Untitled Swan Fairytale
By Ivy Toler
It is a lovely morning in the castle, and I am a horrible swan.
Well, not exactly. I’m supposed to be a princess, but yesterday morning I woke up with wings instead of arms and a feathery noodle for a neck. Of course I, like the reasonable young lady that I am, began to flap about and scream (honk?) for help. The guards came to my aid immediately, and politely, if forcefully, escorted me to the nearest courtyard pond. I went along willingly, believing this to be a dream or perhaps some bizarre magical joke. But later, after an hour of hearing the frantic alarm bells and distant, panicked yells of “Where is the princess,” I understood that this was indeed real, and quite a predicament as well.
However, I couldn’t help but feel strangely relieved. I am a bird. No one could possibly expect a fowl to be polite to dignitaries or play a flawless Debussy prelude. No itchy dresses or pinchy shoes would ever fit me in this form. As a swan, I am free to do as I please!
What do I please, though?
I took some time to ponder this question. What did I truly wish to do? I had never had such an opportunity to be free of responsibilities and judgement.
“Ah, here you are.”
I let out an undignified squawk in surprise before turning around to see none other than my stepmother. She was looking right at me. Was she really talking to a bird?
“I see my spell worked. You’ve become an animal, just like my spellbook said! I only wish that it had turned you into a creature less beautiful and sacred than a swan,” sShe sneered. “Even cursed, you can’t help but be perfect.”
Wait, Stepmother did this to me? Why? I was never anything but polite to her!
“Always the flawless princess, aren’t you,” she continued, “Making every hard-working person around you seem a disgrace in comparison to your effortless excellence. Well,” she crouched to meet my eyes and smiled in a malicious way that I had never seen before, “now everyone can be happy. You can live out the rest of your days as a pretty little swan, and I can rule this kingdom without you in the way. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. I’m not such a monster that I would kill you, darling.” She rose back to her full height at this. “The guards will keep an eye on you and I’ll have the groundskeeper check in on you when he tends the garden. Enjoy your new life, your fine, feathered majesty.” She bowed sarcastically before sauntering back into the castle, exchanging a few words with a guard outside the door.
What the hell! I’ve never done anything to her and she transfigured me into a freaking waterfowl? I don’t deserve this! I have worked so hard to be the perfect stepdaughter, the perfect daughter, the perfect prin –!
That’s why she got rid of me. She doesn’t like me because I seem ‘flawless.’ I guess that’s sort of nice, in a weird, roundabout way.
I’m not flawless, though. I’ve been trapped in this palace of perfection my entire life and I’ve simply learned and adapted to the expectations placed upon me. I would love nothing more than to shriek like a gremlin while running through the halls, play in the mud, and let all those snobby nobles know how I really feel about them! But I learned long ago that such actions are unbecoming of a princess.
However… huh!
They aren’t at all unbecoming of a swan.
That all happened yesterday. Today I began my reign of terror.
I began by snatching the groundskeeper’s hat right off of his head while he kneeled to tend the nearby tulips. As soon as the cap was in my beak I ran right to the pond and dropped the hat right in its center! The disgruntled man followed me into the water in an effort to retrieve what little he had to protect his bald head from the bright sunlight. As soon as he was knee-deep in the water, I stole the ring of keys from his belt. He didn’t even notice! I hid the ring in the mud under a patch of seagrass at the bottom of the pond before turning to see that the groundskeeper had rescued his hat. I immediately swam towards him, squawking, snapping, and flapping my wings at him to scare him off before he noticed his missing keys. He fled as quickly as he could in his water-filled boots while I strutted about the garden, proud of my accomplishment. Serves him right for helping my stepmother, I thought as I let out a triumphant honk.
I heard a restrained giggle from behind some bushes. Peeking my head through the hedge, I saw a young man about my age sitting on the garden bench, seemingly holding back raucous laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he chuckled, “I didn’t mean to bother you. That was just-” he burst into laughter now. “That was hilarious! He barely knew what hit him!”
I was confused as to why he was speaking to a bird, but still quite pleased with his flattering praise, so I bowed to the boy as gracefully as I could in swan form. At this, he played along by clapping for my performance before catching his breath.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Cisne,” I replied, but it sounded more like a strange “quack.”
The boy smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Cisne. I’m Ronan.”
My beak fell open in shock. I guess it looked funny, because the boy, Ronan, started laughing again.
“Yeah, I can understand you. I can understand any aquatic animal, actually. That’s why I like to spend time out here, by the pond.”
“How?” I’m delighted that someone can understand me, but I can’t help thinking of how my stepmother spoke to me. “Are you a witch?” He smiled sadly at this.
“No, I’m actually a selkie. Are you a witch? You speak much more clearly than most animals do.”
My feathers flare in annoyance. “No, I am not a witch. I am the princess of this kingdom and you will treat me as such!” Ronan just looked amused at this.
“You don’t look like the princess,” he mused. “You look more like a bird.”
His teasing only agitated me more. “That’s because I’ve been cursed!” I squawked. I went on to explain yesterday’s events and my current predicament. Ronan dropped his jovial demeanor as I warbled on, seemingly becoming sadder and sadder. I realized that, being a selkie, he must be in a similar position to mine, trapped in an unfamiliar form due to the malicious wishes of others. He clearly hates it. He comes to this lonely garden to reconnect with the sea, for goodness’ sake! This certainly will not do.
“You’re trapped here because of your coat, aren’t you?” Ronan looked startled at the sudden change in subject, but nodded nonetheless. I mustered my most dignified demeanor. “I will help you retrieve it and return home,” I decreed, “but I will need your help in order to do so.”
“Wh– Really?” The boy was stunned. Were those tears in his eyes? Unsure how to deal with his display of emotion, I continued my speech.
“This form may be somewhat enjoyable, but I wish to live my life according to my own wishes, rather than my stepmother’s. I will return you your sealskin as long as you help me return to my human form. Do we have a deal?” I extended my right wing towards Ronan.
He sniffled and wiped his eyes with his sleeve before extending his own hand. “Deal.” He smiled as he shook my wing.
As the days went on, I continued to harass any and all visitors to my courtyard. I stole accessories off of many aristocrats, opting to collect them in my own small dragon-like hoard in a bush. I snapped at the groundskeeper whenever he approached to feed me, I chased and hissed at children, and I even knocked a noble into the pond as he proposed a political marriage. After a few days of this, complaints of my behavior finally reached the queen and she begrudgingly sent some guards to toss me into the dungeon. I will simply say that those guards did not escape me unscathed.
Though being brought to the dungeon was part of my plan, I could not help but destroy the place while I was there. I had always hated it down there; it was wet, cold, and much crueler than it needed to be. Ronan came at dusk to release me using the keys I had stolen. Imagine his surprise when he found the hinges of several cells destroyed and two unconscious guards on the ground. The selkie burst into laughter when he saw me using the straw that had lined the cells to build a nest on top of one of the men.
“I see you found a way to entertain yourself,” he chuckled.
“I had to. It is exceedingly boring down here,” I responded dramatically.
“Well then,” he bowed to match my theatrics, “would you care for a tour of the palace, my lady?”
“Indeed.” I waddled past him into the hall and waited for him to lock the door before I led him up, up, up to the top of the tallest tower. That was where I believed my stepmother must practice her magic. I had gone snooping around her private library once when I was small, and I stumbled across a secret passageway – quite literally, I might add. I had tripped and fallen into a bookcase and knocked half of the books to the ground, and the shelf swung away from the wall to reveal a dark chamber. My father swooped in and ushered me away to scold me before I could see what was inside.
We reached the top of the staircase. Ronan was huffing and puffing from the exertion of all the steps while I floated down gracefully from his arms. What! It’s not like I could climb all those stairs with my stubby little bird legs!
I hissed as quietly as I could in an attempt to shush Ronan’s panting. My stepmother’s library was right next to her bedchambers, so we needed to be as quiet as (in)humanly possible and avoid waking her.
We slowly walked to the library, unlocking and locking the door as we entered. I picked up the pace as I made a beeline to the bookcase I remember opening up. I began to pull books off the shelf at random, dropping them recklessly onto a plush rug which muffled any noisy thuds. Ronan joined me, though he set the books aside in a more orderly fashion than I. After removing seemingly endless books, there was a click, and the shelf began to swing open just like a door. Ronan and I both scrambled backwards to avoid being hit. Looking up, we saw a small chamber, more of a closet, really, filled with books, bottles, boxes, and tools. With a quick look to each other, we got to work pulling out and skimming through books for a way to break my curse. It was slow going, especially with my strange sideways vision and my lack of hands with which to turn pages. After what must have been half an hour, Ronan tapped my back excitedly, holding up a book that was open to an illustration of a strange bell.
“It looks like this bell was used to turn you into a swan, and can also change you back,” he whispered excitedly. “We just need to get you back to wherever it was that you transformed and have you ring it.”
“It must be in here somewhere,” I reasoned, and we once again began to root through the odd broom closet of mystical items. I nearly trumpeted in triumph when I finally found the bell in a small replica of the palace, in a miniature belltower placed exactly where this library is in real life. I went to tug it from the model, but Ronan blocked me with his arm.
“It’s a bell the size of your head!” he whisper-shouted, “You’ll wake the queen and lead half the palace guards right to you!”
I saw the logic in this, and pondered for a few moments how best to get back to my chambers with the bell and not get caught. Suddenly, a plan.
“Could you please lead me to where your seal skin is being kept?” Ronan’s face lit up and he gained a slight bounce in his step as he took me back down a few flights of stairs and to a noble family’s apartment. He quietly unlocked the door and tiptoed towards the master bedroom.
“It’s in a trunk under the bed in there,” he whispered. He was clearly afraid to enter the room himself, so I bravely ventured onward and dragged the chest from the room. Honestly, the man in the bed snored so loudly it isn’t surprising that I was able to drag it across the floor without waking him. I exited the room, trunk in beak, before turning to see Ronan almost in tears. He locked the door before darting to unlock the box with trembling hands. Something’s up with this keyring, I realize. How come it opened the dungeons and some random noble’s trinket trunk? Perhaps my stepmother enchanted it.
Anyhow, Ronan reached in and hugged a fuzzy gray coat to his chest, sighing in relief. I was hesitant to interrupt his moment, but we needed to continue with my plan before anyone realized what we’ve been up to.
I reluctantly nudged Ronan and he looked up at me before snapping out of his reverie with a sharp nod. He marched back up the stairs to the library, coat under one arm, me under the other. We returned to the locker of magical things and paused for a moment to ready ourselves for the coming chaos. I gently grabbed the top of the bell with my beak, took a deep breath, and promptly yanked it out of the tower. Unfortunately, the small palace was not structurally sound, and loudly collapsed almost immediately. I heard my stepmother stir in the other room and began to dash back to the stairs with Ronan right behind me.
Unfortunately, the queen was directly in our path outside of her room. Fortunately, she had transformed me into a terrifying creature. I dropped the bell and lunged at my stepmother, squawking, biting, and flapping up a storm. She dropped like a sack of flour almost immediately, screaming and cursing my name. Ronan bundled the magical bell into his coat and yanked me away from my vengeful attack, carrying me down the stairs.
The voice of the witch echoed through the stairwell, calling for “guards, soldiers, knights, anyone!” to come to her aid. Fearing capture, we ducked into a small curtained alcove to hide. Armored footsteps could be heard racing to and from the queen’s chamber, never fully leaving the hall where we hid before another set followed.
Finally the footsteps ended, but the queen, having deduced our plan, had set a double guard outside of my own bedchambers. We needed a new plan. I, unable to ‘speak’ without giving away our location, simply had to nod and shake my head to Ronan’s whispered proposals until we agreed on a course of action.
Ronan carefully unwrapped his coat and slowly set the bell down as quietly as possible before slipping the fur over his arms. Despite the circumstances, he suddenly appeared more relaxed, practically melting into a puddle of gray fluff and emerging as a giant, adorable seal. He met my eyes with a determined expression, as though in a final salute, before turning and bouncing into the center of the open hallway. His loud bark echoed against the stone walls and I could only imagine the bewildered looks of the sentries at the sudden appearance of a seal of all things. I listened as Ronan galumphed away at a shocking speed and the soldiers jogged after in pursuit. Unfortunately, he only made it just a few feet past my hiding place before he was surrounded. I had to make a run for it.
I snatched up the bell and sprinted to my door as fast as my flippers could carry me. I heard a startled shout from behind and resisted the urge to look back. I finally got to my room and – damn, the door was closed! I dropped the bell in order to twist the knob, which was enough time for the guard to catch up and grab me. I honked and hissed at him indignantly before biting his nose as hard as I could. He dropped me, and I seized the bell and darted to my bed (Oh, my wonderful, cozy bed! I hadn’t realized how much I missed it). I hopped and flapped and scrambled my way to the center of the bed before shaking my head back and forth like a madwoman. With the beautiful chimes of that bell, I grew taller and my feathers disappeared. I suddenly stood tall atop my fluffy comforter wearing my nightdress and victorious smirk on my face, much to the bafflement of the soldier chasing me. I wasted no time jumping down and shouting “Release that seal!”
A month has passed since my animalian adventure. It didn’t take long to banish my stepmother, as I had heaps of proof, such as the enchanted ring of keyskesy as well as many witnesses to my mischief. I also banished the nobles keeping Ronan’s pelt hostage; there is no room for cruelty like that in my court.
My cousin Odette has been sent to tutor me and serve as regent until I come of age to take the throne. While I may not be pleased at having a new person to boss me around, Odette is quite kind to me, and I don’t mind having the responsibility of managing a kingdom off my shoulders for a bit longer.
In the meantime, I have taken to studying the contents of my stepmother’s secret library, and have become something of an accomplished sorceress. I am particularly fascinated by the art of shapeshifting, and have taken to flying to the ocean as a swan to visit Ronan at least once a week.
Ronan has reunited with his pod and is doing quite well. He invited me to their yearly beach party, where the selkies all shed their pelts and dance the night away on land. It sounded like fun, but apparently they don’t put any other clothes on, so I left quite early.
Indeed, everything is going swimmingly now. That is, all except one thing. Some creepy guy called Rothbart or something keeps hitting on my cousin. Even after I’ve sent my knights to deliver my decree that he leaves her alone, he just won’t back off. I’m not too worried about him, though. After all…
It’s another lovely morning in the castle, and I am still a horrible swan.
The Trinity Review 