"I hate good wizards in fairytales. They always turn out to be him." –River Song, The Pandorica Opens
Every night, when the storyteller sat down in his storytelling chair, the girl asked for a story.
He told tales of action and of romance, of the seen and the unseen, of both the past and the future.
But he'd never told her a fairytale, and there were never any princesses.
Three nights ago, she asked for one; for a wizard, or a princess, or a knight in shining armor, or something.
And the storyteller smiled, and told her that night's story would be the right sort of fairytale for her.
She didn't ask what he meant.
The Good Wizard
Once upon a time, there was this man. A good man. A hero to many. And while he was well known, few knew him well.
He traveled everywhere; never settling down. He had friends, few and far between, who he would trust with his life.
And then one day, something bad came.
The man, a hero to many, couldn't stay away. He had to find the bad thing. He had to stop it.
And when he found it, he tricked. No violence. He was always very clear about that, but when he found it, he tricked it.
He trapped it in a box. He sent the box to a different dimension. And he thought that was the end.
He made new friends; friends who didn't remind him of what he'd done. He fell in love, just once, and then he lost his love. He changed the life of one man, who changed the lives of many more.
But the box was coming back.
He lost some more people; made a few new friends.
Something else happened; and everything he knew meant he had to leave again.
He made two new friends; and lost one.
And then the box came back.
The bad thing came back. Bad things happened. Good people died. And then...
He sacrificed himself to save his friends.
She gave a quiet gasp, and he smiled down at her from his chair by her bed. "What is it?"
"I don't like this story. Tell a different one." She insisted. It sounded a bit silly even to her young ears, but she didn't like the sad stories. And something about the story sounded oddly familiar, which made it even worse.
"Don't worry. Fairy tales always have a happy ending."
He stopped the bad thing. He thought he was going to be lost forever, but he told his friend a story. A story about a box, old and new, borrowed and blue, and the man who traveled in it.
And it was her wedding day. She found him in words; and she brought him back. And he danced. They all danced, but him especially.
And he smiled at her softly, than kissed her forehead, "Told you fairy tales always have a happy ending," he whispered. "Now get some sleep."
"Come back tomorrow?" She pleaded insistently.
"Don't I always?"
The next chapter will be up tomorrow! Thanks for reading, please review!