by Walleye
Then she went through her morning cleaning ritual and paid particular attention to the gill slits on her neck as they always needed flushing out after she had slept.
As she finished she felt that particular tugging of the magic again, pulling her up the river. She sighed, sank back into the water and began swimming again. She never noticed the two-inch fairy following her.
The river continued on, mile after mile, and she swam paying no attention to the scenery passing by. But by the time she stopped to rest after a few hours she observed that things had indeed changed.
Many of the broadleaved trees had vanished to be replaced by pines and fir trees. The trees were also spaced further apart and contained fewer of the twinkling lights. The bushes had been replaced by vines which trailed across the ground or twined their ways up the trunks of the trees.
Maryellen also noted that the temperature of the water was getting cooler. When she looked between the trees which were more widely spaced she noticed the surrounding hills were both higher and closer to her than they had been earlier and the higher mountains had white caps of snow which were probably feeding the river.
A rapping sound drew her attention to one of the pine trees.
She saw that a new type of bird with black, red, and white markings was clinging with its feet to the trunk of a tree and banging its bill against the trunk. Why it was doing this strange thing was not clear to her.
The bird flew back with a squawk as a small pencil of flame shot out of the hole it had been pecking in the tree. A small glowing red worm with flapping wings flew out of the hole but before it could fly away the bird opened its beak which was lined with sharp teeth and blasted it with a stream of fire. The worm crumpled in on itself and fell to the ground where the thing that looked like a bird swooped down, snatched it up and swallowed it down.
Maryellen was still puzzling over the strange behavior of the bird when she was urged by the magic to start swimming again. As she swam she thought that maybe it wasn’t a bird she’d been watching. Maybe she’d just seen her first live dragon, albeit a small one?
After swimming for a while she heard what sounded like the crying of a child. She looked in the direction the sounds were coming from and saw a little blond-haired girl kneeling on a rock near the edge of the bank. She was dressed in a pink frock and was sobbing into her hands.
She couldn’t just swim on and leave a distraught child so she cautiously approached her. “What’s wrong, little one?”
The little girl who had golden hair which fell in curls to her shoulders raised her tear-stained cheeks. “Will you please come and help me? I got my leg tangled in some vines and I don’t want to be out here when night comes.”
Maryellen wanted to help but wasn’t sure it would be allowed by the magic. “I’m not sure I can get out of the water to help.”
“Answering my plea for help is the same as getting permission to come.” The girl told her.
Thistledown who was hiding in the trees shook her head vigorously back and forth. ‘Don’t do it.’ She thought. ‘It’s a trick.’
She wanted to yell but the magic of the tale wouldn’t let her interfere until the appropriate moment had arrived.
Maryellen wasn’t sure she should do this. On one hand she wanted to help children when they needed it but on the other hand there was something about this child which seemed wrong. She sounded almost adult.
“Please.” The little girl sobbed. “It hurts so bad.” She held up a leg entwined with vines through which drops of blood ran.
“Oh you poor thing.” Maryellen put her hands on the bank and lifted herself out of the water. “Now don’t be afraid on seeing my tail. I’m a mermaid and I’m just going to help.”
The little girl sniffed and nodded her head.
Maryellen rolled over to where she could reach the entangling vines. “It’ll be all right in a minute.” She reassured her.
“It’ssss perfectly all right now.” A voice said that sounded just like a moray eel hissing just before it struck.
There was a flash of light, the little girl vanished with an evil grin, and the six-inch thick coils of a yellow snake with brown diamond markings wrapped tightly about her neck. Maryellen struggled with her hands to free her neck but the coils were too tight.
“My name isss Python.” The snake hissed. “I am one of the oldessst Greek monsterssss. I am your death.” The snake with an evil grin nuzzled her cheek as Maryellen, repulsed, recoiled from its touch. “You are both passssing and failing the third tessst. You have demonssstrated a kind heart but a consssiderable lack of caution.”
Thistledown felt the magic nudge her to get ready and she realized it was telling her that it was almost time for her to be involved so that the person she had forced by magic into this tale could survive.
‘Please. Let me go help her now.’ She pleaded with the unseen magic of the fairytale. Abruptly she was free to act and she launched herself into the air, shooting like a small pink glowing fireball towards the struggling mermaid.
Maryellen found that the snake was cutting off her air through all three of her air supplies: her mouth, nose, and her gills. Her vision started to fail her as Python squeezed tighter. She realized that she was going to die.
“Let her go! Right Now!” A fairy voice demanded angrily from just behind Python’s head.
Python whipped his head around, seeking this interfering fool. “Where are you?”
“Here I am.” The tiny two-inch fairy landed on his nose. She glared at him with her hands on her hips. “Now. Or I’ll have to hurt you.”
Python began to laugh hysterically and as he did so the coils loosened a little and the mermaid was able to desperately suck in a little air. With an annoyed look Python retightened the coils. “There’sss no way you’re going to hurt me, tiny ssspeck.”
“Oh, just watch me.” She declared.
He lashed his tongue over his nose trying to grab her. The fairy nimbly dodged the lashing tongue by tumbling and as she fell by his nose she rammed her wand up one of his nostrils and shouted. “Black pepper, fill these cavities!”
Python’s eyes went wide and then he began to sneeze. By his third sneeze he had uncoiled from the mermaid. By the sixth he was lashing around uncontrollably on the bank.
Maryellen stared in horror at the rolling, uncoiling and coiling twenty-foot snake as she sucked air back inside. She had been minutes away from death.
The fairy flew up by her head. “Well, just don’t freeze there!” She shouted. “Help me roll him into the river.”
The mermaid just obeyed her rescuer without thinking. She knelt and with her arm strength combined with the fairy’s magic together they shoved the thrashing snake over the edge of the bank and into the river where he disappeared with a splash.
The snake suddenly rose from the water with his head level with Maryellen’s eyes. “You are about to die.” He hissed angrily.
“No.” The fairy declared with a nasty smile on her lips from where she floated with her hands on her hips just above Maryellen’s head. “You are.”
At that moment a silver fish leaped out of the water with its tooth-filled mouth wide open. It latched onto the snake’s nose and ripped a three-inch long strip out of it before it fell back into the river with a huge splash. Python screamed and in the next instance hundreds of silver fish were leaping out of the river water and tearing at him.
The huge numbers of frantically feeding fish bore him down below the surface of the river where the waters churned and boiled with the feeding frenzy. After a few minutes the water quieted and flowed clear again. But when it did Python was gone.
“Well, just don’t stay on the bank here.” The fairy commanded. “It’s safer in the water. You’ll be protected there. Out here you’re a target. Go on. Get in.” She shoved at Maryellen’s shoulder.
Maryellen swung her tail over the side of the bank and hesitated. “Are you sure it’s safe to get back in.”
“It’s bette
r than being out here!” Thistledown snapped. She rapped Maryellen hard on her shoulder with her wand. “Get in the water now unless you desire to be torn into bloody pieces by the next monster that comes along.”
“ARRROOOO!” An unseen beast howled from within the trees as if making the fairy’s point for her.
That was it as far as Maryellen was concerned. She did as the pushy fairy demanded and dove back into the river. As she came back to the surface she realized that all soreness in her neck and gills was gone. The waters had healed her.
She tensed as one fish came up and touched her with its nose. It turned around and swam away. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“ARRROOOO!!” Something howled as a dark shadow fell across her.
Maryellen leaped back trying to escape, sending a wave of water behind her. The creature growling at her on the river bank was terrifying. It had to be over eight feet tall, standing on two clawed feet that looked like something a giant bird would use. Instead of arms it had eight different tentacles over twelve feet long that writhed and coiled as it flailed them at her, trying to reach her and draw her into the mouth of its alligator head.
She flinched back as the tentacles came questing for her face. The tentacles recoiled and spread out like the creature was trying to embrace her. She realized that there was as something like an invisible wall between her and the monster. Why hadn’t such a wall prevented them from throwing Python into the river?
With a roar of rage the beast crouched and leaped into the air. Maryellen gasped in horror. As it plummeted down, flailing its tentacles, it looked like it was going to land right in the middle of the river with her.
“Watch this.” The fairy said right by her ear. “This thing is just so stupid.”
Maryellen wanted to duck under water but something made her trust what the fairy said. She watched as the monster struck something unseen just above her head and rebounded with a tremendous crash and laid there on the invisible shield.
The monster groaned weakly and then began to slide over the surface of the invisible shield between her and it. It hit the rocks on the bank with a sound that resembled the one she had heard a squid make when it had run into a magic wall which her Father had popped out of the ground right in front of it when the squid was trying to catch a mermaid.
With a whimper the monster got shakily to its feet. It turned and without looking back it shuffled off between the pines until it was lost to sight.
“Well that takes care of that idiot.” Thistledown announced by her left ear.
“Why didn’t the magic which stopped that thing stop Python from entering the river?” Maryellen asked.
The fairy smiled and there was nothing nice about it. “By touching him we gave him permission to pass the wall. This allows you to drag attackers into the river where the magic disposes of them.”
Maryellen smiled at the fairy. “Thank you for saving me, Thistledown. Why did you do it? I mean you put the magic spell on me in the first place.”
The fairy hung her head as she replied. “I owed you for doing that as I made a huge mistake. You’re in the wrong fairytale.”
“I don’t understand any of this.” Maryellen complained. “Maybe you had better start at the beginning.”
The fairy stared at her wand for a moment before nodding her head. “I can tell you some of what’s going on, but the rules of this fairytale prevent me from telling you everything.”
Something ominous howled deep in the woods. As Maryellen shivered the fairy reassured her. “Don’t worry. If you stay in the river it won’t be able to get to you.”
“You were going to start at the beginning.” Maryellen prompted.
“All right.” Thistledown replied. “I can tell you this. You are now magically locked into a fairytale and you won’t get released from it until it ends.”
When the mermaid frowned in puzzlement, the fairy continued. “Come on. You know about fairytales, don’t you? You should. You just came from one.”
“What’re you talking about?” Maryellen asked in confusion. “Are you saying my family and I are living in a fairytale? Are you saying we are not real?”
“Oh boy. Let me see if I can explain this.” Thistledown thought a moment before she continued. “This whole world you and I live in is made up of fairytales which as part of their name implies were tales told by fairies to amuse humans, particularly children.”
“But children tend to believe strongly in such stories and cheer the heroes and heroines and boo the bad guys. Such intense believing creates its own magic and soon after the first fairytales were told the magic of belief created this placed called fairytaleland made up of a hundred of the most popular tales and their inhabitants.”
She touched Maryellen’s fingers. “Never doubt that you aren’t real. In a sense you are immortal as you will live as long as there are children to laugh and clap on hearing your tales.”
Maryellen considered this and then frowned as she replied. “If I’m living in a fairytale, then what is its name?”
The fairy had a look of regret as she replied. “I can’t tell you the name of the one you’re now in as that might give away too much since you’re now participating in it. However, I can tell you the name of the fairytale you came from and something of your role in it.”
Maryellen waited a moment but when the fairy added nothing more but just grinned at her, she griped. “You like being dramatic, don’t you? Come on, quit the suspense and tell me.”
“You got me.” The mischievous fairy replied with a smile before continuing. “You come from the fairytale called the Little Mermaid. You were supposed to stay back at your father’s palace as a background character while your youngest sister who is the Little Mermaid sought love with a human prince, but somehow you developed independence and you wanted more than you had there, left home, and went exploring which got you into this tale by mistake.” She sighed. “By my mistake actually.”
She continued. “You see my group is called the Fairy Guardians. Our job is to make sure that the fairytales actually happen. And the group assigned to this tale was thrown into a panic when the heroine for this tale couldn’t be found. In fact we couldn’t tell who was supposed to be the heroine when the Sidhe interfered with magic and messed everything up and changed the original version of this tale.”
She sighed. “As a result we searched everywhere looking for our heroine and when I found you I thought you were her. That’s why I was asking you all the strange questions about your family and when you gave me the right answers I put a spell on you to put you back on track to complete this fairytale.”
Maryellen gave the fairy a puzzled look. “Since you now know that I’m not the person you want, why can’t you get me out of this tale?”
The fairy looked back at her sadly. “Because you passed the three tests that all heroes and heroines must succeed at in order to complete their tales and that locked you in. Sorry. I can’t do a thing about your involvement now.”
Maryellen frowned. “But you just saved me from the snake monster. That’s doing something, isn’t it?”
Thistledown sighed. “It’s the rules of fairytales again. By following you to remove the spell I got sucked in too. There were two different roles offered me. I rejected the villain’s role. Now I’m either the magical helper who shows up once to save the day like the fairy godmother in Cinderella or a friend that helps you with her magic and advises you where I can throughout the story.”
“So which role is it going to be? Do I get any say in which it will be?” Maryellen asked. The last thing she wanted was to be left alone in this insane story without any help or understanding of the rules as that lack of understanding had almost gotten her killed.
The fairy shrugged. “Sometimes you don’t get a choice like in the fairytale of Cinderella. That poor girl never even knew she had a fairy godmother until one showed up and saved the day for her. In others like Pinocchio you get a cricket for
an advisor whom you completely ignore. But this story is so changed now by magic interference that I think the choice will be yours as to whether I can help you or not.”
Maryellen looked at the small fairy for a minute. “I could certainly use a friend who can do magic right about now.” She held out her hand. “Friends?”
The fairy touched fingertips with her. “Friends.” She said with a smile. Unknown to Maryellen she had just passed another test where the heroine must recognize that she couldn’t complete this fairytale without the help of friends.
“Now is there any way for me to get out of this tale?” Maryellen asked. “I mean could I just assume the role of a helpful friend to the main characters and then just fade out?”
The fairy sadly shook her head. “You either reach the happy ever after ending or you end up alone.”
“Happy ever after? What’s that going to be in this fairytale?” Maryellen asked, wondering how as a mermaid she could ever achieve that?
Thistledown got a faraway look in her eyes, sighed and put her clasped hands to one of her cheeks before declaring with a dreamy look. “That’s where you meet the man of your dreams and pledge yourself to each other to become a happy couple. But that only happens if you have true love for each other.”
Maryellen frowned. “What happens if I don’t find true love and the other woman wins?”
Thistledown immediately looked very sad. “Then no happy ever after for you and your ending could be bad. Unfortunately several versions of this tale end badly for the competition and so does your sister’s story in the Little Mermaid which could influence the ending of the tale in this one.”
“Wait a minute. Hold everything.” Maryellen protested. “What happens to my little sister?”
With a sigh Thistledown said. “I’m sorry I have to tell you this. She does not get her prince and as a result she gets turned into a soulless air spirit and tries to win a soul for herself by making little children behave.”