Author’s note: This is the third and final installment of a Twisted Fairytale from my fifth short-story compilation, Ugly: Twisted fairytales. It is a spinoff of the old Grimm’s tale, The Sleeping Beauty.
It is almost dawn when we finally find the princess in an antechamber. The room is immaculate, clearly magical.
The princess is breathtaking. She sleeps with both her hands on her heart and a peaceful smile on her face, oblivious of the century she has left behind. Her face is alight with the glow of the dawn, her long golden hair braided with fresh flowers, looking as if she has been frozen in time since the day she turned sixteen.
All that is left to be done is to kiss her. I feel blood leave my face as I consider what I am supposed to do.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Reese is concerned but his heart is drumming louder than mine, and I hear a hint of jealousy again. Does he want to kiss her? Should I let him?
The thought pushes a dagger through my heart. I straighten my back and walk up to the sleeping princess and kiss her, first tentatively, then anxiously, over and over again. I shake her, desperate for her to wake up. But nothing happens! The princess stays fast asleep blissfully unaware of my existence.
Reese lets out a breath of relief and says meaningfully, “She needs true love’s kiss!”
It’s no use pretending anymore. I slump down on the floor next to the bed in defeat, “I just needed to try. If the world’s most beautiful woman can’t make me fall in love with her…”
“It’s alright!” Hesitating, he adds, “We can report back to the king that the princess is already dead. Nobody would know.”
“I would know,” I wish the ground would swallow me!
Reese looks concerned as he offers me his hand, “Come, we must get out before the dragon comes looking for breakfast.”
“And go back where? To my parents who sent me on the quest to become dragon fodder? They know I can never marry her.”
Twenty‑eight years of walls I had built carefully around me are crumbling. I hate myself for not being strong enough. Once I return, the world would know for sure. The whispers would become louder and clearer, shaming my parents even further. “They’ll never love me. I have failed them yet again by failing to die.”
Reese’s face is a mask of pain mirroring mine, as if someone has stabbed him in the heart. He is opening and closing his fists like he wants to punch a wall or kill someone. But when he finally looks at me, his eyes are not angry—they hold strength. He offers hesitatingly, “If you don’t want to go back, nobody needs to know we survived the quest. The soldiers have their orders to leave for home if we don’t return in three days.”
He sits down next to me and holds my hand tenderly, erasing the past eleven years in one touch, “We can go away together; sell the armour to buy a farm; run it together like my parents did. It will be a difficult life though—one with a lot of hard work and sparce meals.”
As I look at our joined hands, I can finally breathe again, “I don’t care about luxury. I will have you.”
END
Author’s note: If you would rather read it all together in the book, Ugly: Twisted Fairytales is available for free download here: Link
Photo by Sean Thomas on Unsplash
Short Stories 