The Two Davids

I also caught the replica of the statue of David on my way to the second museum in the old spot of the original, looks the same I think, I didn't react to it as much as to the original, I don't know if that's because I sensed it somehow or because I'd already seen it or just the context. Although it is need to see it in town Square how it was intended as public art.

While I was in the museum, taking pictures of David's butt, I overheard someone ask what he has in his hand, which shows you people just know it as a statue of a guy. I'm sure if she was pressed she could figure out what David, him from Goliath, is holding. But I think we can all fall into that trap, where iconic works of art cease to be reflections of the world, attempts at capturing something, and just become a thing in themselves. No longer Michelangelo's David, but just Michelangelo's David.

You think you know them, because these kinds of works, other people's snapshots of them, the cultural idea of them, have implanted themselves into your head, probably before you've had the time to form your own proper thoughts on art, but when you actually see them it's different. That's why I think the first thing that struck me, it's so big, is less trivial than it seems. Nothing about the cultural ideas about the statue that had dug their way into me seemed to have communicated that basic observation.

Ok, so what were my initial thoughts when I saw it in person for the first time? It's very serene, this is not a man mid-fight, his sling casually, err, slung over his shoulder, looking off into the distance. He's either trying to clear his mind before the fight or contemplating it afterwards. And the detail, the perfect anatomy, the vein running down his arm.

Bernini's David is all different. He is not serene, he is not large, they have him on a pedestal but if he wasn't you'd be eye height with him. His pose is not static, it's dynamic, it captures him mid-movement, mid-fight, his face strained and puffed up by effort. It is intense.

The guide told me the artist did not intend to have him on a pedestal, and he wasn't put there at first, and I think that's the right call. He was also meant to be up against a wall, you can tell by the fact that the part that was meant to be against the wall is not given as much detail. Imagine walking into a room and having the statue eye-height leaping at you from an alcove, I think you might fall down from the intensity.

I understand the practical issues with placing it eye level, of course, you can't do it in a museum with this many people visiting it each day, you'd hardly get a view at all.

After David

The day I visited Mikey's David I did two museums, the Academia, where the statue is housed, and the Uffizi Gallery. The Academia has a mix of renaissance paintings and and sculptures, whereas Uffizi mostly focuses on paintings. And the paintings were amazing. I hardly need to tell you that the renaissance was an artistic rebirth and jump forward, other people have done that much better. What struck me most this time were the reds.

The colours and use of light in general was fantastic, but these Venetian reds? Wow. Amazingly vibrant. I don't know how they do it. It's called Venetian Red apparently and used iron oxide in its pigment. I'm sure it's also technique, either way the colours are just fantastic on these paintings.

I'm usually more of a painting man, when I go to a museum the other installations don't appeal to me that much, even the sculptures. I appreciate them more as historical artefacts and achievements of craft than as works of art that really speak to me. But this time it was different.

I don't know if I was primed for it by the statue of David, but I was much more taken by the other sculptures I saw afterwards than I usually am, but I loved these. Most of the ones I saw after David where sculptures from Lorenzo Bartolini, who I'd never heard of before, and I think he's wonderful too. It's amazing how much humanness you can extract from solid rock, not just human likeness, by carving out the right curves, the right folds, the flow, the indentations, it didn't just look human this time. The statues felt human.

While I really liked Bartolini and the others after seeing Michelangelo's David, I absolutely loved Bernini after seeing his David.

His David is good, but I think I was more impressed by his other ones, the imprints from a grasp in the skin, the mole on someone's back, the button mid-pop, fabric, indented cushions, it's indeed all very alive. Bernini was really on yet another level when it comes to getting so hard and solid as marble to portray the delicate fleshiness of life.

Conclusion

Comparing Bernini's David to Mikey's, supposedly the premise of this post, here's where I land: Yes, it's more dynamic, it's in action, his face is full of effort, it's powerful, but I still think I prefer Michelangelo's, it's serene, but imposing. I don't think I can really explain why very well though.

I think part of me is fairly convinced that Bernini's is technically better, the dynamism and intensity feels to me more advanced, I might consider him a better sculptor. But, still, Michelangelo's David just had a certain effect on me, which could entirely be down to the fact that I saw it first, or due to its iconic nature, but at the end of the day it just had something indescribable.

It doesn't matter of course, in no way is this a real competition and in no way does my call tell you anything more than what it did to me.

In short, I think he should look like... Danny DeVito. Yes, if I ever pick up sculpting I'm going to make him look like Danny DeVito.

I hadn't intended to post anything new to this blog quite yet. I was going to pick it back up at some point, when I had the time, when I had an idea. Well, no, ideas weren't the issue, holding on to them for more than a few weeks was a different matter. Although if I still have a half-note on an idea somewhere, does that count as holding on to it?

Either way it wasn't going to be like this. It wasn't going to be a big fanfare either, no one's there to listen, but I was going to hit the ground running. Do a couple of series, slowly build up the various sub-sections of the site, just as an outlet for myself.

But then disaster struck. As I was prodding around cursing at CSS for no good reason I decided to recreate something I'd come across when browsing the web, Dave Rupert's Bookshelf. Having spent the last three years slowly recovering from a reading mega-slump, I was looking for a more visual log of my reading anyway, so why not make a little page for it on this site?

The example looked pretty enough, and even Goodreads couldn't make it past my aversion to any social media besides Mastodon. After some of the aforementioned cursing at CSS I managed to make something that I thought looked quite nice.

Foolishly I figured, since I've done this for my reading I might as well make a shelf for the movies I'd watched in the last few years. Easy enough. Now that that's done there's no need to keep the old yearly movie recap posts around. Aah. And there it was. The Great Calamity.

We have no choice but to wrap ourselves in the duvet, call reception to open the safe, and write a new post to hide the blog's naked shame. Of course, on such short notice there is only one thing we can blog about. The worst of all the blog post categories, the dreaded 'metablogging,' when you don't know what to blog about blog about blogging. But, hey, I'm not blogging about blogging, I'm blogging about not blogging, that's different, right? Right?

What This Blog Isn't

A Media Log

Despite the fact that adding a media logging feature to this site triggered The Great Calamity, I don't think media logging or basic reviews are going to be a big part of this site. Not in any meaningful capacity.

I do intend to keep adding books and movies to the shelves on here, it's easy enough to do now that it's set up, maybe even easier than the way I record them in my personal notes right now.

But I don't feel like that's what a blog is for me personally. Except in the sense that I also want this site to be a kind of archive of things I do elsewhere online.

Weeknotes/A Journal/What I'm Up To

This blog site isn't going to be a web diary, it won't have any kind of regular 'what I've been up to' or 'weeknotes' section like you see on blogs of a lot of tech folks.

I'm not up to that much, it wouldn't be interesting to you, and it wouldn't be useful to me. I'm pretty sure of that, because for the last couple of years I've been keeping a journal on and off and I imagine 'weeknotes' would end up a lot like my early journal entries.

My early entries tended to be fairly dry recaps of what happened that day. I didn't really know how to journal, or what it was for. I mean, I knew people kept them, I'd read memoirs, so I knew what interested me as a reader, but when I would try to write one myself it just... wasn't interesting.

I knew what the issue was. They weren't in any way intimate or self-reflective, but trying to force them to be didn't help. Still, I kept up with them on the days I wanted to record regardless, mostly when I was travelling. I didn't pressure myself to make them self-reflective. Which was the key to actually making them self-reflective. And, if you allow some navel-gazing, kind of fun and interesting to read back at times.

I still have a hard time journaling when nothing special is going on. I journal the most when I'm travelling, and not just about travelling, but it's a good jumping off point. There is always something to talk about, even if it is just a dry recap. Usually just starting unlocks something more.

Ok, so why not just do that on the blog? Because everything that makes those entries worthwhile are exactly the kind of things that I would not want anyone to read. Ever. Ever. (Right now)

If I record a day where I go to a museum, have lunch, think about why I used to hate myself but don't anymore, and write down some thoughts on a sexual encounter I have, those last two parts are more likely to be the interesting ones. But, ain't no way in hell I'm going to share that with you, kind stranger, or friend, or indeed mean stranger.

Varia

• Tech tutorials/howtos: Google it yourself, ask your mom, ask the machine-that-ate-everything
• Listicles: You won't see "10 Blog Categories I Won't Do (number five will give you a heart attack)" on here... wait. Fuck.
• News updates: Things are bad, actually there is hope, everyone is dying, a puppy saved a homeless man, politicians are dumb, the public is dumb, science is going to save us all, science is going to kill us all. Just take your pick and imagine the post on your own.
• The meaning of life: I know it, but it just doesn't get clicks.
• Sorry-for-not-updating-more posts: I'm not sorry, leave me alone.

Conclusion

So, that's a bunch of stuff this blog isn't, is there anything else left for it to be?

Maybe.

One day the Man and the Woman were sitting at the edge of the World with their backs to the Darkness. It was the Woman who heard the Voice first. A lot has been said about what the voice said, stories of temptation and betrayal, but those who know the Truth know that it was one simple word: Help.

"There is someone in the Darkness," the Woman said, but the Man knew this could not be. There was nothing outside of the World. He had not been told this, there was no one to tell him, but he knew.

"Help," the Voice said again and now the Man knew that he did not know anything.

"We must find this Voice," the Woman said, "Find where it is coming from."

The man looked into the Darkness and saw nothing, there was only pitch black. "We can't go into the Darkness there is no way to see where we are going," the Man said this, but he did not know if this was really True.

"The Fire can lead the Way, the Fire of the Tree could light our path," the Woman suggested.

The Man thought about this for a long time. He did not know if this was True, he had always known things, or so he thought, but he no longer did. It might be or it might not, he thought, there is only one way to find out.

"I will take one of the Fiery Branches of the Tree and bring it into the Darkness so we can see what lies beyond and find this Voice," the Man said and he turned away from the Woman and towards the Tree.

It was a long journey, but the Man could not know how long for there was no Sun to count the days by and in those days the World never slept. When he made it to the Tree and looked back on his path he could no longer see the Woman or the Darkness beyond, they were too far away.

"Do not take one of my Branches," the Tree spoke, "The whole World is yours, you can take anything there is in the World, but my Branches are my own."

The Man trembled. He had never heard the Tree speak before, but it had done so once. Before there was a Man and before there was a World the Tree had spoken.

"I need a Branch of Fire to light the way through the Darkness," the Man pleaded.

"Everything there is, everything you need, is in the World. There is nothing in the Darkness for you," the Tree said with pain in its voice.

"There was a Voice. A Voice that called for help," the Man said.

"I can not Light the World withouth my Branches," the Tree said, "My Fire illuminates the whole World, without it you can not see the World only Darkness."

The Man remembered the pitch black of the Darkness and shuddered at the idea of the whole World being nothing but that Darkness, but then he remembered the Voice, the Voice had come from the Darkness and it had called for help.

"I need the Fire," the Man spoke and the Tree did not protest. It did not say anything more.

The Man climbed the Tree and stole one of its Fiery Branches. When he climbed back down the Tree and looked up at it he could see the Fire in the Tree start to dim, but the one Branch he held shone just as brightly as it had ever done.

He stood there studying the Tree and watching it grow ever more dim and he saw the World around him become more and more like the pitch black he had seen in the Darkness before and he knew he had done a terrible thing. He did not know it how he had known things before, he knew it because he saw it.

The Man turned around and holding the Fiery Branch he made his Way back from where he had come, back towards the Woman and the Voice.

When he arrived back at the Woman she was trembling from the cold and from fear. She shook and cried and he held out the Fire to warm her and when that was not enough the held each other and warmed themselves.

"Where is the Light?" The Woman asked.

"There is no more Light," the Man answered, "When I took the Fiery Branch the Light went out. The only Light there is now is the one from the Fire I am holding."

"Will the Light ever come back?" The Woman asked.

"I don't know," said the Man.

The Man and the Woman held each other's hand tightly and the Man gripped onto the Branch of Fire ever tighter and together they walked into the Darkness looking for the Voice they had heard what now seemed so long ago.

"I'm here," the Voice said when they were close.

The Man pointed the Fire at the Voice and he and the Woman looked at it. It looked like them and it did not.

The Man looked from the Voice to the Woman and back again.

"I don't know what we do now," the Man said.

The Voice pointed at the Man's Fire and said: "You have to lead to the Way now, you are the one with the Fire. This is the Light now."

And so the Man and the Woman and the Voice travelled through the Darkness with the Fire lighting their Way. Along the way they lit many more Fires and slowly, very slowly, they pushed back the Darkness and the Cold.

When they Died their Children picked up the Fire and led the Way and after them their Children's Children.

So it went on until the whole World was lit once again by the Fire.

The Bureau for Religious Sacrifice was known for being the slowest in the whole Department. This was mostly due to the habit of sacrificing their best workers to a variety of gods in the hope of acquiring their favour so they would bless them by speeding up the process. This had proven to be counterproductive.

"Religion?" The woman behind the counter asked.

"What?"

"What religion are you, exactly?"

"Avanoga. We're a cult, actually. Level-1 licensed."

"Hmm, I don't see you on the list. Did you register beforehand?"

"No, we're still working out the specifics of our practices."

"Did you get the flyer?"

"The flyer?"

"The flyer."

"Which flyer?"

"The one about starting a cult."

"Ooh, I don't think so."

"Hrmm. I'll get you one. So, what will it be? Human or animal."

"Human, please."

"Alright, male or female?"

"Female. A virgin."

"We're all out of virgins. This is a busy time of year, y'know. You really should think about registering early next time."

"Erm. How about just a young girl, then?"

"Any prefered ethnicity?"

"It doesn't really matter, they just have to be heathens."

"Wow, wow, wow," the woman looked up at him for the first time and shot him an angry look, "you're not planning on commiting a hate crime, are you?"

"What? No, I--"

"Killing people based on their religion is a hate crime now. You do know that don't you?"

"It just can't be someone from the cult. I--it has to be someone else."

"Very well. What's the purpose of this sacrifice?"

"Just to appease the gods."

"How often would you need to appease the gods?"

"For every 200 people once every winter and summer."

"How many are there in your cult right now?"

"Five."

"How many men and women?"

"All men."

"You do realise you have to have at least a 40/60 gender divide once you exceed ten members, right? Except of course if you get a special permit."

"No, I didn't know."

"It's all in the flyer."

"What flyer?"

"The one about starting a cult."

"I didn't get the flyer."

"Ooh, right. I'll get you a flyer."

Chains clattered as they were dragged across the ground by the ghostly and ghastly creature. The gates of hell gave a rusty sigh as they slammed close again.

The girl froze in place. The sight of the ungodly creatures burned its way through her eyes. Unable to process what was happening her brain literally melted. The creature's dark tongue eagerly lapped it up as it came oozing out of her eye sockets.

Her body flopped to the ground. The boy's legs gave out in fear. He backed himself into the headstone and gave up, whatever would happen would happen.

Pure darkness crawled its way over the girl's body towards him. The living shadow enveloped him and the rattling sound of the demon breathing echoed in his head. A black hole hovered over him, the creature's mouth breathed in one last time ready to suck the life out of him. All seemed lost.

From the church next to the graveyard the sound of bells rang droning out the sound of the rattling breath.

A sword of pure light cut through the living shadow sending the head of the dark creature rolling across the ground.

Through the fading darkness a ghostly winged created shone brightly like the sun breaking its way through the clouds.

It had been The Kid’s dream ever since he started boxing, his therapist had suggested it as a way to work out his anger, his anger about himself, his situation and the world, it was just supposed to be an outlet, but as soon as he picked up those gloves he had dreamed of a shot at the title.

He never made it far enough to have a chance for that dream to come through. He could blame everyone and everything. He didn’t have the time to train properly, he didn’t have the means, no coach ever took him seriously. Maybe he was right, but deep down he always feared the real reason was himself. He didn’t think he was good enough, or if he was good enough he didn’t think he had the drive, even if he had the drive he feared he would never be able to focus his drive and his strength.

Now he had gotten his chance. Out of the blue the champion had offered him a real shot at the title. He didn’t know why, it didn’t make any sense, but he had taken the shot.

All the other reasons holding him back were no longer there. He had gotten an advance on the fight allowing him to take time off from his job and focus on training. The Coach had offered to train him.

All that could hold him back now was himself and his opponent known as The Beast.

ROUND 1

The first round started with The Kid standing there like a deer in headlights and The Beast like a car in the night plowing him down, landing every hit with ease.

“What are you doing!?” The Coach yelled from the corner of the ring, causing The Kid to snap out of it. Unfortunately even after that he could do no better than wildly swinging into thin air.

Ding.

The Kid headed back to his corner shaking his head.

“Don’t just shake your head, keep your fists up, look for openings. Why am I telling you this, is this your first fight?” The Coach berated him.

The Kid shook his head again.

“I said is this your first fight?”

“No, Coach.”

“Then stop doing whatever that was and start acting like you do in any other fight.”

ROUND 2

The Beast started dancing around, lowering his arms by his sides, mocking The Kid, daring him to try and hit him. The Kid took a shot and The Beast dodged it, it was a narrow miss.

“Ok, so you’ve got something in you after all,” The Beast said.

After that The Beast raised his fist back up, but he was still playing around with The Kid, not taking him too seriously; this wasn’t going to be too big of a big challenge to him.

The Kid didn’t see it that way and went all in on him, landing a couple of decent body blows. As The Beast was defending his side he saw an opening and hit him square on the jaw.

The Beast stumbled back, the crowd went silent as it looked like he was about to go down for the first time in his career. He almost did, but managed to catch himself just in time.

Shaking it off something in his demeanor changed. He was ready to punish The Kid for what he did and The Kid was ready to show him what he was really capable of.

Ding.

“That’s the spirit, Kid, keep at it, but watch out, he’s getting angry,” The Coach said.

ROUND 3

The Beast struck back with a vengeance raining terror down upon him, punishing him for thinking he ever had a chance. Eventually The Kid couldn’t take it anymore and he went down.

1, 2, . . .

Everyone knew it was all over.

3, 4, . . .

Or not, The Kid made it back up, he didn’t miss a second and went right back up to him. Left, right, left, punch, punch, jab, punch, jab, jab punch.

Ding.

Neither of them were ready to stop and the referee had to pull them apart.

“You’re no beast!”

ROUND 4

After that the two fighters were going at it on equal footing, this was a real fight now, not just a champion playing with a nobody.

The Kid landed a strong hit in The Beast’s side, making him wince in pain. The Beast started keeping his arms low to protect his side, allowing The Kid to get some good punches in.

But The Beast wasn’t ready to give up either, hitting him back with strong left hook making The Kid’s knees wobble and almost sending him to the floor a second time.

Disoriented and tired The Kid could do nothing else then block with his face. The Beast kept at him until an uppercut finally knocked The Kid down again.

It took him nine counts before he managed to drag himself up again using the ropes, but he wasn’t out, not yet.

The Beast shook his head in disbelief. This fight wasn’t over yet.

Ding.

ROUND 5

This round was for The Kid, The Beast compromising his defense by protecting his side too much, until one fatal blow send the champion to the ground.

The crowd gasped and the commentators couldn’t believe their eyes. For the first time in his career the champion was knocked down.

The Beast got up on the five count, but everyone realized The Kid might actually have a shot at winning this.

Ding.

“Coach, did you see that?” The Kid asked.

“See what? See you almost knocking out the champion? You bet I did.”

“No, no, there’s something weird about his blood. When I hit him I think he got cut, but it wasn’t red, it was almost green.”

“I don’t care if he bleeds green, yellow or blue, just knock him out already!”

ROUND 6

The Kid ran up to The Beast full of confidence and started pounding away, he hit him a couple of times, good hits, but something felt weird, it didn’t feel like hitting a human body, it felt grainier. He’s wasn’t hitting flesh, he was hitting something else.

He backed up until he was at the ropes and saw The Beast slowly transforming from a boxing champion into a real Beast.

Eight tentacles sprouted where his legs used to be, still dancing around the ring like a true boxer. His stomach burst open to reveal one big flaming eye in the center of its body. The flames reached out to The Kid, singing the hairs on his arms as he rose them up in defense.

Its head fell off to reveal nothing but a big gaping mouth with long spear-like teeth arranged in a circle around it.

The tentacles stretched out towards the crowd and the judges grabbing a judge and three audience members, The Beast shoved them down his mouth, which started contracting around their bodies piercing them with its spear-like teeth.

The Beast turned back towards The Kid who was unfazed and ready to continue. It was about to lunge forwards when—

Ding.

The Beast noticed the sound of the bell and whether conscious or driven by instinct it made its way back to its corner.

“Any ideas, Coach?” The Kid asked.

“Uhm. What?”

ROUND 7

He wouldn’t let a little thing like his opponent turning into an grotesque Eldritch abomination make him lose his footing. That’s not what he had trained for.

The Beast flailed its tentacles around and started spraying burning acid from its gaping mouth towards him.

The Kid dodged the acid and blocked the tentacles swinging towards him. He tried to get in closer to land a punch, but there was no opening to be found, six tentacles he might have been able to make it through, but eight was too much.

Ding.

“Alright Kid, change of tactic. You’re opponent has turned into a hideous beast ready to feast on your flesh so you gotta keep some distance. Go for longer, weaker punches, keep him at bay, wear him out and only get closer when he hasn’t got the energy to fight back,” The Coach told him having regained his composure.

ROUND 8

The Kid kept his distance striking back at the tentacles as they flung towards him, one of the suction cups stuck to his glove and he was unable to get it off. He started beating on it violently.

The Beast send a piercing scream through the auditorium while it retracted its tentacles and curled up in pain. The Kid went in on it and made his way through the tentacles and towards the flaming eye.

He started punching with all his might into the burning eye, his gloves melting and fusing with his skin, but he didn’t care. The Beast wept.

Ding.

“Finish this thing now,” The Coach said, “We have no idea what it’s capable of, so keep at it until it’s down and do it fast.

ROUND 9

In complete defense mode The Beast wrapped its tentacles around itself and sendt a rapid fire of acid flying towards The Kid. He got hit in the face several times, his face peeling off on contact.

Emboldened The Beast unwrapped one of its tentacles from around itself and started hitting The Kid with it again. Then a second, then a third, then a fourth. He was being knocked around unable to defend himself and he clawed at his own face with the gloves trying to get the acid off.

Right before the bell rang acid hit him in the eye and it melted it inside its socket. The acid burning in his skull.

Ding.

“Coach, my eye, it’s burning, you gotta scoop it out,” The Kid said.

“I’m not scooping it out your eye,” The Coach said pulling back his eyelid, “It’s still half there, maybe we can fix it later.”

ROUND 10

Unable to think straight due to the burning acid in his eye socket The Kid could do nothing but keep his fists up the whole round blocking as best as he could, but still being knocked around like a boxing bag.

Finally after 3 minutes of The Beast wiping the floor with a Kid in agony the bell rings to put an end to it.

Ding.

“You gotta scoop my eye out, Coach, it’s boiling inside my skull, I can’t focus, I can’t fight with my skull burning, please Coach,” The Kid pleaded.

“Alright, alright, I’ll do it,” he answered grabbing a spoon from his cutman kit.

ROUND 11

A flurry of hits and tentacle whips was exchanged throughout the round. The Kid, The Beast, The Kid, The Beast, in equal measures they beat up on each other furiously. Not a single second went by without either of them getting a hit in. This kept going right up to the bell ringing.

Ding.

“Just one more round to go, Kid,” The Coach said while dabbing his face with a towel to get rid of the remaining puss dripping from his eye socket.

“I don’t know if I’m gonna make it, he’s too tough, I’ve never seen anything like him,” The Kid said breathing heavy.

“Nonsense! I think you’ve actually got a chance to win this, Kid. It’s never seen anything like you either, that’s why it’s like this, you’ve done something no one has ever done before, you knocked it out, you drove it over the edge. Its shown it has true face, because its desperate, but its not enough, Kid, you’ve got fists of steel, now go use them to crush this Beast!”

FINAL ROUND

The two creatures, The Kid with his face beaten and scarred by the acid now seeming almost like a monster himself, were stumbling around the ring circling each other both unwilling to make the first move.

“Come on,” The Beast gestured towards himself with two of its tentacles.

“If you want me I’m right here,” The Kid replied.

They kept circling around like old men, until The Kid lunged forwards and started punching The Beast in the mouth breaking his spear-like teeth, the broken shards fell down The Beast’s open mouth cutting its insides open.

The Beast pushed him back with its tentacles, The Kid waved them aside and went back in on it. The Beast wrapped its tentacles around him as The Kid kept pounding at the creatures body, eye and mouth.

Ding.

The bell rang just as The Beast shot one of its tentacle inside The Kid’s mouth. A hundred eggs squirted out of the suckers into his body.

The Beast had found a worthy host.

Ding.

The Beast’s children moved through The Kid’s body eating him from the inside. His organs melting away as they vomited corrosive acid on them to soften him up.

Ding.

They started feeding themselves on him ripping him apart from the inside. It didn’t matter. He had done it. He had gone the distance. He had proven himself.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

"You have to be kidding? There's no way you got a table at Leben? There--- there's a waiting list of several months. How did you do it?" He asked excitedly.

"I got us on the waiting list. There's not much to it really, you just have to wait a bit," she answered.

"We're splitting the bill," he immediately said.

"We're not splitting the bill, it's your birthday!"

"Yeah, but I know how much it costs, I'm not letting you--"

"Yes, you are. You're my big brother and I owe you a lot. You've always managed to get us out of the woods safe and it's about time I payed you back. I know you've wanted to eat here for ages, so we're going in now and I'm paying or else I'm taking you to McDonald's instead, you hear me?"

"Alright, alright. Fine. But you've done plenty to pay me back already," he said drawing her in for a hug.

"Ooh, my god," he suddenly said dropping the lamb chop back on his plate.

"What?"

"There he is."

"Who? Where?"

"Serge. There."

"Who's Serge? And where's there?"

"He's the head chef. That guy over there," he pointed at the tousled hair, stubbly bearded rock star chef who noticed it and looked over at them with an odd smile.

"He's kind of hot," the sister said.

"He's the hottest chef at the moment."

She nearly spat out her drink all over him and had to wipe away the exorbitantly priced wine which was now dribbling from her chin.

"You think he's hot, huh?" She asked with a smirk.

"Yeah, the whole culinary world is talking about him. You know he used to travel the world working in the kitchen of a new multi-Michelin star restaurant every place he would go to. Then, a couple of years ago, they say he just disappeared into the jungle and—"

"Which jungle?" She interrupted her brother.

"I don't know, they always just say 'the jungle'. Anyway, he disappeared into some unnamed jungle only to show up again here a few months ago, start his own restaurant and get his a star only the second week it was open. The second week! Who knows where he's heading next." He concluded.

"Shh. Play it cool. Don't let him know you think he's hot too soon." She smiled.

"...I always looked up to you, because in a way I could relate, like how you were alone at a young age and..." he trailed off.

"You're an orphan too?" the Chef asked.

"Not exactly, but our parents sort of forced us to fend for ourselves when we were 15 and 14, they just couldn't handle or afford looking after us," he answered exchanging a sad look.

"That sucks."

"Yeah. It was terrible. Our---our dad contacted us again recently," his sister kicked him under the table, "Hey!"

"Don't tell him about our parents," she snarled at him, "I'm sorry, I don't really like talking to strangers about this," she said turning to the Chef.

"That’s fine, I totally understand. Why don’t you two talk it over over another bottle of wine on me and you..." the chef was interrupted by the sound of stomach growling loudly. "Excuse me. I haven't eaten all day."

"No food in the house, huh. Yeah, I have that problem all the time too," she joked.

"Listen, I'm going back in the kitchen, why don't you stick around after you've finished your meal, we're closing in about an hour, how about I show you around after?"

"Really? That would be—"

"—great! I'll see you in a bit."

"This is my masterpiece," the Chef said, "the biggest functional oven in any restaurant in the world."

They both looked around the room.

"I don’t see an oven anywhere," the sister said.

"You’re standing in it," the Chef smiled.

"Wait, this whole room is an oven?" The brother asked.

"Yep. I can hang six or seven whole cows in here roast them all day long until the meat is sliding of the bone, like sliding off their whole skeleton, and serve it straight away to the whole restaurant."

"That's--- that's something," the sister said.

"There's something else too, one final thing," the chef said smiling oddly.

"I thought this was your masterpiece?" the sister asked.

"Ooh, this is my professional masterpiece, but this next thing is more, well, let's call it a hobby of mine," he said leading them out of the oven to a bolted down door across from it.

Clank.

"Follow me."

They stepped in a small room containing a metal table covered with dark wine red stains on one side and a cage on the other. On the wall there were hanging various knives, axes and saws covered in the same dark stains.

"Get in the cage," the chef said pulling out a gun from underneath his apron.

"What?" the brother chuckled unsure of what the point of this joke was.

"I said get in the cage," he said firmly, with the same odd smile as before.

"Get behind me Gretel," Hansel said to his sister.

The chef pointed his gun at her and started cackling. "Stop! Your brother is getting in that cage now or I'm going to blow your juicy little brain out. Ahahaha!"

Hansel was locked in the cage while the chef was desperately shoveling caviar through the bars trying to get him to gorge himself.

"Just eat it! What do you want? What do you like? Please, it's a delicacy."

Hansel stared at him completely baffled. The chef threw down the shovel in frustration and stormed off. He returned with a piping back, filled it with caviar, grabbed Hansel's hair through the bars of the cage and forced the food down his throat. Hansel struggled until he almost choked and had no choice but to swallow it down.

"If you don't want to eat I can make you. Ahahaha!" the chef laughed.

Then he turned towards the sister tied down sideways on the blood stained table.

"What are you going to do her!? Leave her alone!" Hansel yelled.

The chef ignored him and cackled quietly to himself. Gretel's eyes widened in horror as he took a knife from the wall.

"I am going to feed you to him to fatten him up, get some of that marbling going on to make him taste even better, but not all of you. No, I'm going to save some of the choicest bits for myself. I can't let a rump like this go to waste," he said as he slapped her butt.

"Why? Why are you doing this? Just let us go." Gretel begged.

"Hahaha. It's not that I want to eat you, sweet girl, I just have no choice.

"You can't understand unless you've tasted the succulent meat of a slowly cooked human, there's nothing like it, trust me I've tried. I tried to find something to replace it, something to satisfy the craving.

"I've tried every meat every way. Cow, pig, chicken, sheep, lamb, buffalo, tiger, elephant, panda, gorilla, northern white rhino, I've had them ressurect a dodo for crying out loud.

"Roasting, broiling, grilling, braising, searing, frying, deep frying, pan frying, stir frying, simmering, smothering, steaming, steeping, stewing, smoking, rotisserie, sous-vide, barbecue, you name it.

"Nothing is so sweet, so savory, so juicy, so addicting, you can taste the fear, the anger, the love, the lust, the agony, the hope, you can taste their life.

"Have you ever tasted life? It's true what they say, you do become more when you eat another human, you gain their strength and their wisdom."

As he was about to slit Gretel's throat when the chef's stomach growled louder than any stomach had ever growled before.

"So. Hungry," he said clutching his stomach in pain. "I need to feed soon."

He pulled the knife back from against her throat and cut the ropes that had tied her to the table instead.

"Let me go!" Gretel yelled struggling against the chef.

He slammed her against the over door which opened inwards slightly.

"No!" she flailed around in a wild panic and kicked the chef in the groin. He fell collapsed onto her. Both of them now leaning on the door of the room sized over she grabbed him by the shoulders and turned both of them around, him now leaning against the door in pain.

She shoving all her weight against him and send him falling into his own oven. He looked up at her in fear and she quickly slammed the door shut locking him inside.

He got up and started banging on the window.

"Let me out you fucking bitch! Don't you fucking dare, I will eat your brains while you are alive, I swear, I will bite your tits off you cunt. I will---"

"I'm sorry, what's that? You're a bit chilly in there? Let me fix that for you," she said as she turned the heat up to the maximum.

He screamed as his skin started to boil and smoke. He started pounding on the window faster and faster.

"I was just kidding, I'll do anything, just let me out, I can, I can, I can get you a table at any restaurand whenever you want. You name it and you're there."

"I'll just make reservations myself, thanks."

"I've got money! You can have it, you can have my restaurant, my house, whatever, just leat me out, just please let me out."

She turned away from the window towards her brother's case to release him as the ungodly creature cooked to perfection.

"Next time I swear I am just taking you to McDonald's," Gretel said.

"I suppose I could use a McFlurry," Hansel replied.

"I hear they have a Gingerbread one now for a limited time."

"On second thought I think I'll pass on that," he said slinging his arm around her.

He was, as her friend had put it, a hunk beyond dreams.

He had a chiseled and strong yet playful face with a smirk that could have saved the titanic, because it would melt anyone and anything.

His body was muscular and defined, but at the same time warm and inviting, with big arms that could wrap around you so tightly you would forget the whole world.

"Make sure you sneak off to his bedroom, they say he is hiding a picture there that ages instead of him. He seems not to have aged in decades. Even if he doesn't have that painting, you never know what you'll find there," her friend had said giggling.

It had taken all her courage to aproach him. As he turned and looked at her she could feel her legs starting to tremble, but it didn't matter, because he was ready to sweep her off her feet anyway.

After a tour of the luxurious mansion he had left her in his private library while going to get some wine.

It was adjacent to his bedroom and Sabrine couldn't stop herself from going in. A shiver went through her spine as she entered and she started to feel uneasy.

It had been wrong of her to to let her curiosity take her here, she was about to leave when she caught the portrait she had heard rumoured about in the corner of her eye.

Sabrina looked at the painting on the wall and saw a picture of what used to be a man.

Black, hollow eyes revealing only a chasm where a soul would have been stared back at her. Its face was contorted into a greedy, lustful smile. It had a mouth filled with rows upon rows of teeth, like a shark's, congealed blood clinging to every tooth. A split tongue licking cracked lips in a manner that may have been meant to be seductive.

The face adorned a caved-in head that sat on a grotesque scaley blob of a body. Its reptilian skin stretched and burst open to reveal a fleshy red skin underneath. The stomach was expanded to its limit and she saw a hand pressed against it from the inside.

The hand of either a desperate victim trying to claw its way out or a monstrous child waiting to be born.

Shit and blood were dripping down the creature's legs towards its cloven hooves.

Bang

Sabrina heard the door slamming shut behind her and froze in fear, unable to move she could only wait for the next sound.

The sound of the door being locked.

Click-clack

This was not the kind of order you’d expect from a man like Commander Godfried, broad and serious looking with big bushy mutton chops that met up with an equally bushy moustache. He had the big frame and muscles of a knight and the gently expanding belly of a recent retiree.

“What!?” One of the guards, an old friend of the Commander, replied.

He looked around the town again, someone had fallen asleep leaning on their shovel, an old man was sleeping with his head in the lap of a little girl, someone else was hanging from the rope he’d been using to get water from the well, but most people looked as if they’d just dropped where they stood for an impromptu nap.

He had heard the term ‘sleepy little village’ before, but this was taking things too far.

“I’ve seen this before, not with this many people though, it’s some sort of curse, nothing will wake them except for a kiss,” he continued.

“You want us to kiss everyone in this whole town? This is not why I joined the Royal Guard. You promised me adventure and great battles and the chance to uphold the justice of the King,” Jerre, the old friend, grumbled.

“Well, you know, this is what it’s like--- sometimes. Besides, I thought you were looking forward to fighting evil curses.”

“This is not exactly what I imagined. How do you even know kissing will even break the spell?”

“Basic training.”

“You promised---”

“I think all I ever promised you was a pardon for petty theft,” the Commander interrupted. Jerre was an exceedingly shady figure who you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley, mainly because he had somehow got a Dark Alley Tax passed and had secured himself a position as the sole tax collector. He was also the Commander’s oldest and best friend. Those descriptors should be taken with a grain of salt. The same for the word friend.

After having been arrested by the Commander he Voluntarily and Gladly, the names of the Commander’s two swords, joined the Royal Guards.

Jerre continued to grumble to himself, this time making sure he couldn’t be overheard and corrected.

“A-are you sure this will work?” Another guard, the youngest, said.

“There’s only one way to find out,” the commander replied gesturing to the farmer leaning on his shovel.

“You want me to do it?”

“Yes, erm, what’s your name again?”

“Hrodebert.”

“What?”

“Hrodebert.”

“Right. Okay. Bob. This is your chance to be the hero you always dreamed of being. Didn’t you tell me you always wanted to be a chivalrous knight? You wanted to protect the common man and kiss princesses?”

“Yeah,” he said. Hrodebert was excessively tall and unnaturally thin, making him sway back and forth in the wind like a tall tree. To call him lanky would be an understatement. He was, in a word, floppy. He was also a dreamer and had been knight in his own head since he was born.

“Well, admittedly things are a bit mixed up, but here’s your chance. Time to kiss the common man and, somehow, protect princesses.”

“Are we sure we should even wake them? It could be an evil village frozen to protect the world,” Jerre said.

“An evil village?” the Commander asked.

“Yes!”

“Full of evil farmers and evil carpenters?”

“You have no idea, City Boy.”

The Commander ignored this and turned back to Hrodebert. “Bob! Pucker up for God and Country.”

“Yes, sir!”

Hrodebert strode over to the farmer filled with confidence ready to do what was necessary. To do what was right. To take his place among the great heroes of history. Then he froze, looked around awkwardly and turned back.

As everyone shook their head Laura, another guard and not a small part of the reason he had joined the Guards, mouthed to him “You can do it”.

He turned around, closed his eyes and gave the farmer a quick peck on the lips. He immediately opened his eyes wide and put his shovel to use against the side of Hrodebert’s head.

“Ow! I’m waking you up from a curse! I’m waking you up from a curse!” Hrodebert yelled defensively.

“I’ll give you something to curse about!” replied the farmer with his shovel in the air.

“Doesn’t it feel good to help people?” the commander asked.

The Fairy sensed her magic spell being broken. Someone in the village had already woken up. The duke couldn't have arrived yet; someone else must have discovered the place. Whoever these fools were they were ruining everything, ruining her only chance to make it into the Fairy Godmothers.

The Fairy Godmothers where neither fairies nor godmothers, they were simply short, stout witches---all of them; no one dared question their hiring practices---with a knack for cons wrapped in fairy tale lore. Their exploits had earned them the nickname 'Fairy Conmothers'.

This 'Fairy' was born to join the Godmothers; she wasn't just short and stout she was round, really, really round. She was almost perfectly spherical. A little round ball. That's why she never wore orange, she didn't want people trying to peel her.

As far back as she could remember she always wanted to be a Godmother. To her it was better than being a beautiful princess, better than being a powerful witch, better than any quest she could ever go on.

The Fairy Godmothers were notoriously reserved and wouldn't let anyone inside their circle. There were only ever seven Fairy Godmothers, no more, and there were always hundreds of little witches waiting for an opening. Some were not happy to just sit around and wait. The Assassin's Guild declined every job involving a Fairy Godmother and being discovered trying to kill a Fairy Godmother yourself was a sure-fire way not to get the position, so most just sat around waiting unhappily.

The Fairy tried to work her way up to them by joining the local Thieves' Guild, she had considered joining the Con Artist Guild, but they turned out to be a scam for people who want to become con artists, but are too stupid to realize it's a bad idea to walk into a Con Artist Guild.

After a few months of being a thief in the capital the Guild kicked her out for breaking the Immorality Clause. They accused her of a total lack of a lack of a moral compass.

So she went at it on her own, making sure that her schemes drew plenty of attention, hoping to catch the eye of one of the Godmothers.

Eventually, she was given the opportunity to prove herself to the Fairy Godmothers. She had to pull off one fairy con on her own as a test. She had settled on an old classic called The Sleeping Beauty, perfect for trapping princes, but she was sure a duke wouldn't be any harder. She believed a lone princess wasn't enough to draw attention anymore, so she had dialed it up to thirteen by making it a whole town. And by throwing in a little extra surprise.

It was this surprise waking up that was worrying her.

"Bob and Laura, you cover the part of town past the bakery," the Commander said, "Jerre, you and I..."

"Ahem," Reinhilde, the burly, imposing guard who'd been standing next to the Commander ahemed. "They're at it again," she pointed towards the Dreamy Archer and the Beautiful Magic Wielder who were making out under a tree.

"Unbelievable. And they're supposed to be the Guards that are actually capable," the Commander said ignoring the looks the other guards gave him, "Reinhilde, can you do something about this?"

She nodded, took her axe and threw it towards the tree, hitting it right above the annoyingly lovely couple.

"Oi! We have a job to do," the farmer yelled over to them. She glared at them with her hands on her hips, reminding the Commander, as she often did, of an angry goose quacking at her chicks.

"Finally! A quest! An opportunity to prove my bravery and undying love to the most beautiful creature in the world," the archer said not once taking his eyes of the magic wielder.

The dreamy archer had flowing shoulder length hair and a stubbly beard, proving that arrowheads didn't make for very good razors.

"I always tried to convince my wife that I only went around kissing other people because I loved her so much, too," Jerry said.

"What? What is this about kissing other people," the archer asked confused.

"We have to wake up this whole village and that's the only way to do it," the Commander explained.

"Impossible! I can't kiss an other besides you," he said turning back towards the magic wielder, "I only long for your sweet lips, anyone else's will taste like ash and rot."

"Ooh, Aldric."

"Ooh, Milena."

"Ooh, Aldric, you sweet angel, I too long for no one's lips but yours, yet we need to save these pour souls," the magic wielder said gently.

"Someone please save my soul from this wretched hell," Jerre said desperately looking up at the sky.

"Your lips are as magical as your spells and I would not deny the blessing of your magic to anyone who needs it, I can only be thankful for what you have blessed me with," the archer conceded.

Jerre turned towards the Commander and said: "This is not why I joined the Royal Guards."

"Jerre you go with the two of them, I don't want them to get too distracted by exchanging longing glances and no one can stand the endless weeping you get when you split them up, so keep an eye on them."

"How dare you trivialize our undying love, you brute! Repent or unsheathe your sword and prepare to die," the archer yelled out.

"You know, you are a brute. Doing this," Jerre said pointing from him to the couple, "to me is brutality."

"Before the mutiny and the duels to the death how about you listen to your Brute-in-chief and start waking up these villagers."

"I'll just go an check on my crops," the farmer said to himself not having any idea what was going, but not wanting to stick around for much longer if their plan was to continue this kissing nonsense.

"You just interrupted a lovely Hex-Mex lunch, I hope it's worth it," the Head Godmother said.

"I think someone is breaking the sleeping spell."

"I knew she shouldn't have used the sleeping trick again, it's outdated. She's always resorting to the same tricks," the Head Godmother's assistant, who had always hated the Fairy, said.

"It's not the same trick, it's an entirely different scheme, just because the magic's the same---"

"You need to put more more variation in your petty little scams. What you're missing is creativity. You can't be a Fairy Godmother without it. How they ever allowed such a one trick pony to join in the first place I'll never understand," said the Head Godmother"s assistant.

"One trick pony? Ooh, right, speaking of a one trick pony, why don't you change a carrot into a horse. Or, no, wait, how about a cabbage? Yeah, that's totally different."

"Why, you little..."

"Girls!" the Head Godmother interrupted. "Must you two always bicker? You both, let's say, know how to infuse classics with a new spirit, ok? Now enough arguing, we're not going to solve our problems that way."

"Yes, Godmother," they both said.

"I'm not the one who keeps causing problems," the assistant said under her breath.

"What about the time your carriage changed back into a pumpkin with the girl still in it?" she shot back.

The Head Godmother started giggling, as anyone would do after being reminded of the sight of a pumpkin with arms and legs, one leg missing a shoe, sticking out of it.

"Hohohooo. Those little legs flapping about," she cried. "Ahem!" She managed to regain her composure.

"Anyway!" the Godmother's assistant yelled.

"Ooh, yes, back to the issue at wand," the Head Godmother said, still chuckling, "It is all up to you. You had free rein and as far as I'm concerned you still do. It is up to you to---"

"She screwed up! Her plan failed! She's not suitable, mistress, she's messed up and it's time to move on to a better candidate," the assistant interrupted.

"Plans fail. Everyone knows that, it's not about if your plan fails or not, it's about how you handle yourself when things go wrong."

"So I still have a chance?"

The Godmother's assistant scoffed.

"Yes. You still have a chance, but we won't be helping you at all. Now go."

"A whole town of sleeping beauties. Well," Jerre eyed a woman sleeping on a pile of dirty linen, "in a manner of speaking. We've got quite the job ahead of us."

He eyed the woman again and turned towards Aldric and Milena, "I think the Commander intended for me to have more of a supervising position in this task, I am a senior Guard after all. Why don't you start, Aldric?"

"I, err, yes, honour dictates that I must do what is necessary to protect the people."

"Ooh, noble Aldric," Milena sighed.

The archer quickly pecked the woman on each cheek and jumped back. Nothing happened.

"It's three kisses over here," Jerre said, "wastes a lot of time if you ask me."

He started over giving her three, even shorter, kisses this time. Still nothing happened.

"No, just the lips, I'm afraid."

"That goes to far! I'm sorry Milena, but I cannot do it."

"I understand, Aldric," she said, "Perhaps there is another way. If this is some kind of curse then surely a spell should be able to lift it again."

She walked towards the woman and held her hands above her body. The wind blowing through the trees quited down and was replaced by an angelic choir from the heavens, a white light surrounded Milena and the woman becoming brighter and brighter. Eventually the music came to a climax, the light shone as bright as the full moon at night and finally... Nothing happened.

"No, again, just the lips, I'm afraid," Jerre said. "How about we give it a rest for now? I take it this isn't why you joined the Royal Guards either."

Drained by the magic Milena collapsed, but before she could hit the ground Aldric had rushed towards her to kiss and cradle her, making Jerre wish he�d fallen under a sleeping curse himself.

"No, not exactly," Milena replied exhausted.

"Why did you join anyway? It's not exactly the most esteemed institution. Not something I would expect to attract two such, err, noble people."

They shot each other one of those meaningful yet incomprehensible looks.

"We were looking for adventure," Aldric answered.

"Adventurous enough?"

What she was afraid of turned out to be true. Some band of idiots was waking up the whole village. That was the biggest flaw in her plan, anyone could walk into town and start waking them up.

If only the fairies had kept the antidote to the sleeping trick to themselves, but that was the trouble with fairies, they were always telling their tales.

She had to stop them, she would just put them under a sleeping spell too and keep the plan going. If she had time.

That was the problem. There was a trickling hourglass waiting to go off. As soon as that final grain of sand hit the bottom, as soon as that last villager woke up, all hell, or at least part two of her plan, was going to break loose.

"I bet kissing an entire village is not what you imagined when you were dreaming of being a knight, was it?" Laura asked.

"I, well, I mean, it's just, err, you know," Hrodebert went red in the face. After he had stammered his way through through every filler word in the dictionary he managed to pull himself together and replied: "Did you dream? I mean, what was your dream growing up?"

"I wanted to be a detective, when I was little I loved the stories of Father White, Father Orange, Father Pink, Father Blonde, Father Blue and Father Brown. I always knew I wanted to become a Detective Monk."

"A what?"

"You don't know what a Detective Monk is?" she said in astonishment.

"No."

"The Detective Monks!"

"I gathered, but who are they?"

"They travel across the land solving mysteries and teaching religious lessons."

"Mysteries!"

"Yes, and religious less---" "I love mysteries."

"So do I, but the odds of me becoming a Detective Monk are rather slim, some sort of technicality in Church law apparently," she concluded sadly.

"You could be a nun, are there nun detectives?" he asked.

"I don't know, there's the Mystery Nuns, but---" she thought.

"But, what?"

"No one really knows what they do. I did try to join the City Watch, but I lost track of time and failed to show up at the exam. They're more the stab it with a spear first, ask questions never type, though, not proper detectives," she said.

"I know what that's like. I did try to become a knight once, but it turns out people are being quite literal when they say the nobility is built on nepotism," he sighed and the two of them walked through the village in silent disappointment for a while.

"But, hey," Hrodebert started, trying to be chipper again, "maybe this is our chance to find out the mystery of this quite little town and the to fight Fierce Dragons and Evil Witches and---"

Laura stopped in her tracks and looked at the ground. "What are these tracks?"

As she crouched down to take a closer look her tunic pants tightened around her legs, the guard's pants may have hidden them before, but now Hrodebert couldn't help but stare. She was something else he thought, she was easy to talk to, she looked good and she smelt--- actually she smelt terrible, she smelt like--- wait, that wasn't her. He looked around across the field and saw a giant brown pile of---

"Oh, my God, it's a---"

"CLUE!" Laura exclaimed.

"Yeah, a big one," he replied retching and coughing.

While everyone else was focusing on themselves and wasting time the Commander and the burly Guard were efficiently and orderly getting the job the done.

They would each switch between the tasks of kissing and explaining what the hell they were doing.

"The truth is Reinhilde---"

Kiss.

"---I think the Duke send us off on a pointless mission, because he doesn't trust the King and he thinks we're his spies."

Explain.

"However the King couldn't care less about us because he's halfway across the continent and as long as the Lowlands bring in taxes he's not bothered about enforcing laws or protecting his realm."

Smooch.

"We're his guards, Commander, his personal protection," Reinhilde disagreed.

"Right, the famous Local Royal Guards," the Commander replied.

Illustrate.

"The King isn't here, you know, Locally," he pointed out.

"Yes, but..."

"So who are we Guarding?"

Peck.

"His subjects?" Reinhilde tried.

"Face it Reinhilde, we're not a prestigious elite unit, we're just a fluke. A quirk of the system. An odd, forgotten leftover of an arcane bureaucracy," the Commander concluded.

Tell.

Caress.

Justify.

The Fairy had made it to the cave and, if they were as inept as they seemed, hopefully the Guards had left her enough time to undo the binding spell and prevent part two of her plan from waking up.

She slowly made her way through the golden coins, past the shining diamonds and the virgin skeletons. If it wasn't for inflation and the alchemy bubble of the '90s she could've just grabbed the nearest handful and she wouldn't need to bother with the whole plan. Unfortunately virgin skeletons just don't go for what they used to anymore.

She headed further down the cave and there it was, the key part of her plan, the giant dormant Dragon. Still asleep.

People were terrified of Dragons, but as it lay there gently breathing, its enormous body moving up and down in a slow repetitive rhythm, puffs of smoke occasionally flowing out of its nostrils she couldn't help but admire the beautiful beast.

Then it gently rose its head, gently opened its eyes and gently roared at her until she went deaf.

She was too late. Or was she...

"You big dummy!" she yelled.

The Dragon's eyes widened in anger.

"You heard me. The guy behind you is stealing all your gold."

The Dragon spun around to look, they were noble creatures, but incredibly stupid. As it spun around its tail knocked the Fairy over and her sleeve got caught on one of the spikes.

As soon as the Dragon realized it had been tricked it spun back around to face her, but still hanging from its tail by her sleeve she was spun around as well.

The Dragon made a confused grunt and spun around again to see were she'd gone. No, not on that side. Not on the other side either. No, still not on that side.

It spun and spun until it got dizzy and decided it needed some fresh air and flew out of the cave still dragging the Fairy behind it hanging from its tail.

After everyone was kissed awake the whole village gathered in the town square and it was all very awkward. Everyone was so quiet you could hear a mouse coughing.

"Thanks, I suppose, but who are you?" one of the villager asked breaking the silence.

"We're the Royal Guards," the Commander explained.

"Royal Guards? We don't have a King do we? I thought we had a Duke?" Another villager wondered in surprise.

"What about the Emperor? Are we still part of the Empire?" someone else chimed in.

"Well, yes, there's the Empire and the Lowlands are part of it, but strangely enough I don't think the Kingdom is. I'm not sure how that works, to be honest," another one tried to clarify, but she only ended up confusing everyone.

"Is it even a Kingdom? I thought it was just a bunch of complicated personal unions?"

"Wasn't the King the Duke once?"

"No, the Emperor was the Duke."

"No, no, no, the King was the Emperor."

"Politics," one of the villagers grumbled.

"Politics?"

"You know that thing were someone gets very angry and says their way of not solving a problem is better than your way of not solving problem."

"Bloody politics," the village concluded in unison.

"Anyway, what happened to here, how come you were all under a sleeping spell?" the Commander asked trying to get things back on track.

None of the villager seemed to know any more about who or what had put them under the sleeping spell than they did about politics.

"What's that over there?" Laura asked.

They all turned to where she was pointing.

"Is that a bird or some sort of crazy new invention?" Hrodebert said excitedly.

In the distance a Dragon was flyng through the air, a small, purple blob hanging from its tail.

The small purple blob was yelling out in fear and desperately trying to grab on to the Dragon's tail.

Just as she almost had it the Dragon took a nosedive and she lost her grip and the sleeve of dress which was hanging from one of the tail spikes started to rip.

The Dragon spit flames at the ground and used the updraft of the hot air to lift itself up more. The heat almost overwhelmed the Fairy and just as she was about to pass out her sleeve ripped some more and panic shook her awake.

She was, and you might hate this, literally hanging from a thread now. She briefly hung swinging below the Dragon's tail suspended from the thread and then her sleeve started to unravel slowly lowering her down until a final fatal rip send her plummeting to the ground.

She hit a tree on her way down and passed out.

"Everybody calm down," the Commander said, "We can't panic. Panicking is what gets you killed when faced with a Dragon."

"Not being fireproof is what gets you killed when faced with a Dragon," Jerre corrected him, "That and not being able to fly."

"We just need a plan."

"I've got a plan!" Hrodebert said excitedly.

"What's your plan?" the commander asked.

"When the Dragon strikes, we hit it with our swords."

"Well, that's a plan if I've ever heard one," Jerre said.

"The first thing we need to do is find out if it's a Fire Dragon or a Water Dragon. If it's a Fire Dragon we'll be perfectly safe. Fire Dragons are friendly to humans, Water Dragons are hostile," Milena explained.

"Yes, that's good, now how can we tell if it's a Fire Dragon or a Water Dragon?" as the Commander said this a giant flame erupted from the Dragon's mouth answering that question. "Well, that answers that question," he concluded.

"We're safe! God has blessed us. We can embrace our loved ones in peace," Aldric said tearing up.

As everyone looked away in embarrassment and turned back towards the Dragon they saw it turn its flame towards a nearby cottage burning it to ash.

"I'm pretty sure that only counts for Ruritanian Dragons," Jerre said.

"Everybody start panicking!" one of the villagers yelled and so they did. They screamed and ran off in all directions.

The Fairy was calmly floating through the air. She passed a flock of birds who all winked at her and said "good job, keep it up."

The face of her mother appeared through the clouds and her voice booming from the heavens spoke: "I'm proud of you honey, you're doing amazing."

In the distance a loot player was strumming an upbeat feel good song from her childhood. The sun shone on her face and a gentle breeze blew through her hair.

Everything was all right and would always stay like that.

The smell of chestnuts roasting on an open fire filled her nose and she started to salivate.

Her eyes shot open. "The Dragon!"

Smoke was billowing towards her across the field, in the distance she saw her fears had come true, half the village was in flames.

'We can't charge against it, Commander, it'll burn our skin straight off. If only we had someone that didn't need to worry about that,' Jerre said.

In unison they all proclaimed: 'Dr. Bones!'

Dr. Bones, the walking skeleton, walked straight through the fire in all his skeletony glory, unharmed.

'Hahaha! No longer will I be known as the 'Skeleton Man', I mean, my name is DR. BONES, why would you even bother with a nickname in the first place? How stupid do you have to be? Never mind from now off on I will be know as The Immortal Dr. Bones! I will crush this Dragon and then I will come for you all! I am Deus Ex Skele---'

Before he could finish his ridiculous diatribe the Dragon readied himself, dug his claws deeper in the ground, puffed himself up twice his size and took a deep, deep breath.

'Ooh, no,' Dr. Bones began.

A Bright blue flame shot from the Dragon's mouth. This fire didn't leave the skeleton unharmed, instead Dr. Bones' bones started to smoke and steam, he was flailing around wildly and screaming at a horrifying pitch only a magical creature could ever reach. After a while nothing but white ashes were left of the immortal Dr. Bones.

'Ooh, crud,' Dr. Bones' ashes said as they flew away in the wind.

The Dragon faced the Guards who had drawn their weapons and were ready to attack, well, they pretended like they were ready to attack anyway.

The archer looked at the magic wielder and said, "guide my arrows, my love." She nodded. He shot arrow after arrow into the air, they didn't fly towards the dragon, instead they landed around it in a circle their points sticking into the ground, encircling the beast entirely.

Then he shot a second round of arrows, these landed exactly where the previous ones had, splitting the arrow halfway down. Then another round, again landing on the previous round's arrow, and then another and another, arrow upon arrow upon arrow, all perfectly aimed until they formed high bars imprisoning the dragon.

"Wow," Hrodebert said. The Dreamy Archer beamed with pride at the Charming Magic Wielder.

The Dragon looked at the makeshift prison confused, then it casually shrugged its leathery shoulders and swiped the arrows aside.

"Ooh," the archer said beaming with shame.

"They're just arrows, a bunch of little sticks, did you really think that could hold back a Dragon?" Jerre said.

One of the villagers had come out of hiding to retrieve his pitchfork and tried to run off again when he was stopped by Reinhilde.

"Give me that," she said.

She took the pitchfork off him, threw it into the Dragon's mouth like a spear and it disappeared into it.

The Dragon angrily turned towards her and tried to breathe fire on her, but it didn't work, something was stopping it.

It started coughing and puffing loudly, it wasn't choking, it was making the kind of noises you make when having an annoying bit of fish bone stuck in the back of your throat.

"All right everyone, it's un...mouthed," the Commander said, "Get ready to charge."

The Fairy was speeding through the air. If she didn't end this now the Dragon would kill them all or even worse they'd kill the Dragon and any chance of putting the plan back in action would be ruined.

Not wanting to waste any time she crash landed between the Dragon and Guards causing her to waste a lot of time getting her head straight after the impact.

"Stop! Don't kill it," she said to the Guards, or possibly to the Dragon.

"Who are you," the Commander asked.

"It's a witch," the villager who had his pitchfork rudely snatched from him yelled, "Burn her! Burn the witch!" If only he had his pitchfork now he thought.

"No, I can make the Dragon go away."

"Help her! Help the witch!" the villager yelled again, just as angry as before.

The Dragon was now trying to get the pitchfork out with it's little claw fingers down its mouth.

"I can calm it down and put it to sleep, just give me some time and try to hold it back if needed," she said to the Commander.

"Ok. Everyone gather around her and get ready to attack on my command," he said turning to his team. They all formed a semicircle around her, except for Jerre who quietly and unnoticed took a step backwards.

The Fairy turned towards the Dragon and started to preform her sleeping spell. The Dragon stopped trying to pull the pitchfork out of its mouth and focused on the Fairy.

As she sang her spell the Dragon's head started to move slowly down to the ground, its eyes got smaller and smaller and its breathing heavier and heavier.

The Fairy had never preformed the sleeping spell on a creature this large, but it all seemed to be working. However Laura noticed something was off, while its head was lowering to the ground and its eyes were almost closed the rest of its body was tensed up and ready to pounce.

"Everybody watch out, something's wrong.

The Dragon raised its head again and pounced forward.

"Now!" the commander yelled.

Reinhilde jumped in front of the Fairy to shield her and Aldric started shooting arrows towards the Dragon holding it back. A rock hit the Dragon in the face.

"Hey, you smelly bastard," Jerre yelled from across the town square. "I'm talking to you. Think you're a big Dragon fighting a small Fairy?"

The Dragon turned his head towards him and slowly headed towards him. Hrodebert unsheathed his sword and the noise made the Dragon whip his head back towards the rest of the group.

Hrodebert lifted his sword, gave a primal scream and ran towards the Dragon. It lowered its head to face him on his level and opened wide ready to spit fire, but Hrodebert just ran straight into its mouth.

At first not sure what to do about this the Dragon decided to just stick to what he knew and started to chew. Hrodebert dogged the teeth and swung his sword at the Dragon's tongue.

"It's distracted by whatever Bob is doing in there, you have to finish your spell now before it's too late," the Commander said to the Fairy.

"I can't do it, I tried, but I'm not strong enough on my own," she replied.

"You're not on your own, I can do magic too, just tell me what to do," Milena interjected.

The Fairy and the Magic Wielder stood side by side and preformed the spell together. The Dragon spit out Hrodebert and prepared to torch him as planned, it opened its mouth, but all that escaped from it was a loud snore.

A loud cheer went through the town, people were dancing and singing and shouting, out of nowhere a tuba started playing and the fanfare came marching in.

"Everybody quiet down," the Commander said anxiously, "you're going to wake it up."

"Don't worry, Commander, with the spell we managed to put on it this creature won't be waking up any time soon," Milena explained.

"Is it kiss proof too?" the Commander asked.

"Only a true love's kiss of another Dragon would work," the Fairy answered.

"Well, it'll have to do for now."

Milena turned towards the Fairy. "You were amazing! Where did you learn that kind of Magic?"

"Ooh, I just sort of picked it up here and there," she said turning slightly red.

"What were you doing here? Did you known something was going on, it almost felt like you had that prepared," Laura asked suspiciously.

"I was just passing through. Anyway, what brought you here to this remote, quiet little village perfect for any, purely theoretical, set ups? You don't look like you're from around here," she quickly said, diverting the question.

"We're on a quest to retrieve the King's New Gold from the nearby abbey," Hrodebert blurted out.

The New Gold was an invention from the nobles after the alchemy bubble had devalued the old gold. It was newer, better, shinier gold and they claimed what had happened to the old gold could never happen to the New Gold because it got its value from Magical Riddles or something.

No one really knew how it worked, but it was all the range.

"Gold at the abbey--- I mean bravely defend the King's gold? Is there any chance I could join such a noble institution and help you protect the Kingdom?"

Her plan with the sleeping village and the Dragon may not have worked out, but as if by faith a hint of a new con to prove her worth to the Fairy Godmothers had shown itself. She'd need to improvise, but maybe that wasn't too bad, plans tended to fail anyway.

"We could always use another Magic Wielder on our quest couldn't we, Commander, especially one as good as her?" Milena asked.

"As if one isn't enough trouble," Jerre grumbled.

"I don't know about this, Commander," Laura said.

"And so the fellowship grows. On to new adventures!" Hrodebert exclaimed.

"Half our village is still on fire," one of the villagers pointed out.

"Beyond the horizon lies a whole new world filled with many dangers, evil fiends and noble allies."

"This will take ages to rebuild and what are we going to do for food now that most of our crops have been ruined," the villager continued.

"We shall face it with bravery and an iron clad resolve."

"You can't out-brave a famine," he said.

"Our swords will guide us through the darkness."

"You can't eat swords," he replied in despair.

"Our hearts will keep us straight," Hrodebert kept going, oblivious to the villager.

"You know Reinhilde, I think you're right, maybe the purpose of the Local Royal Guards is to protect the King's subjects," the commander said.

"There's a Dragoin in the middle of the town square, where are we supposed to have the market now?" the villager wondered.

"Everybody ready?" the Commander asked.

"Ready, sir!" the Guards replied in unison.

He pushed back his hood to get a better view. Not in the mood for his traditional robe he had resorted to a hoodie woven out of pure darkness. One with little strings to tighten the hood. When you’re invisible to the living no one can force their dress code on you.

Recently Death had grown a beard, it was an odd look combined with the skull, but he liked that it gave him something to stroke when puzzled by humans. His cat took that role before, but she was off on one of her mysterious holidays.

She would’ve loved the play. She loved all musicals, except for Cats which she found incredibly offensive.

The Actor hit his final note and the crowd rose in jubilation applauding loudly and throwing flowers onto the stage. Before they could land Death slashed at them with his scythe causing them to wither and die. The Actor was allergic and he didn’t want him to go out sneezing.

Not after a performance like that. The performance of a lifetime as they say. Certainly of The Actor’s lifetime Death knew.

The Actor took in the crowd’s love one last time and headed backstage. Death was waiting for him when he entered his dressing room.

“Ooh, hello, are you from the theatre?” The Actor asked in surprise, but not as much surprise as you’d expect.

“No.”

“That’s a very serious face you’ve got there. We haven’t been cancelled, have we?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Death replied, “Now, let’s discuss your retirement.”

At Death's Door

A teen girl with fiery eyes that had seen the pits of hell many times was waiting at Death’s door.

She sat slumped down on his doorstep with the complete lack of energy unique to young people usually bursting with energy. This type of slump is what you get when they actually burst.

Her father, who happens to be the Devil, had told her she shouldn’t be hanging around hell all the time and sent her off to work with her uncle, Death, for a couple of days. “Death never sleeps, let alone until noon. It’ll do you good,” he had said.

“What the devil are you doing here?” Death asked.

“That’s not funny, Uncle Death,” she moaned.

“You kids these days have no sense of humour,” Death claimed. “I’m just saying, this isn’t exactly the most lively place.”

She rolled her eyes and gave up on moaning a second time. “Dad sent me.”

“Why?”

“Probably because he’s evil.”

“Don’t say your dad is evil,” Death reprimanded her.

“He is evil. That’s the whole point of him,” she said in an I-know-everything tone.

“Still.”

“He said I have to follow you around to learn about hard work, but I know all about that already, I mean, have you ever tried to straighten your hair in hell? The humidity is unbearable,” the Devil’s Daughter complained.

“I can’t say I have,” he said stroking his beard.

“I should be finding myself and figuring out the meaning of life. You can’t help with that,” she continued.

“It’s not really my department.” Death agreed.

She looked down. “Are you wearing pyjama pants? Are you-- Did you lose your cat again? You always get weird when you lose your cat.”

“I didn't lose her, she's on vacation. And I don't get weird, I don't do weird. Death is serious business. As for these?" He looked down at the silky pants with the Casper the Ghost print on them, "They were a gift. Now, tell me, is your father up to something?” he asked, avoiding further comments.

“God only knows,” she said.

“He probably does,” Death paused and grinned, not that he had much choice, “‘God only knows?’ I’m rubbing off on you already.”

Death and the Devil

A deathly sigh came through the gates of hell.

The Devil turned around and said: “Death, what brings you here? You rarely do direct delivery.”

“Is there any anywhere we could talk?” Death asked over the anguished screams of the damned. "You know, without all this noise? I feel like I'm in a night club."

“Sure, follow me to my office and close the gate behind you. It’s always such a bother when the dead start roaming the earth,” he answered.

The Devil lead the way and Death followed. As they walked past sinner after sinner Death felt like they were going around in circles, which obviously they were.

Eventually they arrived at the most dreadful, drab, dingy, depraved and dark office one could imagine, a place devoid of any hope. However, it had a plant in the corner, so it wasn’t all bad.

The Devil’s assistant was frantically flinging receipts and forms around and angrily glared at the Devil.

“For the six hundred and sixty sixth time you have to document your deals better. You offer everyone all they want in exchange for their soul, but someone has to organize and deliver those requests. You can’t promise two people all the wealth in the world at the same time, it makes no sense,” she said extremely exasperated and exhausted.

“You’re doing great, sweetie,” the Devil said dismissively. He turned towards Death and asked him what he wanted to talk about.

“You want your daughter to follow me around?”

“That would be great,” the devil said covered in schmaltz.

“Why?”

“Because I’m worried about her. She sits around all day not doing anything, not showing any interest in this hell hole or any of the other ones,” the Devil explained, “Maybe if she had something to do…”

“I see. Helping me with the bookkeeping and paperwork that kind of thing?” Death asked suspiciously.

“She really needs to get out more,” the Devil tried, “I remember when we would stroll around her sitting on my shoulders so she could watch the telemarketers get tormented. Now she says it’s all pointless and cruel and stays indoor the whole day.”

“Right, you want me to take her with me into the field,” Death said, his eye sockets unable to narrow.

“Perfect!”

“I have some nice calm deaths, gently into the night and all that, coming up, what do you say?” Death asked.

“I don’t think she’d be interested in that. Kids need a lot of excitement for things to grab their attention.”

“Excitement? What about a murder? A gruesome revealing-the-dark-side-of-human-nature homicide. Is that what you were thinking of? Forget about it, I’m not doing it,” Death said having put his bony finger on the Devil’s real motive.

“Are you mad? Is this about the plague again? Come on! It was good fun,” the Devil said jovially jabbing him in the side-bone.

Death swiped the hand away with his scythe and said: “I’m not here for you to teach your daughter whatever horrible things you want her to learn about people.”

“I’m not—your cat away again, isn’t she? You always get like this when your cat is away.”

Death Comes Home

Death had returned hoping to end the day with a nice cup of hot cocoa. Having recently guided a nice shopkeeper along he had gotten hold of a pack of two day expired biscuits that would go great with it. Death didn’t mind out-of-date biscuits, out-of-date biscuits were what his job was all about he thought.

“Go to hell,” Death said to the Devil’s Daughter lying on his sofa flicking through his books.

“Very funny,” she said in a tone suggesting it was the least funny thing she’d ever heard. “What’s with these boring old books? Don’t you have a computer or a tablet?”

“They tell me books are dead,” he replied. “You should go home. I don’t need an assistant.”

“Fine. I didn’t want to work with people anyway; people are the worst. Dead or alive,” she said. “Maybe I’ll just follow Dad’s footsteps and resign myself to torturing them for all eternity. So boring. Whatever,” she got up to leave.

“Hold on.“

She stopped a little too quickly for someone perfectly fine with leaving.

“We’ll head out now, but let me first put on some different pants,“ Death said.

“Fine.”

A Case For Death

Death was haunting a bakery and the Devil’s Daughter was on his heels. Inside the nice little bakery a nice little old lady was making nice chocolate covered carrot cake.

“So she’s going to die? How? Is she going to choke on her own cake? Will she fall into her own oven? Will the carrot cake garrote her seeking revenge?” the Devil’s Daughter asked Death.

“I don’t know yet, but the last option seems unlikely,” Death answered.

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re Death incarnate, can’t you sense how everyone will die?” she said in surprise.

“Not always.“

“Does it matter? Can’t you wait for her to die to find out? I mean, that’s the point you come in anyway.”

“I need to figure out the cause of her death so I can guide her along properly. The way someone dies affects the way they approach moving on and sometimes the where they go. Besides, I can’t show up not even knowing what caused me; I’d feel like a real fool.“

“How come you can’t sense what will kill her?”

“Because the cause is something supernatural,“ he explained.

“Supernatural? Like being killed by a bewitched carrot cake!” she concluded.

“I don’t see the motive,” Death said shaking his skull.

“Because she would have eaten it, obviously.”

“There’s no bewitched carrot cake within a 70 km range and no witch with the skills to make one in this town. No, they will bring in someone from outside for this hit,“ Death said.

“A hit? This is a hit? What makes you think so?” the Devil’s Daughter asked in surprise.

“Even with supernatural deaths I can sense certain things about her death. I can tell it will be messy. And I sense a coffin being built made up of a hundred tiny little boxes. She’s going to be blown to bits,” Death revealed.

“Why would anyone want to blow up an old lady?” she asked.

“I’ve been watching her and she’s at the center of everything baking related in this town. She’s the linchpin, the ringleader, she has the baking club completely under her control and because of that the whole town is in her debt. It’s a Quid Pro Cake world, kiddo. But someone has had enough, someone wants to take her place as the cherry on top of this whole town.”

The Devil’s Daughter had never heard anything so ridiculous. “Is this one of your death jokes dad warned me about? Look at her, she’s harmless. She won’t have any enemies, let alone one who’d hire a demon or a witch or some other supernatural create to kill her. Besides the carrot, I don’t see the motive.”

“Maybe she was getting too pushy,” Death proposed.

“Too pushy?”

“Not everyone likes brownies no matter how many times you go ‘ooh, go on, just have one’.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” the Devil’s Daughter said.

“I’ve seen people murdered for less. Two separate people have been murdered over their misspelled M&M’s collection. We can’t draw conclusions just yet, first we need to investigate.”

“Investigate? Like the police? Just—before someone kills anyone?” she asked.

“Yes, we need to start by searching her place and questioning the people who know her,” Death said ready to get to the bottom of the case of the exploding baking grandmother.

“Awesome,” the Devil’s Daughter said excitedly.

“I suggest we do the good cop/bad cop routine when we question people. I’ll be the good cop, because I have a natural proficiency for putting people at ease,” the walking skeletal incarnation of Death said.

“I can totally be the bad cop. I’ve just perfected my demon voice. I’ll be the best bad cop you’ve ever seen,” she said completely on board.

“Your demon voice?”

A literal fire started burning in Devil’s Daughter’s eyes and dark clouds gather around her head, indoors and everything, backed by the noise of thunder her voice deepened and beamed through the bakery. “MY DEMON VOICE BRING AWE TO PUNY MORTALS AND MAKES THEM WEEP AND COWER AND BEG FOR MERCY. IT WILL MAKE THEM SPILL THEIR GUTS AND IF THEY TRY TO REFUSE IT WILL MAKE THEM, err, well, SPILL THEIR GUTS TOO, but in the other way, you know.”

“Ooh, good,” Death said casually. “Let’s get going.”

The Baking Club

It was teatime and Death had grown hungry; luckily he was surrounded by cakes, pastries and cookies. Baked goods and to-be-baked goods filled the house at 221b Bake Street to the brim, or rather to the chimney.

A banner on the wall read:

FIFTH ANNUAL BAKING FESTIVAL

PI(E) NEVER ENDS

“Make way for the donuts!” a man yelled running in their direction carrying four boxes on his head.

He shoved his way past the Devil’s Daughter, her eyes lit up in anger and she yelled: “WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING.”

“Careful,” Death said to her, but it was too late.

The whole house froze in sudden fear; her demonic voice had worked just as she had predicted. People cowered, wept and begged for mercy. The man who had pushed past her rolled up into a fetal position besides the croissants. Which almost worked for him as camouflage.

Being a master detective this did not stop Death from spotting him.

“That’s the treasurer of this baking club. The second-in-command. When the woman dies he will next in line to become the head of the club,” Death pointed out to the Devil’s Daughter.

“He’s the murderer?” she asked looking down at the weeping croiss—man.

“He has a motive, sure, but that proves nothing.”

“I can make him confess. Just watch me,” she said, fixing her burning eyes on him and taking a deep breath. She produced her most booming, commanding demon voice yet. “YOU PLAN TO KILL THE HEAD BAKER AND TAKE CONTROL OF THE BAKING CLUB.”

“It’s not true, it’s not true,” he cried.

Death banged the bottom of his scythe on the floor and the fear lifted from the room, everyone looked around in confusion and as if waking from a trance went back to rushing around and baking.

“We won’t learn anything like that,” he said. “We should search her house for clues first. Then we can question them once we know what to ask.”

The Goth Girl

Death had turned up at the old lady’s house and found it occupied by a pale, black-haired girl with black mascara, black lips, black nails, a black dress, but a regular red heart.

“Maybe she’s a murderer,” the Devil’s Daughter said.

“She’s not a murderer,” Death replied.

“She looks like a murderer.”

“She’s a goth girl, that’s why she looks like that, they all look like that. I was a goth girl once and I’m not a murderer,” he explained.

“Aren’t you, though?”

“I keep the records, that’s all.“

Death made him and the Devil’s Daughter turn visible and said: “Excuse me, miss.”

The girl turned towards his voice in surprise. Seeing a bearded skeleton in a hoodie and pajama pants and a girl with the flaming red eyes she frowned and asked: “Are—are you the delivery people?”

“No. I am Death and this is the Devil’s Daughter,” the Devil said plainly.

“The anti-christ?” the girl asked.

“No! I’m just the Devil’s daughter, that doesn’t mean I’m the anti-christ, why does everyone always assume that? Are you, I don’t know, the anti-fred-from-across-the-street just because yours and Fred’s parents know each other?” the Devil’s Daughter, not the anti-christ, said.

“Ok, ok, sorry, I didn’t mean to assume,” the Goth Girl said timidly.

“It’s a pet peeve of mine.”

“With that all cleared up we can start the investigation,” Death said.

“The investigation?” the Goth Girl asked.

“Just a routine pre-death check up.“

The Goth Girl’s eyes widened in a panic.

“No, no, it’s not about you,” Death quickly added, “Nothing to worry about. We thought this was the house of the lady running the cake shop.”

“Ooh, you mean my grandmother. Hold on, does that mean she’s…”

“We have some questions,” Death blurted out before she could finish realizing why they were here. He did not get around to his questions, because the Devil’s Daughter, who was getting a little too much into her bad cop role, interrupted him.

“DOES YOUR GRANDMOTHER HAVE ANY ENEMIES,” she bellowed in her demon voice.

The girl didn’t react like people in the baking club had reacted; she didn’t weep or cower; she was awed, in a way, although it would be more correct to say she swooned.

“Wow. That is one sexy voice,” the girl said after having stared at her with an open mouth for much longer than it’s socially accepted to stare at someone with an open mouth. Which isn’t long, but still. 

“WHat?” the Devil’s Daughter asked in confusion, dropping her demon voice halfway through.

“Ah, yes, this can happen, I’ve seen it many times before,” Death said knowingly.

“Do you, err, enjoy walking, I mean me, I MEAN walking with me, I mean, please kiss me!” the girl said losing all control.

Death snapped his bony fingers and the smitten girl froze in time.

“She’s fallen for your charms,” he said turning towards the Devil’s Daughter.

“My what?” she asked confused by all this.

“Your devilish charms,” he said with a smile.

“You mean this is a spell? I didn’t cast a spell.”

“It looks like you cast a little love spell on your girlfriend,” Death teased.

“She’s not not my girlfriend!”

“Sometimes people are taken by our inherent supernatural charm and they act very strange. She probably had a fascination with all things dark and demonic before and now here you are the Devil’s Daughter in the flesh, no wonder she thinks you’re cute,” he explained.

The Devil’s Daughter turned bright red and looked away.

“You’re right we won’t get much out of her like this, we’re better of searching this place first.”

They searched the whole house looking for any clues to why the Grandmother will die. They didn’t find much. However, every time Death suggested they should give up and question the girl after all the Devil’s Daughter decided they should start the search over again.

The Final Nail

Death stared the Goth Girl in the eye. The Devil’s Daughter on the other hand stared at the ceiling and was avoiding eye contact with the girl at all costs.

“Have you heard anything about a baking club conspiracy?” Death asked her.

“Uh, no,” she answered, trying to catch the Devil’s Daughter’s eye.

“Do you intend to inherit your grandmother’s secret recipes?” Death tried.

“What? No, I hate baking.”

The Goth Girl coughed trying to get the Devil’s Daughter’s attention.

“What are you doing here?” Death asked.

“Grandma’s waiting for a delivery of some big pot thing and someone needs to be here to sign for it,” the girls’ eyes finally met, they both froze and stared at each other for a couple of seconds, the Goth Girl sighed, the Devil’s Daughter reconsidered her thoughts on people and they both giggled.

“A big pot thing? You mean a cauldron?”

“Yeah, one of those.”

“Hmm,” Death considered this new information. “Where did she buy this cauldron?”

“I don’t know. She found it online,” the girl said, briefly looking away from the Devil’s Daughter to point at the computer.

Death headed towards it and commanded: “Reveal your secrets.” The machine did nothing, so he rebooted it and tried again. “Reveal your secrets,” he repeated. This time it showed him the order for the cauldron.

“Thank you,” Death said examining the order. The old lady had ordered it from a company called ‘Wicked Wiccan World’. Death recognized the name as being that of a witch’s shop.

Looking at the pictures of the cauldron Death noticed a small crack running down from a nail holding one of the handles in place.

“There it is,” Death said turning to the Devil’s Daughter, “Cause of me: Exploding witch’s cauldron.”

After Death

It was all over for the old lady; she had finally finished the hundredth cake; unfortunately she was also dead. The exploding cauldron had sent boiling icing and grandmother body parts everywhere.

“Ooh, my, what a mess,” the Baking Grandmother’s soul said looking at her iced body splattered all across the room. “What happened?”

“The cauldron exploded,” Death answered.

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that silly Internet. What’s this stuff on the walls? It doesn’t seem like boiled icing.”

“That’s you,” he said simply.

The grandmother turned and looked at Death. A look of understanding came over her.

“Ooh. I see. What’s next? Where am I going now?” she asked.

Death looked at his notebook and answered: “To a nice condo in Spain.”

“Spain? The afterlife is Spain?”

“It’s a different Spain,” he explained.

The Baking Grandmother blinked and then hurried off to grab a broom. “Before we go we should clean up this mess, we can’t leave it like this.”

“Someone will clean it up, I’m sure,” Death said taking the broom away from her.

“Ooh, no, I wouldn’t want to bother anyone with having to clean this up, it will just take me a minute,” she said snatching the broom from his hand.

From the bottom of the Devil’s Daughter’s icy heart a tear welled up and fell from her fiery eyes ending up as a lukewarm drop on her cheek.

“Sweetie, are you all right?” the kindly grandmother asked.

“You’re just so nice,” she answered. “We’ll help clean this up for, won’t we, uncle?”

“No, no, no. We can’t allow the dead to clean up the scene of their own death, people will start asking questions,” Death said resolutely.

“Please,” the Devil’s Daughter pleaded.

“No. We’re going to Spain and that’s the end of it.”

To Hell With It

Death had gone to hell to drop off the Devil’s Daughter with her dad.

“Have you learned anything about people from your time on earth?” the Devil asked her.

“Yes, I’ve learned something, Dad. I’ve learned that people are fine no matter what you say. Sometimes they may be rude, but often they’re nice and—and sometimes they’re cute,” she said and she stormed off to her room.

“Can you believe that?” the Devil asked.

Death considered it for a while and eventually answered: “She has a point, sometimes they are cute. I remember you used to tell me that very thing a few millenia ago.”

The Devil just shook his horned head and trotted off. Death went towards the Devil’s Daughter’s room and knocked at her door.

“Go away, Dad,” she said.

“It’s me.”

She opened the door. “Yeah?”

“I was wondering if you would ever like to tag along again. I, err, I wouldn’t mind if you did,” Death said.

“Is this about you missing your cat? You know she’ll be back. She always comes back,” she asked sceptically.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Death replied.

“Well, I would love to, Uncle. Just come to hell next time you have a case.”

With the mystery of the exploding cauldron solved Death finally returned home to enjoy that nice hot cup of cocoa.