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danceswithgaryTitle: The Princess, the Two Dragons, and the Four Knights or How the UDKM Saved the Day
Author: danceswithgary (danceswithgary@yahoo.com)
Pairing: Lots of Other Characters - Original Fic
Warnings: None - it was written for a seven-year-old
Spoilers: None - it's original
Word Count: 6600
Summary: An original story written to entertain my seven-year old niece. It is a slightly silly fantasy.
A story by written by Aunt Val in an effort to save the Christmas that wasn't quite a Christmas.
Copyright 2007
Introduction
Kathleen wasn't happy. This Christmas wasn't very much fun at all, not like last year or the year before. Things were different. She decided different wasn't very much fun.
She, her mom, and her dad had driven up from their home in North Carolina all the way up to New York to visit her aunt and uncle. That's what they had done every year since she could remember. They got a chance to see snow and visit the rest of the family when they all came to her aunt's house on Christmas Day. The rest of the time, she would play games with her aunt, read books, watch movies, or make things for fun.
But, this year her Aunt Val was sick. They still drove all that way to visit, but her aunt didn't make cookies to decorate or read her stories. She couldn't talk and she couldn't move around very much. Instead, she sat on a sofa with her feet up and her laptop turned on so that she could type answers to questions, read stories on the internet, and write to friends she couldn't even see. She would stay up very late at night because she couldn't sleep very well, and Kathleen would sometimes hear Aunt Val typing away in her dreams.
Kathleen felt like it wasn't at all fair. She wanted to play games. Her mom and dad played some with her and Aunt Val played a game of Scrabble with her, but it wasn't the same if Aunt Val couldn't tease her about silly words or explain the fancy words her aunt would put on the board. Aunt Val couldn't read to her, either, and they had always done that, too.
Aunt Val was sad that she couldn't do what they normally did, so on Christmas Eve, she sat down with her hot tea, and a few Christmas cookies that Kathleen had decorated with her mom, and began to type a story for Kathleen. When Kathleen bounced downstairs for breakfast, Aunt Val motioned to her and showed her the screen of her laptop, which held the beginning of the story. Smiling, she asked Kathleen, by typing of course, what Kathleen would like the story to be about.
Kathleen picked:
A princess named Princess Angeline
Four knights named Sir Eric, Sir Joshua, Sir Max, and Sir Freddy
Two dragons named Alina and McDuff
A king named King Rick
A queen named Queen Hannah
A kingdom named Midlands
An adventure where the four knights are trying to rescue the princess from the dragons
Kathleen went outside and played in the snow with Uncle Gary while Aunt Val began to type. When Kathleen came inside quite rosy-cheeked and wearing the vestiges of a snowball fight, she helped Aunt Val to edit the story and provide additional direction before she went off to shop and play more games and frost some cookies with her mom until it was time to put out the magic reindeer chow and wait for Santa to arrive.
And so Aunt Val wrote a story for her beloved niece and, it began, as all good stories should, with the words 'Once upon a time'....
***
The Princess, the Two Dragons, and the Four Knights or How the UDKM Saved the Day
***
Once upon a time, in the kingdom called Midlands, although I'm not sure why it wasn't called a queendom since Queen Hannah was just as important as King Rick, anyway to continue with our story, in Midlands there was a great deal of running around and shouting going on because Princess Angeline was missing.
The upper downstairs kitchen maid had delivered Princess Angeline her usual glass of milk and toast with strawberry jam to eat in bed, so that she could sprinkle crumbs on the sheets and keep the royal laundry busy. When the upper downstairs kitchen maid (we'll call her the UDKM from now on) had knocked on the thick wooden door of Princess Angeline's bedroom there was no answer. Carefully setting the heavy silver tray down on the chilly stone flagstones, so that she could open the door and peek inside, the UDKM had pushed the door open and had peeked inside, of course.
The UDKM had not been able to see anything because the heavy velvet curtains had not been drawn back by the lower upstairs house maid (or LUHM) yet. This was most definitely odd, because the LUHM always had the curtains drawn back, so that the sun could shine in to highlight the golden curls of Princess Angeline, every morning before the UDKM arrived with breakfast.
Always.
Tiptoeing into the dark room so that she wouldn't wake Princess Angeline by accident, the UDKM had held her breath. She knew that Princess Angeline didn't like to wake up in the scary dark since the monsters under the bed might come out and end up on top of the bed. Heading for the for the heavy velvet curtains, the UDKM had drawn them back carefully. She had hoped that the LUHM wouldn't be upset because she had done her job and she'd thought that perhaps she could offer to let the LUHM bring in the heavy silver tray and serve the milk and strawberry jam toast to make up for it.
The sun shone in as the heavy velvet curtains were drawn back, but the bright morning beams had not highlighted the golden curls of Princess Angeline. That was because Princess Angeline was not in her frilly pink four-poster bed that had been carefully positioned to catch those morning rays of sunlight.
A lump under the whisper-light comforter had wiggled and made odd, muffled sounds and the UDKM had waited by the window and dithered for a full five minutes before gathering her courage to investigate. She had scurried to the bed, thrown back the whisper-light comforter, and then had darted to the door to be ready to escape if indeed the monster under the bed had crawled on top of the bed and was waiting to pounce on an unwary servant.
There had been no pouncing.
The lack of pouncing had aggravated the UDKM because after all the trouble she had gone through up until then she was ready to pounce right back and explain to the monster under the bed who was really in charge. Instead, she'd spied a long, pink satin wiggly worm lying in the center of the bed making those muffled sounds again.
Puzzled, the UDKM had approached the bed with the utmost caution until it became clear that the pink satin worm was actually someone rolled up tightly in Princess Angeline's sheets. It hadn't taken much consideration on the UDKM's part to deduce that the mysterious someone was either Princess Angeline or the missing LUHM.
Firmly grasping the edge of the rolled sheet, the UDKM had yanked hard and the pink satin worm went rolling across the bed and onto the floor, becoming much less worm-like on the way. The thump and muffled squawk on the far side of the bed had signaled success and the curious UDKM had hurried around the bed to see who had been inside the sheet.
After looking up at her rescuer with a frown, or at least as much of a frown as could be managed around the dirty sock stuffed into her mouth, the LUHM had turned onto her belly so that the UDKM could untie her hands. The UDKM had struggled with the tightly knotted pink ribbon until she had conceded defeat and fetched the strawberry jam knife from the silver tray outside the door. Even the knife had been little help since it was meant to spread jam, not slice bread, but eventually the UDKM had been successful, and the LUHM had been free to remove the dirty sock from her mouth.
The removal of the dirty sock had been the beginning of the great deal of running around and shouting going on because Princess Angeline was missing. The LUHM had jumped to her feet and bounded from the room, screaming that dragons had abducted the princess. The UDKM had been left behind to clean up the mess brought about by the LUHM who had managed to step directly on the strawberry jam toast and spill the glass of milk sitting on the heavy silver tray on the flagstones just outside the princess' bedroom.
Jam footprints had pointed the way to the throne room until the UDKM had polished the flagstones clean. Once she'd finished that chore, she'd picked up the heavy silver tray and proceeded to take it back to the kitchen since the princess was obviously not going to need her breakfast.
Part Two
Author: danceswithgary (danceswithgary@yahoo.com)
Pairing: Lots of Other Characters - Original Fic
Warnings: None - it was written for a seven-year-old
Spoilers: None - it's original
Word Count: 6600
Summary: An original story written to entertain my seven-year old niece. It is a slightly silly fantasy.
A story by written by Aunt Val in an effort to save the Christmas that wasn't quite a Christmas.
Copyright 2007
Introduction
Kathleen wasn't happy. This Christmas wasn't very much fun at all, not like last year or the year before. Things were different. She decided different wasn't very much fun.
She, her mom, and her dad had driven up from their home in North Carolina all the way up to New York to visit her aunt and uncle. That's what they had done every year since she could remember. They got a chance to see snow and visit the rest of the family when they all came to her aunt's house on Christmas Day. The rest of the time, she would play games with her aunt, read books, watch movies, or make things for fun.
But, this year her Aunt Val was sick. They still drove all that way to visit, but her aunt didn't make cookies to decorate or read her stories. She couldn't talk and she couldn't move around very much. Instead, she sat on a sofa with her feet up and her laptop turned on so that she could type answers to questions, read stories on the internet, and write to friends she couldn't even see. She would stay up very late at night because she couldn't sleep very well, and Kathleen would sometimes hear Aunt Val typing away in her dreams.
Kathleen felt like it wasn't at all fair. She wanted to play games. Her mom and dad played some with her and Aunt Val played a game of Scrabble with her, but it wasn't the same if Aunt Val couldn't tease her about silly words or explain the fancy words her aunt would put on the board. Aunt Val couldn't read to her, either, and they had always done that, too.
Aunt Val was sad that she couldn't do what they normally did, so on Christmas Eve, she sat down with her hot tea, and a few Christmas cookies that Kathleen had decorated with her mom, and began to type a story for Kathleen. When Kathleen bounced downstairs for breakfast, Aunt Val motioned to her and showed her the screen of her laptop, which held the beginning of the story. Smiling, she asked Kathleen, by typing of course, what Kathleen would like the story to be about.
Kathleen picked:
A princess named Princess Angeline
Four knights named Sir Eric, Sir Joshua, Sir Max, and Sir Freddy
Two dragons named Alina and McDuff
A king named King Rick
A queen named Queen Hannah
A kingdom named Midlands
An adventure where the four knights are trying to rescue the princess from the dragons
Kathleen went outside and played in the snow with Uncle Gary while Aunt Val began to type. When Kathleen came inside quite rosy-cheeked and wearing the vestiges of a snowball fight, she helped Aunt Val to edit the story and provide additional direction before she went off to shop and play more games and frost some cookies with her mom until it was time to put out the magic reindeer chow and wait for Santa to arrive.
And so Aunt Val wrote a story for her beloved niece and, it began, as all good stories should, with the words 'Once upon a time'....
The Princess, the Two Dragons, and the Four Knights or How the UDKM Saved the Day
***
Once upon a time, in the kingdom called Midlands, although I'm not sure why it wasn't called a queendom since Queen Hannah was just as important as King Rick, anyway to continue with our story, in Midlands there was a great deal of running around and shouting going on because Princess Angeline was missing.
The upper downstairs kitchen maid had delivered Princess Angeline her usual glass of milk and toast with strawberry jam to eat in bed, so that she could sprinkle crumbs on the sheets and keep the royal laundry busy. When the upper downstairs kitchen maid (we'll call her the UDKM from now on) had knocked on the thick wooden door of Princess Angeline's bedroom there was no answer. Carefully setting the heavy silver tray down on the chilly stone flagstones, so that she could open the door and peek inside, the UDKM had pushed the door open and had peeked inside, of course.
The UDKM had not been able to see anything because the heavy velvet curtains had not been drawn back by the lower upstairs house maid (or LUHM) yet. This was most definitely odd, because the LUHM always had the curtains drawn back, so that the sun could shine in to highlight the golden curls of Princess Angeline, every morning before the UDKM arrived with breakfast.
Always.
Tiptoeing into the dark room so that she wouldn't wake Princess Angeline by accident, the UDKM had held her breath. She knew that Princess Angeline didn't like to wake up in the scary dark since the monsters under the bed might come out and end up on top of the bed. Heading for the for the heavy velvet curtains, the UDKM had drawn them back carefully. She had hoped that the LUHM wouldn't be upset because she had done her job and she'd thought that perhaps she could offer to let the LUHM bring in the heavy silver tray and serve the milk and strawberry jam toast to make up for it.
The sun shone in as the heavy velvet curtains were drawn back, but the bright morning beams had not highlighted the golden curls of Princess Angeline. That was because Princess Angeline was not in her frilly pink four-poster bed that had been carefully positioned to catch those morning rays of sunlight.
A lump under the whisper-light comforter had wiggled and made odd, muffled sounds and the UDKM had waited by the window and dithered for a full five minutes before gathering her courage to investigate. She had scurried to the bed, thrown back the whisper-light comforter, and then had darted to the door to be ready to escape if indeed the monster under the bed had crawled on top of the bed and was waiting to pounce on an unwary servant.
There had been no pouncing.
The lack of pouncing had aggravated the UDKM because after all the trouble she had gone through up until then she was ready to pounce right back and explain to the monster under the bed who was really in charge. Instead, she'd spied a long, pink satin wiggly worm lying in the center of the bed making those muffled sounds again.
Puzzled, the UDKM had approached the bed with the utmost caution until it became clear that the pink satin worm was actually someone rolled up tightly in Princess Angeline's sheets. It hadn't taken much consideration on the UDKM's part to deduce that the mysterious someone was either Princess Angeline or the missing LUHM.
Firmly grasping the edge of the rolled sheet, the UDKM had yanked hard and the pink satin worm went rolling across the bed and onto the floor, becoming much less worm-like on the way. The thump and muffled squawk on the far side of the bed had signaled success and the curious UDKM had hurried around the bed to see who had been inside the sheet.
After looking up at her rescuer with a frown, or at least as much of a frown as could be managed around the dirty sock stuffed into her mouth, the LUHM had turned onto her belly so that the UDKM could untie her hands. The UDKM had struggled with the tightly knotted pink ribbon until she had conceded defeat and fetched the strawberry jam knife from the silver tray outside the door. Even the knife had been little help since it was meant to spread jam, not slice bread, but eventually the UDKM had been successful, and the LUHM had been free to remove the dirty sock from her mouth.
The removal of the dirty sock had been the beginning of the great deal of running around and shouting going on because Princess Angeline was missing. The LUHM had jumped to her feet and bounded from the room, screaming that dragons had abducted the princess. The UDKM had been left behind to clean up the mess brought about by the LUHM who had managed to step directly on the strawberry jam toast and spill the glass of milk sitting on the heavy silver tray on the flagstones just outside the princess' bedroom.
Jam footprints had pointed the way to the throne room until the UDKM had polished the flagstones clean. Once she'd finished that chore, she'd picked up the heavy silver tray and proceeded to take it back to the kitchen since the princess was obviously not going to need her breakfast.
Part Two