Fairy Tale 05.24.15

Skipper gripped the bars of his cage as Hans stood boastfully on the other side.

“All right, puffin,” he a dit scowling, “you got me. What’s your plan this time?”

Hans smiled. “Why the rush?” he asked. “Can’t we talk?”

Skipper arched a brow and narrowed his eyes. “Talk? As in the exchange of words?”

Hans rolled his eyes. “That’s typically the definition of talk, Skipper.”

Skipper studied him carefully. “What about?”

Hans turned around and headed back to a control table, tableau under a large screen. “Do toi remember when we were children, Skipper?” he asked calmly.

Skipper grimaced and glared at him. “Like a bell. Why?”

Hans hit a button and an image appeared on the screen. It was of he and Skipper at a young age, celebrating a successful mission. Skipper looked at it with disgust.

“What’s your game here, Hans?” he asked suspiciously.

Hans faced him and leaned back against the control table. “Don’t toi remember that mission? I believe I recall saving your life.”

“You know that’s based on a technicality,” Skipper argued gripping the bars tighter. “What’s your point?”

Hans smiled. “I’m getting to it.” He hit another button. Another image displayed he and Skipper as children, on their first jour of training. “Aw, look at us. We were so tiny!”

Skipper rolled his eyes. “Just get to the point, Hans.”

Hans sighed irritably. “What? toi don’t want a trip down memory lane?”

“I’ll kick your tail feathers down memory lane,” Skipper replied crossly.

Hans approached his cage. “What’s the matter? Did toi forget about the good ol’ days?” he asked tauntingly.

“First of all, that was over thirty years ago. Second, there was nothing ‘good’ about any of those days. toi and your twisted mother accepted me into your family with nothing but deception and lies,” Skipper growled.

“Well, if you’re so big on technicalities, we only told one lie, which was about what happened to that silly little village of yours. And I didn’t even know it was a lie until I was a teenager. But everything else, that was no lie. We weren’t just friends, Skipper. We were brothers,” Hans explained.

Skipper didn’t break eye contact. “Emphasis on the were. And if we were such great ‘brothers,’ why did toi frame me?”

Hans’ expression hardened. “Because toi left me for dead when toi found out the truth. toi never even tried to hear my side of the story, ou mend our relationship. toi took everything I had away!”

“Well, then I guess toi got your revenge already!” Skipper a dit slamming his fist into the bars. “You got your revenge that night at the Ministry of Open-Faced Sandwiches! What plus do toi want from me?” he asked as he weighed his chances of ripping out one of the cage bars and smacking Hans with it.

Hans’ expression softened. “Aw,” he mocked. “You still miss her.”

Skipper glared at Hans, but he didn’t respond.

“Anyway,” Hans a dit nonchalantly, “what I’m getting at is a proposal.”

“Not interested,” Skipper replied without hesitation.

“You haven’t even heard it yet!” Hans protested. “I’m willing to put everything behind us. I really think we can be brothers again, just like—” he glanced longingly at the picture on the screen— “the good ol’ days.”

Skipper looked as if he’d just been punched in the gut. “You really believe I’m just going to put everything behind us so we can be Friends again? Foremost, I don’t trust that this is a genuine proposal without a catch for an instant. Even if it was, I’d rather drink Number 12 than agree to a cockamamie reconciliation as that.”

Hans folded his flippers over his chest. “Really, Skipper? Not even for your own brother? We grew up together. We can have that again.”

“You’re not my brother,” Skipper replied. “My brothers are back at home, waiting for me to return from this seemingly pointless solo mission that was obviously a waste of my time. Do toi even have an evil plan?”

Hans sighed impatiently. “What I want is a truce. We set aside our differences and be chums again. I just don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about that. That was years ago. I’ve let go. Why haven’t you?”

“What kind of fairy tale are toi living in?” Skipper asked indignantly. “I will never let go. All toi had to do was find me and we could’ve worked things out! toi didn’t have to—to—” Skipper gripped the bars and looked at the ground, fighting to push the memory from his mind.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Hans said. “You came to the Ministry that night to lock me up forever. toi wouldn’t have brought that little klaphat if toi weren’t.”

“Don’t talk about her that way, toi son of a leopard seal!” Skipper yelled through the bars. “I swear if I get my flippers on you, I’ll—”

“Don’t waste your energy,” Hans a dit with a dismissive wave of his flipper. “You’ve made your decision. If you’re not going to rejoindre me, then I guess I’ll just have to get my revenge on toi once and for all. Good bye,” he a dit slamming his fist down on a button. A computerized voice told him there was thirty secondes until self-destruct and started counting down.

Hans sprinted from the room and Skipper growled under his breath. He reached down to his leg, where he’d secured a paper clip safely hidden under his feathers. After using it to pick the lock to the cage, he glared at the photo still displayed on the screen before bolting from the room. He escaped with seven secondes to spare, and Hans was nowhere to be seen.

“Next time,” Skipper a dit under his breath. Then he started the long journey home.

— § —

Note: This is actually inspiration from something I’ve been working on for about two years now. I will publier it, it is just the question of when I can finally finish it. I have a lot of ideas for it that I’ve been dying to get on paper, but with several life issues (writer’s block, school, other personal events), it’s been a struggle to get it finished. This is why I finish a story before publishing. So, I guess toi can consider this a preview.

par the way, klaphat means idiot. I just thought it sounded plus insulting in Danish.