GreenR: BOOM BABY!! Who's done with the exams for now? ME! And that means I finally had the time to finish the Rin shot I was asked to do awhile ago.
Law: the reader who asked for it probably forgot all about it already. How long exactly did you take to write it?
GreenR: so sorry for the delay, truly. But I made it a little longer than usual, I hope it makes up for it, love.
Also I'd like to give a big virtual hug to everyone who read and commented on my stories while I was missing in action. These comments made my days and also made me feel guiltier than ever.
Law: please tell me you at least watched the anime this time for the shot?
GreenR: I watched about 80% but then my research paper date came up. Do you guys have to write research papers or is it a thing in only my school?
Anyways, nice readin'!!!!
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"Cinderella, are you sure this is what you want?" You crossed your arms as you confirmed it with the girl for the third time, as magic laws required. You were this girl's fairy godparent, and since it was her birthday you wanted to do something more special for her than sending a giftcard, and make one of her wishes come true.
It had been well-intended, until you found out what it was what she wished for. To go to a ball. Not getting away from her abusive stepmother, not helping her clean the whole house. But simply one night free at a ball.
You could see the wonder of it, since Cinderella was always working and slaving it away, the concept of a ball must have sounded wonderful. But at the same time you couldn't help but wonder if talking with mice and birds for years had finally driven poor dear cuckoo, as she wanted to go to exact same ball her stepmother and -sisters went to.
"Yes, it is my wish," she smiled brightly and even under all the grime and goo you could see she was not half-bad looking. You shrugged gently and pulled your magic wand out of your left boot.
"As you wish," and with a swish of the wand, a pumpkin in the corner of the garden rolled closer and started to grow and grow, until it was big enough to fit the young lady. You screwed some wheels under it, silently muttering that you were a fairy, not a damned carriage mechanic.
"Now for the horsepower,"you went to the mousetrap and fished out four little grey mice. Another swish turned the mice into good-looking horses, ready to offer their services.
"All done," you said after a small lizard had been turned to a coachman. "Oh," you said as you looked away from your handywork, upon your godchild.
"Oh indeed," she muttered, her hands holding on to the ragged skirts that smelled of rotten eggs and had a hint of a brown colour to them, although it had been buried under layers and layers of ash long time ago. "Do you think you could fix me up as well? Please?"
"Honey, that is no trouble," you turned her dress into a beautiful light green ballgown, on the way removing all the dirt from her skin and hair. Then you added a mask, thanking whatever deity it was up there that had convinced the king to throw a masquerade ball in honor of his son's birthday. It was definitely easier to keep Cinderella hidden that way.
Last touch to her looks were tiny glass slippers, since you did love a good story and as a fairy godparent, it was your job to turn people's lives into fairy tales. With happy endings of course. After all, it had been you, who had gotten Little Red Riding Hood's werewolf girlfriend out of the prison. That had been one of your best works.
"Glass," Cinderella cocked an eyebrow at you, intrigued. You shrugged and smiled helplessly in answer. "Thank you," she curtsied, as if to try how it was to walk on glass. Apparently the glass was comfy, because right after she did some dance steps in the garden. "Brilliant!" She cried out.
"Now get in your ride," you ushered on, inwardly pleased to have the little personal touch noticed. "Go ahead now. Oh, and remember," you were closing the carriage's door already. "Exactly at midnight the spell will vanish, so better get out of there by then."
"Midnight," she nodded lightly. "I'll remember. Thank you for everything. Bye," she waved at you and the carriage rode out fast, making it so she would arrive at the ball with plenty of time for dancing and socialising and raiding the open buffet.
You tucked your wand away into your boot again and spread out your wings. There was no way you could let her go alone to the vultures, but you also couldn't let her know you were watching. There always was some sort of catch to it.
You worked your wings to their best extent and got to the ball befor Cinderella. With another nifty spell you made yourself look like one of the dandy quests, yet still keeping your clothes in their original dark tones. Someone in this ball should be stylish, after all.
You blended in with the quests as well as you could, which meant that after raiding the buffet table, you hid behind one of the curtains and looked at the dancers while munching on a profiterole. As on a que, doorman announced contessa Ella's arrival and in walked your pretty little masterpiece, smelling a little like raw pumpkin but still looking rather fabulous.
You sighed to yourself and looked around. Quests of the ball were whispering by themselves, trying to figure out who was the mysterious contessa, who was now gliding over the dance floor with one of the lovely young counts. You had fulfilled her wish, you thought to yourself. She had asked for a pretty dress and a night out, to break the routine of housework.
But you wanted more.
You wanted the fairy tale happy ending. You wanted the girl to get married to a prince and live happily ever after. That was your job, sole mission. To be the pupeteer. So, instead of reminding yourself that this was definitely what Ella had asked for; you went on a search for the sucker - I mean lovely Prince- for whom this ball was thrown to.
You did find him rather fast. The years and years of schooling had made princes rather predictable, so you thought. When you had seen one crown-wearing prettyboy, you had seen them all. So, as expected , the Prince was playing a good host and dancing with one of the girls. In fact, you noted it was one of Ellas stepsisters. Good for that girl, you thought to yourself.
Neither of the stepsisters were ugly, to that matter. They were quite usual looking girls, with round pleasant faces and eyes that were little too big for their faces. They also had all their teeth, which you considered a big plus. Just ordinary. And neither of them was absorbed with their looks, as their mother was. They did look into a mirror once in a while; but only enough to make sure they were neat and tidy.
Both of them were scientists, which meant the spent day after day with their noses buried in thick, boring looking books and conducting experiments under no watchful eye. They were both good at what they did, and their mother was proud of their achievements, although she never ceased trying to push them to dress better or wear more make up. In fact, she was so proud of their work whenever they came home from university she let them do whatever they wanted and never made them do any work around the house.
It was rather unfair of them but as they were rarely home now and always working, you couldn't blame only them. It was the step-mother who was the main villain here and the onky thing you could blame the sisters was not noticing Cinderella when they were home.
You chewed on your lower lip, rethinking your plan. You didn't want to ruin the party for any of the sisters, so you should probably leave the whole thing alone anyways. You turned around, confident in your decision not to meddle anymore, but still wanting to stay until the end of the party. Someone had to make sure Ella didn't forget about going home at right time.
Just as you turned you stepped on someone's foot, getting a grunt of pain out of the person. Good job, me, you thought to yourself. Why couldn't you have had the rumoured grace and fluid movements of a fairy, and instead were about as graceful as a cow on ice. With skates. And not like Mama Moo Moo.
"I am so sorry," you looked up to the person a bit. It was one of the waiters of the party, and despite how painful it must have been to have your heel crushing his toes, he was still smiling.
"It's alright," he was balancing the tray that you had nearly pushed on the ground. "Champagne?"
"No thanks," you thought about how even the smallest amount of alcohol had the incredible effect on clouding your judgement, and decided it was better to stay cold sober. Parties are enjoyable without getting drunk too, you know. Especially to super secret magic matchmaker spies, like you.
The waiter was already moving away from you, ready to move into the swarm of guests, before you stopped him. You had just gotten an idea about how there was still room for happily ever after, just not the way you had wanted before.
"Pardon me, would you happen to know if there is a garden near here?" The cogs in your brain were working restlessly, like the ones in Mori's watches.
"Yes, of course," waiter's eyes darted around as if he was saying something he definitely wasn't supposed to. "There is one if you leave by that door," he pointed at the large door by the east side of the ballroom. "Them to the end of the hallway and then left," he looked around again, stepping from one feet to another. "Sorry, but...umm..guests aren't explicitly forbidden to go to garden, but it would be advisable to stay in the ballrooms."
He was looking like he would rather eat earthworms than tell one of the obviously royal quests what they were allowed to do or not. One hand that wasn't holding the tray went up to push away strands of reddish brown hair from his face. The rest was pulled back into a pony tail. It rather suited him.
"Don't worry, I don't plan on going there," you grinned, not wanting to cause any more trouble. "But thank you for your help, mister...?" You waited.
"Matsuoka," he finally said, intrigued one of the nobility had some sort of manners on them. It was rare of guests to give him any sort of attention at all, preferring to act like he was table with his tray.
"We'll then, nice to meet you mister Matsuoka," you grinned, hoping to get one real smile back, but instead got the same tight-lipped one as before. The one that doesn't seem forced anymore, since it has become glued in the face. It's the thing with client service, you get used to it. "And thanks again."
You sneaked away to behind one of the curtains, pulling out your magick wand again. This time you pointed it at Lizaveta, who was still dancing with the Prince. Spell left your lips and as soon as it did, they ceased dancing. You grinned as they walked away from the dancefloor, elbows still locked.
You followed them to the side of the ballroom, after having made sure Ella was still having the time of her life. The two of them were happily chatting away, having forgotten about all the rest of the world. After burying a grudge at the girl (you were a magical godparent, you had the right to be partial about things) you noticed how well they seemed to fit together. Maybe not a happily ever after yet but you could see them being pulled together nevertheless.
Another swipe of a wand changed the topic of their conversation to nature and gardens, soon followed by them leaving the party for the garden. You grinned wolfishly. The new plan you had hatched was going along rather well. Although you felt like you couldn't take all the credit for these two when something happened to come out of it, because there was a thing called 'natural chemistry' that worked in situations like these.
You sneaked out like a magickal ninja after them, moving soundlessly in the shadows of the hallways, cast by curtains and trees outside. After reaching the garden you hid behind a bush, wand ready for new spells as the adorable coupling walked along the small path that was dimly lit by small lanterns added to trees here and then.
You felt your legs falling asleep from all the crouching and sneaking, and decided to adjust your stance a bit. Yet trying to kneel you lost your balance and fell backwards. Nearly instantly you were caught, a hand clamped over your mouth and another arm locked your hands behind you.
You let out a surprised noise, trying to wriggle yourself free. But you had been caught rather well, and could barely move yourself in that uncomfortable position. You decided to stay completely still, as your captor was still holding you, but not trying to hurt you in any way. Or trying to kill you so they could eat fried fairy wings for breakfast.
"Who sent you?" A breathless whisper sounded near your ear, making every hair on your body stand up . You fought the urge to shiver or shake your head to get rid of the sensation.
You said nothing, as the idiot was still holding their hand over your mouth and was waiting for you to answer by sneezing it in morse code or something. You waited yet a little longer for their mind to catch up. A hand stayed where it was.
"If I take my hand away, don't scream," the voice whispered again, which was not a good sign. You had found out that when people told you not to scream, you happened to get into situations which nearly always required a good screaming ability.
You nodded and the hand was removed. As you turned away you saw vaguely familiar face in the shadows, but it was far too dark in the bushes where you were hiding to actually make up who it was. You squinted but the face didn't turn any clearer. Only thing was that now you could make out the shape of a knife in it hand.
"Who sent you?" The voice whispered again, in urgency. "Was it O'Callaghauns?"
"What the fuck?" You said to him as politely as you could and after giving the still happy couple a one last look, turned most of your attention to the shadow. "I wasn't sent by anybody."
"Then why are you trying to kill the Prince?" The shadow demanded. You raised an eyebrow, even though you knew he couldn't see it in the dark. It just made you feel better to know you were using your face muscles to let the world know you didn't understand what the hell was going on. You were doing it quite often, to be completely honest. "I know you are, so 'fess up!"voice continued in hushed shouts.
"I'm not trying to kill anyone here, you dollop head," you answered as politely as you could, noticing the happy couple was getting away from your visual range. "well, maybe I'm trying to kill their souls, you never know with these one-night-engagements but their mortal shells will be just fine. Unless we have the whole thing with Beauty and the Beast again. Although I've told the higher-ups often enough it wasn't my fault. Not entirely at least"
The shadowy figure was looking at you with something you could only describe as pure bafflement, and you hurried to explain some more. Had you been a character in a movie or a book, the author would have surely named you The Exposition Fairy, you thought sourly. There was the pretty French word, bavard, and its synonyme in the dictionary was your name.
"You see, there was this poodle-" the figure cut into your speech.
"I get it," it sighed. "If you aren't an assassin, what the shiniest star are you doing here?"
"Well," you thought about making up some sort of lie, but decided the mortal wouldn't believe you anyways, no matter what you said. "I'm the fairy godparent of one of the girls inside and she used her wish to have a free night and come to this ball. " you went on to explain the whole thing as quickly as possibke to the human, who still had a knife. You may have been a fairy, but even fairies bleed, when their heads have been cut off with a sharp butchers' knife.
"Thats...quite a story" the figure finally said and you nodded. It wasnt really that special but a glance at your pocketwatch said that it was very nearly midnight so you had to go to check on Cinderella and it would all go a bit faster if you just agreed with the stranger.
"If you say so," you looked at the watch again and were already starting to walk away, before you remembered something. "Wait a moment, did you say you were going to kill the prince? Whatever for?"
The figure had already disappeared from its place when you turned around and you groaned lowly. You needed to go inside to check on your goddaughter. That was exactly what you needed to do. You glanced at the well-lit ballroom, which's windows were casting shapes of light on the paths and bushes around the castle. You couldn't just let a person be killed when you didn't even know what they had done wrong. Or if they had even done anything wrong at all, as royal families often had a habit of shortening their lines of successors quite noticeably over the years.
You rocked on your heels, nervous. Fairies had no business in humans affairs, unless it was to aid their godchildren, and the two youngsters in the garden were definitely not yours. You had already meddled too much. Stopping an assassin would be far too much. The right thing to do now would be to go inside, forget all about these two and make sure Cinderella gets home in time and has only the happiest memories of the night she had wished for.
With the dirtiest curse you knew on your lips you gathered up your direly impractical skirts and ran the opposite direction from the ballroom, towards where the couple had disappeared. Small lights showed you the way, lighting the romantic path between the trees. You fought your way through the bushes and trees as fast as you could, the only sounds made by your uneven breathing and some crickets.
You saw the figure crouching by the tree, ready to spring on the Prince and Lizaveta, who were sitting on the iron bench, hand in hand. Before any of them could move, you let go of your dress and fired out a quick spell. A flash of light and glitter flew out of your wand and landed on the hooded figure. Spell wrapped them in itself and by the time you got to the figure, its power had worked and instead of foul-mouthed and armed assassin theresat a large plum-coloured toad.
You grimaced at how basic that was, everybody was turning people into frogs these days, but it had been the first spell you remembered. It had really paid off how often you had used it on your little sister in the past. As they say, practice makes perfect.
You picked the toad up, its slimy body wriggling in your gloved hand and you stuffed the creature as gently as you could into the pocket of your dress. Then you sneaked away and left the two lovebirds alone. After placing a protective spell on them, of course. Even you could possibly estimate how many more assassins they could fit in the park in one night and you really had no time left to keep checking up on them. Technically these two weren't even your responsibility, but you decided that you had adopted them by this night and it would be your job to make sure they were alright. Maybe you could drop by next week or so.
You headed slowly back to the ballroom, knowing fully well it was quite a bit after midnight already. As you got to the party, you heard buzzing amongst the people. Everybody was talking about the mysterious contessa Ella, who had appeared from nowhere and gone back to the same place, running out as the clock had struck midnight. You smirked to yourself as you heard that, thinking it a little over the top. There were so many royals in the kingdom, nobody could remember them all and ella could have very well been the daughter of some nobleman they just didn't recall at the moment. But you didn't say a word and left the ball as quick as you could. Some mystery was always needed in a good story.
And you expected a truly good story from her, as an old noblewoman pointed out to you a quite young man standing on the edge of the room, dressed in the best military uniform. It was a well-known vampire, the general of the royal army and also the man Cinderalla had been dancing with the whole night. Your smirk grew wider. A good story indeed. Maybe you could add few dragons to it later. Dragons made every story better, believe it.
You left the ball as well and flew back to your run-down cottage in the dark woods. Stories said that only witches lived in the cottages like this, but everybody even remotely connected too the magical community knew it was just a rumour fairies spread so people woud leave them alone. Imagine, trying to live in a place where people would constantly form a line behind your door to beg you to help them. That is a no way to live. Humans are supposed to find the solutions to their problems themselves, they shouldn't be counting on magick to fix everything.
Your home was nice and cozy inside. You set aside your magick wand and got some firewood from outside and lit a nice and warm fire under the oven. There was still some stew in the oven and it would warm up soon by the fire. You yawned and were already about to magic your balldress away, when you heard a croak from your pocket.
You fished the poor toad out from there and then got rid of the dress. You didn't keep the magic clothes anyway, but now you had even a bigger reason not to, as the toad had puked in the pocket. And they say all frogs are Prince Charmings. Charming would really faint if he heard anyone saying that.
"You are mad," the toad managed to croak out but didn't move an inch from the place you had put it to.
"No dear,"you sighed, pulling your hair back to a braid. " I'm a fairy godparent, and although many agree its the same," you tied the braid, "it really isn't."
"Turn me back," the toad demanded, forgetting that he was about twenty times smaller than you and that you could easily crush him any time you wanted. Perhaps he was counting on fairy godparents being nice and sweet. Hah. We all have these illusions about the world we'd like to believe are true, but in the end they are only illusions and we are drug addicts, getting high on our own imagination to dull the pain of existence.
"Not yet," you said patiently and checked on your dinner. The stew was lukewarm and your stomach was already growling so you decided it could handle the dinner not being absolutely perfect. You ladled some stew into the bowl and sat down to eat it under the judgmental stare of the toad.
"What do you mean not yet?" It harrumphed as you stuffed food into your mouth with concentrated look on your face. "I am pretty sure youre on illegal territory here, it could qualify as restriction of freedom, in other words - you kidnapped me you crazy butterlfy???!!!!!!"
"Butterfly?" you swllowed the mouthful you had and glanced back at your wings. How could he?! "I am obviously a moth, you uncultured swine!" you pointed at him with your wooden spoon, sparks flying off its end and landing on the table with a sizzle, disappearing as soon, leave but small scorch marks.
"Well excuse me," if frog could act sarcastic, this one was doing it now. "Is it really so much better to be called crazy moth than crazy butterfly? Either way youre bonkers."
"I am as sane as any other fairy," you pursed your lips, wondering what had become of the world if you had to now argue with your magicked people.
"And how well-known are fairies for their sanity?" Toad marked drily.
"Well, we are more known for being fashion icons, but sanity is pretty high up in the list," you finished your dinner, secretly wishing you had had more time to eat at the ball. But after the venture in the garden, when you had gotten back to the ballroom there had been nothing left. These royals acted like they had nothing to eat at home and stuffed up whenever there was free food being handed out.
"The last I heard it wasn't like that," toad seemed to have forgotten all about fear and survival skills. "But what do I know."
"Exactly," you put the dishes away, making a mental note to wash them in the morning, then threw the note into the trash bin of your brain. "So anyways, fancy being human again?"
"Bold of you to assume I was human before," toad looked smug.
"Bold of you to assume I couldn't turn you into one," you crossed your arms and tapped your foot against the floor. That toad really had an attitude problem.
"I don't really care, but please something less slimy and with thumbs," you played with a thought about apes, but then decided it would be too much for one evening and settled for changing the assassin back. To no one's surprise, the waiter from before was suddenly sitting on the table, after a cloud of smoke and glitter had disappeared.
"Well well mister Matsuoka," you kept your arms crossed. "You better have a darn good explanation why you wanted to kill my son."
"He is not your son," assassin marked as he wiped some leftover slime from his sleeve. You waited until the silence got uncomfortable and he started to talk just to avoid sitting in the silence. You were very good with silence. You could make the silence so loud and uncomfortable people went deaf or mad from it.
"He is not your son," the assassin repeated stubbornly, his eyes darting at the door. A swish of wand sent cupboard in front of it and he sighed.
"I adopted him tonight and that's it," you said decisively.
"Doesn't he get a say in the matter? I mean, he already has two parents and as of tonight he is legally responsible," you didn't bother to grace that with an answer as it was obviously just Matsuoka trying to avoid your previous question.
"Answer or I'll blow your head off," you threatened and tried to look as scary as it was possible in fluffy pink robe.
"Wow boy, that isn't very PG13 anymore," assassin raised his hands in the air and tried to look as innocent as possible, giving you a small smile. As his teeth were sharp like a shark's it didn't look as harmless as he had intended it to be. "Why do they even give these nuclear weapons to you without some personality test? I mean, that's why you guys have so many powerful magick beings falling to the Dark Side."
"Dude, just tell me, why did you try to kill him?" You sighed, annoyed with his bullshit already.
"One part of the court wants his older sister to be the future ruler, with Princey out of the way, king would have no choice but to name his daughter as the heir, if he doesn't want the kingdom fall into his brother's hands." Past toad shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "I just got paid for it."
"But does she want to rule a kingdom?" You weren't really bothered about the whole murder thing. People died every day.
"Not really. But court has this 'not wanting to rule means you will be a great ruler' thing," you had half a mind to turn him into a wooden doll so his shoulders wouldn't keep moving about all the time.
"Well that's complete rubbish," you set your magick wand aside and sat down begind the table. You were tired from the day you had had. "And why do those things always happen to me? Why never the Evil Queen? Even Rumpelstiltskin gets a day off from time to time."
The assassin boy looked like he had many questions in his mind about every sentence you said, but restrained himself from asking them. You rubbed your tired eyes with knuckles for a moment and then sat up straighter.
"Okie dokie," you chirped and forced the corners of your mouth up to form sort of a smile. It looked more like a smile of a shark, but thankfully there weren't any mirrors or little kids around. "We can't have a ruler who has no idea how kingdoms work or even the bare minimum knowledge of tax system. So we're gonna start a revolution."
"We?"
"Yes, I can't possibly let you do this alone, you'd try to kill someone again or so," you smirked knowingly and got up from your chair, already waiting for the retort.
"I was hired for that," the assassin argued, but not with much soul behind it.
"I put ten gold pieces on the fact that you wouldn't have taken the job if it hadn't overlapped with your personal motives somehow," you gave a snap at that. The boy mumbled something back, but it was enough for you to know you had been right. Like you always were. Well, almost always.
"So we're gonna start a revolution?" He asked again, hand already reaching for the small dagger on his hip.
"Yes, sure, absolutely," you hid a yawn behind a hand. "Give me three hours, I'm gonna take a nap first."