A Sort Of Fairy Tale / Original Fiction
Title: A Sort Of Fairy Tale
Rating: G
A/N: Birthday present for my younger cousin. Hopefully she'll actually get the jokes (she's nine) or at least find something to like about it... ^^;;
Once upon a time, in a kingdom that really wasn't so far away (you could reach it by taking the carriage service for a few hours, if you didn't mind a bumpy ride and the overpowering smell of horses) there was a man named King Herbert. He was a grumpy fellow with a big red face like a tomato and a puffy white beard, and though there were not many things that he liked, he loved his son William with all his heart.
The history books don't tell you so, but he wasn't the only one.
There was a servant girl who worked day after day in the fields while the sun was in the sky. Her name was Karin and she had hair the color of dog poo. (What? I'm just being realistic here. Not all fairy-tale heroines have hair the color of straw or a raven's feather, dear readers.) She wasn't the fairest maiden in the land; her arms were apparently too "muscular and mannish," for her to even be considered when the judges came to visit, from all her days of toil. In fact, when the latest "Fairest" list was posted, she was third from the bottom in the sixteen-year-old category. But it wasn't her looks, or even the aforementioned days of toil, that make Karin important to this story. It was what she did at night.
Karin's older brother had grown up fighting with the village boys over silly things like who got to keep the money they found on the ground, or a "Thy mother!" joke that hit too close to home. And every night, from the time she was eleven to now, he had been training her, until her strength had surpassed even his. Actually, Karin's "mannish" arms were entirely his fault and if she was to blame anyone, it would be her brother. But she didn't care. Even if her arms weren't delicate and lily-white, like a girl's were supposed to be, they were strong.
One day, Karin was sitting under a tree near the castle when her work was done, reading a copy of Ye Olde Martial Arts Techniques, the definitive edition, when she heard hoofbeats in front of her. She looked up and felt as if she had accidentally fallen into a fairytale (which she sort of had, but it wasn't really the conventional sort.)
A boy on a beautiful chestnut horse had stopped in front of her, but, to Karin, the boy's beauty eclipsed that of the horse's. He (not the horse, obviously) had hair as red as a poppy and eyes as green as algae. Most astonishing of all was the golden crown that rested atop his head.
"You're a servant. Shouldn't you be working?" the prince said haughtily, pointing past Karin to the fields where others were still harvesting the kumquats.
"I... I finished my work, Prince William, sir," flustered Karin, dropping Ye Olde Martial Arts Techniques as she stood up to bow. It fell open, pages down on the ground. (Page 174 would forever be grass-stained.)
"A servant's work is never done," William ordered. "Go back and keep working. What's your name, girl?"
"It's Karin Barrowman, Your Majesty!" Karin called as she scrambled to pick up her book and get back to the fields as quickly as possible.
That night, the Barrowman family had their work payment of soup cut in half. "You mustn't be impertinent to the royal family," scolded Mrs. Barrowman, her stomach growling as she helped Karin wash the dishes after dinner.
"I wasn't impertinent!" Karin protested.
"Shut up and scrub, dear," Mrs. Barrowman sighed.
Even though William had been rude to her and made her family go hungry, Karin didn't notice. All throughout the next month, his face in her mind distracted her from everything. Subsequently, as her work wasn't up to par, the king halved her family's rations at least five times. Tempers were high and stomachs were grumbling in the Barrowman household.
Through it all, Karin stared dreamily into the distance. Could a beautiful prince like him ever love a servant girl like me as much as I love him? she wondered.
"She's infatuated with the boy, Cecilia!" Mr. Barrowman complained to his wife.
"It's just a stage," said Mrs. Barrowman, reassuringly. "After all, she is a teenaged girl."
One day, William and his horse didn't ride past the fields like they usually did. Worried, Karin couldn't concentrate all day. Dinner was taken away entirely and instead of eating - or in this case, not eating - with her family, Karin trekked up the hill to the castle and requested an audience with the king.
As the ornate doors to the king's hall swung open, Karin was sure she felt a chill. But in actuality, it was just a small piece of King Herbert's icy personality escaping. That happened sometimes. His guards would have to run around with nets for hours trying to get the lost personality back.
"Excuse me, Your Majesty, for asking, but where has William been?" she asked the king tentatively.
"It's none of your business!" thundered King Herbert. Karin shivered in fear, but she held her ground.
"I need to know, sir. It's very important to me," she continued, every atom of her nervous.
"Important?" Herbert's hard blue eyes narrowed. "It can't be more important to you than it is to me. I'm his father! I love him with the passion of a thousand burning suns! Like a pig loves filth!" (Here, Karin felt that it would be imprudent to point out that pigs are actually very clean animals.) "Like a hound loves the hunt! Like a fat kid loves cake!"
Karin couldn't help rolling her eyes at that.
"My son, my one, my only son, has been removed from me, but he shall never leave my heart!" continued the king, melodramatically shrieking now. "I shall never recover from the sheer pain this causes me, for the pain is like a stab through the heart, like an arrow in my chest, like being forced to listen to Mariah Carey on repeat for days on end! Yes! It is true- my son has been kidnapped!" And he flourished a note, presumably the ransom note, in Karin's face.
Deer King Hurburt,
We have kiddnaped yer sun Willyum plus we R taykin him norf plus wil kil him bi 8:00 by witch tim hee wil B ded.
Bo ha ha ha.
Sinceerlee,
Scarey Kiddnapers
It was written as if the "Scarey Kiddnapers" had dictated the letter when they had just broken their nose and written it down exactly the way they had sounded.
"North!" Karin exclaimed. "They must want to kill him at the abandoned church over there. Don't worry, King Herbert, sir! I'll save William!"
Without waiting for a reply, Karin ran towards the door, determination on her face. As she ran, she felt another chill pass her by.
"Oh, not again!" she heard the king yell. "Guards! Another piece of personality is loose!"
Behind her, there was a great clattering as all the armored guards ran for their nets, but Karin didn't look back.
She was going to save William.
The time was 5:13.
For two hours and fourty-five minutes, Karin walked north with her bamboo sword in hand. (Are you paying attention, readers? That makes it 7:58, leaving our heroine only two minutes to save her beloved.) Finally, she hit the abandoned church, recognizing its high stone walls from when it was still in business and she and her brother used to steal cake from the refreshment table. But she didn't have much time for remembrance. She had a prince to save, and she could hear the sounds of men's racous yelling from inside the church. Oh no! They've killed him already and they're celebrating! Karin thought irrationally. But it wasn't yet eight. There was still time.
She pushed the front doors with both hands, and they swung open, revealing... nobody at first glance. Karin walked inside warily, her bamboo sword over her shoulder like a batter preparing to swing. She slowly turned around and saw--
Prince William and two other young men were crowded around a table, cards in their hands. "Pikachu! I choose you!!" one of the men yelled gleefully, and William swore loudly.
Karin said the first thing that came to her mind: "Where's the 'scary kiddnapers'?" She pronounced it like this: scary kid-nape-ers.
All three card players looked up. "What?" one of them said.
William regarded her coldly. "You should know your place, servant girl, and work like you're supposed to instead of meddling in the affairs of those above your station."
A realization began to form in Karin's mind. "Wait, that ransom note was a fake?!" she said incredulously. "You did that so you could come here and play freaking Pokemon without your father bothering you?"
"Actually, it's Ye Olde Pokemon," corrected one of William's cohorts. "The author wants us to keep at least some sense of historical aest... aes... aesthewhatsit, okay?"
"Aesthetics isn't the point here!" said Karin angrily. "William, your father's worried to absolute bits-"
"Address me as your majesty, servant girl." William commanded. Well, he got the "giiiii-" bit of "girl" out, at least.
Before Karin smacked him hard across the head with her bamboo sword.
The prince's head was still spinning as the "servant girl" walked away, out of the church, and into the twilight that awaited her.
She no longer felt a thing for him. He could be nibbled to death by a plague of Pikachus, for all she cared.
"I feel bad for anybody that does kidnap him," Karin muttered to William's horse. They were three miles along the road, and the horse now seemed more gorgeous to her than its old rider did. "Putting up with that sheer stupidity must be bad for your health."
Karin stopped the horse at a fork. The left path led to the castle; the right, to the nearest city, with the best martial-arts training in the country. The horse turned towards the left, but with a slight tug on its bridle, Karin turned it to face the right fork.
"Here's to new adventures," she said, staring ahead, then kicking the horse into a walk.
She never once looked back.
Rating: G
A/N: Birthday present for my younger cousin. Hopefully she'll actually get the jokes (she's nine) or at least find something to like about it... ^^;;
Once upon a time, in a kingdom that really wasn't so far away (you could reach it by taking the carriage service for a few hours, if you didn't mind a bumpy ride and the overpowering smell of horses) there was a man named King Herbert. He was a grumpy fellow with a big red face like a tomato and a puffy white beard, and though there were not many things that he liked, he loved his son William with all his heart.
The history books don't tell you so, but he wasn't the only one.
There was a servant girl who worked day after day in the fields while the sun was in the sky. Her name was Karin and she had hair the color of dog poo. (What? I'm just being realistic here. Not all fairy-tale heroines have hair the color of straw or a raven's feather, dear readers.) She wasn't the fairest maiden in the land; her arms were apparently too "muscular and mannish," for her to even be considered when the judges came to visit, from all her days of toil. In fact, when the latest "Fairest" list was posted, she was third from the bottom in the sixteen-year-old category. But it wasn't her looks, or even the aforementioned days of toil, that make Karin important to this story. It was what she did at night.
Karin's older brother had grown up fighting with the village boys over silly things like who got to keep the money they found on the ground, or a "Thy mother!" joke that hit too close to home. And every night, from the time she was eleven to now, he had been training her, until her strength had surpassed even his. Actually, Karin's "mannish" arms were entirely his fault and if she was to blame anyone, it would be her brother. But she didn't care. Even if her arms weren't delicate and lily-white, like a girl's were supposed to be, they were strong.
One day, Karin was sitting under a tree near the castle when her work was done, reading a copy of Ye Olde Martial Arts Techniques, the definitive edition, when she heard hoofbeats in front of her. She looked up and felt as if she had accidentally fallen into a fairytale (which she sort of had, but it wasn't really the conventional sort.)
A boy on a beautiful chestnut horse had stopped in front of her, but, to Karin, the boy's beauty eclipsed that of the horse's. He (not the horse, obviously) had hair as red as a poppy and eyes as green as algae. Most astonishing of all was the golden crown that rested atop his head.
"You're a servant. Shouldn't you be working?" the prince said haughtily, pointing past Karin to the fields where others were still harvesting the kumquats.
"I... I finished my work, Prince William, sir," flustered Karin, dropping Ye Olde Martial Arts Techniques as she stood up to bow. It fell open, pages down on the ground. (Page 174 would forever be grass-stained.)
"A servant's work is never done," William ordered. "Go back and keep working. What's your name, girl?"
"It's Karin Barrowman, Your Majesty!" Karin called as she scrambled to pick up her book and get back to the fields as quickly as possible.
That night, the Barrowman family had their work payment of soup cut in half. "You mustn't be impertinent to the royal family," scolded Mrs. Barrowman, her stomach growling as she helped Karin wash the dishes after dinner.
"I wasn't impertinent!" Karin protested.
"Shut up and scrub, dear," Mrs. Barrowman sighed.
Even though William had been rude to her and made her family go hungry, Karin didn't notice. All throughout the next month, his face in her mind distracted her from everything. Subsequently, as her work wasn't up to par, the king halved her family's rations at least five times. Tempers were high and stomachs were grumbling in the Barrowman household.
Through it all, Karin stared dreamily into the distance. Could a beautiful prince like him ever love a servant girl like me as much as I love him? she wondered.
"She's infatuated with the boy, Cecilia!" Mr. Barrowman complained to his wife.
"It's just a stage," said Mrs. Barrowman, reassuringly. "After all, she is a teenaged girl."
One day, William and his horse didn't ride past the fields like they usually did. Worried, Karin couldn't concentrate all day. Dinner was taken away entirely and instead of eating - or in this case, not eating - with her family, Karin trekked up the hill to the castle and requested an audience with the king.
As the ornate doors to the king's hall swung open, Karin was sure she felt a chill. But in actuality, it was just a small piece of King Herbert's icy personality escaping. That happened sometimes. His guards would have to run around with nets for hours trying to get the lost personality back.
"Excuse me, Your Majesty, for asking, but where has William been?" she asked the king tentatively.
"It's none of your business!" thundered King Herbert. Karin shivered in fear, but she held her ground.
"I need to know, sir. It's very important to me," she continued, every atom of her nervous.
"Important?" Herbert's hard blue eyes narrowed. "It can't be more important to you than it is to me. I'm his father! I love him with the passion of a thousand burning suns! Like a pig loves filth!" (Here, Karin felt that it would be imprudent to point out that pigs are actually very clean animals.) "Like a hound loves the hunt! Like a fat kid loves cake!"
Karin couldn't help rolling her eyes at that.
"My son, my one, my only son, has been removed from me, but he shall never leave my heart!" continued the king, melodramatically shrieking now. "I shall never recover from the sheer pain this causes me, for the pain is like a stab through the heart, like an arrow in my chest, like being forced to listen to Mariah Carey on repeat for days on end! Yes! It is true- my son has been kidnapped!" And he flourished a note, presumably the ransom note, in Karin's face.
Deer King Hurburt,
We have kiddnaped yer sun Willyum plus we R taykin him norf plus wil kil him bi 8:00 by witch tim hee wil B ded.
Bo ha ha ha.
Sinceerlee,
Scarey Kiddnapers
It was written as if the "Scarey Kiddnapers" had dictated the letter when they had just broken their nose and written it down exactly the way they had sounded.
"North!" Karin exclaimed. "They must want to kill him at the abandoned church over there. Don't worry, King Herbert, sir! I'll save William!"
Without waiting for a reply, Karin ran towards the door, determination on her face. As she ran, she felt another chill pass her by.
"Oh, not again!" she heard the king yell. "Guards! Another piece of personality is loose!"
Behind her, there was a great clattering as all the armored guards ran for their nets, but Karin didn't look back.
She was going to save William.
The time was 5:13.
For two hours and fourty-five minutes, Karin walked north with her bamboo sword in hand. (Are you paying attention, readers? That makes it 7:58, leaving our heroine only two minutes to save her beloved.) Finally, she hit the abandoned church, recognizing its high stone walls from when it was still in business and she and her brother used to steal cake from the refreshment table. But she didn't have much time for remembrance. She had a prince to save, and she could hear the sounds of men's racous yelling from inside the church. Oh no! They've killed him already and they're celebrating! Karin thought irrationally. But it wasn't yet eight. There was still time.
She pushed the front doors with both hands, and they swung open, revealing... nobody at first glance. Karin walked inside warily, her bamboo sword over her shoulder like a batter preparing to swing. She slowly turned around and saw--
Prince William and two other young men were crowded around a table, cards in their hands. "Pikachu! I choose you!!" one of the men yelled gleefully, and William swore loudly.
Karin said the first thing that came to her mind: "Where's the 'scary kiddnapers'?" She pronounced it like this: scary kid-nape-ers.
All three card players looked up. "What?" one of them said.
William regarded her coldly. "You should know your place, servant girl, and work like you're supposed to instead of meddling in the affairs of those above your station."
A realization began to form in Karin's mind. "Wait, that ransom note was a fake?!" she said incredulously. "You did that so you could come here and play freaking Pokemon without your father bothering you?"
"Actually, it's Ye Olde Pokemon," corrected one of William's cohorts. "The author wants us to keep at least some sense of historical aest... aes... aesthewhatsit, okay?"
"Aesthetics isn't the point here!" said Karin angrily. "William, your father's worried to absolute bits-"
"Address me as your majesty, servant girl." William commanded. Well, he got the "giiiii-" bit of "girl" out, at least.
Before Karin smacked him hard across the head with her bamboo sword.
The prince's head was still spinning as the "servant girl" walked away, out of the church, and into the twilight that awaited her.
She no longer felt a thing for him. He could be nibbled to death by a plague of Pikachus, for all she cared.
"I feel bad for anybody that does kidnap him," Karin muttered to William's horse. They were three miles along the road, and the horse now seemed more gorgeous to her than its old rider did. "Putting up with that sheer stupidity must be bad for your health."
Karin stopped the horse at a fork. The left path led to the castle; the right, to the nearest city, with the best martial-arts training in the country. The horse turned towards the left, but with a slight tug on its bridle, Karin turned it to face the right fork.
"Here's to new adventures," she said, staring ahead, then kicking the horse into a walk.
She never once looked back.