emilyevansauthor

[emilyevansauthor]

“Are you the witch who turned eleven princes into swans?”

The old woman stared at the figure on the front step of her cottage and considered her options. It was the kind of question usually backed up by a mob with meaningful torches, and the kind of question she tried to avoid.

Coming from a single dusty, tired housewife, it should’ve held no terrors.

“You a cop?”

The housewife twisted the hem of her apron. “No,” she muttered. “I’m a swan.”

A raven croaked somewhere in the woods. Wind whispered in the autumn leaves.

Then: “I think I can guess,” the old woman said slowly. “Husband stole your swan skin and forced you to marry him?”

A nod.

“And you can’t turn back into a swan until you find your skin again.”

A nod.

“But I reckon he’s hidden it, or burned it, or keeps it locked up so you can’t touch it.”

A tiny, miserable nod.

“And then you hear that old Granny Rothbart who lives out in the woods is really a batty old witch whose father taught her how to turn princes into swans,” the old woman sighed. “And you think, ‘Hey, stuff the old skin, I can just turn into a swan again this way.’

“But even if that was true – which I haven’t said if it is or if it isn’t – I’d say that I can only do it to make people miserable. I’m an awful person. I can’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I have no goodness. I can’t use magic to make you feel better. I only wish I could.”

Another pause. “If I was a witch,” she added.

The housewife chewed the inside of her cheek. Then she drew herself up and, for the first time, looked the old woman in the eyes.

“Can you do it to make my husband miserable?”

The old woman considered her options. Then she pulled the wand out from the umbrella stand by the door. It was long, and silver, and a tiny glass swan with open wings stood perched on the tip.

“I can work with that,” said the witch.

[emilyevansauthor]

After the occupation, the princess was confined to the palace.

Once a month she'd be taken on a walk around the city, heavily guarded of course, to show the people that she still lived. It also served, of course, as a reminder of what they stood to lose if they made trouble. The princess did her best go wave and smile and give the people what encouragement she could.

The rest of the time, her life was spent in musty rooms and dusty towers. She filled most of her time scouring the castle for materials which she would sew into more and more elaborate outfits, which she would show off on the days when she was allowed outside.

Indeed, the public loved their princess and her dresses so much they'd often sketch or paint them along the route and pass the images on so that all could see the princess at least was well.

This pleased the occupiers for two reasons. First: it kept the princess out of trouble. Second: it gave them a reason to sneer and they did love a good sneer.

"What a vain creature she is!" They would remark.

"Doesn't even care we murdered her brothers so long as she gets enough satin to make her little dresses!" They squawked.

This was unfair, of course, for to call her creations "little dresses" was to call Queen Murderfun the Needlessly Genocidal "a tad piquey". Her dresses were gravity-defying wonders lace and pearl. They were thunderstorms captured in velvet and waterfalls summoned in silk. She was a wizard with silk.

Still, she bore their mockery with a tight smile and careful deference.

"Please, good sirs, my home, my people and my city now belong to you. Let me keep, at least, this one last joy."

And they sneered and they crowed most unpleasantly, but they let her keep her sewing room.

Of course, they would have known their mockery to be doubly unfair had they realised the true purpose of the princess's elaborate designs. For hidden in the intricate embroiderings across her gowns, jackets and fans, the princess had encoded secret (and very detailed) messages. When she would go on her monthly walk, the city's loyalists would line the route, sketching down the patterns to decode later.

Thus did the princess transmit all the occupiers' secrets (unearthed while supposedly 'searching the castle for old fabrics') to the city and thus did she build her resistance.

On the day the revolution finally came, she girded herself in armour of thick spider silk and whale bone. She cut a fine figure with a lacy handkerchief in her top pocket and a razor sharp knitting needle keeping her hair up.

As she waltzed through the castle to open the door for her army, the Usurper King tried to stop her and she simply unfolded her handkerchief and showed it to him.

Upon seeing the impossible arcane pattern emblazoned across it, he fell to the floor with blood streaming from his eyes.

She always had been a wizard with silk.

---

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so at https://ko-fi.com/strangelittlestories

[emilyevansauthor]

please stop writing "viscous" when you mean "vicious", it produces the weirdest mental images ever

[emilyevansauthor]

something fun about all those "could granny weatherwax defeat kira" "could the infinity train fix izzy hands" sort of tumblr polls is like. there's a smug answer that's just "it depends whose story they're in," like, bugs bunny always wins if the genre is a looney tunes short but if he's in some sort of grimdark action drama then he's just a rabbit and gets shot by a hunter. but the other way to look at those polls is that's the whole question: whose genre rules have priority? there are some characters whose genre rules take priority over whatever story they're in.

here's what i say, granny weatherwax would always defeat kira precisely because granny can't exist in the death note universe without her own genre rules taking over; there's no "if it's a light yagami story then light wins" here because if granny's there it isn't a light yagami story. bugs bunny always wins because whatever story he enters becomes a looney tunes short, he cannot by his nature exist in any other context. the answer to "which our flag means death character could survive black sails?" is stede bonnet and only stede bonnet, because if any other ofmd character enters black sails they become a black sails character and most black sails characters die. but stede is the one who carries the romcom aura and that's part of who he is, if stede enters the world of black sails then black sails is now a romcom, and he's absolutely fine

[emilyevansauthor]

Castle by the River (detail) Karl Friedrich Schinkel

[emilyevansauthor]

[emilyevansauthor]

Consider:

Victorian England: 1837-1901

American Old West: 1803-1912

Meiji Restoration: 1868-1912

French privateering in the Gulf of Mexico: ended circa 1830

Conclusion: an adventuring party consisting of a Victorian gentleman thief, an Old West gunslinger, a disgraced former samurai, and an elderly French pirate is actually 100% historically plausible.

[emilyevansauthor]

I've been thinking of the "Can Granny Weatherwax beat Bugs Bunny" question and this is my full take for Discworld characters:

Vimes - Cares too much, too easy to piss off. Has the innate chase instinct that makes characters run into walls with realistic tunnels painted on them. Might get to arrest Bugs Bunny but the beast will just slip out of the handcuffs to help him lock them, then walk out of the jail cell to have a union mandated coffee break.

Ridcully - Classic hunting season scenario, but has enough charisma to probably still get a few good shots off before the inevitable.

Rest of the wizards - No survivors, only Bugs.

Carrot - The intense near-magical narrative aura of well meaning innocence should make him immune, Bugs will likely be forced to be the villain of the episode.

Lord Vetinari - Flattened by a comically large anvil in the first few minutes of the episode, unclear if it was all a part of his long term strategy or not.

Moist - Has the 'lovable trickster getting away with it' energy, but nowhere near Bugs level. Already fell for the "old lady who swallowed a fly" scenario with the stamp slugs once, won't fare any better here.

Death - Definitely one of those "character is trying to avoid death" episodes, would go back and forth. Might actually get to end Bugs but his spirit will reappear in Death's domain and ruin his garden.

Nanny Ogg - The ultimate in anti-Bugs technology, a gleefully annoying old lady who doesn't give a fuck and definitely won't be the first to instigate the plot bearing conflict. This is a full sweep, he's the episode antagonist.

Granny Weatherwax - Too win-motivated to not lose. Would have to break the story to have any chance. Might do it.

Magrat - Will have sappy ideas about helping the poor animal which honestly has the 50:50 chance of either getting slapsticked or Bugs ending in a ye olde stroller&pacifier gag.

Colon&Nobby - Designed in a lab to be totaled by Bugs Bunny.

Tiffany Aching - A child that also has a large pan that is the perfect thing to hit someone over the head with and make a BOIOIOINGGG sound, so great odds.

[emilyevansauthor]

"while the witch queen is visiting for the royal wedding anniversary politely decline any personal questions she asks" "why?" "Because she's a notorious matchmaker"

[emilyevansauthor]

Wedding night

(Part 1)

[emilyevansauthor]

Wilderness from my new book Faraway Dreaming. 🌱🌲 Available on Kickstarter until 24 June, 2025!

[emilyevansauthor]

Wedding night

(Part 1) (Part 2)

[emilyevansauthor]

I know that some British people take umbridge at Americans calling the Great British Bake Off relaxing, but it's just because GBBO is such a different kind of stressful from American baking shows.

American baking shows will be called something like "Cupcake Knife Fight", there's horror movie lighting everywhere and dramatic stings every 5 seconds. All of the contestants are shit talking each other and fist fighting over the one single deep fryer provided by production. It will show the judges all whispering to each other at their super villain table overlooking the whole kitchen, and one will be like, "Oh my god. Everyone look at Brenda right now. She's straight tanking it." And it will cut to Brenda, who is running around covered in flour and crying and also bleeding for some reason. Then you get a clip from an interview with one of the contestants, and they're like, "I really need to win this. Without this award money, I'm gonna need to close my restaurant, sell my dad, and live out of my car. AGAIN." Then the giant digital doomsday clock overhead lets out a horrid klaxon, the judges tell half of them that their cupcakes taste disgusting, and one of them gets eliminated and sent to walk down the dramatically-lit shame hallway never to be seen again.

Meanwhile GBBO is in a lovely, brightly colored tent, there are delightful and friendly hosts/jesters there to keep everyone entertained, and all of the B Roll is of like... a bumblebee going into a flower, or a lamb running in a field. And yes, there will be moments where someone will mess up their timing or something, and they'll be looking at their bake through the oven door like, "oh gosh I don't think this will rise in time!" Then they stand up to find Paul Hollywood directly behind them ominously. His creepy whitewalker eyes will glow white, and he'll say something like "the 12th of June. 2035. Drowning." And his eyes will go back to normal and he'll walk away. Then the baker gives a playful grimace to the camera and says "that didnt sound great, did it?". Cut to a sweet looking older woman sipping tea on a stool and she says "oo I do hope that Prue enjoys the taste of my sugary, sticky baps!". Then, at the end, someone gets a gold star for doing good, and the loser of the episode gets in the middle of a giant group hug. You see all of them at the end of the series at a giant carnival with their families and the post credits informs you that all of the contestants have become a Partridge Family-style traveling band and stayed friends forever.

[emilyevansauthor]

The thing was a mound of flesh and mottled skin, as big as a barn and the shape of a pumpkin. Four tentacles as thick as trees hung limp at its sides; teeth ringed the gaping mouth at the top of its head like a crown.

A huge, sad whale eye the colour of wine stared at the knight. She could see her reflection in the jelly surface.

“We don’t know what it is,” she heard. “Some kind of monster that makes a perfect copy of whatever it eats. They think that was how the Dark Lord made his armies, feeding his minions to it so that it would make hundreds of copies of them. Do you recognize it?”

The knight opened her mouth. She hesitated. “Yeah,” she murmured, drawing out the word. “We found it in the Dark Lord’s tower, right?”

“That’s right. That’s where it ate you.”

The knight turned around and looked at her other reflection. This one appeared to be about ten years older, and had doffed her armor for a loose blue tunic and breeches.

She was holding a cup of tea. She had pressed another cup into the knight’s hand when she woke up here. It had been a shock finding herself suddenly out the obsidian dungeons of the Dark Lord’s tower and into this tall room of stone and straw. The warmth of it in her hands steadied her a bit.

“Everyone else in the party was worried, but then it started making copies of you,” the copy went on, staring up at the tentacled thing. “And all of the copies helped fight against the Dark Lord, and we won, and peace was restored across the land, but then nobody could figure out how to kill the damn thing or just to make it stop. Dozens of copies of us in a day, hundreds in a week, and then someone decided that the only thing we could do is just bring the thing here, seal it off and hope it starved to death.”

She sipped her tea. “Anyways, that was two-hundred years ago and it’s slowed down a bit. It can only make a new copy of us every few weeks now.”

The knight looked down into her tea. The copy had also draped a blanket over her shoulders.

“I have so many questions,” she said.

“I figured.”

“How can it be two-hundred years? I can still remember breaking into the tower. That feels like it was just minutes ago.”

“It was, basically. Your brain is a perfect copy of the original you’s brain at the exact moment she was eaten.”

“But the quest is just — done?”

“Yep. You missed some of the things that needed tying up afterward. There was a war, and a dragon, and some business about a ring.” She waved a hand. “It was before my time. Things are pretty settled now.”

“My parents?”

“Passed away about a hundred-and-fifty years ago. I’ve been told that they were very proud.”

The knight nodded. “Um. I don’t know if you know — we had an elf in our party—”

“I’m aware.”

“I — right. Obviously. Um. It’s just, after everything was done, I was going to ask her—”

“One of us did. She said yes. She outlived her. A couple of us have tried to reach out since then, but she wants to be left alone for a while.”

The knight considered this. “Uh — right,” she said eventually. Her fingers tightened around the tea cup. “Um. What do I do now?”

Her older copy shrugged. She had let her hair grow out again, the knight noticed. There were a few strands of grey against the black. “That’s up to you, I’m afraid,” she said. “A lot of us are finding work as soldiers and sellswords. We’ve done it for so long that most armies know we’re reliable and don’t tend to turn one of us away. Most of us are just sort of spreading out, wandering the world. Some of us keep in touch.”

The knight frowned. “What do you do?”

Her copy paused, tea cup half raised to her lips. “Sorry?”

“You said it only makes a new copy every few weeks now. So you just stay here and wait for a new one to show up?”

She lowered the cup. “Well,” she said. “I guess I just — I know what it can be like, waking up here in the dark, and it — it can be horrible trying to figure all of this out on your own.

“So I thought that what I’d do is just stay here with a pot of tea, and whenever I see myself again, I tell her that — that she’s not alone.”

“We aren’t?”

“Of course not. We’re all in this together, you know.”

[emilyevansauthor]

❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･❀

[emilyevansauthor]

The unexpected reason why the drive-through line is so long

[emilyevansauthor]

Evening Dress

1860-1865

France

The MET (Object Number: 1978.310.1)