The Ogre Fairy (story)

"Dag nab it!" a grizzly voice trembled the walls of the cobblestone cottage.

"I hear those fairies again down in there hidden glen. I bet they'll be dancing half the night away and singing their tra-la-la's till morning!" Dracon scowled up his green face, hung it low over the top of his bowl of Swamp Stew and began to scarf it down.

He could remember when he was just a little ogre, he didn't like the flavor of it, or its horrible smell, but as he grew into his ten foot strapping self, he'd developed quite a taste for it. He slurped the last of the stew down except for two slimy slug-gets skating around on the bottom of his bowl trying desperately to escape. He would always save these yummy morsels for last. He corralled them up in his spoon and---

(Crunch---Crunch) "Ummmm.... Dessert." he moaned, "Delicious!"

He pushed himself away from the table and turned toward his teacher Ditz (a Wizard Raven). He was all comfy reclined back in a red overstuffed chair reading the Hat Trick Gazette. His black feathery toupee, which resemble more a birds nest rather then the feathers it was poorly fashioned from, musingly bobbed up and down head as it kept up with each spell binding word he read. He'd always wore the thing about half tipped sideways and only partially covered its targeted bald spot. Dracon would never have be the one to point this out to him because he knew how sensitive Ditz was about his plumage or missing plumage what ever the case might be.

"It's time to practice my magic." he announced with a Cheshire grin.

Ditz's feathers cringe up in ruffles and seemed to have quickly paled to a charcoal gray and anyone could see it wasn't his favorite time of the evening. Ditz was somewhat scared, but determined to help his student accomplish just one easy magic spell even though poor Dracon was all thumbs when it came to pulling off a simple card trick. Ditz usually ended up in the line of fire when a spell blew up in Dracon's face. Who could blame him for being a little scared of Dracon's magical abilities. He was still haunted from the time Dracon tried to make invisible ink write from a quill made out of his best tail feathers. It sounded easy enough to Ditz when Dracon came to him with the idea. Now, what he mainly remembers about that hocus-pocus disaster was six long months of really cold breezes flowing up his back side where his feathers use to keep him toasty warm. He continued to help his student because first, he thought himself to be a good teacher and secondly he knew Dracon's heart was in it. Well, at least half his heart was.

You see Dracon's dad was an ogre over twenty feet tall and his mom was a tiny fairy who stood no more the six inches tall. With two so very opposite parents he'd came out very odd looking indeed. He had his dads giant green size and only half his moms magical abilities. He'd also inherited her two tiny wings but they were useless to him. They were too frail to lift his monstrous weight and looked like two misplaced gnats wings stuck on a huge green elephant. Often he had wished that the outcome would have been the opposite.

That night after many failed attempts at his magic lesson Dracon sat down in front of the window and stared out into the twilight. Ditz sat on his shoulder with a slap happy grin on his beak, so pleased that he had made it through the night with all his tail feathers in tact. They sat there together, listened to the fairies sing there songs that floated softly up through the valley from their hidden glen and stared at the stars. Dracon was reminded once more of what he had always wanted and his heart slowly sank.

"I don't know why they won't have anything to do with me, after all I am half fairy." Dracon growled.

"Don't you remember the last time they let you near them?" Ditz squawked sharply shaking a wing tip at him.

"Must I remind you how you almost squashed their tiny fairy queen under those two boat size feet of yours?" He raised one eyebrow and continued, "Not--- to mention what you did to the king." (Ditz let out a snicker he had tried to hold in.) "The king said to pass him a apple tart, not turn him into one."

"Hey---now, that wasn't my fault," Dracon lowered his eyes, "I sneezed accidentally when I cast the floatation spell and it misfired."

"I know, I know." Ditz laid his wing on Dracon's shoulder and gently patted. "I wish there was some way for you to join your fairy family, but let's face it, your just to big for them. If only you were smaller."

"Now off to bed, tomorrow's another day!" he squawked, as he watched Dracon slump off toward his room.

Morning came and Ditz was woke very early up by cauldrons clanking together in the kitchen.

"What's going on?" Ditz grouched as he walked into the room rubbing he's eyes.

"I'm going to make a potion!"

"What kind of potion?" Ditz's sleepy eyes popped open startled by Dracon's news.

"After I went to bed last night, I thought about what you had said." he grinned as he reached over the counter and grabbed two grassy blades of mouse weed and plopped it into the boiling cauldron.

Ditz searched his mind for what he might have said, then finally had to ask... "What did I say?"

"Last night you know, when you said I needed to be smaller."

"Smaller? Are you crazy----"

"Don't try to talk me out of it, I've made up my mind!" Dracon interrupted him..

"Here," he passed Ditz a plate piled high with lemon milly worm muffins.

For a moment Ditz stood rooted in place with a glazed over stare. He didn't know how to talk his student out of this disastrous plan and he knew it was useless to try, because once Dracon set his stubborn mind on doing something, there was no way you were going to talk him out of it. He just reached over grabbed a large fat muffin off the top of the pile and started poking at it.

"I think this one has gone bad." He turned up his nose and shoved it over in Dracons direction. "See-- none of the milly worms have any wiggle to them."

"Oh, yeah---" Dracon grunted softly trying not to lose his concentration on his potion. "That must be the one I dropped on the floor, just get another one." He mumbled as he checked over the shrinking spell in his potions book once more.

Ditz leaned forward, gave all the muffins a good once over and picked out the one that had the most wiggles in it.

Dracon ignored what Ditz was doing as he carefully added each ingredient one by one and checked them off the list--- "A pinch of pig-n-snout root two fresh teen-sea teen-sea soggy bottom bugs, and one cup of swamp molasses collected under purple moonlight."

"Finished, well----almost, just one little tiny ingredient left." Dracon announced as he wiped the sweat off his green forehead, turned and gave Ditz a sly knowing grin.

"What kind of ingredient?" Ditz's asked his voice muffled by a huge chunk of muffin dangling halfway out of his beak.

"I need..... one of your.... ummm---- feathers." he revealed slowly, almost in a whisper.

"NO WAY!" Ditz yelled as pieces of milly worms crumbs sprayed out of his mouth and peppered the kitchen floor. He folded his arms across the middle of his chest and took a defiant stance.

"Please----please----please-----," Dracon begged, "just one... just one teeny tiny feather. I'll pull it out so quick that you want even know it happened."

Ditz could feel his heart melt, his stance soften and reluctantly he nodded yes.

Dracon reached over quickly and yanked out a feather. He didn't want to give Ditz a chance to change his mind.

"OUCH!" he squawked as he rubbed the missing feather spot with his wing.

Dracon dropped the feather into the cauldron, stirred it three times counter clock wise then covered with a lid.

"It will be ready in five minutes!" Dracon announced with a wide face grin. (The time ticked by like snails)

"Its ready--- Its ready!" he yelled, as he ran over, slung the top off the potion mixture and glared down into the pot.

"Yuck! It looks like pine tar!" he turned up his nose, "Oh---Ditz-- come-- here---"

Ditz flew over, landed right beside the pot and looked in.

"Hummmm----- If I were you I don't think I'd put that stuff into my---" and before he had a chance to finish his sentence Dracon reach over, grabbed him around the throat, tipped his head back and put a huge glob of the potion into his mouth.

"Hack---Hack---" he tried to spit out the nasty mixture, but it stuck between his beak like glue.

Immediately Ditz's feathers began to quiver and spin then (POOF) they shrank down to tiny black poke-a-dots on a field of wrinkled pink skin. He stood there looking like a freshly plucked chicken wearing nothing but his black toupee. Ditz could feel his face flush red, his featherless wing ball up into a fist as he started to yell at his fumbling student---- "Draccc-----, Then (POOF!) he was gone. Nothing remained except for his toupee spinning around like a top on the dusty cobblestone floor.

"Oh---my gosh-- what have I done, what have I done, I've made him disappear?" Dracon cried hysterically as he ran over grabbed his spell book and frantically started reading through its pages for a reverse spell.

"Changing a prince into a frog? No----"

"Enchanting Dragon? No---"

"Flying broom? No---"

As he came to the last page, his heart sank. He slowly walked over, sat down beside the pile of feathery remains and reluctantly closed the book.

"There's nothing, nothing I can do." he softly sighed.

Alone, with no teacher to guide him, all Dracon could do is sit in the shadows of the cottage and stare at what he had done. Hopelessness blanketed his heart and a sorrowful tear began to swell in the corner of his eye. He couldn't take his eyes off the clump of feathers. All of the sudden he thought he saw the toupee twitch and move.

"Wishful thinking?" He whisper to himself.

Dracon rubbed his eye with the palms of his hands, squinted and stared even harder. He could feel his breaths drifted down below silence his heartbeat race with anticipation. He dare not blink, even move, fearful he might miss something. Then---- (twitch)......

"There----it moved again!"

Dracon quickly reached over and carefully lifted the toupee off the floor. There underneath stood Ditz shrank down to the size of a pea and thankfully small enough for his feathers cover him again. Well, everywhere except for his bald spot on top of his head which shinned like a newly polished pink bowling ball.

"Its about time, I thought you'd never look under here and find me." Ditz yelled but his voice sounded faint like the buzzing of a bee.

Dracon started to dance around the cottage."I did it, I did it--" he sang as he ran over, reached down into the pot, put a big blob of the tarry potion into his mouth and swallowed hard.

He stood froze in place for a moment and waited for something to happened, but there was nothing. Several minutes passed and still nothing. Dracon scratched his head and tried to figure out what had gone wrong. "Did the potion not work on Ogres?" Then slowly he began to feel a tingle. It started in his toes and worked its way up his leg to his back were it began to itch like a bad case of poison ivy.

"That's weird," he thought as he looked over his shoulder at his tiny gnat size wings which had grown the size of butterfly's wings.  

He quickly glanced around the cottage "And look at the room---- the room is getting bigger?"

"No---- wait a minute----Its me---- Its me-----I'm getting smaller." he giggled with joy. "Oh my goodness, I can't believe it, one of my spells finally worked."

In the blink of an eye (POOF!) there was nothing left but a pile of cloths-----and the faint giddy laughter that sounded like a bee singing-----

He'd accomplished his dream and became a tiny fairy...........