The Woodland Sorcerer's End

This was a fairy tale I cranked out in an our or so after reading a bit of an annotated Brother's Grimm collection. It made me realize three things: 1. Fairy tales should be used more in modern storytelling, especially comedically; 2. the greatest ever euphemism for hanging is "celebrating one's marriage with the rope-maker's daughter"; and 3. frogs are apparently phallic symbols.

I don't really like that third one.

Anyways, I've started to become increasingly obsessed with fairy tales and I have a more comedic and modern story coming up next. Hopefully I can get back in the habit of producing at least one Steemit post a day.

As always, any feedback is appreciated, especially negative or critical feedback.

***

Once upon a time, deep in the forest, there lived a wicked sorcerer in a small cottage. Though his true face was ugly as sin, he had a charming manner and once managed to trick a fairy into granting him great beauty, causing anyone who spoke with him to fall in love, should he so decide to use his charisma on them.

Now, the forest he lived in was popular with hunters and foragers, so quite often he’d have a visitor knocking at his door; if it wasn’t a full moon, he’d cast a spell to make their heart explode and the remains disintegrate. If it was a full moon, he would happily invite them in for a bit of soup and some fresh bread(neither of which he had).

This was because the sorcerer only grew hungry once a month, but he so despised leaving his cottage, and there was only one meal he could bear to swallow: a human child, from the ages of three to five. Over the many years he had lived there, the number of times such a child had simply come by at the right time could be counted on the fingers of a limbless man.

Any person invited in, be they male or female, would be charmed by the sorcerer and would fall so deeply in love with him that all they could do was stare longingly at him and agree with his every word. His request—a paltry request, he’d cry, the only request I will ever ask of you, my dearest love—was always the same: go to the village and bring back a child of three to five years. So blinded they’d be by their love, they would do as he said(the journey from the nearest village and back was a day’s worth of walking, so inevitably they would arrive as he was becoming or once he already was hungry).

And once they brought it back, they’d be so enamored by his every move, they’d only watch and smile as he seized the child and dashed its head against the stone floor with a disgustingly frenzied passion, not of hunger or lust, but a heart-wrenching and stomach-twisting desire no sane or decent human will ever know, and proceed to rip open its stomach with his fingernails, eagerly devouring whatever came near his mouth. His teeth would rip through flesh, skin, entrails, cartilage, and bones as if they were mere paper; his hands would dig through masses of bloody tissue, searching desperately for no particular thing, but shoveling it all down his maw indiscriminately. There was no part he savored, no point where he paused, and no day where he thought sorrowfully of such misdeeds. He lived to consume.

What, you may ask, happens to the poor lover? Well, it depends on whether or not they attempt to interrupt his meal; should they stroke his hair affectionately or ask how he’s doing, he allows one hand, for just a moment, to free itself from the child and slash the lover’s throat wide open. Once he would finish with his meal, he’d simply push the body outside and cast a disintegration spell(as one might guess, mushrooms grew plentifully near his cottage).

However, if they patiently wait for him to finish, they would be rewarded with their beloved’s hands embracing their neck strongly, in fact, perhaps a bit too strongly, as by the end they would be quite out of breath, and their corpses would meet the same fate as all others created by the sorcerer.

Now, this worked out wonderfully while the sorcerer was a young man, and even as he approached his forties, everything went well. But in his sixties, though his looks would never fade, his charming ways began to, and it became more and more of an effort to seduce visitors.

Being a haughty and evil man, the sorcerer didn’t worry himself about this; after all, he still had the ability, it was just a little less accessible than he would’ve liked. But that was fine. Everything was fine. He would get his meal.

At this time, there was a brilliant young woman whose family loved to eat mushrooms with every meal. So obsessed were they, that they were once astoundingly wealthy, but nearly bankrupted themselves in order to be blessed with the ability to eat and enjoy toxic mushrooms without any sort of problem.

The young woman was the family’s fifth child and exact middle child, with four elder siblings and four younger siblings. Ever since she had been an infant, she had been a great mushroom picker, finding them quickly, picking them swiftly, and cooking them perfectly.

A week prior to her twentieth birthday, she decided to go into the woods and pick one of every variety she came across, so that she would have a splendid and diverse feast to celebrate with. Wouldn’t you know it, the day she arrived in the woods had a full moon waiting for night’s permission to come out, and because so many mushrooms grew at the sorcerer’s cottage, she was drawn to it almost immediately.

Being as kind as she was intelligent, she decided to knock and ask for permission before taking a single shroom, and knowing he would soon be hungry, the sorcerer sweetly told her to come in.

“Hello, sir,” she said as she came in. “I didn’t mean to bother you; I only wanted to ask if I could pick some of the mushrooms growing by your house.”

He made a pitiful face and replied, “It’s so nice of you to ask, child. When you’re done, please come back in and show me what you’ve found. I’m quite curious as to what grows there, but I’ve never went and looked for myself.”

“Oh, certainly! Would you like me to pick any for you to keep?”

“That won’t be necessary, dear. I’d just like to speak with you a bit more, really; you seem to be a sweet person.”At this, she made no reply, only blushing a bit. He gave her a charming, albeit slightly strained, grin as she turned back towards the door, and noting this, she began to wonder what his true intentions were.

However, she was a woman of her word, and as soon as she had finished picking, she went back inside with her basket, prepared to tell him about the dozens of kinds of mushrooms she had found. Standing near the door, holding out the basket for him to see, she asked, “So, sir, what would you like me to tell you about first?”

He laughed and pointed at the empty chair across from his. “Please, have a seat. There’s no need to stand around.”

She obeyed and put the basket on the table. “What did you want to hear about? I must warn you, I found some that even I don’t recognize; you’ve got quite the garden growing out there.”

“Anything you’d like to talk about. Anything at all.” He smiled warmly, but he stared at her a bit too intensely, and it was at that moment she decided that he was up to no good.

Still, out of curiosity and her promise, she began to talk about her family, going into great detail on her relatives’ appearances and personalities. Every now and then, he’d interrupt with a clever quip or a slightly forced compliment, and she began to find it rather amusing, choosing to play along and pretend that she liked him.

Eventually, it got to a point where she was feigning absolute infatuation with the man she believed to be quite dull and suspicious, and the sorcerer mistook it for the genuine thing.

“My love,” he began gently, “I know we’ve only known each other a short while, but I already I must ask you a small favor.”

“Oh, anything,” she declared with a dramatic wave of her hand. “Anything you ask.”

“Please do not feel hurried or pressured to do this, but I ask that you go to the village and bring me a small child, from perhaps the ages of three to five. Preferably alive.”

Here, she found it quite difficult to maintain her facade, and became determined to kill him somehow. There was no way this request was benign.

“Of course! I’ve never had a simpler task, dear. Are you sure there isn’t anything else you’d like? Perhaps some fine jewels or a sturdy castle? I’ll get you anything, love, I swear it upon my life.”

“No, no, no. The child will be enough, and rest assured that this is the only thing I’ll ever ask of you.”

She nodded and left, plotting vengeance with every step.

Once she got to the village, she headed straight for the town’s tailor, who was a dwarf and often mistaken for a small child.

“I need your help with something, Tailor,” she shouted as she entered his shop.

“Prices are listed on that board there,” he shouted back merrily.

“It’s not a matter of clothing, but of justice.”

The tailor’s head turned once she uttered ‘justice’. “And what justice, my dear, could a lowly tailor help with?”

“I met a man in the woods who asked me to bring him a small child and said he’d prefer it alive, as if he halfway expected that I might bring him a dead one without any sort of problem. What sort of good man would ask such a thing?”

“Child, what in God’s name were you doing talking to strange men in the woods? I’ll help you however you need me to, but you’ve got to swear you’ll be more careful in the future.”

She nodded. “Here’s my idea: I’ll wrap you in a quilt, as if I stole you from your bed, and you’ll take your scissors with. When he unwraps you, stab him!”

The tailor seemed unimpressed with her plan. “And how do you know he’ll unwrap me in the first place?”

“Because—well—I don’t, actually. I’ll unwrap you, then, and you can just leap on him quickly and stab. I’ll make sure you’re facing away at first.”

“Fine. If I die and you live, tell them all I died in the name of justice; should you die and I live, I promise to do the same for you.”

“Absolutely. Where do you keep your blankets?”

It took them a matter of minutes to find their things, and because he was too heavy for her to carry on such a long journey, they decided that they would wrap him once they could see the cottage.

After a day, they were there, and she wrapped him up neatly, taking care to cover his face and rough hands. Knocking on the cottage door, she cried, “My darling, I’ve brought you what you asked for!”

He opened the door and greeted her with a hug, eying the bundle in her arms all the while. “Thank you so much, dear. Please, hand it over.”

“Wait just a moment,” she purred, and set the tailor on his feet, beginning to take off the quilt.

The sorcerer scowled and grabbed her hand. “No, it’s fine.” He then tried to pick up the tailor, but she wrested her hand away. He let out an exasperated sigh. “Please, dear, just give it to me now.”

“No! I-it needs to be unwrapped!” She began clutching and pulling at the quilt, tangling it into a hopeless knot.

The sorcerer seized her shoulders and threw her aside, grabbing what he supposed to be a child and hoisting it into the air with a demonic grin; however, his grasp pulled a bit of the quilt down, and he caught sight of the rugged and aged tailor’s face. Surprised at being found, he dropped the shears to the ground.

The sorcerer froze, mouth agape, as the tailor squirmed to free himself. Before he could succeed, the sorcerer threw him at the woman; in her panic, she moved out of the way, and he crashed into a heavy steel pan hanging on the wand.

“You traitorous whore,” he howled. “I had one tiny request!”As he screamed, she dived at his feet and took the shears, then drove them through his thigh; he screeched in pain and fell backwards. She jumped to her feet and, without thinking, stamped on the sorcerer’s chest, then stabbed his neck once she was able to process the situation a little further. He died with a livid gurgle.

She rushed to the tailor and managed to tear apart the quilt, finding him unconscious and seemingly dead. Trying not to cry, knowing that would only make her tired, she picked up and body and began heading back to the village.

Her family, anticipating her arrival, were the first to greet her once she returned, and upon seeing their happy faces, she collapsed and burst into tears, feeling like an abhorrently negligent monster.

They were confused. The eldest child asked, “What’s the matter? Why are you carrying the tailor?”

“J-Justice,” she whimpered. “He… h-he died for justice.”

Oh, but wouldn’t you know it, one tear fell on the tailor’s lips, one fell on his left eye, and one fell on his right eye, and through the same magic that makes wishes come true, he was revived, and because the poor woman was so distressed, he had to tell the entire story to her family.

After he finished the tale, she came to her senses a bit more, and her family began praising her heroic actions, begging her to come home and rest, as her birthday was coming up soon and she needed energy for the splendid party they would be sure to throw her.

She accepted and followed her family home, promptly going to sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.