4Disclaimer: Wasn't 100% sure where to put this one, there's not a category for "Disney movie fairy tale trope parody". If it's anything you recognize, it's not mine. Please don't send The Mouse after me.
Author's Note: This has been sitting on my hard drive since 2008. And I'm actually pretty sure that it was written before that. I can't get the formatting to break this out into nice little paragraphs and lines of dialogue, so forgive the chunk. Must be what happens when something you wrote on a Windows 95 floppy disk gets transferred to a laptop...Sparked by the offhand thought that the Prince from "Cinderella" and the Prince from "Snow White" look an awful lot alike. Or at least, they did when I was a kid. This is what you get when my plot bunnies insist on jumping on the bed instead of coming up with storylines...blame the bunnies.
ONCE UPON A TIME...Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and a newly-crowned princess named Princess Amelia Earhart (hey, in my defense, they never DID figure out what happened to her) were walking through the forest one day, each of them discussing their lives."Oh, my life was so terribly terrible," Cinderella began. "Just TERRIBLE."
"So it was terrible, then?" Amelia asked innocently.
"I lived with my stepmother and her two daughters from a previous marriage. They made me cook and clean and scrub and wash until my nail polish had flaked off and my fingers were wrinkled."
"How sad!" Snow White and Sleeping Beauty agreed.
"One day, when I had finally finished my work, they agreed to let me go to the ball. I put on my best gown, and my best string of pearls, but when my stepsisters saw me, they were jealous and ripped the gown to pieces! I-"
"Wait, wait," Amelia interrupted. "Cinderella, honey, I've seen your work, and let me tell you, Bloomingdale's won't be calling you anytime soon. No offense."
"Oh, um, none taken?" Cinderella replied, not having a clue what Amelia just said. "Anyway, I was crying out in the garden for two or three hours-"
"That explains why your plants are so green," Amelia said, stepping on a ladybug (who said princesses had to be delicate?) and wiping her shoe on the grass.
"-when my fairy Godmother came to me. She said I could have anything I wanted. What I wanted most was to go to the ball. She made me a dress, and these glass slippers, and turned a pumpkin into a golden coach-"
"Wait, sorry," Amelia said, trying to contain her laughter, "are you telling me you could have had anything in the whole world, and you asked for a dress, shoes, and a fancy ride?"
"ANYWAY...as I was saying," Cinderella continued, "I went to the ball and I danced with my prince. Oh, it was a fine time, it really was. Waltzes and jitterbugs and-"
"I would have settled for some break dancing," Amelia put in.
"SILENCE!" Cinderella barked.
"Why not let her finish the story?" Snow White suggested finally.
"Yes, please," Sleeping Beauty agreed.
"Fine," said Amelia.
"But then the clock struck midnight, and since all my goods were done by magic-"
"All of your GOODS?" Amelia said, this time breaking into a gale of laughter, although it sounded more like frogs. "Honey, don't ever say 'goods' like that! You make me think of-"
"Mm, yes, well, only your uncultured mind would think of something so...so...obscene!" Cinderella scoffed.
"Uncultured? Lady, I'll SHOW you uncultured," Amelia stepped back for a roundhouse, but Sleeping Beauty grabbed her arm. "Let...her...finish..." she managed to gasp out, struggling to hold Amelia still.
"Okay, okay!" Amelia jerked out of Sleeping Beauty's grip. "I'm good! I'm good. Leave me be."
Cinderella stopped to adjust her glass crown before continuing. "And at midnight, I had to leave."
"One thing," Amelia said, raising her hand, politely enough. Cinderella eyed her, then nodded. "Okay. You had a CURFEW?" she asked, laughing again.
"'twas not my decision; 'twas the magic's," Cinderella replied staunchly.
"Twerrific," Amelia muttered under her breath. Aloud she said, "Please continue."
"In my haste to leave, I lost my glass slipper. Then prince searched every house in the land for the maiden the slipper fit-Yes, Amelia?" Cinderella stopped her story again.
"I apologize, but one more question. Did the prince have Odor Eaters?"
"What?"
"Never mind. Continue."
"He got to my house, I put on the slipper, and it fit!"
"YE-ESSS!" cheered Amelia. When the other princesses stared at her, she shrugged. "Oh, sorry. It just seemed like a good place to cheer. I'm sorry. Go on."
"From then on, my prince and I lived happily ever after," Cinderella finished her story.
Amelia was silent for all of ten seconds, then she asked, "And?"
Confused, Cinderella replied, "And what?"
"That's it?"
"Yes, I do believe so," Cinderella said, "Why?"
"Well, no offense, but it was a bit... um, BORING."
"In what means?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure. Maybe it needed the prince riding in on horseback, sword blazing, beating the Sheriff of Nottingham...but that's the wrong story, isn't it?" Amelia broke off. "Okay. Sorry."
"Perhaps you will find my story more entertaining," Sleeping Beauty suggested.
"Perhaps," Amelia agreed neutrally.
"I was born to a kind and queen in a faraway land-"
"Aren't they all?" muttered Amelia. At a LOOK from Snow White, she turned her eyes to the forest floor. "Sorry," she grumbled.
"People from all over came to celebrate my birthday, among them, Prince Phillip and his father, King Hubert."
"Hubert? Oh, man. King Louie, sure. King Mufasa, okay, that's fine. King Stefan- he was your dad, right? But HUBERT?! Geez, I-continue," Amelia finished lamely. Hubert just didn't seem...kinglike.
"He presented me with his gift, and then the Three Good Fairies bestowed their gifts on me. Oh, they were lovely: beauty, song-"
*Yeah, the song one kinda fell through on Karaoke Nite,* Amelia thought to herself, and although she didn't laugh out loud, she did smile out of the corner of her mouth.
"But my father hadn't invited the evil fairy, Maleficent."
"I remember her!" Amelia cut in. "Big black scary chick with a bird, right?"
"Close enough," Sleeping Beauty agreed wryly. "She cast a curse on me, that on my sixteenth birthday, I should touch the spindle of a spinning wheel and die!"
"Had a thing for sewing, did you?" Amelia asked. Sleeping Beauty looked confused. "No? Okay, go on. Ignore me," she said.
"The three good fairies took me to live with them, but not before promising that I would not die, should the curse come true, but fall into a deep sleep. I lived with the fairies for fifteen years. On the eve of my sixteenth birthday, they sent me into the woods to gather berries."
"You ever notice," Amelia broke in, "how you're always sent to the woods for plants? They don't ask for you to bring back a buck with an 8x8 rack, no, it's always freakin' fruit or flowers! Like, a couple days ago, my prince sends me into the woods for a geranium? I'm not exactly a botany professor, right? So I go looking for this flower, and I just grab one outta the ground because like I know what I'm looking for, and I take it back to my prince, and he's all, 'That is a Giant Petaled Terberarium.' Like I care! It's a dumb flower. I think he wanted it for his hair, but anyway, I digress. Sorry, Sleeping Beauty, continue."
"I met a man there," Sleeping Beauty said, unfazed by Amelia's tirade. "He danced with me and sang with me. All the while, I thought I'd met him before. He wanted to see me again, but he was a stranger! I couldn't talk to a stranger!"
"Technically, hon, you didn't talk to him. You sang. You're in the clear."
"I told him to meet me at my cottage. But then I found out who I truly was. The fairies took me back to my castle, and the evil Maleficent kidnapped my prince!"
"Why would she want that skinny guy? He couldn't bench press a tree branch," Amelia said. But Sleeping Beauty hadn't heard her. She was too into her story.
"Sure enough, I pricked my finger and fell into a deep sleep. The fairies put everyone in the castle to sleep-"
"Must have been some strong anesthesia," Amelia put in, then clamped her mouth shut as Cinderella threatened her with one of her slippers.
"-so they would be awoken when I woke."
"Wait!" Amelia got out her "Big Medieval English Book of Words" and looked up 'awoken.' "No, it's a word. Go for it," she urged Sleeping Beauty.
"The three good fairies saved my prince, armed him with a sword and a shield endowed with magical powers, and sent him after me. He fought the evil Maleficent, who had turned into a giant dragon, kissed me, and I awoke!"
"A-woke...singular form of awoken-Sorry! Sorry," Amelia put her dictionary away.
"After that we were married to live Happily Ever After."
"You're right, Sleeping Beauty, I enjoyed your story much better. Now if Snow White can just top it off?"
Snow White smiled. "I do believe I can. Mty story contains mystery, magic, and love's first kiss. And if ANYONE tries to interrupt, I will use what I have been given by God-that is, my enormous feet-and I will dropkick you into the next kingdom."
Amelia wasn't intimidated, but by now she had nearly run out of insults to hurl, and so she was quiet.
"I was born the fairest woman in the land-"
"You weren't born a baby?" Amelia couldn't resist. "Okay! I'm sorry. Put your foot back in your shoe. Geez, speaking of Odor Eaters..."
"My stepmother, the Queen, was jealous. Her mirror on the wall told her I was more fair than she, and so the queen sent me into the woods with a woodchopper that was sent to kill me."
"Hey! A murder! Now we're gettin' good!" Amelia said. "Oh wait, you're telling the story. That means you're not dead...darn."
"He couldn't do it. Instead, he pointed me to the cottage of the Seven Dwarfs. Their names were...well...let me think. Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Dopey-"
"Huey, Dewey and Louie?" Amelia put in. "Ringing a bell?" She grinned, until Sleeping Beauty elbowed her in the side with her unusually pointy elbows.
"I lived with them and did all their housework. The dusting, cleaning and washing-"
"They could have hired Cinderella for a lot less," Amelia informed them, thus receiving another elbow from Cinderella.
"But the queen found out I was still alive. So she disguised herself as an ugly witch-"
"Shouldn't have been too difficult, I've seen pictures," Amelia muttered.
"-and she used her magic to poison an apple-"
"Again with the fruit!" Amelia cried. "Sorry."
"Not knowing it was poisoned, I ate the apple, and I fell into a deathlike sleep-"
"They're calling that a 'coma' nowadays," Amelia put in.
"-until my true love, Prince Charming, kissed me and broke the spell. We rode off into the sunset and we lived Happily Ever After."
"Oh, naturally," Amelia said.
Cinderella had been silent for most of Snow White's story, but now she spoke. "Your prince's name, again?" she asked coldly.
"Charming."
"What's he look like?"
"Black hair, stunning brown eyes, good cheekbones. His color could use a little foundation, but-"
"But my dear Snow White, Prince Charming is MY prince. You have just described my husband to me."
"I can assure you, he is quite married...to me."
"And I say he cannot be, for he is MY love!"
Amelia sat on a fallen tree and watched the fight unfold. Cinderella would have had the upper hand, being taller and wearing more hardware, like the crown, a choker and those slippers, but the slippers were such shoddy craftsmanship that the heel broke, twisting her ankle. As she struggled to get away, Snow White grabbed an apple off a nearby tree.
"Again with the fruit," Amelia pointed out to Sleeping Beauty, who was sitting with her eyes closed next to her."
Snow White conked Cinderella on the head, knocking her to the ground. And that was the end of Cinderella.
"Oh yeah! Who's the bomb? That's me-S-to the NO White!" Snow White cheered happily in victory. She took a bite of the apple. When she pulled it away from her mouth, she saw something wiggling inside it.
"Well, it could be worse," Amelia said.
"What could be worse than finding a worm in your apple?" Snow White cried, then began to wonder why the apple in her mouth was so chewy, and why the worm in the apple had stopped wriggling.
"Finding half a wor-Never mind," Amelia said as Snow White fell to the ground, also dead. Then she turned to Sleeping Beauty, the last of the princesses, but Sleeping Beauty was sound asleep.
"Darn...and Prince Phillip's at a consortium in the Coliseum near Constantinople. Shame he's not here to wake her up." Amelia covered her with some of the long grass, and started for home.
On her way there, she met a young man. "My name is Amelia, what's yours?" she asked him. He was rather cute, with black hair and brown eyes... "You're not a Charming brother, are you?"
"I-what? No, I'm Eric. And I do believe I may be going insane."
"Why would that be?"
"I keep having strange dreams. Dreams that my wife was once a fish, with a long tail and scales! I thought perhaps the dreams would stop once I left the palace, but-"
"Relax, Eric, Amelia said with a laugh. I know what's going on. You got a plane?"
"I do, actually. It's a new prototype."
"Great! I'm driving. And while we fly off into the sunset, I'll tell you everything." Amelia laughed as the little red biplane flew off into the sunset. "And I suppose we shall live Happily Ever After," she added.
Down below them, in the ocean, a young redheaded woman was chatting with a fish and a seagull when the plane flew over. "You know, that looks amazingly like Eric's plane. I wonder where he's gallivanting off to now?"
FIN
