Saturday 15 April 2017

#AtoZChallenge: The Princess and the Maudlin Monster

He was at it again. Princess Mary groaned.

“What’s wrong now?” she asked, bending down to look under her bed.

“No—nobody loves me,” the monster wailed.

Princess Mary leaned back, rolled her eyes, and sighed. “Again?” she mumbled to herself. She slid off the bed, locked the door and drew the curtains closed. Then she knelt by her bed and peeked under it. “Okay, come on out.”

The monster was small—about the size of a teddy bear—and covered in soft brown fur. In fact, if Princess Mary were being kind, she’d say he did look rather like her teddy bear, except that he had four black eyes, three hands and one foot. Oh, and six wings that were now folded and drooping down the monster’s back.

“What happened?” she asked as she held the monster in a tight hug.

“Naga said I was ugly. Cos… cos I have fur,” the monster said in between sobs.

“What’s wrong with fur?”

“S’posed to ’ve scales. Like my brothers.”

Princess Mary rubbed the monster’s back. “But I like your fur.”

“You… you do?” The little thing blinked up at her with big puppy eyes.

“Yeah, it’s nice and soft. Good to hug.”

The monster squirmed a little. “Not s’posed to be huggable.”

“Oh.”

For a long while, the only sound in the room was the sound of the monster’s sniffling.

“I’m… I’m supposed to scare you,” the monster finally said.

“Yes.”

“But I’m such a terrible monster I can’t even do that one thing right.”

Princess Mary continued to rub his back. “Do… do you really want to scare me?”

“No… but… but it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“Oh, well. I’m supposed to call on my knight to slay the monsters, but I won’t.”

The monster blinked. “You have a knight?”

“Yeah. I don’t like him. He’s big and shiny and horrible.”

“Mmmm… do you think I can try scaring him? Though he’ll probably just laugh at me ‘cos I’m just a small little monster.”

“You want me to call him?”

The monster thought for a while and then nodded.

“Very well.” Princess Mary unlocked the door and got back into bed, shooing the monster off it.

“Ready?”

He nodded. She pulled the bell.

~

“For goodness’ sake, Morty, were you drinking again?” Berty asked as he patched up the little monster.

“Sorry.” The monster winced.

“What happened?”

“Princess likes me when I’m all sad and maudlin,” he mumbled.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re all ripped up.”

“Uh, I volunteered to scare her knight.”

Berty groaned. “You do know that you’re going to get into trouble for this, right?”

Morty nodded.

“Then?”

“Nobody loves me anyway. And the princess is nice. She gives me hugs.”

“Morty, you’re a monster! You’re supposed to scare people, not ask for hugs.”

“Didn’t ask.” He stuck out his lower lip in a defiant pout.

“I really don’t know what to do with you.”

“Can’t do anything. I’m going drinking again.”

“You can’t!”

“S’only way, Berty. Princess don’t like me otherwise. ‘N she’s all I got.”

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Head over to Yuin-Y's for today's illustration.

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Win Free Book. 'Nuff said.

3 comments:

  1. Love it!!!

    L: Las Vegas & Leesburg
    DB McNicol, author & traveler
    Theme: Oh, the places we will go!

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  2. This post is great. I love it!
    Reminds me of The Thing Beneath the Bed (The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle #1) by Patrick Rothfuss, which is a book that I really enjoyed.
    Keep on writing!

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