Fairytale

‘Once upon a time, in a beautiful far off land, there lived a great and noble King and his kind and caring Queen. The King and Queen were greatly loved by all their many loyal subjects, and in turn, loved them all back. Their kingdom was a vast and prosperous land, where every day was cherished as if a gift from the heavens. Both the King and his Queen were very happy. Except there was one small thing missing in their lives. From the bottom of their hearts, they desired a child to shower with their bountiful love. But after many years, no child was every born to the King and Queen.

One day, the heavens looked down upon the kind King and Queen. The angels felt the great grief of the loving couple and decided that, just this once, they would interfere on a mortal’s behalf and grant them their deepest desire. Shortly after, the King and Queen finally had their wish, as a beautiful baby girl was born to them. She had dark brown hair, and fair pale skin, and her eyes were the shade of tinted honey.

To celebrate the birth of the young princess, the King and Queen invited all of their loyal and happy subjects to come to the palace and meet their precious princess. Everyone from near and far came to share in the happiness of the King and Queen. Even the angels who had granted this miracle decided to pay their respect, for the princess had turned out far more heavenly than even they had imaged.

As the visitors made their way to see the princess, a dark malevolent figure, slowly slithered his way toward the princess’s bassinet. His long dark hair hid his pale white complexion, so that none could recognize the sinister man for the snake they all knew him to be. As the last three remaining angels bent down before the young princess to bless her with gifts, the large crowd fell into a respectful silence. The blond angel blessed the girl with beauty, followed shortly after by the pink haired angel, who blessed the princess with intelligence. Just as the timid blue haired angel began stuttering her blessing, the cold blooded figure forced his way to the front, and proclaimed he too would bestow a gift upon the princess. He proclaimed that before the twenty first anniversary of her birth, the child would die by the prick of a poisoned needle.

The assembled crowd gasped in horror, as the sinister wizard suddenly puffed away in a dark cloud. As any would imagine, those gathered in the great hall,, immediately began to worry, in dire distress of the young princess’s foretold demise. A loud and mournful murmur echoed through the palace. Suddenly a shattering crash silence the crowd, as they all turned to see the young prince from a neighboring province, glaring sternly at the assembled. He motioned for everyone to turn toward the shy blue haired angel, who had not yet given her blessing.

The intelligent queen immediately understood the young boy’s thoughts. Elbowing her white haired husband, she urged him to silence the crowd, who had immediately returned to their previous conversations.

“Silence!” the King ordered. Immediately the great hall grew still.

“Go on.” The blond Queen encouraged the shy angel to approach the young princess.

“A-ano.” The blue haired angel began, “I bless the princess, with the gift that were she ever to fall under the wizard’s curse, she will not die, but merely sleep, until true love’s kiss should wake her from her slumber.” The angel quietly whispered, slightly looking up to meet pale eyes that remained sternly observing the events, before returning to the side of her fellow angels.

The King and Queen thanked the angels and all those gathered before them for coming to meet the princess. Shortly after, the great hall cleared, leaving the King and Queen alone with their daughter, and their thoughts. Though they felt more comfortable knowing that the princess’s curse was no longer a death sentence, but a long slumber, it did little to ease the sorrow in their hearts. Without discussion, they both understood what needed to be done. In order for their young daughter to be truly safe, especially should the timid blue angel’s blessing not be powerful enough to overcome the wizard’s curse, the couple decided they had to send their daughter away for her own protection.

Entrusting the princess into the care of the Queen’s most loyal handmaiden, the King and Queen said their farewell to their lovely daughter, hoping they might one day see her again, after her twenty first birthday.

As the dark haired handmaiden made her way through the deep forest behind the castle, a startling sound caused her to drop the baby. Fortunately the child was unharmed, as she gently rolled down a soft patch of grass into the nook at the base of a tree. The maiden looked around to see what had frightened her, and found herself facing a hideous gray winged crow, that proceeded to chase her out of the forest.

The next morning, a large man dressed in green overalls, and his young son marched through the forest to chop some wood. As they went about their daily task, the little boy heard a faint crying in the distance. Following the sound, he came upon a small pink bundle. The bright eyed young boy rushed to the pink bundle and immediately pulled it out of the tree trunk’s base. Looking down upon the most angelic face he had ever known, he quickly ran to his father to show him what he had found.

As the years passed, and the princess grew more and more beautiful, living in the only home she had ever known; with her doting, if not overly enthusiastic, father and brother. Though smaller in height and build than her brother and father, she too participated in the same rigorous chores and activities which her family held as youthfully invigorating. She would chop wood, fish bare handed, and build and repair objects the same as her brother and father. But her greatest skills were found in blacksmithing.

One day, around her twenty first year, she went out into the forest to wash her tools. As she made her way to the stream, she began humming a tune she had had stuck in her head all day. It had been rather persistent, and she hadn’t even realized it when she began quietly singing it until she noticed a fox, two dogs, a deer, a boar, and a large beetle poking their heads out from behind bushes and trees. Shortly after, the forest animals began surrounding the princess to accompany her in her musical number. (Because apparently that’s what wild animals do.)

The Princess began dancing merrily as she sang, spotting a ragged scarecrow laying on the forest floor, and picking it up to pretend as if she were dancing with a fine young prince. The forest animals followed along, enjoying the sound of the princess’s sweet voice.

Suddenly a noisy movement caused the princess to stop and turn in the direction of the sound. Before her stood a pale eyed man, dressed in fine clothes, and surrounded by an air of nobility. Unsure of what to do, the princess immediately ran; in the process, completely loosing her way through the forest. She berated herself for having acted so foolish, and most of all for having gotten herself lost in a place she had spent all her life. As she aimlessly wandered though the trees, she suddenly came close to a clearing. Having never reached the edge of the forest before, her curiosity urged her to continue. Upon crossing the last line of trees, she stood in awe at the enormous castle that lay before her.

Arriving at the base of the palace, a sudden bright light hit her eye, momentarily blinding her. She looked up into the far off tower, immediately deciding that was where the shining brightness was coming from. Her curiosity once again peaked, the princess turned to walk towards the tower, determined to discover what the light was. As she climbed to the highest point in the tower, she came upon an old spinning wheel. The clean metal needle immediately caught her eye, and she proceeded to walk up to the wheel. Extending her finger out to see if the needle was sharp, she winced as the needle's point pricked her finger, drawing a small amount of blood in the process.

For reasons unknown to the princess she suddenly became very tired. Noticing a conveniently placed bed near the window, she walked over to lie down and shut her eyes briefly.

Meanwhile, as the Princess’ twenty first birthday came and went, the King and Queen went into a panic. They had, many years earlier, discovered the location of the princess and her new surrogate family. The woodcutter and his son had agreed to deliver the princess to the palace the day after her birthday. On the day in question, they had arrived at the palace with rivers of tears running down their faces, as they ranted on and on about punishing themselves for their unyouthful carelessness. It was soon after discovered that the princess was asleep in the tower, where no one had known a spinning wheel, with a sharp needle, had been hidden away.

The evil wizard, having heard of the blue angel’s blessing, immediately sent out his pet fire-breathing dragon, which looked oddly more like a winged serpent (1), to guard against any prince ever entering the tower to wake the princess. Many attempted to get past the dragon, but none succeeded.’

‘Finally, one day the Princess had had enough, she woke up and decided “to hell with this!” and grabbed the sharp needle off of the spinning wheel, defeated the dragon herself, and ran away to become a ninja.’ Tenten loudly closed the book in front of her.

‘Tenten.’ Neji spoke up from across the small room, in his usual indifferent tone.

‘What is it Neji?’ The girl turned to face her sparring partner.

‘That is not how the story ends.’ Neji informed her.

‘Oh! That’s right.’ Tenten opened the book again to continue, ‘and the princess lived happily ever after, because she realized she didn’t need a stupid arrogant prince to come save her. The end.’ She once more closed the book and smiled triumphantly.

‘Tenten.’ Neji once more called out; this time in a warning tone.

‘Neji’ Tenten mimicked.

‘Tenten-san, that was a most youthful story, and it worked perfectly, putting all of the children to sleep.’ Lee gestured around the room, where over a dozen five year old kids lay sleepily on their mats.

‘Of course it worked,’ Tenten replied, ‘it was a pretty boring story. No fighting, no weapons, nothing! And why is it that the Princess is always the one that needs to be rescued?’ she shouted; irritation clear in her voice, as her volume quickly increased, causing some of the children to reawaken.

As she continued to vent about the sexist undertones of all fairytales, completely unaware that Lee and the, now wide awake, children, had already left the room, Neji walked up beside the fuming kunoichi.

‘So that the Prince, may do this.’ Neji replied, before taking hold of the kunoichi’s small chin and leaning down to plant his lips firmly on to her own.

“Okay.” Tenten replied dreamily after the pair broke apart, “but why can’t the Princess be the one to save the Prince instead?" she questioned, "and then she can do this…” pushing up on the balls of her feet, she pulled the Hyuga prodigy down for another kiss.

Breathlessly pulling apart for air, Tenten frowned as she looked around at the empty room. “Neji, where are the kids?” she asked, noticing for the first time that all the children had left the room after she had begun shouting.

Neji softly chuckled, “No maternal instincts whatsoever.” He stated, shaking his head incredulously, at her lack of sense, for waking the children she had just helped put to sleep. (2)

“Hey!” Tenten playfully slapped his chest, “At least no one ended up in the hospital this time." She offered. "That’s progress, right?” The kunoichi looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

In response, Neji smirked, “Don’t worry, Hyuga’s have nanny’s.” he informed her, before leaning down once more to give her another kiss.

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THE END
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(1) Nope, not Quetzalcoatl the Aztec sun god… think snake, and fowl (fowl, as in chicken… as in chicken butt hair… as in… well if you haven’t gotten it yet, you don’t deserve to know!...lol… okay, scroll down to the “cast list” to find out!)

(2)… lol… brownie points if you remember where that came from… XP … I think I might start including hidden nuggets in my stories… see if people spot them out.

Author’s note: Ok, first off… I don’t DO AUs…which is why I did it this way…

Anyway, so clearly it’s a Sleeping Beauty story… sort of… lol… I actually was planning on writing a Cinderella type story, but frankly Cindy always seemed slightly pathetic to me… I mean, come on, if people treat you like their slave, you leave and start your own life somewhere else… not wait until your prince comes… at least Sleeping Beauty wasn’t a doormat, she was just too curious for her own good… XP

Oh, and I changed the fairies in the story to angels to go with the whole “heaven” theme… I’m sure I don’t have to explain that one… right?...

“CAST LIST”

Princess… Tenten
Prince… Neji (duh!)
Angels… Sakura, Ino, Hinata
Surrogate family… Gai and Lee (I’m aware it’s supposed to be the fairies… I mean, Angels… but I wanted to include them… lol)
King… Jiraiya (TT) ‘sniff’
Queen…Tsunade
Evil Witch (I mean wizard…lol)…. Orochimaru (what, the “slither”, “snake” “cold blooded” didn’t give it away?)
Handmaiden… Shizune
Gray winged crow… Kabuto
Forest Animals… Fox-Naruto; Deer-Shikamaru; Boar-Choji; Beetle-Shino; Dogs-Kiba and Akamaru.
Scarecrow… Kakashi (did anyone expect me to not include him?...lol)
Fire breathing Dragon… Sasuke (sorry Sasuke Lovers, I’m still on the fence about him… he is a traitor after all… albeit a good looking one, but a traitor nonetheless… thus he’s a dragon!... plus, Uchiha’s and the whole fire breath thing XD) ‘nuff said.