Author: Casix Thistlebane
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, just these wacky hijinks...
Summary: a classic folktale dating all the way back to 21st century United States.... the story of a young man, an exvengeance demon, and a strange woman
by Casix Thistlebane
There once lived a young man in a small town in California. He was friends with two witches and a Slayer, and loved a young woman who used to be a demon, and but for the occasional vampire, evil twin, or troll, life was good.
One day, as he was walking home from work, he noticed a woman following him. Suspecting that she was simply headed in the same direction he was, he stepped to one side, let her pass, and thought nothing more of the incident until three days later when he saw her watching him at a club. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and when he looked again, she was chatting with the bartender. He worried briefly about her intentions, but decided it was best not to stir up trouble where it didn't already exist, and passed the moment from his mind.
Unbeknownst to him, the strange woman was to be feared, for she was more powerful than his witches, and older than his no-longer-demonic lover, and had a flair for the tragically romantic.
She had spied the young man at the club weeks earlier, and had fallen for his cute nose, and dark, cheerful eyes, and earnest, almost bashful demeanor. She'd determined that he would be hers and set about to make it so. She drank a few drinks to steel herself, and approached.
"I love you," she told him, "and if you won't be mine than I think one of us would have to perish so that he world could once again be right."
"I'm sorry," the young man said, "do I know you?"
"Not yet," the strange woman said, "but surely I know that we are destined to be, and if you won't be mine than disfigurement must plague us to show us what is right."
The young man was shocked by this, and more than a little worried, but he was kind-hearted if not cunning, and would not betray his love. He told her he loved another.
As he walked away, the strange woman devised a simple plot. She would curse him to wander the night and thus force him away from his daylight love. She devised a devious curse, being sure that he'd still have a cute nose and dark, cheerful eyes and an earnest, almost bashful demeanor, and returned home to await the following night when he would be hers.
The young man went home with his lover and slept with her and woke well into the morning, feeling strange. His love had gone to work, he noticed, and he suddenly had a great sense of smell but no eye sight to speak of and a strange prickly sensation all over his back. He was smaller too, he soon discovered, and had in fact been turned into a hedgehog.
He squeaked and pffffted in fear, tucking his cute nose and closing his dark, but not as cheerful eyes and showing his bashful demeanor by curling into a prickly ball on the mattress. Within minutes he had fallen asleep, because as you know, hedgehogs are nocturnal.
He woke and uncurled just before sunset, and fell off the bed, his quills cushioning his fall. He lay there dazed as the sunlight faded and he changed slowly back into his human form. Moments later, after dressing and getting a bite to eat, he ran to his lover and his witch friends to tell them what had happened.
"Go home tonight," the Slayer's watcher, wisest of them all, told him. "And when the sun rises, we will see if you change again."
So he and his lover spent a wakeful night at home, and as the dawn's rays came through the window, he found himself once more a hedgehog.
His lover picked him up and carried him to the Slayer's watcher, where he once more fell asleep. The Slayer's watcher poked and prodded and received a quill in his finger for disturbing the hedgehog's slumber. But he did not have an answer and the hedgehog slept in a ball by the cash register until sundown, when he once again became a young man.
The Slayer's watcher questioned him then, and the young man remembered the strange woman at the club and her threats.
"You've been cursed," The Slayer's watcher told him, "to sleep through the day as a hedgehog and wander a wakeful night while your lover sleeps. The cure, I suspect, would be to declare your love for the strange woman and make her your wife."
The young man was very upset, and knew he couldn't bear to spend the rest of his life as a hedgehog by day and a human at night. His lover was angry.
"To hell with that," she said. "This isn't some cheesy folk tale where the moron gets what they want by blackmailing everyone!"
"It's not?" the young man said.
"No!" his lover said. "And you're not going to pine away in some castle trying to hid your terrible secret from some silly princess either!"
"I'm not," the young man said. "I don't suppose true love would break the curse either then?"
"That never works," his lover told him. "You'd get too angsty and that would totally ruin your cute nose and dark, cheerful eyes and earnest, almost bashful demeanor. We're just going to march over to that strange woman, and make her undo the curse."
"But she's a witch!" The young man said. "She'll curse us all!"
"We have two witches, a Watcher, an ex-demon, and a Slayer," his lover said. "We'll kick her ass."
"You're damn right we will," the Slayer said.
That night, the strange woman came for her poor, cursed young man, expecting to find him sobbing all alone in his earnest, almost bashful way, and found instead an angry, cursed young man, looking confident and almost dangerous, backed by two witches, a Watcher, an ex-demon, and a Slayer. She apologized profusely, lifted the curse, and precipitated a hasty retreat.
The young man and his lover returned home where they slept together and his lover admitted she would miss being able to carry him around in her pocket. He pffffted and curled himself around her, and she never complained about his form again.
The End