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“Long ago in a land far away, lived a princess-”
“Queen.”
“...queen who was so insistent on being rescued ‘the right way’ that he almost didn’t get rescued at all.”
“Society has rules, Andrew-”
“Will you shut it and let me tell the story?”
A huff. “Fine. Tell your wrong story.”
In the background, their nieces and nephews laughed at their bickering. Kevin will never understand why they insist on Andrew being the best storyteller (he’s obviously better- Andrew doesn’t even do the voices), but as it stands, he’s the one who gets the most requests.
“The queen was locked away in a tower by a dragon-”
“A stupid dragon,” Neil interjected.
Without looking up from the book he was pretending to read from, Andrew said, “I will put you both in time out,” making the children laugh and Neil and Kevin sit back on their heels, pouting.
“Anyway,” he continued, “the queen was put in the tower, guarded by a stupid dragon. The people who put him there wanted to control him.”
“Why?” Jessica, one of Aaron’s kids asked.
“Because he would have been a better ruler than them and they knew it. The Queen waited in the tower for ten years, and no one was even the wiser. Meanwhile, there was an ogre-”
“What was the ogre’s name?” Neil asked.
“The name isn’t important. The ogre lived alone in a swamp. He wanted to be left alone. But one day, he found himself surrounded by fantasy creatures. These creatures were the misfits of the forest and they’d been taken to the swamp because no one else wanted them. The ogre didn’t want to work with these fantasy creatures, but to get his land back, be knew he’d have to go find whatever sent them all to his swamp. He didn’t know where to go until an annoying donkey showed up.”
The kids giggled at that.
“The donkey insisted that he knew the way to find and free the queen, which would make it so all the people would leave the ogre’s swamp.”
Andrew paused briefly to glance triumphantly at Neil, who was huffing just as Andrew knew he’d be.
--
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Neil complained.
“Yes,” Andrew lied, if only for a moment of respite from Neil’s constant chatter.
Neil made a frustrated noise. “You could always let me help you. Instead of making us walk in circles like an ass.”
Andrew turned to look at him. “I’m an ass?”
Despite Neil’s changed form, the glare he gave was entirely human. “As funny as those jokes are, I would like to be a human again at some point and the only way I can do that is by rescuing the queen. So, if you could take this seriously, that would be great.”
Andrew continued forward without commenting, though he couldn’t fully resist the temptation to kick a rock behind him so Neil would trip on it. It did manage to shut Neil up for at least a little bit.
It was Andrew’s turn for silence, though, when they saw a rickety bridge that separated them from the queen.
Neil looked at him. “Heights?”
“Shut up.”
Neil stepped across the bridge lightly, seemingly unperturbed, but turned back when he saw Andrew wasn’t following. “Hey...look at me.” When Andrew refused, he became more insistent. “Look at me.”
It clearly took effort, but Andrew dragged his face up to look at Neil’s. “Good. Now keep your eyes on me and take a step.”
The step was rocky, but he took it and Neil exhaled in relief. “Good. Take another.”
They continued on that way until Andrew took a step and found solid ground. He didn’t wait long enough to acknowledge the moment they’d had, but Neil knew Andrew didn’t hate him. Not really.
--
Neil found that the stories of dragons being difficult to take down were highly exaggerated. One good swing from Andrew took the beast down. The real challenge, they learned, was getting the damn queen to be rescued.
They entered the chamber where he was supposed to be located and found him sitting up in bed, back perfectly straight. When he saw Andrew and Neil, however, he deflated visibly. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
“We’re here to rescue you.”
The queen’s eyes widened. “No. Hell no. I am not getting rescued by an ogre and a donkey.”
“You don’t have a choice, your highness,” Andrew said, going to pick him up.
“Wait, wait!”
Andrew pulled back at the outburst.
“Can I at least get your names?” he asked.
“I’m Neil, and this is Andrew.”
“...Kevin. My name is Kevin.”
Andrew stepped forward again. “Now that that’s over with, let’s go.”
He scooped Kevin up, which was especially amusing considering how much taller Kevin was than Andrew. He carried him down the steps of the castle, past the body of the dragon.
Kevin paused, growing quiet for the first time since Andrew and Neil had met him. “He’s really dead then?”
“As a doornail,” Andrew said.
Kevin nodded. “Alright. Take me home.”
--
Andrew ended the story there, telling the kids they would have to wait until the next gathering to see how everything turned out. They whined a bit, but eventually were pulled in by the promise of Christmas presents and desserts.
Andrew stood, closing the book he had been holding for show.
“Did you even read from anything?” Neil asked, stretching his legs after sitting on the floor.
Andrew answered, “I just changed the plot of Shrek around and put our names in.”
Kevin’s eye roll was near audible. “I can’t believe they let you get away with that.”
“Kids like creative stories.”
“You certainly took a lot of creative license.”
Neil scoffed. “Are you seriously defending the structural integrity of Shrek?”
They launched into a heated argument about whether or not Shrek was a good movie. Andrew moved past them, hoping that they would manage to wear each other out before the drive home. He wanted to throttle them sometimes, but in the end, they were his idiots to deal with and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.