"And so," said Rose, "color returned to the prince's face at the siren's kiss. His breathing became regular, and slowly but surely he returned from death's door. She kept vigil through most of the night, salty pink blood dribbling down her lips, but eventually the horizon lightened. Tempted as she was to watch the sunrise, the siren knew she would be in grave danger if she stayed out another moment. Fortunately, she noticed a tall ship approaching from the west. Satisfied, she dove into the water with hardly a splash." Rose finished her knitting and handed the product to John. It was a wooly red hat.

"Fuckin' sweet," he said, pushing it down onto his head with an ecstatic grin on his face. Feferi laughed at him.

"But then what all up and happened?" Gamzee drawled.

"She got caught I bet," said Karkat. "That's how it always happens in fairy tales. She broke a rule and now she has to face the consequences."

"You'll find it's the lack of consequences that make this story," said Rose. "It does not merely bend but willfully breaks the genre's rules. Regardless…"

The Empress was waiting for Meenah in her room. If her blood didn't already run cold, it would have done so at the sight of her mother, voluminous hair filling the tiny space with swirling blackness. "Hello dear," she said, smile wicked and predatory. Dear God but Meenah hated her mother. "Did you have fun on the surface?"

"Glub no, because I didn't go to no surface," she said, thinking quickly. "I went out to the trench to see if a sperm whale would come down to fight the squids. It didn't. I don't think they actually live around here; Latula's pulling my glubbin' tail again."

Suddenly the Empress was behind her, clawed fingers gripping Meenah's shoulders, pressing down on the bone. She tried not to flinch. Mother's hair had surrounded her entirely, a swirling black cloud blotting out everything but her voice. "You've still got salt on your cheeks dear. And there's the taste of black powder in your hair. But even if you'd washed it all away, covered your tracks and removed all the evidence you could think of, I'd never mistake that other flavor, the human boy on your lips. How do you like the taste, darling?"

"I have no glubbing clue," Meenah said, very slowly and deliberately, "what you are talking about."

"Don't be afraid of rules, little darling," she said, pinching Meenah's cheek, scoring it with the goddamn fishhooks she called nails, "You're going to be making them someday. Besides, that rule was made to be broken." She leaned in and whispered, "How do you think I got my sailor?" And with a *whoosh* she was gone.

Meenah rammed her trident into the wall and screamed into her pillow.

She tried not to think of her excursion for a while after that, but it was difficult. The Empress had shared the story with Meenah's sisters. They didn't taunt her about it, but they didn't have to. She would see them gathered around in corners, and they would look up at her and giggle, sharp teeth flashing as they dispersed in a burst of bubbles and whipping hair before she could impale them. It was awful. What did it matter if she gave a human a bit of her life anyway? Just because the Empress used it on her pet. It didn't mean anything. Sure, her method of delivery was a bit intimate maybe, but it was the most efficient one. And if she had enjoyed it a little, then that was her own business. Her cheeks felt colder than usual.

A year went by and Meenah was determined to return to the surface again. The first trip had been so brief that she'd barely been able to enjoy it. She still hadn't grown any proper scales and she was pissed off at her late development, but the Empress had practically given her permission to go up anyway, so who actually gave a shit? Meenah had acquired an atlas made of fine vellum, from an old shipwreck, and located Prospit on it. Because it was the only place she knew of on the surface. Of course. The fact that it was the place John had come from had nothing to do with it.

She had a sudden chilling thought at she studied the map one day, that John might not have survived. She'd just left him there on that rock like an idiot. That ship might have turned, or not noticed him, or something asinine like that. He'd certainly been in no condition to call out for help. It had all been up to her and she'd done the job in the most half-assed way possible.

With those thoughts swirling in her mind like mother's hair, Meenah once again, in the dead of night, snuck away from the palace. It looked even smaller this time than it had before when she left. And she paid it even less mind than she had that first night. Up and up and up she swam through the pure black of the underwater night, until she encountered a flash of blue-white in the dark, the glimmering crescent of a razor-sharp smile lit by phosphorescence.

"Was it the Empress?" asked John, fiddling with his hat.

"No," said Rose, shaking her head, "it was her sister."

"Who?" asked Karkat, raising an eyebrow. "She had sisters? I think you mentioned them but this is the first time they…do anything."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Just because they didn't do anything in the opening paragraph doesn't mean that they are completely without narrative value. They cannot be replaced by talking bears, unlike your simple dwarves." She went back to her storytelling voice and continued. "This sister was the most middling, the most intelligent, and generally speaking, the most peaceful. But tonight…."

Aranea was the only one of her sisters that Meenah could stand, and here she was waiting for her in the dark. Her blue scales glowed softly in the dark, and she had a pair of dorsal fins as thin and sheer as gossamer that flowed out from her body like wings. In a clawed hand, she held a sword made of knapped coral.

"What are you doin'?" asked Meenah, hesitantly.

"I'm sorry dear," she said apologetically. "I know what you and mother talked about last year. She's letting you go out and visit your young man despite being too young. I know her well enough to guess that she made it sound like the rule wasn't really enforced, but that's simply not true." She raised the sword high above her head. "It's actually punishable by death to venture to the surface while underage."

Meenah tightened her grip on her trident, not quite grasping the situation. "Are you gonna kill me over something I did a year ago?"

Aranea laughed humorlessly. "Meenah, I love you! But what happened just makes it clear that you are favored for succession." She started trembling. "If I can…beat you, I might have a chance to live. I'm sorry."

And with that slightest of warnings, she lunged, sword cutting a streak of bubbles in the black water. Meenah acted on pure instinct, the killer grace she'd inherited from the Empress. The regret that would follow her for the rest of her life was not in committing the deed, but in how much she must have looked like her mother while she did it. Dodging the sword with laughable ease, Meenah slapped her sister across the face and grabbed her by the shoulder. The stunned Aranea could only look on in horror as Meenah sank the trident into her chest.

It seemed to take Aranea forever to die. The sharklike grin on Meenah's face evaporated instantly. After a seeming eternity, the pained look on her sister's face dissolved, literally, melting into foam, and her coral bones drifted down to the seafloor far below. Meenah was left holding a chip of pale blue glass, staring dumbfoundedly.

She didn't know how long she floated there, holding her dear sister's eye. The water began to grey with the dawn, and a small hand placed itself on her shoulder. Meenah had no idea who it could be, and she didn't care. "Where is she?" Meenah asked. "Where did she go?"

The voice that responded was young and bubbly and light and Meenah hated it instantly. "She's all around us, a part of everything in the ocean. She's embracing you even now."

"Does she forgive me?" asked Meenah, sounding dubious.

The voice laughed. "She can't. She can't do much of anything anymore. Your sister's just another drop in the bucket. Where do you think you are right now? What do you think the ocean is?"

Meenah felt her skin crawl. Sea foam and salt water? Coral and glass and kelp? …but surely the ocean was there before the sirens, right? "Why the fuck did she do it?" she asked herself. "We can all live forever, can't we? We don't have to die, so why do we kill each other?"

"Not forever," said the voice, "one day the same thing will happen to you." Meenah suddenly decided that she would like very much not to die. "It's the destiny of everything without a soul."

"Fuck that shit," Meenah snapped, turning to look at whomever the Hell was touching her. "How do I get one?" The interloper was almost completely wrapped in drab brown and beige robes, but Meenah could see the face. Aside from the pink scales and the glowing white eyes, it was entirely too much like her own.

The stranger giggled. "It's very hard. You'd need to find something that already has a soul, and you have to make it love you more than life itself. Then you'll be able to share the same one and go on together to wherever it is souls go when the body dies. But that's impossible. Unless," she struck a playful pose, "unless you already have such a creature in mind?"

Meenah narrowed her eyes. John, she thought, but what she said was, "and just who the fuck are you, knowing so much about nothing?"

"They've called me a lot of things," said the stranger, drifting around Meenah in a circle, creating little streams of bubbles with her sharp fingertips. "Melusine. Loreley. The sea-hag. But my favorite name is the Witch of Life."

Meenah casually readied her trident, shifting her grip so it seemed very loose and careless, but could easily be adjusted to battle-ready. In her other hand she held the smooth piece of glass, clenched so tightly that it snapped in two, ragged edge cutting a thin wound into her palm. "What do I have to do?"

The Witch giggled again and sweet merciful God but she needed a trident in the gut. No, several of them, repeatedly, forever. "Well, I can make you look human enough. Your gills will shrivel up and your heart will beat red and hot, and your pretty little spots will turn a dull brown and your beautiful tail will shrivel up into a pair of hideous legs, just like a human's! But you'll need to get the soul for yourself." She raised a finger. "And before I forget, it'll only last you one year. But you can never be a siren again; if your time runs out, you die!"

The Witch drifted closer—far too close in fact, and Meenah prepared to lung with her trident, but the Witch caught her wrist in a cold, inexorable grip. "All it'll take is a little bit of my blood," she said, flashing her razor-sharp grin. "Just like what you did for that boy. But it won't bring you relief. No, it'll feel like getting a hole drilled through your chest by a person you loved, so basically only a little worse than what you did to Aranea here—"

Meenah took a swing at her, but the Witch just caught her other wrist and twisted it until Meenah was afraid it would snap. She didn't let it show on her face though. "So," said the Witch, "are you going to try for a human soul and human love? Or are you going to live cold and alone and die by the hands of your daughters some lonely centuries from now?"

Meenah gave the slightest twitch of a nod. "Then I'll just take your voice as payment!"

"Huh?!" Meenah sputtered.

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," said the Witch in a helpful tone, "You just sit tight and try not to die of agony." And the Witch bit down on her lip just as Meenah had so long ago, and pressed her bloody lips to Meenah's, and the Witch's salty pink blood slid down her gullet, leaving a mild burning sensation in Meenah's throat that was completely and utterly overshadowed as soon as it hit her stomach. Just as promised, there was a hideous pain in Meenah's core, like being run through with spiteful malice by someone she'd cared about. She tried to scream, but no sound came out, and then everything went black.

"Okay," said Karkat, standing up and raising his hands. "I am calling a time out! Ref!" he shouted, pointing at Gamzee, who looked vaguely startled for a second and then returned to his usual serene grace. "Make it happen!" Karkat ordered.

"Sure motherfuckin' thing y'all," said Gamzee with a lazy wave. "I think it was P. L. Travers who said 'how much I would rather see wicked stepmothers boiled in oil than bear the protracted agony of the little mermaid'."

Everyone looked at him as if he'd just started gibbering in tongues. Actually, he did that often enough; they looked at him as if he had quoted a respectable source's opinion on a relevant subject.

"Well," said Feferi, recovering first, "I think it's really sweet." With a bright smile, she added, "She's just…afraid to die alone!"

John put his hand on her shoulder. "Your time was way before this story right?"

Feferi nodded enthusiastically. "I've never heard it before! I wish it had been around so I could have put it in my book—"

"It only gets worse from here," said John, with a sad, paternal look on his face. "And it never gets better."

Feferi's smile wavered and she began to cry.

Rose groaned. "Oh very well, I'll let someone tell another, shorter story in the meantime. Something to soften the blow of my magnum opus."

"Well we have just the thing," said Kankri. "It's one of Karkat's favorites actually, and once I edited it properly, it's quite satisfactory."

"Fuck off Bowdlerizer the Great and Terrible," said Karkat. "I'll tell it, and I'll tell it the right way!"

"Excuse me," Kankri said snappishly, not quite enough for it to count as a proper snap, "I have yet to tell a single story. I merely provided musical accompaniment for yours."

"Well, we're in the contest as a team, aren't we?" said Karkat. "It's like, you know, 'the Brothers Grimm'. We're a unit. It'd be weird to compete against each other."

"You guys, that's adorable!" shouted Feferi, drying her eyes on her handkerchief. "I wish I had a sibling like you. Or like…the little mermaid!" She started crying again. Karkat slapped his forehead.

"Okay, you guys are a team," said Gamzee amiably, "but Kankri gets to tell the next two stories."

"Fuck!" shouted Karkat, as Kankri assumed a self-satisfied expression, slightly different from his usual self-righteous one. "You know what, whatever!" Karkat assumed a heroic pose, "I still get to tell my favorite story the way it's meant to be told! Get your asses ready for the greatest love story ever—"

"Cinderella!" said John enthusiastically.

"Beauty and the Beast!" Shouted Gamzee, waving his arms spastically.

"Tristan and Isolde," said Rose, matter-of-factly.

"Sleeping Beau—" Feferi clamped her mouth shut and covered it with both hands, looking around fearfully. An exasperated groan came from the bush, followed by something that might have been 'fuckin' breakin' my balls Fef,' but was so heavily accented they couldn't tell.

Karkat made an expansive gesture and shouted, "YOU'RE ALL WRONG AND STUPID FOR THINKING IT COULD BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN—"

Rapunzel

Once upon a time, there was a poor peasant couple, a thresher and his wife. They were blessed with a beautiful daughter, with bright pink eyes and glorious rose-gold hair, and they never questioned why this was despite both parents having black hair. Regardless, the mother fell ill soon after birth.

"Karkat!" moaned Terezi, voice laden with protracted agony.

"Yes, my sweet," he said, rushing to her aid, sickle still in hand.

"I need something," she said, gazing with unseeing eyes, "I think, if I don't have it, I'll die."

"Anything you want, anything at all!" he assured her.

She put her hand on his chest. "I need," she dragged him in close and whispered, "I need some goddamn Rapunzel."

Karkat narrowed his eyes and nodded. "THE FUCK'S A RAPUNZEL?"

"Rapunzel is a salad green," said Kankri, arms folded as if in meditation. "It looks a little like spinach but has a characteristic nutty flavor. For some reason many more recent versions have the wife calling for lettuce or cabbage, whereas older versions demand some savory herb such as parsley. Regardless, 'Rapunzel' is more commonly known as cornsalad, lamb's lettuce, mâche—"

There was an enormous vegetable garden with a high stone wall behind the thresher's house. After sifting through a goddamn botanical encyclopedia, he was able to determine that Rapunzel was in fact one of the many plants growing in it. All he would have to do was take it. This was easier said than done. Though the wall was made of uncut stone, easily scalable, it was the property of a powerful witch. In the dead of night, he took his sickle, kissed his daughter goodnight, then his wife goodbye, and slunk over the wall, praying he wouldn't be caught.

He was caught.

The witch appeared in a flash of purple light, with hair like frost and terrible glowing eyes. She held her wands under Karkat's chin. "Now," she began, "tell me. If you had caught me stealing from your garden, what would you do?"

Karkat replied, "Let you off with a warning and tell you the fair price for that Rapunzel you snatched while we're at it."

A smirk crossed the witch's black lips. "I'm not nearly so forgiving. The fair price, you see, is your first born child."

"And if I refuse?" said Karkat bravely. She told him. "Well, fuck," he said, and the child was given over to the witch's care. Out of a sense of cruel irony, she named the baby Rapunzel.

The witch was not a terrible person, and vowed to keep the child safe, so she sequestered the baby in a high tower with no doors in the middle of a tangled forest of black thorns. Safe as fuck. Rapunzel grew into a beautiful young lady, though she was a fantastically bored one. What's more, she hated her name. "Seriously," she shouted, "it is a salad green! Why would you name me after a side-dish?!"

The witch was standing in the forest below with an unamused expression, tapping her foot impatiently. "To spite a man who stole from me once," said the witch. "Now are you going to let me up, or do you want to starve?"

"What's the magic word?" Rapunzel asked, shaking her fist.

"It's absarka, but I assume you meant the password," the witch deadpanned. "Very well;"

Rapunzel, Rapunzel,

Let down your hair,

So that I may climb

The rose-gold stair.

"Are you happy now?" asked the witch. Rapunzel took her long golden braid and draped it across a little iron hook, letting it drop to the forest floor below. It landed with an audible thump at the witch's feet, and in no time at all, she had climbed up the rope of hair and was in the tower chamber. She helped her adopted daughter pull her hair back up, and then shuttered the window. The witch began to set out lunch, and asked, "Now honestly, what would you have named yourself?"

"Roxy," Rapunzel responded immediately. "It sounds sleek and sexy, like it can break the speed limit."

"You don't know what three of those things are," her mother responded reasonably. "Now, do you even like grapes anymore? You never eat them, so I've been meaning to ask—"

"No! No, I love grapes," said Rapunzel, er, Roxy, suddenly sporting a winning smile. "I've just been saving them for a late night snack lately," she said, hugging onto the witch's arm with girlish affection.

She was of course doing no such thing. In her tower, there were only a handful of things to do. Roxy had completely broken the game of chess, reinvented it with far more complex and strategic rules, and broken it again, and now possessed the skill to make a grandmaster weep, should she ever meet one, and had done the same for checkers, Go, Pai Sho, and Risk (just capture Australia and shoot anything that moves), as well as several other games of her own invention. On her ninth birthday she'd asked for a musket, and after proving unequivocally that her mother was entirely bulletproof, had taken to shooting songbirds out of the sky and was quite an accomplished sniper. She'd set about improving her weapon by inventing the scope, the rifled barrel, and the breech-loader; all of which combined to make the game far too easy. Roxy had taken up the violin and broken it as well, though in this case quite literally; she did not have a talent for music. There were only a handful of books she was allowed to read, and she had read them all from cover to cover and written extensive commentaries that she had published in her own scholastic journal (her prouder mother/jailer had secretly handed these out to all the other witches, who were quite jealous; none of their captives were this applicated).

It was from one of these books, however, the Odyssey, to be exact, that she'd gotten her next idea; wine-making. Something told her that her mother, quite correctly, would have no truck with her doing anything of the sort. All the same, her first batch had been quite palatable, and she hoped to improve the second even further. "Do you think you could bring some white grapes next time though?" she asked, batting her eyelashes. She wanted to make some canary.

From his place in woods, Eridan saw everything, and he was quite intrigued. The young prince had been stalking the witch for days now, trying to work up the courage to talk to her, but now that he'd glimpsed her possible daughter in the window, he realized that she was his true love. For real this time. He waited until the witch had left and then sauntered up to the tower, shouting the rhyme in a very poor imitation of the witch's voice.

Fortunately, Roxy was now quite drunk on the last bit of Batch 1, and didn't notice. She was however, irritated. "Jesus Christ lady, I thought I told you to call me Roxy! What, you forget your broom you goddamn witch!?" she shouted as she let her hair down. "Wait, it's not here! You must have left it somewhere else! Fuck, I'm so funny!"

Eridan practically ran up the wall, and Roxy threw down some abuse about how her mother had somehow forgotten how to climb, the old bitch, but in no time at all Eridan was inside. "My dear lady," he began, getting down on one knee, "ever since I saw your face it's been as if the heavens themselves—"

She socked him in the face, laying him out flat on the ground, and ran to the window. "MOM! MOM! THERE'S A CRAZY RAPIST IN MY ROOM! HELP!"

Eridan scrambled back up to his knees. "I promise that I would rather die than hurt you!"

"That can be arranged," Roxy said, reaching for the old rifle on the rack above her bed. Eridan broke out into a cold sweat. "Um, but first, as a last request, could you tell me about yourself?" he asked, thinking quickly. "What's it like being raised by a witch?"

"It's not as cool as you'd think," Roxy spat. "You'd think a witch would bother teaching her daughter magic and all kinds of cool stuff, but nooooo, it's all, 'stay in this tower, I need to protect you,' and 'I don't want this kind of life for you, I want you to be a doctor!' It's bullshit is what it is! I want to be a witch! Is that so wrong!?"

Eridan shook his head, trying not to cringe as the dangerous but attractive young lady swung her rifle around, sometimes mere inches from his face. "In fact," he added, "I've often dreamed of being a wizard, but my family keeps shouting at me about how magic isn't real, and then constantly trying to keep anything occult away from me as if it were actually dangerous!" He spat. "But I've got a secret collection of wands and grimoires that they don't know about. As soon as I can figure out how to read that eldritch chicken scratch I'm moving out and starting a coven."

Roxy's face lit up. "You like magic too?"

Eridan nodded enthusiastically. "I have a real wizard's hat!"

"I've written, like, a five hundred page book about wizards!" Roxy said, grinning wildly. "It's not even finished yet!'

"Can I read it?" asked Eridan, perking up. 'I have all kinds of ideas, but I don't even know how to start!"

Roxy dropped the rifle, reeled in her hair, and locked and bolted the shutters. "You can read it in the morning big guy," she said with a wink.

"Huh?" said Eridan. In response she picked him up and threw him onto the bed. Then she kissed him hard. She tasted of strawberries, wine, and barely restrained rage. Just as he was getting into it, Roxy jerked up, a concerned look on her face. "Wait," she said, "you're the first guy I've ever met. This is crazy!"

Eridan nodded reluctantly. "It really would be the best thing to wait—"

"I mean," she said, ignoring him, "I don't even know if you're considered handsome or anything important like that!" Roxy glared at him. "Are you an uggo?"

"Er," said Eridan, "I'm an eight, I think." He was actually a seven, but he thought he was a solid ten, so in his mind he was being humble.

"Yes!" shouted Roxy, pumping her fist. She blew out the lantern.

Everyone gawked at Karkat, staring awkwardly at the excited look on his face. "So," said Feferi, looking down at her hands, "so they just jump into bed?"

"Fuck yeah," said the bush.

"YES!" Karkat shouted excitedly. He raised the index finger of his right hand. "But it gets even better! There are consequences! For you see, 'Rapunzel' is a MORALITY PLAY!" Everyone damn near fell over.

"No way," said John, grinning as he sat back up. "You don't mean—"

"You are certainly gaining a lot of weight, Rapunzel," said the witch, glaring at Roxy.

"It's because," Roxy snapped, "of the stress brought about by not being called my proper name!"

"That is your proper name!" the witch roared. There was alcohol on her breath. "It is clearly my laxity in discipline that has led to this juncture," she grabbed a fistful of Roxy's plentiful hair and dragged her over to the window. "I tried to keep you isolated from the evils of the world. I promised to keep you safe. But that wasn't good enough for you was it?"

"What are you talking about!?" Roxy asked, tears in her eyes.

"No," the witch went on, purple eyes glaring into pink, "you had to invite it in. That's what happened isn't it? Some passing huntsmen or woodcutter caught your eye and you let him up here, and he left you like this." The witch gave her stomach a sharp poke with her finger. Something kicked back.

Roxy paled. "Holy shit."

"Yes, Rapunzel," the witch said, sounding exasperated. "You finally understand. Holy shit." With a deft motion, she produced a pair of scissors and began to shear through Roxy's pink-gold locks. "This will be quite a detriment where you're going dear," she muttered as she worked.

"What are you talking about?" Roxy snapped.

"You wanted to see the world didn't you?" the witch whispered. "Well, once you've seen how it treats a pregnant teenager girl without a husband or a home, maybe you'll realize all I've done for you."

Eridan rode up to the tower at dusk as he had done every week since he first met Roxy nearly a year ago. There would have been a spring in his step if he were actually walking. A few weeks into it she'd started just leaving her hair out for him to climb instead of possibly alerting anyone nearby to his presence. He climbed up the rope, much more deftly than before now, and within seconds he was beholding the smiling face of his beloved—

Or rather the scowling face of her mother. She'd tied the end of Roxy's braid to the hook, and was resting her face on her elbow, reposed against the window frame, looking somehow both bored and fuming with rage. His beloved was nowhere to be seen. They stared at each other for quite a while. Finally, twisting her black mouth a bit, she said, "You're not even that cute," and sliced the knot with a pair of scissors. He plummeted.

Everyone continued staring at Karkat. Feferi broke the tension at last. "That was awful!" she shouted, and threw a rock at him. Everyone else soon followed suit.

"Philistines!" he shouted as another rock whizzed by his ear. "This story is beautiful and you're all fucktards!" A colorful juggling club smacked him hard in the chest and nearly knocked him over.

"It's not even over yet," Kankri said reasonably.

Karkat snapped his fingers as he jumped back to his feet. "That's right! This story had a happy ending! That we didn't make up!"

Eridan fell through the hideous brambles on his way down and their sharp thorns, long as nails, tore his skin to shreds, and gouged out his eyes—

John's popcorn hit Karkat full in the face. He ignored it and continued, seething.

Roxy did not go back to her mother. As far as she was concerned the miserable old hag was nothing to her anymore. Sure it had been hard, but living on the edge of the Wald, she discovered it was slightly easier to get by than not. She found an old stone hut near the only road that ran through the forest. Her useless accumulation of knowledge came in handy for once; one of the books she was allowed to read was an encyclopedia of medicinal plants. She started a garden. Locals came to her once in a while, for herbs and poultices. They thought she was a witch.

Regardless, that's the only thing that saved her when the twins came. Jesus Christ, if she never had another kid again it would be entirely too soon. Still, they were adorable. She named the boy after his father, and the girl was Beatrix.

Time passed. They grew a little older. Roxy feared every day that little Eridan would put his eye out playing with sticks, and considered shutting him up in some tower-like structure for a while. Beatrix kept getting on her nerves, always questioning everything Roxy said or did and trying to get out of anything ever. Dear god she loved the stupid brats.

Eventually one day a blind beggar came to the hut asking for spare change. His face was a mess of scars and he was bent double from some injury to his back, but she recognized him instantly.

"Some coins, please," said Eridan. "Or a little food, anything at all—" Roxy grabbed him and kissed him and cried onto his face. "You're really more of a seven now," she said, "But I'm good looking enough for the both of us."

"Rox?" he asked, hopefully.

"Come on," she said, dragging him inside, "meet your children."

"Huh?"

"And, with her knowledge of herbs and magic," said Karkat, "Rapunzel was able to cure her beloved's eyes. They lived together with their children for the rest of their days." He waited for applause.

"We don't really give applause," said John.

"I know," Karkat said with a smirk, "but I think this deserves one."

"It was okay," said Gamzee. "I liked my version better. The mom was more of a bitch so you felt justified hating her." Karkat rolled his eyes and muttered 'Philistines' again.

"And the moral of the story is," said Feferi smartly, "that you should always wait until marriage for sex." The bush booed.

"But they ended up living happily anyways," said John.

"Oh," said Feferi, thinking. She poked her lip with a finger. "Um. Got it! The moral of the story is you should save yourself for someone you truly love."

"They had sex within minutes of meeting each other," said Rose. She appeared to be knitting a sweater now.

"You should get to know each other before entering a committed rela—"

"There isn't a moral," said Karkat. "It's just a bunch of stuff that happened! Now declare me winner!"

"No can do brother-man," said Gamzee with an easy shake of his head, as if he regretted the action deeply but would be comforted by the general beauty of the world. "This is still barely round one." Karkat swore.

"Can we get back to my story, then?" asked Rose.

Author's note: Polyfandrous on FF suggested I do Rapunzel. Oooh, fakeout episode, you are so angry. The epic conclusion to the little mermaid arc will be next update, promise. As to when that may be, well….

The actual Grimms version of Rapunzel is actually kind of haunting. That said, I knew that it would be hilarious if I chose the characters right. The situation is almost exactly the same, but the little differences are what make a proper fusion.

Okay, I'm a total geek about my amateur folklorist hobby. I have two annotated, beautifully illustrated scholarly volumes of fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm. The Grimm one has only a small fraction of their stories, but is still the longer volume by far. But we're talking Andersen. The editor of the collection really, really seems to dislike the Disney version of 'The Little Mermaid'. A lot. It's kind of hilarious. Chill out Maria Tatar. Just consider Uncle Walt another storyteller, like I do. The Animated Canon is just another collection. More thoughts on that story and its adaptations though, in the next chapter. Later loves.