Thomelisa Taken, Pt X

(sometimes it's a very difficult writing day, and you produce stuff you know isn't any good, but it's what you have to get through to get back to the parts that aren't sucky, and you tell yourself you'll fix it up, later, once you've gotten through the quagmire in your brain.)

***

A first-kiss antidote.  They were common enough, but made beastly by having to guess what specific kind of first-kiss.  Ofrse’s son had gotten off easily if the only requirement was the first kiss of marriage, rather than the first kiss at the top of the highest peak in the kingdom.

“That doesn’t answer why you decided my daughter was the appropriate bride,” I said.  “It seems to me that you could have more easily married him off to the next creature that came along, and been done with it.”

“Do you think I didn’t think of that?” she bristled.    “Obviously it would have been easier to do that, but since when has breaking a spell ever been that easy?  It was specifically cast so that he couldn’t marry just anyone, he had to marry the smallest girl in the kingdom.  Emphasis on the word girl, not toad or mouse of gnat.  We didn’t know anyone like your daughter existed, of course- we immediately set out to find the shortest girl, or the slimmest girl, but none of them worked.  In desperation I finally went to the Elves, and they told me about your daughter- no higher than a grown woman’s thumb.  It doesn’t get any smaller than that, does it?  And she’s certainly a girl.  I figured we’d whisk her away, have them married, my son cured, and then divorced before the sun could set.  I didn’t realize-”

“That she was my daughter.  Yes, you’ve mentioned.”  I ground my teeth.  Those damn Elves!  Still making mischief for me.  Still.  At least it went no further than this.

“How did she escape?” I asked at last.

“We’d set her on a lilypad, in the middle of the stream,” Toad Mother said, “thinking it would be like an ocean to her, and she would be trapped.  I wanted them to marry in our stateroom beneath the marsh, and I needed her out of the way while I prepared it for the wedding.  I wanted it to be beautiful for them…” she trailed off, then seemed to shake herself, and continued.  “I went back to fetch the bed, but when I returned once more to fetch her, the lily pad had vanished- someone chewed through the stalk!”