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Have you ever dreamed of living the fairy tales? Of riding off into the sunset with the perfect other, whether a knight in shining armor or a beautiful damsel in distress, and living, as they say, Happily Ever After? Well, what if the happily ever after, wasn't quite all it was cracked up to be....



Happily Ever After



I lived all the stories. I am the hero who was every hero in every fairy tale ever written. And let me tell you something. Living happily ever after stinks! I am doomed to live out the same life over and over for eternity. Two different versions, but even they are not too different. In version one I get born a prince or a knight or something at least semi-noble, go out, and kill the dragon, the troll, the witch, the ... well ... whatever there is to kill. Win the girl, and live happily ever after. Version two, on the other hand, starts with getting born to a poor family, usually the youngest (and smallest) of several boys (who always pick on me). Then off I go, out into the world, usually against my father's wishes, and fall in love with someone far above my touch. I win the girl with some trick or another (never brute strength), and she has to pretend she cares for me because either she, her father, or both, promised me her hand in marriage (and half the kingdom, when appropriate) if I succeeded. Then, again, we live happily ever after.

What's the happily ever after? I'll tell you about it. In fact, I'll tell you about the very first time I ever made it there. There I was, thinkin', "Great, I won the girl! Saved her from a fate worse than death, and all! Let's go home and get married and all that!"

First problem was, she insisted on riding off into the sunset, even though my father's castle was almost due east of where we were. I complained, but...

"It's the way it works! We have to ride off into the sunset! The final silhouette is like- like necessary! You know, the big exit!"

"Fine," I finally said, just to stop her whining. "We'll ride off into the sunset. Then, in a couple of hours, when there's no more sunset to ride off into, we'll pitch camp, then go home in the morning. Will that work?"

"Well," she answered uncertainly, "okay. As long as we ride off into the sunset."

So off we rode, into the sunset. Casting a very heroic silhouette and all. Squinting 'cause we couldn't get the sunset out of our eyes. So there we were, riding, squinting into the sun. Which, I've been told, can make you go blind. It did make us get lost. We ended up in the middle of the haunted forest I'd banished all the haunts from in order to save the girl from the enchantment. You know- the fate worse than death. Don't ask me what it was. I don't remember any more. We settled down for the night and figured we'd find the way in the morning. She, of course, complained the whole time about how she was a princess and shouldn't have to sleep on the ground. She should have a feather bed. Or two, one atop the other. With a down comforter on top. And a breakfast waiting for her when she woke. And a massage, with sweet oils rubbed into her skin, when her muscles ached. And riding along on my lap wasn't a very comfortable way to ride a horse. That one, I agreed with. Anyway, you get the point.

At sunrise, off we go, east this time, towards home. The sun still in our eyes. We get out of the woods and are in the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. It was nothing like anyplace on the way home. Even the dirt was clean. I mean there's this swamp there where you go in and everything's in perfect shades of green and brow, and even the swampmuck was clean. If there'd been a swamp monster, he would have been clean. That's how bad it was.

Anyhow, we reach this beautiful castle, all white with the tall towers and all, and my princess goes, "We're home!"

"No," says I. "We're not. This is not my home."

"Now it is," she tells me. "We're in the happily ever after. Didn't you know? It always ends in the happily ever after."

So I grumble and I groan, but there's no way out, so we go in. I mean, I miss my family, and everything. My loyal friends and all. But hey, at least I have the princess, right? We were immediately given a huge feast, which was, of course, perfect. Then we got married. I carried her up into the tower we were to live in. Our "royal apartments" if you will. And what do I see? I see the most beautiful furniture I'd ever imagined. Chests of drawers. Reclining chairs, that were really comfy. Electric lights, which I'd never seen before, but which do wonders for nighttime anything. Great think carpets. Heavy down comforters. Beautiful tapestries that kept out the slightest draft. Twin water beds.

Twin waterbeds.

Okay. So this was designed by my grandparents generation. That's okay. I can deal with that.

I set the princess down on one of the beds, lie down beside her, and start too cuddle a little bit.

Then she sits straight up, glares down at me, and says, "And just what do you think you are doing?"

Now I'm feeling a little guilty, and I don't like it. I mean, what's wrong? We're married, for the goodness sake. "Well, you know, I just wanted to ... well-"

"I," she interrupted firmly, "am the maiden princess. Don't you even know what that means to me? Don't you care? I was born and bred to do nothing so crude as ... well ... that!" She blushed in a maidenly fashion. "I am the stereotypical fairy tale princess! We live happily ever after! We do not ... well ... you know!"

"Well," I answer, "yes. I do know. And I don't see why you can't. I mean, you're not the princess anymore. Now you're the queen. And you have to have more little princes and princesses." I thought it was a pretty convincing argument. I mean, hey, she gains rank, and has to have some responsibilities. That's the obvious one. I mean, here I am, without my family, my familiar castle, anything familiar. I mean, even some dirt would have been welcome. I deserved something, surely!

She didn't appear to agree. "Oh, no. That's not the way it works. This is the happily ever after. Nothing crude, or painful, or dirty, or ... well ... anything inappropriate happens here."

Gods I was getting sick of those words. "Well, maybe I don't want to live happily ever after," I said. "Maybe I'd rather go home."

"What?" she said, suddenly not at all sweet. And not at all amused. "No. No, no, no. I worked all my life to be the princess, and now you want to destroy it for me? No. I think not. We will stay here, and we will live happily ever after."

There was no arguing with her, so I stopped trying. There was absolutely nothing to do there. Nothing to kill. Nothing to do anything with. Nothing bad even happened in the books! You could only wander around and look sweet and stereotypical, and make pleasant talk with people you began to despise.

Finally, I tried to escape. And I thought I was doing pretty well. I made it out of the happily ever after, and found a little town. Where I immediately heard that there was a princess held captive by a wicked dragon. I laughed and turned away, whistling happily. No way was I falling for that again.

Immediately I was struck by lightning. Killed me. And I woke up to find myself talking to the person who told me about the princess. I tried a couple more times, but I wasn't allowed to ignore the problem! Either I rescued the princess or got struck by lightning and heard about the problem again. I had no choice. And it ended the same way. In the happily ever after.

I tried other things. Killing myself in the happily ever after. I woke up outside, hearing yet another tale of woe. Living out my entire life in the happily ever after and dying of natural causes. Again, I wake up outside, somewhere between sixteen and twenty, and hear of another princess. I even tried escaping and refusing to talk to anyone. Living like a hermit in the middle of a forest. For a while that one seemed to work. Then someone came along and told me about a captive princess, even though I did everything in my power not to hear it!

I'm going insane. I will never escape the happily ever after.



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