The Mug and Spoon is a short story by Anastasia Kharlamova (Autumn Leaves), published in Timeless Tales Magazine in 2018. The issue containing it can be read for free on the magazine's site
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Lord Austreigh hears rumours of a beautiful princess called Schneewittchen and kept under a sleeping spell, and he sets off to look for her. He does find her – she lies in a gilded coffin in the Mug and Spoon tavern in a small town. He gives her the True Love's Kiss, she wakes up and happily agrees to marry him, and they ride off into the sunset.
And then, fifteen years later, Lord Austreigh meets his old army friend who tells him the exact same story about how he woke up and married the enchanted princess.
Tropes featured in the story:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: To his army friends, Count Leedway is known as Jolly Joe.
- Age-Gap Romance: Count Leedway is in his early to mid-forties, and the Countess is twenty. She admits she didn’t expect to fall in love with somebody so much older than her.
- Bilingual Bonus: The family (with seven sons) that owns the Mug and Spoon is called the Zwercks. Zwerg is German for "dwarf".
- The Con: A local girl is groomed to pose as a princess. The townspeople spread a rumour about a princess who was put under a sleeping spell and found by the town’s innkeepers. A would-be rescuer arrives to try breaking the spell. As he dines at the inn, the innkeepers ask him about his financial situation and the girl eavesdrops from the next room. After he finishes dinner, she lies down in a gilded coffin and pretends to be asleep. If she thinks him good enough, she "wakes up" after his kiss, and if not, she waits for a richer guy. When she "wakes up", marries and leaves, another girl steps in to take her place. Repeat on infinite.
- Dances and Balls: The last part of the story occurs during a royal ball, and in the final paragraphs the Leedways go to dance the quadrille.
- Fantastically Indifferent: The wicked queen is so self-absorbed that she doesn't react to the princess's curse being broken, as long as the fact isn't rubbed in her face. That's because there is no curse and no princess.
- Fiction As Coverup: In the end, Count Leedway admits his story of waking the sleeping princess was one of his jokes, so that Lord Austreigh won't have any suspicions about the con.
- Fluffy Fashion Feathers: Both Lady Austreigh and Countess Leedway are mentioned to have "enormous ostrich-feather fans" at the ball.
- Gold Digger: Many of the girls involved in the con pick wealthy and highborn husbands, though they do aim to be good and loving wives in return.
- Guilt-Ridden Accomplice: Marie feels very uncomfortable about having to participate in the con and soon spills the secret of it to her husband.
- I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Gender-inverted. After two years of marriage, Joseph Leedway is still amazed that Marie had agreed to be his wife, though he is twice her age and very poor.
- Impoverished Patrician: Count Leedway is completely destitute thanks to his parents leaving him with a heap of debts.
- Interclass Romance: A mere lord and a princess get married. Or rather, a lord and a commoner – and later a count and a commoner.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Before Rita’s marriage, Rita and Marie used to be good friends, though the latter was at least a decade the former’s junior. They are very happy to reconnect fifteen years later, and Marie recalls that Rita taught her to read.
- Love at First Sight: Marie states she "liked" her husband from the moment she saw him, but it's clearly more than just liking, since she decides to marry him despite knowing he is impoverished and quickly tells him the truth about the scam.
- Karma Houdini: None of the people involved in the Mug and Spoon scam are brought to justice.
- The Merch: In-Universe. The Mug and Spoon serves multiple Snow White-inspired dishes.
- Mock Millionaire: When he is among other aristocrats, Count Leedway hides the fact that he is poor, so nobody in the highborns’ circle is aware of it.
- Obliviously Evil: Lady Rita Austreigh doesn't understand what in the world can be wrong with what she took part in. After all, everybody wins! The rich people get beautiful wives, the wives make advantageous marriages they wouldn’t have dreamed of otherwise, and the allegedly wicked queen is so feared in other countries that nobody dares to oppose her. It only requires a little fraud to achieve it.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Spoofed by Lord Austreigh who thinks this description of the sleeping princess is more fitting for a vampire. His wife has chestnut hair and a healthy complexion.
- Secret-Keeper: Count Leedway is aware that his wife isn’t really a princess and there is a long-standing con running in her hometown, aimed at deceiving potential aristocratic husbands. However, he decides to keep quiet about it for Marie’s sake.
- Step Servant: The princess was forced to work like a slave by her stepmother. Ultimately subverted. This is just a cover story to explain why the "princesses" are so skilled in household chores.
- Stepford Smiler: Count Leedway acts so cheerful and carefree that his friends think he takes nothing seriously. In fact, he is struggling to make ends meet and constantly afraid some new tax from the king might finish him.
- Time Skip: Fifteen years pass between the two parts of the story.
- True Love's Kiss: The sleeping princess should be woken up with one. Except not, as the "princesses" are never asleep to begin with, and for many of them love isn't involved that much.
- Vicarious Gold Digger: Downplayed. The residents of Weissfelsen, an otherwise poor village, want their daughters to marry well and concoct an elaborate, decades-spanning con to attract potential rich husbands for them. However, the ultimate decision is implied to be left to the girl herself, since Marie chooses to marry an Impoverished Patrician for love.
- White-and-Grey Morality: Even those who do the morally questionable acts in the story are rather nice people in general.
- The Zwercks are friendly, hard-working and genuinely want what's better for their town and their country. Notably, even though their goal is to get rich husbands for the local girls, they don't object to Marie marrying for love.
- Rita is a nice woman who ultimately has a good and loving marriage as well, even though she chose her husband more calculatingly and doesn't reveal her secret to him.
- Count Leedway leads a rather miserable life, being deep in debt and hiding it behind his Stepford Smiler facade. He finally finds happiness when he marries Marie, a beautiful kind girl who loves him unconditionally, so it's only natural he doesn't tell anyone that all the Mug and Spoon brides are impostors, to avoid being parted from Marie and/or hurting her friends.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Lord Austreigh believes he is the Prince Charming in a classic fairytale. He is actually conned into thinking it and it’s really a Fractured Fairytale.
