The Fairies’ Tails

This tale begins, dear Reader, in the same way as so many tales that have come before, once upon a time. But I must inform you that while this tale does have a happy ending, of sorts, I assure you, you will not like it. You probably shouldn’t even read this story at all if you are a fan of the typical fairy tale fare, where the princess wins the love of her beloved prince, or where the hero returns victorious from his righteous journey. Indeed, it might come as a deeply disturbing revelation that the world of fantasy is really just as dark a place as the world you find yourself living in today. You have been warned.

Once upon a time (you see, I told you), two blorglops were walking together in search of their morning sustenance.

I pause the narrative here for the possibility that you find yourself thinking that you have no idea in the least about anything in the way of the blorglop. If you find you are already familiar with the concept, you may immediately skip to the next paragraph… but for those of you who are still reading this , a blorglop is a sharply intelligent creature that, even though nobody has ever seen one, has been around since the beginning of time. They group together in little families, much like you and yours, and subsist on a diet primarily made up of … you know what, I don’t think it really matters. Just think of them as of those dreadful little hobbit creatures except covered from head to toe in fur and possessing sharper teeth.

The two blorglops, one bigger than the other, as one was the father and the other his son, walked on all fours with their noses to the ground, which is how they search for their food, because as everyone knows, blorglops have a most impressive sense of smell. The young blorglop looked to his father and asked, “Blogosk oporfolo cskint apoly” (sorry, I suppose i should translate) “father, could you tell me again the story of how the fairy’s lost their tails?”

“I’ve told you that story a thousand times. Don’t you ever get tired of it.” The older blorglop stood upright and then plopped down onto his large backside with a thud that shook the bush he had sat down next to.

The young blorglop sat down next to the bush as well, imitating the exact motion his father had made moments before. He was slightly disappointed when he failed to make the bush shake as his father had. After getting over his slight disheartening, he turned to his father. “No, Father. I love that story. I will never grow tired of it. Oh, please tell it to me again.”

“Oh, very well. It all happened a long time ago, in the very land we live in today. Fairy’s looked very much then like they do today, tiny humans, but with wings that could carry them about, and skin that would sparkle and glow when they were happy or excited. There was just one slight difference. Fairies had long slender tails, much like that of common house mice, but they were covered in fine white hair that was so soft to the touch that you would think you were feeling the most expensive of materials.

“One morning the king of the fairy’s was out taking his usual morning flight, when he came upon a blorglop laying on the ground clutching his stomach. Although our kind are normally nice and round, this particular blorglop was unsettlingly thin. The King of the fairy’s had never seen one of our kind before, as we are excellent at staying hidden, so he implored, “Tell me creature, what are you?”

““Oh, Sir,” said the emaciated one, “I am a blorglop, and a very hungry one at that.”

“The king ordered two of his stewards, who had accompanied him on his morning flight, to go and pick some of the choicest berries from the bushes of the fairy people. They flew away and returned in no-time with great big strawberries, and blueberries the size of your eyes, and all manner of sweet fruits too magnificent to recite. The hungry blorglop ate quickly, the juices running down his chin in rivulets. When finished, the thankful blorglop turned to the Fairy King, “who are you that has been so kind to such a pitiful creature as myself?”

"“He is none other than the King of all the Fairies,” one of the king’s stewards answered for him.

““The blorglop seemed puzzled. He scratched his fuzzy head with his juice covered claws before asking, “He’s the king?”

““Yes.”

““Of all the fairy people?”

“The king came forward, “I am the same. Tell me, creature, why do you seem so perplexed?”

“The blorglop thought for a moment and then responded, “Your tail. It is just … so plain.”

“Our king has one of the most splendid tails in all the land,” the steward stammered out in defense of his king.

“”Oh, please. I mean no offense,” the blorglop said, realizing he had offended at least the steward, if not the KIng himself. “It’s just, if i had a tail as fantastic as yours and access to the bounty of fruits you seem to have at your fingertips, well …” The blorglop reached out and plucked the king from air. Instantly the stewards jumped to defend their king, but something in the way the blorglop handled him caused the king to tell his men to stand down. The blorglop brought his finger to his chin where the juice had run down and then ran it along the length of the king’s tail. In the places where the blorglop’s finger had touched, there was left a fine red streak. The blorglop brought his finger to his chin again, and repeated the action, but this time there was a streak of blue that seemed to wrap itself around the streak of red.

“As he released the king from his grip, the king pulled his tail forward to get a better look and was very pleased with what he saw. “I thank you sir blorglop, this is a thought that has never occured to me. Please, visit us whenever you would like.

““Indeed, I shall,” responded the blorglop, smiling wide.

“With that, the King and his stewards flew home. Once there, the first thing the king did was order his artisans to gather berries and fruits of all colors and create all of the different colors they possibly could. He was pleased when they brought him swaths of deep crimson red, emerald green, burning orange, bright yellow, deep purple, and many more. The next step was for them to come up with a color scheme that would be worthy of a king. It took the artisans a month, but they finally brought a design to the king that left him speechless. “This is what I want,” he declared. “This is a tail, worthy of a king.”

“The king’s brother, who had already been racked with jealousy since the day he learned that his brother was to take the throne someday, had been watching all of the planning going on since the day it began. He started to have great misgivings about letting the king carry on with his plan, but he knew that once the king got an idea in his head, he would be powerless to stop it. Still, he felt he had to try. He brought his worries to the king one morning, but the king only scoffed at him.

“How can this possibly pose any conceivable threat at all?”

“I don’t know,” the king’s brother responded, “there is just something that doesn’t seem right about all of this.”

“The king not only ignored his brother, but also decided that there must be a grand unveiling. He had his stewards gather up the entirety of the fairy people and bring them to the king’s palace. Once everyone had been assembled, the king appeared on the stage at the top of the palace steps with a cloth covering his tail. “Thank you for coming fellow fairy folk. I am so pleased to see you all bright and shining today.” Indeed they were all bright and shining, based on the fact of their skin, mentioned earlier, and indeed they were all very excited. “As fairy folk, we have always been leaps and bounds ahead in the area of creativity, and I have discovered a new and most excellent mode for us to express our creativity going ahead.”

“He pulled the cloth away to an audible gasp. The fairies were amazed at the sight of the kings new tail. The base of his tail was a mixture of dark colors that gradually lightened as the eye followed upward, turning to many bright colors that spun around and around separating into thin, delicate tendrils that traveled under and over each other in a playful dance and then seemingly exploded into new and brighter colors as they reached the end of the appendage.

“The crowd was silent for a few moments, until a huge uproar exploded in favor of the king’s new tail. The king looked on as his admirers kept the applause alive. From the side of the stage, the king's brother came to him and whispered in his ear.

“Please brother. You must listen to me. Stop this madness now, or this will not end well. Tell them that this was a one time thing, not to be emulated. Please, brother, listen to me.”

“The king ignored his brother’s warning and instead turned to speak to him. “Do you hear how they love me? I shall give the people something more to cheer for. I shall be the greatest king that ever lived.” The king put his hands in the air to indicate that the applause must come to an end, that he had something further to say. The crowd slowly quieted. “Furthermore, colors, the very same as have been made to create what you see before you, shall be supplied so that all of my people may express themselves in like fashion. We shall be the envy of all other fairy kingdoms. We shall be remembered forever."

“The king’s brother stepped in front of the king, and put his own arms up. The crowd quieted again. “Please, I, as the king’s brother, love my people just as much as he. I want us to be envied, and to be remembered, but this is not the way. Please, I have tried to tell the king that I do not feel right about this, I can't put my finger on why it is, but if this goes on, I just know it will end badly. Please -”

“Before he could finish, he was roughly seized by the arms and dragged across the stage to be thrown down before the king.

“Brother,” the king began looking into the eyes of his sibling. “I have tried to be kind, I have tried to be loving to you, but you have betrayed me in this. You have not just hurt me as a brother, but you have betrayed me as a subject, and I cannot allow that to pass.” He turned to his guards. “Take him away. Throw him in the dungeon until I deem him worthy to be released.”

“As the guards dragged his brother away, the king shed a tear, for he truly did love his sibling. He grieved for a few days, but his heart was helped when he would see his subjects going about their daily business with tails colored with the most

exquisitely beautiful colors his artisans could produce.

“There were those, however, that sided with the king’s brother, and refused to color their tails. The king was not a fool, and he could see that this was causing a rift in the kingdom, but he also knew that he could not back down in this. As the days progressed, roughly half of the kingdom was made up of colored tails, and the other half still refused. The non-colored tails were starting to be persecuted against. They were beaten, or kicked out of their own family bush, and forced to find a life elsewhere.

“One day, when the violence in the land was becoming unbearable, one of the king’s stewards brought him the news that there were rumbles of an uprising. “Your brother's followers sir, have demanded his release,and have sent word that they are ready to start a war if their demands are not answered.

“The kings tail was still as colorful as ever, but his mind had become clouded with dark thoughts. He had always wanted to be loved, and the fact that half the kingdom was now against him, made him harsh and quick to judgement. “If they are whispering war, I will shout it from the rooftops. Prepare my troops, for tomorrow, we put an end to this impudence once and for all.

“With the troops prepared, the king slept uneasily, but not so uneasily that he noticed a stirring in his land during the small hours of early morning. He awoke to the horrified screaming of his people. They cried out to him for help. The king went to the window expecting to see his land crawling with the fighting non-colored tails, but instead, the only thing he saw was a blorglop holding a bucket filled to the brim with his colored-tail subjects. The blorglop poured the bucketful of screaming, crying fairies into a giant basket affixed to a wheeled cart which appeared to close to full. The king, horrified, was further disheartened to realize that it was the same blorglop that he had fed so many days before. The king flew as quick as he could to confront the blorglop.

“Why are you doing this?” The king yelled. “I saved you, I fed you.”

“And for that I am eternally grateful and will allow you to live in return, but you see, I am a blorglop, and as a blorglop, my diet primarily consists of your fairy folk. Normally, my kind go out every morning and quietly go about sniffing out your kind to provide us with sustenance. We are very secretive and as such, have been able to exist outside of your knowledge. The problem is, you see, and the reason I was starving that day you found me, is that I have lost my sense of smell. I hadn’t been able find a thing to eat in days, and had given up and accepted my lot. Then you came along, and so graciously provided me with what I could not provide for myself. Now, of course, I knew that that one meal would not last long at all, so I came up with an idea that would help me eat in the future. So, as you can see, with all the colored tails sticking out like sore thumbs, I don’t have to be able to sniff you out to find you, and I now have enough to last me as long as I am alive.”

“When the blorglop stopped talking, the king hung his head low. He realized that his brother had been right. The whole thing was a set up, and in his desire to be loved by his people, he doomed them to a most miserable fate. Without another word, the king flew to the cage, and to the blorglop’s surprise, threw himself in to be with his people, and suffer the same fate as them.

“After that day, the king’s brother became the new king of the remaining fairies, and in an effort to make sure that this never happened again, he decreed that all fairy’s must lose their tail at birth, and that, my son, is how the fairies lost their tails.”

"The young blorglop, with a look of concentration on his face reached into the bush and pulled out a screaming fairy. The fairy’s scream was muffled as the young blorglop pushed the fairy into his mouth, and stopped altogether as it was replaced with the sounds of popping flesh and crunching bones. The young blorglop attempted to ask his father why the fairy’s thought that not having tails would make them safer, but instead accidently shot a spray of fairy juice out onto the ground.

“Son, haven’t I taught you not to speak with your mouth full?” Even though he hadn’t technically heard what his son was asking, he was able to intuit what his question must have been, as he had asked it every time he was told the story. “The answer to that question is very simple. You see son, fairies are extremely stupid”

So that, dear reader, is my tale in full. You may now be wondering, what do we learn from this? The moral, my friend, if there indeed is one to be found, must be to not follow some thick headed leader who thinks he has all the answers. He may or may not have your best intentions in mind. Above all, think for yourself, and follow no man blindly. Not even me.