#tale in a tale

[thestuffedalligator]

“Are you the witch who turned eleven princes into swans?”

The old woman stared at the figure on the front step of her cottage and considered her options. It was the kind of question usually backed up by a mob with meaningful torches, and the kind of question she tried to avoid.

Coming from a single dusty, tired housewife, it should’ve held no terrors.

“You a cop?”

The housewife twisted the hem of her apron. “No,” she muttered. “I’m a swan.”

A raven croaked somewhere in the woods. Wind whispered in the autumn leaves.

Then: “I think I can guess,” the old woman said slowly. “Husband stole your swan skin and forced you to marry him?”

A nod.

“And you can’t turn back into a swan until you find your skin again.”

A nod.

“But I reckon he’s hidden it, or burned it, or keeps it locked up so you can’t touch it.”

A tiny, miserable nod.

“And then you hear that old Granny Rothbart who lives out in the woods is really a batty old witch whose father taught her how to turn princes into swans,” the old woman sighed. “And you think, ‘Hey, stuff the old skin, I can just turn into a swan again this way.’

“But even if that was true – which I haven’t said if it is or if it isn’t – I’d say that I can only do it to make people miserable. I’m an awful person. I can’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I have no goodness. I can’t use magic to make you feel better. I only wish I could.”

Another pause. “If I was a witch,” she added.

The housewife chewed the inside of her cheek. Then she drew herself up and, for the first time, looked the old woman in the eyes.

“Can you do it to make my husband miserable?”

The old woman considered her options. Then she pulled the wand out from the umbrella stand by the door. It was long, and silver, and a tiny glass swan with open wings stood perched on the tip.

“I can work with that,” said the witch.

[telltaletypist]

i am a woman at war with herself, torn forever between my love of detective fiction and my hatred of cops and cop media

[io-lu-art]

A tale of Ba Sing Se.

[detailedart]

Rise and collapse of a wave. Details of paintings by Michael Zeno Diemer (1867-1939)

[trudlejack]

(+part 2)

[cocopudu]

mane 6 but they're gen 2 !? 🌟⭐️✨💫

[fata-vocant]

medieval backstreet boys: you are… my friar

[julnites]

Red riding hood comic collab with the wonderful @yeehawpim (go check out their blog for loads of great comics!) 🌷 See the layouts he did here!

[thecollectibles]

Art by 冯伟 Feng Wei（c12）

[d4ggerfish]

dnd character design :] !!!

[tygerland]

Heath Ledger - May 2000 - by Bruce Weber.

[keenzipper]

Some brother you turned out to be

[telltaletypist]

the beatles are an infuriating band to me as a relentless contrarian. liking them is cliche, hating them is cliche, being indifferent towards them is cliche. it's impossible to have an novel or interesting take on the beatles in current year. like how am i supposed to win here?

[mysharona1987]

[detailedart]

Sixteen lovers and one who craves - stone softness

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Dunno how to put it properly into words but lately I find myself thinking more about that particular innocence of fairy tales, for lack of better word. Where a traveller in the middle of a field comes across an old woman with a scythe who is very clearly Death, but he treats her as any other auntie from the village. Or meeting a strange green-skinned man by the lake and sharing your loaf of bread with him when he asks because even though he's clearly not human, your mother's last words before you left home were to be kind to everyone. Where the old man in the forest rewards you for your help with nothing but a dove feather, and when you accept even such a seemingly useless reward with gratitude, on your way home you learn that it's turned to solid gold. Where supernatural beings never harm a person directly and every action against humans is a test of character, and every supernatural punishment is the result of a person bringing on their own demise through their own actions they could have avoided had they changed their ways. Where the hero wins for no other reason than that they were a good person. I don't have the braincells to describe this better right now but I wish modern fairy tales did this more instead of trying to be fantasy action movies.