This is loosely based on the poem "Instructions," about what to do if you ever find yourself suddenly caught in a fairy tale, written by the wonderful Neil Gaiman. It's not meant to be "real" or logical in any way, though fairy tales do have their own internal logic. But mostly, strange things happen, and people just roll with it. This prologue is awfully short, and I have a nagging feeling I should apologize for it. I'll try to make up for it by posting with some regularity.
Oh and I make no money, and I don't own the turtles. Not one of them. Really.
"Yes, that's absolutely true. So why don't you accept that fact and unlock these cuffs?"
"Hush now, Leo. Mistress is writing."
Beginning
The old woman had become something of a fixture in the alley the past few weeks, with her shopping cart full of rags, papers, bottles, discarded junk and odds and ends. Her personal treasures, which she guarded as fiercely as a pit bull. Michaelangelo greeted her as he passed, not really expecting a reply. The woman was talking, as she often was, in a rambling, free-form, word association monologue, not directed at anyone outside of her own mind and incomprehensible to anyone save perhaps herself.
"Hey nonny nonny hey. Hey hey making hay, hey Jude, hey hey Julia, hey now hey now hey now, hey there you with the stars in your eyes, hey there you hey there - HEY YOU!"
Mike stopped. "Me?"
Her hard, pebbly, eyes shone in the dim light of the alley, like wet quartz held under a light. The tense expression in them was in equal parts frightened and infuriated at nothing in particular, just the entire world. "Yeah, you. Who else, you. Jonny fucking B. Goode? I – I need – "
He moved closer to her. "Are you alright?" Relatively speaking, of course, he thought. "Alright" could never be more than a relative term in the alleys and sewers of New York City.
She reached toward him, her hands opening and closing, grabbing at the air. "I need - I need to see – I need you, buttercup."
Mike dug into the pocket of his trench coat, pulling out the ten dollar bill he had. "You need some money?"
"Gah! Not that!" She slapped irritably at the offered money. Faster than he ever could have imagined a woman that age could move, she lunged like a rattlesnake and grasped his other hand.
He did not flinch at the gnarled, filthy hand with thick yellow nails that suddenly snatched at his, nor did she flinch at the three thick, callused, green fingers she clutched. An unspoken kindness passed through both of them. The old woman cackled to herself as she pressed and kneaded her fingers across his digits and palm. "You're having a strange interlude, aren't you?" she asked rather impishly, and more lucidly than was usual for her.
Mike grinned ruefully. "My whole life is a strange interlude." He hunkered down on his haunches and, with a patience he rarely showed in his day to day interactions, a patience he held in reserve for things that truly mattered, waited for the old woman to be done with him.
She bent her head and peered intently into his hand. "I need to see. Ah, what's this? What's this?... There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is why it will not stand." She raised her head and met his eyes. "When you come back, return the way you came. Favors will be returned, debts repaid."
Mike smiled at her. "Well, that's good to know."
She returned his smile, slowly, with effort. He could almost hear her skin, wrinkled and dry as old parchment, crackling and creaking under the strain. For a moment her eyes were completely sane, and tired and sad. "Eh," she said. "It happens sometimes." She twitched once, and shuddered. The look was gone, her eyes once more gleaming - haunted and hostile. She dropped her gaze, snaking her head from side to side. "Gah, someone put stars in the oatmeal. Get out of my sight, you green fucker."
Michaelangelo left her the ten dollars and disappeared down the manhole.
TBC