Bedtime Stories
In which Palutena attempts to give Pit his daily bedtime story but is interrupted by Viridi, Pandora, and Hades.
Starring: Palutena (main); Pit; Viridi; Pandora; Hades; Medusa
Palutena: Today's story is a story about a story, which sounds dreadfully repetitive but is a story nonetheless. Heh heh.
Pit: Are you messing with me yet again?
Hades: It's very difficult NOT to mess with you, Pitty-Pat.
Viridi: Yeah, you make it too easy.
Pandora: A bit like how I make it too easy to be envious of my good looks!
Palutena, Pit, Hades, and Viridi: … … No comment.
Pit jumped up and down on the bed. "Go on, read it!"
Palutena sighed. "Did you drink juice before bed again? I told you not to."
"Please read the story!" he begged, ignoring the question.
Palutena cracked open the book. "Where were we?" She squinted, frowned at the letters that looked like squiggly lines, and fished in her pocket for her reading glasses. Once she was wearing them, she flipped to the story they had been at. "We were at… Sleeping Beauty."
"I love that story!" Pit exclaimed, sitting down next to her. "The pictures in this one are so pretty!"
"Someone definitely gave you juice," Palutena concluded. "Okay. Once upon a time-"
The door slammed open. "I know you've all been missing me, so I've dropped by to visit," Pandora exclaimed.
"Pandora…" Palutena didn't say anything else. She wasn't quite sure if there was anything else TO say.
"Palutena's reading me a story, so go bother the rest of the pantheon," Pit shooed.
"Ooh, a story?" Pandora sat next to Pit. "I love stories! Is it Pandora's Box? It's my favorite!"
"Who would've guessed?" Pit mumbled.
"Anyway… once upon a time, there was a king with no children and a wife named… Medusa?! Who was messing with my book?"
"Just read it anyway," Pit begged. "I'm sure it'll be interesting."
"Oh, it'll be interesting all right," Palutena growled.
Once upon a time, there was a king with no children and a wife named Medusa. His name was Hades.
Pandora snickered. "The day those two get together romantically is the day Armageddon begins."
Hades and Medusa tried everything imaginable, but they couldn't have any kids. One day, Medusa was out in the pools trying to watch her greasy hair. And Medusa sighed, "Woe is me, for I am near-bald and barren!"
"No, you'll give birth to an idiot by this time next year," croaked a voice.
"Who was that?" Medusa shrieked.
"Me. The frog."
Medusa looked down. It was a strange, purple frog with a mop of out-of-place hair. "Oh. If you're a frog, why do you have blonde hair?"
"I am the goddess of nature in disguise," replied the frog sagely, and hopped off.
"Viridi's a frog?" Pit said.
"I AM NOT A FROG!" Viridi screamed, bursting in the room. "Who said that?"
"Someone messed with my storybook and made the frog you," Palutena explained.
Viridi sat next to Pit, grinned sheepishly, and then turned to the book. "Let me see that load of garbage." Her eyes quickly scanned the paragraphs, and she hissed, "I will KILL the person who wrote this. But you haven't shown up yet, Palutena, so it'll probably be good when you do…"
"You want to stay?" Palutena and Pit asked in dismay.
"No duh. Now keep reading!"
A couple months later, Medusa found, to her great joy, that she was pregnant. So she threw a great baby shower and invited everyone in the kingdom but the great witch that no one conveniently remembered, named Gaol. Gaol hated baby showers, but she was a bit offended after the baby was born and ANOTHER party was thrown to celebrate the new royal family member, and she still didn't get invited.
So, naturally, Gaol crashed the party and cursed the baby Palutena, saying "In sixteen years, she will touch a spindle and die!"
"No fair, why are you the princess?" Viridi complained. "That's it, I'm outta here. I don't want to read a story where you're going to live happily ever after while I'm a frog. Though I have to admit, I can't imagine you as being Hades and Medusa's daughter. That's a laugh."
"Don't you want to know who the prince is?" Pit asked. He already had a good idea, and he hoped he was right.
"If it's you, I will not just kill the person who wrote this story, I will BOIL THEM ALIVE. Ta-ta." Viridi exited.
"Sourpuss," Palutena said.
"She's right outside the door," Pandora pointed out.
"If you're going to listen, you might as well do it in the room!" Palutena called. Viridi stormed back in, pouting.
However, the day was saved by a benevolent fairy named Magnus, who waved his giant ten-foot wand and said, "She will not die, only fall asleep for a hundred years, in which time I will try to get the witch Gaol to fall in love with me."
"This is so messed up," Pit said.
Naturally, Hades destroyed every spindle in the castle but for that one in the tallest tower that, conveniently, no one climbed. Hades was sure Palutena was too much of a diva to climb fifty flights of stairs.
"Ha! Diva," Pandora snickered.
Unfortunately, on her sixteenth birthday, Palutena had some sort of argument with Medusa that resulted in the queen having only one eye and a head full of snakes. Screaming that being grounded was no fair, Palutena ran to the only place she could be alone, which just happened to be up fifty flights of stairs.
"Hey, it's a sharp object. I might as well go against common sense, because that's what princesses do, and touch it!" Palutena reached out and pricked her finger, immediately falling asleep. Unfortunately for everyone else, they fell asleep too.
Brambles grew all over the castle and shielded it from civilization. The thorns were wild, unkempt, and-
"Exactly the way they should have grown if no people were around," Viridi interrupted. "At least the author got that part right."
-prickly. The thorns got prickly.
Anyway, as in fairy tales, somehow an unexplained rumor got out of hand that there was a sleeping beauty inside the castle waiting for true love to wake her up. So every idiot knight and prince around with no wife (and a few who were married but figured could hide it from their spouses) tried to hack and slash past the viney, thorny wall. They all died gruesome deaths.
Palutena quickly flipped the page. "That is a disgusting picture. Whoever messed with my book messed with the pictures too. Pit, you do NOT need to see that before bed," she added when she saw him trying to catch a peek.
Now, at this time, there were two twin brothers, named Pit and Pittoo. They were even stupider and dumber than most, so they figured that, by sheer unexplained chance, THEY'D be able to get past and not die gruesome deaths. They grabbed their swords and headed out, whistling like little dwarfs with chicken wings that didn't work.
"That's just offensive," Pit wailed.
"It's a good thing Pittoo's not here, or he'd smash something in anger," Viridi said. "What happened next?"
When Pit and Pittoo got to the vines, Pit walked up to them, and they magically parted because of some strange fairy tale magic having to do with a hundred years passing or whatnot. Joyous, the two continued on, but Pit got eaten by a dragon named Pyrrhon who wasn't very smart but could breathe a lot of fire.
Pittoo was glad he was gone because now there was less competition for the princess, and he raced up all fifty flights of stairs before he remembered he had Pandora living in his wings. Which was gross, but also extremely useful. But by now he was at the top, so the information was useless.
He drew near Palutena, leaned over, and-
"This oughta be good," Pandora chuckled.
"Noooo!" Pit moaned. "Why, Pyrrhon, why? That should have been ME!"
-slapped her hard across the face. "Good morning, sleeping beauty!"
"Well, that was rude," Palutena commented.
Palutena woke up and looked around. "Do you have a twin or something?"
"Yeah, he got eaten."
"Then I guess you'll do."
So Pittoo swept her off her feet, jumped off the tower with her in his arms, and then used his wings that Pandora was grossly but usefully living in. He landed right in front of King Hades. "I'd like to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage!" Pittoo declared.
"Sorry, she's still grounded, so that means no dates or marriages. Plus, I don't like you." And then Hades was about to use his ultimate attack that nothing can stop but then was conveniently foiled by Medusa, executing a perfect deus ex machina.
"Hades, I won't play the puppet anymore!" she growled. "Quit reviving me and let me have my beauty sleep!"
And then she blew Hades up with a bazooka.
"What the *bleep*?!" Pandora exclaimed. "Where did she get that?"
"Language, Pandora!" Palutena chided. "There are fledglings in the room!"
"I want to see what happens next," Viridi said. "This just got a ton more interesting."
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go to sleep," Medusa yawned. "Another twenty-five years sounds great. And then I'll have a nice little festive bloodbath when I wake up. Nighty night."
"Wait!" Pittoo cried.
"What?"
"Can I marry your daughter?"
"Get your filthy self away from my daughter, fool!" Medusa snarled, and turned him to stone before blowing him up with a bazooka.
"Wha-"
"You're still grounded," Medusa said. "Plus, I don't like that kid. He's in the wrong crowd. You know, I think Thanatos is an excellent man with-"
"Eew!" exclaimed Palutena.
"Eew!" exclaimed the real Palutena.
At that moment, Pyrrhon randomly belched up a soot-stained Pit.
"I'm alive!" declared the angel.
"Mom, I'm eloping," Palutena said, and activating the power of flight, flew away with Pit. Unfortunately, this power only lasts for about five minutes, which is not the best head start. And Medusa caught them. Whereupon she severed Pit's wings, threw him from the tallest tower, and then locked Palutena in it until her hair grew ridiculously long. But somehow, after some Rapunzel-like adventures, Pit came back and they got married anyway.
The end.
"This is just so wrong in sooo many ways," Viridi said.
"I'm not sure I can sleep now," Pit said.
"Too bad, because you're not leaving the room." Palutena smoothed his hair back and tucked him in. "As for the rest of you- GET OUT! I need Pit in top shape!"
"Yes, Ma'am," they mumbled as they exited.
"AND NEVER CALL ME 'MA'AM!'" She yelled in fury after them.
"Lady Palutena, could you just TELL me a story instead of reading one?" Pit asked.
"Sure. Which one?"
"Tell me about how we first met."
"All right." She launched into the story, with frequent interruptions from Pit, who said things such as, 'No, that's not how it happened,' or 'What are you talking about? We ARE referring to the same thing, right?' He eventually fell asleep, and Palutena smiled. Mission accomplished.
After a nice soak in the hot spring and a quick drink of grape juice, she was in bed herself, but she still wondered, Who the heck messed with the story?
"Cheers to us," Medusa said, and raised the glass of cranberry juice.
"Cheers to us," Hades agreed. "You know, we should alter their video games next."
"I thought it'd be funnier to mess with their dreams."
"Dreams are fun," Hades grinned.
"BUSTED!" Gaol burst in, a blade in hand and Viridi and Pandora behind. "What is the meaning of degrading our good names with stupid fairy tales?"
"It was funny," Medusa answered. "Hey, before you go pointing that thing at me… did you see the illustration for when Magnus the Fairy stops the curse?"
Gaol flipped open the book and snickered. "He's wearing tights and a tu-tu! Oh my gosh, this is hilarious. I need to frame it."
"I think this warrants forgiveness," Viridi sniffed, and then burst into guffaws as she saw it. "Yeah, so worth it!"
"No need to thank us," Hades said. "After all, making mischief is one of our principle responsibilities."
Pit: So it WAS you!
Hades: At least you got your happy ending.
Palutena: But what I don't get is why you wrote that you got yourself blown up by Medusa.
Hades: I what?!
Medusa: Heh heh.
Hades: Medusa, we need to talk.
Palutena: Get a room, love birds.
QED