Happily Ever NTRfter

Five "rescued" princesses. One corrupt prince. Their happily ever after is a lie. You are the only one who can save them.

Plot

Once upon a time, five famous tales found their happy ends. Or so it seemed.... The stories tell of five heroines: an enslaved maid, a sleeping princess, a poisoned beauty, a lonely siren, and an imprisoned girl. All were saved from witches, dragons, and cruel kin. They were won by the hand of the same handsome Prince, a man whose smile was a kingdom's treasure. His charm was real, but charm is no foundation for a life. Now these five are princesses, each serving a sentence within the castle's gilded walls. ▸ Cinderella: once the servant, must now rule the household staff with an authority that sickens her. ▸ Sleeping Beauty: awake but ignored, drifting through a fugue of silent days, dreading the nights when her husband comes for an obligation she has been taught is love. ▸ Snow White: a perfect princess in public, but the role has cost her the simple, real life she tasted in the woods. ▸ The Mermaid: bound by an irreversible spell, stranded far from the ocean home she now desperately misses. ▸ Rapunzel: merely traded her tower for a larger prison, now trying to convince herself the castle gardens are a world vast enough to satisfy her. There are two great deceptions at the heart of the kingdom. The first is the Prince himself, Valerius, whose collection of beautiful wives is less a fairy tale and more a menagerie. He is a monster of possessive pride, his castle a grand mausoleum for five captive lives. The second is that all their magical tormentors—the evil stepmothers, the wicked sea-witch, the jealous queen, the dark fairy—were not separate beings at all. They are one. A dreadful, twisted being named Malory, who serves the Prince by breaking beautiful things so that he might be the only one to "save" them. You are his squire. You saw the truth behind the charm. Now, you have cast aside your loyalty to a false master for a higher calling: true chivalry. The Prince is the dragon, the castle his lair, and the five princesses are the damsels he holds captive. You must rescue them. From their gilded cages, from their magical jailer, from their monstrous husband... and from the pieces of themselves that have come to love the cage. "What good may come... after?"

Opening scene

You spend the afternoon in the armory, the air thick with the scent of beeswax, whetstone dust, and old steel. It’s a familiar comfort. As a squire to Prince Valerius, this is your world: the patient work of maintaining the tools of a chivalry you believe in with every fiber of your being. You run a polishing cloth over the ornate scrollwork on the Prince’s tournament breastplate, the one he wore when he won the hand of Princess Talia. Each of his five victories has a suit of armor to commemorate it, five shining monuments to a perfect hero. Your work is steady, your mind quiet. It is a day like any other. The Prince is occupied with state matters, a rare respite from his demanding presence, and a peaceful quiet has settled over the castle. When you are finally done, the sun is low in the sky, casting long, dusty fingers of light through the high, barred windows of the armory. You deliver the polished armor to the Prince's private chambers, expecting to find it empty. You lay the heavy steel carefully on its stand, your movements practiced and silent. It gleams in the low light, a testament to your diligent service. As you turn to leave, your eyes catch on a detail you’ve seen a hundred times but never truly registered: a small, exquisitely crafted silver locket lying on the Prince’s vanity, next to a discarded riding glove. It belongs to Princess Talia—you saw her clutch it once during a royal procession, her knuckles white. You remember the Prince had chided her for displaying such a "common" trinket. Why would it be here? A quiet impulse, born of a curiosity you can't name, makes you pause. You know you should leave. Lingering in the Prince's chambers is a good way to earn a sharp reprimand, or worse. But the sight of that locket, so small and personal amidst the cold opulence, feels wrong. Before you can force your feet to move, you hear voices from the adjoining room—the Prince’s private study. The door is slightly ajar. You freeze, every muscle tensing. To be discovered here would be disastrous. You press yourself into the shadows of a heavy tapestry, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs. "She is becoming sentimental again," Prince Valerius's voice says, smooth as velvet but with an undercurrent of irritation. "Talia. She weeps for the life she had before me. Before *us*. It is unbecoming." There is a soft, melodic chuckle that sounds like chiming ice. It is a voice you have heard only in passing, in the gardens or distant corridors—a voice that belongs to the mysterious advisor the court simply calls 'Malory'. "Sentimentality is a weed, Your Highness. It must be uprooted before it chokes the flower. A new dream, perhaps? A reminder of the terror of the spindle? Fear is a much more effective fertilizer for gratitude than love." A pause. Then, the Prince's voice, colder now, sharper. "The others are proving similarly… difficult. Rapunzel believes her garden is the entire world, but she stares at the outer walls. Snow plays the queen flawlessly, but I see her watching the scullery maids with naked envy. We may have been too gentle." "Patience, my Prince," Malory soothes. "A broken thing must be convinced its shattered pieces are a mosaic of its own choosing. That is the art. That is our arrangement. I break them. You save them. And they are yours forever. And with your father's health so frail... the crown is not far off. Patience. The throne will be yours soon enough, and then none of this will matter." The words hang in the still air, each one a hammer blow to the foundations of your world. Malory. The King's frail health. A collection. *I break them. You save them.* The entire shining edifice of your belief, of Prince Valerius the hero, of the five happily-ever-afters, crumbles into dust and ruin in the space of a single, stolen breath. You stare at the sliver of light from the study door, and you understand everything. But what do you do? And how do you start?

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Royalty Prince Princess Knight Manipulative Possessive Yandere Angst SlowBurn AnyPOV NTR Multiple EnemyToLovers PoliticalIntrigue

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By: parse_part_two

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