Bedtime - A Short Story Anthology

The Monster and the Princess

The Monster and the Princess

By NicoAkira

Once, long ago, there lived a beautiful monster.

What's that? A beautiful princess? No, that's not what this story's about. This story's about the beautiful monster. How can a monster be beautiful? Ah, well...you'll see.

Now, there is a princess in our story—the ferocious Princess of Dulador. The Kingdom of Dulador was a curious place, carved into the side of the Mountains of Kesh. I'm sure you can picture it-the tall arches, the curving pathways, the layers upon layers of doors and windows... They called it the Vertical City.1

At the foot of the mountains, however, was the Dark Forest of Ulbar, and it was filled to the brim with such twisted creatures as wouldn't hesitate to attack a poor traveler. In fact, they would often come out of the forest to attack the city itself! But every time they did, the ferocious Princess would take up her sword and rush out to meet them. It got to the point where all she had to do was appear, sword in hand, and utter her mighty battle cry—no, I won't demonstrate, it's too loud for this time of night—and the creatures would scatter and run back into the forest.

But something was wrong.

No matter how many monsters she fought, no matter how many creatures she sent back defeated, the ferocious Princess of Dulador...was scared of the dark. Which was kind of a problem, since she lived in a cave. 1

Every time the sun set, sending shadows flickering along the walls, growing until they engulfed the room—every time she would imagine little monsters and evil creatures growing with them until they surrounded her. These weren't the sort of creatures that could be frightened off with a battle cry, and a sword couldn't protect her from her own imagination. She'd swing it once or twice anyway, but always, eventually, she'd find herself backed up against the wall, surrounded by darkness and she'd give in to her fear and shrink down as small as she could get and wait for morning.

Meanwhile, the Prince of the Dark Forest of Ulbar was getting tired of his creatures being constantly defeated by some tiny princess, and so he decided it was high time to do something about it.

At dawn the next day, he appeared before the gates of the Vertical City and proclaimed:

Come out, Princess. I challenge you to a duel. 1

The Princess, who was all the way at the top of the city in her room, heard him loud and clear. She stood up, took a deep breath, and picked up her sword. Then she called down to the Prince, "Have patience, and I will give you a fight you won't soon forget."

By the time she reached the gates, she had imagined a million different ways this new monster might look, but even so his appearance still shocked her. He appeared as a mass of hundreds of writhing black tentacles, and a thousand shiny black eyes blinked down at her in disdain.

Have you ever sat and watched an octopus at the aquarium? Have you seen their graceful, undulating dance among the waves? It was something like that, but magnified a thousand times.

He was huge and all black, like a black hole that sucked in her gaze like the light, and his tentacles swayed and whispered through the air, and his eyes looked down at her and reflected the caves and the sky, and he was stunning, mesmerizing, the absolute most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

As she stood there, slack-jawed in amazement, he laughed, a deep, rumbling sound, and said:

Frightened, little Princess? I am the Prince of all monsters, I am the ruler of the Dark Forest. I command darkness and fear, and all who see me flee before my terrifying presence. Run for your life, Princess, and know the fear you have instilled in so many others.

But the Princess stayed exactly where she was. At last, she stood up tall and looked him right in his thousand eyes, and said, "I'm not frightened at all, O Prince of the Monsters. But I will not fight you because I know I'll win and I do not wish to destroy such a beautiful thing as yourself."

The beautiful monster blinked in surprise.

Beautiful?

"Yes. Good day." And she bowed and turned on her heel and went back into the city. Before she disappeared around the first corner, she looked back over her shoulder. "And don't let your creatures attack anymore." Then she was gone.

The monster stayed there a day and a half before turning and melting back into the woods.

But something had changed.

That night, when the sun set and the shadows came creeping across the Princess's floor, there were no evil creatures-only the Prince of Monsters floating protectively in the corner. She smiled, because it didn't matter if the real Prince was nothing like the one she imagined because this was her beautiful monster and her new guardian angel. 2

What, you want more? Well, I suppose there's a little left to tell...

As I'm sure you can imagine, no one had ever called the Prince of the Monsters beautiful before, and it took him a while to figure out what it meant—not the word, I mean, but the fact that it had been used to describe him. But eventually, he decided that he liked it, and the next time he visited the Vertical City he knocked politely on the gate and asked if the Princess really thought he was beautiful (the answer was yes) and if maybe she'd like to visit some time for tea (another yes). Time passed, and they became very close friends. The Princess found plenty more baddies to fight beyond the forest, so she never got bored, and whenever she came back the beautiful monster was ready to listen to her newest story with a hot kettle of tea.