Once Upon The World Of Stories
“Prince Dudley was the picture of bravery and majesty as he rode his valiant steed onward to rescue the fair maiden from her tower,” Lady Celia narrated from her place upon the cloud that floated along with the events of the story taking place. She gave a groan from deep within and stopped narrating. Everything screeched to a halt. The quill stopped writing, the characters stopped what they were doing, and they looked to her while they waited silently for their cues.
The layered skirt of Celia’s dress swayed violently as she sharply turned. “Do I have to narrate this story? You know I hate fairy tales.” She directed her question to the sky.
“Yes, you must,” the Master Narrator spoke from somewhere behind the white puffs of clouds, his voice rich and low, which only irritated Celia further. “If you don’t narrate this story, it will never be added to the Book of Tales.”
She scowled in the Master Narrator’s general direction, but she couldn’t see him. He and the rest of her fellow storytellers were in the Land of Narrators, hidden behind a concealing shield that divided the Land of Narrators from the World of Stories, which was exactly where Celia was stuck until she completed this tale.
“Ugh, all right.” She relented and turned her attention back to the story with a sour feeling rising in her stomach. With her words, the quill started writing again and the characters continued where they left off. “The hooves of the magnificent steed thundered on the path as prince Dudley urged the animal on to his goal.”
The prince soon arrived at the tower and he pulled his steed to a screeching halt before throwing himself from the overexerted beast and running to stop at the base of the tower. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” Dudley cried out toward the single window carved into the stone near the top of the tower.
“It was the maiden Rapunzel who awaited rescuing at the tower,” Celia spoke. Then, to herself, she muttered, “Rapunzel. What kind of a name is that? What person names their child after an herb?” A young lady with miles of shimmering, golden hair appeared in the window, spotting the prince at the base of the structure. Her delicate face lit up and she called out to him. “Oh, fair knight!”
“Fair?” Celia snorted.
Dudley and Rapunzel shot the narrator a dark glare, and a low rumble rippled across the blue afternoon sky.
Celia cleared her throat and cast a quick glance to the heavens, feeling more than seeing the deep frown etched upon the Master Narrator’s face. “I apologize. Continue.”
The prince and the maiden turned their attention back to each other and resumed the story.
“It is I, Prince Dudley, here to rescue you, lovely damsel!” Dudley proclaimed with one hand over his heart and the other extended up to Rapunzel.
“Please, Prince Dudley, make haste! It isn’t safe here! My captor is sure to find you!”
As if her words summoned him, Rapunzel’s jailer appeared behind the prince in a puff of green smoke and impish giggles. Rapunzel gave a shriek, and Dudley whirled around with his sword drawn and aimed at the fiend in one swift movement.
Or at least that’s what should have happened.
In reality, when Rapunzel screamed, Dudley jumped nearly out of his skin and spun around to the puff of smoke so suddenly that he nearly sent himself spiraling face-first into the grass. He yanked on the hilt of his sword, but the blade only came halfway out and got stuck in its sheath.
Dudley fumbled with the heavy weapon, but it fell from his grasp and thumped to the ground.
Rapunzel gaped speechlessly at the prince with her perfect brow pinched and her face twisted in a grimace. She glanced to Celia, who had her head down as she massaged the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
Celia’s lips parted in a pained sigh, and she returned her attention to the story. “Rumpelstiltskin,” she announced as the cloud of smoke faded, revealing an impish looking man complete with dark clothes, gnarled limbs, and leathery skin with a greenish hue. “It was this man who, in his desire to have a child of his own, stole the maiden away from her parents with a trick.”
“A very sneaky trick, actually,” Rapunzel chimed in, sounding rather annoyed.
Rumpelstiltskin giggled, a sound that sounded much like metal grinding against metal. “Yes! I won my child from her parents all because they couldn’t guess my name!” he gloated, flapping his arms about wildly. He stopped suddenly when the tip of a sword pressed into his throat.
Dudley stood firm, towering over the imp with his gangly height, looking for the most part like the crown prince he was, despite his straw like hair and the pieces of armor he wore that were an ill fit on his scrawny frame. “You will not keep the maiden, for I have come to rescue her, and I will make her my bride!”
Celia threw up in her mouth a little, but she forced the bile back down and lowered her cloud closer to the scene until it floated inches above the ground alongside the prince’s white steed.
Rapunzel’s gasp could be heard from above. “Truly, Prince Dudley?”
Dudley lowered his sword away from Rumpelstiltskin and turned his gaze once again to Rapunzel, drawing a few steps nearer to the tower. “Yes, my love! If you will have me!”
“Yes!” Rapunzel declared. “Yes, of course I will!”
“Oh, my love!” Dudley cried. “You have made me so hap-” he tried to say, but Rumpelstiltskin magicked a wooden mallet into his hands and soundly thumped the prince on the side of the head. Dudley gave a sound akin to a honk and fell hard onto the grass.
Rapunzel’s cries mixed with Rumpelstiltskin’s manic laughter. “Why don’t you do something?!” the maiden screamed.
Celia glanced around to see who Rapunzel addressed but saw no one. She startled then and glanced up to the top of the tower. “Me?”
“Yes, you!” Rapunzel stamped her feet. “Don’t just float around! Help my prince!”
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Celia laughed. “Narrators can’t get involved in the story. Everyone knows that.” Her gaze lingered on the prince’s fallen, twitching body. “That rule has its perks,” she decided, then heard Rapunzel give a shriek. Celia relented. “Fine, fine, fine.” She looked around to find some way she could help without getting involved. Her eyes landed on the nearby horse. She arched an eyebrow and her eyes flicked from the beast to the dancing imp and then back to the animal again.
The horse’s eyes landed on her, and Celia jerked her head in the direction of Rumpelstiltskin. The animal gave a snort, seeming to understand the wordless motion, and wandered over to the dancing imp. When the horse was positioned near Rumpelstiltskin with the imp behind him, the animal bucked his back legs and kicked the imp soundly with a force that sent him flying straight up high into the air until he completely disappeared through the clouds.
The horse whinnied and began lazily grazing the grass, and Celia gave a nod of satisfaction at her work, dusting her hands off with a smirk.
The prince gave a low groan and began to stir. Suddenly, his eyes popped open and he leapt up with his weapon in hand, although he stumbled as if his vision was spinning and he couldn’t quite regain his bearings. “Aha! Take that, fiend!” He searched the area, but all he found was a tranquil scene before him. He looked to the two women present. “What happened to the fiend?”
“Oh, he’s in the land of the narrators now. They’ll take care of him,” Celia explained, eyes briefly flicking up to the clouds.
“What?” Rapunzel demanded, voice loud enough to make Celia’s head throb. “I thought narrators couldn’t get involved in the story!”
“They can’t,” the lady narrator confirmed with a sigh. “But Rumpelstiltskin’s not a part of the story any longer. Also, he’s going to need to come down sometime, whether he falls through the clouds or gets lowered on one. There’s nothing against the rules with dropping him down at the dungeons of your palace once you arrive there.”
“Hmph. Very well then.” Rapunzel seemed to stew for a moment. “Now that that’s over, is anyone ever going to get me down from here?”
“Ah, yes, of course!” Dudley exclaimed, as if just remembering the entire reason he was even here. He straightened his armor and extended his hand up to the maiden.
Rapunzel beamed, her cheeks turning rosy. She hefted something full and heavy and threw it out the window. A hundred feet of hair came streaming down, hit the ground, and poured in front of Dudley like a waterfall of liquid gold. She looped a section of the hair over an oversized hook above the window and kicked her slippered feet out into the air, sitting on the stone sill. She grabbed onto her hair. “I am coming to you, my beloved!”
Dudley thrust his hands upward. “Hurry to me, my love!”
Rapunzel hopped off the sill and began slowly climbing down, but her grip slipped. She lost her hold on her hair and she suddenly plummeted with a shriek. “Ohhhh!”
Dudley exclaimed and positioned himself beneath the falling maiden to catch her, but there was a resounding crash as Rapunzel landed on Dudley. When the dust cleared, he was buried beneath a mountain consisting of the maiden, layers of skirts, and one hundred feet of shimmering, golden curls.
Celia rolled her eyes with a snort. “Oh, yes, they were meant for each other.”
Rapunzel propped herself up, crying out, “Prince Dudley? My love?”
Dudley groaned beneath the pile, and she gasped and quickly rolled off of the prince, the mountain of hair and skirts tumbling from him as well. “I am here, my lady Rapunzel!” He peeled himself off the ground with a grimace and a clattering of his armor. He exclaimed when he saw Rapunzel on the ground and rushed to assist her in getting to her feet as well. When they were both upright, he clasped her shoulders and looked down at her starry-eyed. “Ah, my love, my life! Say you will be my princess, my wife!”
Rapunzel blushed as pink as her gown and smiled prettily. “Yes, I will!”
“Huzzah!” Dudley exclaimed. He kissed her sweetly upon her lips.
Celia quickly averted her eyes and her body shuddered, her stomach turning.
Dudley then scooped Rapunzel into his arms, lifted her onto the horse, and climbed up behind her. “Come, my love! To our palace and our happily ever after!”
The pair began to ride away, and Celia turned on her could to put her back to the happy couple. “And so the prince and the maiden-” Behind her, a sudden neighing erupted from the prince’s steed as the beast startled and reared. The sound was quickly followed by the screaming of Rapunzel and Dudley moments before a crash as they fell soundly upon the ground.
Celia pinched her eyes shut and didn’t even turn around, hearing the telltale signs of the couple getting back up and back onto their horse before they started on their way again. She shook her head and continued the narration through clenched teeth. “Lived happily ever after. Together. Forever.” She groaned then and cast her eyes to the clouds. “Can I come home now?”
The warm chuckle of the Master Narrator sounded in the sky, and the clouds parted before her, revealing the Land of the Narrators. “Yes, Celia. Your work here is done.”
Celia’s heart lifted and she directed her cloud upward, leaving another story living its happily ever after.
