Yuri Manga: marriage black (and a Contest!)

November 6th, 2011

Once upon a time, there were two girls. They were princesses of a sort, each coming from a large, powerful crime syndicate. The two girls, despite everything, grew up and fell in love.When the one girl was engaged to the other’s brother to unite to two families, she instead killed him, setting her and the princess she loved at war with one another.

Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, meet marriage black, by Hashiba Hayase.

The story opens as Lilicia kills her betrothed and sets her and her beloved Lu-Chie at odds. Despite this, Lilicia visits Lu-Chie at night, pleading her love and on occasion, her lust.

The story is mostly Lu-Chie’s as we learn of the disdain with which she is treated by the head of her family, the loyalty her bodyguard feels for her and the hopelessness of her position as the daughter of the house that has been dishonored. Now, because of what happened, she kind of has to kill Lilicia for revenge.

That doesn’t happen.

Among the many large problems in this story is the lack of common sense between the two family heads. Neither one seemed to grasp the obvious, that if they just left the two girls to be together, they’d achieve the union of the two families that way….but no, they’d rather waste resources killing them both.

The end is, for what it’s worth, happier than Romeo and Juliet’s or Maria and Tony’s. Lilicia and Lu-Chie run away together, sleep together in a church – so that means they’re married, right? – and we’re left with an epilogue by Leon, Maria’s, erm, Lilicia’s ambiguously gendered sibling, to assure us that right now, they are out there somewhere, alive and happy.

Well, sure. Why not.

Ratings:

Art – 4 Those are the largest breasts I have ever seen outside a specifically large breast fetish story ever.
Story – 5 And they lived *happily* ever after.
Characters – 5 I sympathized most with the mooks who died for no reason
Yuri – 9
Service – 8 see above

Overall – I’ll be generous and say 5

And now… a Contest!

I have a pile of books here in the house I don’t really want to keep and don’t really want to sell. I’d like to find good homes for them. This is very much a “Get this Book out of my house!” contest so you *must* be 18 or over to enter. I’m going to reach into the pile randomly and send out books randomly, so you (and I) have no idea what you might get.

Here’s the contest. Write the first paragraph of a Yuri fairytale. “Once Upon A Time there was… What? Who? Why? Where? You tell us.

Note: Summaries of things that other people have written are not valid. I’m looking for your creativity. 


Those of you sent in things that said, “this is a manga” or “this is already written”…that’s not creative even a little. I want YOU to create an opening of a fairytale. I’m going to remove those entries and you can feel free to enter again with something original.

Funny, beautiful, smart, all have the same chance at winning. Basically…entertain me and get a book.

Leave your entry as a comment here. If you comment as Anonymous, can you give me a nickname or something so when I mention who won, you know it’s you Anon and not someone else Anon? Thanks.

Winners will be announced when I get around to it.

I’ve seen how clever and creative you all before so pull out the stops! Let’s hear the Great Yuri Fairytale opening!

29 Responses

  1. Mara says:

    Once Upon A Time

    There was a detective who drank her grasshoppers with lime

    A colleague showed her a scene

    From the anime Mnemosyne

    And now she drinks G&T all the time.

    True story. ^^;

  2. walkyrje says:

    This is a story the old people told me when I was a little girl. Far, far away, in the Old Country, there lived a girl… much like you… with dark hair, and blue eyes, and all the warmth of the sun in her smile. Her parents called her Siobhan, because they felt that god had been gracious in sending the girl to them. And as she grew to womanhood, she grew into her name, and all who saw her loved her.

    Now, as it happened, in that same country, there were a tribe of the travelling people, the tinkers, you see, and that tribe also had a daughter they were proud of, and they named her Rose. Now, because some of the things which follow, my heart, are sad things, I have to tell you right now that this is a love story; but sometimes, a love story is a sad story.

  3. EndlessD says:

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

  4. Ali says:

    Once upon a time, in a land poor and harsh there lived a kind witch. It’s true. You see, I met her, a long time ago. She had fine pale skin and even paler hair that she usually tied back in a ponytail. Like every witch she wore black but on a certain day of every year she made an exception and wore a white dress, her hair long and loose. Before I met her, I heard a tale of a white princess who would appear in destitute villages during sunset and disappear at midnight, never to be seen in that village again. In her wake, a warm wave of happiness followed, prosperity abundant.

  5. Shio says:

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

  6. Mirah says:

    The woman across from me in the bus was beautiful. A curved scar reached from her eye to the edge of her full lips. I felt my skin get hot as I realized I wanted to trace it. Someone coughed, waking me from my daydream. She must have felt my eyes on her because she looked up from the book she read and she smiled shyly.

  7. Val says:

    Once upon a time, there was a princess who was as beautiful as the day on Mercury is long. (That’s around 1,392 hours for the non-astronomically inclined out there.) A conventionally pretty princess, that’s what she was. Long flowing tresses, porcelain skin, stunning features, looked gorgeous in all her dresses, you know the drill. Anyway, she met a prince one day at some typically boring function held to promote peace between their neighbouring countries. They courted, they fell in love and eventually they got married. They argue occasionally, but for all intents and purposes are living happily after. The end…

    Oh, did I forget to mention that the prince had long flowing tresses, stunning features and looked gorgeous in all her dresses as well? Whoops, guess I should have remembered that little detail. Okay, rewind. The princess met a princess at some typically boring function… What’s that? You want to know more about this prince/princess? Well then, read on.

  8. Felix says:

    This is something I actually have had banging around in my head for a long time. Not really a “fairytale” per say.

    There was once was a girl who lived in a dusty farming town at the bend of a great western river. Back when people still lived there, before the land was reclaimed by the sagebrush and the wells were poisoned with tritium. Anyway this girl everyone called Ray due to her being in her youth such a tomboy. The fact was Ray had inherited a degree of magical power from her mom’s side out of Yokohama. It was said that her great-great grandma was a kitsune, if that is true no-one really knows. All Ray knows is that she was really good at convincing people she wasn’t a she.

    Ray always had one goal, flying, ever since she first saw an army mail plane at the local airfield. Also for as long as she could remember there was a dream, of a beautiful young Japanese woman in a red hakama. While not frequent, her dreams were extremely vivid. Ray didn’t know who she is, but she knew she would one fly and find her.

    On her 18th birthday came the news that her nation was at war. Early one morning the young woman everyone called Ray left town, only her family knowing were she went. In a major western city she managed to bluff her way in the Navy and eventually flying school. A young naval lieutenant by the name of Ray disappeared the enemy’s homeland in the last year of the war, and is listed as KIA. History records that as the end of the story of Lt. Ray from a small farming town that no longer exists. But the story of Ray, the woman in her dreams, how they came to love each other dearly, and their long, unexpected life together, was just starting…

    I have sort of an idea were their “long, unexpected life together” takes them. In the end they are running a traditional ryokan on a distant planet with their children. The woman in Ray’s dream, Mio, is also the head priestess of the nearby shrine dedicated to the local Fire goddess. Ray is also a flight instructor for the space navy. Several of her students are the reincarnations of a number of female pilots she met in an alternative reality (I story I also I have been working on in my head.)

  9. Once upon a time there was a kitten, and it was cutest kitten that ever lived, from the tip of its quivery pink nose to the end of its blunt little kitteny tail. For the last five days, at seven PM on the dot, just after Magdelena would fall exhausted through the front door, the kitten had appeared at the kitchen window, looking. Just looking. But there was so much heartbreak just in its look, that Magdelena forced herself out of her comfy chair, and gave it milk to lap, and let it snuffle and settle on her shoulder under her dark brown hair. But it did not stay long: ten minutes and it was mewing at the door, and off through the grass, til just the tail could be seen waving above the green, and then nothing at all. On the sixth day, which was her day of rest, Magdelena became curious. Slipping on her red leather clogs, slim and light on her feet even though her fourtieth birthday was a past memory, she trailed the creature through the grass, along the lane, across the plank bridge, up a bank of mixed cow parsley and (ouch) nettles, through a hedge, and there she was suddenly almost nose to nose with a woman who was about to slap – to slap! – the magical, cute kitten, the tiny kitten with its melting eyes and moist pink nose.
    Without saying a word Magdalena snatched up the kitten, which scrabbled onto her shoulder under her hair and Magdalena stood to face – well – stood to face the most beautiful, and most oddly dressed, woman she had seen in her life, ever. Who was very, very angry.

  10. Anonymous says:

    Any way we can draw this out instead?

  11. Atarun says:

    Once upon a time, there was a terrible imbalance between the realm of the living and that of the dead. Once it reached critical mass, the souls would stay trapped on that side of the veil and the dead would no longer remain so. Having died once and trapped in a decaying body, the souls themselves decayed, producing a dark fluid that would corrupt everything it came in contact with.
    Gormlaith, the queen of the Outer World, realm of the outcasts, knew better than to listen to councilors who told her to let the living realm go to waste: the dark un-death would sooner or later reach her lands and it would be too late, then, to try anything. She sent twelve of her best rangers on a quest for the unknown: anything that could possibly help against the scourge.
    Among those was Ailbhe, daughter of a shapeshifter and a fairy, who could be equally charming and fearsome. On her journey through a world alien to her, she heard rumors of Charna, sole survivor of an entire valley utterly destroyed by the epidemic.
    It took Ailbhe two years to track Charna down and find out the truth about her survival: Charna was immune to the corruption of the dark fluid. Whenever she came in contact with it, she would find her strength, stamina and bloodlust greatly increased, like the undead themselves, but instead of yielding to the poison in her veins, her body would expel it eventually. Though the whole process inflicted unspeakable pain upon her, Charna joined Ailbhe on her quest without hesitation. She welcomed the opportunity of becoming feared and celebrated for her actions rather than for what she was.
    Little did she know that she would follow Ailbhe beyond time and that in a strange place, stranger even than the Outer World, she would sacrifice everything to prevent Ailbhe from becoming a soulless monster and, in doing so, would fulfill a dreadful prophecy.

  12. Felix says:

    Not a contest entry but on the theme of Yuri fairytales.

    Once in a collection of translated Chinese folklore from my library the very last story was about a girl who’s brother who was abducted by a group of shape shifters, three sisters in fact. Anyway she spent years traveling around China to become a great warrior to find her bother. Of course she dressed as a man and soon the story of a powerful and hansom young “swordsman” reached the same three sisters that took her brother. They appeared before her vying for her attention. The girl recognized the three as the ones who took her brother so she played along but over time she came to realize that the youngest sister actually truly did love her. Long story short she defeated the two older sisters, who turned to birds and fled and recused her brother.

    The actual ending in the version I read was kind of annoying because I think the author got to the end and thought “Shit can’t have two women get married. I know I’ll have the heroine suggest the youngest sister marry her twin brother because they are so alike. Then all three can live happily ever after together.” But actually you could literally remove or rewrite the last paragraph and it would have been a rather good Yuri story.

    I don’t remember offhand the title of the collection, or even the name of the story itself, just that it was divided up via ethic group and region of China, and was probably from at least the 1980’s, maybe older.

  13. Heh, I’ll try to have some fun with this.

    Once upon a time, there was a spoiled princess. Her parents took in another princess out of pity, as she had lost her parents. The first princess was encouraged to treat the second as a lowly commoner, as without any ability to enforce any royal power she may still have, she was as good as a commoner, except she didn’t know how to actually do any work, being raised in an environment where everything was done for her. Eventually, she got so depressed at being useless at every task she was assigned, she killed herself. The first princess felt so bad about her death, and feeling responsible for it, she then killed herself. Then her parents die out of sadness/broken hearts/whatever.

    I hope it doesn’t show that I rushed the story at the end, like far too many authors do (I even gave up, like far too many do!)
    Give me a day, and I may actually think of something good.

  14. Anonymous says:

    “Neither one seemed to grasp the obvious, that if they just left the two girls to be together, they’d achieve the union of the two families that way…”

    IRL, people trying to “unite” families that way seem to treat the two families as the organisms – with the two family heads as the brains of the two organisms and the bride and groom in the marriage they arrange as a ovary of one of the organisms and a testicle of the other organism (in order to produce offspring without caring about the suffering they cause, as if everyone else in the family besides its patriarch is just a lump of family instead of an individual human being >:( ). No wonder they don’t accept two individual women from the two families as uniting the families. :(

  15. Kai says:

    Once upon a time, there were a female knight who never seemed to shine in her armor. She was a plain, dorky person, yet noble to her cause. She served under a princess, whom currently has her hands busy trying to re-establish the kingdom from poverty and famine. Although this knight was weak, the princess always believed in her, that someday, she will find strength and shine brighter than anyone else.

    The princess’s words was something that the knight could only dream of. She was what other people would often regard as weak and pathetic. She was not confident enough to speak against those who spoke badly of her either. But she knew that she must stand strong to serve the princess well. The constant encouragement given by the princess gradually empowered her to take action. She served the princess with utmost loyalty, only believing in the princess and acting for her sake. Though she was a bit sloppy at her work, she tried her best at everything that she was assigned to. Her actions spoke louder than her words. And the people around her soon acknowledged her strength. She had grown strong.

    On the other hand, the princess knew that her knight always had to the potential to be strong. After all, she was always watching over her, from her clumsiest mistake of mistaking an ally for a foe to her improved precision of her sword strike against an ogre. Never for a minute did the princess doubt the knight’s strength. The feelings had only grown during the years, until one day, during the annual “Fruits of Labor Festival” held in town, the princess announced her intention of marrying the female knight. This took the knight and everyone else by surprise. The knight had never seen the princess in a romantic way, and could not respond to such a proposal. It was always the knight’s intentions to serve the princess, but never had she imagined that it could be implied in more ways than one. But how did she really feel about the princess? Did she only serve the princess because it was her duty…? Or did she have other things in mind?

    ——–

    Since it was just an opening, I kept some things open-ended and threw in some questions to continue the story. I wanted the story to kind of start in the middle of a mess and for the main character to explore her “self” and her feelings toward the princess. Hope it wasn’t too cliche…

  16. Ayana Mudou says:

    Once upon a time,
    in a city with no light,
    wandered a girl in the night,
    with her eyes closed tight,
    waiting for her knight,
    to return from her flight,
    to make things right,
    and return to her, her sight.

    Oh! The things she could write,
    always felt like a passionate bite,
    it could take her to such height,
    no matter the site.

    No more fight,
    no more fright,
    only might,
    for now, she was to her right.

    SGA

  17. IGC says:

    Once upon a Día de los Muertos, la Catrina waited for the offerings to come, so she could take them as refreshments to the XMDLXIV Annual Psychopomp Meeting, much to the deceased ones’ chagrin.

    The guides of souls from all over the world gathered to share experiences crossing the mortals to the other side. As usual, Charon and Freyja were showing off their assets, Charon with his bank accounts rotting in oboloi and Freyja showing off the Brísingamen and her chariot. Most of the attention was directed to them.

    However, there was one woman who never seemed to pay much care to such trivial displays, and was always by herself, Meng Po. A curious Enma Ai approached the old lady and vehemently asked why she never mingled.

    The reluctant lady sighed and reminisced: “It happened exactly on this day, a few thousands years ago, I broke the rule that cannot be broken, I fell in love with a mortal, she had fair skin and luscious black straight hair, her silver eyes pierced into my soul… that is, if I had one… her red qípao left me in awe. She was ready to be reincarnated, I only had to give her the Five Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness, but I could not. I brewed another kind of tea, one that should not have been brewed…ever, I made her my slave, my prey, she fulfilled my every wish, until I could not take it anymore, she was only a doll, so I set her free. She has drank my Five Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness and reincarnated hundreds of times, and it hurts me every time I see her, I am always tempted to repeat my crime, but I never do. I can only watch her from afar, living her happy lives with her female lovers, I can not help but wonder, if that is my punishment for doing such a vile thing, to always see her with another woman but me…”

    “Shoo, girl, I have my own reasons”- said Meng Po, Ai just shrugged her shoulders and approached to Ixtab to ask her about her ropes. Ixtab just rolled her eyes…

  18. Momochan says:

    Once upon a time, there was a planet very different from our own. For where Earth has all kinds of lakes, rivers, and seas, this planet had only one great freshwater lake in the north and another in the south. Otherwise, the planet was one gigantic continent covered in all manner of kingdoms, and one of these kingdoms was ruled by an evil witch. Her greatest weapon was a powerful lady knight. However, one day, on a whim, this knight defied her ruler by refusing to fight in a beautiful field of lilies. “How,” she asked, “can I defile with carnage such lovely flowers?” And so, the witch cursed her to spend the rest of her life wandering westwards around the world. Meanwhile, in another kingdom ruled by a wicked wizard, a prescient priestess refused to tell the fortune of the evil mage-king. “How,” she asked, “can I defile with your tyranny my lovely powers?” He cursed her to always wander eastwards around the world.

    -Momo-chan

  19. Anonymous says:

    A girl named Fran was sitting on the sidewalk when a slim, cream-coloured cat strolled up to her. Fran ushered the cat onto her lap and began petting it, while the cat purred and licked her hand with its sand-papery tongue. Then a boy came walking up, and a burst of recognition issued from him- “Sal!” Fran asked him if he knew the cat.
    ‘Well, you see…” he replied, shaking his head and blushing, “She’s actually a very troublesome friend of mine!” Then he threw his coat over the cat, uttered a strange-sounding oath, and with a tinkering of bells the cat turned into a girl! The girl/cat named Sal is under a curse placed upon her by her jealous ex-girlfriend that whenever Sal sees a girl she thinks is cute she will turn into a cat- and Fran just happened to be one such girl!

    – My nickname is Spicy Salmon and my email is emma.biron@utoronto.ca

  20. Jackie says:

    Hmmmm, hard to do just a first paragraph and have it be interesting, but here goes…

    One upon a time there were two neighboring kingdoms at war with each other. The rulers wished for nothing more than for the fighting to end, but their counselors and courtiers made peaceful resolution seem impossible. Then one day, an old crone appeared before both royal couples and foretold that the unborn children currently growing in the wombs of both queens would unite the two kingdoms in peace. The rulers rejoiced, and secretly contacted each other to betroth their children, in hope that the marriage would finally end the bloodshed between their countries. But nine months later, both queens gave birth to daughters, and the rulers annulled the betrothal in despair. War continued to ravage both lands…

  21. Anonymous says:

    Once upon a time two girls were born on the same day. They shared many things such as ten toes and fingers, two ears, no hair, one nose and one mouth that was opened with crying. The girls were not the only ones who were sharing. Their fathers stared down on them with a mixture of emotions. Grief was the first as both mothers had died while giving the girls life. Joy was another as the two fathers were glad that their daughters had survived. Disappointment was the last because both fathers had wanted sons but for different reasons. One wanted a son to inherit his large estate since daughters could not do so. The other wanted son to till the fields since daughters were not strong enough to do so. Thus, begins the tale of Julia and Mary as journey through life to meet one another and share dreams and fears, laughter and tears and a kiss that will change them both and will turn the world upside down.
    Dan P

  22. Once upon a time, two women awoke in a forest with no recollection of their lives. They found a village to live in, yet learned quickly that they had the curse of the Gods. It was a curse that would give its user great power, but at the cost of causing great misfortune to those around them. The two women had the curse, but found they had no special power. The two left town when those around them began to fall ill or came to strange accidents, and they decided to find the god that had cursed them without giving them power.

    The two traveled far, until they came to a witch deep in the woods. She spoke of a crystal palace where the power to destroy the gods dwelled. The witch promised to show them the path if they would agree to give something of themselves to her.

    Wisened by their travels, the two women left to contemplate the decision. Their walk lead them to a boy standing on the side of the path, the pelt of a wolf drapped across his shoulders. “You’ve come again?” he said, but neither woman could remember him. The boy howled with laughter, and bestowed upon them a piece of their tale:

    They had visited the witch before to find the crystal palace to destroy the gods, for it was the gods who were draining the earth of its life and causing lands to wilt. And it was the witch who had taken their memories as the price.

    The two women took strength from one another and approached the witch, demanding their payment for the price earlier paid. The angered witch grudgingly revealed the path, but cackled as she warned of another price: to enter the palace would mean death.

    Neither wanted the other to have to live alone with a life of misfortune, and so together they decided to brave the path. They came upon the crystalline palace, but stopped at the gate in front. The boy stood in front of the gate, but then shed the wolf’s pelt and transformed into the mother goddess and told them their tale:

    The two women had fallen in love with one another, but it was in a time of war and they were on opposing sides. They decided to choose love over hate, and abandoned their homes and ran away. Yet their treachery was not to be forgiven, and so they were hunted down. On the brink of death, the mother goddess came upon them and was so impressed by their love for one another that she gave them the blessing of power. They would live forever.

    The tale told, the goddess opened the gate, herself unable to pass as it was a ground not meant for the gods. She recognized the earth was dying due to her and her children’s use of magic, and so bade the two women to use the power of the crystal palace, for their immortality would allow them to pass the gates.

    The two women, having found love amidst misfortune, did not want the world to die, but they were greatful for the goddess’s generosity. They entered the gates and in the center of the castle they found the crystal orb that bound the gods to their earthly forms. They took it to the gate where the goddess watched, and buried the crystal in the dirt.

    They would not destroy it, but would return the gods to the earth. The mother goddess thanked them, and her powers drained away and left only a human babe. The two women took the babe and stayed in the castle to forever guard the secret of the orb as the rest of the world began to heal.

  23. Gayle B says:

    Pfft, I reread the post and realized it said first paragraph. I had started and couldn’t stop at just one ;-; My apologies for the lengthy post there..

  24. asonta says:

    Once upon a time, there lived a princess in the forest of Gamma. She was just an ordinary girl who only wanted to grow up and be free. But her family had other plans, they wanted her to marry the prince of a far away kingdom. So the princess was kept on guard on all hours, leaving her no chance to escape. But the princess often dreamt of a mysterious woman arriving at her room, proclaiming the princess will no longer be a prisoner of her family. The unknown woman would wisk the princess away to far off lands and together, they would have many strange and delightful adventures.

    Many days passed for the princess in this manner, dreaming of this mysterious stranger. Until one night, the door to her room swung wide open to reveal the woman of her dreams.

    “Well then” proclaimed the stranger, “shall we be off, princess?”

  25. Axel Miron says:

    Alice Yoshizuki, a skinny girl with almost knee-length blonde hair, sat at the back of classroom. She was taking a test about what she had learned during the high school year. There was only one week before summer! She hoped she could get to know her beautiful classmate Jaclyn Ichisuu. Jaclyn was a curvy and slightly busty, her hair was a burnt autumn leaf brown. Jaclyn was well out of her reach… When she came home, it was dead quiet and her parents and her little brother Irori, were not there…

    In short the earth blows up and Alice and Jaclyn live on a floating magic castle together (post-apocalyptic). I’ve been working on my short stories projects.

  26. socchan says:

    Once upon a time, in a distant realm where wishing on a star for something actually has a reasonable success rate, there was a lonely young woman named Paige. She was uninterested in men romantically, and though she had courted some of the women in town, none of them was truly a good match for her. After her fifteenth attempt at romancing one of the local women, she was overcome by frustration and cried out to the heavens: “Polaris! Sirius! Betelgeuse! Have pity on me, and send me a woman I can truly love and be loved by in return!” And the stars were kind enough to grant her wish, compelling a fine woman to travel to the town where Paige lived. Unfortunately, the woman involved was visiting on business and had not anticipated falling in love, while Paige had not even remotely expected the woman with whom she was to form a romance for the ages to be the ruler of the kingdom; the stars of that kingdom may be kind, but even they do not make things that easy…

    (What hypothetically follows:
    1. Paige takes her time figuring out that, yes, the queen is who the stars sent as a romantic match for her;
    2. Paige goes about attempting to get to know the queen as the woman she is rather than the public image she presents, which is made further difficult by the contingent of guards with her, among other things;
    3. They figure things out, though whether it’s as simple as that or they have to face other trials before starting a new life together I’ve not decided.)

  27. Ciega says:

    I hate fairy tales.

    I hate them so much that when I see a rainbow, I immediately get sick to my stomach. I want to squash four-leafed clovers as I walk through a glade. And if I hear one more person say they have found a way to change their luck, I swear I will slash their throats. So you see, I hate fairy tales.

    Now you may wonder why someone who has lots of money, lives in a very very large home, and honestly has way too many people waiting on them hand and foot would complain? Because it’s not the life I would have asked for.

    When I was a little girl, my parents would read me stories of wayward princesses that would be left all alone until some valiant knight came to their rescue. When the story ended, mother or father would say that a if I were a good little princess, a strong and valiant knight would come to rescue me too someday. That would have been nice if I were a wimpy little girl like the princesses in the stories, but I always saw myself as a knight. I wanted to be the tall and handsome prince that rides in to slay the dragon or kill the witch. When my story ended, I would get to be with the princess and we would ride off into the sunset happily ever after. Unfortunately that story has not come true. So you see, I hate fairy tales.

    I currently live in my family home. Once I turned of age, my parents decided to see more of the country. They say that they want to enjoy life while they were still young, but what they really want is for me meet as many suitors as possible under the watchful eyes of the staff. That way, once some prince-like guy is able to lord over me and this house, they can marry me off as soon as possible. But you see, I will not let that happen.

  28. Blanquita O. says:

    I was in drastic need of a new attendant; Beatrice, my current one, had stumbled into a pregnancy with a stableboy. She, however, thought she could complete her daily duties just fine. In an effort to prove her wrong, I darted out my window one afternoon while she had waddled away to retrieve my embroidery supplies. I had sprinted into the woods long before anyone would hear her frantic cries of my disappearance and possible kidnap. Reveling in my freedom, I shed my clothes as the heavy fabric caught in the underbrush. But as quickly as I delighted in my nudity, I realized that I was utterly lost. When I had “adventured” in the woods before, it had been with local villagers and it had always been within shouting distance of the fieldhands. I squatted and clutched my knees in panic.

    But the woods weren’t as quiet as I had thought they had been; I heard faint humming. I followed the sound until I came upon a creek. There on its bank, lying on his side with his head propped up by his arm was a man. His radiant skin caught the sunlight and he was wearing only a shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Was he the handsome prince that always managed to whisk young maidens away to live happily after? Well, surely princes didn’t run around half-naked, though I couldn’t say I was displeased with the development. Maybe the stories Beatrice read me would have kept my attention longer had there been more flesh. As I inched closer, I took in the contours of his hips and thighs that peeked out from the hem of his shirt. As I followed his shape down his legs, I realized that it was actually Margot.

    She had once been the village beauty. Her exotic smooth black hair and dark eyes had been gifts from her father, a traveling merchant whom her mother had fallen in love with. Though, he had only come to the village the one time. Providing for her and her mother, Margot had worked in the village dress shop until her mother had fallen in. Instead of taking a husband from the men that offered, Margot chose to sell her long hair to pay for her family’s current living expenses. Her short hair and enchanting eyes left her looking more handsome than any of the village boys.

    I soon noticed that the reason her skin and raven hair caught the sun was because it was wet. Had she been swimming? If so, why wasn’t her shirt wet? I should have been more concerned with the fact that a villager was about to see me naked covered in dirt with hair snarled by the trees, but I could only think about the fact that I needed to get closer, I needed to see more of her, I needed to touch her, and I needed to know she was real.

  29. Thanks everyone! I complete forgot to close this one up.

    I’ve picked three winners:

    Ali

    Val

    Ayana Mudou

    oh, heck, let’s do four winners:

    IGC

    Everyone – please email me at anilesbocon at hotmail dot com with your addresses and I’ll send you something fun.

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