Fairy Stories & Other Tales

 Once there was a girl who wanted to remember. She marked herself from here to there, and back again, until she was covered in marks of a past not to be forgotten.      She had come to the end of her days when she was offered to live them again. Only this time, the offer demanded, she could do no markings.     Thus, she came to the end of her days, again, having refrained from making one single mark upon her person.      She laughed when she got there. The marks were there all the same, invisible yet undeniably scarred up and down the insides of her. Such a bargain, and still she had lived the marvelousness of life twice over.     The third offer came then. A third life. No markings. No rememberings. No scars.     There was no laughter then, for the next moment marked her death.      But the ghosts of her markings... they lasted an age.     

 Once upon a time there was a woman who was simply exhausted by caring.     And so she went to the woods.     She stood there for some time.     Then she went back.     The world had shifted ever so slightly, tilted ever so gently.     Just enough, it seemed, to let the woman care more pointedly and do so more tirelessly.     The woods are kind that way.

 Once there was a princess whose leg was poisoned by a monster. She lost the leg, of course, for the monster's fangs' poison was unique and improbably new to the witch who served as the castle's healer.   It was easy for the king to hate the witch.   Easier still for the rumors of her foul and malevolent craft to seep into castle discourse.   It was much harder for the princess to say otherwise. Far harder for her to stay the tide of rumor that set the castle's people on a hunt; the kind with pitch forks and torches and spewing mouths.   Harder still for the princess to stand on one shaking leg before a small witch's cottage and tell the hunters, go home.   Little stops a rumor. It stops faster, though, when a one-legged princess defends her healer with her life. It stops faster when a witch continues to do her duty. It stops fastest when time has made rumorous tongues stand still.   But it does stop. And it did. With only a tinge of sorrow.

The day was cold, though there was sun. The wind whipped.     The witch curled up, in her small chair in the midst of her small room set in a small cottage, with a blanket.      She stared out the window, and thought about venturing into the bright sunlight.      The blanket suggested otherwise.     She had a cup of tea instead, while curled up in her chair. She organised her thoughts. The world was bright both in and out.     The blanket was very wise.