Date of creation: 09/20/2024

Word count: 2499

Author’s note: This was my round two, part one entry. The prompt was three images.

Maximum word count: 2500 words

*****

“Hey, Wendy!”

The woman with slate gray hair sighed and tossed her cards face-up on the table. “I know, I know,” she muttered. “Guess I’m out,” she said to her angelic companion, standing to her full height and stretching her arms over her head and her wings out to the wide. The black veins snaking through the wispy gray stood out against the spotless white of the clouds.

“I knew you were bluffing,” the blonde-haired beauty on the other side of the table said, her blue eyes sparkling triumphantly as she surveyed the cards.

The cherub who’d interrupted their game fluttered over the table. “That’s a really bad hand,” he commented.

“I don’t want advice from someone who’s still wearing a diaper,” Wendy replied, letting her arms and wings drop to her sides. “How bad is it?”

The chubby-cheeked infant shrugged. “The usual. And it's not a diaper. It’s a loincloth.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Wendy said, smirking.

“Your charge is a real firecracker, isn’t she?” the blonde asked, shuffling the cards together.

“Wrong element, but yes,” Wendy agreed. “Same time next week?”

“If your goddaughter doesn’t create another natural disaster, sure.”

Wendy spread her wings again and lifted herself into the air with one powerful flap. “That’ll depend on your goddaughter, won’t it?”

Another flap, and she turned and dove straight through the clouds without waiting for a reply, her translucent gray gown flowing behind her. She knew what she would find. Lily was a constant in her mind, the snow witch’s life a movie playing in the background of Wendy’s thoughts. She probably should have stopped the game earlier, but she was winning there for a while, and Lily wasn’t actually in danger of dying.

She closed her eyes just before impact. The mortal plane hit her face like water slapping a high-diver on entry, reality clinging to her every pore. Yuck. Every time, the feeling was the same, and every time, she thought again about how much she hated it. If only Lily knew.

She opened her eyes again, still in a nosedive. Dark, angry storm clouds swirled below, spreading out to cover the entire town. Slight improvement from last time, then. She broke through to the blizzard, impervious to the snow and ice penetrating her slender, semi-solid frame. There it was. The giant snow globe enclosing Lily’s house and yard. Oh, that girl. She shook her head and phased through the sheet of solid ice. The strains of an off-tune snowman septet singing BTS’ greatest hits filled the air as she leveled out, landing lightly on the porch.

“Cut!” she shouted.

Frosty and company froze midway through the extended dance scene in Fake Love. Jimin’s counterpart fell flat on the ground.

“That’s better.”

She shrunk her tall frame to normal human proportions and phased through the door. A mist of frozen fog rose from the icy surroundings in the colder-than-usual climate. She followed the familiar walkway to Lily’s bedroom, and there she was, passed out on the bathroom floor, her dark blue leather boots sticking out of the bathroom doorway. Every inch of her skin covered, as usual. Jeans, a baggy, long-sleeved shirt, and leather gloves to match the boots. Only her pale face was bare. Ice radiated from it, thickening the floor beneath her and forming cracks in the formerly smooth surface as the new, uncontrolled flow forced its way through. Wendy squatted beside the young woman and brushed her short, straight black hair from her face. Lily stirred and groaned.

“Mm…”

Wendy smiled despite the situation. “You really know how to make a mess, Lily. Come on, up you go.”

Lily’s black eyelashes fluttered open as Wendy hooked the witch’s arm over her shoulder. Her icy blue eyes stared at Wendy, confused and unfocused.

“Are you…an angel?” she asked in a faint voice.

Wendy shook her head. They had this conversation every time. “Common mistake, but no, I’m not. I’m your fairy godmother.”

She lifted the young woman to her feet and half-carried her into the bedroom. Lily wasn’t much help.

“Do I get three wishes?” she mumbled.

“That would be a genie,” Wendy corrected her, easing Lily onto the bed. “Fairy godmothers show up in your time of need and work a little magic. Or, in your case, a lot of magic.” She squatted down to pull Lily’s boots off of her feet. “You really need to work on your control.”

“But…the snow globe…”

“Turned out very nicely,” Wendy complimented her half-asleep charge. “You’re definitely getting better. But every time you go off in a rage like that, wisps of magic break free and spread out from you, wreaking havoc. At least this storm is more localized than last time. Putting an entire county under thirty feet of snow tends to upset people.”

“I…did that?”

Wendy nodded, tucking the blankets up to Lily’s chin. “You were unconscious at the time, and it was winter, so I’m not surprised you didn’t realize. It’s the middle of summer this time, though.” She covered Lily’s eyes with one hand. “But it’s time for you to sleep and forget now.”

A soft glow emitted from her hand, and within seconds, Lily’s breathing had slowed, and she had fallen into a deep sleep. Wendy straightened up with a sigh and caught Frosty’s eye, pouting in the window.

“I guess I’ll start with the hallucinations you brought to life,” she muttered.

Need any help?

Wendy frowned and looked toward the hallway. A floating skull hovered in the doorway, lit from within by a fog of purple and pink smoke, weathered yellow bone flaking from the inhuman shape and dull bronze orbs staring at her through the empty sockets.

“Did I invite you?” Wendy chided. “Shoo, shoo! If she wakes up and sees you—”

Then you’ll put her to sleep and wipe her memory again, the skull retorted. Nevertheless, it spun and drifted down the hallway ahead of Wendy, bronze chains hanging from the hinge of the left jaw and dragging across the icy floor.

“You’re doing that on purpose.”

Haunting laughter filled the air, but the doubled chain shortened to about two feet.

“Since you’re here, I could use a sounding board,” Wendy admitted as they phased through the door to the porch.

Thought so.

“You don’t have to sound so smug about it,” Wendy complained. “Alright, Frosty, show’s over, back to the bookmark.”

Frosty and company vanished one-by-one with a wave of Wendy’s hand, leaving nothing but fairy dust behind. The skull spun three hundred sixty degrees to take in the yard while she worked. A full stage, complete with runway and lights, had formed from the ice and snow as well.

This is more elaborate than usual, he commented.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Wendy asked, pride for her errant goddaughter evident in her tone. “And she hasn’t even reached her peak yet.”

She directed most of the wayward fragments this time, too.

Another wave, and the improvised concert arena began to disapparate.

“Control is and always has been her biggest issue,” Wendy said, walking around the yard to check for more fabrications. “And she’d master that much more quickly if she would just go to advanced magic school, but the way she channeled and targeted this time—you should have felt it. It was very clean and professional. Smooth as ice. Well, you can see for yourself.”

The skull dipped up and down in a nod. And that is still her need.

Wendy sighed. “Yes, it is. It would be so much easier if I were a genie. Giving someone what they want is a lot easier than giving them what they need.” She turned back to the skull, meeting the large bronze orbs set above the flat, bat-like nasal bones. “A direct approach never works with her. She’s too introverted to open up to other people, and she’s avoided other magic-users since her mother died.”

The skull nodded again. How do you help someone who doesn’t want to be helped?

“That is the question.” Wendy sighed again and spread her wings. “I can’t think down here. Let’s go up where the air is thinner.”

Her body grew with her first flap, reaching to the height of the willow tree that used to hold center stage in Lily’s yard, and she flapped again, kicking up gusts of snow as she took off. Outside of the snow globe, the storm raged on. The wind howled its fury, pelting hail on the blanket of snow coating everything in sight, and the nearly black clouds were still pregnant with traces of Lily’s anger. Wendy didn’t alter her course, flapping powerful wings that all but vanished in the gray. When she broke the clouds, she spread them wide, halting her ascent. The skull was already waiting on a bank of gray below a starlit sky.

“She’s supposed to have a visitor tomorrow,” Wendy said, gliding down to sit upon the clouds. “He’d be good for her, but she made the snow globe because she doesn’t want to see him.”

Will she be conscious tomorrow?

Wendy shrugged. “Maybe. It always takes a lot out of her when she does this kind of thing, but the level of skill she has now will decrease her recovery time.”

But she won’t want to see another human, anyway.

The two sat in silence for a while, thinking as the Earth rotated through the night and the pinpricks of white wandered through the inky black above. A perk of mortality. The sky didn’t change in the eternal plane.

What about a pet?

Wendy was leaning back on her hands, her long legs stretched before her and crossed at the ankles. She looked over at her companion. Dull canine teeth poked out of the bone under the empty nasal sockets, set a bit wider than the nose. He really looked demonic.

“Hm…maybe. But it couldn’t be just any pet.”

Oh, of course, it would have to be sentient.

Wendy nodded. “And suited to live in an arctic environment, so nothing without fur.”

I was about to suggest a snake.

“No snakes, no lizards, no reptiles at all,” Wendy said. “I’ve never understood your obsession with scales.”

Easier to maintain.

“Until shedding time.” A shudder of disgust ran through Wendy. “No, it has to be fur, and it can’t be just a regular dog or cat, either. Lily isn’t even normal by snow witch standards.” She paused, studying the skull’s visage intently.

Whatever you’re thinking, no, he warned her.

“What form are you imitating again?” she asked.

The skull shifted uncomfortably. It’s a blend of human, bat, and orc. My own creation.

“Hm. What about—”

No.

“But, George—”

No!

“If you didn’t want to help, why did you poke your nose in my business?”

The skull spun away, giving Wendy a view of the weathered, moth-eaten bone that should have covered a brain. Its central purple and pink smoke shifted closer to a full pink. She smiled. He was blushing.

“You wanted to invite me to the Halloween party.”

…the thought crossed my mind.

“I’ll go under one condition.”

He groaned, knowing he'd already lost with just that one sentence. Only if I get to pick the animal, he stipulated, trying to salvage some pride.

Wendy clapped with glee. “Okay, so, it has to be something small, no bigger than a large dog, because she doesn’t have a huge house or yard.”

And it has to have fur, George muttered.

“And cute. Cute is a must.”

I don’t do “cute.”

“What about a raccoon?” Wendy continued unabated.

George paused. That…wouldn’t be so bad, he admitted.

“Let me see. Come on, do it.”

George sighed, and suddenly, he spun like a top, the pink, purple, bronze, and off-white blurring and merging as he spun faster and faster. His shape became indistinct, shifting and changing, and then he stopped. Wendy clapped again. A fuzzy brown raccoon sat before her, its long, black nose twitching, starlight glinting off its black eyes within a black mask.

“It’s perfect!”

George lifted a paw to study his claws. It’s…okay.

“Alright, so we’ll leave you on her doorstep.”

What about the snow globe?

Wendy nodded. “You’re right. Um…you’ll collapse on her doorstep right before she opens the door. That way, she’ll think you were in her yard the entire time, and you miraculously survived the storm she created. She’ll feel guilty, so she’ll take you in. And she’ll have to do research to learn how to nurse you back to health, since she’ll still be too weak to escape her own snow globe—”

Now, I have to pretend to be sick, too?

“This is exactly what she needs!” Wendy exclaimed. “Something to care for! She’s been so lonely since her mother died—”

Problem. I’m not keeping this up forever. How do I get away without breaking her heart all over again?

Wendy frowned. “We’ll…figure that out later. Maybe she can release you into the wild after you’re all better. But the important thing now is to give her a reason to master control, because if she doesn’t, she’ll freeze you solid by accidentally touching you.”

Oh, joy.

“And if she doesn’t wake up before he arrives, there’s a warlock coming to see her tomorrow, so you can get his attention. He’ll have to break in to rescue the poor, pitiful, dying animal.”

And now I’m dying.

Wendy smiled at the despondent raccoon. “Oh, it won’t be so bad. Come on. We’d better get down there and practice.” She started to stand, and then she paused, mischief creeping into her gray eyes. “Do you want me to carry you?”

George looked away, cleaning his face busily with his paws.

“You’ll have to get used to a beautiful woman carrying you around all the time. Come on.” She patted her thighs. “Come here.”

I am not a pet.

“What if I say I’ll go to the New Year’s Eve party with you, too?”

He set his paws on the clouds and looked directly at her. And Valentine’s Day.

She thought for a moment and nodded. “Deal.”

He stood and walked toward her on all fours, his plump, fluffy body waddling across the clouds, and she barely suppressed a giggle at his expense. She picked him up around his middle and lifted him into her arms as she stood.

“You’re very soft,” she commented. He leaned into her touch as she pet him, and the giggle slipped out.

Fur is itchy!

“I’m sure it is,” she said, rolling her lips inwards and biting them to stop laughing. “Ready to fly, Mr. Raccoon?”

Never call me that again.

She leaped suddenly off the cloud, and he clutched at her with his claws, burying his adorable masked face into her gray gown. She smirked and tucked her wings, diving faster through the angry clouds, the swirling snow, the pounding hail, on a straight path to the perfect snow globe of ice and the now-quiet snow-covered yard while Lily slumbered on.

Mr. Racoon

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