This idea has seriously been bugging me for a year, so I finally decided to write it. What do you think?
Title: Once Upon A Time...
Summary: She wanted to hear it, so he told her. He told her everything. Just not the way his father had told him...
Rating: K
A/N: This story is set in the future, and is probably an AU, unless Kripke decides that he likes it and steals it (I'm not crazy, I swear I wrote IMTOD! Read Corproeal! You'll see the similarities!!!!)
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or its characters. I didn't write this for money, just to get my freakin' muse to stop yapping at me...
Once Upon A Time…
The six-year-old girl looked up at the man as he pulled the covers up to her chin and softly kissed her forehead. "Tell me a story, daddy."
Dean Winchester sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, glancing at the clock to make sure that he could still get her to sleep at a decent hour. "Which one?"
"The one about the dragon and the two knights."
"Didn't I just tell that one last night?"
"It's my favorite," the little girl admitted sheepishly, hiding her face under the covers.
"Well," Dean said, pulling the blankets away from the girl's head, "that's good. Because it's mine, too."
"So tell it to me, then."
"All right," he said softly, scrunching up his face in exaggerated concentration, "how does it start?"
"Once upon a time…"
"Oh, right. Once upon a time, there was a very happy family. A mommy and a daddy and their two sons."
"And the mommy and daddy were a king and queen, right?"
"That's right. And their two sons were princes. And they lived happily in a castle in a beautiful kingdom where nothing bad ever happened, until one day when a dragon appeared."
"And it's eyes were yellow, right, daddy?"
Dean nodded. "That's right, Hope. It's eyes were yellow, and it broke into the castle and attacked the happy family. It stole the beautiful queen away from her husband and sons-"
"And then the king and the princes went on a quest, right?"
"Exactly. The king decided to renounce his title."
"What's that mean?" the little girl asked, cocking her head to one side in a perfect impersonation of a curious puppy. Looking at her made Dean's heart ache, made him miss him brother more than had since that night so long ago.
"Renounce kinda means to give up. He didn't want to be a king anymore. He raised his sons to be knights instead of princes, and they searched for a very long time to find the dragon that had stolen the beautiful queen."
"But they didn't find it," Hope shook her head.
"They didn't find it," Dean agreed, "and one day, the youngest knight decided that he wanted to go back to the land where nothing bad ever happened."
"He abandoned his family?"
"He just wanted to be happy again," Dean clarified, "and he was. He fell in love with the most beautiful girl in the village."
"But the dragon came back, didn't it? The one with the yellow eyes?"
"It sure did, honey. Fortunately, the knight's older brother had a feeling that it would go after him, and he was right. He saved his little brother from the dragon's fire, but he couldn't save the girl."
"She was like the queen."
Dean nodded sadly. "She was. The brothers teamed up to find the dragon, but they also had to find the king, who was missing."
"He was chasing the dragon, wasn't he, daddy? He was chasing it and he found it and he didn't want the knights to get hurt."
"No, he didn't. He wanted to protect his sons. And he did. And after many adventures, they found each other again, and they discovered a magical sword that could slay the dragon and save their happy land and family from more harm."
"But the dragon was tricky, and it made the king do and say bad stuff, didn't it?"
"It took over his body," Dean nodded, "because it was a very powerful dragon. The knights could have slain the dragon that day, but the king would have surely died, too, and they weren't ready to make that sacrifice."
"So they got rid of the dragon without killing it," Hope said excitedly as they neared her favorite part of the story, "but the dragon wasn't gonna let 'em go so easy. It sent a big tree crashing down on their chariot as they ran away from it, and they almost didn't make it out."
"The oldest knight would have surely died," Dean added, "if the king hadn't sacrificed himself."
The little girl nodded vigorously, her soft brown curls flopping around her face as she did. "And the oldest knight came back to life, and he went with the other knight to find the sword that could kill the dragon, 'cause it was gone. And they went on lotsa adventures together before the dragon came back and took the younger knight."
"That's right," Dean nodded, smiling at the girl's excellent memory of the bedtime tale, "and the dragon got a bad guy to kill the younger knight, to make sure that he never got the sword."
"But the older knight wasn't gonna let his brother die," Hope added, "and he did something bad to bring his brother back."
"He did. He offered himself up to a witch, one with glowing red eyes, and his brother got to live."
"And then the older knight found the sword and killed the dragon, and the knights went off and hunted down a bunch of other monsters and saved a bunch of people, 'cause that's what knights do, right, daddy?"
"Sure thing, kiddo. And the younger knight saved his brother from the red-eyed witch, and they kept on protecting people."
Hope grinned. "But the younger knight fell in love with a beautiful girl, didn't he?"
Dean nodded. "He stopped being a knight. He reclaimed his throne, took back his crown, and became a king. He married the beautiful girl and she became his queen. They had a wonderful daughter, a princess, who was so beautiful that everyone wanted to look at her, and she shone like the sun."
"And his brother stayed a knight," Hope added, "and kept protecting people."
"And one night, as he going back to the castle, he saw fire flickering inside."
"It was the dragon," Hope whispered.
The hunter nodded. "It was the dragon. Somehow, it came back, and it fought with the king and took the queen away in a blaze of fire."
"What about the princess?"
"She was asleep in her crib when the brave knight found her, with the castle burning down all around her. The king told his brother to take the girl and raise her, take care of her, make sure that nothing bad ever happened to her."
"And then the king died," the girl muttered sadly.
"But not for nothing," Dean pointed out, "because he'd fought with the dragon and hurt it really bad. The knight called up all of his friends and they searched for it, and they found it, and they killed it."
"But the knight didn't kill it."
"No," Dean grinned, "the knight didn't kill it. He let his friends take care of the dragon. The knight took the baby princess and he mounted his jet-black steed, and they rode through many lands before finding a small village and settling down. He never told people he was a knight, or even a prince. He didn't want the dragon to take the princess if it ever came back again."
"But if he didn't tell anyone that he was a prince, then how did they know about the princess?"
"They didn't. But he treated her like a princess, and she grew up to be the most beautiful girl in the entire village. And they lived happily ever after. The end."
Hope smiled up at her father. "I like that story. I like the happy end."
"I do, too," Dean said, standing up and adjusting the covers so that the girl was tucked in tight. "Good night, Hope." He walked to the door and flipped off the lights.
"Night, daddy. I love you."
Dean smiled. "Love you, too," he said, closing the door. He leaned up against the sturdy wooden partition, staring around his small apartment, his eyes falling on a picture of himself and his brother that hung on the wall. "Niece."
So, what do you think? Reviews are always appreciated!