Ok I never enter competitions (especially not writing ones), but I thought I’d give it a shot for once.

Sponsored by Merry Sisters of Fates, here were the instructions and the prompt picture: In the spirit of giving away free fiction on the internet (a cause we firmly believe in), all you have to do is write something to the following prompt. A story. A poem. A flash fiction. A paragraph vignette. Anything creative that involves words. Post it to your blog and link back to us.

Hopefully this qualifies – I tried to put a slight twist to the original…

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The princess eyed the bed before her skeptically, twenty mattresses tall. “Are you kidding me? This is my room? You expect me to sleep on that mountain of mattresses? Are you insane?”

Before I could even answer she whipped around with even more questions. Her voice laced with self-righteous arrogance.

“How do you suggest I get up there? Is there a ladder? Do you intend on hoisting me up there yourself? And what if I have to relieve myself in the middle of the night? How on earth would I even get down?”

I had a couple of questions of my own -Do you ever shut up? Are you always this ungrateful?– but I kept them to myself. “I assure you princess; this bed is the best our castle has to offer. You will sleep better than any of us in that bed.”

She laughed at me, “Ha! Surely you’re joking.” She waited for me to agree that I was, but I didn’t.

I exited the room, forcing a smile, “Sleep well princess, see you at sunrise,” and closed the door behind me. I could still hear her scoffing over her sleeping arrangements from beyond the door.

Mother waited for me in the hall, her hopeful expression faded once seeing my face. “What is it son?”

I linked my arm through hers to escort her to her room and sighed, “This is a waste of time.”

“But how can you be so sure? She’s quite beautiful and if she is truly the princess she says she is…”

I stopped her, “I don’t care if she feels the pea or not Mother, or how pretty her face is there is no way I’ll commit my life to someone like her. Just five minutes alone with her gave me a headache. No thanks.”

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