A/N: Super-short, super-cheesy fairy tale opener. It gets funnier, I swear!

Prologue: The Princess and the Vampire

Once upon a time there lived a beautiful princess in a beautiful kingdom. Her good looks attracted the envy of many. Suitors followed her everywhere she went, and her servants doted on her. Even her parents, the king and queen, boasted of her golden hair and delicate features to the neighboring rulers.

Despite all of the admiration she received, she still felt lonely and isolated from the rest of the kingdom because she was never allowed out of the castle. So one night, under the cover of darkness, she disguised herself as a peasant and slipped away from the safety of the castle walls. Her plan was to see how the common folk lived, and learn what needed to be improved with the kingdom.

But as the princess wandered into the woods that separated the castle from the town, she became terribly lost. After all, she had never left the grounds before in her life.

As she stumbled through the dark, tripping over roots and starting at every strange noise, she began to sense that someone-or something-was following her.

“Who’s there?” she called out, terrified. A young man stepped out from behind a tree.

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling. His teeth glinted in the moonlight. “I couldn’t help but overhear you crashing through the underbrush. You seem lost. Do you need somewhere to stay?”

As wary of this strange man as she was, the girl decided she would do no better out in the woods, surrounded by hungry animals. So she followed him.

They got along immediately, due to the fact that often they both experienced feelings of being separate from the rest of society. When it was time for the girl to leave, she invited the man to come with her. He refused, and the girl was hurt. She promised to return to him.

The princess arrived back at her own castle. She told her parents of the stranger, and how she wished to marry him. Her parents were horrified. They knew the man as a vampire who preyed on young women that wandered lost through his territory.

The girl was hurt. This was not the man she had met. Her parents forbid her from ever leaving the grounds again, and especially from seeing the vampire.

Angered, the girl ran away from home. She went to stay with the vampire, and for a while the two lived happily together.

The king and queen, sorrowed by their daughter’s betrayal, came to the conclusion the two lovers had to be killed for the good of the kingdom, as such a relationship could only bring shame and the devil upon them.

So they sent soldiers, who stormed the vampire’s castle and wounded the princess. With her dying breath, the princess promised that she would meet her lover again in another life. Broken-hearted and alone, the vampire fled the castle.

He settled down in the mountains, preparing to bide his time and wait for when his lover’s soul would return to him…