8.

.oOo.

~ Sleeping Beauty ~

.oOo.

Once upon a time, there was a king and a queen who lived in the nation of Greece. Now, this was quite a long time ago, so long ago that knowledge of fairies and the like was extremely commonplace and not limited solely to England (who, quite frankly, was the only nation whose knowledge and wisdom had not dulled down over the centuries).

The king and queen were unhappy because they had no children of their own, but after praying to the gods, the queen finally gave birth to a little baby boy. They were filled with joy, and thus decided that they would prepare a lavish feast to celebrate the birth of the young prince. Among those invited to the feast were the powerful fairies of the kingdom. However, though there were thirteen fairies in all, the king and queen only had twelve golden plates for the fairies to eat from, and so one of the fairies had to be excluded from the feast. Knowing that one of the older fairies was particularly cruel and mean-spirited, the king and queen decided that they would not extend an invitation to her.

At the grand event, each of the twelve fairies presented the prince with their respective gifts, blessing the child with traits such as kindness, musical ability, and the beauty of a Grecian god (which, mind you, was their exact wording, and not at all an opinion of my own). Suddenly, the fairies were horribly interrupted when the old, cruel thirteenth fairy stormed in, furious that she had not been invited to the celebration. In her anger, she laid a curse on the young prince, declaring that the child would prick his finger on a spindle and die.

However, to the child's luck, this event occurred before the twelfth fairy had presented her gift, and so she decided to do all she could to save the lad. In order to combat the curse of the evil fairy, she declared that the prince would not die upon pricking his finger but instead fall into a long sleep, only to be woken by true love's kiss.

Eventually, the day came when the prince happened upon an old lady who was busy at work with her spinning, and he reached out in curiosity, only to prick his finger on the spindle as soon as he had touched it. He immediately fell into a deep sleep, and the king and queen moved him into one of the palace's bedrooms as soon as they heard the news, placing him upon the room's plush bed.

As it turned out, the curse of sleep hadn't really been much of a curse at all, for sleeping was already one of the young prince's favourite pastimes; he slept an unhealthy amount, quite frankly, so much so that the king and queen were not fazed in the slightest by the prince's current state of constant unconsciousness. They were still determined to break the prince out of his slumber, however, as some activity is still better than none at all – and so they arranged for numerous fair persons of the kingdom to visit the prince and lay a soft kiss upon him, in the hopes that one would prove to be his true love.

To their misfortune, day after day passed with no such luck; the prince had been visited by many a maiden (with a fair share of lads mixed in as well, just in case), and he had not yet awoken.

One day, a cat managed to make its way into the castle, and it decided to wander into the room where the prince slept. It leapt onto the bed and, upon seeing the young lad resting there, started to lick his cheek.

The prince awoke at once, and the whole bloody kingdom rejoiced.

The End.