“As a prince, his majesty the future King of Farfadel will want a suite in the west wing, overlooking all of his future lands. He will require seven meals a day, four of which must be cream pies. He will-”
The servant looked over the scroll, which was long enough to trail onto her feet, and glanced at the Queen.
The Queen of Farfadel was now resting on her favorite chair in her private chamber, but she could not have been more miserable than ever. A few rooms away, Adelaide was being fitted for a white wedding dress. Her husband was trying to argue with the Frog King to teach him that no, he would not become King of Farfadel just by marrying their daughter.
“It is far more complicated than that!” the King was heard shouting from down the hall.
In her private room, the Queen moaned and cradled her head with both hands. “Four cream pies a day will make all the fairies in the land go thin,” she moaned.
“There, there,” hushed an advisor and good friend who was sitting on a pouf beside the Queen. “Have you spoken with the fairies?”
“A message was sent to them immediately but – what can they do?” The Queen moaned, still not looking up.
No one knew what to say to console her. Two days had passed since the Frog King's demands and Adelaide's agreement to marry him, and the Kingdom was in chaos. Spell upon spell upon enchantment was being cast upon Adelaide to try and break whatever spell or enchantment had caused her to say 'yes' to such a folly!
“There is no spell here,” Adelaide would calmly say before continuing on with the business of marrying the Frog King. Then, with a twinkle in her eye, she would perhaps say “Only wisdom.”
It threw her maids into quite a tiff. It had her mother wringing her hands and moaning. It made the fairies put their heads together and wonder at what they could do!
The fairies, all great twelve of those on the counsel, arrived later that afternoon – but they were barred entry into the castle by an army of frogs.
“Those hideous things! Warty!” complained the smallest of fairies, barely a pint size tall. The largest was that of a small child and was their leader, who was now wishing she had brought her magical battleaxe to cleave her way through to the Queen.
“Come, Fairies!” their chieftain said with majesty as she stared down the frogs. “We shall return to our homes and leave this castle in these good, strong, and webbed hands!”
Obviously it was a lie, meant to test the intelligence of these frog guards. The frogs sensed something was amiss and wanted to impress the sparkling fairies. So they did what they did best – they repeated.
“Come! Come! Come!” they clamored, while poking their spears forward and beating the earth with their clubs.
The fairies were astonished at such stupidity. They immediately knew that something very terrible was wrong, and so they turned and fled. The frogs cheered, thinking that they had won.
Little did they know that it was in their own fairy ring that the fairies wove their greatest mischeif. And that was just where they headed to, fluttering down into their favorite ring.
It was a great ring made of toadstools and rocks that glimmered and glittered with a large table at the center for them all to sit around.
Immediately the good fairies put their heads together and began to whisper amongst themselves, lest the trees steal their ideas and pass them along to the wind.
“What shall we do?”
“How shall we reach the Queen? There are frogs at every window!”
“What ever is the matter with those frogs?”
On and on the kindly fairies fretted and worried and wrung their hands, much like the good Queen of Farfadel was moaning and wringing her hands in her private rooms.
The afternoon passed and tea was had. Little honey cakes were passed around and the fairies ate aplenty, worrying as to what they would do if the gluttonous Frog King would become King of all Farfadel.
“No more honey,” moaned one fairy, in a green dress.
“No more custards!” wailed another.
“We must do something!” cried out a pink fairy, on the verge of tears as she poured herself a thick helping of mead.
The fairy chief put her head in her hands. Despair began to wring at her. She began to feel as if she would give in to even the meagerest slice of a good idea just then.
And lo and behold, a fairy came fluttering a-swiftly into the sacred circle. She was not one of the chieftain's circle. Rather, she was a naughty fairy who loved the wind and found herself often traveling in places that fairies ought not to. But just then, no one paid that any heed. For this fairy, of medium size and flushed from flying swiftly with her blue dress all rumpled, landed in a tumbling tiff at the end of the table.
“An army!” she said as she swerved dizzily before righting herself with the aid of the table's edge. “There is a large army heading into the marshes from Denerspell!”
The fairies groaned. Several put their heads into their hands. “More mouths to feed,” several groaned, as that was all that armies generally were around here.
“Why is it the season of hungry invaders?” grumbled the green-robed fairy, turning to the chief.
The chief frowned, propping her elbow on the table and plucking a honey cake up from the plate and shoving it into her mouth grumpily. Are problems never ending? She thought miserably.
The newcomer smiled giddily. “Their prince leading them is very handsome.”
That made the fairies twitter and grin amongst themselves. Instantly all worries were forgotten and many a fairy of the council now fluttered to be next to the wind fairy.
“What is he like?”
“What color is his hair?”
“How handsome is he?”
The chieftain sighed and munched on her honey cake. She cared little for handsome princes and, besides, she thought, that prince will soon be full of boils and warts-
In a start, an idea struck the fairy chieftain. “Bring him over!” she shouted, leaping to her feet.
“Well, he is not that handsome,” the wind fairy said slowly, looking in surprise at their chieftain.
“No, no, not for me,” the chief said with disdain. “But can you not see? This is our solution! The rock to hit the other rocks with!”
The other fairies frowned. They rubbed their brows. They pinched their noses. They waited for their leader to explain herself.
“Here is what we shall do,” the chieftain said slowly, so that everyone would understand well. “We shall magic both that prince and his army here -”
“The army is not all handsome,” the wind fairy interrupted, feeling this was necessary to point out.
The chieftain held up a hand for silence. “And then, this army shall do as all Denerspellian armies do- they demand food.”
The fairies squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs. This did not seem like a solution to them! Rather, it seemed like more problems!
“And, as we shall have carried all of them here, there shall be a lot of them to feed! This shall enrage the Frog King! So like this,” the fairy chieftain took the platter of honey cakes. “the army of Denerspell,” and she picked up the jug of ale “and the Frog King's army,” and she clunked them together. “shall defeat each other! And then we shall have only one weakened foe left to take care of!”
“Ohhh!” the table cooed, clapping their hands together.
“If the Frog King wins, then he will have considerably less frogs to fend us away with. If the prince wins, then we magic them away the way we brought them here!” And the chieftain poured herself a mug of ale in self-congratulation.
The other fairies oohhed and ahhed, overwhelmed by such an easy answer. Why, all they had to do was turn a little trick and their problems would solve themselves!
“But how will you get the handsome prince here?” the wind fairy asked bluntly. “Are we to carry them here? There is a lot of them.”
The chieftain narrowed her eyes over her mug. Lowering it, she looked over the assembly. She leaned across the table, ushering them closer to hear her precious words.
“Show him the mountain pass,” she said quietly.
The fairies quivered. But they nodded.
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