flipflop_diva

Once upon a time, there lived a prince named Charming (not his mother’s first choice of names) and his mother and father. Charming was a handsome man and beloved by all. Everywhere he walked through the village, young women practically threw themselves at his feet. But Charming didn’t want just any young woman. He wanted his one true love.

Now Charming’s parents loved their son very, very much, and in most cases would do anything for him, but sometimes the young man tested all the patience they had. The only thing the King wanted more than to see his son happy with his soulmate was to retire and hand the keys to the village over to someone else, but Charming refused to take the throne until he had a future queen by his side.

The King and Queen spent many hours trying to find the perfect match for Charming, even going as far as to practically have a revolving door of suitable women as overnight guests. From near and far they traveled. Women with the best education, the best looks. Women who were already royalty in their own right. Women who were just one of many common folk.

And still Charming didn’t care for any of them. The poor King was one more “She’s not the one” away from screaming at his son to “Just pick one already! It will be fine!”

So needless to say, the King and Queen were absolutely over the moon thrilled when their son came to them the night after the last chance royal ball (last chance for the King to keep his sanity, that is) to tell them that, at last, he had found his soulmate.

“Oh, darling!” the Queen said, clasping her hands together. “That is the most wonderful news! Who, may I ask, is this most special woman?”

“I’m not sure, Mother,” Charming replied. “I did not get her name.”

“You what now?” the King said, and it was only the Queen’s hand on his arm that kept him from literally growling.

“You see, we were dancing!” Charming said. “And having a magical time. But right when the clock began to chime at midnight, she disappeared across the dance floor and down the stairs and into the night!”

The King blinked at him in disbelief.

“But it’s okay!” Charming continued. “Because I have this!” And out of his pocket he pulled an absolutely stunning shoe made of the clearest glass. The shoe sparkled as he held it in his hand.

The King and Queen looked at the shoe and then back at their son.

“Is it … labeled?” the King asked.

Charming laughed. “Of course not, Father! But I will simply ask my men to traverse the village and try it on every woman they come across! I will find her in no time.”

He beamed at his parents. They waited for him to continue, but he just kept beaming at them.

“That’s your plan?” the King finally said. “To try this shoe — very impressive indeed, it is — on every woman in the village?”

“Yes!” Charming nodded and kept beaming.

The King and Queen exchanged looks. The Queen shook her head slowly. Along with testing the patience of his father, Charming was also not, as one would say, the brightest diamond on the crown.

“But Charming,” the King said slowly. “Do you know how many women have the same shoe size?”

“One!” Charming said. “My soulmate!”

“Okay,” the King said. “Well, good luck with that.”

He turned around, but the Queen did not miss him wiping his eyes with the corner of his robe. Retirement, it would seem, was still very far away.

--

It turned out, much to Charming’s astonishment, that there was not just one woman in all the village who could wear the glass slipper.

“Seventy-four women!” he told his parents. “How can that be?”

“Very strange,” the King said wryly.

“And you have no idea what this young woman looks like?” the Queen asked gently.

“She was beautiful,” Charming said dreamily.

“Yes,” the Queen said.

“And hair like spun gold!”

“Okay, well that helps a little.”

“And she was beautiful!”

“You said that already,” the Queen said.

“I am going to die on this throne,” the King muttered.

“Okay,” the Queen said. “What if we invite these seventy-four women here to the castle? We can rule out any without blonde hair, and then you can dance with the ones who are left.”

“How can there be more than one?” Charming said.

“Oh god!” the King moaned.

The Queen ignored them both. “Do you have addresses for these seventy-four women?” she asked Charming.

He stared at her blankly.

“Names?”

A shrug.

The King let out a tiny sob. The Queen closed her eyes and took a calming breath, wondering why she had never taken up yoga like she had always wanted to.

Finally, she opened her eyes. “Don’t worry,” she told Charming and her husband. “I’ll take it from here.” And she walked away, muttering something under her breath about fools and errands and whether it was possible to borrow brain cells.

--

Sure enough, though, three days later and the main ballroom of the castle had a line of twenty-six young women with hair the color of the sun. The Queen had ruled out the ones who were far too old and far too young and also the ones with the clown wigs perched on their heads. These were the ones who were left. She just prayed the woman they were looking for was here.

She had personally gone with Charming’s men to round up all the women. She hadn’t trusted them to do it on their own. And it was good she had. She’d found a few locked in their bedrooms or in basements by wicked stepmothers. The same wicked stepmothers who tried to pass off their very non-blonde daughters (and one son!) as the young woman they were looking for.

But now, it was hopefully time to find this so-called soulmate of her son’s. Sure, the two of them hadn’t even exchanged names and love at first sight wasn’t exactly the best thing to build a life on, but the King was getting desperate, so this was going to have to do.

The music started. One by one, Charming and the women began to dance, twirling around the ballroom. And one by one, Charming stopped and shook his head at his parents.

“Not the one.”

Until a young woman who looked like she had been working the farm stepped up. The Queen recognized her. Lady Tremaine — that awful mean girl who had made her own school days miserable — had locked this one in the barn.

The woman took Charming’s offered hands, and the two of them began to dance. Around and around the ballroom they went until Charming suddenly stopped.

The Queen looked to the line of women, ready to summon the next one.

“This is the one!” Charming declared.

Immediately there was chaos. Cries and shouts and pleas from the line of women. “Oh thank the lord!” from the King. And then the young woman who Charming had been dancing with pulled something from her pocket. An identical looking shoe to the one that Charming had found.

“I do have this,” she said.

“It is a match!” cried Charming, as he scooped his found soulmate up in his arms and kissed her so intensely it made everyone else uncomfortable.

“Not sure why she couldn’t have shown us that before,” the King muttered to the Queen, but he couldn’t hide the grin forming across his face. “Come,” he said to his wife. “Let’s go meet our future daughter-in-law and then go buy our retirement island somewhere far, far away from here!”

And so the Queen followed her husband across the ball room to meet the young woman by Charming’s side — Cindy, she told them — and they all prepared to live happily ever after.

Or something like that at least.

Fiction

This was written for

therealljidol. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read the other amazing entries. You can find them here. Voting should be up Tuesday!