Fairy Tale Ending
By Sailor Lilith-chan
Molly had been sitting on the bank, scratching the insect bites on her bare feet. At the same time, she looked at her reflection. She was thirty-eight. When she had been younger and Captain Cully had spirited her away from her village, she was dreaming of being Maid Marion. Instead, she had become a cook, seamstress, and caretaker of men who couldn't aim if their lives depended on it. She sighed. Cully was right. The experience had soured her for any man who wanted her.
A crinkle of grass and she turned to Schmendrick, lanky Schmendrick, long nose and all standing on the bank. "Oh hello."
"Hello," he said, one long fingered hand swaying by his side, the scars on his fingertips visible, the other tightly closed.
"What's that?" Molly had asked. Her bluntness was another habit she had gained in Greenwood. "And before you ask what I mean, I mean what you have in your..."
Her voice trailed off as Schmendrick had uncurled his fist.
In it was a simple ring of silver.
"Oh, Molly," Schmendrick had asked her, holding out his hand with the ring in it, "I would be honored if you would become..."
"Your wife?" she interrupted, wondering what he could see in a dried-up spinster as her self. Hair most of the time hanging lankly down her back, tawny eyes staring dead into space. "Schmendrick, I don't what to say."
His eyes had crinkled at the corners, the first hints of mortality in the form of crows' feet appearing. There was a shock of silver the color of the unicorn's horn at his temple that her eyes kept getting drawn to. "You can have all the time in the world to choose," he said finally, dropping the metal ring into her hand.
She looked for a few seconds. It was silver and featureless. Probably the best he could afford at the moment. Schmendrick, despite his newly gained skill, still had his reputation as his mentor's folly. The ring seemed like the most precious thing in the world then and there. "Thank you," she said and closed her fist around it.
Sometimes Molly Grue thought about princes that come to sweep her off her feet and unicorns to lay their head in her lap. Certainly the princes in her daydreams are certainly not former immortal two-bit wizards turned mortal master magicians. Certainly in her fantasy she would be saying yes to the ring in her hand and not spending all day pondering it.
Molly balanced the ring on her nose and stared at it until she went cross-eyed. It was still plain silver, cheap silver at that and pounded into its circlet shape. She slipped the ring into her pocket and lay down on the bank again. Closing her eyes, she hummed for a while and promptly forgot what she was going to say. Schmendrick had gone to town and wouldn't be back for some time, but Molly knew that regardless of what he had said, he would still want a response from her when he got back.
"Not the happily ever after you wanted," the voice said to her.
Molly opened her eyes. The unicorn, fragile as spun sugar Molly had eaten as a child, sat next to her with spindly legs tucked under her and long lion tail twitching like a cat's. "Unicorn," she said, "Are you..."
"Only in dreams," the unicorn said, tipping her head down, until the shimmering horn touched the ground briefly, "But do not worry for me, Molly. For I am safe."
Her hand reached out and brushed the unicorn's mane. "I missed you."
The unicorn ignored the brush of skin again her. "You are pondering your own happy ending," a cock of the small head, "Are you not?"
Molly's hand dipped into her pocket and pulled out the ring. "If you could say that," she admitted, "Schmendrick proposed to me."
"Did you?" Were the unicorn capable of it, Molly would say she was raising an eyebrow.
"I haven't said yes yet."
"I figured," the unicorn said, "And King Lir?"
"He still remembers you," Molly said, looking at the ring, "But he and wife are happy."
The unicorn looked mournful, "That is his happy ending. I on the other hand, can not longer fit in among my own kind." Her tail twitched quickly over her flanks, "I have no happy ending."
Molly threw her arms around the unicorn's slim neck, "Oh my lady unicorn, Schmendrick should have never turned you back."
She felt the unicorn ease herself to her feet, "I never said you couldn't have a happy ending."
Molly stamped her foot, "Happy endings are for those who are youthful. My mistake was going for Cully. Any wise girl should have seen through his words. I lost my fairy tale."
"Does Schmendrick not deserve a happy ending?"
A snort. "That fool? My lady uni..."
"No titles," said the unicorn wearily, swaying back and forth like a tired old mare, "This is hardly a fairy tale."
"I see," Molly said. "I think I what you mean."
She gripped the ring tighter.
Molly woke up on the riverbank, insects once again biting at her feet. "Oh you," she said and with several choice curse words, "Just waiting until I sleep…"
The unicorn was gone.
She mourned the creature's disappearance, but knew in heart that it was all a dream. Molly sighed and got to her feet, brushing the grass from her ragged and patched skirts. "Not much for a fairy tale."
Her fingers brushed the lump the ring made in her pocket. Schmendrick's engagement ring. The one he had probably worked hard to earn, its cheap metal still more precious than gold. He had smiled as he had held it.
Strangely its pounded form seemed more beautiful than a king's crown jewels. Molly saw Schmendrick coming over the hill, singing. She slipped the ring on her finger. This was no fairy tale for Molly, but still, she knew what to say.
The End