By Jo

A fractured fairy tale take-off of "The Princess and the Pea"

Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away lived a lovely princess whose only desire was that she might marry a true prince. She traveled the world over seeking to find one, but though there were princes everywhere, it was terribly hard to discover if they were...real...or not. So she came home again and was melancholy, watched soap operas and ate bonbons all day.

Then one evening there was a terrible dust storm, this being a desert kingdom 'n all. In the midst of the storm the princess heard a loud pounding on the castle door.

*POUND* *POUND* *POUND*

Grumpily, the princess turned off Days of Our Lives and went to the door. Opening it she found a man standing there, his hand raised to knock again. What a sight he was! His knuckles were raw, almost bare of flesh, his clothes were torn and ragged, completely covered with a thick layer of dust. His hair, though well-barbered, was unkempt from the wind and the blowing dust and debris. His lips were nearly cracked from thirst and he was obviously exhausted, bruised, and battered.

"Who ARE you?" the princess asked as the man supported himself against the doorframe.

"I am a true prince," he replied, then crumpled at her feet.

"Likely story," she mumbled, noting the manacle marks around his wrists. Though it was entirely probable that the man was a common outlaw and not a prince at all, she nonetheless was attracted by something she saw in his countenance and decided to call her guards to haul him the rest of the way inside. She had her guards deliver him to her very own bathing area and deposit him in her large marble tub with the floating water lilies and the five fountains spurting gently.

The Captain of the Guard frowned at the stranger as he slid his disrobed body into the tub. "Your Majesty," he growled, "look at him! The man is nothing more than an escaped highwayman."

"But he said he was a true prince," she protested.

"He cannot be, Your Majesty. He has been in chains very recently."

"Howsomever I intend to find out myveryself if he is or if he is not a true prince."  With that she sent the guards away to prepare a special bed for the man now slumped amidst the floating water lilies and the five fountains spurting gently. While the bed was being prepared to her specifications, she occupied her spare time in the not completely unpleasant task of washing the dust from his body. After all, the bed would be crisply clean and she could not have his grime upon her sheets, now could she? It was a perfectly logical reason for her to bathe him.

He awakened part way through his bath and looked at her through lash-framed sea-green eyes. "You are tired," she stated, looking back.

"I am," he sighed. "I have been awake for 6 days now, dragged from my castle, beaten, shackled, nearly hung, knocked about and not fed or watered."

She pressed her lips together, concerned. No true prince would have been treated thusly. She began to fear her bathing activities might have all been for naught. Well, maybe not completely for naught. His was quite fine of limb and form and...well....

"And yet you say you are a true prince?"

"I am," he replied, nodding slightly, offering no proof other than a certain regalness of bearing.

She gazed at his face, once in a while dropping her eyes modestly to gaze at his form in the marble tub with the floating water lilies and the five gently spurting fountains. Well, she would find out the truth of the matter, she would, she would.

"Come now," she said, holding a large fluffy white towel.

Obligingly he rose from the marble pool with the floating water lilies and the five gently spurting fountains and stood silently as she dried him. "This has GOT to be a fairy tale," she murmured under her breath, wiping down his back toward his really fine bunnal regions. Days of Our Lives had never been quite THIS good! "Do you watch soaps?" she asked off-handedly.

"There are no televisions in my land," he replied, lifting his left arm so she could dry his pit.

"Too bad," she added, thinking of all the times she'd mentally bathed Bo Brady. "There must also not be soap." His arrival condition was enough to prove that.

"There was soap," he returned, his eyes turned inward in remembrance. "But now it is gone. All of it. Burned to the ground. Everything."

"Who would do such a thing to a fine bar of soap?"

He turned his head, his wet hair dripping down the sides of his face, his eyes full of sadness and pain. "The men who did this to me." He held up his arms, holding out his wrists with their wide, raw shackle marks toward her.

"You were manacled because you were an outlaw? Because you robbed the royal treasury?" She did not want to believe thusly but his wounds left little room for other speculation.

"No," he said, his voice tired and heavy. "I am a true prince."

"We shall see," she stated, handing him a blue satin robe in just his size she happened to have hanging on a hook in her bathing area.

She led him to a large sleeping chamber in the center of which was a bed stacked nearly up to the beamed castle ceiling with 20 mattresses and 20 eiderdown quilts atop them. A ladder stood leaning against the side of the bed mountain. "Up there!" she indicated, pointing at the very top.
What she was not telling was that beneath the bottom mattress, the Captain of the Guard had placed a single bullet.

He inhaled deeply then blew out a long, slow breath, not sure that semi-hanging was actually worse than having to climb the ladder when he was so terribly worn, bashed, and exhausted. "You are...sure?" he asked.

  

"Indeed! You must sleep up there the entire night."

"As you wish," he sighed, placing a bare foot on the lowest rung and beginning to climb. She had provided him only the blue satin robe so stood at the base of the ladder as he climbed, really, really, really beginning to hope he were, indeed, a true prince the further up he got.

The next morning she hurried eagerly to his chamber, climbing up the ladder herself and kneeling beside him on the topmost eiderdown quilt. "How did you sleep?" she asked, hardly able to wait for his answer.

He had been lying on his side, facing away from her, and with a loud groan turned over on his back. "I was awake the entire night," he sighed, his face twisting into a pain-filled grimace. "I was lying on something terribly hard and scarcely closed my eyes. Now I am even more black and blue than I already was and shall probably never be able to walk upright again."

"My prince!" she cried happily, flinging herself atop him. Only a true prince, you see, would have been sensitive enough to feel the bullet through the 20 mattresses and the 20 eiderdown quilts.

"Ooof!" he oofed as she landed atop him. He was, after all, quite bullet-bruised. But after she'd rubbed in a lot of oil on his bruises and then other places, he was able to consum...er...marry the princess. They lived happily ever after, quite often in the marble pool with the floating water lilies and the five gently spurting fountains, er, six.

THE END...OR PROBABLY NOT

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