Contest Entry: The Path to 'Ever After'

She read it in the books that kept her better company than her father's hollow presents. She dreamt it as the sunshine whittled away into the quiet red skies. A kiss was all they asked for, and these were magical ingredients she had plenty to spare.

If a friend could be made with one kiss, all the frogs in the streams she crossed would be her friend, and all the dresses that would be sacrificed would be but a precious canvas of patterned memories.

And what a fairytale it has been-- for the princess to have finally found a prince among the frogs, whom she would accompany into the Happily Ever After she desperately sought.

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful princess
    that loves sweets more than anything
        and everything in the world.
            [...]

        She hardly laughed. She hardly smiled.
        When she did, her heart and words
    were as bitter and as ugly as the world she claimed was.
Even then, she was known as
                    the Sweet Princess.