Princess Cactus and the hardness of finding a decent prince

Summary: Princess Cactus is utterly bored with her life in her parents' castle. Princes are good-looking but stupid, knights are muscular but have nothing intelligent to say and the other princesses enjoy lacemaking and dancing too much to be good company. So, it's time our princess takes the lead and makes some plans...

A/N: Please tell me what you think of my little attempt at fairytales... And if anyone's interested I'll go on with my wonderful plot (though I think I'll do that anyway, if for no other reason than to annoy you :P), but I really, reallyneed a beta to do that (is there any kind of beta-market where I could find one? How does this work?) Anyways, enjoy.

1. Making plans

Princess Cactus was bored. She had danced and she had eaten like a bird and then she had danced some more but the day just seemed endless. Her beauty amazed all the handsome but incredibly stupid young princes, or so they all said, but that didn't make Cactus feel any better. What good were long lashes if your brain was smaller than a peanut?

Princes Cactus longed for some action. "Go and take a walk in one of the gardens," said her mother but she had seen the castle's gardens thousands of times and they bored her. "Go and see the incredibly muscular and handsome knights training," said her father, but she had seen all the incredibly muscular and handsome knights a thousand times and their incredibly stupid statements bored her. "Go and ride your lovely small pony," said all the other princesses but Cactus had grown too big for that pony years ago, and besides he bored her.

"I can't understand how you can be so happy in here! This must be the most boring place in the whole world," princess Cactus said to her friends who were keeping themselves busy with lace-making, which was in Cactus' opinion the most boring thing after all those above.

"And did you see how prince I-Am-So-Good-Looking-I-Am-Disgusting-Even-Myself smiled at me?" the other princesses didn't notice princess Cactus' words. They ignored her like this every time she tried to say something reasonable and not boring. (And yes, you can be so good-looking that you're actually disgusting. Too much perfection doesn't suit anyone.).

"Oh, he's so handsome he's disgusting even himself," said princess Oh-So-Fragile and fainted. Princess Cactus almost cried when she run out of the room. She needed some fresh air after that and so she found herself in the gardens.

"I need to do something," she said to herself while trying to carefully step on every flower she saw. "This place could kill a snail in boredom". She destroyed a small bush of roses by jumping to it and strangling them.

"That wasn't very smart," she then said. The condition of her dress and hair would have made princess Very-Fashionable scream and probably faint (she did that a lot whenever the knights were around). "This book is useless now" princess Cactus continued without paying any attention to the condition of her dress and hair.

She kept on jumping in the bushes and stepping on flowers but she also took better care of her book she always carried with her. After ten minutes she reached the gates of the castle.

"This is where the real world starts," she thought. "What I wouldn't give to get there". She took a look around and sighed. "Oh, if I only were a prince I could go hunting dragons and saving princesses!" She sat down and thought for a second. "Or maybe I would leave the princesses alone, they're the most useless creatures I've ever met".

At that moment she heard her mother calling. It was time for her to meet all the gorgeous and rich (but incredibly stupid) princes who had come from far away places to get half of her father's land. And of course her, but that was just a bonus.

Later that evening when prince Incredibly-Stupid had finally believed that princess Cactus most certainly didn't want to marry him, or give her half of the kingdom to his loving care, king Wise-And-Understanding came to see his daughter. "My dear, you have been very quiet today. You didn't even get red and start yelling at the princes. You never let that kind of an opportunity to pass," he said. Princess Cactus sighed. She hadn't been in a mood to yell at the princes, and that was indeed very odd.

"I'm just so bored," she said to her father. A plan started to form in her mind, but that she most certainly did not tell to her father. He had an unpleasant way of not liking her brilliant ideas. "If I could just go and see my cousin," she said and quickly thought through all her cousins "I-Am-Very-Beautiful-But-Can't-Find-Any-Pretty-Clothes-Because-I-Live-So-Far-Away-Of-Anything-Ressembling-Sivilization (her friends just called her the poor girl). I know she lives quite far away but I haven't seen her in a long time," princess Cactus finished and thanked her mother for her short and easy name.

King Wise-And-Understanding thought this for a moment. It was actually a rather long moment (princess Cactus thought if it would be impolite to tell the servant to get her a chair) but finally the king seemed to reach a conclusion. "Okay," he said. At this princess Cactus jumped higher than she had ever jumped. When she was about to start her professional cry of joy -show, his father continued: "On one condition."

Princess Cactus wasn't in a good mood when her farewell party started. "And do you believe it," she continued on her complaining, "I have only a year of my freedom left!" "But dear, getting married is the best thing that could happen to a girl" princess Old-Fashioned said. She was the only one who could stand princess Cactus on her bad days. All the other princesses had suddenly remembered they had a date with some real or imaginary prince who was waiting on the other side of the ballroom.

"AND," princess cactus went on, "I have to –like this wasn't bad enough already- be nice to all the princes tonight, AND I have to dance with them," she finished looking very depressed and small. "But dear, dancing with the princes is the best thing that could happen to a girl," princess Old-Fashioned said. Then she thought for a little while. "After getting married, I think." Princess Old-Fashioned didn't even see what hit her.

After four hours of dining, dancing and flirting with the gorgeous and rich (but stupid) princes and incredibly muscular and handsome (but even stupider) knights princess Cactus was exhausted. She had tried every excuse she could think of, but her father had always stopped her on the door and made her go back to the guests. Now she was really feeling sick but after the five times she had tried that and failed to get out of the room, she thought she had to be more original this time.

The thought hit her like a bludger. She had seen the other princesses try and use it thousands of times but it hadn't ever crossed her mind that there might be some advantages to fainting. "That's what I'm going to do," she thought merrily. "It can't be that hard if they all can do it."

So she tried. She fluttered her eyelids and made the little funny sound fainting princesses always did. Then she waited for a moment. Nothing happened. "Now this is peculiar." She fluttered her lids some more. Nothing. After a few minutes of hard trying a very worrying thought entered princess Cactus' mind. What if she couldn't faint at all? If there was something broken inside of her preventing her from fainting.

At this thought princess got really angry. If all other princesses could faint, she most certainly could do it, too. "Now," she thought, "I just need a little help." She turned to face prince Very-Shy who was sitting next to her and shot him her prettiest smile. "Excuse me, mister prince," she said. Prince Very-shy was suddenly the colour of tomato but at least he was listening. "Could you please strangle me just a little bit?" she asked using her best prince charming voice. Prince Very-Shy's face turned from red to white faster than a lightning and he fainted. "You know, that wasn't very polite. I know I can't faint, you don't have to turn the knife in he wound."