A Fairy Tale Ending

Chapter 1

Lady Nakosha

PG-13 (Subject to change!)

Author's Note: After re-reading my last story, Idiot's Guide to Love, I just wasn't that into continuing it. So, this idea kind-of caught my attention, and here I am, making another attempt in hopes of redeeming myself! You know the drill… … read and review! :)

Summary: Can Serena survive a wicked stepmother, an ignorant father, a know-it-all prince, and endure a chain of events destined to break her?

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My mother died when I was born. Doctors and nurses had crowded around her, desperately trying to revive her, but it was no use, the warmth of life had left her, and her eyes had already glazed over as death settled over her.

I'm told that minutes after I was born, and seconds before her death, she had coddled me to her heaving breasts and had kissed my forehead, muttering foreign words against my skin. "Serena," she had wheezed to a nurse with her last dying breath.

My father had been insane with anguish, nearly throwing people surrounding my mother to reach her side. Falling to his knees, he tenderly pushed back her dark hair matted to her face from the exhaustion of producing me. "She is dead, milord." A nurse whispered nervously, afraid to face the wrath of the grief-stricken husband. Offering the screaming child—me—to him, she smiled slightly. "She is a girl."

Whenever Cook tells me the story, she hesitates here, looking at me sadly. "A girl, is she? Even a heir is denied to me?!" He bellowed, storming out of the room. He turned his back to me, his only child, but that would not be the last time.

I hear the servants' gossip sometimes as they scrub the floors, prepare our meals, or even walk down the corridor. They speak in low voices, under the impression that I'm deaf and therefore can't hear them, even if I'm standing a few feet away, because I'm "royalty." Many of my close friends, besides my lady-in-waitings, are maids and kitchen helpers, but many of the other servants looked down upon a princess to be caught "associating" with someone lower than herself.

"The Queen died from complications of birth," one maid muttered to anyone willing to listen while at one of my father's few balls, "and the King blames the princess for that."

My father and my mother were, apparently, very much in love. So much that for weeks after my mother's death, my father was unable to look at me, and years after, he wouldn't to touch me.

"It isn't because he doesn't love you," Cook, our head chef, soothed, after finding me huddled in the corner of the kitchen, sobbing, because my father refused to acknowledge my presence for the second time that day. "You remind him so much of your mother that it hurts. You remind us all of your mother. It was a tragic trade-off, he gained you, a lovely, curious daughter that he could love more than life itself, but lost his wife, a beautiful, kind woman that he did love more than life itself."

I sniffed, my five-year-old mind not grasping the concept completely. "If I reminded him of my mommy, then why doesn't he at least hugme? Wouldn't that make him feel better?"

Cook smiled sadly. "It isn't the same, love."

I wasn't sure which made me cry harder: the fact that it was my fault my mother wasn't alive or that my father would never like me, much less love me.

Despite my father's inability to love me, he had an image as the King to uphold. And to let his daughter play with the servants' children, groom the horses, prepare the meals, and be seen talking casually with the help would be deemed as inappropriate and unacceptable in the eyes of society.

To the rest of the world, the princess has impeccable manners, flawless needling skills, and has a protective father that showers her with gifts and never looks at her with a look of anything but love and adoration, Serena thought bitterly. Fools.

"If she was so great," I wondered aloud, returning my thoughts to brushing my hair since it seemed to be the only acceptable task for a princess, "then why did she have to die?"

If I had been the one dying, I would have fought to live for the sake of my child. I would have made sure that I was alive long enough to let her know that it wasn't her fault if I died, and I would have reassured her that I'd love her no matter what.

I wouldn't have let my child go through her life, wondering if what everyone else was saying about her birth were lies or the actual truth. I would have made sure that her father loved her enough that if I died, he'd continue loving her.

Now at the ripe age of seventeen, I no longer believe that I'm to blame for my mother's death, but my father still seems to hold me responsible in some way.

"Princess," Amara, my-lady-in-waiting, said as she tapped on my door, broke my trip down memory lane, and opened it without waiting for my response, "you've been summoned downstairs by your father."

I raised a brow at her. "Had I been dressing, and you still came in here and caught me in the nude, don't you think that'd be awkward?"

Amara grinned wolfishly. "Not for me." I rolled my eyes at her flirtatious nature. It was a well-known fact among my group of friends that Amara had no interest in men, because Michelle, an artistic and talented aquamarine-headed beauty, was the one who held her heart.

It was speculated that she and Amy, the quietest ones out of all of us, had dyed their hair together as an attempt to be "rebellious," but they claim—with a mischievous look—that the bluish color of their hair was a direct result of being exposed to too much sun.

Something in her sentence caught my attention, causing me to set my brush down with a clatter. "My father?"

"Big news, maybe?" Amara offered, one of the few who knew of my disastrous father-daughter relationship.

"Must be," I murmured, standing up while unconsciously smoothing down the ruffles in my dress. I followed her to the large, double doors that led to my father's study.

"Nervous?" Amara asked, glancing at me as I faltered before opening the door.

I shook my head and gulped. "No."

I had to admit to myself, I was scared shitless.

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"You wanted to speak to me, milord?" I asked, closing the door softly behind me. I quickly curtsied when he looked my way, his eyes searching my face for something beyond me.

"Has any of the help"—the disgust in his voice was clear—"given you any indication as to the content of my news?"

"No, sir," I mumbled, looking away from his intense gaze.

"Speak up, child!" he boomed, his voice filling the entire room.

I flinched visibly. Why was it that he could intimidate me, when no other could? "I haven't spoken to any of the help, father."

He made a gesture for me to come closer. "Approach me, daughter."

I took two small steps towards him.

"Is this a game to you? Is it? I said come closer, do not act so impudent!"

I took two giant steps towards him, stopping once the corner of the oak desk began digging into my stomach. Holding my tongue, I made no sound of being uncomfortable.

"That's better." He looked as though he might smile, but instead he grimaced, a look I was all too used to. "I will be leaving the country to seek a wife."

I tried to hide my look of surprise, but I've always been horrible at masking my feelings. I had heard rumors, but that was all I thought them to be, rumors holding no truth, no meaning! "A wife, milord?"

"Yes." He was silent for a moment. "I think it is time that you have a mother, do you not agree?"

What else could I say but the response he was obviously looking for? No, I don't want another mother. I want the one that I accidentally killed! "Yes, I believe that to be wise." I answered diplomatically.

We both knew why he was seeking a new wife. He needed an heir to the throne. Women were regarded no more capable of ruling than a child was. Although, I reflected, King Harold II, my great, great uncle, had only been about fifteen or sixteen when he had been inaugurated as King.

"As you know, we have no family left, on either side, and when it comes to pass the crown, I will need a blood-related heir to receive it."

I decided against mentioning that I was more than blood-related—I was his flesh and blood!

"I see." I spoke before I could stop myself. "And if you are to not succeed?"

He looked at me blankly. "If I am not to succeed?"

I realized it was too late to take my statement back. "If you fail to find a suitable wife, what will you do?"

"I will not fail." But he considered this possibility. "But if I am to fail, then I shall find you a suitable husband that will either take the place of a blood-related heir, or you will give me a heir with him."

I blinked, suddenly overcome with nausea at the very notion of being forced to conceive a child with one of the arrogant, self-centered princes that I've met.

I'll sic one of my lady-in-waitings on him before that happens, I vowed to myself silently. Better yet, I'll kill him myself.

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I left his study and nearly sprinted back to my room, and when I finally pushed the mahogany door open, Amara jumped up from her seat and hurried over to me, closing the door for me. "What happened? What did he say?" She surveyed my face, probably seeing tints of green mingling with the rosy color of my cheeks. "You look kind of sick, Sere," Amara remarked, pausing from her third-degree interrogation.

I rolled my eyes and flopped back into the seat that she had just been occupying. "I feel sick," I groaned. "My father wants to leave the country to 'seek a wife.'" I mimicked, looking at her for confirmation that I wasn't the only one who thought his plan was absurd.

But instead she gave me an uncertain look. "Well it's been more than a few years since this kingdom has had a Queen…" she bit her lip, no longer confident that I was the best person to be admitting this to. "I mean, I don't really remember the last queen, since I was only two or three at the time, and from what I hear, they were deeply in love, but that was such a long time ago, and it seems appropriate that he would remarry…"

I glared at her. Is everyone working against me!? "Uh-huh." Wait until she hears the second part of my news! Then she'll agree with me! "That's not the part that I'm concerned with, Amara."

"What do you mean? Are you concerned you won't participate in the wedding?"

I laughed. If only… "No. My father says that if he isn't able to find a wife, then I'll have to be the one to marry." I pressed my fingers to my eyes. "And I'm certain that if it is to come to that, he'll be the one to choose my stuffy, conceited husband-to-be!"

Amara's upper lip curled in disgust, and I smiled slightly, relieved that my old friend was once again back on my side. "Oh. He'll make you marry?"

"Not just marry, but conceive a child."

"But you're only a child yourself!"

Normally I would have snapped at her in my defense, but for once, I agreed. I felt like a child—nowhere near the age of marriage! "I know, but if my father demands it, it won't be easy to disobey him."

Amara eyed me uneasily. "Well, Serenity, you've never been one to follow rules."

I grinned. "But my father doesn't know that." He doesn't know me at all.

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It's been a while since I've used the dubbed names of the SM characters, so bear with me, mmkay? :)

ALL DISCLAIMERS APPLY… would you honestly have thought any differently? XD