Caffeine and Magix

(I love this idea! I’m trying this new thing where I don’t write 5,000 words and don’t post because it doesn’t have an ending lol. So here’s a short one!)

“I’ll make her my wife!” Samuel declares, slamming his tankard on the bar. The men and women around him groan, but it’s his best friend Otis that speaks.

“You’ve said that everyday for the past week,” Otis says. “Maybe try talking to her first, huh?”

Samuel shakes his head so hard that his hair, tied up with a scrap of leather, comes undone. “We don’t need words. Our eyes met across the lake. The sun lit up her verdant eyes and–”

“We fell in love instantly,” the pub choruses. The ladies in the back all take a shot, giggling at their incomprehensible game.

Samuel continues doggedly. “My mother married a frog, and I will marry myself a swan. Fairy tales run in my family, mate, you’ll see.”

“Sure, you drunk bastard,” Otis says and buys him another pint.

Samuel decides that tomorrow, tomorrow he’ll show them all.

——————————————————

“Good morning,” he calls from the fence line. He swipes his hat from his hand as the young woman turns and tries not to show his nerves. “L-lovely day we’re having, no?”

The young woman blinks at him. She’s small, thin arms and dainty feet with a long, lovely neck. This makes sense, of course, seeing that she is a swan in human form.

Samuel knows that at any moment, his love will invite him in, glad to finally have an excuse to be in his presence just as he is glad to be in hers. It is good that he knows this because the blood is pounding in his ears and he can hardly hear a thing over the thunder of his own heart.

“It’s going to rain later,” she says finally. She shifts her basket of herbs from one hip to the other and squints. They stare at each other for a long, magical moment until she can no longer bear the intensity of their chemistry. She clears her throat. “Can I help you?”

“I’d love some tea!” Samuel pushes the gate open, nearly tripping over himself in the process. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself to be polite. He opens her front door for her and steps to the side to let her go first. “After you!”

“…into my own house,” the woman says. She looks out towards the lake and then back to him. “Alright.”

So shy! Samuel follows her eagerly inside, noting that she smells like woodworking and flowers. The house is all new wood and there are walls that haven’t gone all the way up yet. ”Did you get Arlo to build this house?”

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye while she grabs the kettle. “No, I built it myself.”

“What?” Samuel asks. “A little thing like you?”

She sets the kettle a little too hard on the stove. “I’m not a thing.”

Samuel backtracks. “Of course! I just meant that that seems like a lot of work. I could help you, I’m actually quite good–”

“No,” she interrupts. She turns around to lean against her rough counters. They come up to her mid back almost, and he wonders why she built them so high if the house is meant for her. “It’s part of my training.”

“Training?” Samuel asks.

She nods. “Yep. To become strong.” She lifts her right arm and flexes showing him that her arm isn’t as thin as it was when he first saw her a month ago. In fact, there’s quite a bit of muscle. She smiles proudly. “I’ve still got quite a way to go, of course, but it’s a start.”

“You’re going to continue?” He didn’t quite mean to have so much horror in his voice. His beloved’s face shuts down and he scrambles to recover. “I–a pretty little bird like you doesn’t need to lift a finger.” She stares at him and he puffs up, pleased. He continues, “I’d be happy to make sure that you never lift a finger again.”

She slides to the knife block and begins to organize the knives. “Is that a threat?”

“No!” he bursts out with a chuckle. “You’re silly, it’s a promise! A promise of love.”

She pauses in drawing out the butcher knife and half turns. “A promise of what?”

“Of love,” he says. He pulls out one of the kitchen chairs and sits down. “When we are married I will see to it that you have everything you could ever desire! My father is a King, you see, in a faraway place.”

“Married,” she says in her strange (yet still lovely) voice. “Really. How do you see that…working out?”

Working out? What could she possibly mean by that? They were perfect, destined to be together, forever wed! She couldn’t be having doubts, not after they looked into each other’s eyes. Unless….unless she meant…?

“My darling,” he says warmly, “the way I recognized you as my fated was by your very countenance.”

“Countenance,” she repeats flatly.

“Yes,” he says. He looks around like afraid that he’ll be overheard and leans forward. “You know, because you are a swan. My mother married a frog, I am not one for the normal romances that seem so popular in this modern age. I love you for what you are, my dear. A beautiful, noble swan and a gorgeous, fair woman.”

“Oh my god,” she says and then pinches the bridge of her nose. “You want to marry a swan. Right. Okay.” She breathes deeply and turns her fiery, green eyes on him. “What if I wasn’t a swan? What then?”

He gives a startled laugh. “My dearest, I want you and you are–”

“I’m not,” she says. She glances out the window just as thunder rolls and smiles. “But I can introduce you.”

“Wha–” he starts to say and is interrupted by the crash of the front door. What sounds like a herd of small elephants charges down the hallway, towards them. He instinctively and heroically leaps to his feet, placing himself between his beloved and the door.

“Babe, I’m home!” a woman’s voice booms. “It’s raining so–”

“We’re staying the night!” a man’s voice interrupts.

“My feathers got wet,” another voice complains.

A small hoard of people push through the arch and stop dead at the sight of Samuel (heroically) protecting his bride.

“Oh,” Samuel says looking at the wall of muscle in front of him. There’s nothing else to say. This will be a mighty battle and he doesn’t know if he can take all of them at once.

There are five people standing in the doorway and they’re all huge. Even the women are pushing six feet and their thick, muscular arms cross as they stare at him. Samuel chooses the biggest threat, a woman with tumbling, black hair and wearing men’s (!) clothes.

She is the biggest threat because she is closest.

“Babe,” the woman says, eyeing Samuel. “Who’s this?”

“My darling,” Samuel says to his beloved, voice (heroically) tense, “stay behind me.”

The dark-haired woman’s face is blank. “Your what?”

“Well,” his beloved says, “I’m not. He wants to marry a swan, something about normal romances being beneath him, I don’t know. I was just explaining to him that I’m not a swan.”

Samuel backs up so he can see the love of his life and the menacing group of people. “What? Darling, we’ve been over this. Everyone knows the fair maidens who reside by this lake were cursed by a sorcerer many years ago! There’s no need to hide–”

“I wasn’t cursed,” his love says. She inclines her head to the gods across from her. “They were. And please stop calling me those endearments. My name is Wendy.”

Samuel blinks. Looks at his beloved. Then to the ripped people to his left. Back to his beloved. Then to the wall of muscle. He throws back his head and laughs. “Good one, ah, I understand! My lovely bride has a sense of humor! I–EEP!”

His compliments are interrupted by the air suddenly leaving his body. The black-haired woman has pushed him back into a wall and is now hissing (hissing!) in his face!

“Your what?” she repeats only her voice is coarse and grating.

“Odette,” his beloved says, sounding aggrieved. “I just put that wall up yesterday!”

“Why’s it so funny?” a man with curly, golden hair says from over Odette’s shoulder. He frowns at Samuel. “We’re swan as fuck.”

Samuel’s hands come up to scrabble at Odette’s wrist and he glares. “This has gone on too far! Everyone knows that swans are elegant creatures! Not brutes like you! They–”

The man hisses at him and shoulders Odette out of the way. He shoves Samuel back into the wall. “I’m elegant as fuck, asshole.”

To prove it, he lifts Samuel up by the front of his shirt until his toes are just barely skimming the ground.

“Eep,” says Samuel.

“Marius,” his beloved says. Samuel turns his head to see that she’s standing in the circle of Odette’s arms, the taller woman’s chin on top of her head. His beloved looks exasperated; Odette is still glaring. “My wall.”

“I think it’s time your…suitor,” Odette says, spitting the word, “left.”

The three remaining gods hiss agreement, eyes narrow. It’s very intimidating.

“I’m very confused,” Samuel says, dangling off the ground.

“I get that from you,” Marius says.

“Long story short,” Wendy says, “I’m not a swan; they are. I’m also not looking for a husband right now as I have a girlfriend.”

The look on Odette’s face is unholy. “That’s me.”

‘So,” Wendy says, soldiering through the interruption, “Unless Marius, Diana, George or Angelique want to marry you–” there’s an assortment of hissing and squawks “–which they don’t, I think we’re done here. Marius?”

“On it,” Marius says and begins dragging him to the front door.

“I’m still confused,” Samuel says as he’s manhandled out of the kitchen. He struggles, but it’s no use. Marius is very strong.

“Well you can do that outside,” Marius says. He pushes him out into the rain and waves tauntingly. “You come around here and I’ll elegance the fuck out of you.”

Samuel blinks as the door slams shut, trying to make sense of what just happened.