Hello everyone,

here is another story. I have finished the story but do not want to overwhelm you, so here are the first two chapters.

Enjoy! :D

Chapter One

What started It All

Once upon a time there lived a prince named Robert. He had never loved anything in his life. He hated his books (but he read them anyway to pass the time of day), he hated his horse, his slaves, his sword, his kingdom, even his wealth (because it did nothing but buy more hated things). 

One day he was reading when a slave came in and asked for the day off because it was his son's birthday. The prince blew up. He threw the book at the slave and started screaming at him. After the slave left (very frightened) the prince got on his horse and yelled at his slave for not brushing it sooner. The slave cowered behind stacks of hay, but the prince pushed it all on top of him and he suffocated and died. The prince rode out of the stables shrieking at his horse to move faster. When the horse bucked him off he screamed at it. He got back on and rode on, yelling at his horse to move faster. 

Suddenly his shrieking stopped, his horse stopped he slid out of the saddle in a dead faint. The most beautiful lady in the world rode up to him and poured water on his face to wake him up. As was his custom he woke up hollering. 

"Why you wretched monster, what are you doing to me? I'll have your head!" 

The lady was terrified; she jumped on her horse and galloped away. When the prince realized who it was and what he had done, he jumped on his horse and screamed to it to catch up with her. But she had a head start and he did not catch her. He came home depressed, but with a smile on his face, one of the worst symptoms of True Love. He was enraged that his slave was dead and whipped all his slaves as punishment. He went inside and burned his books because he was angry he had ruined one by throwing it at the slave. Then he threw his blankets off his bed on the floor and went to bed without supper, sleeping in the hayloft, yet another symptom of True Love. His dreams were filled with the beautiful lady, and by morning he was sick with that sickness even doctors have never found a cure for, True Love. 

But his father and mother did not know this and sent for the doctor. The doctor came out worried. 

"Your son has True Love. I cannot heal that. The only cure I can suggest is for him to seek for his True Love." 

The king and queen were horrified. 

"We can't send him on a wild goose chase when he is sick." declared the king, "I will search for the cure."

 "No," said the doctor, "He must do it or he will not be healed." 

So the prince was made to get up. He yelled himself hoarse because he did not want to get up, but in the end he was on his horse chasing True Love. He was soon feeling better because he was on his way to True Love.

Chapter Two

What Happened In The Tower

Prince Robert was riding along when he saw a tower that reached to the clouds. In front of it stood the most beautiful horse he had ever seen. He leapt off his horse and threw the tower door open. "My True Love!!" 

He cried, sure his True Love was inside. The first thing he saw was, well, nothing. He was just about to light his lantern when the entire tower was filled with light: lanterns hung on the walls magically lit. The room he was in was huge. There was a lovely carved oaken table in the center with carved oaken chairs. There were the most delicious kinds of food covering the table. There were candles casting shifting shadows over the food. It was beautiful but spooky at the same time. The prince stepped forward and grabbed a chicken bone and gobbled all the meat off (He was very hungry.) Seeing no True Love right off, he helped himself to a huge plateful of mashed potatoes and gravy, then shrimp, then spaghetti, then beef, then baked ham, pizza, then took a big swig of wine, then apple pie, then pumpkin pie (the whole thing), then cherry turnovers, fried fish, a whole strawberry cake covered with blueberries, then huge slices of bread with strawberry jam (Man, he has an appetite, will he ever stop?), then a bunch of food he did not know the names of, then he sat down hard on the floor, extremely stuffed (finally). Then he fell fast asleep. 

He slept for three long hours. When he awoke he looked around himself. He realized for the first time that he had eaten every crumb of food that had been on the table. Then he looked around to see if his True Love was there. She was not sitting in the huge cushiony chairs that lined the walls, she was not standing at the widows with floor length satin curtains, she was not asleep in the huge bed with feather quilts and pillows. The prince rose, still feeling stuffed. 

The next place to go was the winding staircase that led up the tower. He started up them; the stairs were broad, but the higher he got the narrower the stairs got. The torches that had lined the wall so close together, began to be less and less until he was in pitch blackness. He lit his lantern and continued climbing. Suddenly he stopped abruptly, so abruptly that his lantern fell from his hand and he heard it smash as it hit something far below. He was once more in darkness. 

The reason he had stopped was because the stairs stopped and there was about a one hundred fifty foot drop below; one more step would have sent him to his death. He was angry but he did not stomp around as usual, since he was afraid the step he was on would break, and he was too nervous to yell, and he had nothing to yell at. He was about to feel his way back down when a lantern lit right beside him and a voice far up said, 

"Prince Robert, is that you?" 

He was scared, but he was sure it was the voice of his True Love. He snatched the lantern off the wall and realized that the reason the stairs stopped was because three steps had broken off, then they started back up. 

Summoning his courage, (he had very little of it) he closed his eyes and jumped; he landed on hands and knees on the next step, and now it was so narrow he had to crawl because he could not rely on staying balanced on those narrow steps. He was frightened and dizzied when he looked over the edge, but he crawled all the way up. There was a small doorstep and then a door. 

He opened the door and came in and closed it. He glanced around and saw an old lady standing over an oven; he then saw chests lining the wall. One was not closed completely. Since the lady's back was turned to him he went and opened it. Then he staggered back, as much as in horror as in the horrible stench that arose from the chest. The horror was because it was filled with dead bodies, the stench because they were rotting. He spun around when he heard a lock click behind him. The old lady was still at the oven. He ran to the door and rattled and pulled on it. It was locked. 

"Old hag!" he said, on the verge of yelling. "How do I get out?" The old lady turned slowly around, smiled wickedly, and said, "You don't!" 

She drew a dagger that was about a foot long out of the sheath that hung on her belt. The prince froze, horrified that such an old woman could be so evil. In a moment he drew his own dagger of the same length. He said, 

"Old hag, all my life I have gotten what I want. I don't want to end up in your box." 

"Oh, the poor boy. Time you learned  that you don't always get what you want." 

And she jumped at him but he jumped aside. 

"Old hag, I will cut off you hands!" he said. 

"So will I!" she cackled. 

And she jumped at him again but he jumped out of the way and cut one of her hands off. She looked at him evilly and threw her knife down. The prince was happy he had gotten his way again. "See, I told you I always got what I wanted." 

But the words were hardly out of his mouth when he saw the old hag had only thrown the knife away to draw a long sword. He quickly threw his knife away and drew his sword. 

"Old Hag, all my life I have gotten what I want. I don't want to end up in your box!" he said. 

"Time you learned you don't always get what you want. I will cut you into slivers and put you in my stew." 

She jumped at him, but the prince jumped aside and said, 

"Old hag, I will cut off your feet!" 

"So will I!" she cackled. 

And she jumped at him again. He jumped aside and cut off her feet. She looked at him evilly and threw her sword down. The prince was happy he had gotten his way again. 

"See, I told you I always got what I wanted." 

But the words were hardly out of his mouth when he saw the old hag had only thrown the  sword away to get out a bow. The prince quickly threw his sword away and got out his own bow. 

"Old Hag, all my life I have gotten what I want. I don't want to end up in your box!" he said. 

"Time you learned you don't always get what you want." 

She shot an arrow at him, but the prince jumped aside and said,

"Old hag, I will shoot an arrow through your heart!" "So will I!" she cackled. And she shot another arrow at him. He jumped aside and shot an arrow through her wicked heart. She looked at him evilly and threw herself on the ground, dead! The prince was happy he had gotten his way again. 

"See, I told you I always got what I wanted." 

He then went to her and took the keys off her belt and unlocked the door. He began going down the stairs very carefully. When he finally got to the bottom he tried to open the door to go outside. He immediately wished he had brought the keys with him because the door was locked. He began the long climb upstairs. He was almost at the top when he felt the step he was on starting to move. Terrified he moved backwards, but he stepped off the stairs and began falling; he grabbed the step closest and began pulling himself up, but it broke under his weight. He caught hold of another and pulled himself up. He was trying to rest from the effort when the step began to move. It was breaking underneath him. He turned and fled down the stairs. By some miracle he did not fall again, but he could hear the steps above him breaking and crashing to the ground far below. He had always hated everything, even himself. But now he realized he didn't want to die and he was running for his life! As he stepped off the last step he heard the walls begin to shake. He thought he might be able to bust through the door, so he slammed into it. It did nothing but give him a sore shoulder. 

He decided there was nothing to do but hide under the table. He turned towards it, and saw it was covered once more with food. He couldn't let all that food go to waste so he began grabbing it and cramming it into his mouth, pockets, shirt and belt. He had hardly gotten half way when a chicken bone began to choke him. He could hear the walls trembling and could feel the vibration of stones falling inside, but his arms were too full to let him see what was happening. He dove under the table, sorry to know all that food would be ruined, but at least he wouldn't see it. He put the food in his lap and saw that there was a mirror on the floor; in it, he saw that his face was getting blue because he could not breathe. He pulled the chicken bone out and his face got really red. He then saw how much food he had. It made him look like a pig. 

What if my True Love comes in. What will she think? he thought. 

He heard dishes breaking above him as huge stones fell on top of the table. 

Well, she wouldn't think that if there wasn't any food. 

So he began cramming it down his throat until it was all gone. He glanced in the mirror before he fell asleep, and realized that the mirror must not work right: it contorted his belly and stretched it out to make him look fat. He fell asleep amidst the crashes around him. He woke several hours later and began coughing because of all the dust around him from the fallen tower. He sat up and began pulling the stones away. When he got a hole big enough to crawl through he began scrambling out. When he got stuck halfway, he realized that the mirror had not contorted his belly, the food had! He suddenly vowed to himself he would never excessively eat again. He began pulling stones out of the way. When he was finally able to crawl through, he saw that he had tied his poor horse before coming into the tower and it had up and died at the first stone that hit it. Strangely though, the beautiful horse he had seen at first was tied but the stones had all bounced off it and done it no harm. 

"That's a horse worth having!" he said. 

He mounted it. Though his new weight would have crushed his other horse, his new horse acted as though it felt no weight.