Christopher Healy - The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom

Rapunzel, in the meantime, managed to get free (though how she pulled off that feat was a mystery to everyone but her and the witch). She searched the woods for Gustav, and eventually found him sightless and starving. Rapunzel cradled him in her arms and wept. And here’s the really amazing part: As soon as her tears hit Gustav’s eyes, his vision was restored.

Once the story got out—and boy, did the minstrels get a lot of requests for this one—Gustav’s brothers treated him worse than ever. He couldn’t show his face in the castle without hearing mocking calls like, “Look out, Prince Charming, I think I see a scary shrub! Don’t worry, we’ll call Cousin Helga to come save you!”

Gustav considered this the lowest point of his life. He’d become famous for being a failure. He’d never been much of a people person to begin with, and this only made things worse.

One day, after being jeered by a group of shepherds (according to Gustav, the sheep were laughing, too), the big prince retreated into the forest, climbed a tall tree, and sat among its highest branches, hoping to avoid human contact. Rapunzel found him anyway.

“Come down,” she called. “Come back home with me.”

“Go away,” Gustav said. “Can’t you see I’m in a tree?”

“I see how the words of others hurt you,” Rapunzel said. “But you’ll hear no harsh words from me.”

“Oh, that’s right—you’re Little Miss Perfect,” Gustav grumbled from up above. “It’s all your fault, you know. It’s because of you that everyone thinks I’m a joke.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Rapunzel said, craning her neck to see him. “You know I only meant to help. When I saw you in that condition—”

“I would’ve been fine.”

“You were half-dead.”

“More like half-alive. See, that’s your problem, Mega-Braid. You’re always trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing.”

“Fixing people is my gift.”

Gustav snorted. “Well, I’m returning it. Go re-gift it to someone else.”

Rapunzel was silent for a moment, then said, “I should. It’s selfish of me to keep this gift to myself. The world is full of people in need; I’m wasting my talents here, trying to give you reasons to like yourself.”

“What?” Gustav jumped down, breaking several branches on his way to the ground. “Why don’t you use your power on yourself, Miracle Girl? You’ve obviously got something wrong with your brain. ’Cause I like myself just fine. I love myself. What’s not to love? I’m a better fighter than anyone, a better hunter, a better horseman—”

“If you truly like yourself as you are, why do you feel the need to prove yourself better than everyone else?”

“Leave,” Gustav barked. “You said it: Go help someone else. I don’t need anybody.”

Rapunzel gathered her hair and began to walk away.

“You’re right,” she said as she left. “Helping others is what I was meant to do. I don’t understand you, Gustav. But maybe you do understand me, after all.”

He never told anyone that Rapunzel had left. But her departure only made Gustav more determined than ever to show the world he was a hero worthy of respect. He spent his days riding around the countryside, looking for someone to rescue.

Months later, on the outskirts of Sturmhagen, Rosilda Stiffenkrauss and her family were busily plucking beets from the ground, when the nearby trees parted with a rumble and a hulking troll stepped out of the forest, sniffing the air with its tremendous nose. If you’ve never seen one before, trolls are about nine feet tall, covered with shaggy, swamp-colored hair, and may or may not have horns (this troll had one crooked horn jutting out from the left side of its head). Many people, upon seeing a troll for the first time, think they are being attacked by a big, ferocious pile of spinach. Rosilda Stiffenkrauss, however, had lived in Sturmhagen her entire life and knew a troll when she saw one.

“Oh, for pete’s sake,” she sighed. “Here comes another one. Come on, kids; everybody inside until it goes away.”

The big, greenish man-thing grunted and lumbered toward the farming family with a hungry smile on its hideous face. Rosilda quickly ushered her eleven children inside their small wood-frame house, where they all watched from the windows as the monster sat down amid their crops and started tossing handfuls of freshly picked beets into its mouth. Rosilda was furious.

“Stinking up the yard is one thing,” she spat, “but there’s no way I’m letting that beast devour our produce.”

The thickset, red-faced farmer woman wiped her hands on her apron, threw open the door, and marched back outside. “Get your grimy hands off our beets!” she yelled. Her wild and frizzy carrot-orange hair bounced with every angry word. “We spent the whole morning pulling those things up, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let you gobble them all!”

Rosilda picked a shovel up off the ground and raised it over her head, threatening to clobber the vegetable thief, who was nearly twice her size. Her children crowded in the doorway and cheered her on. “Mom-my, Mom-my!”

The troll looked up at her in shock, as bright red beet juice ran down its chin. “Uh,” the thing grunted. “Shovel Lady hit?”

“You’re darn right I hit,” Rosilda growled back. “Unless you drop those veggies and head back into the woods you came from.”

The troll looked from the woman’s scowling face to the long, rusty shovel she waved menacingly overhead. It dropped the handful of beets it had been about to eat.

“Shovel Lady no hit Troll,” it mumbled as it stood up. “Troll make no trouble. Troll go.”

Enter Prince Gustav. Clad in clanking, fur-trimmed armor and wielding a large, shining battle-ax, he charged at the troll on horseback.

“Not so fast, beast!” Gustav shouted as he approached, his long blond hair flowing behind him. Without stopping his horse, he leapt from the saddle, turning himself into a human missile, and knocked the troll flat onto its back. The prince and the troll rolled through the garden in one clanking, grunting mass, smashing down freshly sprouted beet plants, until the creature finally got back to its feet and tossed Gustav off. The prince crashed through the wooden planks of the farmer’s fence but nimbly picked himself back up, ready to charge the monster again. That was when Gustav spotted the bright red beet juice around the troll’s mouth.

“Child eater!” he screamed. All the children were, of course, perfectly fine—and had actually filed back out into the yard to watch the fight—but Gustav was too focused on the monster to notice. The prince swung his ax. The troll caught the weapon in its large, clawed hands, yanked it away from Gustav, and tossed it off into a corner of the farmyard, where it shattered several barrels of pickled beets with a crunch and a splat.

“Starf it all,” Gustav cursed (which prompted some of the older children to cover the ears of the younger ones).

Now unarmed, the prince stood face-to-face with the troll. The monster was nearly three feet taller than him, but Gustav showed no hint of fear. Gustav didn’t really do “fear.” Annoyance, consternation, occasionally embarrassment: Those were emotions Gustav was familiar with. But not fear.

“Why Angry Man do that?” the troll asked. Gustav charged at the creature, but it grabbed him in mid-run and lifted him into the air. The troll spun the prince upside down and rammed him headfirst into the ground with a pile-driver-like maneuver. Dazed, Gustav tried to crawl away, but the troll, still holding him by the feet, swung him to the left, smashing him through a stack of wooden crates. The monster then swung him back to the right, wrapping him around a fence post. Gustav swung his fist at the troll, but his punch didn’t even land. The creature hoisted him overhead and was ready to chuck him up onto the farmhouse roof, when Rosilda stepped up behind the troll and smacked it in the back of the head with her shovel.