This is Not a Fairytale . One-shot . Original
I am in pain. I have been in pain for the past twenty-four hours. Constantly. I feel the urge to smash my head into the nearest wall just to. make. it. stop.
Since that's probably not going to help in the long run, though, I wrote instead. Original fiction with might or might not be a fairytale. I get fucking weird when I'm like this.
Sorry.
Title: This is Not a Fairytale
Author: pprfaith
Rating: PG-13/R
Warnings: Incoherence, angstin', dragons and the slaying of said dragons.
Summary: See title. No, seriously. Around 2k.
Disclaimer: This is actually mine. All of it. Do not take it away from me. In the state I'm currently in, I'll hunt you down and smack you silly.
A/N: The term 'fucking weird' has been dropped, hasn't it? All the mistakes are mine, too.
This is a fairytale.
There is a castle and a princess and a prince, or fifteen. There is a king and there are objects made entirely of gold and there is a land far, far away and a time long, long gone. There is a damsel in distress (who might or might not be aforementioned princess) and there is a knight in shining armor (ditto for the aforementioned prince) and there is a dragon, which is vile and evil and must be killed for the good of all and the future of mankind.
No, wait. This isn’t a fairytale after all.
This is a metaphor.
There is a castle and a princess and a prince, or fifteen. Possibly more. There is a king and there are objects made of gold and there is a land which is neither near nor far because it is imaginary and a time which is now because every story is always now. Stories have no past or future and they don’t evolve. They’re not alive.
Stories live on people’s tongues and those are always right now.
There is no damsel because women, as a collective, realized long ago that you get killed whether you scream or not. So they stopped screaming and started fighting and stopped being damsels, becoming well rounded characters instead. (Or, you know, real people.) Sometimes.
There is a knight in shining armor, but he gets directed to the side-lines because without damsels, chivalry can be dead and anyway, there is no dragon to slay because they have all been dead for an age, killed because they were big and ugly and different and everyone knows that you must kill everything that is different from yourself. Especially if it snacks on virgins.
Now, wait a moment. Maybe this isn’t a metaphor either. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Maybe it’s a simple story.
Maybe it starts like this:
Once upon a time (which is now) there was a princess who lived in a wonderful castle full of wonderful things. There were rose gardens and fountains and ballrooms and everything else one might find in a gaudy fairytale castle. The owner of the castle was a man commonly referred to as ‘king’. The princess called him ‘daddy’.
The princess might have been beautiful or not, depending on the eye of the beholder and the angle at which the light hit her. But the princess didn’t care about that much because she didn’t care about being pretty or getting married or any of those things.
What the princess cared about, were stories.
She dreamed them, told them, listened to them, invented them, read them, changed them, built them. All day long she dreamed of exotic things like supermarkets and cars and housecats. Things that could never be true and sometimes, things that could be true, like castles and dragons and witches.
And at night, she wrote all those stories down. Apart from the massive library one needs to be a story-lover, she owned three things that she loved best of all the things she had because they were for her stories.
There was a candle, which was magical and made of gold and never, ever burned down so she could always see at night, at her writing desk.
There was a quill, which was also magical and also made of gold and never ran out of ink for her to write with.
And lastly, there was a book, which was also magical and made of gold, which held and infinite number of pages and was never full.
At night she sat at her desk with the candle and the quill and the book and she wrote her stories down because they made her feel light and free and wonderful. Because she loved them and they were good to her and because there is nothing in the world that we love as much as our dreams.
Her father, commonly referred to as ‘king’, watched that behavior for many, many years. He loved his daughter (quite possibly the way she loved stories) and he didn’t want to deprive her of her joy. So he let her write, let her maraud all over the place to collect stories and ideas and inspiration, let her lock herself away in her tower at night, to write. He let her dream.
But eventually, as all things must, the good days came to an end and the king fell ill. Old men do that, sometimes.
No. That’s a lie. Old men always do that. And old women. And sometimes young men and young women because at the end of every tale there must be death because nothing last forever and those tales that end with ‘happily ever after’ are really not over yet. They are simply paused at an opportune moment, at a good angle, paused and held, captured like bugs in amber.
So the king, as men and women and everything else do, fell ill and he knew he was going to die. It worried him, because he wanted to provide for his daughter. She needed a man to take care of her (obviously) and someone to rule the kingdom for her when her father was dead. (This was before the damsels of the world united and stopped being damsels, back when women still screamed instead of fighting back.)
So he decided to throw the princess a ball which would last for three nights and to which he invited all eligible bachelors he could scrounge up on short notice. He told his daughter to pick one and be done with it, because he was getting on in age and needs must.
His daughter told him that she would rather stay in her room and write her stories but her father was adamant. Sacrifices must be made. So she bought herself three dresses and three pairs of shoes and she did as her father asked of her because that’s what daughter do.
The princess showed up to the first night of the ball, danced until her feet bled, talked with many men and finally found one that was kind and gentle and when the dancing was over and the lights dimmed, she invited him for a walk in the gardens.
They walked for a while and eventually, she sat down on a bench in the rose garden and as he sat next to her, she pulled out her golden quill and handed it to him.
“Use it,” she said and he looked at her for a long time and then nodded, stood and walked away, back towards the castle.
The princess waited for him for a long time and when he came back, he carried a roll of parchment that he handed to her, along with the pen, waiting for her verdict. He had written her a poem and it was beautiful and it was sweet and she looked at him and said, “Thank you.”
The next night the princess showed up in her second new dress and danced until her feet bled, talked with many men and finally found one that was smart and educated and when the dancing was over and the lights dimmed, she invited him for a walk in the gardens.
They walked for a while and eventually, she sat down on a bench in the rose garden and as he sat next to her, she pulled out her golden book and handed it to him.
“Use it,” she said and he looked at her and then at the book. He opened it, read a few pages in a random place and then closed it, placing it on his lap, hands folded over it. He smiled at her and then he told her a story.
He told her one and then another and another until dawn tickled the sky and the words never stopped coming, weaving around them like magic and they were as beautiful as anything in the golden book, rich and warm and full of dreams.
When his voice was raw the princess smiled and told him, “Thank you.”
The next night the princess showed up in her last new dress and danced until her feet bled, talked with many men and finally found one that was loud and funny and abrasive and when the dancing was over and the lights dimmed, she invited him for a walk in the gardens.
They walked for a while and eventually, she sat down on a bench in the rose garden and as he sat next to her, she pulled out her golden candle and handed it to him.
“Use it,” she said and he looked at her for a long moment before lighting the candle and setting it aside, asking to see her book and pen.
He took them both from her and turned them over in his hands, asking if she cared for them. She told him that she loved them dearly, them and the stories she wrote with them, all her dreams. He nodded and held them above the flame of the candle and because the candle was magical, the book burned and the quill burned, too.
One turned to ashes and the other into an ugly lump of metal and the princess cried for him to stop but he didn’t so she tried to make him stop, but he pushed her away and ordered her to sit, to sit and wait while he burned everything she loved.
Only when there was nothing but soot left did he blow out the candle and hand it back to her. She clutched it close with tears in her eyes, clutched it and hated him, despised him with everything she had in her.
He stood and held out his hand to her and said, “Dance with me some more.”
In a fairytale, the princess would have nodded and taken his hand, would have followed him and lived happily ever after with him because he freed her from her silly dreams and took her into the real world, because he was a good man and that meant he was good for her and dreams never helped anyone rule a kingdom.
But this is not a fairytale.
In a metaphor, she would have spit on him and walked away, refusing to marry and submit to anyone, whether they be simple (prince number one and prince number two) or a bit more original (prince number three).
Maybe she would have stopped being a damsel and become a person, one who made her own way and wrote her own story, in blood and bone and life instead of ink. Maybe she would have stuck to ink, but that would have been okay, too, because it would have been her choice.
But this is not a metaphor either.
This is a story and stories always have beginnings but they never really have endings, unless someone dies.
So the princess just sat there, on the bench, the ashes of all her dreams at her feet and a stranger demanding things from her. She sat there and clutched her candle close because it was all she had left and she rocked herself a bit and wished there were still dragons in the mountains so she could find one and curl herself into its cold scales and be safe there.
But all the dragons were already slain and all the knights had lost their shine and above, in one of the castle towers, an old man, commonly referred to as ‘king’, was breathing his last and all the princess could says was, “No.”
Dreams die, too.
Yes. Thank you. Idek.
Since that's probably not going to help in the long run, though, I wrote instead. Original fiction with might or might not be a fairytale. I get fucking weird when I'm like this.
Sorry.
Title: This is Not a Fairytale
Author: pprfaith
Rating: PG-13/R
Warnings: Incoherence, angstin', dragons and the slaying of said dragons.
Summary: See title. No, seriously. Around 2k.
Disclaimer: This is actually mine. All of it. Do not take it away from me. In the state I'm currently in, I'll hunt you down and smack you silly.
A/N: The term 'fucking weird' has been dropped, hasn't it? All the mistakes are mine, too.
This is a fairytale.
There is a castle and a princess and a prince, or fifteen. There is a king and there are objects made entirely of gold and there is a land far, far away and a time long, long gone. There is a damsel in distress (who might or might not be aforementioned princess) and there is a knight in shining armor (ditto for the aforementioned prince) and there is a dragon, which is vile and evil and must be killed for the good of all and the future of mankind.
No, wait. This isn’t a fairytale after all.
This is a metaphor.
There is a castle and a princess and a prince, or fifteen. Possibly more. There is a king and there are objects made of gold and there is a land which is neither near nor far because it is imaginary and a time which is now because every story is always now. Stories have no past or future and they don’t evolve. They’re not alive.
Stories live on people’s tongues and those are always right now.
There is no damsel because women, as a collective, realized long ago that you get killed whether you scream or not. So they stopped screaming and started fighting and stopped being damsels, becoming well rounded characters instead. (Or, you know, real people.) Sometimes.
There is a knight in shining armor, but he gets directed to the side-lines because without damsels, chivalry can be dead and anyway, there is no dragon to slay because they have all been dead for an age, killed because they were big and ugly and different and everyone knows that you must kill everything that is different from yourself. Especially if it snacks on virgins.
Now, wait a moment. Maybe this isn’t a metaphor either. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Maybe it’s a simple story.
Maybe it starts like this:
Once upon a time (which is now) there was a princess who lived in a wonderful castle full of wonderful things. There were rose gardens and fountains and ballrooms and everything else one might find in a gaudy fairytale castle. The owner of the castle was a man commonly referred to as ‘king’. The princess called him ‘daddy’.
The princess might have been beautiful or not, depending on the eye of the beholder and the angle at which the light hit her. But the princess didn’t care about that much because she didn’t care about being pretty or getting married or any of those things.
What the princess cared about, were stories.
She dreamed them, told them, listened to them, invented them, read them, changed them, built them. All day long she dreamed of exotic things like supermarkets and cars and housecats. Things that could never be true and sometimes, things that could be true, like castles and dragons and witches.
And at night, she wrote all those stories down. Apart from the massive library one needs to be a story-lover, she owned three things that she loved best of all the things she had because they were for her stories.
There was a candle, which was magical and made of gold and never, ever burned down so she could always see at night, at her writing desk.
There was a quill, which was also magical and also made of gold and never ran out of ink for her to write with.
And lastly, there was a book, which was also magical and made of gold, which held and infinite number of pages and was never full.
At night she sat at her desk with the candle and the quill and the book and she wrote her stories down because they made her feel light and free and wonderful. Because she loved them and they were good to her and because there is nothing in the world that we love as much as our dreams.
Her father, commonly referred to as ‘king’, watched that behavior for many, many years. He loved his daughter (quite possibly the way she loved stories) and he didn’t want to deprive her of her joy. So he let her write, let her maraud all over the place to collect stories and ideas and inspiration, let her lock herself away in her tower at night, to write. He let her dream.
But eventually, as all things must, the good days came to an end and the king fell ill. Old men do that, sometimes.
No. That’s a lie. Old men always do that. And old women. And sometimes young men and young women because at the end of every tale there must be death because nothing last forever and those tales that end with ‘happily ever after’ are really not over yet. They are simply paused at an opportune moment, at a good angle, paused and held, captured like bugs in amber.
So the king, as men and women and everything else do, fell ill and he knew he was going to die. It worried him, because he wanted to provide for his daughter. She needed a man to take care of her (obviously) and someone to rule the kingdom for her when her father was dead. (This was before the damsels of the world united and stopped being damsels, back when women still screamed instead of fighting back.)
So he decided to throw the princess a ball which would last for three nights and to which he invited all eligible bachelors he could scrounge up on short notice. He told his daughter to pick one and be done with it, because he was getting on in age and needs must.
His daughter told him that she would rather stay in her room and write her stories but her father was adamant. Sacrifices must be made. So she bought herself three dresses and three pairs of shoes and she did as her father asked of her because that’s what daughter do.
The princess showed up to the first night of the ball, danced until her feet bled, talked with many men and finally found one that was kind and gentle and when the dancing was over and the lights dimmed, she invited him for a walk in the gardens.
They walked for a while and eventually, she sat down on a bench in the rose garden and as he sat next to her, she pulled out her golden quill and handed it to him.
“Use it,” she said and he looked at her for a long time and then nodded, stood and walked away, back towards the castle.
The princess waited for him for a long time and when he came back, he carried a roll of parchment that he handed to her, along with the pen, waiting for her verdict. He had written her a poem and it was beautiful and it was sweet and she looked at him and said, “Thank you.”
The next night the princess showed up in her second new dress and danced until her feet bled, talked with many men and finally found one that was smart and educated and when the dancing was over and the lights dimmed, she invited him for a walk in the gardens.
They walked for a while and eventually, she sat down on a bench in the rose garden and as he sat next to her, she pulled out her golden book and handed it to him.
“Use it,” she said and he looked at her and then at the book. He opened it, read a few pages in a random place and then closed it, placing it on his lap, hands folded over it. He smiled at her and then he told her a story.
He told her one and then another and another until dawn tickled the sky and the words never stopped coming, weaving around them like magic and they were as beautiful as anything in the golden book, rich and warm and full of dreams.
When his voice was raw the princess smiled and told him, “Thank you.”
The next night the princess showed up in her last new dress and danced until her feet bled, talked with many men and finally found one that was loud and funny and abrasive and when the dancing was over and the lights dimmed, she invited him for a walk in the gardens.
They walked for a while and eventually, she sat down on a bench in the rose garden and as he sat next to her, she pulled out her golden candle and handed it to him.
“Use it,” she said and he looked at her for a long moment before lighting the candle and setting it aside, asking to see her book and pen.
He took them both from her and turned them over in his hands, asking if she cared for them. She told him that she loved them dearly, them and the stories she wrote with them, all her dreams. He nodded and held them above the flame of the candle and because the candle was magical, the book burned and the quill burned, too.
One turned to ashes and the other into an ugly lump of metal and the princess cried for him to stop but he didn’t so she tried to make him stop, but he pushed her away and ordered her to sit, to sit and wait while he burned everything she loved.
Only when there was nothing but soot left did he blow out the candle and hand it back to her. She clutched it close with tears in her eyes, clutched it and hated him, despised him with everything she had in her.
He stood and held out his hand to her and said, “Dance with me some more.”
In a fairytale, the princess would have nodded and taken his hand, would have followed him and lived happily ever after with him because he freed her from her silly dreams and took her into the real world, because he was a good man and that meant he was good for her and dreams never helped anyone rule a kingdom.
But this is not a fairytale.
In a metaphor, she would have spit on him and walked away, refusing to marry and submit to anyone, whether they be simple (prince number one and prince number two) or a bit more original (prince number three).
Maybe she would have stopped being a damsel and become a person, one who made her own way and wrote her own story, in blood and bone and life instead of ink. Maybe she would have stuck to ink, but that would have been okay, too, because it would have been her choice.
But this is not a metaphor either.
This is a story and stories always have beginnings but they never really have endings, unless someone dies.
So the princess just sat there, on the bench, the ashes of all her dreams at her feet and a stranger demanding things from her. She sat there and clutched her candle close because it was all she had left and she rocked herself a bit and wished there were still dragons in the mountains so she could find one and curl herself into its cold scales and be safe there.
But all the dragons were already slain and all the knights had lost their shine and above, in one of the castle towers, an old man, commonly referred to as ‘king’, was breathing his last and all the princess could says was, “No.”
Dreams die, too.
Yes. Thank you. Idek.