Learning To Share
by Zath Chauvert

Once upon a time, there were two brothers by the names of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. Having grown up poor, Wilhelm and Jacob were used to sharing. As children, they had shared just about everything, from chores to food to the few household toys to scraps of ill-fitting clothing to a sense of guilt over their sister's death. Even as adults at the height of their enmity and with more than enough money to keep them both in reasonable comfort, they still saw nothing odd in occasionally eating off each other's plates or trading jackets as the mood suited them. Their sharing was now out of long habit rather than from necessity, but it continued nonetheless. It could not be said that this waistcoat belonged to Jacob or that this set of riding tack belonged to Wilhelm, because, for all their differences, everything that the two men owned, they held in common. It all belonged to the Brothers Grimm, and that was good enough for the both of them. The only two things that were never shared were Jacob's glasses and his book of collected stories. Wilhelm had no need of the glasses and no interest in the stories, so those two things became Jacob's and Jacob's alone. And so it went, year after year.

Then, one fateful day, the brothers traveled to the small town of Marbaden, where they braved an enchanted forest, defeated an evil queen, and saved the town's children (and, by extension, the rest of the town as well) from a horrible end. The trials and tribulations that the brothers had to endure before they accomplished all of those amazing feats is the subject for another, much longer story, which you have most likely already heard. However, one detail from that story is very relevant to our current tale, because without that detail there would be no tale to tell today. That one important detail is the fact that, during the course of their quest to save the town, the brothers met and ultimately fell in love with the beautiful (if sometimes surly) trapper Angelika. Soon, Wilhelm and Jake each wanted Angelika for himself, and for the first time in decades, jealousy reared its ugly head between the brothers.

Oh, how they fought! And their arguments were all the worse because neither man would admit the true reason for their increased hatred. But as they fought each other, they also worked together to fight the evil queen, so that when they defeated her they defeated their shared anger as well. With the queen dead and their differences reconciled, the brothers agreed that they could no longer fight over Angelika. Both still loved her. Neither wanted to let go of her, but at the same time, neither wanted to risk losing the other again. In the end, there was only one logical choice: they agreed to share. They had shared everything throughout their whole lives. Wilhelm had even learned to appreciate Jacob's book of stories. Why make Angelika be an exception to the rule? They had shared a mother; sharing a wife should be much the same.

Had the Brothers Grimm asked it of any other woman in Marbaden, she would have refused to even consider it. She probably would have rejected both men, one right after the other, for having dared to suggest such a thing. Fortunately for everyone, Angelika was not 'any other woman in Marbaden.' She was not any other woman in all of Europe. She loved Jacob, and she loved Wilhelm. She loved them individually and together. She even loved them when they were arguing with each other, which still happened fairly regularly, though not with such venom as they has formerly used. There was no way that she could abide choosing one brother at the expense of the other, so she agreed to have them both.

To be continued...