Fairy Tales 6?
Once upon a time, in a kingdom of children, a long time ago before you were born, they're all grown up now, there was a small boy, named Even. He was brave and daring, chivalrous and never even pushed a girl, even when they got in line, twice, at the honey jar before him, with cuts. Sir Even's job, for a knight he was, was to take care of the princess, a girl of 8, a very grown up 8, "Eight and a half, really it's almost nine if you consider it." She often explained with a look that suggested the words tasted bitter coming out.
As it so happens, though Sir Even passed no judgment on the gender, per se, the princess herself, in specificity, often times considered it her royal prerogative to fail to listen to her warders and guards. Chief among whom was Sir Even. As such, she'd wandered off berry picking, fuming about the blackberries that had had the unmitigated gall to stain her pretty dress. Not to mention her fingers, cheeks, tongue, several teeth and had effectively ruined her slippers and thus the hem of her skirt. Though she hadn't noticed this yet.
Now to be fair, Sir Even's opinions aside, it wasn't that the princess was air-headed or overly-effervescent, you see. It was that by the time a normal person would have noticed the stain, she was quite busy. Fuming about blackberries, it is to be admitted, at first. But shortly there after, she found herself kidnapped by a troll. Completely unprepared. The princess that is, not that the troll was considerably more prepared. His name was Bugs, and though he tried to act the cool professional to the princess, he was a first-timer and kidnapping wasn't his major.
As such, after the kiddom had been turned out, the royal puppies sent to search for scents, the royal kittens leashed and put on the hunt, the royal cavalry's royal yearlings lined up and rode out, the kindgergartens and pre-schools closed for the day, as a national emergency was declared and every citizen, whether they were in diapers or no, was called out to rescue the princess.
However, as we may have mentioned Bugs (that's the troll's name, please try to keep up here) the troll, was not a professional kidnapper. And so, as Sir Even was not a professional kidnap victim rescuer he thought his odds were reasonably good and he followed the trail of ribbons, torn candy wrappers (from Bugs and the princess both, I don't want to prejudice you against them, or talk smack about them, but they are both prolific litterers), not to mention smashed bushes, torn sod, and 24" troll foot-prints.
Now, everyone knows that troll hills have two entrances. The one big one, where there's the rock that rolls away from the door, by the big strong guy and/or the lever. The problem, of course, with using this entrance is you have to either be the big strong guy, or keep an eye out for the big strong guy, coming to eat you, while you try to break into his house and don't succeed. Thus, even though he was not a professional burglar Sir Even knew that going around the back of the hill, to the window about half way up, and sneaking in there was far better.
So thus, he parked his yearling in the 'compact' stall, at the local stable, and clambered up the troll's hill and in his window. Where upon, he was instantly discovered. Luckily the troll was a bachelor, well it was lucky for our friend Sir Even, not so lucky for the princess, because if the troll hadn't been a bachelor then he wouldn't have needed to steal and eat a princess, so I guess because Sir Even had to come rescue said, aforementioned princess it wasn't entirely lucky for him either, but a bachelor troll meant only one person in the house to throw crockery at him.
The downside was, the thrower was a troll, and the throwee was an 8 year old. But, he was an 8 year old in mythical elven plate mail. So the crockery didn't do much more than keep him trapped in the window sill. Sir Even, being a heroic warrior laughed at this.
Grouchy, grumbly, and a little irritated Bugs snapped, "What are you laughing at, dessert?"
Hiding his gulp Sir Even replied in an even-tone, "It's too late for you, Bugsy."
"What do you mean too late?" the troll growled suspiciously.
Another half-laugh, "I've already won. I, Sir Even, am the slayer of Bugsy, The Miniature Troll."
A growl and another storm of hurled crockery, punctuated by, "It's BUGS. Not Bugsy. Bugs. The Troll."
The barrage of tea cups had loosened a shutter, so Sir Even was able to sit more comfortably in the window sill and use the dislodged shutter as a make-shift shield. This, combined with Bugs half-hearted throws kept him quite content. "Ahh, very well then. Bugs, The Miniature Troll."
A roar and a whole cake pan came clanging off the make-shift shield, "I AM A FULL SIZE TROLL!"
Letting out a great, put-upon sigh, Sir Even atonally agreed, "Sure you are, Bugger. Just in miniature."
Well now two cake plates came flying, only to shatter harmlessly against the shutter. "If you don't start calling me my right name, I am going to eat this princess!" Bugs shrieked, nearly incoherent with rage.
Sir Even gasped and threw down the shutter, leaping off the sill he came to Bugs aid, "Oh my god. You haven't touched her, have you?" Solicitousness pouring from his tone. Though he was careful to keep his distance, of course.
"Of course I touched her, I dragged her away, to eat her!" Bug, the full-size, but short-named troll yelled exasperated. What was this stupid knight doing here, if he didn't know that much, at least?
Sir Even took off his helm, the better to project his moue of sympathy, "Oh, Bugaboo, I'm so sorry. It's too late for you."
Bugs the (full-size) troll didn't know whether to yell about the name-thing again, or ask what was the matter. Fortunately for him, Sir Even was merciful as well as fair and virtuous. "She's got the cooties." he announced forlornly. "Girl cooties."
"The what?" The troll asked wiping his hands on the thighs of his worn and battered trousers. He could feel the grease there, on his hands, the stain. He'd known. Known it as soon as he grabbed her. Her magic was bad, bad stuff.
"Girl cooties, Bugabish. You're a dead man. Or troll, anyway." Shaking his head with real sympathy, "It wouldn't be fair to fight you now, no true knight would fight a dying man. What would they say about my reputation then? I'd be a laughingstock. No, I'll just go sit over there. Until you die. And then come get the princess."
And with that, Sir Even turned his back, and strode away, to a nice, handy rock 10 or 20 feet away. Where upon he sat down, and began to watch Bugs, the normal-sized troll, until he died.
As you can imagine, Bugs found this somewhat disconcerting, but he did have a princess. To console himself with. He poked her with a stick some, and put some mud in her hair, and splashed her with some water. Pretty soon he was laughing, and playing and having a good time. But he happened to look over his shoulder, and there, was Sir Even, sitting, staring, waiting for him to die. The troll just couldn't keep up the facade any more.
"Sir Even, Sir Even, please. Is there no cure for the girl cooties? I am not a bad troll, I mean I am bad and a troll, but that makes me good, if you see where I'm going with this. I would like to continue on being a troll, and eating princesses. Please, I will pay you any fee, only tell me the cure for cooties of the girl kind?"
Sir Even merely pursed his lips, and shook his head, "I could tell you that, Bugowoo, but you wouldn't believe me. No, I think it is better if I just sit here, and wait until you die. Then the princess and I can go back home, and I'll be able to tell everybody I killed a mighty troll."
"But, I don't want to die!" Wailed Mr. Bugs.
"Oh, bother. Well, why didn't you say that? There's only one way to do that, then. You've got to go to the grove of the shrine of the holy grotto of the sacred scepter and there bathe, every day, for 7 days. And stay away from princesses, and foreigners, and camels, and any one else likely to have cooties. For at least 30 days. If you get at least 5 miles away from the princess, in the next 2 hours, her cooties should, maybe, all fall off you. I can't tell. If you feel tired later tonight, after dark you will know your body is fighting off the cooties. You must not sleep, while you're cootie-tired like that, or you will die." Sir Even read from the boyzknightz book of cool rulez, to make sure the troll got the proper instructions.
Mr. Bugs packed up a few things, his spare underwear, his hidden magazine stash, his other spare underwear, but he forgot his tooth brush. And an hour later, Sir Even lead the princess down the trail, watching her eat his cookie, because she'd gotten her's wet, apparently from sucking on it and then apparently dropped it in the dirt. So she'd taken his. Sir Even ate berries, surreptitiously, behind the princess's back, after she'd seen a particularly juicy blackberry, watched him climb in and suffer multiple thorn wounds to get it, and then requested it right before he popped the beautiful thing in his mouth. Then she told him how good it was. In knights school, they taught that you weren't supposed to push girls into the brambles, but no one he knew could ever figure out why. Sir Even secretly suspected that the girls might have broken into the sacred room and written in the holy book. But it was too horrible to think of the book having girl cooties itself so he ignored it.
When they finally got back to the castle, the princess told the captain of the guard on Sir Even, who had to go to bed without any dinner and get up early and help the cook in the kitchen. Of course nobody in the knights barracks believed this story, but that's where the famous Sir Even got his motto, "Never rescue a princess, you'll get on restriction every time." from. Now, whether you believe that girl cooties can kill or not? It's a scientific fact that Bugs the (normal-sized) troll was never seen nor heard from again. You decide.
K.