The Princess's Doll
A twisted Pokémon fairy tale by Otte
Once upon a time, there was a great King. The King was the most loving and kind man in the land, and was adored by his subjects. His wife, the Queen, gave birth to a baby girl. The King was very proud of his daughter, and showered her with gifts of gold and Pokémon. The King, a naturally generous man, succumbed to her every whim and as she grew up, the young girl grew used to having everything she desired.
She grew more and more lovely, with bright hair and dark eyes, with long lashes. She wore the finest dresses and jewellery, and anything she deemed unworthy was taken from their castle.
Despite all her possessions and Pokémon, and the loving nature of her parents, the girl was never content. She demanded more and more, growing more and more impatient. When she didn't get something as she desired it, she would scream so loudly that the entire kingdom would hear it, and the Mightyena would howl.
The Queen, having come from a background of poverty and had known hardship that her daughter hadn't, was becoming more and more angry with her impatient and demanding daughter. Concealing what she was doing from her husband, she sent the daughter away, to live with a poor family who would make her toil and work.
The family lived on a dirty farm, with only a few Miltank and Mareep between them and sparse crops. The daughter was very unhappy with her treatment there, and cried and screamed, hoping to get her way. Unfortunately, the family did not realise that their daughter had been replaced, and she never got her way with the family. Instead, the father would slap her and the mother would make her work twice as hard.
Throughout all her toil, she cursed the mother who sent her to such and cruel and loveless place, and despaired the loss of her pretty dresses, gold and Pokémon.
One day, the parents bought the daughter a small doll with their savings to thank her for the work. The doll was a small, eerie thing, with a zipper for a mouth, red button eyes and a head of long, matted black hair. The girl was very displeased with her toy, and cried and refused to thank them for gifting her with such an ugly thing. Indeed, the girl saw their attempts at a gift that their original daughter would have adored so, as a further punishment.
However, to the poor family, this cheap ragged doll was the product of much of their money, and they angrily insisted that the girl kept it. The spoilt little girl was bitter about this, and turned it away from her when she slept. Eventually, she grew tired of the doll and during her work, buried it in the field before running away back home.
The girl returned to the castle, where her father the King eagerly awaited her. He had worried over the years, and was glad to see her again. The girl promised her silence to the Queen, if she would never send her back to such an awful place again, and begrudgingly, her mother agreed. The girl returned to her spoilt lifestyle, feeling all the better for enjoying it after her perceived hardship.
Years passed, and it seemed the girl's time with the poor family had been forgotten.
However, the doll had not forgotten the child who had thrown it away. As the years passed in the dark, cold underground, the doll's anger grew. At night, the soil on the field was hot with anger, and the poor family occasionally saw translucent, furious faces peering in through the windows at night, angry eyes seeking the child who had disowned it so cruelly.
One day, the doll's anger grew so that it took a monstrous form, and emerged from the soil with a dark form and a ghoulish grin. The nights went by and the doll relentlessly hunted for the child who had abandoned it long before. People in the kingdom grew frightened of the strange apparitions, the faces in mirrors. Young girls would awake sweating in the night to a ghoulish face towering over them, staring deeply, before moving away silently into the darkness.
Eventually stories emerged amongst the people, and at night people would whisper rumours of the restless ghoul. At schoolhouses, children would frighten each other with fierce stories of Banette, who hid in every shadow, stalking children in the dark.
The doll searched and searched, and eventually reached the castle of the spoilt girl.
Banette walked the castle at night, and the girl would sweat and cry and not understand what was happening. The paintings seemed to peer at her. When she looked into mirrors, she saw a shapeless form behind her, growing closer. She'd awake with scratches on her neck.
When the girl looked at her father's face, she saw something else staring at her from his unusually cold eyes. Every smile was malicious, and when she walked along she felt something cold and shapeless behind her, following forever.
And one night, Banette decided to wreak its final vengeance. It appeared over the girl's bed at night, its maggot-ridden body towering over the sleeping girl, who awoke with a start as a cold finger slipped across face.
Suddenly, the room began to fill with cold dirt. The girl screamed, but the mud clogged her mouth, and she laid helpless, writhing and trying to get free as she was buried deeper and deeper. Her entire body was pinned under the crushing weight of the mud; she could feel insects crawling around her body. The girl knew she was soon to die.
The last thing she saw as she stared up desperately was the ghoulish Banette, gifting her with one, final horrible grin.
The next day, the girl's bed was found empty, and there was not a trace in her room. The King sent out his best knights to find the girl, but none could find her.
Nobody suspected that she lay cold and immobile, under the soil of a poor man's farm.
Author's Note: heh, wow, writing in a fairy tale style is way more fun than it should be. Thanks for reading, and feel free to tell me what you thought!