Somniculos Beauty
By Erin Gieg
Once upon a battlestar, there lived a rex and reginae who were very sad
because they had no children. One cycle, when the reginae was in the
turbo-wash, she had a vision, and an apparition told her that she would
have a daughter to care for in less than a yahren. Soon enough, the
apparition's words became fact, and a beautiful daughter was born to the
couple. Her name, it was decided, would be Athena. The rex was so happy
that he planned a big 'do', and he invited all the people in the kingdom,
except for one especially nasty faerie, because he just didn't want to.
The time for the feast arrived, and when all the eating and entertainment
and such was over, each of the faeries came forward to present a gift to
the child. The faerie named Jolly presented little Athena with the gift
of laughter. Belloby gave her the gift of wisdom. Lastly, Rigel floated
up to give the child her gift, but before she could, the door to the hall
opened rather noisily, and the faerie that wasn't invited came stomping
in. Baltar was muttering under his breath and waving him arms about in a
most unsightly manner. He stopped and stamped his foot.
"Nasty, I say, nasty. All I wanted was to be invited. Now I shall
have to curse the princess!"
The room suddenly became alive again at that pronouncement, and the
entire attendance gasped with horror.
"When Athena is eighteen yahrens old, she will puncture her finger on a
fork and fall down dead!" Baltar ranted, grinning maniacally.
Then he turned around and stormed back out of the room, as quickly as
he had come.
Then Rigel smiled sadly and said, "Because you did not invite Baltar to
begin with, I cannot reverse his curse. But let it be this way: when she
pricks her finger, she will not die, but instead sleep for a hundred
yahrens."
The rex was frightened and furious, and so he ordered that all the
forks in the fleet be gathered up and jettisoned. Over time, as the
forks were gone, (not to mention good eating habits), the rex gradually
forgot about the curse. Now one cycle, the royal couple had left to go
out on a date, and Athena was home all by herself, just after her
eighteenth natal day. The door chime sounded, and the princess went to
answer the door. A funny looking old man stood there. It was Baltar,
but because Athena had never seen him, she did not recognize the faerie.
He held out a prettily wrapped package and said, "Joyous natal day,
princess." Then turned around and left as soon as she had taken it.
Athena turned and quickly opened the package. To her surprise, inside
was something she had never seen before...it was a fork, of course. She
wonderingly pressed her finger to the tip, and winced as a drop of blood
appeared. (Baltar kept all of his forks nice and sharp...you never know
when you need to spear something tough...he's not much of a cook.) At
that moment, everyone within a hundred milons fell into a deep sleep.
The story was told at the far reaches of the fleet about a princess
that lay sleeping in an enchanted room. Prince Charming Boomer, who had
been out on patrol the whole time (yeah, he must have a sore rear end),
docked at one of the ships on the outer rim. He heard of the legend and
determined to go and see for himself. He hopped back in his viper, after
a long stretching session, and made his way across space to the
Battlestar Galactica.
He landed in the docking bay, without any controller help (talented
guy, huh?), and walked over to the quarters where the princess was
reported to be. He saw people the whole way, but all were motionless, as
if they had just fallen asleep where they were. The battlestar was quiet
as a tomb, but he kept traveling. Finally he made it and forced the
door to the room open (hydraulics aren't going to operate in direct
disobedience to a curse). There she was, and she looked so beautiful
that he fell in love with her on the spot. He knelt down beside her and
kissed her. With that, the curse was broken, and Athena looked up.
"Hi," she said. "Where have you been all my sleepytime?"
Everyone on board the vessel began to come awake again, and just in
time, too, as Prince Charming and the somniculos beauty decided to be
sealed as soon as possible. And after that, they lived happily ever
after. (What, you expected something different??!!)
THE END
