A tremendous party was held as soon as everyone could get inside the castle. Minstrels recited hastily-composed sonnets on snoozing while dulcimers played in the background. People milled around in the grand ballroom taking refreshments from long tables against the walls. Dimity sat at a high table in the back of the room where everyone could see she was alive, even if she did spend a lot of time yawning and setting her head down on the table. The three knights she had introduced as Sir Ae, Sir Bee, and Sir Ceee sat near her, as yawning and dusty as the princess.
Things had to be explained to Dimity several times: how she had been asleep for more than a day, and had spent most of that time over Sir Ceee’s shoulder. “I thought I felt bruises on my stomach,” she said.
While the castle musicians were setting things up for a grand dance, another dusty tired man entered the ballroom. He spoke to a guard, and was then led up to the thrones of the King and Queen. He handed up a sealed letter.
The King broke the seal, read through the letter, laughed, and passed it to the Queen. She smiled as she read it, and then handed it back. The King rose and called for silence.
“This good messenger,” he announced, “Has come by swift horse on the long road south of the Grove of Nasty Nights, with a message from our fellow ruler to the east. Her Majesty asks that we watch for her three sons, Prince Alain, Prince Archels, and Prince Affretz, who come seeking adventure and may need help or supplies if they make their way through the haunted forest.”
Several people in the audience guessed at once, and cheered in approval. Sir Ae, Sir Bee, and Sir Ceee stood up to bow.
“Are you princes?” demanded Dimity. “I never guessed!”
“They must have been, you know,” said the Queen. “Since you did fall asleep.”
Dimity, frowned, thinking that over. “Oh! I forgot.”
Somebody laughed. “Well, I was tired!” said the princess.
The King started to explain the whole nosiness of the curse at the christening, which the princes had not heard before. Someone shouted “Look!”
One punchbowl had begun to emit huge violet bubbles. These rose into the air, bunching together. With a little “pop” they fell together into one immense pink bubble. This bubble hovered for a moment and then disappeared with a second “pop”.
In its place stood two fairies, Camomile and Snowdrop. The celebrating people, who had reason to be wary of fairies, pulled back from them.
“Er, welcome!” said the King. “To what do we owe this, er, pleasure?”
“If you had to eat nuts and berries all the livelong week in a forest,” said Camomile, “You’d jump at a chance to get a free meal, too.” She reached out and caught up an éclair from a refreshments table.
“Besides,” said Snowdrop, “I think there’s a happy ending coming on.”
Archels, who recognized his brother’s fairy godmother from pictures, strode forward. “We looked for you for years! Now tell us, if you please! Why did you put that curse on our brother Affretz?”
Snowdrop raised her nose at the prince. “Curse? Rubbish! That was a gift. I figured there ought to be one prince, anyhow, who could grow up without thinking all the time how great he was. I thought he might very likely turn out to be the nicest and most thoughtful prince, and that’s the type, you know, who rescues princesses. And you see that I was right!” She nodded to Snowdrop, who was now nibbling a prune kolace.
“Did you plan all of this?” Princess Dimity demanded.
Snowdrop shrugged. “Why don’t we say we did pan all this and then give three cheers for fairies?”
Nobody seemed especially inclined to give even one cheer. “Hmm,” said Camomile, around a mouthful of pastry. “Maybe a few repairs are in order.”
“A few repairs it is,” said Snowdrop.
The fairies waved their hands. Dimity’s mud-stained clothes were replaced by a ballgown of shimmering white, with a silver coronet appearing in her hair, now combed and excellently in order. Instead of their dusty traveling clothes, the princes now wore royal garb, Alain in a white suit fitted with sapphires, Archels in basic white sprinkled with rubies, And Affretz resplendent in white and emeralds. Weariness dropped from their faces, and as the three princes came forward together, people did start to cheer.
“Oh!” Affretz looked down at his feet and then at Snowdrop. “I’m not limping! I can walk like anyone! I….”
He had caught sight of his face in a polished silver plate. “But I’m still ugly!”
“Well, yes, you look like that,” said Snowdrop. “The limp was just kind of an afterthought, but I did say you were going to be the ugliest prince in the world, and you have to keep that.”
While the princes all thought that over, Snowdrop strolled over to the princess. “Now, let’s wrap up all the business. Which of these princes do you want to marry?” She was pointing at one prince in particular, if the princess needed help deciding.
Dimity stuck out her chin. “I don’t have to marry anybody. I was just rescued, that’s all.”
“Don’t mind her.” Camomile threw a wink in Snowdrop’s direction. “Some fairies are way too romantical. Which of these princes would you like as a partner for the first dance?”
Dimity was about to object to that, too, but, realizing she wasn’t tired now, looked around the room. The people were cheering, the palace musicians (who knew all her favorite songs) were ready to begin, and there were, after all, three well-dressed princes just standing there.
“I really can’t decide,” she said, and, walking over to Affretz, demanded, “Why don’t you just ask me to dance, so I don’t have to make up my mind?”
Affretz shrugged. “You don’t have to dance with me,” he said, “Just because you’re grateful and think you have to…..”
“I’m grateful to all of you,” she said. “And I’m going to dance with all of you.” She nodded to Alain and Archels before turning back to Affretz. “But you first.”
He looked her full in the face. She didn’t wince. “Don’t you think I’m ugly.”
“I KNOW you’re ugly,” she told him, reaching out to take his hand. “What I want to find out if you can dance, now that you’re not limping any more.”
“I’d like to find that out, too,” said the ugliest prince in the world.
There is little more story to tell. The three princes, who danced long and late with Princess Dimity and the other ladies of court, and finally led the whole room in three cheers for the fairies, stayed at the castle for several months, discussing with the King and Queen different plans for clearing out the Forest of Dreary Dreans, as well as how to get through the massive thornbushes to get into the silent castle within. But before anyone had agreed on a plan for either chore, a messenger arrived from their mother about a giant stealing sheep in their fields back home. The princes all hurried home, and had their hands full for some time with the giant and, as it turned out, his bigger brothers and especially huge uncle.
Dimity wrote letters to the princes after they left, and occasionally delivered these herself, though she generally took the road around the forest, lest Gelvander be waking up. She would stay with the queen there for a week or two, once in a while helping out with one of the giants. Sometimes Affretz would ride back with her to her parents’ castle for a visit.
Dimity learned early on that the more you got to know someone, the less you actually looked at his face. No one, except Alain, a little, was surprised when Dimity and Affretz were married. The story of Unsleeping Beauty and the Three Princes was sung throughout the land and, in its day, was more famous than the story of her cousin, still asleep in that castle surrounded by thorns. That story hadn’t ended yet, because the right prince hadn’t come along yet.
But you know how that turned out.
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Blogsy Babbles 