Excerpt of a short story I’m working on– enjoy!

In a land that only had the spring and fall seasons, magical entities coexisted in pure tranquility. Each race was represented in a great pantheon by one princess. There was one sent by the fairies of course, another by the amiable vampires who loved basking in the sunlight. The sirens and mermaids sent their respective princess representatives. Both would tell you off in a moment if you confused them. They were as different as dawn and dusk, and shame on you if you couldn’t understand that. The were-bunnies hopped about too, always aching for sunset. Their princess could not contain her love of root vegetables, and she chewed upon the Mother Garden’s sweet potatoes and onions wildly during assemblies. Unicorns lived about, but they had their horns in the clouds too often to send their princess representative. 

In the 900th fall, the were-bunnies sent Princess Honeybun.

The vampires sent Princess Winona.

The sirens sent Princess Radiana.

The mermaids sent Princess Lovelia.

The Unicorns did not attend the meeting, as they were off to find the pink cotton clouds. 

The four representatives sat upon their assigned benches underneath banners embroidered with their emblem. The sun overhead was gentle with its heat and the wind blew strongly. Winona’s black curls and scarlet gown whipped about as she spun her head forward and back, left and right.

“Where’s our sweet Emily?” she asked the other princesses.

Honeybun pulled a fresh onion out of her wicker basket. “Emily is always late.” She bit down on it hard with her full front teeth and the eating began. Princesses Radiana and Lovelia detested that terrible smacking, but they hid their feelings with tight smiles. They relegated the truth to side glances at one another.

Then they heard it. Coming up the great rolling hill, steep and wide and littered in crunchy brown and orange leaves, was Emily. First just a small fleck upon the horizon, but then fully realized. All of the princesses squinted as she came closer. Dressed in her blue lace gown that swallowed up her legs, Emily panted and grinned sheepishly. She wiped away the glittering sweat upon her pale cheeks and forehead that shone the colors of the rainbows in the sunlight.

“I remember I said this wouldn’t happen again,” Emily laughed. “But I have quite the excuse this time.”

“I’ll say!” Winona gasped. “What happened to your hair? And your eyes? And your fingers?”

They all had realized these things but were waiting for Winona to take the lead in the confrontation. 

Instead of sporting her usual long brown hair, it was now to her ears and golden blond. And her blue eyes were now a light brown.

Emily looked down at her fingers that were bruised and cut. “When I woke up, I looked into my mirror to brush my hair. I don’t know why this happened. But I woke up looking like this. Well, I scared myself silly and jumped back into my bedframe, and when I fell to the floor, I cut myself on a flower vase I forgot to clean up.”

She sat down on her bench with an exhausted sigh. “I tried to ask the other fairies for help, but they didn’t understand what was happening to me. They’ve never seen this before. I didn’t realize the time until I looked outside. Morning had escaped me so quickly in my confusion. I’m sorry for being late, everyone. I’ll get this figured out.”

“It’s alright, Emily,” Honeybun reassured. She fished inside her basket and pulled a few items out. “Bread and sweet cream? I made it just for you.”

Emily smiled. “Oh, thank you, Bun. I wasn’t able to eat breakfast.”

Honeybun swung her legs and returned the smile. “You never do.”

“How strange.” Winona tapped her chest as she thought. Then she shook her head. “I’ve never seen this before. I’ll see what I can find out about sudden transformation. The other vampires might have witnessed this in fairies before. For now, let’s switch to our pertinent topic of the season.”

“Thank goodness,” Radiana and Lovelia sighed.

Winona stood and flashed her pearly fangs as she spoke. “The mortal realm. I have visited it many times over the past century, and it has been our focal topic for many seasons now. It has changed for the worse very quickly. The mortal realm has decayed and rotten so profusely that joy no longer exists within it. It is our greatest responsibility as the creations of the Heavenly Figure to protect all of Earth’s life.”

She brushed off a leaf that had slipped into her silken hair. “If the mortal realm, the home of humans, perishes, then we will have failed our most significant, divine task. 

Winona clasped her hands together and returned to her seat. “So let’s discuss. How can we restore some semblance of joy back to the Earth?”

~Sammicakes