The Cruel Princess (A Sexy Non-Fairy Tale)

Chapter 1

There was once a princess who was so spoiled she thought of nothing but herself. She was vain as well, and was always jealous of other princesses of neighboring kingdoms. If one of them had long, golden hair, this princess would make sure her own golden hair was even longer. Once she heard another princess had two hundred pairs of slippers, so she made all the cobblers in her kingdom stay up for ten days and ten nights making her three hundred shoes.

Her name was Princess Lucria and nobody liked her. Which was just as well, because she was a terrible friend. She would talk only about herself, a topic most people found uninteresting because Lucria didn't do many interesting things.

Other princesses would spend time bringing food to orphans and cheering them up. Other princesses trained in the royal army and spent their days defending their kingdoms. Some princesses married and had children, and they raised these offspring to become good, kind people who would grow up to become contributing members of society.

Princess Lucria did none of those things.

What she did was spend hours soaking in milk baths because she believed it would keep her skin soft and young, even though many of her subjects were unable to afford milk to drink. She spent a good deal of her time riding her horses, but she was cruel to her stablehands who took care of her dozen thoroughbreds. She would sometimes use her riding crop on them if they did the slightest thing to displease her.

One day, Lucria got word that a princess of a nearby kingdom had been gifted a unicorn.

Oh how she fretted!

Her parents, the king and queen, when she demanded they give her a unicorn told her that there was no such creature.

Lucria refused to believe them. "Then how did Princess Andria of Modis get one, then?" she said.

"Perhaps it was just a regular horse, my dear," said the queen. "You know how some royals like to exaggerate to impress people."

"You're just saying that because you don't want me to have my own unicorn."

"My dear, why would we refuse to give you anything?" said the king.

"Because you don't love me!" said Lucria, and she stormed out of the room.

"Oh dear," said the queen. "I fear our daughter is too dim witted to know when something is too fantastic to be real."

"I fear it is my fault," said the king. "I allowed her to stop her lessons because she said they were boring. And now we have a foolish nineteen-year-old daughter who won't eat her meals because we can't give her a magical creature that doesn't exist."

***

Princess Lucria went to the stables. She thought that perhaps if she were surrounded by her dozen horses, she could think of a plan to make her parents get her a unicorn.

She found one of her stable hands cleaning.

"You, I need to ask you something," she said. She did not call him by name because even though her stable hands had been in her service for five years, she never bothered to find out their names.

"Yes, princess," said the hand, trying to mask his irritation with exaggerated politeness. He was a young man, a mere year or two older than the Princess.

"Where can one buy a unicorn?"

The stable hand (whose name was Eldric, by the way) knew the princess long enough to be aware of how dim-witted she was. So it did not surprise him that she was asking him such a foolish question.

"Well, princess. The thing is--"

"And don't you dare tell me there's no such thing as unicorns or I'll take my riding crop and whip you bloody."