In the timeless dark of the Wald, the primeval forest that surrounds human consciousness, two brothers sit around a campfire, one in red and one in grey. The grey one is Karkat Grimm, famed linguist and anthropologist. His face carries a permanent scowl, but he is fact quite personable compared to his older brother, Kankri, who is likewise an expert in both of those fields. The expression on his face is one of pious sanctimony. He is very difficult to talk to, a fact which belies his incomparable skill in writing. Some years ago the two embarked on a journey to collect the native folklore of their country and compiled an enormous reference book. For some reason, this was insanely popular with the children, and as such Kankri set out to 'improve' it by making it more suitable for young audiences. His brother doesn't begrudge him too much, of course, because although he compromised the anthropological integrity of the work, Kankri certainly made it easier to read, and made them a great deal of money besides. It was perhaps not Karkat's best idea to transcribe, word-for-word, the stories that they'd heard from uneducated peasants. It had gone from something like:
uH, oNCE uPON a tIME,, i tHINK tHAT'S hOW iT gOES,, tHERE wAS a lITTLE gIRL ,,, wHO wAS rEALLY,,, rEALLY pRETTY. aCTUALLY, sHE wAS a pRINCESS nOW I tHINK aBOUT iT. aND sHE hAD a bALL,,, tHAT ,, wAS mADE oF gOLD. iT wAS vERY eXPENSIVE, bUT bEING a pRINCESS, sHE pLAYED wITH iT a lOT. aND oNE dAY, iT fELL dOWN a wELL….
To something more like:
Once upon a time, there was a young princess who had the exquisite beauty of roses. Something of a loner, her favorite toy was a golden ball, inscribed with the sun. One day she went exploring to a well outside the castle grounds that was ancient and thick with moss. Here she played with her ball, but to her dismay, it slipped from her hands and fell in, leaving nothing but a shimmering trail of bubbles in the water as it fell.
And so on. At the moment, the brothers were questing for some new tales to transcribe, when who should come across them but Feferi Perrault, that grandee from the French court who had penned the Tales of Mother Goose. Nevermind that she had been dead for a few centuries by the time the Grimms were compiling their collection. Time has no meaning in the Wald. Dressed in a long elegant gown sewn with pearls, with a stiff, fan-like color and voluminous sleeves, she looked like a princess herself.
"Oh yay!" she said, hugging Karkat with gusto. "It's been so long you guys!"
"Piss off," said Karkat, pushing her away. "We never met. Also, you set back the field by like three hundred years, for shame."
She giggled and sat down on a convenient log. "What are you even talking about?"
"Your book," he snapped. "People today are always going on about how fairy tales are filling kids' minds with nonsense and teaching girls to be subservient and all that bullshit. If they're retarded, they blame poor Gam Disney, who just wants to be an entertainer, and if they have a spoonful of spongy matter in their think-pans they blame us, but no one ever blames you, even though you're the only one who actually did any of that!" he stood up. "Or in your own language, 'j'accuse!" He pointed his finger, accusing.
"Wow, okay," said Feferi in a light tone, "but I didn't write that book for children! It was just a bunch of stories that I wrote for my friends at the café, and then I decided to publish it."
"That is understandable," said Kankri, speaking for the first time, "but those morals you inserted at the end were completely irresponsible, not only in the literary sense but in a moral one. It is highly inappropriate to tell young girls that they should be grateful to get married at the end of a story called 'Beauty and the Beast.' Especially since it completely contradicts the information present in the story, which is that kindness is the best measure of a person's worth as opposed to physical beauty or intelligence." Finished, he commenced eating from his can of beans.
"Doesn't he usually go on for longer?" Feferi asked.
"Yeah, but he doesn't actually give a shit about women's rights so you got off easy," Karkat explained.
"Okay," said Feferi, "maybe the morals weren't the best idea. Honestly I just wanted to end on a poem every time, and the only ones I could come up with were morals! But you have to admit, I'm a better writer than you guys," she taunted with a wink.
Kankri dropped his can of beans. "Oh Hell no."
With a big toothy smile, she simply said, "Oh yes."
"Your overly verbose flowery language is no match for our clear, poetic prose!" he snapped.
"Don't look at me," said Karkat, "I'm the one who thought word-for-word transcription would be a good idea."
"Did somebody say John Jacobs?!" said John Jacobs, Victorian gentleman and anthologist. He was something of a hybrid of the Grimms and Perrault in that he did set out to make a fundamentally English collection of fairy tales, but he only did it for fun. Despite his formal suit, a tailcoat the color of the summer sky, he gave off the aura of a trickster.
"Get out of here asshole," said Karkat. "Maybe Feferi did a lot of bullshit," he said, pointing his thumb at the girl (she waved cheerfully), "but she never straight up made shit up like you did! 'Rushen Coatie'? More like….stupid!"
John chuckled. "In my defense, I said right there in the introduction that there were already over three thousand variations of Cinderella, and that I made up my own version to see if some years down the line, people would be telling it to each other thinking it was 'real'. What does that even mean, anyway?" He too sat down on a convenient log and warmed his hands over the fire.
"Yeah, it's a party now!" said Feferi, high-fiving John.
Karkat groaned a loud, pained groan from deep inside his soul. "Fine, as long as that depressing goddamned broad doesn't show—"
"You rang?" said Rose Andersen, stepping in out of the shadows, lilac eyes glowing in the firelight, and Karkat screamed.
"No," he said, "Hell no, this fire is for anthropologists and linguists, serious scientific people with serious things to say about their fields. You," he shouted, "are a glorified short-story writer who got lucky!"
"Hi Rose," said John, ignoring Karkat. "Sit down by the fire. We're going to have a story-telling contest!"
"That sounds delightful," she said, sitting down next to him. "What are the terms?"
John opened his mouth, then frowned, thinking.
"How's about I motherfuckin' preside over this little contest?" came a drawling voice, cadences rising high and low with levity.
Gam Disney himself stepped in out of the dark in a purple pin-striped suit and a Mickey Mouse pin on his lapel. "I think we should start with my first motherfuckin' movie. 'Snow White'. Now that story's got everything. Chases escapes, dwarves, miracles, true motherfuckin' love—"
"Stop quoting the Princess Bride," Karkat said, sounding very tired, "you had nothing to do with that!"
Gamzee pulled out his cell phone and sent off a text message. "Well now I own the motherfuckin' rights to it bro, so it'll be no problem at all! And wouldn't it be better as a musical?" The way he said it, it sounded as if he actually thought Karkat had cared about that.
Karkat opened his mouth to complain, but stopped himself. "Well, if it was you specifically doing it, or your company during the nineties…this is dumb! Let's just tell the fucking the story!" He pointed at Feferi again. "You're the oldest one here—"
She flushed angrily, "no need to point it out—"
"So you tell your dumbass version of 'Snow White'!"
"I never did 'Snow White'!" she moaned.
"You must have!" Karkat insisted. "Because our version had didn't have a kiss but somehow that's entered the public consciousness. Waking a princess with a kiss is such a French thing to do and waking her with …." The bushes nearby rustled as if housing something just bursting to come out into the light. "I'm not summoning him. If he shows up it's not my fault!"
"But I never did 'Snow White'!" Feferi snapped, baring her teeth. John and Rose scooted back a bit on their log. "I did Little Redcap, I did 'Puss in Boots', I did 'Bluebeard'—"
Kankri snorted. "I thought that drivel was one of Karkat's!"
Karkat snorted. "Fuck you, 'Furrypelts'—"
"Allerleighraugh," said Kankri. "The title can only be meaningfully conveyed in its native German—"
"Hey," said John, "I've got to say, I love all of our stories, and I already know which ones are my favorites. So, let's try something new!" He pointed from Karkat to Kankri and back; the two of them looked at him disdainfully. "You guys are great because you're scientists. Stories are like living things and you caught them and dissected them and put them in jars for people to look at with all the parts labeled and stuff. So, I think you should start us off with some lesser known version of Snow White. Something weird and sexy that you had to get rid of after the second or third edition. That would be awesome!"
Karkat rolled his eyes. "There's not that much variation in this story, it's all the same shit…" he paused. "Well, there's that one version."
He and Kankri looked at each other. Kankri nodded. He pulled out a flute and began to play. Karkat began to recite his tale, voice low and strong, Old High German carrying across the Wald like an eerie breeze.
Sneewittchen
Count Jake and his lovely countess Jane were taking in the winter air in their carriage. It was crisp and cold, and the ground with thick with crystalline white snow. "Why Jake?" Jane asked. "Why did we have to go out in the middle of winter?"
Jake snorted. "Think of the fascinating people we might meet on the road! Everybody and their grandmother is out during the spring and the summer, and only boring people and young couples go out in the autumn. But anyone we might meet right now, well they've got to be up to something interesting!"
Jane scoffed. "Haven't you ever heard the curse, 'may you live in interesting times'?"
Jake laughed long and hard at that one. "In what way could that possibly constitute a curse? And who do I have to offend to get it cast against me?" Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf howled.
"We should turn back," Jane said. "The only people likely to be out here are bandits preying on stupid counts and their stupider wives!"
"Fortunately for me I have a clever wife," said Jake.
"How smart can I be?" she groaned. "I married you."
He gave her a pistol and a wink. "Exactly."
For a long time, nothing happened. The wind picked up, and howled through the trees, joining the distant day-howling of the wolves. The sky was blank and white, and gave no indication of the time. A huge mound of snow had developed at the base of a certain tree, bigger than a person. Jake chuckled. "What if we met someone as white as that snow?"
For some reason the thought sent shivers up Jane's spine.
They drove on in silence, the only sound coming from the snorting of the horses, puffing clouds of steam from their nostrils. Suddenly, an unkindness of ravens thundered down from the heavens, croaking and cawing, empty black eyes flashing in the winter light. They swarmed around something behind a bush, its branches so thick that Jane couldn't see through it, and quite thankfully, because the sounds coming from it now were those of frenzy. "Hah!" said Jake. "Someone as black as an unkindness of ravens!"
"Shut up Jake," Jane muttered, keeping her voice low so he couldn't hear it wavering.
Eventually, they came to a sight that made Jake stop the horses in appreciation, and made Jane stifle a scream. Right next to the road were three long, deep ditches full of blood, the exact length and breadth, in fact, of a coffin. "Why is this here!?" Jane shouted.
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Jake, sounding a bit excited. Within a second, one of his flintlocks was in hand, a beautiful piece with a silver wolfshead on the butt. "Like as not, local hunters use it to drain the blood from their kills. But still one wonders…."
"Don't say it," Jane squeaked.
"What if…" Jake continued, a devilish grin on his face.
"Please don't Jake," his wife muttered.
"We met someone…"
"I'll leave you," Jane threatened. "I could have married the prince of France but I picked you. He's still single, last I heard!"
With a big smile, Jake said, "alright. I won't say it." He flicked the reins and the horses took off again, this time at a steady trot. Jane couldn't help but think of what might be behind them. Dared she turn and watch? If she didn't they wouldn't see the attack coming, but she suddenly got the idea that if she took her eyes off Jake, when she turned back to look at him he wouldn't be there anymore. It was stupid and childish, but there it was, the sudden gripping paranoia that the man she loved could be taken from her without her knowledge. It took hold of her heart, and never let go until the day she died.
Minutes later, Jake eased up on the horses, content that there was no danger about and holstered his pistol. The silence returned. There was nothing but the rocking of the carriage, the creaking of the wheels, the crunch of snow under the horses' heavy hooves, and the occasional suspiration out of Jane's relieved mouth, when suddenly Jake turned and shouted "But what if we met someone as green as these emeralds?!"
Jane shouted and almost jumped from the carriage, then came to her senses and simply smacked Jake full across the face. He just laughed and pushed his hand towards her again. In his palm was an emerald necklace set in silver; the mounting was patterned with tiny snowflakes. Jane sighed and put it on. "Was this all just an excuse to give me a present?"
"That's a distinct possibility dear," he said with another wink. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a warm kiss on the cheek. "I love you, you stupid, stupid man," she said.
They turned the corner round another mound of snow, and Jane's heart stopped. There was a figure dressed in the red of blood, whose skin was paler than the snow. Her black hair, gently curled and cut daringly short, and her soft, pouty lips, pursed like a lover's, were as black as an unkindness of ravens. Her eyes sparkled like emeralds. Jake stopped, smiling like the sun. "Good day, lady! You look terribly cold. Would you like a ride?"
"I don't think I like this story," said Feferi.
"Shut up, this is going to be amazing," said John, munching on a bag of popcorn. "Just you wait…."
Her name was Kanaya, apparently. That was all she said. As to where she came from and where she was going there wasn't a single word, or why she would be wearing such a light outfit in the bitter cold. But Jake kept turning to talk to her, for all that she didn't respond, and she would look at him, eyes bright and hungry. Jane hated her instantly.
Jake drove on, but having been so easily distracted, he drove deeper and deeper into the dark wood. The black trees with their snow-laden branches bent towards them like gripping claws, the knotted bark seeming like scowling faces. "Jake," Jane said authoritatively, "we are lost!"
"Let's not fight in front of our guest," he muttered, flushing slightly.
Something snapped inside of Jane and she began devising a plan, she who had never been one for plots and schemes, at least not the hatching of them. But perhaps years of untangling webs had given her the talent to weave them? She pointed out into the woods. "We are lost Jake. Go find a tree taller than the rest, climb it, and find the right path, now!" Jake sighed and dismounted. "And give me a gun," she said, holding out her hand. "You don't want to leave a pair of defenseless ladies alone in the wood, do you?"
Though it clearly pained him to give up one of his weapons, he complied readily, and, drawing the other pistol, hurried off into the woods. He was soon out of sight.
Jane felt Kanaya's eyes boring into her like awls. She turned and looked at the beautiful girl with disdain, feeling the weight of the gun in her hands. She readied the hammer—
And she yawned luxuriantly, covering her mouth with a gloved hand. As she did so, she muttered a spell into the fabric. She was no witch, but in those days there was magic everywhere in the world, regular old folk magic that people could do every day. And her glove jerked itself up and away, out of the carriage and into the snow. Smiling sweetly, Jane said, "Could you get that for me, Kanaya?"
The blank look on the girl's doll-like face disconcerted her. Jane wondered if perhaps she wasn't as smart as she thought, but then Kanaya nodded and slid from the carriage, looking for the white glove amidst the snow. As soon as she did, disconcertingly quickly, it fluttered up into the air as if caught by a high wind. Gait steady and strong, like a huntress, Kanaya stalked after it. She left no tracks in the snow. Soon, her crimson dress had disappeared from sight.
Jake returned a few minutes after that. 'Where's Kanaya?" he asked distressed sounding. "I fear for her safety. She seems so innocent."
"Some relatives of hers came by," said Jane, "they took her home. She's a bit mad, the poor dear, can't really take care of herself. I gave her my gloves as a parting gift." She was surprised at how easily the lies were coming to her now. Perhaps she could get used to it.
Jake sighed deeply, looking disappointed. "I wish they'd stuck around a moment, to say goodbye." With a last wistful look at the woods, he flicked the reins and they were off.
"And so it ends," said Karkat.
John stopped, popcorn halfway to his mouth. "Huh?"
"That was what we call a fragment," said Kankri. "A piece of a story we collected because either our interviewee couldn't remember or because it turns into another story half-way through. Consider it an alternate beginning to 'Snow White' proper."
"Wow, I'm sorry," said John, "But this is a story-telling contest. You have to actually finish telling your story!" He stood up and dusted corn fragments off his suit. "Fuck it, I'll finish it for you…."
Author's note: Cliffhanger, mmm. The Thief of Prospit chapter is like, 60% done, calm yourselves.
This series is going to go like this; everyone's going to tell a story, but more people are going to drop by. This'll get pretty metatextual soon, if it hasn't already, with people stealing each other's stories and making comparisons to other stories and suchlike, and whoever the fuck is hiding in the bushes and why they don't want him there. Feel free to suggest a tale you think needs Homestuckification! They won't have continuity with each other, so Kanaya isn't locked into her current role. Think of the characters as actors. Since all of my other vanity projects seemed to be the most popular ones, I will declare this just that right now, a vanity project. No one will give a shit about this except me, so as to avoid the fate of Trollish Layer, languishing in obscurity.