the book closed and shoved it back on the shelf. Then she left the library to go and have supper.
The book was absolutely furious.
It was a magical book, of course. Regular books can't overhear conversations or get angry. For a good many years, this book had been tempting people with their heart's desire. Unsurprisingly, it never went well for them in the end – magical solutions tend to cause many more problems than they solve. But the book had had a perfect track-record so far! Not to say that it only offered dream-princes - over the years the book had made many promises. Wealth, power, fame, eternal youth... all the standards. No one ever turned it down, and it had no idea how to deal with the rejection. Just forty-seven years ago that same princess's grandmother had wished for a son!
This may have explained some of the princess's peculiarities, as her father was a two-inch tall pyromaniac.
Regardless, the book spent all of that night fuming and rattling on its shelf. By the time the princess came in after breakfast, it was anticipating her arrival with a near-vicious sort of ferocity.
Later on, it would decide that dropping onto her head may not have been wise, especially when all it managed to accomplish was getting itself placed on a lower shelf. Having been refused twice in a row now, the book was in a fair snit. Vulgar words streaked across its pages. The grimoire next to it carefully moved as far away as it could manage, just in case its new shelf-mate decided to display any sort of telekinetic abilities aside from dropping to the floor.
The next morning, when the princess came in, the book smacked her in the leg as it sprung from the shelf. So she moved it to a part of the library which she rarely visited, and continued on with her day.
That night, the bookcase it was in caught fire. It was the only book which survived. After that it was placed on a stone table, but it wasn't long before it took to skidding off of that and onto the floor, and banging into the princess's heels while she was reading.
At last the book was locked into case, and it seemed that would be the end of it. The case was a special one, and made of enchanted metals, so it couldn't burn it or bash its way out.
The book stewed in its wrath. How dare she? What was wrong with that silly, stupid princess? Didn't she understand that the book could offer her the perfect prince, an irresistible man who would make all of her dreams come true... for a while?
And then, the book decided. It would do it anyway. The princess had wished, hadn't she? She'd said 'I wish I wasn't so lonely'.
Surely that counted!
The book mustered its magic to try and summon a prince, but it didn't seem to work. Infuriated, it tried again, this time thinking of everything a perfect prince ought to be. It had summoned a few out of the heart's desire of others (two princesses and a baron, to be exact) and felt that it had a good grasp on what was generally popular. Tall. Blue-eyed, blonde-haired, with perfect skin, a deep, romantic signing voice, and the kind of legs that could pull off a nice pair of tights. Square jaw, aquiline nose, lips which were full but not too full... firm buttocks, that always seemed to come up for some reason...
There! The magic jangled, and there was a loud 'pop', and the book smirked in satisfaction.
Then it felt a sudden jab of horror, because it had never smirked before. It had conveyed the general impression of smirking many, many times, of course... but it had never actually had a mouth to smirk with.
The perfect prince, who was standing next to a display case in the library, suddenly flailed like a fish on the end of a line and hit the ground in a jumble of disjointed limbs. He swore, and then screamed at the sound of his own voice, and if the princess had been there to witness it she would have thought he was having some sort of seizure. After banging his wrists into the floor several times and discovering the unpleasant new sensation of pain, he held deathly still, holding his breath until his lungs burned and instinct forced him to breathe again.
The book had not intended to turn itself into a prince. It hadn't even been aware that it could do such a thing.
Apparently, it could.
Slowly the prince lifted one hand, and held it in front of his blue, blue eyes. Then he waved it back and forth a little, and then moved each finger one at a time. Since the perfect prince had impeccable grace, when he wasn't panicking his body seemed to know naturally how to move on its own.
With all the care of a sickly old man, he sat up, and then stood up, taking tentative steps around the room. The boots he had been summoned in clicked gently against the hard floor. He turned, and then, feeling emboldened, spun. Dizziness asserted itself, and he abruptly resolved not to do that again.
The night was spent with the prince acclimatizing himself to his new form, which was very peculiar but came with a few small perks. He ripped the pages out of that atlas which had always been so smug, and chucked some of the princess's favourite books out of the window. Having been a book once himself, he had less reverence for them than most ordinary people did. The old grimoire observed this with growing apprehension, and soon hidden itself behind ‘A Young Lady’s Guide to Decorative Needlework', which was quite possibly the most untouched tome in the whole room.
By morning the prince was feeling much more comfortable in his new skin, and was in the process of trying to figure out how to turn himself back when the librarian came in.
She saw him, stopped in her tracks, and looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Right," she said, when he stared up at her and attempted to smile charmingly. Dazzling teeth gleamed out at her from behind perfectly formed lips, but the librarian was unaffected, having gotten over the idea of beautiful people at an early age. "Who are you?"
"...I'm a prince?" The prince replied, his riveting baritone broken only by his momentary uncertainty.
The librarian sighed. "I'd best go and tell the Chancellor, then. He'll want the king and queen to know." On that note, she disappeared, and the prince went back to visualizing that he had a spine which wasn't also attached to a skull.
When the librarian returned, she was trailing behind three considerably more regal-looking figures - though it should be noted that the second was riding on the first's shoulder. The queen was a very lovely woman, with hair like a curtain of ebony and eyes like two green gems set into a flawless, ivory face. Her husband was also quite attractive, considering that he was about the size of a pixie and looked permanently enraged about it. The Chancellor - the prince decided this was a delightfully odd word – possessed an intelligent air about himself. His features were very strong-set, and he had the sort of neatly combed hair which heavily implied an obsessive-compulsive streak.
The four people stared at the prince. The prince, who was fairly new to the concept of social interaction, stared back.
After a moment the queen cleared her throat. "Well..." she began, but had only gotten the one word out before the king interrupted.
"Let me handle it, dear," he said with more authority than should have been allowed from someone so small, and the prince congratulated himself - yes, the king had been a good one. He'd gotten quite a few chuckles out of it when he first came up with the idea.
"Well..." the king began. "I must say, we weren't quite sure you'd even be coming. You claim to be a prince?"
"That's right," the prince replied, wondering how much they had to pay a tailor to make such extravagant miniature clothing. Did the savings in material out-weigh the cost of labour for such tiny embroidering?
"Hmph. It would have been better if the princess had found you, and not the librarian, but I suppose it will do. What are you the prince of, young man? What's your name?"
The prince realized he hadn't thought of a name. Usually that was conjured up out of the minds of his victim… er, clients. Randomly he pulled up the name of the last prince he had made.
"Florian," he replied succinctly. This was greeted with a moment of silence before the interrogation carried on.
"Florian who?" the king insisted, standing up on his wife's shoulder. "Just how did you get into our library?"
The prince mulled over his options. He could lie - he didn't think the king would like him very much if he knew he was responsible for his life-long height deficiency and obsession with burning things - but he didn't imagine he knew enough to lie completely. A half-truth seemed the appropriate course of action.
"I don't quite recall. Your daughter wished for me, and here I am," he replied. "Prince Florian."
This seemed to be the correct answer, as suddenly all of the occupants in the room shared looks of sincere delight. Florian was promptly invited to stay, given a room in the east wing - directly across from the princess's, so they could stand on their balconies and stare wistfully at one another - and told he was to come to breakfast as soon as he 'freshened up'.
Florian was not at all certain what 'freshening up' meant, but in his case, his sweat smelled of roses so it was mostly a formality. His clothing had become somewhat wrinkled from thrashing on the floor, but he gave it a bit of a tug and a pull and it seemed to just naturally straighten itself out. Then he sat on his bed, looked around the room - which was absolutely nothing like the library he was used to, but he'd been in bedrooms before - and wondered what to do with this development. Mostly he wanted to turn back into a book and sort things out properly, but his attempts to revert seemed to be failing. And there was his perfect track record to consider...
As he was deciding that perhaps the best thing to do was see this whole affair out (it was the most interesting thing to happen to him in given memory) a pompously dressed young man came and knocked on the door and told him he would be escorted to the 'breakfast hall'.
Florian had never seen a breakfast hall, or a breakfast, so he followed with a curious air. When he arrived the royal family was already present, the king and queen and now the addition of the princess, who looked extremely cross. As they were standing next to one another, he couldn’t help but notice that she shared a most peculiar physical resemblance with the Chancellor.
"Prince Florian, our daughter, Euthalia," the king introduced while the queen smiled politely. Florian knew this part perfectly - he'd seen plenty of introductions before. Putting on his most dazzling smile, he directed it at the princess, and bowed.
"The gods must have been smiling on you, to give you such a beautiful and elegant young woman for a daughter," Florian recited from memory. The king and queen beamed. The princess looked absolutely murderous, and simply stood there, glaring, until the king cleared his throat.
"Euthalia," he said from his place on the table. She grimaced, and, with a great force of will, unfolded her arms.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Prince Florian," the princess spat with enough acid to melt the door behind him.
"Likewise!" he replied with delight, quite pleased that things seemed to be sticking to the verbal sc
ript, at least.
That seemed to be the signal to sit down. Having never been the kind of book which ought to be taken to the table at meal times, Florian was fascinated as they then proceeded to place the substances on their plates into their mouths. This, he knew, somehow, was eating, and something inside him was compelling him to follow suit. With great care he lifted a spoon and gently gathered some strange orange substance onto it. Then he lifted the spoon, and placed it into his mouth.
A whirl of sensation overtook him, and only his natural grace kept him from tumbling out of his chair.
"So," Princess Euthalia began, cutting into a piece of ham with slightly more vigor than was strictly necessary. "What kingdom do you hail from, Prince Florian?"
Florian blinked, recovering from his shock, and considered. "A wealthy one," he decided. That sounded good - especially rich princes were the most tempting, right?
"What's it called?" Euthalia pressed, cutting another piece of ham into bits.
"...Florianland."
The knife which the princess had been holding clattered to the table as the shot to her feet, and pointed an accusing finger at him. "You made that up!" she declared.
"Euthalia!" her mother breathed in a scandalized tone.
In point of fact, as the prince had been thinking, a piece of land had suddenly appeared just off the western coast of the continent. It was called Florianland, but of course everyone knew that - it was quite wealthy, and had always been there from the moment it appeared.
"Whatever are you talking about, Euthalia?" the king demanded hotly. "Your mother and I vacationed there just last spring! It was enchanting. You'll have to give our regards to your parents, Florian. I'm sorry we hadn't had the pleasure of meeting before my daughter wished you here."
"They will be delighted to know you recall your trip fondly, your majesty," Florian replied.
"Euthalia. Sit down," her mother instructed sharply. With great reluctance, the girl slid back into her chair.
"I didn't wish for him," she muttered under her breath.
"Right," the king snapped. "If you insist on behaving like a petulant child, daughter, then you may excuse yourself from the table. Prince Florian came all this way to answer your call - the least you could do is behave courteously."
The princess seemed almost relieved as she stood up again, but Florian beat her to the punch, rising to his feet and extending a placating arm. If she left, how could he charm her?
"Please, your highness, I beg you excuse my impertinence, but I ask that the princess stay. Already her loveliness enthralls me - it's understandable that she should feel some discomfort at my sudden arrival. Doubtless she has had many suitors before, and I'm certain that none of them could match her grace of character and poise. I realize that I must prove myself a worthy candidate for her affections."
All three other occupants of the room stared at him in frank befuddlement. This seemed to be going rather off sc
ript - he had been expecting a few giggles or blushes from the princess, but then again, he was well aware that the stupid girl couldn't follow normal procedure if her life depended on it. His entire presence was evidence of that.
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