MavenStiltskin

An adventure on the other side of the gender fence

[with apologies to all transgender & non-binary folk, no offense intended]

The cat moved away from the dwarf

The first thing Maven learned in fairy godmother school was not to grant her own wishes. But sometimes, she thought, it was just necessary to take some time off and get a new perspective on life.

She had this new wand after all, gussied up with a pretty crystal tied on with the finest gossamer, and she figured it needed some wood-shedding before using it on a client. So Maven went into the woods, taking off a year and a day.

Just for practice, she tried out all the old wishes from her girlhood. She had already been a cat and a frog, so she tried being a bird and a butterfly.

But her one deep wish as a girl had been to be a boy. Boys didn't have to sit still or do embroidery or keep their knees together.

The first thing she learned was that pronunciation in spell casting is very important. What she had in mind was to look like the King of Elves, tall, with pointed ears, and slender with jewel-like eyes.

When the dust settled, however, she saw in her mirror a chubby, sweating dwarf with a large pompadour, white bell-bottoms, and a jeweled cape.

"Blessa my soul! What's a wrong with me? I'm-a standing here only three foot three! This is schlock--I'm all shook up." She piped at her reflection.

She spun the fairy dust over herself, spoke slowly and carefully, and became, not a boy, but a wizened little man complete with a long beard and a crumpled, pointy hat covering a bald spot and a fringe of frizzy hair—a dwarfish sort of elf.

S/he moved into the Great Forest to discover his new self and get some perspective from the other side of the gender fence.

First, he had to learn new protective movements, as his soft places were in very different areas, and while he had the look, he did not have the muscle knowledge. It was painful for a few weeks.

The beard, for one thing, kept getting caught. He'd never worn his hair long, but even that would hang behind him—the beard was in front, blocking his hands and his line of sight to whatever he was doing.

He had also acquired a taste for gold and jewels (a dwarfish trait), which meant that he did a lot of digging. Sometimes that dratted beard would get under the shovel. He would stomp down to turn a piece of landscape, and the beard would jerk his head nearly off his shoulders.

Then he would lose her temper and try to disappear anything in his path (the elfish side).

Cut it off? Never! It represents a history of manhood, a lifetime (which really was just over a month--but in Faery, that can be plenty long enough!) Besides, cutting it hurt.

Like Samson and his hair, his beard was connected so firmly that cutting it was like cutting his intestines.

But he soon learned to protect it and to keep it combed and shaped, though its texture was worse than a bad perm.

One day he went out fishing, as even elvish dwarves have to eat, requiring more solid food than fairy godmothers. But he had no luck.

The fish weren't biting, the wind kept pushing his hook against submerged branches in the deep shadows, and at one point his whole line snagged and tied itself around his beard.

Maven was so frustrated that he threw his birch pole down, breaking it, and stomped off towards his cave, dragging it behind him.

The line caught on every bit of underbrush, yanking his chin and trying to pull his lovely beard out by its roots. The dwarfish elf finally sat down to get himself straightened out, but could not get the line loose.

Must have been the famous combination of greater strength and lack of fine motor skills men are blessed with. He had lost his knife in the struggle, and he’d made magic fishing line, 80 lb test, so that he could not get loose.

He felt the hormone surge of adrenaline and testosterone coming, as his blood pressure rose and heated up his face. He yelled, screamed, cursed, jumped, and tore at his hair. He was oblivious to the world around him.

"Can we help?" a young, green-eyed blonde asked him, obviously amused by his predicament. Her companion, an onyx-eyed brunette, clamped her hand over her face to stop her giggles.

"Get me loose!" he cried.

But before Maven could even move, the blonde snipped off the end of his beard where the line was knotted.

Aaaauuuugggggghhhhhh!" Maven screeched in pain--his honor clipped, his manhood shortened!

By the time he got through screaming, they were gone, their laughter echoing through the forest.

Maven went back to his cave and threw himself on his pallet, vowing revenge. He played with his jewels and diamonds until he could calm himself enough to sleep.

That night Maven's wand was dispatched to a local palace dungeon, where he found a comely peasant girl sobbing at a spinning wheel surrounded by sheaves of straw.

The girl’s father had told the king some tall tale about her ability to transform straw into gold. Why anyone would want spun gold is beyond her, but kings are generally not interested in the form of the gold as long as it is in the coffers.

Meanwhile, the girl had to figure out how to make the gold, or plan to die in the morning. She said her father just wanted to get rid of her without having to pay out a dowry.

A woman's tears are a powerful force, calling forth some chemical response that makes the man suddenly offer to do stupid things like solving the girl’s problems.

It didn’t affect Maven when he was herself.

The girl continued crying while Maven was thinking, gaining an insight into the male point of view. The caterwauling interfered with his magic.

Maven’s woman's intuition was not completely buried in her male brain, but he’d never realized how much the smaller head interferes with thinking.

It must be because it was outside.

Now, women most definitely think with the inner brain, but it is inside, unseen, a magnetic force.

Men have more of a grappling hook approach. Breaks concentration—wonder why it didn't work on the girl’s father?

Maven had a more serious problem.

If the king saw the girl as the answer to the exchequer, the best she could hope for was being locked in the dungeon forever, up to her neck in straw.

After all, why would a king marry a golden goose if he could get free eggs?

Maven told the girl he could spin the gold, but wanted something in return.

For one thing, it would get the girl’s mind off her problem, and she might stop weeping.

Maven’s coffers weren't so full either. He didn't think he would be interested in her, thought about asking her for a kiss, but definitely did not want a peck on the cheek or a smooch on the top of his nearly bald head.

So he asked what it was worth to the girl, who offered her mother's ring--barely 10k and a poorly cut amethyst stone.

Maven took it.

He cleaned out a corner to sit in, out of the way. He pronounced a sleepy-spell and laid a medium powerful glamour on the girl as well to get the king's mind out of the counting house when he came to check on her in the morning.

He waved his crystal-enhanced wand, and spun himself around three times, creating a dust devil. It swirled among the straw, picking up bits and pieces, lengthening them and thinning them to hairlike strands and rolling them up into skeins of silky gold threads. Maybe this gold would be the girl's wedding dress.

Maven took a couple of skeins for himself, and left for the night.

It was a full moon night, so he decided to walk home. The wind seemed to carry laughter and dancing, making him feel young and mischievous.

He tried a hand spring and nailed it. He saw a fence and decided to walk it, balancing more easily than the cat he shooed away with his foot.

Big mistake.

The next thing he knew, he had missed his footing, fallen and hanging by his beard with no ground below him. He couldn't get hold of the pickets to pull himself up. He dropped his wand while struggling to get it out of his pocket.

He howled in frustration and pain, hoping to waken some of the good townsmen to get him loose.

The cat came back, a black one with green eyes, and brought two friends, a tabby and a gray. They sat and watched him struggle, groomed themselves, and finally slunk into the darkness.

Seconds later, his ladyfriends from the forest came to his rescue.

"Poor Baby!" the dark one said. "Scuppie, hold him up."

The blonde lifted her under her arms like a four-year-old. "Okay, Muskie."

Muskie hauled out her scissors before he could protest and cut his chin hair in half.

He screamed.

They laughed, dropped him, and disappeared like the cats.

He found his wand and transported himself home, humiliated and mutilated. Too convenient for an accident--they would not catch him again.

At midnight, dispatch called again: more straw to spin. The girl was only sniffling a little, hurt because the king was more interested in the gold than in the gorgeous.

A lot more straw had been dumped in the dungeon this time, and some of it had already been used, a chance for creative challenge.

Maven made the girl give up her pocket scissors, so he could outwit those snippy forest catwomen.

The girl was more reluctant to give up the scissors than her ring, but did so--women and their cutting tools!

MavenStiltskin put a double-whammy enchantment on her, nearly falling in love with her himself, then transformed the straw into gold.

The other organic matter became dozens of colorful gold-flecked flying disks--no doubt the king's men would soon learn the uselessness of the toys for military activities.

He went home early to rest up for the third night--these people always do things in threes.

Maven slept late, then went in search of the home of the raven-haired giggler and the canary-haired barber. She found a little whitewashed cabin in a clearing surrounded by trellises of nearly ripe grapes, black muscadines and green scuppernongs.

The girls were inside, talking and laughing with an older woman over a rustic lunch. "Muscadine stayed in the water and sacred away all the fish." the blonde one said, her hands swimming across the table.

"Then Scuppie twisted the breeze just a little," the dark one said, breathless from laughing. "It caught the fishing line and tied it in a double slip knot right around the end of his beard."

"He broke his rod and stomped into the forest screaming! I thought he would croak," Scuppie said.

Maven felt her wand finger itching; Scuppie might be croaking sooner than she thought!

He'd have to bide her time, though, frog-making is unmanly, neither elfish nor dwarfish. Frog-gigging, however....

"Be careful," the old woman said. "This Rumplestiltskin is as powerful as anyone we have ever trained. If he catches on, you may regret it. We need to get back to tending the grapes and get ready for making the wine. He will eventually need to check in with Dispatch."

The girls cleared the table.

He cleared out for home before they discovered him.

***

Regret was not exactly what he had in mind, but it would do for a start.

That night, the dungeon had been packed to the rafters with horse manure.

The king liked the flying disks so much that he wanted more of those, and the gold was just a secondary thing.

He noticed the girl was calm tonight, not crying, perhaps a bit overpowered by the stench, perhaps merely confident in the dwarf's abilities and beneficence.

Maven found himself asking for the girl's firstborn child to be given up in a year—not that he wanted it; sometimes the story just takes over.

The girl agreed quickly.

He put the most extravagant glamour on the girl he could whip up, wondering if the king might not be of the straight persuasion.

Still, the third time was usually the charm, and he had other things on his mind. He didn't even look at her when he wove the last spell; he was afraid of his strength.

He stacked the disks to the rafters and went home early to plan some entertainment for the forest gigglers.

One thing he’d noticed in this part of Faery; the locals were just not up on the diversity of stories from other cultures.

Nobody here knew about Coyote or Brer Rabbit, which made his plan all the more devious.

Mavenstiltskin built herself a tar baby—not out tar, but of honey and clay and flowers and pretty stones.

He used the skeins of gold to make hair for her honey baby, just as pretty a child as one might find in a picture book.

Then he put a tangling sticky-spell on the whole thing and poofed it to the path where Muscadine and Scuppernong might find it.

Soon enough, the two girls chattered by, and attracted to the sparkle, stopped to investigate. Scuppernong reached for the golden hair, and Muscadine reached out to stop her just as she touched the honey baby.

Then they tried to pull each other away, each time sticking together at any point where their bodies touched. They might rip a hand loose only by tearing a skirt or ripping a bodice.

By the time MavenStiltskin came out of hiding, the two women looked like two WWF stars during a throw-her-out-of-the-ring grudge match.

He walked around them once or twice, all sorts of appropriate sayings going through her head, but just letting them know who'd done it was enough.

"Need some help, Ladies?" he asked, as gallant as possible while stifling the urge to roll cackling in the path. "Or is this just some female bonding?"

"Don't touch me!" Scuppernong said, "I don't want to get stuck to the likes of you." Her look was like phaser blasts of hate.

"I don't THINK so!" Muscadine said. She tossed her head, which made more of her long, dark hair stick to Scuppernong.

"Okay—I wouldn't want to insult your intelligence or independence by barging in." MavenStiltskin strolled away. "Have a nice day."

She was around the bend and almost out of sight before one of them called, "Wait. Come back."

His revenge would be sweet; he would cut off their hair with her peasant's iron scissors, well sprinkled with fairy dust, which should cancel the spells they used for disguise.

It would hurt, too, just like her beard.

There was much screeching and yelping, but each of them was too proud to cry.

Thank goodness! They were finally separated from the honey baby and from each other.

"Going to throw us in the Briar Patch?" Muscadine glared from under her hurricane haircut, making him take a step back.

"I'm not throwing you anywhere." MavenStiltskin felt more defensive than he expected—oh, but it would be a good story when he got back, although he could wait to hear their version.

He bowed, said goodbye, and skipped down the path and dodged into a briar patch on his own in a direction away from her lodgings.

Meanwhile, back at the palace, the king finally had enough Frisbees to arm the entire standing army. At any time of the day or night, a shiny disk might float across the quad or whiz by one's head.

At length, the king took a look at the peasant girl and fell completely in love, and married her the same day.

That's some wand MavenStiltskin had.

He'd to be careful next time though; the poor girl turned out to be six feet tall, skinny as a Vogue model, and had the rattiest looking hair he could imagine.

But the king liked her.

****

Maven spent the next year in the woods, studying spellcraft, swapping lies with Iron John and generally liberating fish from Izaac's Puddle down below his cave.

His forest neighbors had vacated the cabin after grape harvest; so all was peaceful, except for an occasional disc escaping from the constant practice sessions.

He returned to the castle, having planned the special effect from Hell to go back on regular duty. The Queen would go through the name game, and whatever she said last, that would do. She hadn't filed an official name in her present state anyway—too much paperwork.

The nursery was in an uproar. Toys, clothes, and diapers were strewn everywhere, the Queen paced the floor, weeping, and the baby shrieked herself into exhaustion.

"My Queen," Mavenstiltkin said, appearing in the nursery chamber as the Queen held her screaming infant. "I have come for her payment. Give me the child."

"I am so glad to see you," she said. "This brat's been nothing but trouble from the day she was born. I thought the king was gonna kill me when I had a girl. Take her and good riddance."

MavenStiltskin stood dumbfounded.

The Queen handed her the howling bundle, tiny, helpless, and crying. She tossed together a sack of supplies and then pushed him and the baby towards the door. "Or you can just poof out of here, like always.".

A deal was a deal, and a man is his word.

He shifted the baby into the crook of his arm and poofed them both to his cavern to figure out what to do next. From the smell, the baby's immediate problem was obvious.

He changed the baby and made a flying disc of the remains.

The child quit crying and looked up at him with a most delicious smile.

What kind of mother could ever give up so golden a child?

Mavenstiltskin decided he would manage, even though he’d never had children, even if he had to take the child back to Mundane. But for now, he might support them with his new stock in trade: golden flying disks.

His golden vision of the future was dimmed by a dark shadow entering the cavern—Fiona on official business.

"What do you think you're doing?" She pointed her bony hand at the baby. "You can't raise a child."

"I can do as well as that fool in the castle." He held the child to his chest, feeling that he would kill to protect her. "It was her idea anyway."

"Give her to me," Fiona commanded.

"No." Mavenstiltkin got ready to set her special effect in motion.

"I know your true name," Fiona said.

"I don't have a name here." Five more seconds and the two would escape.

"You forget who keeps the records...Mavenstiltskin!"

The baby, whose name she never learned, flew from her arms to Fiona's just as the ground opened and dropped her, not into her quarters back at Central, but into Dispatch, right in front of Fiona's desk.

A contract lay there with her name at the top, and "Maventiltskin" lettered in at the bottom. A drop of her blood landed beside the name as she transformed back to Maven Fairy Godmother Extraordinaire.

All she had to show for it was a golden disk and a few chin hairs that just wouldn't be plucked out.