My Spazzing Fangirl Feels

Stay with me.

We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.

I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.

It is in no way a collector’s item. It is physically impossible for it to complement anyone’s decor, because the colors in it are garish. It’s just a ceramic plate with a gay pirate painted on it, and the painting is, this cannot be emphasized enough, extremely bad.

(How do we know the pirate is gay if he’s just posing on a plate? Listen. Fully 100% to stereotype, but he is. He is gay. There’s an energy. That pirate is a flaming homosexual. That pirate has sex with men and does it frequently. That pirate is fucking gay, all right, he just is.)

Anyway. The point is that this is an extremely cheap and ugly plate with a poorly-executed painting of pirate on it who is like a nine on the Kinsey scale.

My grandmother and her sister fought a blood feud over this plate for their entire lives. It would be on the wall in my grandma’s house, and then her sister would visit, and then it would be gone. She’d visit her sister and the plate would be on the wall and her sister would pretend it had always been there. She would steal it back, hang it up, and, when her sister visited, pretend it had always been there. This continued for DECADES.

When the sister died, the Gay Pirate Plate lived triumphantly in my grandmother’s house. And then my grandmother died. And my aunt, who had lived with her and been her carer throughout her life, rightfully inherited their house.

We visit my aunt after the funeral and stay with her for a week or two.

Me, my sister, and our dad. Her brother.

The three of us look at each other. We don’t say anything. We studiously avoid making eye contact with the Gay Pirate Plate mounted proud and ugly on the wall. We notice one another studiously avoiding looking at it. We notice one another noticing. We say nothing. We come to a silent consensus. We pack up to leave. We get in the van. Our aunt comes out to say goodbye. I loudly announce I need to use the restroom before we leave. She obviously stays outside to continue talking to my dad.

I take down the Gay Pirate Plate, stuff it under my oversized sweatshirt, go outside, and get in the van. She happily waves goodbye as we drive off.

Two days later my dad gets a phone call that opens with hysterical laughter and “You FUCKING ASSHOLE did you seriously STEAL THE PLATE–”

Anyway. The gay pirate plate lives in my dad’s house currently.

The plate must be clearly and openly displayed in a place of great prominence whenever it is in your possession. When it is not in your possession, the display piece must remain in place. This is where you would put your gay pirate plate, IF YOU HAD ONE.

No active steps may be taken to prevent the theft of the Gay Pirate Plate. That goes against the spirit of the game, as does attempting to hide it.

The plate MUST be stolen and cannot be gifted or removed with permission. Should you witness attempted theft of the Gay Pirate Plate you are required to intervene and return it to its place.

Then, of course, you’re too busy to eat fruit before it rots and the bowl sits empty- barring a lemon or lime here or there-  and that’s no good either because it takes up over half of the counter to the right of your sink and backs up against the blank wall at the end of your galley kitchen where you can’t hang anything because both the fridge door and the pantry door swing into it.

So when your mother gives you another worry stone for your birthday – rose quartz this time, which means she thinks if you’re not worried about being single in your 30s, you should be – you hold it while staring out the kitchen window, drinking coffee over the sink, and when you finish the last sip full of grounds you toss the mug in the sink and the rose quartz in the bowl. It clinks loudly and then settles between those two lemons that you need to find a use for before the weekend, lest they go hard and unusable except for cleaning your sink.

After that, belated birthday wishes show up in the mail, and you can’t bring yourself to throw them out. Your Aunt Sylvia sends a postcard from Peru that she’s been holding onto for “a special occasion” for the last five years and, -aren’t you lucky?- you’re the special winner of a National Geographic photo of Machu Picchu. And you’re not a monster. The card may not hold the same significance to you as it did to her, but the thought does and so tucked between the bowl and the wall it goes where the very tippy top of the ruins rise over the brown rim, as if from the depths of a valley.

Then your college roommate (the archaeology one who made you want to do the study abroad program in the first place), Audra, sends you a shard of Roman pottery and a note in Latin that you can’t read but understand perfectly by the coffee stains littering the edge of it. The sight of the coffee stains warms your heart more than the pottery shard, so both go in the bowl where you can occasionally glance at them as you drink your own coffee over the sink and reminisce over study dates and the few regular dates you shared before her passion stole her abroad.

(And if the clay and the rose quartz lie next to each other and you suddenly think of marriage and nostalgia and her stoneware eyes that led you to save the same-colored fruit bowl from the depths of your house in the first place, it’s a natural series of associations and doesn’t prove your mother right at all.)

The driftwood isn’t from anyone. Your agent calls to tell you that you won an award for one of your books. The driftwood is in your hand, scavenged along the Potomac from amidst the pebbles deposited by the last storm, and it’s suddenly your only tether to reality as she explains what this means. It means reviews and author readings and an interview - of you! – and a guaranteed sequel. The stick is smooth under your fingertips and you wave it in the air is if it’s a wand in an attempt to burst your bubble.

Only you’re home the next moment and you’ve still got the driftwood in your hand and your bubble is unburst. It feels significant that you brought it back with you so you put it across the top of your fruit bowl as if it’s the award itself. You have a decaf coffee to celebrate that evening and see that stick guarding your rose quartz and your pepper grinder and your pottery shard and you think, I’m doing okay. And the joy you feel from that is so powerful that your next thought is, I’m happy.

Which is, of course, when the power goes out.

Outages happen all the time in a block as old as yours. Before, you’d see it as free time and go lay down in bed and wait for the world to relight or for morning to come. But you don’t have time now. Your agent is planning to call you soon. You are an award-winning author and you have things to do before your 42% battery runs out.

You make your kitchen your base and set the six pillar candles on your counter, lighting them one by one. They’re the rainbow ones from last June your mother bought you in a sweet yet confusing show of support and you’ve never found a special enough occasion to burn them. You smile at Machu Picchu peaking over your fruit bowl. Your aunt is the one who taught you about special things.

Then your agent calls and, while you’re hammering out the details, you see that the candles are about to drip colored wax onto your white, plastic countertops and even though you really want to replace them, you can’t afford to (at least until you sign a contract). You snatch up your driftwood and use it to scoop the wax from the sides until a kaleidoscope of color is collected and you have to keep spinning it to keep it from dripping.

You blow on the hot wax, thinking of Audra and your family and the future your agent is painting for you until it cools. Then you place the driftwood over the bowl where it belongs.

 It’s just a bowl. Of course, it’s just a bowl. It does a good job of taking up a huge amount of your counter and of holding onto things you’d forget in a junk drawer. It looks good in the candlelight, warm and earthy and welcoming with the three bright lemons scattering amongst your treasures. It’s nice to see reminders of your loved ones every morning from the summit of Machu Picchu to your worry stone to that shard of pottery, but it’s not anything more.

At least it’s not until you put your driftwood, wax-covered wand back and think, I wish I could see her.

The flames of the candles sputter and turn gold, radiating a pure and steady light that could never come from a mundane fire. Your agent stops herself midsentence, apologizes, promises to call you back when she has a better connection, and hangs up. The bowl rattles and shivers and you take a step back as your copper pepper grinder tips over. You must not have put it together correctly because it spills when it does, little peppercorns that roll across your counter towards the edge.

You expect to hear the dried pepper hit the ground, but it doesn’t.  Each peppercorn stops unnaturally.

G…

R…

A…

N…

T…

E…

D…

What?

The candles splutter and return to normal flame. Your bowl is still. The lemons seem less appetizing than they had a moment ago, but your treasures are still there and lovely.

You pick up your Roman shard.

Your phone rings. Audra. Although you can’t imagine talking to anyone after what you’ve just witness, your body isn’t on the same page. Muscle memory and association has you answering before the second ring.

“Mal, I got the job!”

“…The job?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you. Not because I was hiding it! But nobody ever gets it and I didn’t want you to get your hopes up and then my hopes up—”

Her rapid-fire word is grounding. You laugh. “Because my hopes are your hopes.”

“Obviously,” she says. She takes a deep breath. “I got the Smithsonian. The curator role. The job.”

She’s coming home. The realization hits like electricity, raising all the hair on your arms and almost making you drop the shard. You blink quickly to stop the automatic tears.

“Mal?”

“I’m here,” you say. You go to put the pottery shard back with more care than you ever have, as if it’s Audra herself. She can probably hear the way your voice trembles, but you can’t compose yourself. “Oh, I’m so happy. When?”

“In a month. I have to hand over some current projects, which should only take a week, but finding someone to take over my classes might take a little longer, but not too long! I promise. After that it’s packing—”

You put the pottery shard back in the bowl as gently as you ever have. Audra’s voice is the sweetest music as she says goodbye, in a hurry to start packing. You hear that music long after she hangs up. Your knees are weak. She’s coming home. She’s coming home. Thank whatever god, she’s coming home—

Your fingers touch something coarse and feather-light. Your brow furrows as you pull a scrap of ancient paper from the fruit bowl.

You’re welcome.

“Oh,” you breathe.

The lights flare as the power returns.

---

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It starts with you hearing the soft scrape of claws on the wooden planks - the ones that cover the floor of your closet.

The first night you heard this, you trembled beneath your blankets despite the warmth they provided. You were wide-eyed and kept a bat clutched to your chest like it was a sword. However... after a week of the nightly visitor’s presence and nothing else actually happening - just the soft sounds of scratching and gentle breathing behind the closet door - curiosity replaced the icy fear in your heart.

You sat in bed one evening and waited for the noises to start, as they always did soon after the clock struck midnight. That night, you had a plan. Clutching a spare blanket, you cracked the closet door open. A single glowing eye blinked back at you through the pitch black. It was large, luminescent. A strange, quiet blue. Not the color of eye you expected from a monster.

You didn’t scream, and it didn’t growl. You both just… stared. Frozen.

“Hi,” you whispered, heart hammering in your chest so hard it ached. “I brought you a blanket. You must be cold in there, it's the coldest place in the house...” A deep, gravelly purr answered you. You gingerly left the blanket at the threshold, and in the morning, it was gone.

As more nights passed, little gifts were exchanged between the two of you. Dried flowers, shiny buttons, and smooth pebbles appeared on your windowsill. You would leave food, puzzles, and soft objects for the creature in return.

The monster in your closet never stepped fully into your room, but its silhouette, outlined by the small nightlight in the corner of your room, started to linger longer in the doorway. Its breathing was slow and calm as you hummed lullabies to it each night.

“I think you’re sweet,” You declared softly into the darkness of your room one rainy evening. “You don’t scare me anymore.”

A clawed hand emerged from the pitch black of the closet, hesitantly pushing the door open a little wider. The closet door creaked in protest of the movement. You watched for a moment, transfixed, then reached out your own hand slowly. You touched its rough, warm palm with your fingers.

“You can come out if you want,” you coaxed sweetly. “You don’t have to hide from me... I won't hurt you.” The monster hesitated, processing your words, but only for a moment. It stepped out of the closet, into your room, as you took a step back to accommodate it.

The monster was tall, easily towering over your form. The creature was odd, strange, yet beautiful in a way that defied words. Its eyes were soft and it gave you a crooked smile with too many teeth, which should’ve scared you, but you found it oddly endearing. The expression on its face was awkward and hesitant. It blinked slowly, nervously, like you were more dangerous than it - this creature with teeth and claws that could’ve easily ripped through your flesh like paper.

“You’re not what I expected,” You giggled as you looked up and down the creature’s form, "you're beautiful." You took in this mysterious creature, then looked up to meet it’s eyes with a smile of your own, lips curled upward in wonder. The creature startled at the sound of your laughter, enchanted by the noise.

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That’s why you know the woman in the glass coffin isn’t dead.

It still takes a long time to convince yourself to kiss her. It’s been…years? Yes, it must have been years since you last saw those ruby red lips and that cloud of raven-black hair. Her eyelashes fan across her cheeks and there’s a red rose carefully clasped between her still hands.  Those hands once reached for you, accompanied by her sweet voice, inviting you to grab hold lest you stay trapped in the tunnel forever. The longer you stare, the easier it is to see her pulse in the basin of her throat and the shallow rise of her chest.

Of all the lands you’ve traveled, there hasn’t been a single one where kissing a sleeping woman on the lips was considered appropriate.

“You can do this, Lexi,” you whisper. The trees over the glen murmur quiet agreement. It’s nearing the end of golden hour – the next procession will be here soon. The fairytale lighting is the only thing keeping the worst of your anxiety away. It’s like a dream this early in the morning. Only a dream. You twist your travel cap in your hands, squeezing your eyes tight. “You can apologize after.”

When you open them, the first notes of birdsong pierce the air.

You drop your cap and grab the edge of the glass. You’ve always been slow to decide and quick to act. If you just keep moving, you won’t have to think about how she might be mad or offended or disgusted—

You miscalculate the lid. You’re a jack of all trades and you assumed something as expensive as a gilt glass coffin would have hinges. It doesn’t. The lid slides off the edge of the platform. Your nails don’t find purchase on glass, of course. There’re flowers scattered all around her resting place, there’s a chance it won’t—

Crash!

The birdsong chokes off. A man yells from the woods behind you. Someone clicks and the pounding of hooves draws closer and closer—

You swoop down and press your lips to hers. They’re cold and unyielding for one moment, two moments—

Then her mouth softens and you pull back as she gasps for air.

Breaking an enchantment feels a bit like falling through a frozen pond. Snow White breathes like a diver surfacing for air and then exhales a frost so bitter that it freezes the breath in your lungs. The spell she was under wasn’t done by accident like you’d hoped. There’s malice in the bite of cold that lingers against your skin. You drink it down in painful sips, pulling the shroud from her aura until her eyes begin to flutter open.

You want to run. You’ve whispered enough twinkling knowledge to her that she’ll know what you did to free her. There are only two antidotes in the world and you whispered their recipes to her over and over until she could recite them from memory. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, about to leave her in a prickling castle with that thing for a stepmother—

You don’t run. You’ve done that all over the world to see every sight you ever dreamed of. Only when one wonder remained in your heart did you finally return to see it.

Come on, darling. Show me what I’ve been dreaming of. Then punch me in the face.

Snow White breathes. Her eyelashes quiver. Her lips close and then part. Is she saying your name? You lean close. Le—Le—

The world plunges into darkness. At the same time, the smell of onions fills your nose. Fuck. You’ve been trapped in enough produce bags to know what’s happened. Your hands fly up to the mouth of the bag that’s been thrown over your head, and you wedge your fingers between it and your neck just in time before the villain behind you cinches it too tightly. That’s the only reason you don’t suffocate as rough hands yank you away from Snow White and throw you onto a hard, wooden surface.

“Take her back to the castle,” a man growls.

Another asks, “The castle? Wouldn’t it be better if she gets lost in the woods--?”

“What happened the last time you let someone get lost in the woods, Huntsman?”

“…yes, sir.”

The Huntsman. His name is the only thing that stills the syllables twisting between your teeth. You chew them as the cart lurches into motion. How is he still alive?

You imagined Snow White would have taken care of him already.

----.

The children of your family often get swept away in stories. All the ancient knowledge is heavy against the thin crucible of a baby’s mind – it’s not uncommon to hear of a cousin or sibling dissolving between dusk and dawn.

So that’s what you’re doing the eve you turn twelve after learning about the razor edge between night and abyss.  You’re dissolving. The night drips like syrup from your ears and abyss flows out from between your lips in thin rivulets. Your eyes are trained on the stars as you stagger through the woods, pulled and spun around by the knowledge your brain can’t quite accept.

(Like a lunatic, you will one day say fondly. Foaming at the mouth.

Like a fairy, she will correct. A long pause. A rather messy one.)

The little girl crouched between tree roots is the only thing that doesn’t run when you lurch into the clearing. She’s wearing a silver nightgown that catches every bit of the moon’s light but still doesn’t compare to the radiance of her face. It’s shocking enough that you stop and let your head fall onto your shoulder so your eyes can fix on her rather than the sky.

“I think I should eat you,” you say in a language you don’t remember learning. “Both nights and abysses eat stars.”

“Stars chew through both,” the little girl says. For cowering alone in the woods, she doesn’t sound very afraid. Her voice is strident. Confident. “And even if it were true, little girls don’t eat other little girls.”

Your eyes fix on hers. (They’re a beautiful deep b--) “Is that what I am?”

“Yes,” she says. She scoots over so there is room in the cocoon of her roots for another body. “Little girls are afraid of the dark.”

It’s easier to sew yourself together with the echo of her voice ringing in your ears. You’re young, a child, a girl. You might even be afraid of the dark, though she doesn’t sound very sure of that point. You gingerly pick your way through puddles of mud and brambles to wedge yourself between the roots. Her body is cold against yours. How long has she been out here?

“Did you run away from home?” she asks.

You shrug.

“I did,” she says. Without asking, she tucks her cold fingers under your arm, hugging the appendage to herself like one would a teddy bear. “My father married a woman who hates me.”

“Why did he do that?” you ask.

“Because he’s weak,” she says immediately. Her fingers wiggle as if she’s counting on them. “Too weak to be alone. Too weak to rule alone. Weak to a pretty face. Weak in the face of death. Too weak to believe I’ll be fine when he’s gone.”

The part of you that might actually be a person is swimming to the surface. You examine how deep and warm your skin tone is against the paleness of hers. You know what it’s like to feel fabric and water, and heat on this skin. Now you also know what it’s like to feel the touch of someone close to hypothermia.

“Tell me how you’ll be fine,” you say.

And Snow White, who just needs someone to believe in her, tells you - someone who needs something to believe in- all about being a Princess in a castle after the first queen’s death.

“Someday she’ll kill me,” Snow White says. “Dad or me. One of us will be first.”

“How will she do it?” you ask.

Snow White thinks for a long time. “Poison. Like she did with my mom.”

You’re relieved. This is how you can help the girl who kept you from dissolving. “Oh, that’s easy. There are only two antidotes in the world, you know. Those derived from the World Tree or concocted to mimic it, or—”

-----.

True Love’s Kiss.

In your cell, you cover your face with your hands. The worst part is that it doesn’t have to be both parties in love – it can only just be one. Which is clearly you. Because you’re an idiot and there’s no way Snow White would love you after you left her to face her stepmother alone. And then kissed her without permission.

“Do you mind waiting to off yourself until the execution?” the Huntsman asks. He’s seated directly across from your cell, anxiously twirling a dagger between his hands. “I’ll get in trouble otherwise.”

You ease your hands away from your neck. The half-moon imprints of your nails against your throat throb. “Why are they even keeping me alive?”

“In case you need to wake the Princess up again,” he says. He shrugs. “You know…since one of the princes didn’t do the trick.”

“The princes?” A newspaper article you read several weeks ago comes to mind. Your lip curls. “Oh, you mean the opportunists trying to claim the throne for themselves.”

“The throne needs a ruler,” the Huntsman says simply.

The dungeon is drier than you imagined. You sit up into a cross-legged position and rub at the dust on the cobblestones. “They have one. Snow White.”

“The nobles aren’t eager to have another solo ruler after the former Queen,” the Huntsman says. “Most think it’ll…smooth things out if one of the princes rules alongside her.”

You snort. “You mean control her.”

The Huntsman inclines his head.

They’re all so stupid.

“Why didn’t you take her heart?” you ask. You remember that particular letter as if you read it yesterday; Snow White nonchalantly telling you all about how she escaped certain death by following the paths in the woods you taught her. Your nails draw divots in the cobblestone. “Back then.”

The Huntsman fumbles his dagger. It clatters to the ground and rings like a bell, over and over again. He stares at you for a long moment before he speaks through bloodless lips. “H-how did you—”

You stare at him.

He breathes in deeply. “I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t have. A young girl—”

You snort again.

“—the daughter of the King I served—”

You laugh. He wouldn’t have taken her to the woods at all if that were true.

“—I…I was—That was—”

“You’re a hunter,” you say. You point to the dagger on the floor, and it lifts slowly, like a feather caught in an updraft. He’s still and wide-eyed as you beckon it towards you. “You don’t carry a knife without the conviction to kill. You don’t lure a young girl into the woods at night without the conviction to harm. You just don’t. You do.”

The dagger falls into your palm with a slap.

The silence stretches.

The Huntsman breaks first.

“She told me I was the villain,” the Huntsman says. He swallows audibly. The beard covering the lower half of his face does little to hide the tremble of his lips. “Alright? A 15-year-old girl told me that if I cut out her heart, I would be the villain for the rest of my life. She said that my daughter would hug me and know, that my wife would kiss me and know, that the brothers and sisters I fought alongside would meet my gaze and know. And I—I—”

You twirl the dagger, leaning back against the cold stone wall. “You believed her.”

The Huntsman shudders. “She said it and it was true.”

“Before, when you were first ordered, it wasn’t.”

“Yes. Yes. It was just a job. But she looked at me with those cold eyes, those cold b—”

The dagger thuds into the wooden back of his chair, just an inch from his arm.  His teeth click together. He stares at you like a startled horse, chest heaving and hands clenched around his knees so tightly you can hear the leather of his pants creak.

“Why hasn’t she killed you yet?” you ask.

To his credit, he doesn’t feign confusion. You’d wondered why he didn’t react to how you levitated the dagger. There’s a knowing in his eyes.

“Because I sent the letters,” he breathes. “I risked everything to send them.”

You pause. That made it sound like…like the letters were important. Your heart skips a beat. “Just for that? She let you live?”

When he nods, you swear you can hear birdsong.

----.

The first time Snow White asks about love, she doesn’t ask the usual question.

“What would you do,” she starts carefully, “if you loved me?”

You’re surprised enough to look up from your latest reading assignment. Your elders want you to know about the depths of caves after your latest expedition into them. You can feel your ears morphing the longer you read, lengthening and widening to better capture the echoes of sound from objects far away. It takes a moment to remember your human ears and, when you do, you ask, “Pardon?”

Snow White watches you from where she’s lounging on her bed. Her eyes are level on you, but you can’t see much else. The rising sun is coming in from the window behind her, backlighting her so you can only see her like a shadow. “What would you do if you loved me?”

“Um…panic?”

A flash and the sun crests the canopies of the forest. She asks in the same tone, “Why?”

“Because I don’t know who I am,” you say, honest as always. At this age, you’re supposed to be keeping a diary that you study alongside your texts. Your elders tell you that is how your kind develops a personality. Your diary is Snow White. “You’re—well. I hope the person who falls in love with you is capable of supporting someone like you. I’m  too…I’m floppy. I’m not real. Not yet.”

Her breath is soft. “So you don’t love me.”

“…Do you want me to?” you ask.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes,” you say. And then, “But the person who loves you should be—”

“You should go on your trip,” she interrupts. She stands and her silhouette is lined in gold. “Now.”

You splutter. She’d been against the pilgrimage your elders were trying to send you on. She said she needed you, she said she couldn’t fight alone against her stepmother—

Snow White knows what you’re thinking. “You can come back when you’ve seen everything you want to see.”

“But I don’t want anything—”

“When you’ve seen it all, you’ll come home,” she commands. Her voice rings like it did the night she declared little girls didn’t eat other little girls. “Understood?”

And what could you do in the face of her conviction?

You leave the next morning.

---------------.

Snow White comes to get you on the seventh day. The Huntsman won’t meet your eyes anymore, choosing to spend his time huddled in the corner with his hands over his ears. Like a child afraid of the dark.

You savor the irony of it.

When she enters, the torches flare to life, flooding the room with light. The first thing you notice is the crown on her head. The second is the lack of ring on her finger. The third is her eyes—

The first thing the Huntsman notices is the blood staining the hem of her dress. “I congratulate the Queen,” he croaks. His hands shake as he bows. “The King…?”

“There is no King,” Snow White says. The torchlight is pulled into her crown and is reflected in her eyes.

“Oh,” the Huntsman says and pales.

“You’re dismissed,” Snow White says, not unkindly.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” He edges towards the stairs, eyes darting from the fire to the Queen and you.

“Do see the nobles out,” she says as he reaches the base of the stairs. A smirk tugs at her ruby red lips. “Perhaps they’ll enjoy a jaunt in the woods…?”

The Huntsman still. “Yes…” He climbs the first steps, receding into darkness as he leaves the circle of the firelight. As he climbs, his gait turns predatory. “Yes, your majesty.”

Only when the door swings shut behind him does Snow White turn to you.

There is no silence here. Only the hum of your awareness of her and the steady beating of your heart.

“You returned,” she says.

You stand. The dust has settled along your arms and legs, and it falls like snow when you do. You forgot to move as you waited. “I did.”

She stops short of your cell doors. The shadows wrap around her eyes. “Did you see everything you wanted?”

You lick your lips. “No.”

Her lips thin. “I told you not to come back—”

“I saw the pyramids,” you say. You step forward so you are only a few feet apart. You stare at her through your bars. “I saw the valleys of the deep and the mountains beyond the veil. I met the people who live inside the World Tree and I slayed those who tried to escape from beyond the end. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t everything. No matter what I saw, there was one sight I yearned to see again.”

“Yearned,” she repeats. This time, she’s the one who steps closer. She doesn’t protest when you reach out to brush your fingers alongside hers. “You yearned?”

“I did,” you say. She’s warm. You coax her hand to twine around yours. “I came back to see it. But I don’t think once will be enough. A whole lifetime may not be enough.”

Her eyes are black like the night sky. Like the abyss you once lost yourself to, like the shadows that gather around you. “What sight might that be?”

“You.”

It is hard to say how the bars disappear. Maybe she whispered that they never existed in the first place. Maybe you cursed them out of existence. Either way, they disappear, and there is nothing between you and Snow White.

And you live Happily Ever After.

---

Thanks for reading! If you're a fan of my superhero works, there's a new flashfiction about Heroes on Tiktok posted to my Patreon which will be up on Tumblr next week :)

So one of my neighbors has a lawn Roomba or whatever they're called, and this thing trundles around looking like a background robot in the background of the original trilogy, and ABSOLUTELY BAFFLING THE DOGS.

What happened is the lawn roomba belongs to the guy that does most of the maintainence on the neighborhood park, and he had it out grazing on a different section of lawn when my parents came down for a walk and Arwen was siezed by 200 years worth fo Kelpie Instincts, rolled out of her Harness and proceded to herd the shit out of this tiny, oblivious robot.  

Everything was on display- mock-stalking, intimidating eye contact, barking, running in front of it to try to get it to balk, the scariest barking she can muster (which is actually.  pretty scary if you’re not used to Loud Dogs), looking back at my parents for directions.  or rather, looking at my Mom while Dad tried unsuccessuflly to capture her.

After about ten minutes they realized she wasn’t biting it, and decided to let her play Sheep Simulator 5000 for a while. She eventually figured out that 

It  doesn’t respond to Yelling, Posturing or Aggressive Eye Contact

It does respond to having it’s wheels or bump hazards hit 

It would respond to its side being nosed or slapped by moving in a different direction

Conent that this was apparently some kind of blind, deaf and particularly stupid sheep, she could now manage the robot by smacking it if it got too close to the creek bed or fence for her liking, and was eventually content to sit on the highest point of the field and Supervise (TM) it.

“Hey.” Said Roger, owner of the robot. “Do you think if I put the ramp down she’ll herd it into the back of my pickup?”

Arwen was mostly asleep in the afternoon sun as roger put the ramp down but woke right up when mom Whistled, then pointed at the truck.  She immediately went after the robot and did something that wouldn’t have occured to me, an allegedly more intelligent being: the robot is roughly triangular, and when it hits an obstacle, will change direction so that one of its other sides (rather than points) is now the ‘front’.  So to get it to move in a straight line in the direction she wanted, Arwen would smack the two sides of the robot that she didn’t want it to go in in quick sucession, and got it across the field, over a small hill and up the ramp as fast as it’s clumsy little wheels could go.

“I didn’t know you had a fully-trained sheepdog!” Said Roger

“Me either.” said Mom.

"No, no, not officially - we came up with the name when we were assigned to find them, and we were kind of taking the piss, but it's still a good name. It was before your time - they had the power to-"

"I don't want to know what their power was."

"No, listen - their power was that they could summon a pie and throw it at someone."

"Oh. Oh, well, okay - that's the greatest supervillain you've ever fought? Doesn't sound like much."

"But that was the thing. They could throw a pie at someone and it would never miss. So long as they could see their target they'd hit them. We eventually found out they could throw a pie at someone who was on live broadcast, miles away."

"Jesus. Okay, I think I see the issue. But it was still, like. Pies, right?"

"Oh, for sure, it was never poison pies, and they could only summon a pie every 15 seconds so they couldn't drown someone in meringue. But - do you remember Murgatroyd Bentley?"

"Sort of, he was president when I was a little kid - something, something superhuman rights, and he was the guy who nuked Saskatchewan, right?"

"That's the guy. We found out about this guy after the Humboldt Crisis, because after that, whenever there was a live broadcast with the president - the state of the union, addressing congress, the Christmas tree lighting - a pie would splatter across his face every fifteen seconds."

"…Is that it?"

"Hon, it was everything. You haven't lived until you've seen the president try to talk about dignity while being smacked in the face with a banana cream. By the end of term, he refused to show his face in public, and he resigned in quiet disgrace. There were a few other pieings for a few years, but nowhere near the amount that took place when Bentley was president, and eventually they stopped. We never found out who or even where this person was.

"And that - more than anything - makes them the greatest supervillain I've ever had to deal with. Because they didn't do much, but they did it loudly, they did it consistently, and we never caught them."

"...How hard were you trying to catch them?"

"Not very."

"And you decided to call them Dr. Creampie?"

And Chelsea remained my favorite toy all through my childhood. There were others I loved nearly as much, like my Imperial Godzilla and the big red T.rex from the first Jurassic Park toy line and my tiny knockoff plush Charmander, but Chelsea always held the place of honor in my heart. She was my absolute favorite toy.

I kept a lot of my favorite toys through adolescence, even if social pressure eventually got me to give away a lot of them (and some, y'know, broke). That's obviously not surprising to you if you've followed my blog, since I still collect toys into my adulthood. But it's important to note because while I know I made a conscious effort to never throw out Chelsea every time I pared down my collection... at some point, she went missing.

I became aware of it when I graduated from high school. I was feeling really emotional about leaving that stage of my life and, y'know, becoming an adult and shit, and in that state I decided to find Chelsea to reassure myself that I hadn't entirely left childhood behind. But Chelsea wasn't there. No matter how hard I looked, I could not find Chelsea anyway.

And that was, like, devastating, because the only explanation was that somehow, at some point, I had accidentally tossed her out with some other "childhood junk" while trying to grow up and be responsible in my teen years. I had literally thrown away my childhood in a careless attempt to be more grown up.

Of course I knew she was just a toy - nothing more than some yarn twisted together in the loose shape of a crocodile, lifeless and soul-less and more or less worthless in the objective light of day. But she was also Chelsea, my best friend since i was three, my stalwart little pal, a source of comfort for most of my life at that point, and I had just... tossed her out! Like garbage! What kind of person was I becoming if I could do that to my best friend?

I was very visibly distraught, and my mom noticed. Being very crafty, she tried to find the pattern for Chelsea so she could crochet me a new one. The problem is, she had no idea where to find said pattern. She checked all her books of crochet patterns, and when that failed she tried the internet, but no matter how hard she looked, she found nothing.

So my mom found the next best thing.

The original Chelsea was a tiny finger puppet, and I had "met" her when I was three. Well, I was eighteen now - shouldn't Chelsea have grown too? And as has been established, this crocodile was fond of whirlwind vacations. My mom found a pattern that looked as much like Chelsea as possible while also being a much bigger crocodile, and gifted her to me before I left for college - to show that while we can't stop the flow of time or how it changes us, that doesn't mean we have to leave it behind.

And yeah, I decided to believe it. That's Chelsea now. Yeah, I know that in reality it's a completely different set of yarn made by my mom rather than... whoever it was that crocheted the original Chelsea, but then, Chelsea was never really the yarn. She was the feelings I put into the yarn, you know? So that's Chelsea, all grown up, and still my most prized toy.

...

Flash forward... Jesus, eighteen years, holy shit. A few weeks ago I saw a post trying to identify a different crochet crocodile pattern, and thinking it was cute, I decided to try and look for it on ebay and etsy, just to see if maybe I could find it. I didn't, but do you know what I found instead?

A very familiar crochet crocodile finger puppet. An intensely familiar one, you might say. Of course I bought it. And of course I asked the seller if, perhaps, they might have the pattern for it or know where it came from (they did not, alas). And after a few days, she showed up at my house.

She's not Chelsea, obviously. For one thing, she's far too clean and fresh looking - Chelsea was very well loved, and looked the part, while this crocodile finger puppet has definitely not endured years upon years of a child's affection. And, more importantly, she's not Chelsea because we've already established that Chelsea grew up into a bigger crochet crocodile. This has to be Chelsea's younger sister, Cici.

The Story of my Father’s Very Brief military career.

Content Warnings: Military, guns, hummingbirds, Profanity, Lots of Profanity, spectacular incompotence, catholicism mention, alcohol mention.

As usual, all names have been changed or redacted to protect people’s privacy.

In the fall of 1969, my Dad was hit by a car and suffered a serious concussion, causing him to miss midterms and put his grade in a hole he wouldn’t be able to recover from, as this was the days before a lot of professorial accountability.  Like a sensible person, he decided to Withdraw for the semester and focus on recovering and maybe take a part-time job to pay for spring tuition, because you could do that back then.

“Son,” My grandfather asked, sitting on the couch with Dad shortly after he was discharged from the hospital. “What about your college deferment? I’m worried about you getting drafted.”

“Dad,” Dad said, filling in job applications. “I’m legally blind without my glasses!  I’d be a danger to anyone around me with a gun.  Even if I get drafted there’s no way in hell I’d pass the medical exam.”

“Don’t swear in my house.” Said Grandpa, under the entirely mistaken impression that the US Military was run with any sort of competence.

Literally a week later my Dad’s draft papers came in, and he reported to his local draft board, driver’s license and doctor’s note in hand to prove He Is Legally Blind Without His Glasses, only to be waved through without so much as a sideways glance by anyone resembling a doctor.

“They must be desperate.”  My dad concluded when he got home that night to pack.

The news was devastating to the family, as both his parents had siblings to WWII.  Grandpa was ready to beg, bribe and otherwise compromise his intensely catholic morals to get Dad out, and Grandma prayed to any available saint that would save her son from the fate of her brothers.  She had quite the collection of saints in her sewing room, some forty figurines and dozens more candles and images, along with some stained glass she’d made herself of saints, landscapes and animals, including a large hummingbird that lived on the sewing room window since they’d moved into the house.

Dad pleaded with them to not do anything they’d regret, and returned to the base for basic training.

Dad’s drill sergeant was a man whose real name was “Ross” but insisted on being called “Bulldog” or “SIR!” by everyone depending on rank.  Dad supposed this might have been a defense mechanism as Bulldog had an intensely jowled and acne-scarred face that did greatly resemble a fighting dog well past their prime.  The image was not helped by the fact that he was constantly smoking rose-flavored tobacco in a pipe that had seen better centuries, and consequently smelled like a terrible combination of trailer park and the women’s perfume counter at Macy’s.

Bulldog was also… not great about following protocol, which is a terrible failing in a Drill sergeant, but Dad supposed at that point in the war Bulldog had become horribly depressed by the sheer numbers of young men he was sending to their deaths and had kind of stopped giving a fuck about their safety and his own.

Which lead to an incident about three weeks into Dad’s training camp when in the middle of a Weapons Qualification lesson, Bulldog pulled Dad’s glasses off and bellowed “YOU WON’T HAVE THOSE COKE BOTTLES WHEN THOSE [incorrect slurs, because there’s no such thing as an informed bigot] BLAST YOUR ASS TO KINGDOM COME.” before stomping off to go change the paper targets, leaving Dad standing there with an M-1, squinting in what he hoped was the general direction of the targets.

To give you an idea of HOW bad my dad’s vision is, I once asked him at what distance things got blurry, and he responded by taking off his glasses, putting his hand up to his face, and slowly moving it back.  He stopped about eight inches from his face and nodded.  

“So I can see my hand from here but I can’t distinguish my fingers.  I think that green blob over there is your mother.”

“I’m in the living room.” called mom. “You’re looking at the blender.”

So it should come as no surprise that as soon as Dad heard someone shouting “Ready! Aim! Fire!” He did precisely that.

Hummingbirds are often mistakenly characterized as Delicate Little Rainbows that are a gift Direct from Heaven when the truth is they’re really Vicious Little Bastards thrown out of Hell for being too Nasty.  

You would be too if you could eat nothing but frappuccinos and the occasional chicken nugget, everything around you was at least the size of a pickup truck and regarded you as a tasty snack, and you were forced to defend your fridge from not only equally vicious rivals but goddamn insects that are bigger than you are.  

Being a hummingbird is awful under normal circumstances, and now there are maniacs with loud machines and projecties as big as you are stomping around and yelling and well-

At that exact moment, one of the nesting hummingbirds, having grown progressively more exasperated with the activity on the base, dive-bombed my father, hurling it’s tiny body directly into his ear and slicing the lobe up, and making him jerk slightly as he fired.

He missed Sergeant Bulldog by mere inches. Dad still isn’t sure if the Hummingbird caused him to miss or put him closer to accidental manslaughter, but it mattered little as Bulldog grabbed him by the head, shrieking in spittle-flying fury-

“ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND?”  He roared.

“YES!!” screamed my father, also hysterical. “SIR THAT’S WHAT THOSE ‘COKE BOTTLES’ ARE FOR SIR!”

Bulldog stopped, suddenly and uncomfortably confronted with the nature of causality.  He only let it stymie him for a moment.  “GET YOUR IDIOT ASS TO THE MEDIC, I’LL DEAL WITH YOU LATER!”

At the medical center, an extremely befuddled doctor dilated Dad’s eyes, took pictures because Dad had the worst case of myopia he’d ever seen and wanted to put him in a medical journal, and asked him:

“What the HELL are you doing here?”

“Very nearly shooting people sir.”

“Well, we can’t have you shooting people while you’re in the army!  I’ll get your medical discharge started.”

Dad decided not to comment on that statement, thanked the doctor, and wandered blindly back to his bunk.

It took them a full thirty days to process Dad’s discharge, perhaps largely due to the fact that actually FINDING the captain was a task for hercules- The man had an almost phobic aversion to his office and a tremendous love of whiskey so actually locating the man and early enough in the day that he was still sober enough to sign anything was a race against time and a battle against the wits of a man determined to get out of work, which is when humanity is at its peak intelligence.

In the meantime, it simply wouldn’t do to let dad bike the five miles back to his home and come back for the paperwork, nor let him sit quietly and not accidentally maim anyone, so he was put on garden duty.  

Supervised by recently-suspended-from-instruction Sergeant “Bulldog” Ross.

By the second day Bulldog had mostly run out of steam, perhaps out of a sense of really, whose fault was that? So He would mostly stand in Dad’s general vicinity, waxing philosophical on the nature of war, government and whatever else he could be crotchety about that day while continuously smoking his rose-flavored tobacco in his pipe.  Dad planted a frankly absurd number of flowers, trying to make a planted display that would spell out the name of the base in eight-foot letters, just in case someone has managed to miss all 824,594,359 signs beforehand.

On day five, perhaps attracted by the bright colors or the stench of artificial rose, the Hummingbirds found the new garden.

At first, it was timid little trips to the edge farthest from Dad and Bulldog, testing this new territory for both risk and bounty, but upon finding it full of sugary goodness, they became bold, getting closer and closer to Dad, zipping in as soon as he got up to get the next flat of flowers, then not waiting for him to finish planting them before they were up in his face, squeaking angrily for him to get out of the way of their lunch.

One male objected to Dad and Bulldog’s presence particularly strongly, dive-bombing and buzzing angrily at them, an ounce and a half of glittery impotent rage.  After a month, he’d gotten quite aggressive, and one day flew directly up to Bulldog’s face to chitter curses at him eye-to-eye, only for Bulldog to take out his pipe and blow a cloud of smoke at him, laughing as the bird tumbled over backwards in midair.

Agitated with the sudden noxious cloud, or perhaps merely a violent psychopath in its own right, the bird flew back, then straight up into the air for a good fifty feet before going into a dive, aimed directly at Bulldog’s face.

Dad doesn’t recall actually moving, only a sense that he ought to do something, and launched himself out of the dirt, arms outstretched to clap and force it off course-

“SHIT! What the hell was that for?”  Demanded Bulldog.

“Well, the hummingbird looked like it was going to attack you, Sir.  So I stopped it.”

“How noble.  What are you standing there like an idiot for?”

“…I think I caught it sir.”  Said Dad, staring at the tiny bill poking out from between his gloves.  The two of them leaned in close as dad very slowly opened his gloves and peered inside.

The hummingbird immediately forced it’s tiny head out to peep furious profanities at them both.

“How is it,”  Bulldog wondered aloud as the hummer continued to curse the both of them for the next seven generations. “That you can’t see to hit the broad side of a barn but can pull a shitty little bird right out of the air?”

“I’m wearing my glasses, Sir.”

Bulldog looked up at him, glaring with such intensity his face ceased to be a face at all and transformed into a dali-esque collection of wrinkles.

“Fuck you. Now go take that damn thing to the other side of the base so it doesn’t come back.”

“Yes sir.”  Dad nodded, nearly saluting out of reflex before remembering that he was holding a live and very angry bird.  It took him several hours to get to the other side of the base, with literally everyone stopping to ask him what the hell he was doing, well I have this bird sir and I was told to release it on the other side of the base- how in hell did your blind ass catch a hummingbird, well I had my glasses on- Fuck you, go ditch that thing already.

At three o'clock on the dot the very next morning, two MPs woke up my dad and told him he needed to report to the front office right away, no time to get dressed, right away right now.

They marched him directly to the main office, barefoot and in his Pajamas to be greeted by not only Sergeant “Bulldog” ross, but nearly every officer on the base, including the lieutenant and the Captain, all of whom were… attempting to stand at attention with varying degrees of success, most weaving slightly, some snorting with poorly-concealed laughter, and the entire room reeking of booze.

“GENTLEMEN!”  hiccuped the lieutenant, before shaking himself and continuing, “WE ARE GATHERED HERE TODAY TO HONOR OUR ‘COMRADE’ -snort, giggle- IN ARMS -louder derisive laughter- FOR HIS BRAVERY AND SERVICE IN THE FACE OF EXTREME DANGER-”

“IN THE BEAK OF EXTREME DANGER!” Howled one of the assembled officers.  

“-AND FOR HIS SERVICE IN DEFENDING AN OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY.  I AM ~SO~ PLEASED THAT WE HAVE CAPTAIN [REDACTED] HERE WITH US TO PRESENT THIS MEDAL.”

He turned to the Captain, who took out a small box and motioned Dad forward.  Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a chocolate box from See’s Candies.

“[REDACTED], in honor of your brave and frankly improbable service in the defense of Euge- sorry, Sergeant Ross, and the capture of a dangerous wild animal, we award you this medal-  The Flying Purple Bastard.”

He opened the chocolate box to reveal this*:

(Image Description: A piece of cardboard cut out approximately in the silhouette of a hummingbird, by someone with only a passing familiarity with what hummingbirds look like.  The cardboard has been haphazardly covered in tinfoil and cartoon eyes drawn on.  It’s attached to a scrap of ribbon and a safety Pin.)

Which was then pinned crookedly to Dad’s nightshirt, after accidentally stabbing him a bit, saluted him as someone attempted to play the bugle but made a rather melodious farting noise instead, then slapped Dad in the face with a manilla folder full of papers and shouted. “DISMISSED!”

“Dismissed, sir?”

“Those are your discharge papers.” Said Bulldog. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“Yes, Sir!”

At which point Dad biked home in the rain, and thus ends my father’s military career.

*Pictured here is actually The Flying Purple Bastard 2.0, as the original was destroyed when partially eaten and fully regurgitated by one of the cats.

Your family did fine. You were more comfortable than some, but not so comfortable that you could sit idle. The crops had started to bud, and the shop was filled with all manner of pickled vegetables, fresh eggs, and flowers. You counted the coppers and silvers in the little lock box under the counter. Business was the same as usual, but your brow still furrowed.

Mother was getting tired. The decades of tilling, sowing, reaping, and harvesting had started to toll on her. Especially after your father left. The bastard. Your mother labored at home with an aching back and bad knees. Before long the crops would flourish and need tending. It was more than enough work for two, unfathomable for just you alone.

Jeering came from outside the shop. A band of orc hunters with their catches. They were a threatening bunch. Hard and strong. One orc could have the strength of two men. In the great cities they faced more discrimination, but out here someone either hunted for their meat, or payed other people to do the hunting for them. And the orcs… they were masterful at what they did. And so they were welcomed.

The rusted hinges of your shop door creaked. “Did you miss me?”

Any desire to feign positivity drained from your person. You didn’t even try to hide the sour look on your face. Milo was a repugnant leech that had been stalking your family for years. He had tried courting each one of your elder sisters, losing them each time to men better than him. And now you were the last sister on the list. Unmarried. And running out of time. The latter fact he was quite aware of.

”How is Celina?” You never liked how he called your mother by her first name. It was too familiar. You don’t bother to look up from your coin counting. “My Mother’s wellbeing is none of your concern.” Milo sauntered up to the counter, “y/n-“

You slammed your fist, sending a few coins into the air. “When will you get the idea that my family wants nothing to do with you?” You still couldn’t look him in the eye. He sighed, picking up one of the coppers from the floor, “You would rather your mother toil in the field? You would rather surrender yourself to the life of a shopkeep? It’s a waste.”

You had no answer for him. Because he was right to question your choices. Yes you truly enjoyed running the family shop, but you couldn’t possibly keep this up for long without your mother. She deserved peace and rest. But he was just… a nuisance at best. Frightening at worst. His family owned half the town, and how easy it would be for them to blacklist you and your mother from ever doing business in their marketplace again.

”Anyways…” He dropped the coin down onto your counter with a clank, “Winter will come. And will you be prepared? If your mother cannot help you work the fields…”

”Are you trying to give me an ultimatum?” You had pushed the idea of next winter out of your head the second the ice started to melt. But he was right, what would you do? He didn’t entertain your question with a response. No… it wasn’t an ultimatum. It was a threat. A threat that when winter came you would get what was coming to you. He made his way out the door, the rusty hinges screeching. “You should really fix that.” He gave a nasty grin and let the door slam behind him.

You pushed all the thoughts of worry from your head. It was something you had grown skilled at doing. Gods be damned if you let him spoil such a lovely morning. You threw the windows of the shop open, arranging bouquets from your flower garden for the street to see.

At night when you and your mother pray over dinner, you beg anyone listening for an eternal spring.

~

Two weeks pass uneventfully. You sell many bouquets of flowers to well-to-do ladies, and your mother’s special pickled red onions fly off the shelves as usual. In the early morning you sit counting your coins, listening to the soft bustling of the market just beginning to wake up.

”You know you can pickle these eggs right?”

You keep your eyes trained on the coins, trying not to lose count. There is a long pause, but you can tell the man hasn’t walked away, “We don’t sell any here.”

“You should.” You raise your head to cock an eyebrow at him. You try to stifle a gasp from your chest. An orc man with olive green skin is leaned slightly through the window of your shop. You had never had an orc approach your little shop. They always had bigger and better things to sell and buy.

”We don’t sell those here.” A more rational person would have thought twice before talking back to an orc hunter. But you were tired of men questioning you. A young lady entered the shop, eyeing the orc man still leaning on your window sill. The door squealed unpleasantly, cutting through the tension like a knife. “Fine,” The orc smirked and shrugged, exiting your window.

~

The next day, there was a basket waiting for you on your shop’s doorstep. You groan. This wouldn’t be the first time Milo left gifts for you to find. You take a peek into the bracket and… what was this? Spices? Salt? Garlic cloves? Underneath the goods were two silver coins.

You yelped at the sound of fingers rapping against the window pane. You reeled around expecting Milo. But… it was the orc man. The orc man from the day before. He pointed at the little latch holding the window closed. You were sure he could punch his way right through the window if he really wanted in. “I don’t want any trouble!” You yelled at him through the window.

Another smirk crept onto his face, “I bring no trouble with me, Miss. I just thought you might like a chance to make some more coin.”

What this lecherous orc seriously propositioning you for pay? Before he could say another thing, you hurled an egg at him. You hoped it would have just broken against the window to frighten him off. But to your horror it crashed through the glass, making a direct impact with his face. “Fuck!” You heard him fall on his ass in the street.

You rushed to the window. The orc was splayed out on the cobblestones, his forehead bleeding from the broken glass. He lay motionless, and you started to panic. Oh Gods. Oh Gods no. You just assaulted an orc. A big strong orc man who kills things for his living. Not even Milo or his family’s status could protect you from the wrath of an angry orc. You threw open the screeching rusted front door. Oh gods he was huge. He knew where you worked. He could follow you home. What if he brought his fellow huntsmen with him? What if they hurt your mother as well?

You couldn’t stop any of the thoughts racing through your head. You were worried about making it through winter… now you might not even make it through the summer. You bit down on your fist, trying to keep composure.

”Got a hell of an arm…” The orc grunted, pulling you out of your trance. He sat himself up, bringing his fingers to the drops of blood running down his temple. “Ha!” He guffawed and made his way to stand up.

”Please… please.” You weren’t sure if you were praying to a high power or pleading to him. His eyes met yours but there was no rage, or fury. There was a look of annoyance, maybe a bit of mild amusement. Rubbing his hand over the back of his neck he said, “Miss. I only meant… you should make pickled eggs. There are a lot of orc boys out here far from the motherland. They would pay a premium for a taste of home.”

You were nearly speechless, “I- I don’t know how orcs prefer their pickled eggs-

“That basket has everything you need.”

“Oh… okay. Very well. Sir.” Your voice wavered and he could see how clearly frightened you were.

The orc groaned, wiping more blood off his face. “Sorry about this. See you around.” You hoped that wasn’t a threat, but with that he jogged his way down the street.

It’s my first upper division English literature class and only a month into the semester but I’m already struggling and getting marked D’s and F’s on assignments. I can’t fail this class, I need it to keep my university scholarship to stay in school. I reach out to my professor, asking to meet with him for some extra guidance and he agrees, but only has availabilities late in the evenings. I’m happy to comply, making the trek from my dorm to the English building at 9pm for our first meeting.

The English department is on the edge of campus and when I walk into the building, the whole place looks deserted this late at night. His office is the only one with lights on and I knock softly on his open door before stepping in.

Summary: After ten years, you've finally got your shot at your revenge. You've found the Hero. You have him in your sights.

-----

Pull the trigger.

You’ve worked too hard not to pull the trigger. The sweat, blood and tears you’ve shed have been the least you’ve given to be here. The air is crisp and clean nearly a hundred feet up in a pine tree overlooking a remote forest. You’re probably the only person in the world capable of spotting the brown, camouflaged building spanning the length of the small river running through the valley. There’s a hologram of the river it’s covering playing over the building’s walls. Hell, there are even birds flicking occasionally across the illusion, not often enough to draw attention, but just often enough their movement sends your eyes darting to other trees, trying to find where they went.

You breathe in the scent of sun-heated sap so slowly that it takes a solid minute for your lungs to expand. Your pupils flex and adjust whenever the wind rocks your tree. The window you’ve been staring at for the past hour remains in your focus.

The Sun, hair just as fake-gold as it was ten years ago, sleeps on. He’s definitely older now that you can see him in real life instead of on magazine covers or under studio lights. The skin of his neck is loose and folded under the weight of his chin drooping towards his chest. His eyes flicker under his eyelids. The bastard still has the audacity to dream. His arms are crossed over the sun motif emblazoned across his breastplate, his dust-covered boots kicked up on his desk so you can see how worn the soles are. Judging by the way his lips tremble, he’s snoring.

Pull the trigger.

Based off a world where everyone gets a Destiny they must fulfill. Bakers and Demon Kings (x) and Villagers (X). You? You are a Hero.

----------------

You are a Hero.

Nobody at the orphanage knows. The mark sets during the worst winter in three decades, when the windows have to be barred to prevent snow spirits from ripping them to shreds and the Director takes half the reserves and runs in the middle of the night.

Sarah, the only caregiver left in the rickety building, holds as many of the kids as she can while the snow spirits scream outside. You’d love to be in the circle of her arms, but you’re holding the door shut with as much strength as your eight-year-old arms allow.

She doesn’t tell you to get away from the door.

“It’s alright,” she says, voice trembling. Her brown hair, matted from the months indoors, hides her eyes. She croons to the younger kids like a bird, so softly and gently that you have to strain to hear it over the howling demons and roaring winds. “We’ll be okay. Our land’s Lord will send a Hero, you’ll see. We’ll be okay then.”

Your arms burn as intensely as your eyes. A Hero. Your stomach aches from hunger and your fingers sting from the cold. You aren’t sure how much good you’re doing keeping the door closed, but there’s something deep inside of you that tells you you must do something. The blows from the snow spirits outside vibrate up your arms, nearly throwing you back.

Heroes, you think, only matter if they show up.

Hope is traumatic. Eight-years-old and you’ve been returned from potential families twice. Three days ago, you found the beginnings of greenery in the woods behind the orphanage. When you excitedly raced back to tell the others that winter was ending, it was only to find the Director and most of the caregivers gone with a significant portion of the rations.

Then the storm clouds rolled in.

“There has been no crime,” the King insists, the pressure of his authority coming down like a hammer. “Behave yourself in my presence.”

“No crime?!” Her voice has never been so loud. The air crystalises around her. “They were mine and my own, and stolen from me!”

“Were they?” The King asks. “I saw no brand upon them. They had not eaten or drunk of your table. They were mortal. Therefore, I am not bound to answer your call for vengeance.” His voice softens, as though in appeal to the one he calls his daughter. ‘It was just one mortal, dearest. You can find another.“

Agony at his description of a friend unbound to law turns again to fury at the idea that such a person could be replaced. "Never. Never will I. And there must be justice for this!”

“You defy your father’s judgement?” The Honoured Dealer smirks.

Other members of court are not as bold as he, and hide their smiles behind fluttering fans or raised hands or carefully-maintained glamour. There has not been such entertainment had in centuries, to see the polished and poised Winter Swan raving and weeping and defying an open order from her sovereign.

The Swan rounds on the Dealer, hissing, teeth bared, an inch from his face. He flinches, but holds his ground. His confidence is not shaken when she whispers her promise: you shall bear the blame for what is to come. Then she twists herself into feathers, and in swan form she leaves. The whole countryside - fae territory and mortal scope alike - ring with her agonised and mournful howls all night.

Things move too quickly, then, for the Courts to understand. For them, who have centuries of seasons, a week should be less than a blink. Yet in a week, the territory of the Dealer and his kin is laid bare. Mortals come in their greedy droves, with picks of iron shattering the border stones and axes of iron to cut down the ancient oaks. When the Sisters of the Petal went down with song and seduction to call mortals to their doom, these greedy men threw handfuls of salt, and bound each woman to a name, and burned them at stakes of yew wood. A week, and the ancient untouched forest became a logging camp, and all ancient mystery was stripped from this part of the world.

The-King-Who-Would-Be-Crowned sought out his daughter, where she stood upon her frozen pond. He scolded her for her vengeance, for stripping the Courts of one of their own. The Winter Swan looked on her father like she would look on a hated stranger, and told him to go drown himself.

Mortals continued to learn about the sacred mysteries that kept the Courts safe. Rivers were dammed, lakes were dredged, standing stones were defaced and toppled; salt was scattered, names were used like lassos. The Summer season was stripped and shrivelled. Autumn and Spring soon felt their territories likewise invaded, and could do nothing. They were named, and they were burned, and they were lost.

The-King-Who-Would-Be-Crowned sought out his daughter again, and told her she had gone too far. If this continues, there will be no court left. The Winter Swan arched her neck proudly, nodded, and told her father to go drown himself.

Songs full of salt and iron and binding names were sung by children, taught by the wailing bird that circled overhead. Axe and shovel and poker and spear press and push and dig into the territory of the fae. The Courts are broken. All will become fable, or forgotten.

The-King-Who-Would-Be-Crowned sought out his daughter, one last time. “All this for one mortal? Our world ends, our lives end, because of one mortal? You cannot follow him if you die! You will be unmade, and for what?”

“For one mortal,” she said, with a cold smile. “For one dear friend.”

The attack always goes quickly. The demon screams past her guards and takes her in claws and wings and flees out the window. Her captivity sometimes goes quickly, sometimes takes a while longer, sometimes lasts forever. Sometimes the demon makes her cook and clean for him. Sometimes he tries to make her fall in love with him (as if this were that type of story). Sometimes he hurts her, badly, over and over and over again.

She’s no longer afraid of pain. She’s no longer afraid of mind tricks. She’s no longer afraid of him.

She hates being saved. She hates going home. And she’s always so afraid of the moment her father announces her hand belongs to her savior.

Bob the Firewizard’s Unwise Pyromaniac Adventures

Revenge Is Best Served Cold

Kitten Little and the Kitchen Murdercat

My Elementary School Nemesis

I Am Not A Lawful Good Character

…and other high school shenanigans

The Stupidest Injury I Can Think Of

The Healing Powers of Throatpunching

Tiny Hellen’s Revenge (and an example of the Scary Voice)

The Shark Story

An Extremely Safe Adventure In Liverpool Cathedral

Mr. Taylor’s Historical History

Senior Survival, Redux

My very church-appropriate nephew

The Eldritch Horror in the Taco Bell

Sometimes you just have to destroy an ENTIRE HOUSE

Beware the dickorations

Hell’s Suitors

That time I cut my toe in half, but not …toe-tally off (obvious warnings apply)

Aircraft-carrier parents

Nothing like a barefoot ice race to warm the spirit