A Bad Night In Bridgetown

The Princess Visits A Haunted House

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Generally speaking the land of Spireshine is an average enough kingdom far from the crossways with the world of man. For many generations Spireshine has been completely unremarkable in about every important respect. It may have remained as such, were it not for the occupational choice of a prince from the neighbouring land of Weatherstrong.

Avan Weatherstrong, being the youngest of a large number of male children, had to carve out a niche to occupy in the small world of his court. Carve it he did when he founded the only library in the whole of Faerie in the faraway land of Sommerslip. The Faerie Archive, as the library is known, is a strange and wonderful building. One that most right-thinking residents of Faerie could only imagine existing in a land near by the strange world of mortal men.

The kingdoms containing roads to the world of mortal men have a reputation for troublesome times. There is a lot of what the folk refer to as 'fluctuation' at the crossways. Those who dwell away from such unreliable lands enjoy great periods of stability and happiness. This is generally how all things are expected to be.

So Avan Weatherstrong became the first Lord Sommerslip and opened a library. The people of both Weatherstrong and Spireshine heard the news and muttered in corners. They knew that it was only a matter of time before this strange career choice would have an upsetting effect upon their own lives.

For three generations, however, nothing untoward happened in Spireshine. Weatherstrong fell to civil war over a new design for the kingdom's coat of arms, but even this was not a great surprise. War is a part of Faerie life much as it is a terrible waste, inconvenience and evil in all other realms belonging to all other species.

The wisest, or perhaps most stubborn, heads in Spireshine insisted still. Before long, they declared, Sommerslip would affect the lives of the ordinary folk of Spireshine. The youthful exuberance of Lord Spireshine's youngest daughter, Anabyl was well known. Her antics were seen by most as the sign that things were starting to become much more interesting, and not in a good way.

There were tomboys, of course, throughout the Hundred Kingdoms and beyond. Girls who acted like boys were not an uncommon thing and, for some people, they formed the basis of some of their favourite romances. After all, at some point a tomboy met her match in the world of men. Tthe two of them settled down and he became a husband and she hung up her dungarees, grew her hair out and became a wife.

Some people are just suckers for that part where everyone realises she was beautiful all along.

It was possible there would be a day when everyone realised that Anabyl Spireshine had been beautiful all along. If that day was coming it is not due yet. Anabyl Spireshine wore steel toe-capped boots because they were comfortable. She wore pink, frilly dresses because they kept her mother from complaining. She put her hair in pig-tail plaits because it was easy to tie up. She completed her ensemble with boy's short breeches for the pocket space that she required.

There were other princess tomboys in the Faerie realms but none of them were willing to dress in frills and boots together. In fact, if you really thought about it, a tomboy of a certain age began to devote quite a lot of thought to their boyish ensemble. Far more thought than actual boys did.

Princess Anabyl didn't give any thought to what she was wearing, she had too much else to think about. Such as how to make a 'stealth' turnip catapult, or whether a pig could be used in a jousting tournament. Or which combination of cleaning chemicals could be used to produce the biggest explosion.