((Because this part is long enough to go all by itself.))
11) 10 gathers everyone around to tell them a fairy tale. How does it go?
Elis sighed, staring around at all the people assembled before him. “You want me to what?”
“Tell us a fairy tale,” Nel kindly reminded him. Dragonboy ran a hand through his hair.
“I don’t know any fairy tales, really,” the albino dragon-hybrid muttered.
“Make one up,” Gethin suggested.
“Alright, alright…here goes.”
Once upon a time there was a pretty little girl with curly golden hair whom everyone called Little Red Riding Hood. She lived at the top of a tall, tall tower with no doors and only one window, for her ebil stepmother had locked her away there to protect her from the vengeful townspeople. Why were the townspeople vengeful? Because the ebil stepmother tricked them into giving her Little Red Riding Hood in return for some lettuce. And when they found out, they were very, very angry.
Oh yeah, the ebil stepmother is also a witch. In case you were wondering.
Anyway. Every day, the ebil witchy stepmother would go to the tower in which Little Red Riding Hood was being held prisoner and climb up a giant beanstalk to the top of the tower, where she would enter by way of the window. She would then go to the opposite wall of the tower, upon which hung a magical mirror. The ebil witchy stepmother would approach it, then say in a properly dramatic manner, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I smell the blood of an Englishman!”
The mirror, of course, found this routine to be tiring day after day, especially as the ebil witchy stepmother made no sense at all and her question didn’t even rhyme. The mirror would usually respond with the phrase, “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down,” which seemed to satisfy the ebil witchy stepmother, for she would then descend back to ground level via the beanstalk and leave the mirror alone with Little Red Riding Hood for the next twenty-four hours.
It should be noted here that Little Red Riding Hood was generally ignored by her ebil witchy stepmother. She generally ignored the mirror as well. You’d think that she’d jump at the chance to talk to anyone after fifteen years of isolation in tall, tall tower with no doors and only one window, but she was busy weaving shirts out of nettles. The mirror wasn’t quite sure why anyone would go to the bother of picking the stinging nettles and weaving them into equally stinging shirts, but he never bothered asking. He figured it was a female thing.
But one day, the mirror was bored, and when the ebil witchy stepmother had climbed the beanstalk and entered the room at the top of the tall, tall tower with no doors and only one window, and asked her question, the mirror replied not with “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down,” but said instead, “Are you sure it’s an Englishman?”
The ebil witchy stepmother looked quite startled for a moment, then said rather decisively, “Yes.”
“Are you sure?” the mirror pressed.
“Yes!”
“How do you know it’s not a Frenchman?”
“Oh, it’s definitely not a Frenchman.”
“German?”
“Nope.”
“Greek?”
The ebil witchy stepmother opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, then said grudgingly, “He might be Greek.”
The mirror stared at the ebil witchy stepmother, and the ebil witchy stepmother stared back at the mirror. There was a long silence. Then the ebil witchy stepmother shrugged.
“Just thought you should know,” she said lamely, then climbed back down the beanstalk and left.
There was another moment of silence, and then, to the surprise of the mirror, Little Red Riding Hood spoke.
“You know, I really wish I could go to the ball.”
“What ball?” the mirror questioned.
“The one in the middle of the forest,” Little Red Riding Hood replied. “It’s tonight, you know. I made these shirts as gifts for the seven dwarfs who live at the palace in the middle of the forest, but I have no way of giving them to them. There’s a ball tonight, though, and my ebil witchy stepmother is sure to attend, for she wants my ebil not-so-witchy stepsisters (who are actually three bears and not sisters) to marry Prince Charming, who will also attend the ball.”
The mirror was dumbstruck for a few moments, since this was the first time Little Red Riding Hood had spoken to him in fifteen years. Then, at last, he asked, “How do you know Prince Charming will attend?”
Little Red Riding Hood shrugged. “Because he’s a prince, and that’s what princes do.”
“Okay then. Why did you only make six shirts when there are seven dwarfs?”
Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes lit up. “Did I mention that these dwarfs are not really dwarfs, but my brothers?”
“Erm.” The mirror was now quite convinced Little Red Riding Hood was crazy. As much as he thought he’d hate being stuck alone at the top of a tall, tall tower with no doors and only one window, he sure as hell didn’t want to share it with a crazy person. Meanwhile, Little Red Riding Hood was rambling on.
“And when I give them the shirts, they will turn back into their true forms as swans! Right now, they’re dwarfs because they refused to marry this sorceress who killed my father and tried to usurp our kingdom. Oh yeah, I’m a princess, by the way. Just so you know.”
“That’s…nice,” the mirror said weakly, while he thought of a way to remove Little Red Riding Hood from what he considered his tower. “So why don’t you go?”
“Because this tower is very tall and has no door.”
“Why don’t you climb down the beanstalk?”
Little Red Riding Hood looked shocked. “I can’t do that!”
“…Why not?”
“Because I’m not an ebil witchy stepmother, and only ebil witchy stepmothers and mentally-challenged boys named Jack can climb beanstalks.”
Suddenly, an idea struck the mirror. Getting Little Red Riding Hood away from him would be good, but why not escape the tower at the same time? “Little Red Riding Hood, would you truly like to go to the ball?” he asked.
“Golly gee! Would I ever!” Little Red Riding Hood replied with extreme enthusiasm. The mirror winced.
“Don’t ever use that phrase again. Now, I can turn you into an ebil witchy stepmother. That way, you’ll be able to climb down the mirror, yes?”
Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes lit up again. The mirror wondered if the girl had some sort of internal switch. “Can you really do that?” she squeaked with excitement. “How? You’re just a magic mirror!”
“But I’m not just any magical mirror. I’m also your…uh, fairy godmother.”
“…But you’re male.”
“...Erm.” The mirror quickly distracted the girl by saying, “I do have a condition though. When I turn you into an ebil witchy stepmother, you must take me with you when you climb down the beanstalk and go to the ball.”
“Okeydokey!” Little Red Riding Hood squealed. The mirror rolled his eyes.
“Okay, I have now turned you into an ebil witchy stepmother. Now you can climb down the beanstalk. Just remember to be back by midnight, and don’t talk to any strangers you meet on the road.”
“Yessir!” Little Red Riding Hood snatched the mirror off the wall, put him in her pocket, grabbed her six shirts for the seven dwarfs who were not really dwarfs but her swan brothers who’d been turned into dwarfs by a sorceress, and climbed down the beanstalk, convinced that she was now an ebil witchy stepmother.
Unfortunately, as Little Red Riding Hood started making her way into the forest in which the ball was taking place, she came upon a random encounter battle with a dire spindle and had Sleep cast upon her. She immediately fell into a deep sleep and collapsed on the forest floor. As she fell, the mirror slipped out of her pocket and landed next to her. The dire spindle then wandered off in search of more victims.
A few minutes later, a hideous beast wandered by and caught sight of Little Red Riding Hood lying there. He picked her up gently and carried her off to his castle, where he placed her in a glass coffin next to a shining magical rose that apparently wasn’t magical enough to withstand wilting. The mirror, however, was overlooked, and remained where it lay for one hundred years while a bunch of roses (no relation to the magical rose of the beast) grew around it.
Then one day, a prince who might have been a descendent of the Prince Charming that Little Red Riding Hood’s ebil witchy stepmother wanted her bear daughters to marry came by and saw the mirror. He picked him up and looked at his reflection in the shining glass, and thought to himself, “Damn, I’m beautiful.”
He was a bit of a narcissist.
Prince Charmant (for that was his name) then spent a good two hours staring at the mirror, until the sun had nearly set, and then he thought that he should go back home. He gave his reflection one last glance, then, because he was such a narcissist, leaned in and quickly kissed his own reflection in the mirror.
To his sudden surprise, the mirror turned into a handsome prince. How shocking. I bet nobody (note the sarcasm) would have ever seen that one coming.
Prince Charmant was, however, very surprised. He’d heard about frogs turning into princes, but never about mirrors. But…it didn’t really matter at the moment, because the mirror was now the most beautiful man he’d ever seen (next to himself, of course). He was in love.
The mirror-turned-prince then bowed to Prince Charmant and said, “O noble prince, you have freed me from this curse that was cast upon me by a spiteful sorceress who has no relation to the sorceress who changed Little Red Riding Hood’s brothers into dwarfs. I offer you my eternal thanks.”
Prince Charmant was a bit confused by the whole spiel about Little Red Riding Hood and her brothers, but he let it pass and said, “So, um. Wanna go back to my palace and make out?”
The mirror-turned-prince blinked. “Sure, why not?”
And so the two princes went back to the palace and made out.
Er. I mean they lived happily ever after.
The End!
Dragonboy was met with quite a few blank stares. “What?”
“What the hell kind of story was that?” Ysilar grumbled. “How is that even a fairy tale?”
The author giggled. “I’d tell it to my kids!”
“Yes…you’re also the one who wants to splice your kids with spiders and name them Brock O. Lee,” the elven mage returned caustically.
“Oh, shush.”
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