Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a magical kingdom. In this kingdom there was a young girl, not much older than you or me (assuming, of course, that you and I are slightly younger than the girl, which, of course, is a faulty assumption). There was something odd about the girl, but no one could quite figure it out.

"'The Prince of Onceuponatimia hereby invites your family to our annual ball.'", read the girl's mother.

"Hooray!", cheered the girl's sisters. "We can actually get to meet the Prince!"

The girl, however, was not excited.

"You, too.", said the mother. "I bought you a nice dress and glass slippers."

"No.", said the girl. "I hate dancing, I hate dresses, and I hate clothing made of glass. I want to stay here and work on math."

Then the girl hid until she was sure they had gone.

The girl came out from hiding, but as soon as she picked up the calculator, a magical fairy appeared.

"You must go.", said the fairy, in an evil voice. "If you won't change your clothes, I'll change them for you, and they won't change back until midnight!"

And the fairy changed the girl's clothes with a wand and dragged the girl to the ballroom.

Once she got to the ballroom, her sisters were already there, surrounding the Prince and asking for his autograph, and asking him to dance. The Prince did so, and then made some rather loud remarks about all the dragons he'd slain.

The Prince came and talked to the girl. The girl looked into the Prince's eyes and thought: "Every time you see a wink, 'I'm an idiot' you shall think, and when you think that on any day, out loud shall it you say." Then she started arguing loudly with what the Prince said, and claiming that harming dragons was bad.

This attracted the attention of the King, who came over. The King didn't necessarily agree with the Prince, but argued on his side anyways.

Then the girl winked. Not intentionally; but she had a habit of winking sometimes instead of blinking. Suddenly, the Prince said, "I'm an idiot."

The Prince and the girl were both surprised to hear this—the Prince because he had no idea why he said it; the girl because she had just thought of that poem, and she didn't know of any superpowers she had.

The King, however, just looked at the girl. Without knowing why, she got up and walked through an unmarked door. The King followed her.

"Have you ever lived with a cat?", asked the King.

"No,", said the girl, "it was my understanding that all cats lived at the castle."

"That is correct.", said the King. "Have you ever been inside the castle?"

"No.", said the girl.

"I do not think you are correct.", said the King. "Does this place look familiar?"

The girl looked around. "Sort of... like I was here when I was too young to remember. This place is really big. In fact, it looks like the inside of a castle!"

"Exactly.", said the King. "It is a castle! And I strongly suspect—though I don't know for certain—that you have been here before.

"You see, you have a very uncommon ability: you have partial control over what people think. Namely, if you think the right thing, you can construct any if-then clause, and if they don't figure out what it is right away, they'll have to follow it.

"Now, this ability is not something one is born with, nor is it something that can be learned. There is only one way to get it: if a cat gives it to you. As you mentioned, all cats live in this castle; in addition, they will only give their power to a child of the King and Queen.

"So: you are actually the Princess, and the prince isn't really a prince."

The King and the Princess (for we must call her that now) then went and told the prince and the person who was previously thought to be the Princess's mother what happened.

But the mother, after actually seeing the prince in person, didn't actually want the prince living with her, so the prince had nowhere to live.

The Princess snapped her fingers. The prince started to step forward, tripped on his own foot, and then exclaimed "I wish I were a shoe!".

"I think we can deal with him.", said the Princess.


After the Princess finished her story, the green person (who was listening to the story) asked, "So, the prince still lives in the castle because you like to make his life miserable in odd ways?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Oh, and the clothes did change back at midnight. But the prince stole one of my shoes before then, and I don't know if that changed back.".

"That story sounds quite a bit like a story that's told on Earth,", said the green person, "but sort of backwards. Is your name, by any chance, anything similar to Cinderella?".

"No.", said the Princess, and she whispered something in the green person's ear.

"Ah.", said the green person.


Note: some of the punctuation rules from Súiⱥcúili (the language spoken in Súiⱥcúil and Onceuponatimia) have been kept (specifically the double punctuation in quotation marks). (Note: (this was (written (before (the princess) introduced ((Lisp-like) punctuation)))))

Cipa inlⱥ © cacúa̽hir púonlⱥ he soėn soėnėlu. Fi soėnıs tirā hi soėn púonla, cipilı tirā ėnsoėn plilⱥ celode ene rucun bleun soėnėlu. The rest of the story is copyright © 2009 by chri d. d. If you copy it, you must write these four sentences in purple.