An epic Chinese fairy tale

Once upon a time in -- lets say China-- China, there were lots of Princesses. Being what they were, emotionally unstable and unsatisfied, they need Princes for themselves to complete them, like in all other fairy tales. "A Princess without her Prince is an old unmarried hag in her youth," one Princess said. "No, A Princess without her Prince is like Bella without her Edward -- hopeless, unlikeable, and possibly suicidal," another Princess chimed in. "Come on guys, we are Princesses, we are worth a lot on our own, without our Princes," a Princess tried to defend. "We sure are, but we don't count ourselves in money worth and try to sell ourselves, you slut," all other Princesses said in unison. No one said that Princesses were something without their Princes too thereafter.

But it was the ancient times, and Princes were rare. All the good Princes went to the war and got themselves killed. All the sensible Princes went after only the richest Princess. The remaining Princes went after only the prettiest Princesses or the Princesses with the biggest bosom (if you know what I mean, snicker snicker). So a lot of Princesses were left without their Princes, and they were unsatisfied. Sure, they had the occasional hookup or the fling, but nothing even came close to having a good Prince. "Look what that li'l ho' Cinderella got," they would say, " I mean, come on! If she can get such a wonderful Prince, we'll definitely get someone better. And remember, whoever had gotten Prince Charming? My eyes would pain on seeing her, and yet he fell for her. He. Fell. For. Her. Omigosh! We should be grooming ourselves rather than complaining pointlessly to each other." And then they would go back to their chambers and start combing their hair, and applying mascara, so that they'd be as white as snow white, have hair as good as Rapunzel's and feet as tiny as Cinderella's. "Remember everyone! Small feet get you into the glass shoes. Big shoes make you the ugly stepsisters who nobody likes. We are Princesses, not ugly step-sisters," someone would say, and they would try, hopelessly, to make their feet tinier.

'Black beauty' was only for horses, that they knew from childhood. Had there ever been a good Princess who was anything but fair? Oh, there had been that one, yes, but guys didn't like her because of her face-- it was something else. They were too pure and above the pretension to go to such lengths to increase That. They respected mother Nature too much to do that. Moreover, only men, or women of low birth, did such things. Princesses were daughters/nieces of the King and were going to be be Queens/Queen's cousins some day, after all. Also, the possibility that such a procedure could go wring was extremely high, as shown by the extremely large number of Princess-turned-bartenders in the bars of Land Far, Faraway.

As days went by, our Princesses got more desperate. They would gaze longingly out of their windows, sing sweet songs(like the ones sung in old Disney fairy tales), attempt to get abused from their step-mothers/King's mistresses, eat lots of Apples hoping at lease one was poisoned, and prick themselves with lots of needles. Things a good Princess should do. But the Prince never came. No thunderous hooves were heard, no brave-hearted lad even attempted to save them from the misery, and the seven dwarfs imported from abroad to every palace where a princess lived were becoming a nuisance everywhere.

The dwarfs. Yes.  There were only seven of them, but they were causing trouble as if they were 700 Gauls with magic potion troubling Julius Caesar.They would pick fights with the trolls for no reason, attempt to sell gods of highly questionable quality and safety, and instead of caressing the Princess, they would try fondling her. They would show up at the King's Official Court and sing random Dwarvish songs, invite the King's personal guards for a fight, and run away taunting the men whenever they were approached by anyone remotely armed.

Princesses everywhere were being told by their fathers that if they did not get their Prince quick enough, they would be married to the ambitious Vizier. The same young sly Vizier who would later murder the King, make it look like an assassination, eliminate his opponents in the ensuing confusion and become the King himself, only to be killed by his own extremely-loved adopted son when time came. But for now, he could possibly be marrying the Princess, and he could get the throne without having to kill the King, his close family, and all his trusted officers. And then blame it on the son, the Prince, who would die a few days later too. Fun fact: I studied in the same training school as that Prince, and from what I hear, he was not as good a Prince they make out him to be. So there's an extremely good possibility that it had been the Prince who had actually massacred his family. But if we assume that, we don't have a fantastic conspiracy theory, so I am going to go with the Vizier killing the King.

Eww. Marry the Vizier? Of ALL the people? NEVER! They would rather marry the town tramp who had monkey and parrot as pets(as one of the Princesses would do, and would later become famous for doing that). The Vizier was-- w-e-i-r-d. He thought his long and pointy beard looked scary, but it was actually funny as hell. And the way he spoke reminded you of a magician in some countryside game, who would pretend he had a big secret, that he was the Prince of darkness, and talked accordingly, but was really a poor street magician who had to earn money by pretending to have secrets he really didn't have. The Vizier was just like that, but only ten times worse. And most weirdly of all, he had once attempted to hit on one of the Princess' friends. Eww, the Grand Vizier. The King may have liked him(because of an ancient curse, there's this strong affinity amongst Kings for only liking things that are going to get them killed later) but the Princess thought the Vizier was anything but 'Grand'.

They would rather kiss all the frogs in the Kingdom than ma---. Actually, it was a pretty good bet. There were lots of angry witches, and there were lots of mean-spirited Princes (actually, all the Princes were mean-spirited, but you didn't put never put it that way), so there was a good chance that a lot of frogs croaking at night from the Palace pond were really Princes. The hypothesis spread around far. Soon, Princesses, in their fit of desperation of finding a Prince and validating their existence, were kissing any frog they could find. The entertainers would later make a comedies out of the issue, aptly titled How I Met Your Fro(g)ther and Two and a Half Frogs but that was for posterity. The princesses needed to find a frog-turned-Prince faster than any other Princess for now.

It was all in vain. No frog ever turned into a Prince. Though a few did turn into Horses, snakes, dogs, and rather impossibly, Unicorns. There was no rule than witches could get angry with only the Princes, after all. However, the incident did create a fad. After seeing their Princess touch frogs with her mouth, the town girls though that she was eating them, and they tried to do the same, hoping they would be as beautiful and fair as her too. It didn't work out well, but that was how frogs became the usual fare of the Chinese cuisine.

Then the Princesses started with the Snakes, and the town girls followed. And thus Snakes became a part of the Chinese cuisine too. The same story followed with Dogs, Horses, and lots of other animals, until finally there was no animal left unkissed, and consequently, left uneaten. Therefore, the Chinese cuisine has such great variety in terms of meat.

Finally, the Princes returned. They had apparently been invited to a 'SUPER AWESOME Gala on the Occasion of Dashain!!! With Special Dance Performance from 'Jaggi and the Kittens' and Songs by Sonu Nigam!!! One shot of Whiskey/Tequila of your choice FREE!!! and All-You-Can-Eat Buffet Dinner! Don't miss the chance of a Lifetime!!! Only Princes Need Apply!!!' but when they had taken the free shot of whiskey, they had been magically transported to a foreign land where they did all kind of stuff for 40 years. They had been magically transported to their own world on the 40th year, but they had aged, and all the Princes were now forty years older. Did the Princesses still wanna' go out with them?

After some thought (and lots of financial snooping where they discovered that the Princes were still just as powerful, richer than they would otherwise have been because of the wealth brought from the foreign lands, and would become Kings a lot sooner) the Princesses decided that they had loved their Princes for their true selves and not outer appearance, and decided to go with them. Love was blind, after all, it was proven. And then everyone lived happily ever after.

Epilogue: The Princes died a lot earlier than their wives had hoped. Then they cried, and got younger Princes/studs for themselves. Also, George Clooney's clones, but that's for some other time. Now this time, absolutely everyone lived happily  ever after. Even the Princesses. And the studs. And George Clooney's clones. Oh, and of course love is not blind! Did you actually believe that? Heh.


PS: Find as many innuendos as you can and collect your PRIZE(of smug satisfaction)!!!