Title: Phairy Tale

Summary: A small look at the less-than-ideal rescuing of a princess by a less-than-charming prince. Of course, the princess is not what is expected either.

A/N: I’m not sure if I will/want to continue this. It is part of a longer story I’m trying to write, but this scene was the only one that was cooperating (and even then, it’s still not perfect), so, this is what you get. I’m totally open to whatever you people want to say.

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It had been precisely one minute and 15 and a half seconds since John had finally burst through the wooden doors to the captured princess’ room. So far, they had just been standing there looking at each other.

‘What’s this broad’s problem? She should be jumping for joy, praising my prowess; celebrating my courage…she is not as cute as I thought she’d be.’

John thought, rather rudely, but he had never been the most polite of princes.

He sighed in annoyance and dug through his bag to find the paper his aunt had placed in there before the departure. The princess stared on in confusion. John rolled his eyes as the crinkled paper was pulled out.

“Here, I’m supposed to recite this ode to your,” John looked over the princess, unimpressed. “Beauty.”

The princess caught the indirect insult to her features and bristled a bit, she opened her mouth to retort.

“Actually I’m not-”

But John cut her off, reading the note in a decidedly spiritless tone.

“Oh, beautiful and virtuous princess, how my heart has beaten so fast just imagining how the sunlight caresses your face, ‘John, if it’s night, just replace sunlight with moonlight.’” John raised his eyebrows at that last sentence, but continued. “I have spent long and lonely nights creating your image in my mind and, now, as I see you before me, it is apparent that even my imagination cannot reach the boundaries of your true beauty—my god, this is stupid, anyways—Your eyes, so…‘insert color here’? What the Dickens does that mean?” John shook his head and sneered again, fed up with everything by now.

“Your eyes so insert color here, that it could put the deepest shade of insert color here to shame and make it whither and fade away. Your lips are so rosy, ‘John I don’t care if her lips aren’t rosy you better say it anyways’, that it looks like they had been plucked from the king’s royal garden and placed upon your face by an angel.” John stopped in disgust and crumpled up the paper. “That’s enough of that sentimental cow plop.”

“Oh, you’re charming for sure.”

The princess was now sitting at her desk with her head resting in her hand and a bored expression on her face. It seems her initial assessment of the prince had been correct. He was a lumpy, arrogant oaf. The lumpy, arrogant oaf turned to the princess with an irritated expression.

“Oh, I’d like to see you come up with something better given the situation, you’re just a silly girl who’s gotten herself locked up in a tower for some stupid reason. Now hurry up and follow me so we can get out of here! I don’t even know why you’re all bent out of shape; all you had to do was wait for a prince to arrive.”

The princess rolled her eyes and murmured.

“I’m still waiting.”

John glared.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

The princess threw her hands up in the air in disbelief.

“I mean, you’re the least princely prince I’ve ever seen! You tromp in here like you own the place and boss me around like the arrogant softhead I know you are. From what I’ve seen, you have no manners and absolutely no appreciation for beauty or the act of nobility and altruism!”

John sniffed.

“Well, your boobs are small.”

The princess clenched her fists and strode up to John.

“That’s because I have no boobs, you simpleton! I tried telling you before, but your disinterest drowned out any other sound!”

John looked into the princess’/prince’s eyes. And promptly stuck his hand between the other’s legs and squeezed. Just to make sure.

John found himself on the ground with a pounding, sharp pain in his cheekbone.

“You could have just looked at my neck you idiot! I have an Adam’s apple! My god, you’re defective! I can’t believe you didn’t even notice by the tone of my voice!”

John pushed himself up and got into the princess’, the prince, the- the person’s face.

“I thought you had a cold and I was trying to be courteous by not pointing it out!”

“Oh yes, that little fact you chose to overlook.”

“You were wearing a dress!”

The prince colored and looked down at the billowing, dress like, navy robes that were wrapped around his small frame. Okay, maybe he did kinda look—no! The prince wrinkled his nose and glared at John.

“These are the ceremonial dress robes of my kingdom!”

“Yeah, for the women.”

John said with a small smirk on his face as the prince turned away from John and stuck his nose in the air.

“I refuse to argue with a cultureless slob.”

John rolled his eyes and rubbed his cheek again, refusing to acknowledge that the punch had come from a cross dresser.

“Alright, look, I don’t have time to argue with you right now, we need to get out of here before the witch comes back. So if you’ll just, hurry up…”

John trailed off, allowing the other boy to supply his name. The prince turned around a quarter and said very stiffly,

“Paul.”

John nodded.

“Paul. I’m John. Alright, let’s hurry up and go.”

“Not until you apologize.”

John shook his head.

“Oh hell no. Fine, if you’re not gonna come easily, well, I can play that way too.”

John walked very swiftly toward Paul and before the other boy even had a chance to turn around all the way John had hoisted him over his shoulder. Paul’s eyes were wide and he began wiggling like mad to get out of the position he was in. Paul shouted,

“This is very undignified!”

John very calmly carried Paul out of the shattered door and down the hallway to the stairs.

“Yeah, well, so’s wearing a dress and letting yourself get kidnapped by a gnarly old witch and not being man enough to get yourself out of it.”

Paul aimed a punch to the back of John’s head, but due to his position only managed to clip him on the ear with his elbow. This was still painful, made obvious by the way John dropped him on the floor and walked away.

“Fine, fine! You want to be left here, fine by me, in fact—good riddance! I don’t need to be lugging around some prissy prince for the remainder of my journey!” Mid-rant, John turned around and walked back to Paul, who was getting up from the rather painful drop. “You know what, you should be grateful! You know what I had to do to even figure out where this god-forsaken castle was? Nothing pretty! And then you turn out to be a MAN! How disappointing is that?! I get shipped off to do this quest for no good reason, but I thought, ‘Hey! At least I’ll get a cute damsel out of it.’ But no, you dirtied that all up with your…manly parts.”

John finished his rant nose-to-nose with Paul, each glaring at each other.

“If you’re quite finished,” Paul said still glaring at John, “I’d like to tell you that the witch has returned and she does not have a pleasant expression on her face.”

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To be continued…? Maybe?