Miss Mars Stories

Thesnowking · (94)

Hey guys, does anyone have any of the old Miss Mars stories by bastion works saved? They were illustrated by Saburox, and they were pretty good!

muichimotsu · (68)

Thesnowking · (94)

Hey, thanks so much man! Thats awesome.

muichimotsu · (68)

Happy to help: probably don't have the more recent stuff, since I drifted away from the site...name is escaping me, but it was pretty good while it lasted

Thesnowking · (94)

No chance you have some others from the site? Anything'll do

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I love this story, it's very well written and the characters are very good :3

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(March 28, 2016, 10:30 pm)muichimotsu Happy to help: probably don't have the more recent stuff, since I drifted away from the site...name is escaping me, but it was pretty good while it lasted

The name of the site was Bastion Works, but it isn't around anymore.

muichimotsu · (68)

(March 29, 2016, 11:51 pm)Thesnowking No chance you have some others from the site? Anything'll do

I might, but I don't recall which ones were specifically from Bastion Works nearly as well as others may.There was one with a Rapunzel sort of motif, the Rapunzel character not realizing she was pregnant, I believe.

Thesnowking · (94)

Yeah that was one was pretty good, if you have it! Another was about a pregnant vampire I believe, another about a Frankenstein's monster type of person, one about a witch.

Apologies for the vagueness, it's been ages since I visited the site (I always just assumed it would be around forever!), so any that you think be might be from there would be awesome! If you can't really figure it out, no problem man, the miss Mars stuff was brilliant enough!

muichimotsu · (68)

By my quick look at my folder, I have just over 1000 stories, though there are likely duplicates hidden in there, not to mention stuff I probably should make copies of from DA or FA for those eventualities.

This might be the Rapunzel one in question, though I have one with a similar name that isn't literally Rapunzel.

Something funny was going on. Rapunzel knew it. She didn't have a lot of fancy education- apart from what Nanny Witch taught her- but she could be pretty sharp about some things, and right now she was being as sharp as a... sharp thing with pointy bits on!
She rubbed her belly while she thought. That seemed to help calm down the big pangy pokey things that happened every now and then.
Belly! Oh, yes, that was the strange thing, now that she thought about it.
She glared at it. Being all... pink... and round... and belly like! Where did it get off? Just appearing on top of her tummy like that. It was a very bad belly. A very strange belly though, too, because it was, well... big and pink and round. And it had never been like that before. It had always been flat and smooth and positively ladylike. Why this was happening she had no idea.
It didn't seem to be like the big round soft things that grew out of her chest a few years ago. Actually, they'd been getting a lot bigger and rounder and softer lately too. But she didn't mind that! Nanny Witch had told her all about "breasts" and she had understood completely. How convenient it would be to be able to make milk like a cow someday! Then she wouldn't need to wait for Nanny when she wanted a drink.
No, no, she wasn't thinking about 'breasts' no matter how much she'd like a glass of milk. Belly. That was the main thing.
It had started several months ago, after she'd met that charming Prince. How long ago had it been? Four months? Six months? Oh, who cared about silly dates, it wasn't as if they meant anything. Anyway, the Prince had been visiting and they'd been having lots of fun, and then in the midst of all her fun the strangest things started to happen. First she felt all sicky, and that was no good. The Prince got very angry when she threw up out the window and right onto him waiting outside! He hadn't visited for a long time.
And then the belly had started.
It was sneaky at first. It stayed small, just a bit bigger than normal. Then it grew all slowly, bit by bit, so that she didn't notice at all until, boomf! She had a great big belly and she looked so silly. It made her dress pull up over her feet and everything, which was very naughty and inconsiderate. Thanks to the belly she was getting cold feet.
That wasn't all either. She'd started to want to eat strange things. Nanny Witch had always given her some lettuce before, and had said that her real mother had gone and swapped her as a baby for lettuce. This seemed strange to Rapunzel because the lettuce wasn't even all that nice and Nanny Witch said she was an adorable little girl that any mother should be proud to have. But now the lettuce seemed... yummy. She'd gone and eaten up all of it that the witch had left in the tower, and now she lay up in bed at nights dreaming of fields full of lettuce. And then dreaming about fields not full of lettuce, because now she was full of it instead.
It must be the belly. It was making her hungry for lettuces. And just being plain weird. She was going to get to the bottom of it.
There was a thump on the roof.
"Nanny Witch!"
She'd know what was going on. Nanny Witch knew everything in the whole world.
"Nanny!" Rapunzel called, waddling pendulously over to the door. Oof! The belly made her waddle too, naught belly!
"Rapunzel, I've told you a hundred times, my name is Dame Gothel," the witch replied as she descended the spiral staircase into the tower. "Why you insist upon calling me by that childish nic-"
She was interrupted at Rapunzel charged towards her and caught her in a fierce hug.
"Nanny!" she said, grinning.
Gothel sighed, "Okay, okay, I'm happy to see you too, no- ... what's this?"
Gothel gently parted herself from Rapunzel and looked at the unmistakeable swelling of her middle. Gods, how had this happened? She'd locked her in a bloody tower for seventeen bloody years that could only be accessed by broomstick (getting the builders to make a tower without stairs up had been tricky, but they managed it in the end), and kept her existence expressly a secret.
"It's a belly!" Rapunzel said, "And a mystery, Nanny! I don't know what's going on! It just started swelling up a while ago and now it's all hugey. What is it Nanny?"
"... you don't know?" Gothel asked.
Rapunzel thought. "Well, I ate a lot of lettuce. But usually lettuce doesn't make me get so big. And I was starting to get big before the lettuce. And then I thought it might be like when these started growing out of nowhere," she said, pointing to her breasts, "But then I thought it couldn't be like that because then-"
Gothel waved her hands and shook her head, "No, Rapunzel, it isn't like that at all."
Oh, Dung. Had she really never taught the girl about these things? She'd been meaning to. It was on her list of priorities. In her diary even! Thursday: Tell Rapunzel about the Birds and the Bees (Note: Do not use actual birds and bees metaphor, will lead to painful misunderstandings). Unfortunately it had been on every Thursday in her diary for the past year. Things had just... come up. Well, first of all she realised that she hadn't taught Rapunzel about disinfecting wounds, and that was certainly important- it had to take priority. And then she'd been going to talk about it the week after that, only Rapunzel said she wanted to bake a cake, and she was so insistent that she just couldn't say no. After all if she was so babyish about cakes then the birds and the bees could wait. And then other things had come up, and there had never been time, and of course she'd had all that business in foreign parts recently so she had to leave her all alone and now... this.
"That's good," Rapunzel said, "Because I don't want to stop eating lettuce now that it tastes so yummy. Do you have some Nanny?"
Gothel sighed. This was going to be a very trying afternoon.
________________________________________

"You're... sure that you don't want it?"
Rapunzel looked longingly at the bowl of salad, clearly torn between her overwhelming hunger for more of the sweet crisp lettuce, and good manners.
Gothel waved her hands, "I'm sure, Rapunzel, go ahead," she said, shoving her bowl over to the girl.
Rapunzel's expression was transformed into one of radiant beauty as she looked upon the second helping. She began eating, quickly, messily, and noisily.
Dame Gothel certainly didn't want to eat any salad after seeing the way Rapunzel ate it. It was like seeing an animal carcas being savaged by a wild beast. As adorable a little girl as she was, she had some terrible eating habits.
"I'm sure I taught you some table manners," Gothel said with a sigh.
Rapunzel paused, clawful of lettuce halfway between the bowl and her mouth. She gingerly extended a digit from either hand. "Wheh ih doubt, hinky out?" she said, her mouth still stuffed. She waggled her pinkies to demonstrate.
"It'll have to do," Gothel said.
Rapunzel grinned and continued eating.
Moments later, the salad was done, and Rapunzel looked huge and contented. She rubbed the sides of her belly in a pleasant, drowsy way.
"Okay, Rapunzel," Gothel said, "Now we have to talk about your... bump. Your belly."
Rapunzel nodded, and put on her serious face. Bellies was serious business.
"Now, do not lie to me my child, for I am about to ask you a question. Have you had a young man in here?"
Rapunzel shook her head emphatically.
"Nope. Nope, nope, no- oh, wait. A young man's like a boy, right Nanny? And boys are like us, only they don't have these round bits and they cut their hair all short- which is so silly because then they can't use it to climb at all- and they can be Princes, but we can't because we'd be Princesses or Queenses, right Nanny?"
Gothel gulped, "... Essentially, yes."
Rapunzel nodded, "Yes, I have had a 'young man' up here."
"... was he a Prince?"
"Yes."
Gothel groaned. Bloody. Princes. They messed everything up. All the time. You did a little curse here, imprisoned the odd girl there, and before you knew it you had princes coming out of the woodwork kissing and kidnapping and Gods knew what else. And, come to think of it, they always changed the story afterwards. Like Cinderella. She had heard that one a couple of times, and didn't for a minute believe that in a whole royal city there was only one girl who was a size five. Probably the Prince just ignored all the ugly girls until he got to one he liked, and then said, ahah, it's you, and carried her off, and then wrote some charming magical fairy nonsense afterwards. Princes!
Well, figuring out which bloody Prince was at fault here could wait.
"And did you... do anything... with this prince?"
Rapunzel put her finger on her chin and looked at the ceiling. "Well, lotsa things really. We talked all about this and that and how he's a Prince so he's all Princey, and how I've lived in this tower all my life, and how he wanted me to come and be a Queeny thing with him but it sounded a bit weird. And then we played games and ate meals and things and talked more..." she said, shrugging, "Oh, and sex. We had lots and lots of sex too."
"... Sex?" Gothel asked, ever so slightly taken aback.
"Yes!" Rapunzel said, her face lighting up again, "It's sooo much fun. Well, the first time it wasn't much fun at all, but then it was lots of fun. Have you done it Nanny Gothel? You should try it. I think you need to get a... a 'young man' for it, though, 'cause the Prince had this thing between his legs that looked all funny, and he put that-"
"Okay!" Gothel said, "I understand how sex works, thanks, there's no need to explain."
"Ah," Rapunzel said, "Okay. Well, umm... I guess other than talking and playing and having lots of sex we didn't do much else, Nanny."
Gothel sighed. Well, at least she wouldn't have to do the messy explanations and demonstrations now.
"Okay, Rapunzel... the reason your belly is getting so big now is because you had sex."
Rapunzel's eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
"Oh no, Nanny! You mean he was pumping me up like a bal-"
"No!" Gothel shouted. Gods this was going to be awkward. "Just... just slow down. Okay, Rapunzel, you remember years ago you were little, yes?"
Rapunzel nodded, and smiled, "I had to use a chair to see over the window!" she said.
"Well, you probably don't remember, but before that you were even smaller, and you were a baby."
Rapunzel nodded again, "Because babies are like little tiny people who don't have any sense yet, that's what you said Nanny."
"Right," Gothel nodded, "Now, everyone starts off as a baby, did you remember that? Your Prince, your parents, even me, were babies once."
Rapunzel nodded, although more slowly and hesitantly. She wasn't quite sure how this would work. If everyone had been babies to begin with, it must have been awful difficult for them, what with baby farmers and baby merchants and baby mayors and knights and things. It was a good thing they'd all gotten big eventually because otherwise nobody would be able to see over the windows.
"But, Nanny, what's this got to do with my belly?" she asked, frowning. So far they'd talked about Princes and Babies but it didn't seem to have anything to do with her nasty lettuce craving.
"I'm getting to that, child," Gothel said, attempting to give her a warm smile, "You see, the thing is, before everyone is a baby, they're actually made by two other people. Two parents, like your mummy and daddy."
"Who traded me for lettuce," Rapunzel said brightly. Then she frowned, because this was confusing again. How could babies make more babies? That would just be tricky. Rapunzel had seen a couple of babies that Gothel had been taking care of once or twice before, and they were useless. And two people were supposed to make a baby? Rapunzel didn't have any idea how to go about that, she wouldn't even know where to find arms and legs and things to stick together. Although maybe that's what the other person was for- maybe they found the arms and legs and bits, and someone like Rapunzel put them together, and that made a baby! Still, she thought, if everyone started out as babies, they would have been far too useless to make more babies.
She did not voice her concerns to Nanny Witch, because she was a very smart lady, and she didn't want to look stupid by not understanding.
"That's right," Gothel said, nodding, "Now, when parents make a baby, at first it's very, very small, so they have to put it somewhere very, very safe so it can grow. Do you remember those seeds we planted a few years ago, that you grew into little lettuce plants in your room?"
Rapunzel nodded. "Oooh, so we put babies in the ground so that they can grow up?"
Gothel laughed a little. "No, dear, babies are a little bit different. Babies need to be kept warm and safe, so we can't put them in soil. The only safe place for a baby to grow up from being very, very tiny, is inside his mother."
Rapunzel frowned. Then tilted her head this way and that. Then scrached her head.
"But then, how would they fit, because it's all tight and squidgy inside someone's body, so there wouldn't be any room for a baby," she said.
Gothel nodded, very slowly and very purposefully, and finally brought her gaze to rest of Rapunzel's belly.
Rapunzel followed her gaze.
There was a long still moment.
"Ah!" Rapunzel shouted, leaping up from her chair and staggering backwards, looking at her belly in absolute horror, "Someone's put babies in me! Someone's planted babies in me!" she yelled, stumbling back onto her bed. "S-some parents must have snuck 'em inside while I was asleep!"
Gothel resisted the urge to smile, but instead walked over, calmly.
"Shh, shh, calm down, calm down dear..." she said, hugging Rapunzel gently and patting her on the head, "It's okay. It's alright. Shhh..."
Rapunzel slowly calmed down, but squeezed tight to her Nanny Witch for support.
"Now," Gothel said, "I want you to take very deep breaths, very steady and slow, while you listen to what I'm about to tell you, okay?"
Rapunzel nodded minutely.
"Okay. When a mummy and a daddy make a little tiny baby together... they call it Sex," Gothel said, slowly but surely.
Rapunzel paused, and then gasped. "Sex makes babies?!"
"Yes," Gothel said, "Not always, but sometimes."
There was a long pause, and then Rapunzel giggled. Gothel frowned at this. Why was she giggling? The giggling steadily rose into a bought of laughter, and Rapunzel broke out of Gothel's grip and started rolling back and forth on the bed, laughing and clutching her shaking belly.
"Oh, Nanny, you're so silly," she wheezed between giggles, "I almost believed you... sex makes babies... and I have babies in my belly... heeheehee... Nanny is so funny," she said, grinning at her.
Gothel sighed. So she was going to take it like this.
"Yes," she said, "Very silly. Unfortunately the world is a very silly place where sex makes babies, and Princes sneak into towers in the middle of forests."
She stood up.
"I have some business to attend to. I'll get you plenty more lettuce and be back soon, okay?"
Rapunzel nodded, although her jubilation was cut short at the realisation Nanny Witch was leaving.
"Come back soon, okay?" she said, "I still don't know why I have this big belly..."
Gothel smiled, "I'll be back soon, Rapunzel, don't worry."
With the head of that Bastard Prince.
________________________________________

Babies! How silly.
"Isn't that silly, belly? Thinking you're full of babies?" Rapunzel said, as she waddled through the tower.
Her belly did that proddy pointy thing it did every now and then.
Rapunzel giggled. The belly agreed.
But there was no time for bellies now. It was time to wash her hair, and for a girl like Rapunzel this was serious business. First, she had to find all the hair, and this was tricky. Rapunzel's hair was long. Really long. A lot longer than she was tall. Nanny Witch said she should grow it long so that she could make something called a "pulley" in order to get crates of food up to the roof. And then the Prince had had a really clever idea to use it to climb up too. But when she wasn't using it like this, it tended to... pile up. She would just wander around the tower, sitting here, gazing there, and letting her hair trail behind her, looping under chairs and around tables, slipping under doorways and under the covers of her bed. She didn't really give it much thought unless it got caught on something and she couldn't move, but that didn't happen much, since she had so much and it was so silky that it just slipped through things.
But at times like this she had to go around the tower finding every last lock and piling it up in her arms to go and wash. She had finally found the very last bundle, and piled the huge coil of hair on top of her belly. It towered above her head.
It was very nice hair. Rapunzel didn't really think so because she didn't have much of a frame of reference. The Prince's short hair seemed sort of silly and impractical- you could never climb up that- and Nanny Witch had shoulder length silky black locks which also seemed a little on the short side for Rapunzel, but she naturally assumed that most other people in the world had a couple of metres of good long hair.
But the fact was, Rapunzel's hair was wonderful. It was long, impossibly strong, sleek, shiny, light and springy. She didn't have it styled so much as tied into big poofy bundles at the point where it reached the ground, bundles divided by little ribbons, and despite being drawn tight around the bows, puffing out into bundles the size of her head. It didn't pick up half as much dirt as it ought to, trailing around the floor all day, and it dried in remarkably quickly.
"Wash wash wash..." she hummed to herself as she carried the heap of hair through the tower. "Oh! Water!"
She had forgotten about preparing the water, which was essential for a good thorough wash. She detoured from the bathroom to the staircase leading up to the roof. It was a tricky staircase, especially now that she had the belly, but she managed it, without even spilling her hair.
The top of the tower was a rather boring place, although it did have plenty of room to run around. Nanny had made sure the walls were nice and high so that she wouldn't fall off even if she got silly. Other than a big open space, there were only two things on the roof; a big pile of hay, and the water tank. The hay was Nanny Witch's special emergency landing pad for if her broom was being tricky. The water tank was, well, water. It filled with rainwater- or if there wasn't enough rain, Nanny would bring more to top it up.
But now Rapunzel had to be secretive!
She looked around to makre sure Nanny wasn't about, and then, when she was sure she wasn't, waddled furtively over to the tank.
Putting her hair to one side, she reached under the tank and produced a small piece of paper.
If there was one thing Rapunzel knew, it was how to read and write.
Wait, no.
It there were two things Rapunzel knew, it was how to read and write. And count.
Drat.
If there were three things Rapunzel knew, they were reading, writing, counting, and subtraction.
Ooooh, silly words.
Amongst the many many things Rapunzel knew were reading, writing, counting, subtraction, and multiplication. But the reading and the writing were the important bits right now.
Nanny Witch didn't live in the tower, but she did come to stay for weeks, even months at a time, sometimes. Then she'd usually teach Rapunzel all sorts of things, and make sure she was eating properly and give her new books to read and things. And whenever Nanny came to stay, she always slept in her room on the far side of the tower. She locked it, but Rapunzel had figured out how to unlock it once when she was bored. And when Nanny came to stay, she always brought all her things with her too. And one of the things she had brought was a Spell Book.
Rapunzel was just curious. Nanny had said that her spelling was atrocious, so Rapunzel thought if she had a book of spelling she'd get better. Or... something like that. One way or another, one night several years ago, she tip toed into Nanny's room while she was asleep, and borrowed the Spell Book.
She didn't understand a word of it, because it was all very weird and confusing. So she'd carefully found some things that looked really really interesting, and copied them out on the blank pages at the front and back of some of her books. Then she crept back to Nanny's room and put the Spell Book back.
She had kept her little spells a secret ever since.
There weren't many, and they weren't all useful, but this one worked a treat. She looked at the piece of paper and carefully read out what it said. She remembered it off by heart, but it didn't pay to be imprecise when it came to magic. She said the words, and then very carefully put her hands against the water tank.
For a moment she felt the cold metal underneath her skin, then there was a hiss, and it was warm, almost hot, to the touch.
She grinned, and put the paper back.
Shower time!
________________________________________

Prince Charlton Francibald Ming III was having a good day.
The sun was shining, birds were singing, and with any luck some git was kidnapping a maiden somewhere.
"That was a nice village, sire," Boyle said, "Shame we couldn't have stayed longer."
"Oh, Boyle. Boilly boilly boilly Boyle," the Prince said, laughing and shaking his head from side to side so that his long golden hair swayed and shimmered behind him in the sun. Before continuing he paused to make sure that Boyle was watching, and appreciating his handsomeness. It wouldn't do to be so handsome if nobody was watching. He was. The Prince went on, "You know the rules, Boyle. We cannot stay longer than two weeks. Unless the maiden is very, very stupid."
Boyle sighed.
"Yes, sire."
"For you see, dear Boyle, for one as noble as me-"
"I do know, sire," Boyle said, "I have been in your service for several years."
The Prince frowned.
"Boyle," he said, "I was pontificating."
"Sorry, sire."
The Prince cleared his throat, "Now, where was I? Ah, yes. For one as noble as me, there can only be... err, Boyle?"
"I didn't say anything, sire," Boyle said.
"Where is my accompaniment?" the Prince asked.
"... Accompaniment, sire?"
The Prince sighed. "Boyle, Boyle, Boyle. You just don't get it, do you? I'm trying to deliver a tasteful little musical number here, and you are just intent on getting in my way at every possible juncture, aren't you? Now, make with the accompaniment so that we can get this over."
Boyle checked his saddlebags.
"Err, no instruments, sire," he said, "I could hum?"
The Prince grimaced. How on earth was he expected to do good Princing in conditions like these? No instrumental accompaniment! He stroke his huge chin. This cheered him up, because it was a very impressive chin, and it was as smooth as a baby's backside. Not that he knew much about how smooth they were, but general consensus amongst the common folk was that their bottoms were as smooth as his chin, so babies must have very smooth bottoms indeed.
Actually, the Prince had a smooth bottom, so presumably-
No, wait, hold on.
Singing. Yes. He'd let the chin distract him, but that was no good.
"Well... let me hear it," he said.
Boyle sucked in a deep rumbling breath, and began to hum. Sound seemed to blast out of every orifice on the man's head. Not not pretty sound either. It was like watching a set of bagpipes inflate.
"No, no, no," the Prince said, waving his hand, "It's no good. Never do that again, Boyle, or I'll exile you."
"Yes, sire."
"... you're sure you don't have a piano handy? Maybe just a couple of organs?"
Boyle checked again.
"Quite sure, sire," Boyle said, "I could imagine, though?"
"... Imagine?"
"Yes, sire, it's when you picture things in your head."
The Prince stroked his chin again. My, what a chin it was! No! No being distracted by the chin.
"Well, how would I hear it, then, Boyle?"
"You could imagine you heard it, sire?"
"Hmmm. Yes. Yes, that is acceptable."
Trumpets blasted in triumph. Horns rung out.
The Prince sang out. His voice, long, steady, high but beautiful, like a golden ray of sunshine descending from the heavens upon the forest path.
This imagination stuff wasn't half bad.
"Noble, brave, courageous and bold!" he sang in lofty tones. Drums banged and symbols crashed like thunder to the announcement of his virtues. The voices of a hundred loyal courtiers joined in, attesting to his words. "Valorous, mighty, splendid, and handsome!" he called out, his voice almost drowned out by the crowd.
"Me."
The grandiose music gave way to a sly, jazzy little tune, as he began to nod his head to the beat.
Meanwhile, in Boyle's imagination, a lone accordion wheezed out a tune to the Prince's words. The astounding powers of Boyle's imagination had perhaps been ever so slightly over exaggerated perviously. He still nodded his head to the imaginary beat. The Prince seemed to be loving the accordian solo.
"Oh, it's a tough life being a Prince," the Prince said, leaping from the saddle of his white stallion and twirling through the air, "Tough for someone humble, like me..." he sung, a series of melodic, feminine sighs, "But I get by," he sang, and the sighs turned to musical giggles.
Boyle's accordian whined on.
"Charming and Dashing, Chivalrous, Shining!" the crowds cheered, trumpets chorusing once more.
"Oh, it's true, but-" the Prince said, spinning on the spot, "Buuut..."
The crowds cheered, and a witch zoomed over them.
"But I have a- wait, hold on a minute, hold on a minute," the Prince said, waving for the jazz quartet to hold off, "What was that? Boyle, did you imagine a witch? There should be absolutely no witches in this number, you understand?"
Boyle blinked.
Oh, bugger, now he'd have to imagine that accordian from scratch.
"Uh, witch, sire? Not I," he said, "Perhaps she imagined it?"
"She who, Boyle?" the Prince said, glaring and remounting his horse.
"Her," Boyle said, pointing towards the sky.
The Prince looked up.
A witch was flying towards them.
"Oh... bugger."
________________________________________

There he was. There the bastard was!
Just riding along, walking! All casual, without a care in the world. She could even hear the echoes of his terrible singing.
It had to be the Prince. She had spotted him from nigh a mile off, but even from there he was inescapably... Princey.
Gothel did not, generally speaking, endorse stereotypes. For instance, she hated the general belief that any old warty woman who lived alone and had bad teeth was a witch. Witchcraft took work! You didn't just hang around until you were ugly, and not wash a lot until you had a good collection of warts. You had to work at it, you had to have the right stuff. And you didn't have to be ugly, either. A witch could be young, svelte, and beautiful.
Okay, so she, personally, has a hooked nose, an award winning collection of warts, and a peculiar skin condition that was starting to make her go green- but that wasn't the point! You could be a witch without looking one.
And... by the same token, Princes could, in theory, look like anything. After all, the only qualification for being a Prince was having a parent who was a king or queen. Oh, and being male, usually. Even ugly little buggers could be princes. Gothel did not, necessarilly, approve of the idea that someone was a prince just because they looked like one...
Except for this.
This was just too much.
The man oozed Prince from every pore. He was so Princely that he probably made other Princes feel common. The first, and most noticably Princey feature, was that he looked a lot like a woman. This was very Princey. He had beautiful golden hair flowing down to his neck, he had a perfectly smooth chin that looked as if stubble was as alien to it as accountancy was to the Wahootsi Tribe of the south African jungles, and he had girly legs. For some reason beyond Gothel's understanding, tights were in fashion amongst noble men these days, and beneath his ridiculously poofy shorts were a pair of thin, shapely calves that would have done any girl proud.
Girliness was not, of course, the only qualifier of Princes, otherwise, they would be indistinguishable from Princesses.
The next very Princey thing about him was the way he screamed. He screamed like a girl.
"I'm Coming To Get Youuuu!" Gothel wailed as she cruised lower over the treetops. This was ever so slightly theatrical, but it did have the desired effect.
The Prince, who had been dancing about on the ground, caught sight of her hideous visage descending from the skies, and shrieked like a girl. Then he started running. That seperated the Princes from the Princesseseses, Gothel thought. If a Princess saw something scary, she wouldn't scream, she would delicately put one head on her hand, release a little sigh, and delicately faint. That was Princesses for you.
The third Princey thing about him was that he was stupid. He forgot he had a horse and started running off on foor down the path, quite ruining his tights.
Gothel swooped. This was the tricky bit. Hers was a long distance broomstick, built for steady reliable flight at a high altitude, with a good capacity for luggage and in flight meals, but not stellar acrobatics. For this manuever she had to dive into the alley of trees, pluck the Prince up off the ground, and then soar before the twist in the path, which would have lead her straight into a thicket of pines.
Seconds later, her black clawed fingers tore into the Prince's shirt and yanked him off the ground. He gave a shriek and very nearly proved himself a Princess, as she used her other hand to yank the broomstick up, climbing over the treetops and back into the skies.
"U-unhand me!" he said in a quavering voice, "Do you know who I am?! I d-demand that you g-get your filthy hands o off of me at once and-"
The third thing, she reminded herself again, was that they were very stupid. She was tempted to do as he asked, and let him take the plunge into the pine trees below. But then the fun would be all over at once.
Shwing
The fourth thing that made him unmistakeably Princey, was that he had a very, very, very shiney sword.
"A-and I'm not afraid to use it!" the Prince said, wobbling the bright white weapon in the direction of Gothel's face.
The third thing that made him a Prince, which he felt very keen to remind her of over, and over, and over again, was that he was very, very stupid.
Gothel sighed.
Carefully she clutched the broom between her thighs and then, very carefully removed her other hand from it. Flying no hands was a common way to get injured when you were a young and inexperienced witch, but after severral long business flights Gothel had just about gotten the hang of it.
"Idiot," she said, reaching over and grabbing the blade of the Prince's sword with her hand, and then, to his utter astonishment, bending it into a U shape.
The Prince yelped and dropped the sword.
"Witch!" he wailed.
Gothel nodded, "Yes," she said, "I am. Very perceptive."
Not that she'd needed much witchcraft to bend a swordblade that was made of silver in the first place. Trust a prince not to know the difference between a decorative sword and the real thing.
The Prince gulped. Gothel could almost see his brain rumbling into life as he actually tried to think. Sweat poured off his forehead as the organ was called to do more work than it had in decades.
"Okay," the Prince said, "I know what this is about."
"Oh, you do, do you?" Gothel said, smiling, "Well, that will save some time..."
"Yes. And... well... I have only one request."
Gothel raised an eyebrow. "This ougth to be good."
"That you wear a bag over your head," the Prince said, grimacing as if he were pleading for his very life itself. Which he might have been.
"... pardon?"
"I... if you are going to force me to... if you are going to forcibly seduce me with your evil magic powers then I have no choice... but if you must, please-"
Gothel dropped him.
He screamed for fifty feet until she, in quite a nimble little move, managed to swoop down and catch him again.
"Okay! Okay!" he screamed, "Just a blindfold then!"
She dropped him again.
She felt a twinge of regret at this, as she felt almost sure he would die this time. But then she realised that their flight had already carried them out of the forest and towards the coast. While a few minutes earlier the Prince might have been skewered upon pine trees, this time he had another luxurious twenty feet to fall before meeting his end. Gothel dipped lazily out of the sky and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt.
"I am not trying to seduce you, you stupid man," she said, "If you were too ignorant to realise, I am making you pay for what you have done, I am- am- oh for the Goddess's sake..."
He had fainted.
Was he definitely not a Princess?
Gothel heard a splashing, and then the Prince was gone.
She blinked, came to a halt in mid air, and looked down. They had flown out over the sea now, and she was barely eight feet above it. There was a small patch of foam and bubbles behind her, where the Prince had entered the water. But... she hadn't dropped him, had she?
She hovered up slightly, in search of a better vantage point.
And then she saw it.
A dark shape under the water, just coiling its way out of view, into the deep murky blue.
Oh, so that's how it was going to be, was it?
"I'll soon see about that."
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