Prologue: Where it Went Wrong

They had chosen one of those baby-Princess package-deals: a christening party, three blessings and a continental breakfast. Of course, there was also the curse written into the contract in small print, but no one ever notices those. As it turns out, palace was in an uproar on that special day, since the company which hosted such occasions were reusing the decorations from the last royal baby's christening party in the neighbouring kingdom. That was regular procedure and in theory the palace shouldn't be in an uproar nor the queen reduced to inarticulate fury because of it, but the company had overlooked a little detail...

"She's a girl for goodness sakes! A girl! She can't have dragons and knights and swords and... blue, for heaven's shake blue!" moaned the queen, fanning herself with one of the extra invitations (baby blue with the neighbouring kingdom's coat of arms).

Between rapid appologies, the company representative tried to explain, or rather recite from his training courses, the reasons why his the company has to save resources and cut on expenditure. "And it's popular for girls to be called boys names nowadays."

"Daniel. My daughter's called Daniel..."

"Our company could ammend the banners a little and make it Aniel or Niel, but I'm afraid getting new banners isn't within the boundaries of the contract."

They chose Aniel, in the end, at the company representative's assurance it was more feminine and it would take less work to change. The seamstress was obviously quite unhappy about the extra sewing, or rather un-sewing, she had to do without payment, (the company paid her for what she sewed not what she un-sewed.)

"The name will look unbalanced on banner with the first letter missing... maybe I could take the 'L' off?" she said, waving her needle wildly.

"Anie just isn't very royal."

"Maybe it could be short for Anionetti?"

"Sounds like a Thibanese pastry. Thought we're at war with Thibia?"

"It is a Thibanese pastry: Round, light, filled with chocolate cream. When you bite the chocolate just oozes out."

"Do they sell them at..."

As the company representative's conversation with the seamstress rattled off at a tangent about Anionetties, the art of eating Thibanese pastry and whether or not she was free Sunday afternoon, three o'clock, the blessings department was also having some large glitches over a clash of schedule with the fairies. Fairies were, after all, very busy, albeit little, people, rushing between weddings, birthdays, graduations, divorces and funerals. The sudden royal population explosion had drained the fairies of their magic, they were down to two incredibly annoying hum-when-you-drink mugs, an incomplete set of rainbow marbles (missing blue, green and purple), a defective blessing of intelligence, a blessing of cowardice, a blessing of beauty and a blessing of moodiness.

"I know we're early, but you just want our blessings, so let's just get on with it," said the head-fairy briskly. "I, the winter fairy, bless the Prince of..."

"Princess," hissed the blessings coordinator.

"Sorry. I bless the Princess of Thibia..."

"Pyrai."

"Sorry. Princess of Pyrai..." It is to be noted that the head-fairy conveniently left out the name of the Princess. "... with the gift of caution." It is also to be noted the gift of 'caution' is but another term for 'cowardice.'

There was a healthy sprinkling of glitter over the cradle as the the blessing was placed upon the Princess along with the hopes she wasn't allergic to glitter.

"I, the autumn fairy, bless the Princess of Pyrai with the gift of intelligence."

There was another sprinkling of glitter and magic, this time accompanied by a little music (hummed by the blessings coordinator) and some of the little Princess' sneezes.

"I, the rain fairy, bless the Princess of Pyrai with this gift of fate: The preordained quest for your true love and the rest of this incomplete set of fairy baubles." The fairy considered sprinkling the marbles over the Princess, but thought the better of it and placed them beside the cradle, half worrying if they were baby-safe.

The fairies left early to bestow christening blessings on the Prince of Laguria. Being almost two years and four months late, they really weren't too keen on delaying the matter any longer. It was, of course, a coordinating nightmare, but their remaining gifts were able to be cunningly disguised as "gift of emontional diversity", "blessing of charming face" and "the riddle to his destiny: a song embodied in a quencher of thirst."

There turned out to be no curse. It happened to be the evil fairy's holiday in Timbuktu and her understudy simply couldn't think up an evil enough curse for the newborn Princess, so she didn't turn up. She did, however send a little note via a bat saying how very sorry she was she couldn't make it and how very much she was looking forward to tormenting the royal couple. The curse organizer was all flustered by the subject, but managed to find a loophole in the contract saying his company was under no obligation to provide such a curse under such circumstances, in case anyone was interested.

The queen was devistated by the news, naturally, fainting on the spot and no amount of fanning with the by-now-battered invitations would revive her. Curses were simply so fashionable those days, it simply wouldn't do not to have one, but there was little she could do. The king wasn't as annoyed since curses meant trouble in the country's administration, usually involving bonfires of various harmfull of objects and a hold-up in the country, or at least capital city's) trade for sixteen years.

And, as if the whole facade wasn't ruined enough already, to top it all the continental breakfast was burnt.