Fairy Debt (2 page)

"You're probably better off that way. I always felt that princesses with all those boosts in looks and manners had no idea how real people felt. How can anyone be a good ruler if they have no understanding of those they rule?"

The princess looked at me and nodded. "You're absolutely right, and I want you to arrange it for me."

I sat up, wondering what I'd gotten myself into – small fairy, big mouth.

"What?" I asked, nervous.

"This 'understanding.' Since I can't learn acrobatics during our afternoons together, I should learn something useful. What better thing is there to learn than the lives of my people?"

I squinted at her. She may look nothing like a princess, but she certainly spoke like one. If she kept her mouth shut, we should do alright. It was a bit like the enchanted leading the enchanted though. The only person less likely to understand the lives of the common folk than a princess was a fairy. But an order was an order.

So our afternoon tumbling sessions turned into afternoon field trips. First we visited the shepherdesses (because she really
was
interested) and then the dairymaids. Then we called on the stable-hands and the goose-girls, the portrait painters and the gatekeepers. I learned a lot on these journeys. I found the lower class humans far more interesting than the nobility.

Eventually, we ended up in the castle kitchens.

My Child Wishes made us quite the popular visitors there. The princess liked it too. Even without my, help she seemed to have a natural talent for cooking. She invented a roasted peacock dish stuffed with dates and sage, slathered in a thick gravy with wild mushrooms and cubed ham, that caused the king to give the entire kitchen staff a raise.

Of course, the staff all knew she was the princess, but they pretended not to, and that seemed to work well for everyone.

Me, on the other hand, they called their Lucky Least. Whenever I was around pastries and breads seemed to turn out moister, chewier, fluffier, and more delicious than when I was away.

"Why is that, Cups?" the princess asked me, dusting flour-covered hands on pure silk petticoats.

"I like baking, so I'm good at it."

"But you don't actually touch anything. You're too short to reach."

I shrugged, a movement made very odd by my hump of hidden wings. "I keep an eye on things. Make sure they don't mess up."

Princess Goob looked at me skeptically, but she left it at that. She'd learned if she questioned me closely I got all philosophical so it was better to stop before things got epistemologically out of hand.

I'd been there nearly a year, and was no closer to repaying my debt, when the peace of Smickled-on-Twee was finally disturbed by something terrible.

It was festival day and everyone was sitting down for high tea. We jesters were gallivanting about jestering, when an earth dragon waddled into the main banquet hall.

He was a smallish, fat sort of dragon, only about two horses long and probably that many wide, with muddy bronze scales, six sad little horns, lots of sharp teeth, and a sour expression.

Still he was an
earth
dragon
, and as such, terrifying to humans. Earth dragons take food 
seriously, you see. They collect interesting recipes and bags of fizzy lemon candies to stash deep in the recesses of their muddy caves. They also consider humans crunchy little treats of meaty goodness. Other dragons don't care a jot for such things. Air dragons eat birds and collect kites as a general rule, while water dragons eat algae and collect fishing tackle. Fire dragons are the ones who hoard gold. No one is quite sure what
they
eat, though they have a nasty reputation. Difficult to get close enough to find out.

As a fairy, I don't mind earth dragons all that much, but then I'm a fairy. Magic in the blood makes us far too spicy for consumption.

This particular dragon headed straight for the high table. There he squatted across from the royals and gave Princess Goob a very toothy grin. Princesses tend to be succulent – well fed and soft skinned. It was earth dragons that started the whole "kidnapping of princesses" policy. They like to steal them away and keep them around for late night attacks of the munchies. Princess tartare.

The king knew this and panicked. His face went redder than I'd ever seen it, and he began to sputter like an over-filled teakettle.

I snuck under the table to sit at the princess's feet. I could touch the dragon's baby toe from there. It was about the size of my head.

I touched the princess's toe instead. She twitched slightly. I touched it again. She lifted the edge of the tablecloth up and looked down at me.

"Tell your father," I said, "that the only way to get out of being eaten by an earth dragon is to serve it a high tea far better than the one
you
would be."

The princess nodded and her head vanished.

A moment later, I heard the king bang hard on the table and call for service.

This dragon was unlikely to be particularly impressed with the king's tea. Smickled-on-Twee was a small principality and not precisely prosperous. The honey glazed whole pig with thyme and raisins was not as big as it would have been in the more sophisticated Bugdoon-near-Schmoo. Nor were the mounds of tiny new potatoes drizzled in melted butter and sprinkled with mint quite as delicate or as minty as they would have been in Schmoo itself. But the bread was certainly up to par; I'd been lounging about wasting Child Wishes on it all morning. There were huge crispy brown loaves shaped like tortoises and filled with sweetmeats; small round honey-soaked buns rolled in cinnamon; and long skinny cheese-encrusted baguettes. The dragon ate sixteen loaves in all, and I had to sneak away to the kitchen to make sure the second batch came out as good as the first.

The dragon consumed three of the princess's famous peacock dishes, eight racks of lamb smeared with roasted garlic and rosemary, two platters of pork sausage with hot mustard, and several spit-roasted pheasants. Between each course the dragon picked up his teacup and gazed deeply into the murky depths. The fifth time that he did this, the princess stopped me when I came from a bread check and asked me about it.

"He's doing what?" I said.

"Talking dragoonish into his teacup."

I looked at the dragon. At that moment he was stuffing his face with a trencher of bacon-and-tomato stuffed quail. I was suspicious. So far as I knew, only naiads and daemons used the teacup network. What was this dragon up to? 
I examined the huge beast. There was something oddly familiar about his markings. Had we met before? I crinkled my forehead in thought. Then I remembered. Once, long ago, an earth dragon had turned up at a fairy potluck. Could this possibly be the same one? I squinted at him – six horns, sour expression... yes, it must be. And if this dragon was talking into his teacup, I bet I knew who he was talking to.

I snuck a cup of tea off of the high table myself and retreated into a corner of the room.

"Aunt Twill," I hissed into the cup.

The surface of the tea shivered slightly and Aunt Twill's wrinkled face appeared in the dark brown liquid, looking harried.

"Aunt Twill, what are you up to?"

"Add a little milk will you, dearie? You know the spell is easier in milky tea."

I ignored her and said firmly, "Aunt Twill!"

My aunt had the good grace to look slightly guilty. "He's been asking about your banana puff cupcakes for ages. So I thought, why not send him along?"

I was shocked. "Aunt Twill!"

Aunt Twill straightened her spine. "Now don't go taking that tone with me, nestling. This is quite the opportunity. The princess is at risk, the castle in danger, and you and your Child's Wishes can save the day."

Just then, behind me, the dragon sent up a great roar and tipped over the high table. There was a cacophony of sound as plates, platters, knives, and teacups slid to the floor.

"Gotta go," I said, drinking the tea unceremoniously.

I turned and rushed toward the chaos.

The dragon was yelling in dragoonish — a sort of rolling fuzzy language. I don't speak it well myself, but I gathered he wasn't entirely pleased with the meal.

I ran up to Princess Goob. "Stay out of his reach as much as possible and keep feeding him bread. It's very filling." She looked at me with wide eyes and I could tell she really wanted to ask how I knew so much about dragons. But instead she just nodded.

I turned to run back to the kitchens.

"Where are you going?" asked the princess in a panic.

"I have to make banana puff cupcakes! Your life may depend upon it."

Strange as that statement was, Princess Goob merely nodded again. That's what I liked about that girl, no silly interfering when there's work to be done.

Once in the kitchen, I marched straight up to the Most Cook.

"I need to make banana puff cupcakes."

The cook looked at me in a harried kind of way. He had about a hundred deserts all going at once. "At the moment," he said, "the needs of the Least Jester don't particularly concern me."

I stared up at him. "The princess's life depends upon it."

The thing I've learned about humans is, if you make a bizarre enough statement, they simply don't know what to do. In this case, it was easier for the Most Cook not to argue with me. He pointed at a small oven and a bit of counter space in one corner and I went off to find myself a stepping stool so I could use both. 
With the help of Ernest, one of the Least Cooks, who was very tall and liked assisting me, I managed to gather all the ingredients and get to work. There were only six small bananas, almost completely black and very sad, so I used every last Child's Wish I had on that one batch of cupcakes. I decided to let the earth dragon eat up as much of the other deserts as possible first so that he had very little room left. That way my cupcakes would come as a kind of crowning glory to the whole high tea experience.

Eventually evening rolled around, which signified the end of tea. All the cooks were looking exhausted, there was very little food left in the storage cellars, and servants began to slink down to hide in the kitchen away from the dragon.

I removed my banana puff cupcakes from the oven, popped them out of the pan, swirled strawberry buttercream frosting on the top, and arranged them on a platter using up the very last of my Wishes to make sure they were as perfect as they could possibly be.

Then I whisked them up onto one shoulder and carried them into the banquet hall. A hush had descended upon the room in my absence. Everyone was looking at the dragon, who was polishing off the last of the raspberry parfait and muttering into his teacup between bites.

"Where are they?" I heard him grumble into his tea.

I inched up beside him and slid the cupcake platter onto the table in front of him.

The dragon sniffed and looked up.

He poked a claw into one of the puffy yellow cakes and delicately popped the confection into his mouth. He chewed for a moment, swallowed thoughtfully. Then he closed his eyes and sighed.

"Just as I remember," he muttered to the teacup in dragoonish. The teacup chirruped back at him in the dulcet tones of my Aunt Twill. I couldn't hear exactly what she said but the dragon nodded vigorously and replied, "You have a deal."

He poked a cupcake onto each of his front claws, leaving one behind on the platter for Mr. Manners. Then he turned away from the table and slithered awkwardly out the front entrance, on his elbows to keep the cupcakes from dragging on the floor.

He turned at the door to look back.

"I await my Wishes, little fairy," he said, looking directly at me.

I realized what Aunt Twill had done. When a fairy reaches adulthood and trades in child's magic for the real thing, she has a choice as to who gets to keep the magic of the Wishes. (How else do you think human wizards got magic in the first place?) Obviously, Aunt Twill had promised my Wishes to this earth dragon.

He left, moving awkwardly across the cobbled stone bailey, out the barbican and over the moat. Soon he was out of sight.

The courtiers heaved a collective sigh, and then everyone, including the king and the princess, stared at me.

I wasn't paying attention because something very strange was happening to my wings. I took off the jester's hat in order to concentrate. Then I found I had to take off my whole uniform as my wings were starting to push against it. It was a good thing I always wore fairy garb underneath.

Sure enough, in a very short space of time, there I stood in front of the whole court — with fully grown wings!

I looked at the king. He was staring at me in wonder.

"You saved my mother once," I said, "but she died without repayment. So I've been serving your daughter in secret in her stead." I flapped my wings experimentally and they lifted me easily into the air. I was a little wobbly, but I could stay up and that was the important part. It was nice to look down on people for a change. "My cupcakes have saved your daughter from certain death, so my debt to you is fulfilled."

I looked down at the princess fondly. "Goodbye, Princess Goob."

She grinned up at me. "Goodbye, Cups."

"But wait," said the king, "Don't you have to stay? Be her fairy godmother, make her beautiful and graceful and stuff like that?"

I shook my head. "I could choose to stay if I thought she needed my help. But I think she'll do perfectly fine without me." I thought about all the gatekeeper's daughters Goob and I had met, and the miller's sons we'd laughed with, and the servants who'd helped us in the kitchen, and the goose-girls who'd gossiped with us. "I think there are others who need fairy godmothers far more than princesses," I said. And with one more wave to Princess Goob, I flew out of the castle and away into the forest.

I sent the earth dragon my Child's Wishes by butterfly post the very next day. I also sent him the recipe for banana puff cupcakes. I understand he grew even fatter.