The Princess Must Die!

Once upon a time…many, many years ago in a world long since forgotten, there was a country called Anywhere. And in the land of Anywhere there was a fine and prosperous city called Anyplace and in this fine city there was a very, very wealthy man, a member of the Aristocracy and the Greedy One Percent.
     As is the way with Aristocrats he was a deeply unpleasant man: he came from a long line of Stupid but Brutal and Cunning Sociopathic predecessors who had robbed, lied, cheated and murdered their way to great riches. Why, then would you expect him to anything else but a Pig Of A Man? After all, stupidity, brutality and a lack of compassion and even Basic Social Skills are common to all Aristocrats; a result of the Gross Inbreeding of their Limited Blood Lines and a Political And Legal System and Macro-Economic Environment that allows them to easily hold on to their stolen money and possessions despite their extra-ordinary ineptitude.
     Anyway, this man, let’s call him from this point on The Aristocrat, had a younger sister who was as different from him as Chalk was from Cheese. You see, the sister’s birth had been witnessed by a Faerie who had just happened to be passing through that particular time and space, doing her usual work of checking up on the Doings Of Humanity.
     Whilst entranced by the Eternal Beauty And Miracle of a life continuing its cycle, the Faerie had been more than a bit disgusted by the stench of Corruption and Ignorance emanating from the Souls of the child’s Extremely Ugly Parents. Looking into the Soul of the newly-born child she was saddened to see that the girl would grow to be like the parents: she would become an Ugly woman, bereft of Intelligence, Grace and Care.

     Feeling desperately sorry for the child, she cast a Faerie spell that would ensure the child would grow up with all the qualities so missing from her parents, and crossed her wings that her spell would not turn out to be too double-edged.

     And so it was that the Faerie spell came to pass and the Child grew up into Beautiful and Intelligent young woman, so unlike other female Aristocrats with their podgy, shapeless bodies, buck teeth, crossed-eyes and inability to String A Simple Sentence Together. Even more strangely (for a member of the Aristocracy), she was a kind and compassionate woman and could even hold a conversation with the Ordinary Folk and relate to their lives and problems! Indeed, she spent much of her time with the Common People and became deeply involved with Charities And Organisations that were involved in their welfare.
     Not surprisingly such a bright, attractive, intelligent and caring lady, a real and solitary jewel floating in the cesspool of Aristocracy, garnered much attention, soon becoming very popular with the Ordinary Folk and a darling of The Means Of Communication. Inevitably, this wildly popular and unusually attractive Aristocratic young lady came to the attention of the Royal Family of the land of Anywhere. They decided that such a beautiful woman, so popular with the Ordinary folk and The Means Of Communication, would make an ideal wife for their oldest son, The Prince, who being dense and strange even by Royal standards, needed a good marriage to improve his popularity amongst the Ordinary Folk.
     And so, quicker than a Troll can run, the marriage was arranged. Truth be told, our sweet young lady, who we shall now have to call The Princess, did not want to marry The Prince; she considered him an unpleasant and ignorant man with very strange ideas and poor personal hygiene. But, being a Good Girl with a strong Sense Of Duty, she did as her family bade and married the strange and dysfunctional Prince.
     Alas, the marriage was not to be a happy one. If the Prince and Princess had been buildings he would have been a claustrophobic, grey Mausoleum housing the dead whilst she would have been a Dance Hall full of light and music. Both partners soon grew apart, for they had absolutely nothing in common. The Prince took an older, less attractive and far more stupid lover, with whom he felt more comfortable, whilst The Princess threw herself even more into her Charitable Works and even began to campaign for better treatment of, and land rights for, the Troll Community! She also took a lover and many years later it would be revealed that of the two children the marriage produced one was, in fact, not fathered by The Prince but by a dashing Army Officer: to give you a clue as to which child that was I shall only say it was not the ugly and stupid one but rather the better looking and more interesting one.
     It soon came to the attention of The Means Of Communication and the Ordinary Folk how unhappy the Prince and Princess were together and this, together with the fact that the Princess had become more and more popular and was totally eclipsing her miserable husband in the eyes of all, became a source of great embarrassment to the Royal Family. Not to mention her campaigning for land rights for Trolls…that being in direct challenge to the interests of the Banker Class who covet Troll land for Lucrative Re-development Purposes. Unacceptable!
     It was decided that Princess had become a problem about which Something Had To Be Done. Putting their almost empty heads together to Collectively Utilise their limited intellect the Royal Family and their Greedy One Percent advisors hit upon a solution. One which had always worked for their type in the past.

     The Princess had to be killed.

     And so it was that Orders Were Issued to Shadowy Government Departments and, in an operation overseen by the Evil Politician, Mass Murderer and War Criminal, Bonty Liar, the Princess was Tragically Killed in a Sad And Freak Accident.
     Following the Princess’s death there was a howling of outraged pain from the Ordinary Folk and criticism by them of The Royal Family for the Ordinary Folk felt that The Royals, who were simply acting in their usual dead-eyed, soulless way to the pain of others, were not showing much sadness at the passing of such a Beloved lady (in fact The Royals were cock-a-hoop that this troublesome Princess was dead but the Common People were, of course, not aware of that).
     Indeed, dis-satisfaction with The Royals reached such a clamour that a call went out from The Powers That Be to the tame Means Of Communication and the Owned Political Class to Co-Opt The Pain of the Ordinary Folk.
     Various Royal Idiots were wheeled out (sometimes literally) to express their sadness at the death of the Princess, even The Prince was made to stand up and read a speech (written for him and transcribed in phonetics so that he would be able to read it) about his love for the Princess and how much he missed her. The Means Of Communication communicated on a twenty-four hour a day basis, day in day out how Dreadfully Missed was The Princess, how loved she had been by all, particularly by her husband and The Royal Family.
     This Process Of Propaganda worked (as propaganda is wont to do) and soon The Reputation Of The Royals Was Rehabilitated
     To finally placate The Ordinary Folk a lavish State Funeral was held for The Princess. At the funeral many Artfully Empty tributes were paid to The Princess by equally Artfully Empty people.

     And at this point, I bring back into my little Tale the Princess’s brother - The Aristocrat, he who was a Pig Of A Man. For he too gave a speech at The Princess’s funeral. He stood up and talked about his sister in gushing and entirely false terms (in fact he had accepted a very large sum of money from The Royals to supply intimate personal details about The Princess that were of vital use in planning her murder, but what else would you expect from one of his class?) speaking of his deep “love” and “respect” for her. He then announced that, as her brother, he would be Custodian of Her Body and Her Memory. He would build a fine mausoleum for The Princess in which her body would lie permanently In State on an island in the middle of a lake on one of his estates. For a small fee, The Ordinary Folk would be allowed to cross the bridge to the island and visit the mausoleum (The Aristocracy will always try to make money in any way they can, no matter how gross or crass).

     There was one other attendee at the funeral that day. Unbidden and unknown, fluttering quietly away high above The Princess’s coffin, was the same Faerie that had bestowed a spell upon The Princess at her birth. She had kept a keen eye on The Princess over the years and had been very proud of the way she had Turned Out, had come to love her for her Grace, Humanity and Humlity. Her Princess had been a proper person and not a Piece Of Filth like the rest of her Loathsome Family or, even worse, the Family Of Monsters she had married into. The Faerie was, then, understandably distressed by events, more so because she had Faerie Insight of the disgusting Plottings And Machinations that had gone into murdering The Princess, a barbarity that even her own brother, the Pig Of A Man, had been party to.

     Upon hearing The Aristocrat’s plan to bury his sister’s body on an island and charge admission she was less than amused and resolved that this was something that was simply Not Going To Happen. And with that, off she flew to consort with some friendly Trolls who owed her a favour or two.
     By and by, the money-grubbing Aristocrat built his tasteless (and very cheaply done) mausoleum and installed his sister’s body there. But the mausoleum was to be a very short-lived business venture, for the night before it was due to open to Paying Customers, it was tragically (at least to The Aristocrat who mourned the loss of a Potentially Lucrative Income Stream) attacked and utterly destroyed by a mass Troll Depridation. Even worse, said Evil Trolls stole the body of The Princess, no doubt to use for Nefarious Purposes.
     This incident was presented by The Means Of Communication (faithful servant as ever to the Bankers) as yet another example of the Vileness Of Trolls, yet another reason to never trust The Other and the Wickedness Of Those Who Are Not Understood.
     In fact there was, of course, nothing wicked in what the Trolls had done. They had been doing as our Faerie had requested of them, the aim being to give The Princess the Peace And Dignity in death that she had been denied in life: and the Trolls had done it gladly for The Princess, being one of the few humans to ever speak in their favour, had been much Loved and Respected in the Troll community.
     Following the Faerie’s instructions, the band of Trolls carried her body far into the wild countryside of Anywhere, climbing a high hill until they reached a beautiful, green and windswept plateau.
     Here on this plateau they were met by a Mass Convocation Of Faeries and a huge crowd of Trolls, all having gathered to give The Princess a Proper Burial. The Convocation of Faeries hummed the Rhythm Of Life, a Faerie song (or humming, rather, for Faeries cannot sing) as old as time itself, and the Princess’s body was born into the centre of the huge crowd of Trolls, where it was lain to rest on the richly scented soil from which it had originally sprung. From within the crowd of Trolls appeared four breathtakingly beautiful, blindingly white Unicorns, each with a fine, black horn. Using these fine horns (horns wrought by Magick) and their powerful hooves, they dug a deep trench into which was placed The Princess’s body.
     One by one, the huge crowd of Trolls passed by The Princess’s new resting place, each picking up and casting into the grave a handful of rich, loamy soil. Two senior Trolls, old and wise in a way beyond any Human Experience, even paid to The Princess the ultimate display of Troll respect for the dead; each cutting off the little finger of his left hand and placing it in the grave with the body.
     Soon The Princess’s grave was filled with earth and the crowd of Trolls dispersed, back to their Troll Holes, but still the Convocation Of Faeries remained in the air above the grave, still humming the Rhythm Of Life. One Faerie, our Faerie in fact, broke from the Convocation, flew downward and set herself upon the grave. In one last gesture, after which the Convocation would melt away, she said goodbye to the girl she had loved, cried one final Faerie Diamond tear of sorrow for the unintended Duality of the spell she had cast at the Princess’s birth, and sowed the earth of the grave with an enchanted mix of plant seed, seed of beautiful and richly scented flowers which would grow and blossom every single day of the year, be it winter, summer or anywhere in between, until the very Stars Fell From The Sky.