Once upon a time, there lived a princess high up in a castle, a day’s horse ride away from what we call England. Back then, it was called Utopia. Anyways, this princess was the most beautiful princess the whole kingdom had ever seen. This was because her mother was gorgeous, her older sister even more so, and once Lily (that was her name) was born, she had soaked up all of her family’s beauty and became the most gorgeous princess the kingdom had ever seen. However, Lily was a bit more special than that, because this would have been a very boring story if that was true… If Lily looked into a boy’s eyes and blinked thrice, that boy would become madly in love with her. The thing is, Lily loved to make boys miserable, and so, from the age of three, she would go around, blinking into boys’ eyes and making them miserable. 

This went on a very, very long time. Sixteen years, in fact. One day, Lily was looking out her window, thinking of who she wanted to make miserable that day, when her keen eye spotted a handsome pauper. It was obvious that he was new to the kingdom, and he looked especially handsome. So Lily threw on her turquoise dress that reminded her of summer (which it always was in Utopia), flew down all fourteen flights of stairs (there were actually thirteen, but thirteen was not counted in those days for obvious reasons), and barged out of the twenty foot tall palace doors. Then Lily slowed down, took a deep breath, and went off on a search for the pauper. 

As she was ambling towards the village, her eyes never strayed from the pauper’s straw hair, bright blue eyes, and face that seemed to be drawn to the sun. On the way, she made fifteen (actually fourteen, as was stated above) boys miserable, tripped over three bunnies, bought two loaves of bread (she liked bread), and sang three songs about birds. Finally, she reached the pauper. 

“Hello,” she murmured in her “blinking” tone. 

“Hello, how do you do?” replied the pauper, whose voice sounded like a thousand bells softly ringing. The thing was, he wasn’t even looking at Lily; his eyes were staring at a middle distance, a little above her head. She immediately whipped around, expecting the pauper to be talking to another beautiful girl, but there was no one in sight. 

“I am Lily, the most beautiful princess this kingdom has ever seen. And I’m doing quite fine, thank you.” The pauper still would not look into poor Lily’s eyes, and she was getting quite flustered. 

“So, Lily, the most beautiful princess this kingdom has ever seen, what are you doing in the village?”

“I am here to make you miserable.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, that’s my job, you see. Every time I see a handsome boy, I look him in the eye, blink three times, and he falls madly in love with me, but since he can’t have me, he becomes miserable.” The boy simply nodded, but his eyes never strayed from the middle distance. Lily had just told him her deepest, darkest secret, and he couldn’t even look at her! 

“Wh…Where are you looking?” she finally asked, after what seemed like an eternity. 

“I’m… blind,” the pauper softly said in a voice that sounded like the ocean kissing the shore. Lily was shocked. She had never met a blind person, and this explained the way his eyes were so clean and shiny.  

“Well then, I have a solution.”

“Yes?”

“Keep your eyes looking right where they are, and I will stand in front of them, blink three times, and you will be miserable!” The pauper was reluctant at first, but finally agreed to let Lily blink at him, mainly out of curiosity. 

So Lily stepped in front of the pauper and blinked. The first blink shot a jolt of pain from the tips of her toes to the ends of each strand of her hair. She took a step back out of pure shock, and then blinked again. This time, the jolt of pain was much worse, and she staggered back a few steps, the pain causing her to double over. Then Lily blink a third time, and her heart stopped. The most beautiful princess the kingdom had ever seen was dead. 

This was a more detailed version of the story my dad told me last night. I literally screamed at the end, because I thought it would be like a romantic comedy, and I went on to tell my dad what it would be like if it was a romantic comedy. Well the pauper would be immune to Lily’s blinking, not blind, and then they would fall for each other and there would be a romantic montage of them horse-back-riding and having fun and sneaking out of the castle and going to the village. Then they would get into a big fight, and then one of them would forgive the other, but then the other would get mad. And then the pauper would come to Lily’s castle on horse-back, throw three stones to her window (that was their secret signal, because you know, the three blinking and everything), and then she would forgive him and she would jump down onto his horse and they would live happily ever after. The end.