Prince Charming & The Elves

Now you may or may not remember, but once upon a time in fairy story world there was Prince Charming, his adorable servant Archie and his talking horse Percy. That’s not to forget Archie’s mule but, in the grand scheme of things, he’s not very important as he has no name and couldn’t speak the last time we checked.
After dropping out of University, the Prince had gone about the Kingdom rescuing damsels in distress and giving them the traditional kiss afterwards. Often it was the kiss itself that helped the damsels, bringing women out of poisoned apple induced comas. This had been going ever so well until the Prince decided he wasn’t that way inclined. He chucked it all in, sold his cape, armour and sword and left the Kingdom.
Archie was left with Percy and the mute mule to wander aimlessly around the Kingdom trying to make a living.
“But sir!” he had pleaded with his master. “I must go with you where ever you choose! I am your servant forever!”
“Oh, dear Archie,” Prince Charming shook his head. “I don’t think that would be wise. Methinks that would cause even greater problems and heartache.”
“I would follow you to the ends of the Realm!” Archie cried. “If we could just get rid of that damn talking horse then things would get better! It would be just like the old days!”
“Okay, I will level with you,” the Prince regarded him seriously. “You’re a bigot and taking you with me could make me look bad in the Land of the Elves.”
“What’s a bigot?”
The Prince left them to make his own way in life while Archie didn’t bother finding a dictionary.

“This is all your fault!” Archie ranted at Percy as he rode the mule alongside the talking horse towards the central lands of the Kingdom.
He would’ve ridden Percy but was afraid he’d only throw him off.
“Ever since you started talking, everything has gone wrong!”
“For the hundredth time and the second short story in a row,” groaned Percy. “The Prince’s sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with me!”
“Of course it does! You’re evil!” spat Archie. “You are probably one of those Warlocks who got turned into a horse and decided to curse everyone else just because you’re bitter and twisted!”
“I assure you I’m not!” Percy rolled his eyes. “Is it me, or since the last story, have you become even more dense?”
“Things were so simple in the good old days!” lamented Archie. “We’d travel around the place saving beautiful women during the day and get hammered in an Inn or a tavern at night! That was the life! We won’t see days like those again now the Prince is batting for the other team.”
They spent several days travelling on the open road. Archie had just enough silver pieces to put them up for a few nights in taverns until he finally ran out of funds on the very same night that tumultuous rainfall beset the Kingdom as a storm approached.
“This is unbelievable,” spluttered Archie as the three of them sheltered beneath the thick, leafy branches of a solitary oak tree in a field just North of the Kingdom belonging to Prince Charming’s father. “This is…”
“Yes, yes,” Percy mumbled. “All my fault. I cursed us with my evil witchcraft so that we’d get caught in the worst storm to hit the place since time began.”
“How did you know that?” Archie shook the raindrops from his soaking wet hat.
“I didn’t, I was being sarcastic.”
“Listen you damn horse!” Archie threw his hat to the floor and stamped on it. “Don’t you get clever with me! If this was such a bad storm then there would be thunder and lightening! Wouldn’t there?”
Archie’s hair was only partially singed by the bolt of lightening that struck the oak tree and then set fire to it. Fortunately, the three of them escaped suffering severe injuries thanks to Percy shoving the other two out from under the tree with his head before he briskly followed.
They raced away from the blazing fire to get completely drenched out in the open.
“This is horrible!” Archie stamped through the puddles of a muddy lane a little while later. “We can’t stay out in this! We’ll perish!”
“Maybe we should find an Inn,” suggested Percy.
“But, you stupid horse!” shivered Archie. “We have no money!”
“We could bargain for a room,” Percy was the type of equestrian beast to always look on the bright side.
Half a mile up the lane they chanced upon a packed Inn where many a traveller had sought shelter from the wild elements. Archie attempted to leave Percy and the mule outside but Percy pushed past him into the snug, much to the surprise of those inside.
“Get that horse out of ’ere!” shouted the grouchy old Innkeeper from the bar as he poured ale for a wrinkly, ugly, cape wearing dwarf.
“My dear fellow,” Percy trotted past the clientele to lean casually against the wooden bar. “I am not here to cause trouble. I’ll have a flagon of ale, one of your finest pipes and whatever my companion wants.”
“Well that’s nice of you…” began Archie, joining him at the bar.
“I meant him,” Percy indicated the mule who had a bowl of water put down for him as he dried out in front of the fire.
Soon enough the other drinkers in the place went back to their business so that Percy and Archie sat in a booth by the window.
“Eh Percy?” Archie said quietly between sips from his goblet of cider.
“Yes Archie dear?”
“Don’t call me that!” he hissed, nearly spilling his beverage over their table. “See! I said you turned the Prince off liking women!”
“It’s like living in the middle ages,” Percy shook his head at the tiresome human before awkwardly using his front left hoof to place the pipe in his mouth and puff away.
“How are we going to pay for all this?” Archie shielded his mouth behind his hand in case anyone was watching. “We haven’t got anything to pay for a room for the night, let alone drinks and pipes!”
“Calm down,” Percy smiled after exhaling a large cloud of smoke from his flared nostrils. “Yea of little faith. We shall use our cunning and our initiative.”
“What? How?” Archie gulped.
“Go mix,” Percy waved him away with his free front hoof. “Keep your ear to the ground. There are many tradesmen around here. Offer them a service.”
“Like what?”

“You’re a servant aren’t you? Offer to do their washing or tend to their horses or something! I saw a few coaches and carriages out the front. They looked extremely dirty and a few of the wheels seemed loose to me. Offer to clean them and tighten the wheels for a few bob!”
“Okay,” Archie said uncertainly and he went away to start chatting to a few tradesmen at the bar.
“Good,” sighed Percy in contentment.
By the end of the night the Inn had emptied. Some had gone off into the wind and rain swept night while others had retired upstairs to bed. Only Percy, Archie, the mule and a few drunken tradesmen were left, all supping up the last of their beer as the Innkeeper hurried them along.
“Have you got the money then?” Percy asked of Archie out of the earshot of the others.
“Oh yes,” grinned Archie, smugly producing a little leather purse bulging with gold coins. “This will keep us in beer for a few weeks.”
“Good,” Percy beamed. “I told you we’d be okay.”
“Yes, and you were right,” he tapped the side of his nose craftily. “I knew you weren’t completely stupid.”
“Right then you ’orrible lot!” the Innkeeper bellowed. “Time for bed!”
“Of course,” Archie yawned, finished the last of his beer and then hastened up the stairs to bed. “I’ll be seeing you lads!”
Percy and the mule left the Inn to trot around to the stable at the back. Just as Percy got outside he spotted the back of a coach opening up in the darkness. He whinnied as a whip was brought against his hind and somebody pushed him up a wooden plank into the back of the coach with a clatter of his hooves. The door closed behind him and it pulled away into the night.
It was morning when the coach finally came to a stop. Percy waited in the back as the door was unbolted and opened. An especially fierce looking troll stood in front of him holding a whip in a menacing manner. Behind him was a large cobbled yard and a red brick building. To the left of the entrance was a large wooden sign with letters crudely daubed in white paint on it.
“C’mon then you!” barked the troll, cracking the whip.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Percy nodded at the sign. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”
“C’mon you bloody thing!” he cracked the whip again.
“That’s not even how you spell ‘knackers’,” pointed out Percy.
“Just follow me!”
“And there aren’t any ‘o’s’ in ‘glue’!”
Archie awoke in his soft, warm, comfy bed as the late morning light poured into the room in the Inn. Stretching, he slowly got up and put on his garments. He could smell bacon cooking downstairs so he followed his nose and met a plate of it along with scrambled eggs, sausages and toast which the Innkeeper’s daughter laid out for him at the breakfast table in the dining room.
“You’re the man with the talking horse aren’t you?” the buxom Innkeeper’s daughter cooed as she poured his tea.
“Huh!” grimaced Archie. “It’s always the same! Wherever I go it’s always about that damn horse! So what if he could talk? He never had anything to say!”
“He was very big,” she stirred in the milk. “Even for a horse.”
“Yes,” agreed Archie, lovingly squeezing his purse. “You’re not wrong there.”
“And very funny.”
“Oh yes…hilarious.”
“He told me a few funny things,” she chuckled.
“Listen!” snapped Archie. “Don’t you pay any notice to what that beast said. He’s a liar! A fantasist!”
“He told me his master used to be Prince Charming and that the Prince ended up leaving the Kingdom because he was one of them.”
“He is a bloody fibber!” Archie brought his fist down on the table. “Prince Charming was a man’s man!”
“That’s exactly what the horse said.”
“Who in the Kingdom would pay the slightest attention to what a talking horse has to say?” Archie grumbled while blowing on his tea to cool it down.
“But that’s not all,” she giggled. “He also told me about the Prince’s man servant…”
“What about his man servant?” Archie gave her a murderous glare.
“That he was having an affair with a mule!” she laughed again. “That’s a bit saucy!”
“Yes, yes,” Archie tried smiling as he went purple.
After breakfast Archie gathered his possessions and was about to mount the mule when he remembered the conversation at breakfast and decided they should both walk instead. They headed north where they soon happened upon a huge forest. Archie became tired and set up camp deep in the middle of the forest. He got a fire going and cooked sausages over it. After wolfing them down he drank a flagon of wine and, feeling drowsy by now, curled up in front of the fire and fell fast asleep.
A little while later he was awoken by angry voices in the darkness. Rubbing his eyes he arose to see a band of men holding torches in the undergrowth. They were some way away but were heading in their direction.
“Oh no!” hissed Archie to the Mule. “Looks like trouble!”
The Mule swished its tail about nonchalantly.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Archie whispered.
The Mule just stared back at him.
“That’s fine you dumb animal!” Archie reached for his boots. “Let me do everything!”
“Who goes there?” bellowed one of the men, leading the way as they all marched towards Archie.
“Eh…” Archie thought for a moment. “Well eh…no one?”
“It looks like someone!” they surrounded him.
“Me?” Archie feigned a chuckle. “I am a nobody.”
“You look like a nobody,” the band leader nodded.
“That’s me!” Archie agreed as he pulled on his boots.
“Yeah,” began another one looking Archie up and down. “A right little runt.”
“He doesn’t look very bright either,” piped up another.
“Now hang on a minute!” protested Archie.
“He won’t know anything,” the leader commented to the others. “Let’s carry on the search!”
The band all began moving on before Archie followed them.
“I won’t know what?” he asked.

“You won’t know where Prince Charming is,” the leader told him as they continued striding away through the trees.
“Prince Charming?”
“Yes,” sighed the leader. “We have been sent out to find him. The Kings have offered a reward for finding him.”
“But I am…I used to be a servant of Prince Charming!”
They all turned around abruptly.
“You?” frowned the leader. “But you’re so pathetic?”
“Listen!” Archie put his hands on his hips. “I was his manservant! Why are you looking for him?”
The men all rolled their eyes at Archie.
“Do you really expect us to believe that?” the leader held his flaming torch up to Archie’s face. “That such a cowardly, pathetic creature like you would be manservant to Prince Charming?”
“I was his servant,” explained Archie. “Until he went!”
“Went?” they all exclaimed.
“Yes,” Archie reddened. “He went away to another place.”
“He’s dead?”
“No! He just went to another place.”
“What place?” the leader jabbed him in the chest.
“The other place!” Archie’s wrists went limp.
“What other place?”
“The other place!” Archie minced about in front of him and puckered up his lips.
“Here!” shouted one of the others. “I reckon this fella is a bit funny you know!”
“Oh I see sonny!” the leader squared up to Archie. “Is that what you’re doing out in the woods? Cottaging?”
“No!” yelled Archie, stamping his feet. “The Prince was a bit that way inclined. He wasn’t charmed by the ladies! He wasn’t interested in them at all!”
“Oh right!” the leader grabbed Archie by the collar. “So now you’re saying that the Prince is gay?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Archie.
“So where is he then?”
“He went North!” he spluttered.
“Why?”
“To be himself in another place?” Archie shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
“To the land of the Elves?” they all shouted.
“Well yes…”
The band put Archie in chains and led him and his mule back to the Kingdom belonging to Prince Charming’s father.
“What the hell do you mean my son is gay?” roared the King, shooting up from his throne and slinging his heavy gold crown at Archie so that it cracked him on the temple.
“He is just that way inclined,” shrugged Archie apologetically.
“There’s never been anything like this in our family! Well…apart from some nonsense on his mother’s side when her cousin slept with the Vicar…but otherwise never!”
“I didn’t believe it myself your Majesty,” Archie replied. “But he is very sure about his feelings.”
“I don’t understand,” the King gulped down a goblet of Merlot and collapsed on his throne. “He was always such a nice boy. He liked doing manly stuff like hunting deer and baiting badgers. He was a great rugby player at school. The other boys remarked he was exceptional in a scrum and in the showers….”
“I was as shocked as you are,” said Archie.
“I knew,” nodded the Queen.
“What?” the King eyed her irritably.
“A mother always knows. Anyway, you shouldn’t be so prejudiced! He’s probably only gone to the Land of the Elves because they’re far more liberal and tolerant up there. I’ve often thought about moving there myself.”
“I’ve not got anything against that type of thing,” the King blushed. “But it conflicts with his role!”
“This Kingdom needs reform!” the Queen rolled her eyes.
“What shall we do your Majesty?” the leader of the band stepped forward and bowed with a flourish of his hands. “Shall we track him down?”
“I suppose you must,” the King folded his arms. “I am getting tired of the complaints from the other Kings.”
“What complaints?” asked Archie.
“There have been complaints about my son’s absence!” stormed the King. “I’ve had them all here moaning and whinging about the lack of a Prince going about the place doing good everywhere, slaying dragons and rescuing damsels in distress.”
“Really?” Archie raised an eyebrow.
“Yes!” cried the King. “It all intensified when that stupid bint in the red hood got pursued in the woods!”
“Eh?” blinked Archie.
“Yeah,” he sneered. “She wandered out into the woods to visit her senile, deaf old grandmother! The grandmother had been dead for years! She’d not had fuel you see and it gets very cold out there in the winter.”
“But your Majesty?” puzzled Archie. “I thought if we all paid our taxes then the old were given extra fuel to heat their homes in the Winter?”
“There were some mistakes made. I’ve beheaded those responsible. But what kind of grand daughter was she? Never bothering to keep in touch like that? Well anyway, the old bag had rotted away in her bed and so a cross dressing wolf decided to disguise himself in her night gown and bonnet. Red Riding Hood comes skipping up to the cottage and snap! Old cross dressing Wolfie gulps her down.”
“What does this have to do with the Prince?” frowned Archie.
“Everyone moaned about the fact that the Prince wasn’t about to rescue the girl and kill the wolf,” explained the King.
“But I thought a Woodcutter was meant to do that?” Archie said.
“Oh no!” the King stamped his foot. “Apparently he’s gone off to be gay as well! They’re all bleeding at it!”
“Reform,” the Queen repeated herself.
“I see,” Archie nodded. “I will go and get the Prince back.”
“Good!” the King brought his fist down on the arm of his throne. “But mind you get his steed as well. He was very keen on that horse of his!”
“Ah…yes…well your Majesty…now I must tell you something about that…”
“They grew up together you know!” the King strode about with his hands behind his back. “Childhood chums they were. My son learned to ride on him you know! They were inseparable. Like peas in a pod. Apart from the fact that one had hooves and a tail. You must get him back. The Prince couldn’t ride any other horse.”
“Ah, well now your highness…” Archie stammered. “That might not be so easy.”
“Why the Hell not?” the King demanded angrily.
“That horse was an impetuous beast,” Archie tried explaining. “He was unpredictable at the best of times.”
“What the Devil do you mean?” the King grabbed Archie by the throat.
“He….” gasped Archie. “He….eh…well….he…he galloped away from us many months ago. We’ve not seen him since!”
“That is where you’re wrong!” a wrinkly, impossibly ugly Dwarf strode out from the King’s court.
“Who on Earth are you?” the King demanded. “And why are you so hideously ugly?”
“It is not what’s on the outside that matters, but who you are on the inside,” sniffed the Dwarf.
“That’s what all ugly people say,” replied the King marching up to the Dwarf. “And stand up when I’m talking to you!”
“I am your Majesty!”
“Oh, I see! Ugly and short! Anyway, what are you doing here? What do you know about Toby?”
“His name was Percy your Majesty,” Archie corrected him.
“That’s what I said!” the King barked. “Anyway…” he then stopped and turned back to Archie. “What do you mean ‘was’?”
“Did I say that?” Archie cowered.
“And that is where you have a problem,” grinned the irretrievably hideous Dwarf. “I was in a tavern the other evening and this odious creature sold the horse to the knackers yard!”
The court went deadly silent but for the clinking of Archie’s chains as he trembled.
“Really?” the King said after a pause and then went to wrap Archie’s chains about his throat and throttle him. “How dare you! First you let my son go off to Elf land and now I find you’ve had his horse killed? Henry was like one of the family!”
“Percy!” gasped Archie going purple.
“Henry, Percy…I don’t give a damn!” the King tightened the chain around Archie’s throat.
“But he talked your Majesty! He was a freak of nature!”
“So what!” the King replied. “Animals have these strange habits. My horse farts when he eats red onions but I don’t send him off to be slaughtered because of it!”
“No, your Majesty.”
“He keeps me up all night with the noise…and the smell!!”
“Please your Majesty!” begged Archie with his final breaths. “I will get him back for you. I promise!”
“You better had!” the King loosened his grip so that Archie fell to the floor holding his throat. “If you don’t return with that horse and my son then it’s the gallows for you!”

“You ugly tell-tale little bastard!” Archie cried as he and the Dwarf rode their steeds out of the Kingdom. “If you hadn’t mouthed off then it would have been fine!”

“I felt honour bound,” explained the Dwarf.
“Don’t talk to me about honour! Not when you haven’t done the decent thing and gone to have plastic surgery!”
“I am what the French call pretty ugly.”
“You are definitely what the English call pig ugly!”
“We could go on about my features until the cows come home,” the Dwarf tugged on the reins so that his horse slowed down into a trot. “But it remains to be seen how you are going to get the horse.”
“I’ll get him alright!” proclaimed Archie, slowing down his mule also.
“Really?” the Dwarf grinned smugly. “What are you planning to do? Roll up to the King with a can of glue?”
“No,” Archie shook his head. “I’ll just get another horse.”
Two miles later, Archie paid a horse trader for a dark brown horse similar in countenance to Percy.
“See!” Archie beamed as he led the horse away. “Job done! Now we’ll take this one back to the King just to keep him sweet and then go North to persuade the Prince to come back.”
“You’re hoping to pull the wool over the King’s eyes with this?” the Dwarf pointed at the horse.
“Yep!”
“There’s one fatal flaw in your plan.”
“Oh the mole!” Archie nodded. “Yes, I know Percy had one on his left side but I’ll just paint one on.”
“No,” frowned the Dwarf. “This one doesn’t talk.”
“I know,” Archie said cheerfully. “It’s great isn’t it? I won’t have to put up with him going on and on all the time.”
“But it was a special gift he had!”
“Some might say it was a gift,” Archie mounted his Mule. “I’d call it an affliction. A disability. A bit like your face.”
“But it was what marked him out from other horses!” the Dwarf clasped his bumpy forehead. “The King will know it’s not the right one because this one can’t talk!”
“Oh…” Archie thought for a moment. “Oh, why must everything be so complicated? Gay Princes, talking horses, irredeemably ugly dwarfs! I’ll just tell his Majesty that the horse has seen reason and doesn’t talk anymore.”
“I don’t know,” the Dwarf was doubtful. “I’m not sure about this.”
“What’s it got to do with you anyway ugmo?”
“I just thought I’d tag along,” the Dwarf looked away sadly. “When you’re this ugly, people won’t even give you the time of day.”
“So then!” sighed Archie. “Just because you fell out of the tallest ugly tree in the Kingdom before rolling down a craggy mountainside into the bargain, you think it’s okay to go round sticking your big wonky nose into other people’s business?”
“I just want somebody to love me.”
“Oh no!” Archie held his head. “Not another one! Flipping heck! Soon it’ll be just me!”
“No…no,” the Dwarf cried. “I just want to be accepted.”
“Oh alright then,” grumbled Archie as they rode on. “I accept you for the revolting creature you are.”

“Does that mean I can stay?” the Dwarf asked hopefully.
“It’s not contagious is it?” Archie indicated the Dwarf’s face.
“No.”
“Good, well you can stay. Just pull that hood over your head a little bit more would you?”
“Will this do?” the Dwarf covered the lower half of his face and down to his eyes.
“A little more.”
“But I can’t see!”
The King looked Percy’s impostor up and down in the court. He walked round the creature as it nibbled on a carrot held by an anxious Archie. The rest of the court all looked on with baited breath until the King finally stopped to address Archie and the Dwarf.
“You say he’s taken a vow of silence?”
“Yes your Majesty,” nodded Archie. “He went to a Monastery you see.”
“A Monastery?”
“Yes, apparently the knackers yard do that with all their horses. They send them to a Monastery for a couple of days to attain inner peace and tranquility before viciously butchering them and melting down their bones for glue.”
“Has he said how long he will be silent for?” the King asked.
“No,” Archie shook his head. “No, he refuses to say anything. We asked him to write it down but hooves are so tricky to write with.”
“I see,” the King went to sit on his throne and sip on his Merlot. “I must say, these newfangled ideas are beyond me but I suppose we must move with the times.”
“That’s unusual,” remarked the Queen.
“Of course your Majesty!” Archie led the horse to the door. “Now I’ll go and get the Prince.”
Archie and the Dwarf rode North along with the false Percy for a few days. They lived on the money made from selling Percy until the third day when they had no funds to pay for a night in an Inn. Archie, using his initiative, burst into the Inn with the Dwarf on a lead and wearing nothing but a chain mail thong so that people paid up to have him removed.
By the next week they had reached the border of the Elf land. They stopped on the mountainside to survey the territory.
“I’m not sure about this,” remarked Archie. “I’ve heard rumours about this place. They’re all liberal and accepting!”
“Sounds like the place for me,” commented the Dwarf.
“Yes,” nodded Archie. “I suppose you can’t fail here.”
“Let’s go then!” the Dwarf swung his sword about his head then pulled on the reins so his horse galloped down the mountain into Elf land.
“This is all that talking horse’s fault!” Archie reluctantly followed.

To be continued in Prince Charming & The Dragon…