toothycat | (no subject)

Original here.

Two good fairies are sitting on the front steps of an enchanted castle.
"So what's up with the princess? Is she asleep or dead?"
"No, she just froze up. Put too many spells on her."
"What happened?"
"Nothing good. There was a year sixteen bug somewhere. Soon as she turned 16 - bang!"
The good fairy made an indeterminate gesture with his hand. The other scratched his nose.
"So what do we do now?"
"The usual. Wind the time forward a hundred years and see if it starts working of its own accord."

Original here.

An old man stands on the shore of the Blue Sea, arms stretched out towards the waves, shouting:
"Little fish! My little golden fish, come back!"
It does not.
"Little fish! I was a fool. And my old woman is a terror! She wanted to join the gentry - she got a title. Never mind that, she became queen! And now? I'm just her trophy figurehead prince."
The old man giggled.
"The servants tread on tiptoe before her, and no-one so much as spares me a glance. Just yesterday she told me to go... to the stables. Publically. She's gone completely mad."
There's no-one in the waves; just white foam rolling over the old man's boots.
"Little fish! I know you can hear me. Please, please come back! I've never asked you for anything for myself. Even now, it's all I'm asking - just come back! I don't need anything else - just come swimming back..."
"Your majesty...?" The obedient servant delicately touched the old man's sleeve and passed him a warm cloak.
"What? Oh, oh, yes, thank you. Of course..."
Hunching, the old man walked towards the carriage. It was not a good thing to make the queen wait.
The white sea-foam licked the sand on the spot where he had been standing.
The little mermaid could not possibly return to the prince. Even if she really wanted to.

(For reference: The golden fish. The Little Mermaid.

Original here.

Koschei the Immortal is sitting on his throne, picking his nose, in his eyes - despair.
A young hero runs in.
"Aha! This is it, Koschei, here it is - your death!" He holds up a crystal egg.
"Fibbing, I reckon", Koschei said disbelievingly.
"Bet you my teeth! This is your doom itself."
He swings and shatters the egg against the floor. Koschei stares regretfully at the shards.
"You're an idiot, Ivan. Shattered my death for some reason..."
He climbs down from the thrown, gets a dustpan and brush, sweeps up the fragments.
"What is it, Ivan, with you and your strange ideas? This is the third time you've tried to kill me now. I mean, I forgave you the first time, even though with your Kladenets you sliced my mantle up into seventeen strips. It can happen to anyone, right? And the second time I forgave you, when you came here with your stupid needle. Where on earth did you get the idea into your head that I'll die if you stick it into my butt, pray tell?! Your taste in practical jokes tends to the rude, Ivan. And inane, oh yes! And now here you are, smashing antique crystalware - and again with no luck..."
Pouring the fragments out into a rubbish bin, Koschei once more climbed his throne.
"All right, to hell with you, I'll forgive you this time too. But I don't want to set eyes on you ever again, you slapdash botcher!"
"But, Koschei, sir, I was only... I was really sure this time! Baba Yaga told me..."
"Your baba Yaga is a senile woman with strange fantasies. All right, be off with you, I don't need you here any more."
After the disappointed Ivan left, Koschei sat on his throne, miserable, for a while longer; then he went to Vasilisa's chambers.
"So, Koschei dearest, what news?"
"Ivan came again."
"Any luck?"
"As you can see."
Koschei sat down on the floor, cross-legged, in front of Vasilisa.
"I've been alive for four hundred years. I've mastered the wisdom of Chi, and the wisdom of Ba, and the wisdom of Ka, and the wisdom... what haven't I mastered? All my chakras are open! I spend weeks in trances! My karma is overflowing! But how can I cross over to the next plane if nothing'll take me? I've even tried diving into boiling milk..."
"And?"
"Just a waste of good food."
"I've baked you some pies... perhaps you'd like to try a couple?"
"What's in them?"
"All sorts of things. Wolfsbane root, crow's eyes, beladonna, potassium cyanide..."
"Oh, go on then. Who knows, maybe it'll help."

Original here.

The sun stood still in its zenith, and the earth began to crack from the tremendous heat. Ancient volcanoes awoke, and a multitude of new ones appeared. A choking smoke crept along the ground...

"Let's see it, then, what have you got there?"
"An apocalypse."
"Oh, yeah, that happens. What kind: Armageddon or Ragnarok?"
"How should I know?"
"Well, what did it look like?"
"Well... the world started to crumble. The sun froze and wouldn't respond. The stars went out. Then all these crawling things appeared..."
"Any wolves?"
"What?"
"Wolves. Did a giant wolf eat the Moon?"
"I don't think so..."
"Not a Ragnarok, then. Right, let's sort this out."

The sky changed colour minute by minute, and terrible portents appeared upon it. Fearsome monsters emerged from under the earth and walked the forests, uprooting trees. Nightmare engulfed the world...

Mazukta the demiurge looked around, at a loss.
"I don't even know what to tell you... I don't think there is much left here you can repair, to be honest. It'd be easier to start over."
"Oooh, but that's so much fuss!" Shambambukli whined. "You're good at these things, aren't you? Isn't there some way you can fix it?"
Mazukta stared at a chunk of space as it fell into the Void.
"I'm sorry. This can't be cured. You'll have to wipe the lot and reinstall."
"Very well, then, wipe it." Shambambukli sighed.
Mazukta swept an arm in a majestic circle...

Mountains and deserts disappeared in a flash; seas boiled away, trees turned to ashes. The sky was covered over with darkness, scrunched up into a tight lump, folded in on itself and imploded. Nothing was left.

"All right, we can start now," Mazukta grunted in satisfaction. "Let's create a new sky and earth, populate it with various creatures... by the way, did you manage to save anything to disk?"
"Of course!", Shambambukli replied. "I backed up all the most important things to disk, just like you told me."
"Great! Pass it here, we'll save some time."
"Here you go..."
Shambambukli handed a disk to the demiurge Mazukta. The latter glanced at it, did a double-take, stared.
"Wh-what's this...?"
"A disk. You said yourself..."
"Shambambukli," Mazukta said in a tired voice after a long silence. "When will you finally begin to understand what is being said to you?"
"Oh! Did you mean something else?" Shambambukli said, looking worriedly from Mazukta to the disk.

Under a crystal dome of sky, a flat, ideally circular earth was preserved, washed on all sides by an ocean. There were upon it mountains and valleys, forests and deserts. Herds of cattle wandered upon it, birds flew, fishes swam in the deep... And people stood, all staring up - a great multitude of people.

"Yes, I did mean something else," Mazukta nodded and began to unhurriedly pick up his instruments.
"So, what? You're not going to repair anything now?"
"Nope. You don't need to repair anything. Just leave it like it is, this isn't bad either."

Not quite believing their salvation, not quite remembering anything, the people stood and stared at the sky. Some, of course, had hysterics; some were praying fervently, having spread themselves flat on the ground. But most of them simply stood and stared.