What if...

What if the princes from Cinderella and Snow White were the same guy?


A Prince for All Seasons




There were so many rings on Cinderella’s fingers that it tired her to wave at her subjects as her carriage barreled through the village. This time she didn’t stop at the dress-maker’s. She didn’t feel like shopping. At the edge of the woods, she rapped on the roof, and the driver let her off at the mouth of a forest path she had never walked before.

Cinderella was feeling down. Her husband had seemed distracted of late. He'd hardly even looked at the new cape she'd woven for him, and she'd had to ask him twice the night before to help her find her slippers. (They could be hard to spot on a Persian rug.) The Prince was preoccupied about something, but she didn’t know about what.

As she rounded a bend in the path, her curiosity was roused by grief-stricken wailing. She crept behind a bush and peered through the leaves. Several little men were gathered around a glass box, weeping, trying to console one another, but they were clearly beyond help. It was also clear they hadn’t bathed for quite some time. Cinderella put her jasmine-scented handkerchief to her tiny white nose and craned her neck to see what was in the box. She could only catch a glimpse of lustrous black hair before she heard someone approaching and had to duck out of sight.

Suddenly her husband the prince sidled through the thick brush toward the men. She nearly gave herself away with a soft cry of alarm. The tallest of the little men, clearly the leader, rushed up to the prince. “Sir! The evil witch has cast a spell over our beloved mistress. The only thing that will save her is a kiss from her true love!”

Cinderella gasped as her husband, entranced by the occupant of the glass box, lifted the cover and leaned down with lips puckered. She could stand it no more.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” She burst through the foliage with her silken white arms folded over her chest.

“Honey!" the prince cried, leaping away from the box with an innocent smile. "I didn’t see you…”

“Clearly not. Who are these people?” she asked

One runny nosed dwarf approached her with hat in hand, “My dear lady, if you’ll permit me to explain…”

“I heard everything. Enchantment, witches, true love’s kiss, same old, same old. What I want to know is why my husband is the man for the job!”

There was an embarrassed silence as the little men looked from one to another. She heard someone murmer, “He never mentioned a wife…”

The Prince pointed into the glass box. “I can’t just let her languish forever in this coma!”

Cinderella looked into the box and was even more dismayed to see the patient was a gorgeous young brunette. “She looks fine to me.”

“She’s a vegetable!”

“Please mum!” A sleepy looking dwarf knelt before her and pulled on her skirt. “Our mistress is under an evil spell.”

“How long has it been,” she said, yanking her emerald silk garment from his grasp, “since you washed your hands?”

Now the Prince flared in anger. “Before I married you, you were just a…”

“You would bring that up now, as if this weren’t humiliating enough!” Her jewel-eyes filled with tears.

Prince Charming rolled his eyes. “Here come the waterworks.”

“That’s IT! You’re coming home RIGHT NOW!” She shoved the dwarves aside, and dragged her husband by the ear toward her carriage.

“What about our beloved Snow White?” The leader of the dwarves stepped forward, his little hands held out, pleading.

“There’s a pond nearby,” Cinderella said over her shoulder. “See if you can find a frog.”