SUE & REED TSQ-IV: MY RETELLING

Elspeth retelling of the Fourth Story (Sue and Reed Richards!) ... rewritten so it is not a subplot, but a standalone tale!


Story the Fourth: The Prince and the Princess

In this kingdom, a peaceful and modest land (a great baroque castle-palace, a market village below for a capital, a few scattered hamlets and farmsteads here and there, and a dark firwood forest at the edge), there lives a princess of unusual cleverness.

They say she owns as many books as all crows in the land have feathers, and studies philosophy and art and other such things, and speaks Latin as easily as you please. 
The late king made his daughter his heir, you see, because his son was the younger of the two, and the crown here always goes to the eldest, so he had her trained in statescraft instead of the usual occupations of young women. But this open-minded ruler sadly passed away when the royal children had reached a quite early age, his health ruined by drinking and losing a great war. 
The regency was entrusted to the princess's maiden aunt, who was aware of the kingdom's traditions and hadn't opposed her brother's education plans. This tragedy did not affect the royal children's lives: they were looked after by an army of foreign governesses and tutors, brought from the finest seats of learning the known world had to offer. These tutors where the ones who encouraged the Crown Princess's thirst for knowledge, and they saw her grow both fairer and brighter for each year, until she finally came of age.

A short time ago, after ruling for several years just as well as any prince could have done, she

turned to her advisors and spoke the following words:

‘Why should I not be married?’

‘Why not indeed?’ they said, and so she determined to marry if she could find a husband who knew what to say when he was spoken to, and not one who could only look grand, for that would be tiresome. Then she assembled her entire court together in the palace gardens and told them of her intentions, to much rejoicing and acclaim.

The garden was full of moonlight, turning the snow-covered flowerbeds into great sheets of silver. The fountains were dry, because of the cold, and the princess's gardeners had set little statues carved of ice atop them to take the place of the streams of water.

The princess's advisors suggested putting notices in the newspapers, but she declined on the grounds that this would attract too many men of the ordinary sort. Instead, she wrote a proclamation out herself, in Latin, and had it copied out and affixed to the doors of every University in three kingdoms.

The notice stated that every young man who was handsome was free to visit the castle and speak with the princess; and those who could reply loud enough to be heard when spoken to, were to make themselves quite at home at the palace; but the one who spoke best would be chosen as a husband for the princess.

One would have expressed surprise at this unusual method of selecting a husband, and our informant said, with a touch of annoyance, "You may believe it or not, but it is all true. You may believe that every word I tell is true, for I heard it directly from a noble of the princess's court. His sweetheart is a maid who lives in the very palace garden I just told you of, and she saw the entire thing with her own eyes.”

Scholars and alchemists and theologians and other learned men came in crowds, until the palace was quite crowded with men in black gowns, but not one of them was able to meet the requirements. They could all speak very well in a lecture hall, or outside on the streets, but when they stood in the great hall of the palace, surrounded by gilded plasterwork, and rose-red tapestries, and great, silver mirrors that glowed with the light of a thousand candles, and saw the counts and barons in all their finery, and the guards in blue and silver uniforms, they grew nervous, and felt themselves shabby, though they all wore their best academic robes of black silk. And when they were called up to stand before the princess herself, seated on her throne with her golden hair as bright as the candles, they could do nothing but repeat the last thing she had said. And so she soon grew bored with each man, and sent them away.

There was quite a long line of them reaching from the town-gate to the palace. They looked very foolish standing there, jabbering away at one another like so many crows, as practice for when they went inside.
Yet somewhere, at one of the universities where the notice had been sent, there was a surpassingly clever student, a young man in appearance but with the wit of an older one, who read the notice and was drawn to it. He had been a gifted child, fond of reading, and he even enticed some of his classmates to jealousy with the sharpness of his mind, in spite of his social standing. And thus, he left the college for the court of one of the nearby kingdoms, to prove if the princess was as clever as the notice stated, thinking that he may as well meet his intellectual equal.

This confident youth arrived there on the third day. He came on foot, and did not wear a black robe like the others, and he was tall and thin, with very dark hair. He was clean shaven and with grey streaks at his temples, though he was still young. The part of his hair that was not grey was so dark.
The moon was high overhead the palace gardens, its light so bright that around and within the garden wall. The garden was full of moonlight, turning the snow-covered flowerbeds into great sheets of silver. The fountains were dry, because of the cold, and the princess's gardeners had set little statues carved of ice atop them to take the place of the streams of water.

When he passed through the palace gates, he saw the guards in their silver and blue uniforms, and the nobles in all their splendor, but was not the least embarrassed, though his own clothes were faded and worn. He went boldly up to the princess herself, who was seated on a throne entirely covered in mother of pearl, and all the ladies of the court were present with their maids, and all the counts and barons and knights with their servants; and every one of them was dressed so finely that they shone as brightly as the mirrors. Even the servants wore cloth of gold, and they were all so proud that they would not even look at him, because he had come to the palace with ink on his fingers.

He was quite solemn and not at all afraid, and said he had not come to woo the princess, but to hear her wisdom; and he was as pleased with her as she was with him.

The soldiers in their blue and silver uniforms look somewhat worried into the throne room. The princess's younger brother is their captain, and he guards his sister's welfare most faithfully. They say he is a most fearsome young firebrand indeed. So he was slightly jealous of this tattered stranger. But his heart was soon won by the kindness of his future brother-in-law, and thus, the fair-haired captain swore allegiance to the royal couple.
Today, the princess was walking in the garden.
That evening, she showed her newlywed consort a back staircase that leads to the sleeping apartments.

The moon was high overhead the palace gardens, its light so bright that one could see perfectly well, and so one had no trouble at all climbing the garden wall.

The garden was full of moonlight, turning the snow-covered flowerbeds into great sheets of silver. The fountains were dry, because of the cold, and the princess's gardeners had set little statues carved of ice atop them to take the place of the streams of water.
The princess led the prince to the back door, which stood open a crack, she herself having already unlocked it.

And so, holding each other hand in hand, they reached the first landing of the entire length of the stairs, where a lamp was burning. Beside it stood a bust of the goddess Minerva.

After being led up the long staircase, the two of them passed through a series of halls, each grander than the last. First came a hall with a floor of white marble, hung with tapestries of crimson silk. Then a hall with a floor of pink marble, hung with paintings of such size and magnificence, the richness of the tints, the skill of the brush strokes, followed in turn by a third hall, which had a floor of black and white marble laid in squares like a chessboard, and which was hung with mirrors in gilded frames.

At last they reached the princess's bedchamber, which was more magnificent still, with a great canopy bed in the middle, the bed-curtains thickly embroidered with gold and silver thread.

It was by far the grandest and the finest room one had ever been in, but all the gold and silk and marble meant nothing… , for through a narrow gap in the bed-curtains, one could see a head of dark hair, quite black.

The princess and the new prince were asleep in one another's arms, his face quite hidden in her golden hair.
He woke, and turned his head round, unwrapping his arms from around the princess, and it was ... He was quite another man, clean shaven and with grey streaks at his temples, though he was still young. The part of his hair that was not grey was so dark.
And then the princess woke as well, and sat up and asked what was the matter.

The prince and the princess, learned as they both were, looked quite sorrowful, though the prince asked with a keen interest after a great alchemist, saying that they had been at University together once.

The princess, regretting that she could not help more, and not at all angry to be woken in the middle of the night by a stranger standing in her bedchamber, offered to have another notice delivered through three kingdoms.

And then the prince and princess summoned servants to have a bed made up in a spare room, and to bring bread and butter from the kitchens for dinner, and slept in a soft mattress…

The following day, they were served breakfast in a great hall, out of a golden bowl, and the prince and princess talked about what he had seen on his journeys, and about art, which the princess had studied a little, in between reading philosophy books, and about military tactics, and they invited us to stay at the palace for a few days, and enjoy ourselves.
... a fine, tall horse, its hide a deep grey color like polished steel, with a black mane and tail. Its saddle and bridle were trimmed with silver bells, and its saddle-cloth had the prince and princess's coats of arms, entwined, embroidered on it in silk thread.

The prince and princess themselves wished success, from the garden gate.

“Farewell, farewell,” cried the prince and princess.
The Prince and Princess would certainly pay the ransom, but they had already been so very generous that one was loathe to cost them any further expense.
...to the prince and the princess, and they gave provision and a fine horse.
...through the palaces of princes...

Half a year later, we met a robber boy in the woods and asked after the prince and princess.

“They are gone to foreign countries,” said the robber-boy. "On a great voyage of exploration,

and they have taken the princess's brother, her captain of the guard, with them, and also one of the prince's oldest friends."

Later on in their lives, after returning to their old homelands, they were crowned king and queen, though they had suffered an accidental shipwreck during their travels, which had left His Majesty's friend from college scarred as if his face were made of rock... and the other three had also got powers yet to be discovered...
In one of the surrounding kingdoms, a great warlord had risen to power after a coup d'état, and it was not long before he would wage war on the young royals... a war he would sadly lose.

All good stories, of course, must have a happy ending, and this one is no exception, but the important part, dear reader, is not that the prince, and princess lived happily ever after.

The important part, reader, is that, together or separately, they lived.

The End

[Thanks! I wish I could say I took Sue's characterization straight from canon in this (because a Sue who could canonically write love letters in Latin would rock), but I actually took most of it from the original fairytale, where the Princess is the smartest person in three kingdoms (so smart that she's "read all the newspapers in the world") and wants a prince who is her equal. But since Sue is married to Reed, she must have married him for his brains rather than, say, charm or tact or looks -- because Reed's not

bad looking, but Sue is definitely out of his league -- hence making the Princess her.]

[Things that I especially loved: Sue Storm's idea of courtship.]

[Sue's method of courting Reed I can't take credit for - it's straight out of the original fairytale. It's why I decided to make the two of them the Prince and Princess; it just seemed to fit them.]

The test of the ink-stained prince.

This is the first (and ONLY) time I've seen a fairytale fic that actually WORKS.

And it does.

Beautifully.

I'm left with the mental image of an ornamental music box, filled with figures and scenes as tiny and perfect as the details of a glittering Fabergé egg. The music is done, and the lid falls gently closed...

Until the next time the key on the back is wound again.