Figured I should post something...this was oddly the first thing that came to mind. Oh, besides that I found my spandex shorts :)
enjoy n i shall try to post mo frequently i have some stories brewing I'd like to share ;) thanks guys!! :D

Hallie poked her head around the corner of her sister's door, which was open slightly. The sound of sobbing assaulted her tiny ears as her bright eyes scanned the tiny room. A metal-colored chair had fallen over as if pushed to the ground. The silver curtains were closed and let in a sole shaft of light to pierce through the dim scene. Papers, letters, and old pictures had accumulated, ripped down the middle or frayed at the edges.

Two tiny feet shuffled through crumpled balls of paper as Hallie delicately made her way through the dark room toward the shaking human sprawled on the bed. One black converse remained on her sister's outstretched foot - the other had been thrown across the room in a fit of rage. The sound of silence was so foreign to Hallie she almost didn't approach the sixteen-year-old on the bed. Her sister always had music on in her room. Always. But...she had promised.

Hallie reached out a tiny hand to the figure crying on the unmade bed. "Alyssa?" Hallie asked shakily. No reply behind the mask of red curls. "Alyssa," Hallie whispered again, poking a shoulder. "You promised."

The sniffling and shuddering stopped. A sniff. A sob. Another sniff. The form rolled over. Hallie's sister was usually pretty, at least, Hallie thought so, but today her mascara had run down her cheeks and her eyes were laced with red veins. Hallie took a step back.

Alyssa sniffed again and then replied in a broken voice, "I don't feel like a story today, Hal." She wiped a hasty hand over her face.

Hallie stuck out her lip like she usually did, her little fingers reaching out to grab Alyssa's clamy hand which still shook a little bit."Pleaassseeee? You promised. Pinky promised! And that means no take backs! No matter what," Hallie insisted, pleading with her older sister.

Alyssa stared at her a moment, then her eyes shifted upward as if looking for some words to say written on the ceiling. After hours and hours, she let out a sigh. "Fine..."

The word hardly left her mind before Hallie had jumped up on the messy bed, scrambled under the covers, and perched on her sister's knee. Hallie watched her sister's mouth almost smile...it was like it wanted to, but it forgot how.

"What'll it be today, Miss?" Alyssa asked softly, her voice rustling around the almost-empty room.

Hallie stated quickly, "A princess story please."

Alyssa closed her eyes, took a breath, and encirled her sister in her lap with her arms. "Ok...you ready?"

"Yes!" Hallie replied eagerly, hands clasped within Alyssa's.

"Ok...Once upon a time...there was a beautiful princess. She lived in a tower where her evil parents had imprisoned her."

"Why did they imprison her?" Hallie interrupted.

Alyssa pulled a blonde curl back from Hallie's face. "Because they wanted to protect her."

"From what?"

"I'm getting there, Hal. Just listen." Alyssa sniffed again, wiping a hand under her nose. "In this land, there were many dangers. Dragons roamed all over, burning and breaking things and eating people. Sorcerers and magicians made evil plans against the king. But, there were also knights who were rumored to be the bravest, most handsome people in the kingdom."

Alyssa opened her palm and Hallie absent-mindedly traced patterns in it as she listened to her sister's story. "The princess's father and mother were so afraid that a dragon or a sorcerer would eat or hurt the princess that they locked her up in a tower by herself. They made it so high that a man couldn't get high enough to reach the window and surrounded it by water, which dragons were afraid of. They thought she was safe."

Hallie's voice asked sweetly, "Did her parents live with her?"

"No, they lived in the nearby town."

"Why?"

"Because there was only room for the princess in the tower and they wanted to protect her."

"Oh," Hallie stated quietly. "Then they weren't evil afterall."

Alyssa began to weave her tale again, her soft voice and her encompassing arms making Hallie feel as protected as the princess. "So, the princess grew up alone in a tower, hoping that somehow, one day, a knight would come to save her. And, one day, a knight did!"

"Yea!" Hallie clapped her hands together.

Alyssa shook her head hastily. "No, no! This wasn't a real knight! The princess saw him from the top of her tower and thought he was, but she did not look closer or she would have seen it was a dragon enchanted by sorcerers to look human. The princess saw only what she wanted to see - a perfect knight in shining armor. The dragon tail went unnoticed."

Hallie sucked in a breath. "What happened?"

"She let him in."

"WHAT?"

Alyssa continued solemnly, "Yes. She was not looking for signs of a dragon and did not see his tail."

"What happened?"

"He chased her around the whole tower trying to eat her! A few times he almost had her, but at the last second she slipped through his grasp and ran out of the door. She was lost for the next few days. All she could do was wander around the dessert, alone! Eventually she ended up walking in a circle and she arrived back at the tower, only to find the dragon had destroyed it!"

"NO!" Hallie protested, eyes wide.

"Yes!" Alyssa insisted, squeezing her sister gently.

"What happened?"

"Nothing..." Hallie didn't notice the change in her sister's voice. "It is rumored she still sits outside the ruins of her tower, crying because she is so scared to leave what she used to call come and because she is so scared of everything that can hurt her now."

Hallie crossed her arms and said quietly, "I don't like that story."

Alyssa said nothing, only rested her cheek against her sister's.

Hallie said after a minute, "You ended it to soon."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. What the princess really does is ask the king to build her a new tower," declared Hallie.

"And then what?"

"And then he sends one of his knights to save her, silly!" Hallie laughed. Alyssa stared at her sister a moment, then wordlessly kissed her cheek.

"I love you, Hal."

"Love you, Lissa...but that was a sad story."

Alyssa nodded absently, then patted her sister's back. "Up. Dinner will be ready soon." She waited for the sound of tiny feet pattering across the littered floor and the sound of the door shutting after her.

As soon as the wood creaked back into place, Alyssa sank back onto the bed, arms draped over the covers now. Her eyes squeezed shut and she fought a sob inside her chest. Almost by accident, she scooped up a picture from next to her bed and blinked at it through tears.

In the picture, she wore a bright, yellow dress next to a young man clad in a sharp tuxedo. She bit her lip, closed her eyes again, and whispered, "You're not my prince..." And, like all the others, she ripped it down the middle so that she was on one side and he on the other. Limp fingers let the pieces slide through and fall to the floor.