Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, Square Enix does.

Warnings: Bashing for everyone as usual, including the most beloved main characters. Hints of shonen-ai. Some cursings.

konekomh's ramblings: Not that I’ve forgotten Beauty and the Beast but this just pops up all of a sudden so I think I’d better share this with you. It’s crazy! I promise! (kitty winks)

Note that this time it’s on a no name basis, although I doubt you’ll have trouble spotting who’s who. (wink wink!)

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Fairy tale series number… (hey I’ve forgotten!) seven?
The Frog Prince – FF8 version

by konekomh

Once upon a time in a country far far away, there lived a king who had a very beautiful daughter, so beautiful that the stars would fall at the command of her delicate finger. One poke and a star would fall to catch the eye of the most stunning creature on earth, causing him (unfortunately?) to fall prey to the lovely young lady. Although according to the miserable victim… ahem, excuse me, stoic young man actually, it was sheer coincidence and perhaps luck (on her side) that he was distracted from running away immediately…

Close by the king’s palace lay a great dense forest where the dark haired girl was always playing with her beloved dog. When one day she couldn’t think of some new games to play with her puppy she decided to use her pinwheel. It was her favourite play thing and today she would like to share it with her dog by asking him to fetch it after she’d released trigger. Little did she knew that the canine intentionally let the dangerous looking thing fly into the dense forest without chasing after it at the full speed it would have been able to achieve under other circumstances. And so when the pinwheel finally couldn’t resist the force of gravity it dropped straight into the lake. The king’s daughter followed it with her eyes, but it vanished under the gleaming waters which appeared very deep, so deep that the bottom could not be seen. At this she began to cry, and cried louder and louder, so loud that at last someone said to her, “What ails you, king’s daughter? You’ve woken me from my Romantic Dream (TM)!”

The girl looked round to the side where the voice came, and saw a frog stretching forth its big head from the water. Strangely enough it didn’t surprise her at all that the frog could talk like a man. “What can you do? I’ve dropped my pinwheel into the water. You’re just…” And she started to wail like no tomorrow again.

“Just shut the fuck up and I can help you get it back!”

The princess immediately shut up with her eyes glistening with all the charm that she could administer.

“But you have to promise me that you’ll make my Romantic Dream come true and bring me back to your place.”

The girl’s head started churning... Romantic Dream? Romantic as in…? Of course he’s dreaming. How can a stupid and ugly frog get married to a beautiful… Oh no! He wants me to marry him? No way! Her eyes started to flood again when the dilemma troubled her very much. On one hand she really wanted to get her pinwheel back but on the other… Wait! He’s just a frog. There’s no way he can manage to follow me back to the palace, right?

“Oh yes,” at long last the princess said, “I promise you your wish, if you will but bring me my pinwheel back again.” Then I’ll run off and will never see you again. Yes! See how clever I am?

Not knowing how the wheels in the girl’s head turned the frog put his head into the water and sank down when he received the promise. In a short while it came swimming up again with the pinwheel in his mouth, and threw it on the grass. The princess was delighted to see her beautiful play thing once more. She immediately picked it up and ran away with it with her dog close behind.

“Hey! Take me with you!” But it did not avail him to scream his croak after her as loudly as he could. She did not listen to it but ran home and soon forgot the poor frog who was forced to go back into his run-down garden again.

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The next night when the princess had seated herself at the table with the king and all the courtiers, including her most treasured victi… knight, and was eating from her little golden plate, something came creeping splish-splashing up the marble staircase. It was slow, but distinguishable. The wet noise kept splashing up the stairs when the candles blew out all of a sudden.

Everyone stopped in mid-action with their hair standing on the back of the neck when thunders roared. With their eyes wide they slowly turned towards the great oak door where the bone-chilling noise stopped as it got to the top. Some even jumped when it banged at the door and cried, “Prin…cess… Princess… o…pen the dooooooor for meeeeee!”

Screams of horror echoed throughout the palace.

Being a well trained warrior the knight with chocolate brown hair immediately picked up his crystal blue sword and marched towards the great door to open it with his stance ready for a vicious fight, only to meet with nothing…

… until his eyes landed on the floor to spot a squishy looking frog panting the life out of his body.

Meanwhile the princess’ face was pale as a sheet as she sat still in her seat with her body shaking. That didn’t escape the wise eyes of the knight but he chose to ignore it for the time being. Being practical as always the knight asked in his cold voice, “What do you want?”

That caused the frog to swallow a big gulp of air before blasting out, “Ask her! She promised to bring me here when I helped to retrieve her poor excuse of a weapon from the water but guess what, she ran away and…” For some strange reason the frog couldn’t stop himself from blabbering when he caught sight of the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. The princess was definitely no match to this young man at all… and somehow he looked familiar…

Having grasped the crux of the problem the knight turned around to face the princess who did nothing but kept staring wide-eye at the slimy frog as if she’d seen a ghost. The knight decided it was good enough of a verdict.

Then said the king, “My dear, you must perform what you have promised. Go and bring him in.”

“No… My knight, don’t touch it!” The princess shook her head in denial with tears welling up her large and beautiful eyes. “No… Keep that meanie away from me. I’m not going to marry him!”

The frog’s rant skidded to a halt at the declaration. Eyes wide (if that was even possible) the little creature screamed, “What did she say?”

At that the dark haired angel pushed away from her seat and dashed away in her elegant manner. Shaking his head with a sigh the king gestured the knight to bring the shocked amphibian over.

With a ghost of a smile that no human (I repeat, human) can detect, the knight gently lifted the frog in front of the king who said, “Since the princess has promised to marry you for your good deed, I hereby declare…”

“Wait!” Pressing his hands against the kings lips the frog frantically shouted. “I only come here to fulfil my Romantic Dream (TM)! What’s with marrying that… that… bitc…mmm?”

The knight took a dish and dragged the frog to sit on the plate while pinching the lips of the poor creature together to stop him from spurting out more.

“Romantic Dream TM … interesting… so what do you really want, Mr. Frog?”

Finally managed to struggle out of the strong hold of the knight the frog said, “I… ah… It’s… difficult to explain…”

“Poor, poor boy…” A strange lady suddenly stood from her seat and floated towards the frog. “Such a confused little boy. You can’t make up your mind. You don’t know the right answer. You want help, don’t you? You want to be saved from this predicament.”

Everyone blinked when the elegant lady lifted the slimy creature from the plate and faced him directly.

“Of course! You think being like this is any fun at all?” The frog yelled. “Do you know what you’ve done!”

“Come with me and you’ll be saved.” The woman purred. “All you need is a simple kiss that no one dares to offer.”

Huge sweatdrop dripped from the frog when to everyone’s horror the lady moved closer as if she was going to kiss the traumatised animal.

It was then the frog found himself losing his foothold, as the knight had taken him from the “evil clutches” of the renowned sorceress and held him in midair by the back of his neck.

“I’m afraid he’s going to stay with me, my lady.” The knight said with malice in his voice, causing the older woman to backtrack. Everyone knew the knight was not someone to mess with, even for a sorceress, as it was well known that the young man managed to defeat three crazy sorceresses in his late teens.

“Very well. Then I wish you good luck with the Princess.” With a huff of annoyance the sorceress stomped away.

“Who said I needed it in the first place?” Whispering to himself the knight bowed towards the king as he excused himself and took the intruder with him.

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“Say, I don’t quite get you. Why did you take that frog when everyone screamed no, especially your darling sweetheart?”

The frog reluctantly turned when he heard someone entering the lawn where the knight was practising his moves with his sword.

“Did you see her face when she saw him?” Not even stopping from his elegant dance the beautiful young man asked gently.

“Of course! It was priceless! I never saw her that disgusted before, not to mention running away as if it were a plague.”

With a hint of a smile that could have caused millions to die from bleeding to death from nosebleeds the knight finished his moves and sheath his sword in one swift movement. He then bent down to pick up the curious frog before leaving altogether.

“Hey, you haven’t answered me...”

The knight only waved goodbye with a flick of his wrist with his retreating back facing his confused friend.

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The frog was definitely confused but happy beyond words. The knight was simply treating him too well. Sparring, eating and even sleeping... the young man brought him along wherever he went, despite they kept on arguing over minute matters like the brunette was taking too much time to care for his wild hair or the frog was being too noisy. But all in all, everything was very peaceful until one day…

“Why are you doing this to me?” It was the princess. She sounded distraught.

The knight calmly sipped the champagne from his glass as he turned from watching the scenery on the balcony of the ballroom. “I don’t understand.”

“Why are you avoiding me?”

“Did I? I keep my routine, unless you’re saying I’ve been avoiding you since day one.”

“You keep that stupid frog with you wherever you go. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s only a pet. What harm does it do?”

“I told you not to touch it, remember? I can’t imagine your hands over me when that slimy thing becomes your constant company.”

“Then don’t imagine.”

“What is your problem? Why do you have to be like that?” The girl went all teary and started to shake her knight like a rag doll while not minding she’d caused him to shatter the champagne glass. “Are you mad or something? Tell me you are, because this really can't be you!”

“I'm sorry.”

“You're not sorry! You just wanna get the hell out of here, that's all! Geez! Why does it have to be like this? Why?” And the dark hair princess stomped off left like a gust.

“You sure it’s ok?” The frog asked from his seat on the rail, sounding truly concerned. “I know you’re using me as an excuse to stop her from molesting you but does it really worth it? She’s a princess after all and you’re going to be king when…” The amphibian’s eyes went impossibly huge when he was greeted with the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The knight was smiling brightly.

“How can I thank you for all this?” The knight smiled even broader as he moved towards the frog and lifted him in front of his slightly flushed face. “You remind me so much of my old friend. You know, I really miss him.”

“You’re drunk.” The frog wrinkled his nose when he smelt the alcohol from the knight’s breath.

“How about kissing you for a start? I remember that sorceress said you desperately needed one…”

“Whoa?” Before the frog even had a chance to protest soft lips landed on the top of its head and bright lights began to glow momentarily blinding everyone.

“What the…” The brown hair knight exclaimed when his sight finally recovered and spotted a familiar golden hair prince grinning like a Cheshire cat in his full glory.

“Hi.”

“Hey…” The knight was joyful beyond words when he stood to face his childhood friend, “Why didn’t you say it earlier?”

“Well… It’s a long story. Want to come to my palace to hear it out?”

“Why not?”

“Great.”

And so everyone lived happily ever after, except for the little princess that had lost her beautiful knight to a frog.

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Owari.

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konekomh's ramblings (as usual):

Thanks for reading! Let’s have some cut scenes…

Cut scene #1… when the princess was playing with her poor doggie…

When one day she couldn’t think of some new games to play with her puppy she decided to use her pinwheel. It was her favourite play thing and today she would like to share it with her dog by asking him to fetch it after she’d released trigger. Little did she knew that the canine intentionally let the dangerous looking thing fly into the dense forest without chasing after it at the full speed it would have been able to achieve under other circumstances. And so when the pinwheel finally reached its limit it turned back full force rushing towards the princess…

Cut!... because the scene becomes too &(& to describe under the current rating…

How did you find it? Like it? No? Please leave some treats (reviews) upon exit! Maybe someexciting ideas for the next time?

Thank you very much for reading! And happy belated Easter everyone!

Love,
konekomh
April 2006