( @voidofstarryink )

A Star Trek idea: A comedy sitcom where instead of a Vulcan on a mostly human ship it is a human on a mostly Vulcan ship

A truth come out

Harry Potter AU where Harry is hiding in the cabinet in Borgin and Burkes. And he sees Lucius grab Draco with his cane. And he hears the hiss, “What did I tell you?” And he hears the quiver in the blonde boy’s voice, “Don’t touch anything.”

And Harry knows.

Because he’s used the voice that Draco uses for the past twelve years.

He knows.

Because now that he’s lived with the Weasleys for over a month, he knows that that’s not the way that a father’s voice should be.

He knows.

He’s heard Vernon use that voice over and over again, day after day, year after year.

And he knows.

And he acts.

Because really other than being a spiteful little git, at this point, Draco really hasn’t done anything to truly harm Harry. And Harry’s twelve. He’s still young, still innocent, easy to forgive, easy to let his “saving people thing” get the better of him.

He doesn’t do magic. Not really. At least, he doesn’t mean to. Well, he does. But he tries to stop himself. Though it’s not a very good attempt. Either way, the jars on the shelves all shatter, their contents falling onto Lucius’ head.

And Harry bursts out of the cabinet and he grabs a very startled Draco’s hand and he pulls him out of the shop. And they’re running down the dark, grim, streets. And it’s not long before they get lost since Harry doesn’t even know where they are, let alone where they’re going.

But Draco knows exactly where they are and so he tugs Harry down a road and around the corner and suddenly, they’re in Diagon Alley. And Harry’s shocked and confused because how could such a terrible place exist next to such a wonderful one?

But they don’t have time for that now because Lucius is charging after them, green spells bursting out of the end of his wand. And Draco lets out a scream and Harry (bless him) wonders aloud what kind of spells the green ones are.

And Draco is tugging his arm so hard that he thinks it’s going to come out of his socket. And the boys run as fast as they can, pushing through the crowd, and Harry’s probably apologizing and Draco’s screaming at him to move and apologize later.

And Harry sees the mob of red heads and he’s screaming for their assistance.

Fred and George spot him first, right as their mother is asking, “Where on earth could Harry be?”

“Found him,” the twins say.

Gasps. Screams. School supplies tumbling to the ground.

And Arthur and Molly, oh Arthur and Molly, veterans of the original Order of the Phoenix, drawing their strength from parental love, they don’t even hesitate. They grab Harry and Draco and Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Fred and George and Percy and they shove them into the nearest shop.

And the kids are all huddled together, Percy and the twins standing in front of the younger ones, and it’s Ron who manages to whisper, “What’s Malfoy doing here?” Before Hermione stomps on his foot.

And the duel!

The duel is fantastic.

Arthur and Molly verses Lucius.

Just close your eyes and imagine.

And soon Arthur is able to summon other Ministry workers. Including a strange looking man with a strange eye, a man whose skin is slightly darker than Hermione’s, and a girl with bright pink hair who is barely older than Percy.

The battle’s over before it even begins. These strange new people grab Lucius and Apparate away and of course he’ll buy himself out of trouble in no time but at least the immediate threat is gone.

Gilderoy Lockhart timidly steps out and squeaks that it’s a shame that he wasn’t there to stop the duel, that he knew just the hex that could have finished it.

The crowd falls into the streets, praising Arthur and Molly who are quite flustered by all of the attention. Fred and George are clapping their parents on their back, doing a sort of chant. Ron is bragging about how he managed to get a shot in (he hadn’t). Percy is excitedly talking to his father about the legal procedures that Lucius will face. Ginny and Hermione are going around, collecting all of the school supplies that they dropped. Ginny finds a rather unusual book but she dismisses it as something that her parents bought and stuffs it into her bag.

And Harry and Draco. Harry and Draco are staring at one another, not saying a word but having a conversation nonetheless.

Molly finally says that they ought to get back to the Burrow, away from this post-battle excitement. The kids all groan but she and Arthur push them back to the Leaky Cauldron so that they can use the Floo. Draco shuffles along, not knowing where else to go. It’s not until Molly gestures towards the fireplace with a smile that he realizes that his life is about to change.

From there…well…I’ll let you think of the possibilities…

How to Write Indigenous Characters Without Looking like a Jackass:

Update as of December 26th, 2020: I have added a couple new sections about naming and legal terms, as well as a bit of reading on the Cherokee Princess phenomenon.

Boozhoo (hello) Fallout fandom! I'm a card-carrying Anishinaabe delivering this rough guide about writing Indigenous characters because wow, do I see a lot of shit.

Let's get something out of the way first: Fallout's portrayal of Indigenous people is racist. From a vague definition of "tribal" to the claims of them being "savage" and "uncivilized" mirror real-world stereotypes used to dehumanize us. Fallout New Vegas' narrated intro has Ron Perlman saying Mr. House "rehabilitated" tribals to create New Vegas' Three Families. You know. Rehabilitate. As if we are animals. Top it off with an erasure of Indigenous people in the American Southwest and no real tribe names, and you've got some pretty shitty representation. The absence of Native American as a race option in the GECK isn't too great, given that two Native characters are marked "Caucasian" despite being brown. Butch Deloria is a pretty well-known example of this effect. (Addendum: Indigenous people can have any mix of dominant and recessive traits, as well as present different phenotypes. What bothers me is it doesn't accommodate us or mixed people, which is another post entirely.)

As a precautionary warning: this post and the sources linked will discuss racism and genocide. There will also be discussion of multiple kinds of abuse.

Now, your best approach will be to pick a nation or tribe and research them. However, what follows will be general references.

Terms that may come up in your research include Aboriginal/Native Canadian, American Indian/Native American, Inuit, Métis, and Mestizo. The latter two refer to cultural groups created after the discovery of the so-called New World. (Addendum made September 5th, 2020: Mestizo has negative connotations and originally meant "half breed" so stick with referring to your mixed Latine and Indigenous characters as mixed Indigenous or simply by the name of their people [Maya, Nahua].)

As a note, not every mixed person is Métis or Mestizo. If you are, say, Serbian and Anishinaabe, you would be mixed, but not Métis (the big M is important here, as it refers to a specific culture). Even the most liberal definition caps off at French and British ancestry alongside Indigenous (some say Scottish and English). Mestizo works the same, since it refers to descendants of Spanish conquistadors/settlers and Indigenous people.

Trouble figuring out whose land is where? No problem, check out this map.

Drawing

Don't draw us with red skin. It's offensive and stereotypical.

Tutorial for Native Skintones

Tutorial for Mixed Native Skintones

Why Many Natives Have Long Hair (this would technically fit better under another category, but give your Native men long hair!)

If You're Including Traditional Wear, Research! It's Out There

Languages

Remember, there are a variety of languages spoken by Indigenous people today. No two tribes will speak the same language, though there are some that are close and may have loan words from each other (Cree and Anishinaabemowin come to mind). Make sure your Diné (you may know them as Navajo) character doesn't start dropping Cree words.

Here's a Site With a Map and Voice Clips

Here's an Extensive List of Amerindian Languages

Keep in mind there are some sounds that have no direct English equivalents. But while we're at it, remember a lot of us speak English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. The languages of the countries that colonized us.

Words in Amerindian languages tend to be longer than English ones and are in the format of prefix + verb + suffix to get concepts across. Gaawiin miskwaasinoon is a complete sentence in Anishinaabemowin, for example (it is not red).

Names

Surprisingly, we don't have names like Passing Dawn or Two-Bears-High-Fiving in real life. A lot of us have, for lack of better phrasing, white people names. We may have family traditions of passing a name down from generation to generation (I am the fourth person in my maternal line to have my middle name), but not everyone is going to do that. If you do opt for a name from a specific tribe, make sure you haven't chosen a last name from another tribe.

Baby name sites aren't reliable, because most of the names on there will be made up by people who aren't Indigenous. That site does list some notable exceptions and debunks misconceptions.

Here's a list of last names from the American census.

Indian Names

You may also hear "spirit names" because that's what they are for. You know the sort of mystical nature-related name getting slapped on an Indigenous character? Let's dive into that for a moment.

The concept of a spirit name seems to have gotten mistranslated at some point in time. It is the name Creator calls you throughout all your time both here and in the spirit world. These names are given (note the word usage) to you in a ceremony performed by an elder. This is not done lightly.

A lot of imitations of this end up sounding strange because they don't follow traditional guidelines. (I realize this has spread out of the original circle, but Fallout fans may recall other characters in Honest Hearts and mods that do this. They have really weird and racist results.)

If you're not Indigenous: don't try this. You will be wrong.

Legal Terms

Now, sometimes the legal term (or terms) for a tribe may not be what they refer to themselves as. A really great example of this would be the Oceti Sakowin and "Sioux". How did that happen, you might be wondering. Smoky Mountain News has an article about this word and others, including the history of these terms.

For the most accurate information, you are best off having your character refer to themselves by the name their nation uses outside of legislation. A band name would be pretty good for this (Oglala Lakota, for example). I personally refer to myself by my band.

Cowboys

And something the Fallout New Vegas fans might be interested in, cowboys! Here's a link to a post with several books about Black and Indigenous cowboys in the Wild West.

Representation: Stereotypes and Critical Thought

Now, you'll need to think critically about why you want to write your Indigenous character a certain way. Here is a comprehensive post about stereotypes versus nuance.

Familiarize yourself with tropes. The Magical Indian is a pretty prominent one, with lots of shaman-type characters in movies and television shows. This post touches on its sister tropes (The Magical Asian and The Magical Negro), but is primarily about the latter.

Say you want to write an Indigenous woman. Awesome! Characters I love to see. Just make sure you're aware of the stereotypes surrounding her and other Women of Color.

Word to the wise: do not make your Indigenous character an alcoholic. "What, so they can't even drink?" You might be asking. That is not what I'm saying. There is a pervasive stereotype about Drunk Indians, painting a reaction to trauma as an inherent genetic failing, as stated in this piece about Indigenous social worker Jessica Elm's research. The same goes for drugs. Ellen Deloria is an example of this stereotype.

Familiarize yourself with and avoid the Noble Savage trope. This was used to dehumanize us and paint us as "childlike" for the sake of a plot device. It unfortunately persists today.

Casinos are one of the few ways for tribes to make money so they can build homes and maintain roads. However, some are planning on diversifying into other business ventures.

There's a stereotype where we all live off government handouts. Buddy, some of these long-term boil water advisories have been in place for over twenty years. The funding allocated to us as a percentage is 0.39%: less than half a percent to fight the coronavirus. They don't give us money.

"But what about people claiming to be descended from a Cherokee princess?" Cherokee don't and never had anything resembling princesses. White southerners made that up prior to the Civil War. As the article mentions, they fancied themselves "defending their lands as the Indians did".

Also, don't make your Indigenous character a cannibal. Cannibalism is a serious taboo in a lot of our cultures, particularly northern ones.

Our lands are not cursed. We don't have a litany of curses to cast on white people in found footage films. Seriously. We have better things to be doing. Why on earth would our ancestors be haunting you when they could be with their families? Very egotistical assumption.

Indigenous Ties and Blood Quantum

Blood quantum is a colonial system that was initially designed to "breed out the Indian" in people. To dilute our bloodlines until we assimilated properly into white society. NPR has an article on it here.

However, this isn't how a vast majority of us define our identities. What makes us Indigenous is our connections (or reconnection) to our families, tribes, bands, clans, and communities.

Blood quantum has also historically been used to exclude Black Natives from tribal enrollment, given that it was first based on appearance. So, if you looked Black and not the image of "Indian" the white census taker had in his brain, you were excluded and so were your descendants.

Here are two tumblrs that talk about Black Indigenous issues and their perspectives. They also talk about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

However, if you aren't Indigenous, don't bring up blood quantum. Don't. This is an issue you should not be speaking about.

Cherokee Princess Myth

"Princess" was not a real position in any tribe. The European idea of monarchy did not suddenly manifest somewhere else. The closest probable approximation may have been the daughter of a chief or other politically prominent person. But princess? No.

Here is an article talking about possible origins of this myth. Several things are of note here: women from other tribes may have bee shoved under this label and the idea of a "Cherokee Princess" had been brought up to explain the sudden appearance of a brown-skinned (read: half Black) family member.

For a somewhat more in depth discussion of why, specifically, this myth gets touted around so often, Timeline has this piece.

Religion

Our religions are closed. We are not going to tell you how we worship. Mostly because every little bit we choose to share gets appropriated. Smudging is the most recent example. If you aren't Indigenous, that's smoke cleansing. Smudging is done in a specific way with ceremonies and prayers.

Now, a lot of us were forcibly converted. Every residential school was run by Christians. So plenty of us are Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. Catholicism in Latin America also has influence from the Indigenous religions in that region.

Having your Indigenous character pray or carry rosaries wouldn't be a bad thing, if that religion was important to them. Even if they are atheist, if they lived outside of a reserve or other Indigenous communities, they might have Christian influences due to its domination of the Western world.

Settler Colonialism and the White Savior Trope

Now we've come to our most painful section yet. Fallout unintentionally has an excellent agent of settler-colonialism, in particular the Western Christian European variety, in Caesar's Legion and Joshua Graham.

(Addendum: Honest Hearts is extremely offensive in its portrayal of Indigenous people, and egregiously shows a white man needing to "civilize" tribals and having to teach them basic skills. These skills include cooking, finding safe water, and defending themselves from other tribes.)

Before we dive in, here is a post explaining the concept of cultural Christianity, if you are unfamiliar with it.

We also need to familiarize ourselves with The White Man's Burden. While the poem was written regarding the American-Philippine war, it still captures the attitudes toward Indigenous folks all over the world at the time.

As this article in Teen Vogue points out, white people like to believe they need to save People of Color. You don't need to. People of Color can save themselves.

Now, cultural Christianity isn't alone on this side of the pond. Writer Teju Cole authored a piece on the White Savior Industrial Complex to describe mission trips undertaken by white missionaries to Africa to feed their egos.

Colonialism has always been about the acquisition of wealth. To share a quote from this paper about the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples: "Negatively, [settler colonialism] strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. In its positive aspect, elimination is an organizing principal of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence. The positive outcomes of the logic of elimination can include officially encouraged miscegenation, the breaking-down of native title into alienable individual freeholds, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, resocialization in total institutions such as missions or boarding schools, and a whole range of cognate biocultural assimilations. All these strategies, including frontier homicide, are characteristic of settler colonialism. Some of them are more controversial in genocide studies than others." (Positive, here, is referring to "benefits" for the colonizers. Indigenous people don't consider colonization beneficial.)

An example of a non-benefit, the Church Rock disaster had Diné children playing in radioactive water so the company involved could avoid bad publicity.

Moving on, don't sterilize your Indigenous people. Sterilization, particularly when it is done without consent, has long been used as a tool by the white system to prevent "undesirables" (read, People of Color and disabled people) from having children. Somehow, as of 2018, it wasn't officially considered a crime.

The goal of colonization was to eliminate us entirely. Millions died because of exposure to European diseases. Settlers used to and still do separate our children from us for reasons so small as having a dirty dish in the sink. You read that right, a single dirty dish in your kitchen sink was enough to get your children taken and adopted out to white families. This information was told to me by an Indigenous social work student whose name I will keep anonymous.

It wasn't until recently they made amendments to the Indian Act that wouldn't automatically render Indigenous women non-status if they married someone not Indigenous. It also took much too long for Indigenous families to take priority in child placement over white ones. Canada used to adopt Indigenous out to white American families. The source for that statement is further down, but adoption has been used as a tool to destroy cultures.

I am also begging you to cast aside whatever colonialist systems have told you about us. We are alive. People with a past, not people of the past, which was wonderfully said here by Frank Waln.

Topics to Avoid if You Aren't Indigenous

Child Separation. Just don't. We deserve to remain with our families and our communities. Let us stay together and be happy that way.

Assimilation schools. Do not bring up a tool for cultural genocide that has left lasting trauma in our communities.

W/ndigos. I don't care that they're in Fallout 76. They shouldn't be. Besides, you never get them right anyway.

Sk/nwalkers. Absolutely do not. Diné stories are not your playthings either.

I've already talked about drugs and alcohol. Do your research with compassion and empathy in mind. Indigenous people have a lot of pain and generational trauma. You will need to be extremely careful having your Indigenous characters use drugs and alcohol. If your character can be reduced to their (possible) substance abuse issues, you need to step back and rework it. As mentioned in Jessica Elm's research, remember that it isn't inherent to us.

For our final note: remember that we're complex, autonomous human beings. Don't use our deaths to further the stories of your white characters. Don't reduce us to some childlike thing that needs to be raised and civilized by white characters. We interact with society a little differently than you do, but we interact nonetheless.

Meegwetch (thank you) for reading! Remember to do your research and portray us well, but also back off when you are told by an Indigenous person.

This may be updated in the future, it depends on what information I come across or, if other Indigenous people are so inclined, what is added to this post.

What to do if you suddenly find yourself homeless

FOOD

Find your nearest food bank or mission, for food

grocery stores with free samples, bakeries + stores with day-old bread

different fast food outlets have cheaper food and will generally let you hang out for a while.

some dollar stores carry food like cans of beans or fruit

SHELTER

Sleeping at beaches during the day is a good way to avoid suspicion and harassment

sleep with your bag strapped to you, so someone can’t steal it

Some churches offer short term residence

Find your nearest homeless shelter

Look for places that are open to the public

A large dumpster near a wall can often be moved so that flipping up the lids creates an angled shelter to stay dry

HYGIENE

A membership to the YMCA is usually only 10$, which has a shower, and sometimes laundry machines and lockers.

Public libraries have bathrooms you can use

Dollar stores carry low-end soaps and deodorant etc.

Wet wipes are all purpose and a life saver

Local beaches, go for a quick swim

Some truck stops have showers you can pay for

Staying clean is the best way to prevent disease, and potentially get a job to get back on your feet

Pack 7 pairs of socks/undies, 2 outfits, and one hooded rain jacket

OTHER

first aid kit

 sunscreen

 a travel alarm clock or watch

 mylar emergency blanket

 a backpack is a must

 downgrade your cellphone to a pay as you go with top-up cards

 sleeping bag

 travel kit of toothbrush, hair brush/comb, mirror

 swiss army knife

 can opener

Some words to use when writing things:

winking

clenching

pulsing

fluttering

contracting

twitching

sucking

quivering

pulsating

throbbing

beating

thumping

thudding

pounding

humming

palpitate

vibrate

grinding

crushing

hammering

lashing

knocking

driving

thrusting

pushing

force

injecting

filling

dilate

stretching

lingering

expanding

bouncing

reaming

elongate

enlarge

unfolding

yielding

sternly

firmly

tightly 

harshly

thoroughly

consistently

precision

accuracy

carefully

demanding

strictly

restriction

meticulously

scrupulously

rigorously

rim

edge

lip

circle

band

encircling

enclosing

surrounding

piercing

curl

lock

twist

coil

spiral

whorl

dip

wet

soak

madly

wildly

noisily

rowdily

rambunctiously

decadent

degenerate

immoral

indulgent

accept

take

invite

nook

indentation

niche

depression

indent

depress

delay

tossing

writhing

flailing

squirming

rolling

wriggling

wiggling

thrashing

struggling

grappling

striving

straining

Hit that one over there!

Okay, yes, I started listening to "Malevolent" podcast. So far, these guys give the impression of those idiots who, on occasion, will read the Necronomicon out loud. I like it!

How to use Thou, Thee, Thy, and Thine correctly

For SOME REASON (*looks pointedly at Agnes Nutter*) this comes up a lot in the Good Omens fandom and I thought it might be useful to have a reference out there for folks who are interested!

(And to be clear: I personally do not think it is a big deal if you don’t get it right, I’m not here for judging anyone’s ability to correctly use pronouns that went out of fashion several centuries ago. But I know people like to know this stuff.)

1. Thou & Thee

The difference here is the same as the difference between I & Me or She & Her - the first one is the subject of the sentence (doing the action) and the second one is the object of the sentence (having the action done to them). So the pattern is:

“I gave her a flaming sword” vs “She gave me a flaming sword.”

“Thou gave me a flaming sword.” vs “I gave thee a flaming sword”

“Thou gave her a flaming sword” vs “She gave thee a flaming sword”

2. Thy & Thine

Similarly, the difference here is the same as between My & Mine and Her & Hers.

“I gave away my flaming sword!”

“Thou gave away thy flaming sword?!” (Greek Chorus: ”She gave away her flaming sword??!”)

“It was mine to give away!”

“And it was also thine to keep…” (Greek Chorus: “And hers to lose, and hers to seek…”)

3. BUT SOMETIMES THE AESTHETIC

You do sometimes use “thine” in places where grammatically it should be “thy”, for the same reason as the most famous example of using “mine” in a place where it should be “my”:

MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF THE COMING OF THE LORD

– simply because “eyes” starts with a vowel and “my eyes” is slightly more difficult to sing when you’ve got important grape-trampling to be getting on with. So a Mighty Angel Of The Lord who was feeling particularly poetic and hoping to inspire a few songs might appear before some poor goatherder and declare:

“Avert thine eyes oh mortal, lest thy sight be robbed from thee by glory!”

But honestly, just like most modern songs are quite happy using “my eyes”, I personally think if you just stick to the one rule to avoid confusion, it’s also fine:

“Avert thy eyes oh mortal, lest thy sight be– wait where art thou going get back here I’ve got a message to deliver– oh bugger.”

A totally random sleeping beauty origin story in which the king and queen go to outside help to conceive. the gorgons, the creatures that lay in the belly of the swamps, slithering in the boiling pools, grant the couple’s request. they are loyal subjects, after all.

they promise that the child will live a long life. they promise that she will have great strength, will speak many tongues, and that she will strike awe into the hearts of men.

the queen thanks them, but before she can go they stop her with one last promise: if the child is not loved, then they must give her back.

I will love my child, say the two, and race off atop a shimmering steed.

9 months pass and the queen gives birth to a child, a healthy baby girl. but as time goes on, things start going wrong. servants start burning from the inside out, objects begin to vibrate from the toddler’s cries. the princess howls like a never-ending night, and nursemaids leave blind.

this cannot go on, the people hiss. this cannot go on.

and so the king and queen place her away from the castle’s inhabitants, far up in a tower. there she may scream and the world may tremble. there she may cry and no one’s ears will bleed. there she may live her life, among four stone walls. alone.

they send instructors up to the tower, one by one. a professor. a sorcerer. a hunter. a tamer. each attempt more desperate.

until there is nothing left to do. and so the princess is left in her tower, viewed as more monster than girl, fed by scraps through the door.

the parents do not fulfill their promise.

they do not give her back.

the princess, in filthy tatters and between clawed walls, pleads to be let out. i will be good, she promises tearfully. i will be good, just let me see them. I want to see them.

but she cannot control her nature, these sick powers she has been given. so she is left, often starved.

over time her pleas become bargains. i will not scream, if you let me see them once. i will not look upon you, if you let me touch them. i will not kill you, if you only let me be with them one last time.

none of these are accepted.

the princess turns fourteen. she grows strong. she speaks many tongues. and she strikes awe into the hearts of whoever she meets.

and why not? her eyes are yellow, like a deathly hawk. her hair hangs low, like the night. her teeth shine brightly, like the fang of a beast. her skin, though. oh, her skin. it glistens and glimmers and it is cold, like a reptile.

and her heart grows stunted. small. shattered.

they did not love her. no one did. they did not give her back, either.

months pass and crowds gather, swooping into the castle in courtly procession. the princess stares down in curiousity, but also longing. why are they here? what has happened below?

for the first time in her life, she escapes. i will not tell you how. perhaps because it is terrible and wicked. perhaps because it is clever. and perhaps because it is boring.

only you really know.

“the baby princess,” the people whisper to each other, while she clings to the shadows. “the baby princess.”

she is not a baby though, is she.

is. she.

and so the christening begins, golden plates and golden goblets set down. each numbered correctly, one for each guest.

the fairies of the glen. oh, how beautiful they are. their wings gleam like dewdrops in the morning, and their hair slips over their shoulders like the sun peeking through trees. they have made this possible, everyone murmurs. we must be thankful to the fairies, for they have given the rulers their daughter.

they all sit down to dine, and the princess–the eldest, the first born, the forgotten–stumbles in. her hair is lank. her eyes bleed tears. and her skin is cracking, old and scaly. oh, she is gruesome. the courtiers gag at the sight of her.

“leave, witch!” they order, but she pays them no heed. she walks up to the throne, and smiles at the king and queen.

“remember me?” she murmurs, teeth sharp but smile pleasant. she looks around. “every plate and every goblet. every person has a setting. except for me. now, why wasn’t I invited?”

“we don’t know who you are,” they reply fearfully.

“oh?”

the ground begins to shake. the guests scream. people howl, ears bleeding.

“you should not have struck another bargain so soon, you know,” she says, glancing at the fairies’ iridescent wings. “for everyone knows that gifts from the forest folk are not gifts. song, beauty, grace, wealth. are these all not useful to the fairies? and they will get their gifts back.” she stares at her parents. “they always get their children back.”

“please,” beg the king and queen, kneeling before their daughter. “please.”

the girl steps aside and walks to the cradle.

the guards surge forward.

“I WANT TO SEE HER!” screams the princess. the guards collapse in a shot of ash. “I want to see her,” she whispers brokenly.

the girl inside is like the dawn, blonde and gold and rosy. noisy, too.

“come now,” she soothes the child, smoothing back a curl. “do not cry. out of the two of us, i am the more ugly one,” she teases. “you are my family, you know. my own little sister, wound by the spring petals as i was forged by the burning pools. we are together, in that. they will not understand half-beings such as us. in fact,” she looks up at the court, cracked lips winding into a smile. “i, too, would like to give a gift to the child.”

her parents recoil, but it is too late.

far, far too late now.

“she will be yours until she finds my tower. on that day, she will learn what has been done, all your great sins against me. i will take her with me, show her the chaos you wrought into our veins by asking the forest for what was not theirs to give. thus, i give you this last promise: if she does not love me, i will give her back.”

and the princess strode from the castle, ripping the stone walls down. only the tower remained.

what happened next was simple, really. it was just the middle and the ending. every story has to have it, as you well know. but the middle and the ending are vague things. you will have to decide what happens.

after all, this was just the beginning.