After striking a bargain with the Evil Fairy, the Prince and Percy had found a pixie fitting her very specific requirements in order to persuade her to lift the spell on Sleeping Beauty. However, to their surprise, while the Evil Fairy was otherwise engaged with the pixie in the undergrowth, Sleeping Beauty had been awoken. This surely meant she was now safe from the grubby hands of the Warlock who, meanwhile, was in the desert in the East of the Realm with the Evil Queen. In exchange for helping her create a new army, he had been promised the hand of an oblivious Sleeping Beauty.
After striking a bargain with the Evil Fairy, the Prince and Percy had found a pixie fitting her very specific requirements in order to persuade her to lift the spell on Sleeping Beauty. However, to their surprise, while the Evil Fairy was otherwise engaged with the pixie in the undergrowth, Sleeping Beauty had been awoken. This surely meant she was now safe from the grubby hands of the Warlock who, meanwhile, was in the desert in the East of the Realm with the Evil Queen. In exchange for helping her create a new army, he had been promised the hand of an oblivious Sleeping Beauty.
One hopes this clears everything up for the dear reader.
The Prince and Percy had to explain to Sleeping Beauty what exactly had been going on.
“So you are telling me I was innocently walking in this forest when that nasty fairy put a spell on me and sent me to sleep?”
“Yes!”
“But why would she do such a thing?”
“You had better ask her,” said the Prince.
At that exact moment the Evil Fairy emerged from the shrubbery followed by Mr Gizzlebottom. She had leaves in her hair and was adjusting her frock.
“Is that her?” Sleeping Beauty asked them.
“Yep!”
“Excuse me!” she confronted the Evil Fairy. “I want a word with you!”
“How come you are awake?” exclaimed the Evil Fairy. “I haven’t lifted the spell!”
“It would appear that the sound of you with Mr Gizzlebottom was sufficiently loud and boisterous enough to wake her from her slumber,” Percy told her before adding. “And make the rest of us want to vomit.”
“Really? We weren’t that loud were we?”
“Yes you were.”
“Well a girl has to have her fun…”
“I realize that but couldn’t you have had your fun quietly?”
“Quiet?!”
“Maybe the do the rest of us a favour and bite on something?”
“She bit on a pillow,” said a smug looking Mr Gizzlebottom.
“I don’t know what you are all talking about!” cried Sleeping Beauty. “But I want to know why you put a spell on me! Fiends!”
“Well,” the Evil Fairy was sheepish. “You’re so…well you know…”
“What?”
“Attractive! I couldn’t bear it with you wandering around the place and men falling at your feet!”
“That was it?” Sleeping Beauty raged. “You jealous little slut! I’m going to get you for this you total hag!”
“Come on ladies!” the Prince tried to calm the situation down. “Now isn’t the time for hostilities!”
“It bleeding well is!” Sleeping Beauty insisted. “She’s robbed me of my peak years!”
“What?” cried Prince Charming. “You still look young and lovely!”
“Oh it’s not as easy as all that!” protested Sleeping Beauty. “I wanted to go to University! Be a student and smoke weed! I’m too old for that now! People will be expecting me to be thinking about getting married and having children now! I’ve lost out on so much!”
“See what your cruel envy has led to,” the Prince said to the Evil Fairy.
“Meh!” the Evil Fairy shrugged prior to seizing Mr Gizzlebottom by the hand and leading him back into the bushes.
“Let’s get out of here!” Percy urged the other two so that they both mounted him and he briskly cantered away.
Once they had departed the forest and were out of earshot of the dreadful noises the Evil Fairy was making, they swapped notes.
“So you’re Prince Charming?” said Sleeping Beauty. “I vaguely remember hearing about you.”
“Yes.”
“And I always thought the tale that you had a talking horse was a myth!”
“Oh no!” said the Prince. “Anyway, about you? What do you think you’ll do going forward?”
“Firstly I must return to my parents…”
“Oh dear,” said Percy.
They came to a stop and dismounted. The Prince clasped the hands of Sleeping Beauty.
“You must brace yourself,” he said quietly. “I am afraid your parents are no longer with us. It happened while you were sleeping.”
“Oh my!” she trembled. “Did they pass away of natural causes?”
“Well your mother did,” nodded the Prince. “She died in her sleep, ironically.”
“And my father?”
“He was a bit more unfortunate I am sad to say,” explained the Prince. “It all started when he fell down the stairs in the Castle.”
“That’s a big staircase! Poor Daddy!”
“Yes, quite. Anyway, he got to the physician and he discovered your father was suffering from a terminal health condition.”
“Head injury?”
“No.”
“Not cancer?”
“No.”
“A brain tumour?”
“No.”
“Well, what then?”
“Syphilis.”
“Syphilis?! Poor Daddy!”
“Yes, now initially he told your mother it was a mystery but it later transpired that he caught it after visiting Snow White’s brothel.”
“Oh Daddy!” she cried. “For him to commit one little indiscretion and end up with syphilis!”
“Well it wasn’t quite one indiscretion.”
“No?” she shrugged. “Nobody is perfect. I shouldn’t judge him on a couple of incy wincy little indiscretions.”
“Or several hundred of them. It emerged that he had been indiscreet on a weekly basis.”
“Oh Daddy!”
“So then he made it known around the Realm that he would richly reward any physician or Sorcerer or magician to cure the syphilis.”
“He told everyone he had it?” she was appalled.
“Yes, it came as a bit of a surprise,” acknowledged the Prince. “Especially to his wife, your mother. He ended up with quite a few nicknames I can tell you.”
“So did anyone cure him?”
“Of course not, no.”
“Nobody could help him? Poor Daddy!”
“Well many tried to help him. And took his money in the process.”
“Poor Daddy! Then what happened?”
“He died a long and agonizing death.”
It was about an hour before Sleeping Beauty stopped crying.
“May I ask why you took it upon yourselves to help me?” she eventually asked them. “Looking for a bride perhaps?”
“I am not that way inclined,” said the Prince.
“Neither am I,” added Percy.
“Aren’t you Percy?” exclaimed the Prince.
“Towards humans sire.”
“Oh yes, I suppose so yes.”
“Then why?” asked Sleeping Beauty.
“Well,” the Prince gave Percy a sheepish look. “We got word that you were in danger.”
“I was in danger?” her eyes widened. “No shit! A young-ish and, may I say, beautiful woman alone and asleep and therefore vulnerable in the forest for several years!”
“When you put it like that…”
“Am I to understand that you and your lovely horse go around the Realm troubleshooting, taking on all the beastly creatures who harass and abuse people?”
“That’s us!” said the Prince.
“So then!” she pointed at them both. “Why has it taken all this time to help me?”
There was an awkward silence.
“She has a point sire,” muttered Percy.
“I admit it’s a bit embarrassing,” conceded a red faced Prince. “We were quite busy though…zombies, the Pied Piper, the Evil Queen…”
“So what made me a priority on this occasion?”
“We discovered that a peculiar old man had designs on you,” explained the Prince. “A Warlock who we are well acquainted with.”
“A Warlock?” she said thoughtfully. “I might not have objected you know. I like distinguished older men. Is he a silver fox?”
“More a dishevelled dog,” said Percy.
“More to the point,” said Sleeping Beauty. “A Warlock could have been just the person to lift the spell keeping me asleep!”
“I doubt it,” said the Prince. “Anyway, we were fairly sure he didn’t care if you were unconscious or not. You see the Evil Queen, his sister, had struck a bargain with him. She wanted his help to create an army with which to invade the Realm. In return, she promised to find him a female companion. You.”
“I don’t remember the Realm being such a mess before?” remarked Sleeping Beauty.
“Yes, things have rather got out of hand,” admitted the Prince. “Anyway, we decided you must be aroused…”
“I thought it was the Warlock who was aroused?”
“So we did a deal with the Evil Fairy to bring you round.”
“I suppose I should thank you,” said Sleeping Beauty reluctantly.
“You are welcome!”
Meanwhile the Leprechaun had led the Warlock and the Evil Queen to his cave where he claimed he kept several pots of gold. Their journey was fraught with lots of practical jokes as the Leprechaun took great delight in playing them. It began with him putting a whole lot of pepper in the Warlock’s stew in an Inn so that the old man was reduced to sneezing and coughing for several minutes. However, the jokes became increasingly more severe for the victim.
By the time they were near the cave of the Leprechaun, the Warlock had found a nest of vipers placed in his sleeping bag one night, his haemorrhoid cream infused with chilli oil, the Evil Queen’s Botox swapped for frogs spawn and finally the Warlock’s hair had been set on fire while he slept.
As the reader might imagine, morale was not good.
“How much further is it?” the Warlock asked as he raised a singed eyebrow.
“Not far, to be sure, to be sure!” insisted the Leprechaun.
“We don’t have to spend another night camping or in an Inn then?” checked the Warlock suspiciously.
“Oh no! We are very close to my cave!”
“Thank goodness for that!”
He led them to a set of hills on the horizon.
“This better had be good!” the Evil Queen remarked moodily.
They reached the cave and the Leprechaun clapped his hands together excitedly.
“I can’t wait to show you my pots of gold!”
The three of them entered the cave as the Leprechaun picked up a torch hung on the wall and reached inside his jacket pocket for his matches.
“Please allow me,” smiled the Warlock who then proceeded to touch the end of the torch.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Still nothing happened.
“Can’t you even do that?” the Evil Queen sighed.
The Leprechaun struck a match and lit the torch so they had light in the cave. He led them into it for about twenty yards before pointing at the stony floor and smiling.
“Here they are!” he proudly declared.
“What?” the Evil Queen was puzzled.
“I can’t see anything,” said the Warlock.
“Look at them! Lovely gold, glittering away!”
The cave contained absolutely no pots of gold.
“Oh dear,” the Evil Queen took the Warlock to one side. “The poor fellow is clearly mad. The mental health issues for the inhabitants in this Realm are getting worse and worse.”
“Do you want to take them?” the Leprechaun asked.
“You know what,” said the Evil Queen. “Now we’ve seen them, I’m not so keen. We can leave them here!”
“Do you want to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?” asked the Leprechaun hopefully.
“No, it’s fine, we don’t need to put you out any further!” the Evil Queen said as she started to depart the cave followed by the Warlock and a disappointed Leprechaun.
The Leprechaun headed off in the opposite direction as the Evil Queen and the Warlock regarded each other in confusion.
“So, what now?” the Warlock frowned.
“You need to conjure up my new army!”
“We head back to the desert?”
“No need, we can do it here,” she replied. “Now come on! You need to come up with creatures who are ruthless and bloodthirsty! Not pixies or whatever that one was! Think ugly.”
“I will try,” he sighed.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
The Prince, Percy and Sleeping Beauty resolved to return to the Prince’s palace and had headed East.
“I have been thinking,” said Percy as they travelled. “Shouldn’t Sleeping Beauty be renamed?”
“Why?” she cried. “I know I’ve aged but I think I still look half decent?”
“I was referring to the ‘sleeping’ bit.”
“Oh yes, good point.”
“So what then?” asked the Prince. “’Awake Beauty’?”
“No,” she replied.
“’Alert Beauty’?”
“No.”
“’Conscious Beauty’?”
“No.”
“’Aroused Beauty’?” suggested Percy.
Suddenly in front of them appeared a strange little man dressed in green. Percy came to a screeching halt.
“What the blazes?” said the Prince as the little fellow beamed at them.
“To be sure, to be sure!” the man said. “I’m a Leprechaun!”
“A what?” said the Prince.
“A Leprechaun! Surely you’ve met one before?”
“No, I haven’t,” the Prince remarked before murmuring to Percy. “Have you heard of these things?”
“I vaguely remember hearing about them in a barn many years ago. They’re male fairies…”
“Really Percy! That’s not politically correct!”
“No sire, literally male fairies.”
“Oh…I see.”
“They like to bang on about their pots of gold.”
“Is that a euphemism Percy?” frowned the Prince.
“Certainly not sire. They profess to collect pots of gold from the end of rainbow or some such nonsense.”
“How strange!”
“I seem to recall there was something else noteworthy about them,” Percy pondered. “But what that was escapes me for the moment.”
“Do you want to see my pots of gold?” inquired the Leprechaun.
“Pots of gold?” frowned the Prince.
“I told you sire.”
“Yes, I have lots of pots of gold!” enthused the Leprechaun. “From the end of the rainbow!”
“Percy,” the Prince whispered in his ear. “Is this creature for real?”
“I think so sire.”
“Please come and see my pots of gold!” said the Leprechaun. “The strange lady and old man didn’t seem at all interested!”
“Who were they?” the Prince asked curiously.
“This well dressed old woman who kept on injecting her face with this mysterious substance and an old man with crazy hair.”
“So he’s run into the Evil Queen and the Warlock then,” remarked Percy.
“Sounds like it,” agreed the Prince before frowning at the Leprechaun. “They weren’t interested in your gold you say?”
“No!” he said resentfully. “To be honest, I think they thought I was having them on about the pots of gold.”
“The Evil Queen would usually be very interested in getting her hands on any form of wealth,” said the Prince. “How odd!”
“Please come and see my pots of gold!” pleaded the Leprechaun.
“I am still trying to recall what that other thing about this fellow was…” said Percy.
“Is he a pervert?” asked the Prince.
“No sire.”
“Does he have some warped sexual fetish?”
“No.”
“How unusual. Well what then?”
“I really cannot remember sire.”
“Come on then, let’s get it over with,” the Prince addressed the Leprechaun. “Take us to see your pots of gold.”
A few hours later, the Prince departed the cave of the Leprechaun.
“Well sire?” asked Percy.
“Nothing,” the Prince rolled his eyes. “Zilch. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Did you like my pots of gold?” the Leprechaun emerged from the cave.
“Yes, quite impressive,” remarked the Prince before turning back to Percy and Sleeping Beauty and lowering his voice. “The poor fellow is quite unhinged.”
“What, there’s really nothing in there?” inquired Percy.
“Nope!”
“He hasn’t confused something else for pots of gold?”
“No, he is completely mad.”
“I see.”
“Away with the fairies, for want of a better expression.”
“Why does nobody like my pots of gold?” asked the Leprechaun.
“Pray tell me,” began the Prince. “Where do you get them from?”
“The end of the rainbow!” declared the Leprechaun as he looked up at the clear blue sky.
“Right,” the Prince looked up with a frown. “And where is this rainbow exactly?”
“There!” the Leprechaun pointed up at the sky.
There was an awkward silence.
“Leprechaun old chap,” said the Prince finally. “I don’t wish to be a half glass empty sort of person or negative in any way but…”
“Yes?”
“There’s no rainbow up there.”
“Yes there is!” insisted the Leprechaun.
“Percy? Sleeping err…I mean…Aroused Beauty?” the Prince raised an eyebrow at his loyal steed and the once comatose woman. “Am I missing something here?”
“No sire, definitely no rainbow up there.”
“I see nothing,” Beauty concurred.
The Prince frowned at the Leprechaun.
“Is this a wind up?”
“What?” the Leprechaun looked at him blankly.
“Listen!” the Prince snapped. “There are no bloody pots of gold in your cave and there are no pots of gold up in the sky on the end of a rainbow. There’s not even a rainbow!”
“But it’s up there!”
“Technically there could be no rainbow today,” said Beauty.
“What do you mean?” asked the Prince.
“While it is a sunny day,” she explained. “There’s been no rain. So no chance of a rainbow.”
“I don’t understand…”
“A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky.”
“I can see why you wanted to go to University,” remarked Percy.
“So, scientifically speaking,” continued Beauty. “I would rule the prospect of a rainbow out given the current meteorological conditions.”
“Don’t listen to her!” cried the Leprechaun. “She’s talking nonsense! You say she was asleep for years? She’s still not with it if you ask me!”
“Okay fine!” said the Prince. “However, tell me if you are finding pots of gold at the end of this rainbow you claim is up there, how exactly are you getting them down?”
There was a second awkward silence.
“They drop from the sky?” said the Leprechaun hopefully.
“Right I see!” the Prince mounted Percy. “Come on, we have wasted enough time here!”
“Can I come with you, to be sure, to be sure?”
“Why?”
“To join you on your adventures?” he said excitedly.
“A moment in private please,” the Prince told him.
“Oh, what do you want to talk to me about?” asked the Leprechaun.
“Not you, with Percy and the Beauty!” the Prince said as he, Percy and the Beauty moved out of his earshot. “What do you think?”
“He really is a strange little fellow,” began Percy. “Obviously delusional.”
“His grasp of meteorology is non-existent,” said the Beauty. “Plus, how would a precious metal in a pot possibly find its way to the end of a rainbow on a day so clement?”
“Well exactly,” shrugged the Prince with a bemused look. “So shall we make our excuses and get out of here?”
“He seems a bit lonely to me sire.”
“What Percy?”
“Like he wants or needs a friend or two. Perhaps it is the loneliness that has prompted these delusions?”
“Percy, are you suggesting we take him along with us?”
“Maybe sire…”
“Wouldn’t that make your burden rather heavy what with myself and Beauty on board too?”
“I’m not a burden!” cried Beauty.
“It will be fine,” said Percy. “He’s only a fairy…”
“Percy!” objected the Prince. “I wish you’d stop…oh hang on. Yes, he is a fairy. So he will be light.”
“Therefore I can bear him sire,” said Percy.
“But really Percy? How much more of this ridiculous stuff about rainbows and pots of gold are we going to have to put up with?”
“A lot I suspect sire.”
“Look here Leprechaun?” the Prince turned to the little fellow and raised his voice. “Wouldn’t you prefer being among your own kind? You know, other leprechauns?”
“To be sure, to be sure…”
“Oh good!”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” the Prince frowned. “Wouldn’t it be easier to remain with your own people?”
“Oh I see!” cried the Leprechaun. “Stick to me own! Don’t dare mix with others!”
“I didn’t quite mean it like that,” the Prince reddened.
“Racist!”
“I’m not a…” the Prince regarded Percy in frustration. “Tell him I’m not a racist Percy!”
“Well it did sound a teeny bit racist sire…”
“Percy!”
“See!” said the Leprechaun. “To be sure, to be sure!”
“Beauty?” the Prince pleaded with her.
“What? Don’t ask me! I’ve only just met you. It’s terrible what prejudices can come tumbling out of the woodwork over time…”
“I’m not a racist!”
“Prove it!” said the Leprechaun.
“What?”
“Take me with you on your travels!” the Leprechaun crossed his arms. “And then, as long as there are no other incidents like this, I can be comfortable you are not a racist and therefore will tell everyone I meet you’re not one.”
“Unusual topic of conversation,” remarked Percy. “How does that get slipped effortlessly in?”
“You know,” nodded the Leprechaun. “When I meet someone on the road and get chatting I will say ‘I thought Prince Charming was a massive racist but it turned out he wasn’t!’”
“Why bring it up at all?” the Prince sighed. “And can you at least drop the word ‘massive’ please?”
“Okay then, instead I could say ‘you know those rumours about Prince Charming being a racist? Don’t believe them!’”
“What rumours?”
“Oh you know, it’s just a figure of speech…”
“Just don’t go around perpetuating this innuendo and slander!” the Prince held his head in his hands.
“No?” the Leprechaun seemed a little disappointed.
“No!”
“So, may I come with you on your travels?”
“Ugh…” the Prince glowered.
“To be sure to be sure…”
“Come on then! Join us!” the Prince said begrudgingly.
“To be sure to be sure!”
“Will you stop saying that!” protested the Prince.
“It’s part of my culture!” said the Leprechaun.
“I don’t care…it’s annoying!”
“Are you disrespecting my culture?” the Leprechaun frowned. “Are you being a racist again?”
“Just hop on Percy and we will get going!”
“To be sure to be sure!”
“What a bastard.”
“What was that?” asked the Leprechaun.
“Nothing…nothing…”
The Evil Queen glared at the Warlock. They were surrounded by a dozen women who all looked very similar to her.
“And this is what happens after I told you to ‘think ugly’ when summoning up an army?” she spat bitterly.
“I couldn’t help it!” shrugged the Warlock.
“Get rid of them!” snarled the Evil Queen. “They’ll be no use in a battle! Unless they can scare their enemies to death!”
“Oh so you admit they look like you?”
“Certainly not! They look nothing like me! They don’t have my cheekbones!”
“Are you sure?”
“Get rid of them!”
The Warlock hesitated.
“I err…” he peered at all the women in front of him. “Can you keep talking?”
“Why?”
“Because then I will be able to distinguish between you and the others and not banish you by mistake!”
“Just get on with it you strange little man!”
The Warlock murmured some foreign words while waving his hands around vaguely. There was a big flash of light and all twelve of the Evil Queen’s doppelgangers vanished.
“There we are!” he said with satisfaction.
“I don’t know why you are so pleased with yourself!” the Evil Queen gave him a dirty look. “We’ve been trying for weeks now and still no army.”
“Okay, okay,” he whined before closing his eyes and muttering to himself.
There was another flash of light and in front of them appeared a very sinister looking creature. It resembled a man but his flesh was rotting and he had this dreadful expression on his face as he made a low groaning sound. He reached out his grey hands towards the Evil Queen and began slowly limping in her direction.
“A Zombie?” the Evil Queen held her nose. “A rotting Zombie?”
“Is there any other type?”
“Fair point!”
“Yes,” nodded the Warlock proudly. “I am rather pleased with this. A number of them would surely be a threat to the Realm. Didn’t they cause chaos a few years ago, I seem to recall?”
“Yes, they did!” scowled the Evil Queen as the creature was only yards away from her. “But they just roamed around the place tearing people limb from limb. They don’t listen to orders or anything!”
“I see…”
“Get rid of it!” the Evil Queen shied away from the advancing Zombie. “It wants to eat me!”
“I thought you’d like that?”
“Get rid of it now!”
The Warlock said a few more unrecognisable words and waved his hands in the air so there was another flash of light and the Zombie disappeared.
“Nothing is good enough for you,” sighed the Warlock. “The Pixies weren’t tough enough, the Zombie was too dangerous…I cannot win!”
“Just get me a soldier! A rugged man who can fight!”
“Rugged? Oh yeah?”
“Get on with it!”
The Warlock muttered something under his breath prior to there being another flash of light.
They both froze at the sight of a burly, bearded man in front of them. He had his sword in a sheath along with a shield which he was holding.
“Now that’s more like it!” the Evil Queen clapped her hands together.
To be continued in ‘Prince Charming & King Thrushbeard’…
Athon 