Charming Quest

Charming Quest
Andra Faeble

Darling Charming had a few quests in her life; she was a Charming after all.  Darling wasn’t much for being the quest giver, or the prize, but the quester herself.  Yet this time, she needed a little bit more help.

Darling ran across the large halls of Ever After High as she looked for her brother.  She had her armor ready, shield on her back, and sword on her sheath.  Darling’s long silver hair was up in a ponytail to keep out of any sword related accidents.  Darling had a letter in her hand and read through it for understanding until she bumped into someone.  It was her brother, but not the one she was looking for in order to get help.

Dexter was a cute younger brother.  He had thick glasses and short brown hair.  She knew that he was going to be an effective Charming after he’s able to get a girl.  She heard rumors of Cupid liking him, but she shook it off to ask, “have you seen Daring?”

Dexter looked around to see Daring just walking away from his locker, “over there!”  

Darling ran over to her older brother as she showed Daring the note.

Daring’s blue eyes looked at the note for a second, “Too long, didn’t read,” Daring handed back the letter as he smiled his glowing white smile, “who wants to read unless if it’s for school?”

Darling rolled her eyes, guess she had to explain it, “Rosabella got kidnapped by a beast!  If everything goes the way it does, she’ll fulfill her destiny!”  Rosebella was the daughter of Beauty and the Beast, but Rosabella was smart; and she wanted save all beasts, not just one.

“And?” Daring asked.

“Rosabella doesn’t want to fulfill her destiny, it’s in the note,” Darling frantically pointed to the note as she began to get too frantic for conjunctions, “Help, quest now!”

“Oh! You want me to save a princess?” Daring asked, “well why didn’t you say so? I will need help!  Dexter!  Grab my sword!”

Dexter was right behind Darling as he saluted, “On it Noble Sir!”

“Wait, no, Dexter doesn’t fight well enough to go on this quest!” Darling cried out, then she looked at Dexter “no offensive, you’re more of the smart type.”

“None taken,” said Dexter, the he turned to Daring “but seriously though, Darling is very fit for this quest.  We may need some girlish charm.”

“Thank you poindexter,” Darling sarcastically mumbled.  She guessed her party members were going to be her siblings this time around.



Well of course the castle in is the Dark Forest.  The one place where students should never go!  Darling looked at the map of the forest, then she felt Dexter poke her shoulder.  Daring was combing his hair.

Darling looked over at her brother, Dexter, who soon turned the map around. Great, it was upside down.  

Suddenly, the three felt a whoosh by them, and Daring exclaimed, “oh, Cerise, it’s good to see you!”

Cerise, the Daughter of Little Red Riding Hood stopped, as she looked over to Daring, “the same to you.”  

Cerise was about to take off when Daring began to ask, “so do you know of any dark abandoned castles around here?”

Cerise placed her footing back to the ground and began to think, “there is a lot in the Dark Forest, but there is one small castle covered in thorns and roses around these parts.  You may need to find the candy cottage of Ginger to know exactly where it is.”  

“Ginger?” Darling asked, “as in Ginger Breadhouse?”  Of course Darling knew Ginger, she helped her make a message from Wonderland to this world when Ginger was stuck in Wonderland.  Darling would be very happy to see her again!  But wait…

“Oh, Ginger, she’s in my enchantments class,” Dexter exclaimed, “she uses her enchantments for food.”

Daring looked at Dexter, then looked at him again, then looked at him a third time just to make sure, “you take enchantments?”

Darling jabbed Dexter with her elbow, “I knew there was a little Rebel in you!”

Dexter shook his head, “no, I’ve been signing up for magic classes to be in the same class as… a girl.”

“Is she a princess?” Daring asked, “because your destiny is getting with a princess.”

“Technically?” Dexter explained sheepishly, “but this isn’t the issue at hand, we do have a princess to save from her un-chosen destiny.”

Oh, right, the quest, Darling’s BFF, keeping Rosabella from falling in love with a beast!  That quest! They better get onto that quest.



Dexter knocked on the door of the Candy House to get no answer.  Daring pushed the door slightly to see if it was open, then walked inside.  Home invasion was very common for heroes like these three.  

They found a nice kitchen, which was common for candy witches like Ginger.  Daring looked in the fridge as he grabbed an apple and took a bite from the juicy fruit.

“Daring, stop stealing stuff,” Darling whispered when she bumped into a bed.  

In the bed they found a sleeping Ginger.  Guess she was taking a nap after classes.  Darling didn’t know whether to shake her awake, or to slightly poke the gingerbread girl.  

It was already too late, when Daring began to scream, “wake up!”

Ginger shuttered awake, “who is that?”  She began to point a spell at Daring, when he blocked it with his shield.  Even Darling was impressed by Daring’s reflexes.  Ginger gasp to see her classmates at her house, “oh, the Charmings, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you!”  Ginger began to get up and took some muffins out of the fridge.  The looked a bit… topless. “You were sort of unexpected, so all I have are muffin bottoms.”

“Why only the bottoms?” Dexter asked.

“I had to get the muffin tops from somewhere,” Ginger remarked,  Ginger was always the hostess type, “so what’s the occasion?”

“Well,” Darling took out the letter that started this quest, “I got this from Rosabella.”

Ginger read the letter, which was saying more about her than Daring.  “Oh, geeze, it was worse than I thought.”

“What?” asked Darling.

“Well, I sort of made that beast.” Ginger noted, “see, I was selling Tale Scout Cookies door to door, as any Tale Scouts would.”

“Aren’t you a tad old for Tale Scouts?” Daring asked.

“They go up to high school,” Ginger explained gently, “but I was going to this castle with a lot of thorns, when I came upon Hopper.”

“Hopper Crockington II?” Dexter asked, “what is he doing in the forest?”

“I don’t know either, I was flabbergasted to look straight at Hopper himself,” Ginger blushed, “so I gave him the cookies in my arm out of nervousness.  Only then to forget that the cookies were cursed.”

“Cursed?” Daring asked, “I thought you were beyond cursing your sweets.”

“I didn’t make the curse, plus, they are cursed as a security measure from keeping people from stealing the cookies,” Ginger pushed up her glasses, “but I would never curse my own cookies.”

“Okay, so the cookies were cursed,” Dexter said, “what happened next.”

“I read the manual, and found out that so lift the curse is a true love kiss,”  Hopper kind of cried and shut the door before I could find a woman he loved.  I tried to contact Briar about it, but she won’t answer her Spellphone.  She was probably asleep again.”

“So Hopper grabbed the wrong Beauty,” Darling placed the palm on her head, “so Dexter, go to Briar’s dorm room and retrieve her from her slumber.  Daring and I will rescue Rosabella.”



Daring kicked over Hopper’s door and screamed in the top of his lungs, “release the princess!”

Yet the room was empty.  They must have been somewhere else… Daring ran over to the nearest door and kicked that open as he cried out again, “release the princess!”

There was no one in that room either.  So Daring began to run to the next room until Darling grabbed the collar of Daring’s sports jacket, “let’s actually look around first.”

So they looked around.  It was until that they went to the kitchen where they found a giant green frog monster with Rosabella.  They seemed to be making… cookies?

Rosabella took some cookied out of the oven, only to have the oven fill up the room with smoke.  Rosabella began to cough as she placed to cookie sheet onto the stove.  “Well, the spell would probably still work.”

The frog monster latched his tongue onto the brunt crisps and chewed them with a slight wince.  Everyone began to hear magic going about…  

Only for spikes to pop out of his back, and sharp teeth began to grow… no one knew that frogs could even have teeth.  

“Your efforts were futile through your baking, but you did try to release this cure.  That is all I could ask for,” said the frog, who Darling now realized was Hopper.  Even when a young beautiful woman messed up, he is very poignant in his words towards them.

“We’ll figure something out for sure,” Rosabella looked over at Darling, “oh, you made it.  Do you have any other solutions?”

Obviously the ‘True Love’s Kiss,’ didn’t work between Rosabella and Hopper; especially since they probably just met each other when Hopper kidnapped the poor girl.  From Darling’s experience as both a distressed damsel a knight: Stockholm syndrome never worked as a wooing mechanism.  This is even in the case that Hopper had a goal.  

Yet knowing Rosabella, she would find another way to help Hopper. Hopper is usually a person or an animal: not a creature.  Rosabella was a very helpful individual, and even though kissing Hopper wasn’t going to help: she tried to find alternatives.  
‘
That was when Cerise came running in with Briar on her back, “I have your girlfriend here.”

Yet Briar just screamed, “Hopper, you look worse than usual!”

“Rosabella didn’t help,” Daring mumbled, “this is why damsels should stick with being in distress.”

Darling angrily nudged Daring, “Says the guy who got a bunch of girls to help him with his latest quest.”

Cerise glared at Daring, “yeah, I showed you to Ginger’s cottage because she knew where the castle was located.”

“And Ginger told us the story, and we had Dexter to retrieve Briar,” an offended Darling spat out out of anger.

Briar gave Hopper a kiss, only to have Rosabella’s damage fade, “um, that worked?”

Dexter and Ginger came running into the kitchen. Ginger looked over at Hopper, “You still don’t look like one of your usual selfs.  Did Briar kiss you yet?”

Darling looked around.  If it wasn’t for Rosabella’s mess up, they’d be celebrating.  Darling looked over at Ginger, “does the love have to be both ways?”

Ginger shrugged, “I don’t think so….” then she blushed out of realization of what Dexter meant, “oh, I can’t…”

“Wait, you like Hopper?” asked Briar, “wait, how?”

“He’s really cute,” Ginger blushed, “especially as a frog.”

Briar sighed then rolled her eyes, “well, he’s mine, but you can kiss him just this once.  To break the spell.”

Ginger began to get giddy, “really?” She ran over to Hopper then kissed him.  For him to turn back human.

Hopper looked at his hands, “I’m back….” then he looked at Ginger, ”wait, you like me?”

Ginger blushed, “yeah, but I know you like Briar as well.”

Hopper began to stutter in his words, and turned back into a frog.  At least it was his usual frog this time.

Darling rolled her eyes, what was with her fellow students and love? Can’t everyone just be friends? Darling grabbed onto Rosabella’s hand and said, “so let’s get back to our dorm.  I need to finish up an essay.”

Rosabella smiled, “delighted!  I’m glad that you and your brothers were able to help Hopper.” Then she looked down, “too bad I can’t be the hero this time…”

Darling smiled at Rosabella, “we can’t be the heroes all of the time, but we can always try to be the heroes.  It’s what princesses do!”

The two walked out of the castle peacefully to end their adventure… and to finish that essay for History due tomorrow.