by gipsika
A Friday Fairytale
© gipsika, 2016
Published by P’kaboo Publishers, 2016
(First edition)
All characters and circumstances in this story are purely fictitious. This work is copyrighted, and neither it nor any part of it may be reproduced or copied in any way without the prior permission of the author.
Dedicated to my children, and the many fun evenings of playing games “on-LAN”. There are only not enough of them.
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Note to the Reader:
This is an experiment. This booklet, as you’re holding it, is not yet complete. As I’m blogging the story while I’m writing it, chapter by chapter, I add the new chapter onto the book. I’m mainly doing it so that the bloggers following the story can “collect” it as they go. A side-effect is that you can be there while a new story “grows” into being.
Until the book is entirely complete, it will be a free download.
If you downloaded it while it had 4 chapters, you can come back after a while and download the updated version to get the new chapters.
Please feel free to give feedback on this.
Yours sincerely
~ gipsika ~
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1: Magickal
Once there was...
... a villain so vile, everything he touched turned bad. Even the grass withered where his unholy feet trod. In the same land there lived a princess so pure and precious, everyone's heart melted whenever they merely saw her on telly. Most of the land was in love with her. It wasn't her fault. And in the same land, there lived a hero so Herculean, the sunlight would glint off his well-oiled muscles and golden hair as he rode by, head held high, on his white steed. There also lived a heroine so heroic, she would... well, do all the policing and justice work the princess was too pure to perform. And deep, deep in the woods, in a magic cave lined with Persian mats and hidden behind a spell, there dwelled a magic being ... a being so magic, whenever she flexed her prettily manicured hand, something magic would happen. Her name was Nadisda. (That is pronounced "Na-DEESH-da". Ok?) The author couldn't decide whether she was a tree spirit, a wood nymph or simply a witch, but truly it matters not, because all that matters was that she was so imbued with magic, it was actually quite a problem. Because this being had an additional problem. She had a bit of ADD. That was on good days. On worse days, it was ADHD, and seeing that despite television in this land they did not have Ritalin, it was quite a thing.
One day Nadisda was peacefully trying to remember whether she was trying to remove the weeds she had inadvertently planted around her cave to replace them with ferns, or do laundry day (for even in magic lands, nothing washes cleaner than OMO), when she heard a soft step on the moss. She listened up instantly, because you're not supposed to hear anything that steps on moss, except this particular step went "crunch". By this she knew that her moss had died and she'd have to replant, and in an amazingly lucid moment she jumped to the conclusion that it was the Villain who had come to see her.
Nadisda was a peaceful soul, she didn't mind if good or evil paid her a visit (good was in fact harder to endure, in this particular land). She smiled sweetly.
"Hello, Valentine! How nice to see you... would you like some tea? - oh wait, you're the one who doesn't like tea, or is that Hugo..."
"Close that gap in your face and listen," replied Valentine the vile Villain. "You have magic. Too much for your own good, to my mind. But today you could do me a favour."
Nadisda had had conversations with the Villain before, and she knew that it was best to simply nod. Sometimes it was even better that all you did was blink. But today, she sensed Valentine was in a good mood, as good as it got, and she felt that nodding was safe. So she did. Overhead, a branch sprouted a wealth of white blossoms.
"Excellent," replied Valentine. "I'm so pleased you're the type who does favours. I need you to work out a curse for the Hero."
Nadisda's eyes went wide with surprise, but she nodded again. The Villain's red coat accidentally changed to green.
"You... you want me to kill him?" she asked, knowing that there would be implications - if she could only remember what they were.
The Villain laughed. "Oh no, not kill... that would be by far too kind for that pompous nit. I want a curse that will make him wish he were dead."
"A curse is black magic," Nadisda pointed out needlessly.
"Can't you do it?" asked Valentine, taken aback.
"Of course I can, but black magic always has repercussions."
"Ah, that," laughed Valentine. "It will probably only mean that Haley the perfect heroine will come after you and lock you in the clink. Surely that's no problem for you? You can magick yourself out of there faster than the blink of an eye, can't you?"
Nadisda pulled a doubtful face. (A little spring welled up out of the ground under the Villain's feet and he had to jump aside quite suddenly to keep his designer shoes from getting too soaked.) Yes, she could; but even prison breaks had consequences, she was sure of that. Besides she could never quite remember the whole sequence for her vanishing spell.
"Oh, don't worry," said the Villain impatiently, "I'll protect you. Good enough? You'll cast that curse?"
Nadisda nodded. A tangle of vines began to grow from overhead, encroaching on Valentine. Nadisda's mind was on gardening this morning.
"Excellent," said the Villain and made a hasty getaway.
"A curse," Nadisda repeated to herself. "A curse on Hugo. So he wishes he were dead." She sat down on a moss-covered log that had conveniently sprung out of the ground to accommodate her shapely hindquarters, and absently waved a hand in the direction of the withered moss which returned to life and burst into bloom. Or more specifically, into sporophytes.
She watched those strange little flowers that were not flowers, flower on the resurrected zombie moss, and carefully let her mind wander (keeping it on a rope however in case it got lost again). Sporophytes. Moss. Hero Hugo. Valentine. And suddenly she had it.
"Uranium!" she shouted, jumping up and causing several masked weaver nests to grow clusters of noses on a tree opposite, which duly started sneezing, scaring the baby birds. "No, wait, what was that word - Eu... Euphorbium... whatever, I have it!"
2: The Curse
“A curse for Hero Hugo, so he wishes he were dead,” Nadisda repeated to herself as she walked through the scratchy undergrowth. It was hot here, in Faff’s territory. Hot and arid. He liked things warm.
Faff was Nadisda’s mentor. He was also the oldest dragon around. Partly because he was the only dragon around, but that was not all.
Faff had been around in the middle-ages when some people had mistaken his emissions for those of a volcano (because they didn’t ever see them from close-up). He had been around before that. Faff dated back to before the time of the dinosaurs. He had eaten his fair share of dinosaurs. Faff, in fact, was the creature who had always been around. He had survived the terrible slaughter heroes had wreaked on dragons during the Dark Ages. And various other things including being declared a myth.
The way a shark never stops growing as long as it lives, Faff’s formidable knowledge and magic had increased without end through the ages. With it, in time, had come genuine wisdom and insight which had led him to stop eating intelligent life forms and try helping them with their lives instead; and then even more wisdom that dictated to him that it didn’t help to help people, people needed to help themselves; and eventually, enough wisdom to say, bung that, I’ll help them if I feel like it.
Faff had some unique abilities. He lived in all dimensions available. He crossed between worlds freely without the need for portals (which he created and cl
osed again as he went along). He could read minds (of course he could), but could also choose not to, and in many cases he was too lazy to bother. Very often he found to his amusement that when people came to him with a question, if he simply listened to them long enough they would figure it out by themselves. In some cases he’d present them with a small token bauble from his considerable hoard, telling them (falsely) that it was imbued with magic and (correctly) that it would help them focus and solve their own problems. This saved him time.
Faff lay snoozing in the hot afternoon sun when Nadisda approached. He woke up when she tickled his huge nostril with a blade of grass, and he sneezed. Reflexively Nadisda blocked the fire-wave with a shielding spell, waited for him to clear his sight by blinking and brought him her request.
“You’re not coming to me to ask for an answer,” observed Faff. “You already have that.”
Nadisda smiled at the dragon. “You’re right. I’m here to ask for help with the spell itself.”
“But you have cast such spells before,” replied Faff, puzzled. “They are your daily fare!”
“Not this one,” she said. “This one needs to make him wish he were dead. It has to be just right, and Faff...” she sighed.
“Your head gets in your way of doing it just right,” he completed for her. “Poor girl! Let me give you something...”
Nadisda smiled again and held up her hand. “I know about your jewellery,” she said. “It’s not magical. People simply need something to focus on. That’s not going to help me.”
“What I’m going to give you, is magical,” he promised. “And it will focus you.” He dug in his hoard with his massive jaws and picked out a small stone which he delicately passed to her. It was glowing softly.
“A moonstone,” Nadisda breathed, impressed. “Loaded with moonlight!”
“Light from Luna, the moon of Earth, twelve thousand years back. Use it wisely,” warned Faff. “And bring it back when you are finished!”
“Oh, I will,” said Nadisda happily and bounced away. She was nearly home before it occurred to her that she hadn’t had a single magical mishap the whole time that she spoke to the dragon.
Back at her cave, Nadisda got to work. She fetched her favourite cauldron – the one with the fine elderberry patina – and her mortar and pestle, and combed her store (which was located in the back of her roomy cave) for the right items. Dried petals from the black Damask roses that grew in the palace gardens. A tiniest, tiniest smidgeon of Belladonna, for the opening of the eyes. A handful of pure white sand for romantic beaches and sand in the works. Ground-up clear quartz for reason and logic; a mere hint of obsidian for that touch of the-end-is-nigh. And so on. Doomed, caged, frustrated out of his mind poor Hugo would feel.
The moonstone’s gentle, calm light kept her focus beautifully on track. It hung on a chain around her neck, dangling over the infernal stew, casting its eerie blue light. But just as she put the most critical ingredient into the cauldron – a touch of lipstick from an adulterer’s collar – she heard that familiar crunch on her moss. She huffed in exasperation, and small flames sprang up from the cauldron, which she put out again hastily. Didn’t that forsaken Villain know that she needed to be alone during spellwork?
“Wood fairy!” called the Villain. “How far is your curse?”
“Nearly done,” she called back, hoping he wouldn’t enter.
Valentine, being a true villain, didn’t care what she hoped. He entered. Nadisda’s stress levels started climbing. If she made a mistake now...
“Eye of newt and strength of brute,” she whispered the incantation over the cauldron as she stirred, carefully, sunwise, “cat’s claw, snake’s head, iron root...”
“A potion?” asked Valentine, surprised. “I thought you’re working on a curse?”
“This is a curse,” said Nadisda through gritted teeth. “Or verse. Worse. I mean. Now I lost my place!”
“Iron root,” prompted Valentine.
“Iron root and rabbit’s snoot,” she continued. “Beautiful evil far afoot. Valentine, get out!”
“You speak to me like that?” challenged the Villain.
“Shoosh, I can’t concentrate...” She bent lower over the potion, trying to remember what came next. Big bubbles were rising to the surface and popping gloopily. The moonstone dangled a bit too low – and touched the liquid.
There was a blinding flash, and Nadisda was blasted backwards. She fell and knocked her head hard, and passed out. The last impression she had before spiralling into nothingness was a hand grabbing hers, trying to stop her fall.
3. Lost
Spinning dark.
Nadisda tried to see through the impenetrable blackness. Total silence. She had the impression that she was falling through nothingness, tumbling around her own axis. The void seemed airless. She must have banged her head really hard.
That’s what you get for doing a villain favours, she scolded herself. A curse on the hero? For what? Just because she couldn’t shake her head rather than nod, when the villain made his one-sided conversation? She’d show that brute, next time he visited! She was pure magic – she was not afraid of him!
The spinning stopped, and she held her breath, waiting for some sort of impact. None came. The sense of movement ceased altogether; she hung suspended in nowhere.
And panic set in. Was this the end? Her karma catching her and sending her spiralling into Nirvana? Was her beingness, her very spirit being destroyed as punishment for arbitrarily abusing magic for senseless evil?
Nadisda had never worried about karma before. It was something that happened to others. But now the thought gnawed at her that perhaps magical beings got hit harder by karma.
She lit a little white mage-light from her left hand and held it up. Nothing, still. She was literally in the middle of nowhere, but now at least she could see her own pale arms. Her right hand searched for the chain around her neck, the moonstone pendant – both were gone. She hoped the moonstone hadn’t been destroyed by the spell.
So what came next? She watched the white mage-light for a few more moments before panic threatened to take over again. She reached out with her mind.
“Faff! Help!”
Nothing happened. She called out several more time and was about to despair when an answer came:
“Fairy! You’re calling me?”
“Where am I?” she asked desperately.
“You are lost between worlds,” came the unpromising answer.
“Can you find me?”
“No. You’re lost in your own head. You need to find your own way out.”
“Am I dead?”
“No. Just unconscious. But to wake up, you must find an exit.”
“How do I do that?”
“Just focus,” said the dragon. “Stay calm.”
She tried to focus harder. The silence and blackness all round stayed the same; but her mage-light went out.
“Faff!” she cried in panic.
The dragon was gone from her head though. She was alone.
Find an exit. She groped in the dark to try and find anything at all: A door, a handle... a rope end... but all she found was void.
With longing she thought of her grove at home, her cosy cave behind the moss and the shielding spell. A crunching footstep on the moss pushed itself into this image of home, and she remembered that she’d once again have to heal her poor moss. How could anyone be so vile that plants withered wherever he stepped?
Well, the Villain had probably caused her to break some or other fairy code she had been unaware of. She resolved to deal with him severely the next time she saw him. How dare he?
Suddenly that hard surface was there underneath her, and sound returned, and with it, smell. Foul smell. Wherever she had come out of her exile, it had to be bad. Also, the place was noisy, with something causing a thundering and roaring that had nothing in common with
waterfalls or storms. She opened her eyes to painful daylight, to find someone crouching over her.
Young, sea-green eyes with golden flecks studied her face intently. Wild, shoulder-long brown hair hung in tatty strings around the face. A steep crease between two well-shaped masculine eyebrows. And a chin pushed forward in determination that was only showing the very first fuzz of beard growth.
“So,” said the youngster, “you’re awake?”
She did a double-take, her eyes wide open now. She wouldn’t have recognized him, but for his voice and accent.
“You’re -” she gasped. “You’re you!”
The Villain laughed softly. “Course I’m me, fairy! The real question is, are you alright? Did you survive intact? Is your magic okay?”
“I... I don’t know.” She tried to comprehend the surrounds. They were somewhere dank and dark, somewhere surrounded by grey walls that looked like tunnels. Lewd words were painted over the walls, and the place stank.
Valentine helped her sit up and gave her some water to drink from a water skin he had with him.
“Check if you can use your magic,” he said.
She tried to light a mage-light and failed, but it was mostly a function of not having enough energy for it.
“You lost it!” said the young Valentine, sounding disappointed.
He was disappointed? She was more than that! She was horrified. It was a disaster! Her magic!
“If I did, it’s your fault,” she pointed out. “For asking for that arbitrary curse against Hugo.” It was surprising how flowers entirely failed to spring up wherever she turned her head.
“My fault, really?” huffed Valentine. “And who was so quick to accommodate me? I’d have guessed you enjoy your black magic!”
“Where are we?” she asked, panicking.
“In the canals under Detroit,” said Valentine. “Earth.”
