Author's Note: This short story is dedicated to Julia, with whom I spent many a time in Library Science reading fan fiction and giggling over knee-skirts. Rest assured that Prince Lilac has knee-skirts aplenty, just as he did in stick-figure form.
The Princess and the PlotOnce upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a beautiful princess who was kind and true of heart. Her name was Colette Liona of Charmontania; but everyone just called her Lia.
On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Lia's father, king Charmont, decided to throw a ball in her honor. It was to be a masque and all of the nobles were invited. The party went off without a hitch and soon everyone was enjoying themselves. When the princess made her entrance, the entire hall grew quiet. She was more beautiful than ever in a long white dress that floated around her as if it were made of air. On her face was a pearly white mask with golden streamers down the sides which mingled with her chestnut hair and the ribbons of all colors woven through it. All night long, the young nobles danced and made merry with Lia at the center of it all. She seemed to glow with an inner light and as she swayed to the music; many a young man was entranced by her beauty. One in particular was brave enough to ask her for a dance.
The young prince dressed as a handsome peacock approached the fairy dancer and gallantly asked for a dance. She politely accepted and was promptly swung out onto the dance floor into a grand waltz. She discovered that the man's name was Prince Lilac and his father was the ruler of one of the neighboring kingdoms. Many a time he had seen her out riding on her horse and had instantly fallen in love with her. Or so he said. Little did Princess Lia know, this was all a plot to get her to marry him so their two kingdoms would be joined and he would be the most powerful ruler in all of Azeroth! As Prince Lilac was cackling maniacally in his mind that all his evil plotting was turning out exactly as he had hoped, someone else was doing some plotting of their own.
Sir Griffin stood alone in the corner, glaring at the couple whirling about the dance floor. He had been watching the beautiful young princess all night and just when he had got up the courage to ask her to dance, that poncy-ponce Prince Lilac stepped up and got to her first. He narrowed his eyes as Prince Lilac pulled Lia just a little bit closer than was necessary. As the dance ended, he jumped at the chance to go and cut in. Griffin left the corner and sauntered up to the pair, putting on his most charming smile.
"May I cut in?" he asked politely.
"Of course," Lia responded before Prince Lilac could get a word out. The prince pouted grumpily and walked away to go and talk to her father. Princess Lia would be his! All his plotting would not be for naught!
Meanwhile, back on the dance floor, Lia was chatting happily with Sir Griffin. Lia discovered that he was the recently-appointed captain of the guard here at her own castle. Before she had only seen him from afar and as of yet hadn't been able to procure a private meeting. They had been talking out in the garden and before they knew it, the ball was over and all the guests had retired. Princess Lia went up to her rooms and immediately fell into a deep sleep. Unbeknownst to the princess, a wizard who had been hiding in her wardrobe for the past few hours had cast a spell on her to let her sleep for a hundred years. And who did this wizard work for? Well, not Sir Griffin, if that's what you're thinking. No, he worked for Prince Lilac, who was not really a prince at all but in fact an evil sorcerer who had stolen the kingdom of the Black Plains from the old king who lived there before and who would have died without an heir! Dun Dun Duh!!!
In the middle of the night, he came to Princess Lia's rooms in the form of a crow and took her away to his castle. Around the castle grew a thick forest which stretched out for miles and came right up to the walls. It was covered in an eternal mist and anyone who entered would be lost. Back in the Kingdom of Charmontania, everything was in chaos. The princess was gone without a trace; no one had seen her since she left the ball. Sir Griffin was in a state of panic as he had been the last one with her and he knew that everyone would be immediately suspicious of what he'd been doing with the princess so late. So he fled the kingdom. It was all his fault. And that's when he remembered Prince Lilac, or the purple snake, as he'd taken to calling him. As captain of the guard, Sir Griffin knew every soldier who entered the castle. In the disturbance of the Princess's disappearance no one had noticed that the pompous young prince and all of his men had vanished as well.
With this realization, Sir Griffin decided to pay the purple snake a little visit. At the edge of the magical forest, Griffin stopped, puzzled. This forest hadn't been here the last time he'd come to the Black Plains. Or had it? Hadn't it all just been all black? And plain-like? Not a misty forest that looked as if it had been there for centuries. Shrugging, Sir Griffin rode bravely onward.
Almost immediately, the road vanished and it became impossible to see ten feet in front of him. Sir Griffin had a sneaking suspicion that he was going in circles. After riding through the forest for hours and not making any progress, Sir Griffin decided to sit and rest a bit. He found a stream for his horse to drink from, and next to it a mighty oak. Now this oak just happened to be home to a powerful woodland fairy, and so when Sir Griffin sat down to lean against her tree, she flew out to say hello. Being of the all-knowing sort, the fairy knew that he was looking for the princess and also of the spell to have Princess Lia sleep for a hundred years. How convenient. Taking pity on him, the fairy decided to make him a proposition. Knew she was up to something.
"Do you feel that you are worthy of the fair princess, Liona?" she asked him after rousing him gently.
"No," he said after pausing. "But I'm willing to try."
"Good," she said to him. "Then I can help you. But first, you must complete three tasks." At Sir Griffin's nod, the fairy went on. "You must begin by finding the golden mushroom which grow in the Cave of Knowledge.
"But how will I find the cave? I have no idea where I am, and I cannot see a thing in this mist."
"I cannot make the spell disperse, only the sorcerer who cast the spell can do that. But the forest will guide you," she said. "After you have completed this first task, then you must come back to learn the second."
Sir Griffin immediately set off on his quest and even though it seemed hopeless, he refused to ever give up. After a year of wandering the forest, Sir Griffin came across a she-wolf, the only animal of prey he had come across on his journey. Instead of running away or trying to attack him, the she-wolf approached him and told him that she had been sent by the fairy and could help him find the mushrooms. Sir Griffin agreed, trying not to let the talking wolf creep him out, and let the wolf lead him to a cave behind a waterfall in the deepest part of the mist. He went in and right there in front of him were the mushrooms!
Happy that he had finally reached his goal, Sir Griffin reached down and picked the mushrooms, putting them gently in his knapsack. When he came back out of the cave, his surroundings were completely different! No longer was the mist lurking everywhere. Instead, bright sunlight filtered through the trees of a young forest. Tiny glittering beings were flitting everywhere around him and Sir Griffin realized that he had entered the fairy world. The waterfall in front of the cave fell gracefully into a clear blue pond and flowed down a quiet little stream that wound around the trees. Sir Griffin followed the stream and suddenly emerged from the wood. He had not been out in the open in over a year and stared dumbly at the bright meadow before him. That's when he spotted the tree.
On the bank next to the stream stood a weeping willow and on the ground surrounding it were thousands of bright red leaves. Sir Griffin had never seen such a sight and was on his way to investigate when the woodland fairy assaulted him.
Sir Griffin hurriedly handed over the sack of mushrooms and bowed his head humbly. The fairy reached in the bag and chewed thoughtfully on a mushroom.
"Good sir knight, how are you to ever find me again if you don't even remain in the same world? You're lucky I found you so that I can give you the next task. You must collect seven leaves from this weeping willow. However they cannot be ordinary leaves but red like what you see on the ground. The willow only blooms red every ten years and you must pluck the leaves fresh from the tree before they fall. When you have the seven leaves, bring them back to me." And without another word, she was gone.
Sir Griffin looked desperately for leaves still on the tree, but there were none and it would be another ten years before the leaves would turn red again. So he decided to stay and he built himself a small dwelling in the fairyland where he lived for ten years.
By the time the tree bloomed red again, Sir Griffin had still not forgotten his princess. He quickly collected the seven red leaves and put them in his knapsack. Having completed the second task, Sir Griffin traveled back to the forest and followed the stream back to the waterfall. Behind it there was still a cave and in he walked, just as he had all those years ago in search of the mushrooms. When he came back out, Sir Griffin found himself once again in the misty forest.
It didn't take Sir Griffin long to find the fairy's tree again, even after all those years. He suspected her magic guided him as he neared the end of his quest. As he walked up, once again the fairy flew out of her hiding place to berate him on his tardiness.
"Well, sir, it certainly took you long enough to complete the second task. The one hundred years are nearly complete!" She said to him while taking the leaves he offered.
"What do you mean one hundred years nearly passed? I've only been gone for ten!" He cried in dismay.
"You were in the fairy world. Or have you forgotten? Time passes differently in the two worlds. Ten years there, ninety years here." She said with a snap of her tiny fingers. "Well lucky for you, your last task should not take but a day's journey."
So after listening intently to the fairy's instructions, Sir Griffin set off once more through the forest. Soon he came upon a beautiful ash tree. Just the one he was looking for. So he decided to pretend to rest for a while and just when he sat down and leaned his back against the tree, a fairy flew out all a twitter and he immediately caught her in his sack. This fairy, as the other one had told him, was called Samoa. She hadn't told him why she wanted the fairy Samoa, just that it was the last task. At this point she could have told him that for the last task he had to paint himself purple and sprint through the woods naked and he would have done it.
Now Sir Griffin had completed all three of his tasks, though it had taken him eleven years to do so, or ninety-one if you want to get nit-picky, and he tried to enjoy what he hoped would be his last trek through the frustrating forest. It didn't take him long to find the woodland fairy's tree again, the mist led him through by a magic of its own. The woodland fairy was surprised and pleased to see that Sir Griffin had completed what she asked and she knew at once that he loved the princess. (Took her long enough, most probably would have gotten it after the first year of wandering.) It turned out that the wood nymph, Samoa, owed the fairy a debt that she'd been avoiding for the past three hundred years. So with the seven red willow leaves, she helped turn Sir Griffin into a strong tree that could withstand the last few years so that he could awaken at the exact moment as the princess.
The remaining years passed by, and on the morning of the end of the curse, the mist had begun to clear. The king and queen had never given up looking for their daughter but they had died and the curse was long since forgotten. It was well known that the misty forest was under an evil enchantment and so on that morning when the mist began to clear, the villagers didn't know what to think. Some thought it was an evil sign that the sorcerer was coming back to terrorize their village. However they were immediately overruled seeing as how most of the inhabitants of Black Forest Plains were always looking for any chance to party and this was as good a one as any. Anyways, the evil sorcerer was just a tale to frighten children at night. They decided to celebrate and so they built up big bonfires and had a grand feast. (The negative Nancys stayed off to the side sulking with exclamations rising up every so often of how they would all be punished for this later.) When the party was at its height, an evil wind blew up and set the forest on fire. Of course Prince Lilac, the evil sorcerer caused the wind! But the villagers didn't know this. Well, all right, some of them did. But no one believed them so that doesn't really count. That's what they get for being so pessimistic all the time. Perhaps if they'd ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf maybe they'd have had some credibility.
But back to the heroes of this story:
Princess Lia woke up an hour later to the smell of smoke. She couldn't remember where she was, so she looked out of the window that was not hers and saw smoldering piles of ash for miles in every direction.
"What the hell?" she asked, squinting at what looked like her father's castle in the distance. She quickly found her way out of the tower and prepared to enter the vast expanses of ash. Everything was black but then she saw the sun catch on something moving! It was Sir Griffin, whose tree had been saved by the fairy and the wood nymph. He had, as promised, woken up at the same time as Princess Lia and could finally see the tower, rising up out of the ash and smoke. Suddenly, Prince Lilac appeared before him.
"Well, I don't know how you did it, but you did. And now it's time to die, for you." Prince Lilac smirked and crossed his arms over his chest in a spoilt toddler manner.
"You can't do this!" Sir Griffin replied.
"Oh yes I can. And besides, I'm a Prince, I can do whatever I want!" Sir Griffin didn't know what to do; he had never fought a magic prince before. Of course he didn't know that Prince Lilac wasn't a real prince. But the fairies knew. And boy, were they mad at Prince Lilac for burning down their forest. How dare he? Sure he created the forest, pulling it from the magical realm with the two of them caught up in it, but seriously, he could have just sent it back instead of burning it down. Jerk. He wasn't even a real prince! Somehow Princess Lia knew this as well.
Thwack!
Wanna-Be-Prince Lilac keeled over, unconscious from a blow to the head, dealt by a very angry princess and her trusty shovel.
"Wow, that was… I, where did you even get that shovel?" Sir Griffin stuttered at Princess Lia.
"Like it matters, I saved your life. You owe me." She said, dropping the farming implement and heading over to him.
"Of course, anything! I didn't even have time to draw my sword! My sword! Where is my sword?" He asked curiously before spotting an awkward looking stick laying a few feet away. Hm, well looks like his sword didn't take too kindly to transformation. That could have turned out badly. When he looked up again Princess Lia was standing right in front of him.
"So are you ready to pay your due?" She asked before kissing him soundly on the lips.
So Sir Griffin and Princess Lia professed their love for each other. The brave knight told her of his tasks and what it was like to be a tree, and then he asked her to marry him. Princess Lia, of course, said yes. I mean come on; a guy spends nine years of his life as a tree just to have the chance to see you again. Of course it helped that he was pretty cute as well. They were married by the fairies and lived happily every after! At least until they had kids . . . but hey, that's another tale altogether.
And what happened to Prince Lilac you might ask? Well, the fairies were so angry, they turned him into a shrubbery with little purple blossoms all over. Two days later, a villager lost one of his goats only to find it nibbling on a lilac bush. Very curious, as the little shrub was near the heart of the once forbidden forest and was the only green thing left for over a mile around. The suspicious villager felt it was cursed and took his goat away immediately. Two days later the goat escaped again and promptly finished off the last of the tasty lilac bush. The goat was satisfied.
The End