Author's Note: Some of you may remember when I wrote a Slayers parody of "Little Red Riding Hood", well my friend DQBunny suggested that I should do a parody of Zel and Amelia in a Sleeping Beauty one. Finally after months of pondering I finally got an idea of how I could write it but still have it as funny as the Little Red Riding Hood parody.
So, this is for you DQBunny!
"Sleeping Amelia"
Once upon a time, a princess was born and given the name Amelia. The council had strongly suggested to her father, Prince Phil, that the princess should have a more unique name such as "Snow White" or "Briar Rose", but to Phil, that was very stereotypical and unjust. Besides, there were already ten princesses with those names and it was just getting way to confusing!
Anyway, when Amelia was a year old, a dark fairy placed a curse on her as revenge for not being invited to her first birthday party. However, it turned out that her mail was late that week and the dark fairy received her invitation the day after the party. She had to write a very long and embarrassing apology letter, but the dark fairy couldn't remove the curse because it is written that once a dark fairy casts a curse he or she cannot remove it.
The curse was that when Amelia turned 16, she would prick her finger on a spinning wheel while biting into an apple and then fall into a deep sleep for three years and then only a kiss could awaken her. Many had pointed out that this was not the traditional spell to use, but the dark fairy was cheap and the spinning wheel and apple combo was the cheapest spell she could find.
Determined to protect his daughter, Phil removed all spinning wheels within the castle and made sure Amelia stayed within the castle boundaries. He didn't bother to remove the apples though, because as long as there were no spinning wheels he didn't see the danger of having apples around.
Years passed and when Amelia's 16th birthday approached, Phil was not worried because there was not a single spinning wheel in sight. However, he was wrong but it was not something that anyone could have predicted happening. The night before Amelia's birthday, a maid had too much to drink and accidently ordered a spinning wheel from a mail order catalogue.
The next day, while Amelia was biting into an apple she answered the door and saw the spinning wheel. As she went to touch it, Amelia pricked her finger and the spell took over.
The maid got a very long lecture from both the head maid and Prince Phil himself. Prince Phil then removed everyone from the castle and went to stay in the second castle that was mainly used for vacations. Phil figured they had a better chance of someone coming to kiss Amelia if there was nobody there to interfere. So he left Amelia a note and the castle was deserted.
Three years passed and not much else happened, except that another royal found himself under a curse. He was a young prince named Zelgadis and his curse was quite unusual. His skin was turned into blue stone and his hair became purple wire.
Now if you think that Zelgadis got the spell by insulting a witch, you would be mistaken. He was smart enough not to insult a witch, as he knew too many princes who had gotten themselves turned into frogs to teach him the dangers of angering a witch.
The spell had actually been cast by a gnome and it was not supposed to be a curse but a gift. Zelgadis had made a mistake by helping a gnome who was caught in a tree.
The gnome was so grateful that he decided to give Zelgadis stone skin. Gnomes think that rocks and stones are the best gifts to give and receive and the gnome thought what better gift to have than having your skin turned to stone. It was actually written in the prince's manual that one should never accept a gift from a gnome but unfortunately Zelgadis neglected to read the said manual. Thus he got his skin turned into stone. The wire hair was just a bonus.
Zelgadis was mortified at what he had become. He barely left the castle or even his room for that matter and spent much of his time sulking and being depressed. His grandfather Rezo quickly grew tired of his behavior, so he literally threw Zelgadis out of the house (and he had quite good aim considering he was blind).
Before Zelgadis could even protest, Rezo grabbed him by the shoulders and stared him straight in the eye. "Now listen here! I am tired of your moping! You got yourself into this so you have three choices. One; find someway to turn yourself back to normal, two; learn to live with your new body or finally three, find a princess and marry her!"
Zelgadis blinked dumbly. "Why would I do the third one?"
Rezo moaned. "For God's sake didn't you even glance at the manual! Never mind, the point is I'm not letting you back in until you do one of those three! NOW GO!"
Zelgadis grumbled but after one glare from his grandfather quickly walked, if not ran, from the castle. Zelgadis decided that since he refused to live with this and he was not ready to get married just yet ( plus any princess would have to be crazy to marry him in his current state) Zelgadis decided to find some way to break the spell.
He first tried the "Fairy Godmothers R' Us" store but it turned out they only deal with problems of attending parities, balls and the occasional high school reunion. He then tried a powerful witch and offered to pay her, but the witch only accepted ruby slippers as payment so that option was out. Zelgadis was almost tempted to buy some magic beans a man was offering, but he didn't have a cow and he doubted that the beans would work anyway.
Eventually his wanderings led him to Amelia's castle. Of course he knew nothing of the sleeping princess and was only concerned with whether or not the castle would be a good place to stop for the night.
"It doesn't appear that anyone is home. But why would they leave a perfectly good castle." Zelgadis then noticed the front door. "And why is there a broken spinning wheel with the words 'irony sucks' on it?"
Just then another man appeared on the scene. This man did indeed know about Amelia's predicament and he had full intention of breaking her spell and waking her up. His name was Volun. He was recently a hunter, but after a bad and painful incident with a hooded girl and a wolf, he decided to become a prince instead and what better way to do that then to kiss a sleeping princess and marry her. It was fool proof!
He froze when he spotted Zelgadis. He was shocked by Zelgadis's odd appearance and the fact that there was actually someone else here at the same time he was. "Who are you!" Volun demanded.
Zelgadis sighed. It had been a long day and he was in no mood to talk to anyone. "Are you the owner of this castle?" he asked.
Volun shook his head. "Then knowing who I am shouldn't matter to you."
Volun went silent as he watched Zegladis approached the castle. The small gears in his head were turning. "Hmm...he's obviously not an ordinary person. There's no way he can be a prince! Then he must be..." Volun snapped his fingers. "A ha! I see the truth through your lies."
Zelgadis paused just as his feet touched the threshold. "What?"
Volun continued. "You are the monster that I, the heroic and soon to be prince, Volun must defeat in order to reach the fair sleeping Princess Amelia!
"There's a princess in this castle?"
Volun laughed. "Don't try to play innocent!" He then brought out his giant axe. "Once I kill you I shall give your hide as a present to my new bride."
Now, it is a fact that one of the advantages of having stone skin was that normal weapons could not harm Zelgadis unless they were magically infused. Since Volun carried an ordinary axe, Zelgadis could not really get hurt. However, if a large man was swinging a giant axe towards you, you would also run like the wind like Zelgadis did the instant he saw the axe.
Zelgadis dashed inside. Volun gave a battle cry and swung his axe. Zelgadis just managed to duck and a poor vase ended up being the victim.
"I'm not a monster!" Zelgadis cried as he ran up the stairs.
Volun yelled. "Lies! Lies! Come and face me you fiend!"
"Not until you're under a drug prescription you nut case!" Zelgadis proved to be much faster and got to the bedroom at the top of the stairs far before Volun did. He slammed the door and desperately looked for a place to hide.
He then spotted the sleeping Amelia on the bed. "She must be Princess Amelia" he thought.
Zelgadis was tempted to wake the princess up himself, just so she could tell the crazy idiot that he wasn't a monster, but he couldn't be sure that the princess wouldn't end up agreeing with Volun and also try to kill him. Suddenly, he heard Volun's footsteps outside.
Alarmed, Zelgadis went to the first place that came to mind. He hid under Amelia's bed. Not the greatest plan, but it was the quickest.
Volun bursted through the door and looked for Zelgadis. When he saw Amelia, Volun joyously laughed. "A ha! I have defeated the vile monster and now I shall claim the princess as my bride and save her from her cruel fate."
"The only cruel fate would be that she was marrying you" Zelgadis thought.
"And now I shall awaken my bride!" Zelgadis heard Volun's footsteps approach. He almost felt sorry for Amelia. Who would want to kiss that dimwit? Zelgadis saw a pair of black boots before him. He felt the mattress lowered which probably meant Volun was leaning on the bed.
"Here it comes..." Zelgadis muttered.
Then...
SLAP!
There was a loud thud as Volun fell to the ground with a large red mark on his face. Zelgadis then heard a girl's voice.
"How dare you try to take advantage of a fair maiden while I was sleeping!" Zelgadis's jaw dropped as a new pair of feet came into view. He crawled from under the bed as Amelia continued her speech. "As a champion of justice I can not allow such disgusting actions and
therefore..."
She then heard Zelgadis and spun around. "Who are you!" Amelia's eyes narrowed. "You're not trying to kiss me too, are you?"
"NO!" Zelgadis quickly replied. "I was just hiding from that nutcase!"
"Oh." Amelia replied with a smile. "Well, that's a relief." She shivered. "Just the thought of a complete stranger kissing me gives me the creeps."
"What a sec. If you weren't kissed how did your sleeping spell break?"
Amelia folded her arms and pondered on it. "I'm not sure, but I think that the thought of that guy kissing me felt so wrong, my feelings of justice must have overcome and broke the spell!" She then paused. "Or maybe it's just plot convenience, but I like my first theory better."
"Right..."Zelgadis muttered slowly. "So you're going to find out where your family went?"
Amelia shrugged. "Don't need to. Knowing Daddy he probably took everyone to the second castle, but I don't think I'll join him just yet."
This surprised Zelgadis. He imagined the girl would be eager to get back to her family. "Why not?"
Amelia sighed. "Daddy was really over protective and didn't let me go outside the castle at all, so I want to explore and see the world!
"I see." Zelgadis muttered. "In that case, you could tag along with me for awhile if you want. I'm trying to find a way to break the spell a gnome put on me and having someone else on my journey might be handy."
Amelia smiled. "Sure, but what's the spell?"
"...Um...my blue skin..."
"REALLY! But you look so cool!"
And so Zelgadis continued his quest with his new traveling companion Amelia. Eventually, the pair would end up being joined by a hood wearing young girl and wolf, but that's another insane story.
As for Volun, when he finally came to, he decided to quit the hero business and just become a waiter. His health depended on it.