Image: Pixabay

Prince Eyesore was destined from birth to embrace the dark side of the fairy kingdom.

Above his crib, and above the doorway into his nursery hung the sign: “Bad is Us”.

It was the fate of the Prince’s family that they lived the life of the darkness within the creaking walls of the dark kingdom.

His father, Prince Yuck was notorious for disagreeing with everything people said. It was an irritating habit and one he found himself embroiled in all his life. “It was fate,” he told anyone who bothered to listen.

Young Prince Eyesore was the rotten apple to his father’s eye. Eyesore was a thoroughly unlikeable character, he captured flies and de-winged them, and he refused to eat his greens as a baby, which drove his nurse mad but delighted his father.

His mother, the Princess Underfoot, saw in her son the future of the kingdom and encouraged him to be more and more disagreeable as each day passed.

When he was eighteen, it was decided he should marry and in the tradition of the kingdom dark knights were dispatched to capture the fair Princess Emma who lived happily in the neighbouring kingdom.

Emma was everything Eyesore was not. Kind, generous, beautiful and very agreeable.

The Princess was incarcerated in the tower of the dark kingdom and each day Eyesore would visit and attempt to woo her with his obvious charms, which took some time for him to discover.

This was to wear the Princess down until she began to see the advantage in marrying him. It did take a long time; after all, Underfoot had come to ‘love’ Yuck and if that could happen there was every chance for Eyesore.

The trouble was Emma found Eyesore physically repulsive to the point of gagging every time he came near her.

He took to wearing a mask each time he visited, and that seemed to placate Emma and in that Eyesore saw hope.

The wedding was ordered by Prince Yuck and amid great celebration and pageantry, the big day arrived.

Eyesore was beside himself with excitement. Princess Emma would soon be his to do with as he pleased. He envisaged their first night, then the second and third and soon he had himself worked up into a royal lather of expectation.

He decided to wear his best mask for the wedding. A Commedia mask, sporting a long and slightly upturned nose, which came with a rather becoming red and white strip on black pod piece. Everything, Eyesore concluded showed off his best features and would surely win over the still reserved Princess.

Emma was desperate to avoid marrying Eyesore. She saw a life of misery and unhappiness. She cried herself to sleep the night before and contemplated throwing herself off the tower rather than marry the repulsive Prince.

When everything seemed lost there appeared a fairy god prince. A tall and handsome god prince who came to rescue her and return her to her family across town. With a tap of his wand, Emma was gone, whisked away, and in an instant back in her old bed in the kingdom of all that is good and wholesome.

There was great celebration upon her return, but in the distance, they saw the storm clouds building above the dark kingdom where Eyesore was planning, what he loved to do more than anything else, revenge.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/03/27/tale-weaver-216-fairy-tale-the-evil-dark-side/