Guest Post: Tales from Mythénia
Tonight I am both honored and excited to share the following excerpts from a delightful fairy tale, created by a friend and fellow artist who is also a very talented writer. Credits will be linked below. I could not stop smiling reading this and I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did!
The following excerpts are part of a story inculded in a larger collection of tales revolving around both the human realm and the mystical world of Mythénia. Love what you read? Be sure to support her upcoming launch! 💙
✨️🦷 The Tooth Fairy Slayer: Chapter 1 🦷✨️
Everyone loses things — it’s inevitable. We lose even more as we age and rarely ever get it back. Sometimes it’s an insignificant button off of your favorite sweater, sometimes it’s a ribbon that flies out of your hair on a windy day, or a tooth secretly exchanged for a coin. However, when it’s your whole life, lost in seconds, right before your eyes, the feeling is a lot less laissez-faire.
Gabriella Abbott was born one bright, chilly fall to a single mother with the help of her sage grandmother. Maybe they did not have a grand stone house in the city or the most fancy of pottery, but their quaint little cottage was warm and full of love. The cottage sat at the edge of the thickest forest where her papa had taken her on small adventures.
“For beginners.” He had explained. He taught her one new ‘big skill’ each year.
The family’s cottage was self-sufficient for the most part. The nearby creek was a good spot to find small game and everyone swore that their well water was better than any brew in the city.
Gabriella grew up on the fringe of the wild and civilized lands, growing from a noisy, bright-haired baby to a fiery, spritely kid hungry for adventure. Her neighbors knew her as the young red-haired wonderer. Out in the forest, she encountered the most whimsical of adventures. She knew only love and curious learning until her papa passed from old age. Still, this did not dampen her spirits as she sought adventure, and like her mama and nana, she was a quick study. Gabby soon started taking over tasks around the house.
She was collecting the chickens and securing them within a coop that their neighbor (a dear friend of her papa) had helped them build. He had suggested the eastern side of the cottage, close to the chimney and the little house where his dog slept. When the last little chicken climbed in, she latched the door and pulled the extra security rope across the door before waving to the neighbor's gruff guard dog, who regarded her lazily. She then wondered inside the cottage where her mother and grandmother were finishing dinner.
“Gabby!” Her mother greeted her with a cheerful smile, wiping her hands on her apron. Gabby's grandmother smiled even more brightly at the sight of her granddaughter and reached for her, taking Gabby's hands in her own gnarled old fingers, which were tough from years of gardening, yet still somehow soft, with an unusual gentleness. “All the hens in the house?” She asked.
Gabby nodded.
“Good gal.” Her grandmother squeezed her hands and gave her an affectionate pat on the head, then returned to drying bowls for dinner.
“Gabs, will you make a bowl for your nana please?”
“Yes, mama! What are we having?” Gabby took one bowl from the table and brought it to the cooking cauldron where the most nostalgic smell wafted.
“Pumpkin soup with baked garlic bread.” Her mother replied.
“Oooh! My favorite!” Gabby exclaimed, she filled her grandmother's bowl three-fourths of the way full, just how she liked it, and set it in front of her elder. “Here you are, Nana. Can I get you some of the bread also?”
“No thank you Gabs, soup is plenty.”
One chair sat empty. Gabriella and her mother exchanged twin looks of looming grief. Gabby took the remaining bowls to her mother who split the remaining soup between them. She noticed her mother took a little less so that her half was bigger. They split the small load of fewshky baked bread and joined Nana at the table.
Gabby took a hand from each of her adults, who then took each other's hands in turn. They prayed silently over their food. Gabby’s prayer was that her grandmother would reach her next birthday. When they were finished praying, Gabby was the first to take a bite of the soup.
“Well, how is it?” Gabby's mother asked with a snicker.
“You always make the best pumpkin soup Cady. Thank you.” Nana said.
“Yes! Thank you, Mama! It’s my favorite!”
“We know sweet girl. This is the last batch until the next harvest, so please enjoy it as much as you can.” Cady finished by biting off a soup-soaked piece of garlic bread.
There was a long pause where peace seemed to settle across the table. Gabby, ever-ravenous, had a steady stream of soup in her mouth, either with bread or sipping straight from her bowl. She ran out of bread before soup and her imagination started to run.
“What happened to my father mama?” Gabby asked.
The peace was evacuated in an instant and the open space began to feel painful.
“I honestly do not know Gabby,” Cady replied carefully.
“Why not?” Gabby pressed.
“I couldn't telly you. He and I met, had you, and now he is gone. That is all I know. "
“Where did he go?”
“I do not know Gabriella! I hope he is dead for all he has done for us! Why are we not enough?” Cady lashed out.
“Cady!” Nana intervened. Gabby sat stunned in her chair, her stomach instantly hollow despite the empty bowl in front of her.
Gabby's mother blinked. "I...you are right mother. I am so sorry Gabby. I do not know where he is. I can't tell you more than that, I'm sorry". Cady reached a hand across the table and squeezed her daughters. "But I do hope we have been enough for you this far.”
“Of course mama. I only was curious. I am sorry too.” Gabby squeezed her mother's hand back then took her bowl to the window to wash it out. She used an old rag dipped in water to remove the soupy residue from the bowl. When it was clean she replaced it in the cupboard with the fourth bowl they never used. Her mother also left the table and began cleaning the cooking cauldron, a pained silence settling in their vacant spaces like an unwelcomed guest.
Gabby's grandmother beckoned for her to help her up the stairs. The girl hurried over and ushered her grandmother up the stairs, one at a time. Not many cottages were able to have a second story, but Gabby's papa was a skilled mason who had been shown the magical craft of a chimney, and the house had been expanded as a result. Nana's room was the closest to the chimney, as no one wanted to risk a chill setting into the elder's bones. Gabby and her mother shared the second small room, but it cozy, was not crowded. Now that she was older, Gabby sometimes slept on the sofa near the reading nook.
Gabby helped Nana get situated in bed and started a fresh candle. Nana patted the bed for Gabby to sit on. She did and her grandmother held one of Gabby's hands.
“Sweet girl, what brings your father to your mind?”
Nana’s thumb rubbed back and forth across the back of Gabby's hand. The girl shrugged, which earned her a knowing stare from Nana.
“Ok… well, with Papa gone, I do not see how I will learn any more adventure skills! You and Mama only know so much about the wild. What if I do not want to stay here forever? Will I not need to know more?”
Nana took a moment to carefully choose her words. She leaned towards Gabby as much as her body would allow.
“Gabriella, you are almost thirteen. I would think by now you would have figured out that you can learn anything from the world around you. All you have to do is listen.” her grandmother squeezed her shoulder for a hug and smiled, “You are so bright Gabriella – you will figure it out. You were gifted with a big brain to fill with knowledge.”
Gabby smiled, squeezed her hand back, and stood. She leaned forward and kissed her grandmother goodnight. In the candlelight, all of her grandmother's wrinkles appeared more noticeably. In the daylight, they were nothing more than laugh lines. Gabby retreated to her room, the one she shared with her mother, where she found Cady curled up in the stack of winter blankets by the window sill, cradling a steaming cup in her hands.
“Mama?” Gabby tried gently. Her mother jolted and spun around, miraculously not spilling anything from her cup despite the sudden movement.
“Yes, my angel?” Cady responded.
“I really am sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.”
“Oh! No, no, no. My dear, there is very little you could do to truly upset me. I am sorry for snapping at you. It is your father I am cross with – for not meeting you.” Cady set her cup on the windowsill and pulled Gabby into her arms on the pile of blankets. In her mother's arms, Gabby felt safe and childlike. She followed her mother's gaze to the heavens.
Gabby reflected on her first starry night she could remember with her mother. They had been outside doing...well she could not remember exactly, but she did remember what her mother told her when she asked what they were.
“What are those mama?”
“Stars baby.”
“What are stars?”
“Heaven's freckles” her mother had said, which made Gabby laugh.
“How does heaven get freckles?”
“Same as you baby, it just came that way.”
It was a memory she held dear as she began to nod off in her mother's arms, gazing at heaven's freckles together.
✨️🦷 The Tooth Fairy Slayer: Chapter 2 🦷✨️
Through the still, inky night flew a small, pudgy creature with a set of glass-like wings and a burdensome bag. A fairy, but not your average run-of-the-mill flower fairy – no. this was Maxillo, Chief Tooth Collector of the Tooth Fairies. He was searching for unclaimed bones that might happen to be around. His temper soon changed to anger as the treasured bones did not appear. Instead, all he found was the sleepy cottage of the Abbott women.
One window on the second story was propped open despite the chilly near-winter breeze. Beneath the open window, a human woman with greying auburn hair slept soundly with a frosty mug on the floor beside her. Maxillo sneered at the woman; old humans were of no use to him until they died. He ventured past her, farther into the house, the second room had another sleeping woman, but this one was much older. Still of no use to him – they were alive and still in possession of their bones. Growing frustrated, Maxillo floated down to the lower floor of the house and began rummaging through every drawer and cabinet for anything, anything at all.
“How am I supposed to be the next Lord of Osteon if I never get any extra bones?” he quizzed himself. He had heard once that humans sometimes kept bones for themselves, for divination. He imagined them keeping small finger bones or even a large leg bone! He only needed to find it.
Maxillo searched high and low on the lower level only to return upstairs empty-handed. He was about to give up when a sound captured his attention.
In the first room a small, young, human stirred. Her dream must have been exciting. He had seen children dreaming before, it was nothing new to him, but where children slept there could be a baby tooth waiting to be taken. This home had not been on his list; he could not believe his luck! An unclaimed tooth! Maxillo dove beneath the girl's pillow and clawed around until he came out the other side, empty-handed.
Furious, Maxillo flew around the cottage in a rage, shaking furniture, hitting the walls, and displacing objects of smaller size. He dared not attack the Abbotts directly, he knew better. He was an uninvited guest, and if discovered, would be expelled from the house by the deep magics of the Mythénia. A horrible idea sprang into his head; he would leave the family with something to find when they woke the next day.
He pulled from his neck the Chief Tooth Collector's cloak that he had earned with the title. It was a pure white cloak with images of tiny teeth scattered across it in the color of aged, off-white dried bone. Maxillo held the cloak to his lips as he spoke a spell into its fibers. A sick yellow magic wiggled into the cloak like rotting teeth. He released the fabric and watched as it floated down to the floor of the house with a deep cackle from the depths of his bulbous stomach. His eyes shown the same nasty yellow until the cloth touched the floor. Maxillo then shrugged himself back into the calm, cool Chief all his coworkers knew and threw the empty house a glare before darting up the chimney and disappearing back into the night.
*Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
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✨️🧚♂️ Thank you for reading! 👑✨️
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