Rating:  PG, you know, for fairy tale-ish stuff… oh, and insanity.  Lots of insanity.

Feedback:  I'd like that, thank you.

Distribution:  At the moment, here.  If someone wants it, I'd really appreciate it if you would ask me, please.  I would also be completely shocked.

Spoilers:  Not a single thing.

Disclaimer:  All characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy.  Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you.  Thank you.

Chapter Eight

While all of these events were going on, the kingdom of Sunnydale should have been experiencing a major economic boom due solely to the shopping habits of a certain brunette debutante.  Kindly notice the words "should have." The morally bankrupt sorceress couldn't be bothered to actually pay for anything she was grabbing off the racks at the local mall.  In spite of this flagrant shoplifting, not one security guard, sales associate, or even tantrum-throwing, thumb-sucking toddler dared open his or her mouth in protest.  Word had already gotten around about Rose, and none of them wanted to wind up being stuck with a spindle, even though most of them couldn't have told you what one was.  Besides, the girl was still wielding the Gold Card of Ultimate Power, so she was pretty much untouchable anyway.

"Darn skippy."

Many hours later, laden with enough shopping bags to fully clothe a small African country, the evil enchantress skipped merrily out to the parking lot and piled her pilferings into her silver BMW convertible.  However, she was suddenly faced with a problem that has mystified the ages, a problem so great that not even the most profound minds of our time have yet been able to successfully plumb the depths of its mysteries.

"How the heck am I going to find enough closet space for all this?" she griped in annoyance. 

Suddenly, a perfect solution struck her.  Pushing the pedal to the metal, the young woman,… oh, and don't ask me why no one ages in this story even though eighteen years have passed.  Chalk it up to really good genes…. was soon outside the king and queen's castle.  Her original plan had been to demand the use of their second floor for off-season storage or she'd cause a worldwide junk food shortage as well as slow the modems of all computers far and near, but the deep quiet surrounding the pretty-darn-huge-considering-it-was-built-on-a-carpenter's-salary palace told her something was up. 

She burst in the front door without knocking, only to find the king and queen deeply embraced in the arms of Morpheus.  The main hall was still decorated for Rose's birthday party.  The queen's crown had slipped over one ear and she was snoring like a house on fire, her head fallen onto the back of the sofa.  The king, on the other hand, had fallen head first into the cake before sprawling onto the floor, his face plastered in chocolate fudge frosting and one spent candle wedged solidly in his right nostril.

"And I actually used to date him," she murmured in disbelief, shaking her head at the very non-posh scene before her.  "It's amazing that I don't have a phobia about closets!  Well, actually, broom closets do still kind of give me the willies." 

With a quick chant, her entire wardrobe was transplanted from her home to the castle and arranged accordingly by season, color, and mood in each of the different rooms.   It was a darn big castle, but even so, the clothes racks crowded so close together that moving from room to room was exceedingly difficult, not unlike trying to get through a forest of brambles.  See, it is related to the plot.

With a satisfied nod, the wicked debutante decided to call it a day.  After all, she'd put her eighteen-year vengeance obsession victim into a coma, bought enough shoes to keep a millipede shod for a century, and taken possession of the king and queen's castle.  She figured she'd earned a little down time.  Calling her masseuse on her color coordinated cell phone, she ordered him to drive out to the palace and give her a two-hour massage next to the in-ground pool.

As the sun sank quietly into the west, the self-proclaimed princess blissfully thought that not a single thing could possibly ruin her day, which just goes to show that Murphy's Law is always right.