BLUE

I cleared my throat and voiced different pitches into a milky white singing shell. Toads and crickets nearby provided unnecessary accompaniment to my broken record while Herman stared at me with a hand under his chin. His face twisted into a tortured knot.

“I am ready!” I flashed my brightest smile, settling for the most phony, cheerful voice I could muster—of which even my own ears cringed at the sound of it. 

“Do you have to do that every freaking time?” Herman sighed, blowing a strand of dark chocolate away from his eyes and groaned when it fell and slapped him on the same spot again.

“Tell that to the higher ups,” I shrugged in my normal speaking voice and tapped the singing shell once to the locket hanging around my neck. It dissipated immediately in a soft flash of blue. 

“It’s the protocol.”

The sing-song voice of dread made Herman roll his eyes, mumbling something about *censored* rules while he’s at it. With a harrumph, he threw a bundle of parchments into the air. They floated around him in a circle, eager for him to start the moment he held up his emerald pen to the first blank page. 

The locket in the shape of a teardrop around his neck shone bright green in equal enthusiasm with the enchanted pen in hand. “Go on,” he urged without looking at me, completely engaged in auto-pilot working mode.

My azure blue wings sagged with the slump of my shoulders. Not that I blamed him. Working on the same thing over and over again was tiring. But since the entire package was bad enough already. It wouldn’t hurt to wish for a more cheerful partner to work with. Seriously.

“How do I look?” I asked with one final twirl in my humongous gown of midnight blue that never fails to torture my overworked wings. 

Herman tapped his chin before answering with a half-grin, a little of his usual self seeped back into his expression. “Like a blue pumpkin that flies.”

I snorted, letting the facade of a ‘fine, young fae mom’ fall from my face. “Know that I still blame your predecessors for deciding fae moms should stay off the ground all the time. This dress is freaking heavy.”

Herman Grimm smiled a knowing smile that told me he blamed them too. 

With a sigh of resignation, I floated soundlessly out of the row of fir towards our heroine of the day—who currently has her face buried in her arms by the side of a stone well. 

It takes real sorrow (I think) to be able to weep while having moss that thick tickling your nose. I for one would never get near those foul things willingly. 

You would think all that clothes washing would have taught the girl something about tough stains—but no. Seriously, princesses these days. Growing up listening to stories of damsel in distress must have caused their mind enough distress to make them as incorrigible as they are today.

I crossed my arms and waited. Fae dust drifted off me in tiny mountains of glittery white. Only the Star knows how much we have to waste for theatrics alone every freaking assignment. I had probably shredded two pouches of it by the time the damsel finally turned around. 

Horrendous didn’t even begin to describe the state of her distress.

Thin streaks of blond stuck to her damp face to create the illusion of premature wrinkles. Two red, puffy goldfish eyes stared unblinkingly at me above cheeks streaked with dots of moss and cinder. It took all my years of fae mom training to not yelp or curse at the sight of the atrocious creatu—princess. 

Herman and I had decided against approaching her when she came running out of the cottage in a tattered pink dress, thinking she probably needed some time alone. (Also, her wailing voice was beyond our sensitive ears.) But it was obviously a wrong choice. This face alone would cost me half of my remaining fae dust to repair.

“Who are you…?” she asked—because Mains just couldn’t get any more creative. 

I am Blue, your nemesis, the witch who can make your nose grow longer and keep you in a tower. Now, which do you prefer?—was what I wanted to say for the fun of it but Herman would probably strangle me if I did. 

“My darling girl,” I cooed instead with the puke-inducing fae mom’s voice. “I am your fairy godmother!” 

“But,” she rubbed her eyes and I tried very hard not to flinch. No, no, no. Didn’t anyone tell you not to rub your eyes like that? You’re going to—and she broke an eyelash. Darn her flower petals.

 “Aren’t fairy godmothers supposed to be…old?” 

I could almost hear Herman’s laughter ringing in my head. If only they wouldn’t all ask the same question. Thanks to Herman’s predecessors, all of them—Mains and Readers— thought all fae moms were old and fat with a bubbly personality. Hence all the bloody protocols we were made to follow. 

Sorry to say, not all fae moms are airheads. 

“Tell me dearie, who else do you think would sprout wings and float around in a damned gown in the middle of the night?” I dropped to my feet and folded my wings with a snap. “Now be a good girl and tell me if you want to marry the prince or not? The clock’s ticking. I ain’t got all night for you.”

Ella’s face instantly paled. 

Of course, whatever we said or happened wouldn’t all be on records. At least, not on Herman’s watch. Bless the Star that Authors were given liberty to alter words as they deemed fit on the condition that they don’t change the core or the outcome of the story. 

If the enchanted pen was left to write a Tale all by itself, it would be an utter disaster. 

Sometimes what you read in books wasn’t what actually happened. They were mostly ‘beautified’ by the Authors. I have to admit, we have our fair share of dumb Mains and fae moms who were fed up with them—myself at the top of the list. 

I circled my wand in the air once, turning it into a fountain pen. The scroll of ‘Godmother Matchmaking’ rolled down in a puff of glitter together with it. “Sign this and be off with your happily ev—” 

The princess was done signing before I could finish.

Again, that’s why I questioned Lily White for all the details she put into contracts. None of the Mains ever read the terms and conditions. None. That was just how princesses are, always the damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued. They grab the first shortcut they see to their Ever After and blame us for the smallest glitches afterwards. 

That one time Rapunzel’s mother wished she would be ‘away from harm her entire life’, Cethosia took it a little too literally and they branded her a kidnapper for life. Poor fae mom’s still somewhere out there in the woods like an old forest witch with prize money on her head. 

Dumb blondes like them make blondes like us look bad. The only upside to this predicament I was born to deal with might be the fact that my hair is more platinum than it is blond (bless the Star for brushing it with a few strands of blue highlights too). 

As the dum—Ella lifted the pen from the scroll, it rolled itself back into place and puffed out of sight. I glanced towards the fir where Herman had hidden himself behind. By now, he’s probably done with paraphrasing my words into something more Reader-friendly.

…and when the fairy godmother promised to grant her wish, Ella felt as if she was in a dream that seemed too good to be true. 

“Close your eyes then,” I said, raising my wand again. The good thing about Mains though, was how cooperative they were. 

With trained hands, I threw a handful of fae dust over us and drew two quick circles. The dust weaved itself into our hair and clung to our pores. My skin cracked open, the familiar tingling sensation crawled up from my toes to fingertips before my soul tore into halves and braided itself with Ella’s outstretched one. Our souls intertwined and collided in a burst of light shower. 

When I pried open my eyes again, I was in Ella’s body. Her consciousness snoozing quietly in the back of her mind.