Once upon a time, in a distant kingdom with no central heating, there lived a couple with three little children. It was the middle of winter, and with snow falling faster and harder than ever before, the little family was very cold.
"Brother," said the middle child, who tended to forget such little things as siblings' names, "It is freezing, and we have no wood to heat the fireplace. Our little sister is getting cold, and our mother's hands are stuck in the frozen washing tub. We need to find some firewood."
"But where, brother?" said the oldest brother, whose memory for names wasn't much better. "There is no wood for miles around."
"Yes there is. In the forest of Facewood."
At those words, the oldest brother paled, for the forest of Facewood was one of the most dangerous forests in the whole of Fairyland. It was said that if you dared to venture into it, the trees stole your face and personal information, and any wicked witch who came into the forest could just read them off the bark.
"Very well, brother." The oldest gathered his courage and nodded. "We shall go. Let me just bring mother a hot cup of cocoa and a straw, and we can leave."
Thus, the two brave boys embarked on their dangerous journey into the Forest of Facewood. Again and again, trees reached out with their lianas, trying to steal their faces, place of residence, and relationship status, but the boys fended off each and every attack, and finally found some smaller trees with no faces on them, which they began to cut down. They split the firewood, loaded as much as they could onto their backs and started back towards home—but snow had started to fall while they had worked, covering their footprints. Their way home was concealed, and soon, they were completely lost in the dark labyrinth of Facewood.
"What now?" asked the oldest.
"Let us continue, brother. Maybe we shall find a hermit willing to take us in for the night, or a logout button."
And so they continued through the dark and dangerous forest. At length, they came to a little clearing on which stood a house that—to their relief—was not made of gingerbread. However, it was not a hermitage, either. The house seemed to be uninhabited, except for a few dozen pretty blue birds trapped in large cages along the walls.
"Let us rest here tonight," said the younger brother. "Maybe tomorrow, in the sunlight, we can find our way back home."
The older brother nodded and pulled out tinder to light a fire in the fireplace—but instantly, his sibling seized his hands. "Are you mad? No fire! No tinder! We will be attacked by ravenous single monsters the moment they see the light! They will expect us to have flowers. Some would even expect us to go steady!"
Shivering at the thought, the older brother quickly put the tinder away. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
So the two brothers settled down on the floor behind the cages, where the collective body heat of the little birds granted at least a little warmth, and fell asleep listening to soft twittering and cheeping.
But what the two unfortunate boys didn't know was that this house was the home of three horrible trolls. The monsters known as trolls have become so scarce in the modern world that a short description of their kind seems necessary. Trolls are horrible, giant, flat-footed brutes, armed with heavy clubs, prejudice, and stupid comments. There are two factions of trolls, the Damn Communist Libtards and the Racist Rightwing Assholes, who have waged a furious war against each other for centuries. Nobody in Fairyland exactly knows how the war was started, but then, nobody really cares, because it mostly takes place in a faraway kingdom called "Internet" that no sane person would dare to enter.
Three of these evil trolls had settled in the house in the woods and had captured all the poor little blue birds to force them to carry their messages all over Fairyland, spreading their viciousness across many enchanted kingdoms. The moment the two boys woke up to hear the grunting and shuffling of the trolls, they knew what horrible danger they were in, and they cowered, terrified, behind the bird cages.
One of the trolls sniffed and said, "I smell something nasty. It smells like..."
"Like what?" demanded another troll, sniffing the air. "Libtards?"
"Worse! Children!"
"What?" roared the two other trolls. "Young, innocent humans without any hatred or prejudice? Where are they? We must eat them at once!"
Right then and there, the brothers knew that if they didn't do something, they would be lost.
"There!" the younger brother hissed, pointing. "There, their weak spot!"
The oldest brother's eyes widened. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely!"
The older brother wasted no further time with questions. Screwing up his courage, he leapt out from behind the bird cages and dived for the trolls' greatest treasure: their keyboard.
"No!" the trolls howled. "We'll eat you, you damn little communist!"
"Stay back!" His heart pounding, the oldest brother held up the keyboard high in the air. "Stay back, or I'll smash this!"
The trolls froze in horror.
"No!" cried the first troll. "Have mercy! I' haven't left my daily quota of racist comments yet!"
"No!" cried the second troll. "Without a keyboard, how am I supposed to finish my documentary on how global warming is a conspiracy concocted by the Snow Queen to expand her evil empire?"
"No!" cried the third troll. "Please don't! I haven't ordered the latest collection glass slippers yet!"
Everyone went silent, and all eyes in the room turned to look at the third troll. Then they lowered to gaze at the pink high heels he was wearing.
"What?" The troll harrumphed and crossed his brawny arms. "I like pretty shoes!"
The older brother decided it was time to bring the conversation back on point. "I won't hesitate!" he told the three bulky monsters. "I'll smash that keyboard right here and now."
The three shivered in terror and clutched their clubs closer.
"Please, no! We'll give you anything! Anything!"
"Will you let us leave alive and uneaten?"
The first troll pulled a face. "Do we really have to?"
"Yes."
"Oh, well, I suppose..."
The troll's words were interrupted by frantic cheeping. Glancing to the side, the older brother saw all the little blue birds in the cages hopping up and down frantically.
"And you have to let the birds go, too," he added quickly.
"But it took us months to catch them!" the third troll protested. The two brothers noticed his hands were full of tiny little scratch marks. Apparently, the little birdies had some fight in them. "And we need them to spread our propaganda across Fairyland!"
"It's them," the oldest brother said grimly, "or your shoe collection."
The troll swallowed. "You vicious little human mongrel! Very well. You win."
The boy glanced at the other two trolls. Reluctantly, they nodded. Troll One pulled a key from his loincloth and threw it to the brothers. Quickly, they opened the cages, and the blue birds streamed out in a whirlwind of feathers, beaks, and claws, covering the boys' retreat. By the time the three trolls dared to lower their hands from their eyes again, the two brothers were long gone—and so was the keyboard.
"I promised not to smash it," the older brother explained as they dashed through the forest, grinning broadly. "I never said I'd leave it behind."
Around them, the little blue birds chirped and twittered in delight, covering the forest path with euphoric text messages.
With the help of their feathery blue escort, the little boys easily found their way out of the Forest of Facewood again. The moment they left the dark and dangerous forest, one of the blue birds was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of smoke, and when it dispersed, there stood a beautiful princess.
"Wow!" exclaimed the younger boy. "A girl!"
"Definitely a girl!" agreed his brother, eyes wide. "Look at those big—"
"If I were you," the princess said, raising a royal eyebrow, "I would think very carefully about how to finish that sentence."
"...heels."
"Good work." She smiled at the boys. "I am a beautiful princess that was cursed by a wicked witch to spend my life as a little blue bird until someone was brave enough to rescue me from the Forest of Facewood."
"Yes, we already guessed something along those lines."
"You brave heroes have rescued me from my year-long enchantment, and for this, I mean to reward you beyond your wildest dreams. Now, since I'm not a polygamous pedophile, I won't suggest we marry and live happily ever after..."
"I wouldn't mind," the older brother said, sidling up to her and batting his eyelashes. "I'm very mature for my age, and—ow! Ow, let go of my ear!"
"Just because you're the hero of this story, that doesn't mean I won't spank you, you little pervert. Understood?"
"Yes—ow! Yes, yes."
"Good. Now, seeing as your dreams appear to be pretty wild, I will not reward you beyond your wildest dreams. Instead, I will simply give you lots of cash."
The two boys nodded. This seemed fair enough.
Giving a piercing whistle, the princess summoned a pumpkin coach and drove them to her kingdom, where she gave them not only gold, jewels, and a bath with lots of perfume, but also enough firewood to get ten families through the winter. When, later that day, the two little boys returned to their village, they were greeted as heroes. And if they haven't spent all their money on candy yet, they're still living happily today. As for the trolls—they went back to their traditional business of guarding bridges and eating people, which was much better for everyone concerned.
And the moral of the story is: sometimes, it's much better to be without a keyboard, as in the case of a writer who has no bloody clue how to give his story a meaningful moral.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
My dear Lords, Ladies and trolling trolls,
This fairy tale is based on a story called "The lad who met the Trolls in the Hedale Woods," from a collection of Norwegian fairy tales by Jørgen Moe and Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. I must admit, the original didn't contain any blue birds or keyboards, or anything political, but I just couldn't resist adding those small elements as soon I realized I was going to write a fairy tale about "trolls." ;-)
Would you like to read more trollish adventures in the future?
Next week, you'll get the final fairy tale of this volume, "Beastly and the Beast"! In case you can't wait to read it, and/or would like to support my continued writing of fairy tales, you can order "WARNING! Fairy Tales 3" via Amazon or any traditional bookstore! And if you do, don't forget to leave a comment, or I shall send all the trolls of fairylands to chase you into the Forest of Facewood and troll you for all eternity! Mwahahahahaha! ;-)
Yours Truly
Sir Rob