Work Text:
The Fairy Tale
By Nat Burnham
My wife and I were sitting down in the local inn, enjoying our meal of delicious grilled trout and spring vegetables. As always on a first day afternoon, the inn was quite crowded with local tradespeople enjoying a meal and an ale. I sipped my chilled wine and my wife sipped her usual chilled milk. She didn't much care for the taste of alcohol, but absolutely loved milk. It was only one of her little quirks that I absolutely adored. As I finished my meal, and set my knife and fork down, I took a moment to watch her finish the last few pieces of trout. Even twenty years later, she still took my breath away. Her curly brown hair fell loose from her ear on one side and fell down to obscure her face for a moment until one graceful hand moved up to brush it back. Her fork speared precisely the last morsel of fish and when she brought it up to her mouth she glanced at me and noticed my staring. She gave me a wide grin before daintily picking the last bite from her fork with her teeth. She let out a low hum of satisfaction before settling her knife and fork onto the plate, almost perfectly in the middle. I have been in awe of the preciseness of her movements since I first got to know her. She finished her milk quickly and reached across to take my hand, tenderly running her thumb over the back of it.
"Time for my nap, I think, my love," she said with a wink.
"Of course it is, my dearest," I answered with a grin. "The curtains in the living room are open, it should be nice and warm."
We both stood up and she came around the table to give me a kiss.
"You'll be okay with the rest of the shopping?" she asked.
"Of course," I confirmed. "I'll see you soon."
I watched her as she left, appreciating the sway of her hips as she walked out the door, blushing as she turned and caught me looking. She blew me a kiss, which I returned, before she disappeared out the door. I sat down, then, to finish the rest of my wine before I would continue on with my tasks.
Wil, the apprentice to the butcher in town, chose that moment to get up out of his seat and approach my table. I looked up at him archly and he blushed a little and glanced around the room. Once he was satisfied that nobody was paying any attention he gestured towards the now empty seat opposite me and stammered out his request.
"Ma'am, do you mind if I ask you a question?" he asked.
I smiled, "Of course Wil, have a seat."
He took the opportunity to seat himself and it was a few moments before he spoke again, I waited patiently for him to summon his nerves.
"It's just," he began, before pausing. "It's just, I'm really interested in asking May the dressmaker's apprentice if she'd like to walk out with me."
I smiled to myself, I had a fair idea of where he was going to take the conversation.
"She's beautiful though," he stated in a resigned manner. "The most beautiful girl in the whole town and I'm…"
He gestured at himself dejectedly.
"And you'd like some advice?" I asked.
"Well, I just thought that your wife is very beautiful as well and I was wondering.." he began.
"How someone as ugly as me managed to make her my wife?" I asked with a smile.
"No no," he said hastily, waving his hands in front of him. "You're very beautiful as well, so it's no wonder that you are married to her. I was just wondering if you might have… Some advice?"
"Of course." I smiled. "The key is to simply get to know her. Find out what makes her happy and try to do everything you can to make her so. Hopefully, she will come to understand that you are what makes her happy."
"Maybe…" He began. "Maybe you could tell me how you managed to ask her how to walk out with you?"
"Ah!" I exclaimed jovially. "It's a story you want?"
"Please," he said with a shy smile.
It all began twenty years ago. Arianna was the most beautiful girl in the entire town and lived alone in a house out near the forest. Many men went to court her, but she never accepted any of them. I had just moved to the town and the first time I laid eyes on her was after I was drinking my first ale in this very inn. I had made friends with the baker's apprentice and he was drinking up the courage to go and ask her to walk out with him. Before he could drink himself into incapability, I suggested that I could go along with him to provide support. That's how I found myself standing at the gate to her house as young Iain stumbled up the footpath to knock on her door. When the door opened, I was instantly struck by her beauty. I knew that she was going to be the love of my life. Iain slurred out his request and she laughed in his face.
"I have a cat," she told him. "Attached to its collar is the key to this house. Get the key and I'll consider walking out with you."
She closed the door in his face and for a moment, he just stood there dejectedly. Then came a meow. Poor Iain looked around frantically and when he spotted the cat, he chased after it as quickly as he could. Around the garden, through the hedges, over the fence he chased it. All the way into the forest he ran and I soon lost sight of him. I waited for a while, before returning to the inn. It was almost dark when he returned, clothes torn and twigs still in his hair. When I asked him if he had any luck, he merely shook his head. The entire inn erupted into laughter. She had given the same challenge to many single men in the town and none had yet succeeded.
Alone, the next day, I went to her cottage and saw the cat lounging on a paver in the sun. I tried to coax the cat towards me, but it didn't want any part of me. I returned the next day with some freshly caught fish, and while the cat still shied away from me, she did eat the fish quite greedily. Day after day I returned, never once catching sight of the woman who would eventually be my wife, but always bringing the cat treats. Never would the cat come near me.
"Do you know that I wasn't always in this body?" I asked after a pause. "You know that I was born a man?"
Wil shook his head and I sighed. Most of the older people in town had known my story for a long time, but I pushed on to explain my history to the poor boy in front of me.
"I was still a man at this time," I explained. "And was very unhappy in the body that I was in. Very, very unhappy. The cat was a very good listener and I explained everything, all my worries and fears to it. It helped me a lot, but did nothing to ease my very existence."
One day, after explaining everything to the cat for the fifteenth time, and it running off for about the fiftieth, the door to the cottage opened. She, my love, stepped out.
"I'm sorry, but I've overheard your plight," she explained. "And I might have a solution. Have you heard of the witch that lives in the forest?"
I shook my head.
"Well, if you follow the stream all the way to the lake in the middle of the forest, you will see a small house. Therein lives a witch, who might be able to give you what you want.
To become a woman, or to marry the most beautiful woman in the world. Which would make me happier? There was only one real solution. With hope in my heart, I followed the stream into the forest. There, I found the witch.
"Now, don't go looking for her," I told Wil. "She is no longer there and I never saw her again after she gave me what I wanted."
She was a kindly old woman. She asked me what I wanted, a cure for acne or flatulence, the cure for a sick grandmother? I told her what my heart's desire was, I told her everything about how I was unhappy with my gender, how I couldn't look at myself in a mirror and how I was considering…
With a tear in her eye, that was far outdone by the tears in mine, she gave me a hug and told me not to worry. She could help me. She asked me who had sent me to her and I explained about the beautiful woman in the town, and the cat.
The old witch smiled at me then.
"Bring me one of the cat's whiskers," she demanded, handing me a pair of golden scissors.
In despair I explained that I had already spent fifty days trying to coax the cat to come close enough to get its key.
"That's what I need to cure your problem," she told me.
I travelled back to the house at the edge of the forest and saw the cat lounging in the garden.
I sat down next to it and told it about the witch and her demand for a whisker.
I put the scissors down on the ground in front of me and begged the cat for just one whisker.
It looked at the scissors and looked at me, then slowly stood up, stretched, and sauntered over to me. With shaking hands I picked up the scissors. With profound thanks to the cat, I opened the scissors and went to cut its whisker. I realised with a start, that with the cat so close, I could easily reach the key that was dangling right in front of me.
"You didn't take the key?" Wil interrupted.
"No, I didn't. The key would make my life happier in one way, but the whisker would make me happier in many." I told him.
So. I cut the whisker. I returned to the witch and she made me better. She made me who I am today. I thanked her profusely and offered her anything in compensation for her help. She declined any monetary or physical reward, instead telling me to "go and live a happy life."
I returned to the town first, to buy a bowl of cream and the freshest, largest trout you could imagine. To her cottage I travelled then, and gave the bowl and the trout to the cat, along with my continued thanks. I knocked on the door and it took a few moments for the woman to answer.
"I just wanted to thank you for your advice," I told her. "I was the boy who has been spending time with your cat and I've just returned from visiting the witch. She demanded one of your cat's whiskers, for which it gave me its permission to cut. I've given it a bowl of cream and a trout and will happily return here every day to do likewise. I don't know any other way to thank you both."
"You're most very welcome," she told me. "It brings my heart joy to see you so happy. If you would like to thank me, why not see if you can get the key from around my cat's neck?"
"But…" I stammered.
"I'll tell you a secret," she said with a smile. "My cat can't stand males."