Fairy Tales

I may have to come back to this.

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The Crown Prince of Halidon was searching for a bride, and all the eligible princesses in the land came to call upon the Halidon royal family. The prince was very handsome; he had hair as dark and shining as the wings of a raven, and lively, bright grey eyes, and dimples that showed whenever he flashed his dazzling smile. He was fair-skinned, tall, and strong and the crown sat perfectly upon his brow. In addition to his good looks, he was blessed with a keen intellect, which helped him run the country smoothly even while his father was still king, and he possessed a wonderful sense of humor. His laughter made women--in particular his mother’s ladies-- swoon. In short, Halidon’s Crown Prince was the catch. And all the princesses knew it.

Now, the crown prince’s mother was not such a nice person. She was, at heart, a bit of a schemer, and so she schemed to find the best princess for her only, beloved son. While the prince held court and hunted and did other princely things, she was going over the princesses’ pedigrees. She decided, after weeks of scrutiny, that, lovely as they may be, none of the princesses of their kingdom would do. They were all too common, and therefore a foreign match must be brokered. So the call went out; the king reluctantly dispatched messengers and sent them to all corners of the world.

Meanwhile, the prince had fallen in love. She was the second daughter of a baker and about as far from a comely, elegant, meek princess as it came. She was very strong from kneading and rolling dough--he’d seen her engage the blacksmith in a friendly contest of arm-wrestling. Though she had lost, the prince was convinced it was because she was not yet a full-grown woman: The baker’s second daughter was only sixteen, but she‘d nearly made the blacksmith lose the match in an apoplectic fit.

She had no pedigree to speak of: daughter of a baker who was a son of a baker who was the son of the baker before that, and so on down the line. As to her looks, well, her face was well enough when it wasn’t covered in flour, and she was tall. Her hair was a fiery red and her eyes were kind. But she was soft and round like a dumpling, unlike his willowy suitors. The prince was entranced. When he dared himself to sneak close enough to smell her, she exuded the smell of apple pie and he longed to be close to her every day and feel her strong, plump hand in his.

Unfortunately for the prince, she didn’t know he existed, because the Crown Prince was too chicken to approach her. He spent much of his time around her trying to talk himself into asserting his princely rights, which would allow him to sweep her off her feet and bring her to the castle forever and ever amen. But…he hesitated, and not just on account of her strength. He wanted her to like him, even though he knew plenty of happy couples who hadn’t met before the wedding. The prince needed to be assured of her love for him. After all, the Halidonian people were long-lived and he didn’t want an angry wife for the century or two it might take for her to calm down.

And then the worst thing so far happened. The baker’s second daughter got a cat, and the prince quickly discovered he was allergic. If he were any less manly, he would have lay down and wept. As it was, he spent a lot of time brooding at the edge of the castle moat and sighing at his reflection. If only there were some way he could get closer to his beloved apple dumpling without sneezing up a storm!

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I realize it is extremely unfinished. I also realize that no one has a name yet. I didn't want to get distracted by a lengthy name-hunt while trying to write the actual narrative. I could look up name meanings for hours before finding ones that are right. Also, I was going to make the girl younger (like 14 tot he prince's approximate not-quite-thirty)...but I realize it'd probably creep people out, however accurate it may be for the quasi medieval setting.

My thoughts on aging in this fantasy world are this: I imagine the people of Halidon visibly age until somewhere around thirty, and then age less noticeably for a few more decades and so on, so it's really a more gradual process on the adult end of things (as opposed to an aging process where a person is a baby/child/teen for a prolonged period of time before being considered an adult.)

I vow to make there be lots more purple prose should I work on this more.

~Later