Dragon Munchies: A Whole Tale in Just One Bite

Super short original tales to snack on

by Rebekah Postupak  

The Real Princess

by Rebekah Postupak

for the Trifecta writing challenge

(333 words exactly)

I was a real princess. (Tiara, golden cascading ringlets, teacup pinkie, everything. No prince, though.)

And everyone knows a real princess’s Number One Job is to marry a prince.

(Oh. Guess not so real. Sigh.)

Now you’re wondering how I’m getting from that intro to being lost in a thunderstorm, in my nightie, two kingdoms over. Gosh, I’d love to explain, but I’m only allowed 333 words for this story. Let’s stumble ahead.

There I am, soaked and pounding at the door of some hovel. Finally the door opens and a frazzled-looking woman peers out.

“Gentle lady, wilt thou succor me?” (Princess school vocab.)

“Princess, eh?” she says, surveying me and bellowing, “FRITZ!”

A gorgeous young man with a roguish grin comes scurrying.

“Yes, Mother?”

“Prepare the princess cot.”

“But—”

“DO IT!” shouts his mother, so he does.

“Princess cot” means lumpy mattresses stacked two stories high, a complicated and ridiculous undertaking which watching him compensates for. Unfortunately I proceed to roll off that blasted bed six times during the night; come morning I am black and blue.

“Sleep well, highness?” says the mother sweetly.

“No,” I grumble. “See my bruises?”

And this is when she starts shrieking. “FRITZ! FRITZ!”

Out scurries the young man again, bleary-eyed (though still rakishly good-looking). “Yes?”

“I’VE FOUND A REAL PRINCESS!”

Turns out the frazzled woman is actually a frazzled queen, and on account of dashing Fritz they’d been drowning in marriage proposals from girls claiming to be real princesses when actually they were mostly state prisoners.

So they go into hiding and the Queen conjures up this nutty Test in which she sticks vegetables under a mattress mountain, figuring only royal blood is sensitive enough to notice.

Hence, her rapture at seeing my bruises.

Hence, Fritz throwing me a glance so sardonic and clever, I have no choice but to overlook the Queen’s lunacy and marry him on the spot.

Hence, a Real Princess?

(Know what? Already was. Ha.)

Hence, Happily Ever After?

Hence, you bet.

http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/