Once upon a time in a far off land, there lived a princess who was never happy. All day, every day, she would just mope around. Her father, the king, couldn't stand to see his daughter so sad. He decided that love and marriage were the only things that could make his eleven-year old daughter happy. And so, the king started setting the princess up with suitors.

By the age of thirteen the girl had just about had enough with the suitors, but her father was sure that this was the answer to her sadness. The princess made him promise that she would meet no more than seven hundred suitors. Her father agreed, but only because the court therapist calculated that she would find the one to make her happy before she met four hundred and three suitors.

The princess was sixteen when she reached suitor number 699. None of the suitors had even brought the slightest hint of a smile to her face. She was still very, very sad. Suitor number seven hundred would come and the princess did not have an optimistic outlook. She was sure that she would never be happy. She sat bored on her throne, and waited for the jester/bard/announcer to introduce her seven hundredth suitor.

Horns trumpeted. "Princess Catalina, your final suitor hails from the far off land of Solakania..."

"Never heard of it." The princess interrupted, twirling her hair. The jester continued, as if her highness hadn't even said a word. "May I present Prince Guy!" The court applauded excitedly. They were also quite bored with the whole 'suitor' thing, and couldn't wait for it to be over.

In through the ornate doors walked a horrendously dressed figure. Their clothes, though fashionable in design, seemed to be made from scraps of burlap. On their head, they wore an overly poofy hat. As the person neared, Princess Catalina could tell that they very obviously weren't a prince. In fact, the badly dressed figure appeared to be female. Though the princess was sad, she was also very smart. A fake moustache didn't fool her.

'Prince Guy' knelt before the princess. "Hello, dear princess." She said, in an awfully fake sounding baritone.

"Are you kidding me?" The princess looked around the court for the signs of laughter. "This is my last suitor. But... it's a girl!"

The jester cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, your highness, but I don't know what you can possible speak of. Prince Guy is obviously male. His name is Guy."

"You honestly can't expect me to believe that!" The jester had played jokes on her in the past, but Princess Catalina had never seen him take one this far. She wondered if her father had planned it.

"My dear Princess, you mustn't be so disrespectful. Prince Guy is a wonderful, masculine suitor. I do know you are tired, but please, try to be polite."

The princess stared at the jester. He seemed so serious. It wasn't a joke... so what was this badly disguised 'prince' planning? She had to find out."You know what? Whatever. Let's get this over with." She turned to the fake prince. "I'm Princes Catalina. Blah, blah, introductions." 'Prince Guy' got down on one knee and kissed her hand.

"It is a pleasure to meet you. Shall we take a walk around the gardens?" The court started to clear out. It was standard suitor protocol put in place by the king so that the princess and her suitor might have some 'alone time'.

The jester agreed. "What a wonderful idea, Prince Guy. I shall leave you to it!" He patted the prince on the back as if to say good luck before rushing off to join the court.

Princess Catalina sat on her throne in silence, watching the courtiers leave. The moment the last one of them left the room, she stood up in a hurry. Turning to 'Prince Guy', she ripped off the fake moustache and ugly hat, revealing a smooth upper lip and long waves of dark brown hair. "Spill." The princess said. "Who are you and why are you here?"

The no-longer-disguised girl rubbed her lip. "Ow! I cannot believe you ripped of my so obviously real moustache! I am Prince Guy!"

Catalina rolled her eyes and the girl's shoulders slouched. "Alright, fine. Princess, my name is Gemma. I'm not actually from Solakania. It doesn't exist."

"I knew it. You aren't royalty anyway."

"How did you..."

"Please. Royalty are never so straightforward. 'Shall we walk around the gardens'? Really? You might have well screamed 'I'm a peasant'."

Gemma huffed. "Okay, geesh. I'm a peasant."

Catalina examined the girl. "Why are you here?"

Gemma looked to the ceiling. "I... wanted to... see how tight palace security was...?"

The princess glared at her. "Really? How dumb do you think I am?"

Gemma huffed again, very frustrated with the princess. "Geesh, are all royalty this irritating?"

"I dunno, are all peasants this stupid?" Princess Catalina spat back. "Listen... Gemma, was it? I could send you to the dungeon at any time I want. So please, be so kind as to answer my question. Why. Are. You. Here."

Gemma sighed and took a long hard stare at the tiles on the floor before meeting the princess' amber eyes. "It was my stepmother. She wanted to get rid of me. If you sent me to the dungeon, she'd probably worship you as a goddess. If you didn't, and you married me as a last resort, she would take your dowry and run off before anyone realized that it was a scam. She either gets rid of her stepdaughter or filthy rich. It was a win win."

"For her maybe. That sucks for you." Gemma was surprised by the empathy in the princess' voice.

"Yeah." A long, awkward silence followed.

Catalina cleared her throat. "So, um, I'm probably not going to marry you."

"Really." Gemma said, her voice loaded with sarcasm she probably shouldn't have used in front of royalty.

"I don't think my father would approve."

Gemma smiled. "And yet he's approved some of your other suitors? The lord of Harkit is 93."

"His dentures fell out at our luncheon." Catalina said without emotion.

Gemma giggled "Really?"

"Right into the soup bowl."

"That's hilarious!" She started to laugh. It was a loud laughter, the sort Catalina hadn't ever heard in her life.

"Not if your father wants you to marry him." A silence fell over the girls.

"He doesn't really want you to marry them, does he?" Gemma asked. "I thought that the suitors were here to try and bring you happiness."

"Well, it was about happiness at first. I was eleven when it started. But now I'm sixteen. Marrying age. If a suitor can make me happy, well fine. If a suitor can marry me..."

"Even better." Gemma's eyebrows rung. "For your father, that is."

"Yep." Catalina popped the 'p'. "It sucks. But it's alright. I don't care anymore." She looked around for an escape from the personal questions. "Earlier you mentioned the gardens..."

"Right, yes." Gemma looked at Catalina. Her eyes looked so sad, her face seemed to pull it's features down. "Are you okay, Princess?"

Her eyes flicked up. "Cat. Call me Cat. And yes, I am perfectly fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I. Am. Fine." Her tone said she wasn't, and right then and there Gemma knew she had to do everything in her power to cheer Catalina up. "Where are the gardens?"

The sun shone on the palace grounds, and the girls ambled through meticulously trimmed hedges and gorgeous rosebushes, chattering all the way.

"So after a miserable date with the son of a duke from some island out west, my dad set me up with my year-old cousin."

"Seriously?" Gemma's lips curved up, and Catalina knew the peasant was on the verge of giggling. Sometimes it seemed like that was all the girl did.

"I had to babysit him. It was awful. I even had to change his diaper!" Cat's nose drew into a sneer at the mere thought of changing diapers, but Gemma's shaking laughter stopped her from being completely disgusted.

"Let me get this straight. You had to change your suitor's diaper?" The princess nodded and Gemma struggled to keep herself from snorting with giggles. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!"

Catalina's eyebrows raised. "If you think that's ridiculous, my dad also made me go on a date with Sir Baxy's corpse."

"Wait, seriously?"

Catalina nodded. "We had tea in the gardens. Just me and a rotting cadaver."

Gemma laughed. "That must have been interesting." She raised the pitch of her voice to mock Catalina's, but it didn't feel mean. "'Have another scone, Baxy dearest. Oh, you can't? Whatever is the reason? Are you too full? Oh. You're dead." As the peasant girl burst into laughter at her own joke, Catalina, for the first time in her life, began to smile.

"And then Barnaby, the pigsty cleaner walks in. He's covered in pig feces and he yells 'Who stole my bucket?!"

Catalina giggled. Giggled.

Gemma stared in shock. "Did you just giggle?"

At that, Catalina stopped. She looked at Gemma, surprised by her own actions. She had giggled, hadn't she. It felt... good. She felt good. The sun on her face and the stone of the fountain they were sitting on suddenly felt warmer. The flowers on the rosebushes felt redder and the cloud-speckled sky bluer than it ever had before. An idea crossed Catalina's mind, an idea that had been completely foreign to her only hours ago.

"Come on, Gemma. I want to show you my favorite place on the grounds." Cat stood up and held her hand out to Gemma, who took it. "Let's go."

The girls raced through the palace grounds, Catalina practically dragging Gemma by her hand until they reached a hedge. The princess led the way under the hedge, squeezing herself through. Gemma followed, wondering what was so special on the other side of the hedge.

A patch of sunny grass sat in between four tall hedges. Catalina sat on the grass, smiling, her skirts spread out around her. Gemma joined her.

"You know what?" Catalina asked, grabbing Gemma's hands and placing them in her lap.

"What?"

"I'm very glad you're my suitor."

"Oh?" Gemma looked at the face of the girl who never smiled. She was smiling, with dimples that were completely hidden by the folds of her cheeks when she frowned.

"You're very different, Gemma. You're special." Catalina looked down for just the briefest moment, letting her smile slip. It came back again when she looked into Gemma's dark eyes. "You know, I've never shown any of the other suitors this place. It's the only location in the entire palace and grounds without a servant's entrance. No one can come in here except for me."

"Why did you bring me, then?"

"Well, the servants tend to leave me alone when I'm with a suitor... mostly. But I don't like taking chances. And besides, a tour of the gardens wouldn't be complete without a visit here."

"So you brought me here to complete my tour?" Gemma smiled a smile that was usually reserved for her little half-sister and her chickens. "Thank you.. You didn't have to but I really, genuinely appreciate it. I know this place is important to you, and I feel honoured that you'd show it to me. Not because you're the princess, but because you're Cat."

Catalina looked down, glossy eyed and stifling a smile.

"What's wrong, Cat? Are you alright?" Gemma lifted her chin up.

"You know, when you asked earlier, I lied. I genuinely wasn't' okay, but I said I was fine. Now, I actually am fine. Maybe even better than fine. For the first time in my life, I feel... happy. You, Gemma, the last and most unlikely suitor of them all, a peasant girl who came disguised as a prince from a made-up kingdom, you have made me happy." Catalina smiled.

"You do know what this means, now that I've made you happy..." Gemma gave a sly grin.

"What?" Cat's eyebrows popped up.

"You're going to have to marry me." Gemma said.

"I just might." Catalina smiled, wider than she ever before.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End

Notes:

I wrote this late at night, sorry for mistakes, crappy writing and such. 

This isn't really my genre, so the dialogue is really weird. Deal with it.

Whoop di do fairy tales are fun aren't they kids.

I need to sleep.