“I wish for a distraction!” cried Linda.
Flash.
Once again, Jon was left confused and alone on the patio, not quite understanding what just happened and utterly lost on what to do about it.
“A distraction,” he repeated, deadpan. “A distraction?! That could mean literally anything!”
Perhaps Her Majesty has a plan? asked the princessly impulse in the back of his skull. She’s versed in all matters arcane and otherwise, after all. She must’ve anticipated this exact outcome—
“Again. It’s mom. Not ‘Her Majesty.’”
Is too!
“No, it isn’t.” Jon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mom’s not a queen, she doesn’t want to be queen—hell, did you follow any of this? She was two seconds away from throwing her own crown off the balcony!”
Well, yes, obviously, said the voice. No good queen wants to rule. That’s what separates monarchs from tyrants.
“That’s… I don’t…” Jon gave a high-pitched huff. Where do you even begin with such a baffling statement? “No one wants a monarchy!”
Truly? Have you spoken to your citizens? Have they scorned your kingdom’s universal health care? The free education?
“We’re getting off topic—universal healthcare?”
And dental, followed the voice. Anyway. Mama and Her Majesty teleported without the stone. It’s over there, see?
Jon froze. His gaze slid to the patio table, where the wish-granting stone sat innocently by Linda’s abandoned teacup. It took several seconds for his brain to stop stuttering.
Impossible.
Did mom really plan this? Or was it a ridiculous stroke of luck?
He lunged for the stone, fingers trembling. “I wish, hmphm…”
His pretty little mouth snapped shut.
Of course, nothing was ever easy with this stupid thing, was it? Gritting his teeth, he tried again: “I… wish…
The words sat heavy in his throat, like a stone in a river.
“Ah, yeah, right. This bullshit.” First, a good little princess didn’t wish away her kingdom, and Jon was princess now, like it or not. Second, the offhand wish from yesterday—‘I wish Jon won’t use this without my say-so.’
No wishes at all until mom gave permission. He had no clue where she was.
Language, language, language! said the voice. A princess shouldn’t speak so crassly. I keep telling you!
Jon exhaled, forcing his grip on the stone to loosen. “It’s fine,” he muttered, ignoring the voice and daring himself to be optimistic for once. “Athena’s around here somewhere. She’ll make the wish.”
“Easy does it,” Athena exhaled through gritted teeth. “Easy… Fucking… Does it… Nnnngh…!”
Good news, Athena split off from the fairies. This had involved bribing them with a game of hide-and-seek—Primrose was off hiding somewhere, Marigold was left counting up to some arbitrarily high number. Ideally, they’d get bored and go terrorize someone else. Athena shuddered at the thought of being hunted down and jerked back into their candy-colored chaos, even though her fairy instincts had eased back somewhat. Technically, getting as far as humanly possible counted as hiding, and this was a game of hide-and-seek, so…
“C’mon…!” she cried.
Bad news, Athena had encountered one tiny, infuriating snag. Jon’s royal bedroom was supposed to be a safe haven. Free from fairies, free from servants, free from guards prowling around for fairies. One problem: The door was closed.
But that was fine, right? Athena was little. She could just slip under the gap below.
Her ass was too big.
“C’mon!” she repeated, caught halfway, legs flailing into the air.
She lay flat on the floor, rear smooshed under the doorway like overstuffed pillows. An awkward attempt at rolling her hips to the side, but all that managed to do was get her even more stuck, trapped and wiggling uselessly in place.
“Almost—there—!” she screeched, hands scratching the polished wood. Her ears began to ring from her own rising pitch, all honey and helium. Athena winced.
Deep breath. Purple features went reddish. Lavish hair fell past Athena's shoulders as she forced another shift—curving from the side to shimmy only a single pillowy mound at a time.
Heave. She advanced by maybe a millimeter.
Another heave. Another few millimeters.
Then, finally—Pop!
Athena rolled onto her back, panting, swearing, and blinking back frustrated tears.
“…I—pant—hate this,” she announced to the world, for the however-many-th time today. “I hate this. I hate this. I. Hate. This.”
“Well that’s not a very nice thing to say!” chirped a voice. “I think you did a great job, Miss Pretty-purple-fairy!”
Athena’s breath hitched. A razor-thin, glacial silence as the world snapped into focus. Piles and piles of gargantuan books, teetering into impossible heights—last she saw them, she was drunk and flitting between them. Now, they loomed like skyscrapers. Same with the ceiling. Stretched out and impossible, it was only now when she had a moment to lie down that Athena grasped the inescapable truth of her new reality:
She was teeny-tiny.
Athena permitted herself all two seconds to lament being, like, just a normal person, before tearing her attention to the actual horror here. A grinning green figure dressed like a farm boy.
“Applejack,” she grimaced mournfully. The first fairy she met as a fairy.
“Plumdrop!” He beamed. “You flew off so fast yesterday, I feared I’d never see you again! But then I found you! Here! In this room!”
He… Found…?
Nope. Nope. Nope. Athena wiggled in place as her face flushed even deeper, helpless as a warm, fuzzy pressure built in her chest.
He… Found…!
Stupid. Fairy. Instincts! Thighs slammed together as Athena bit down the surge of whimsy. We are not playing hide-and-seek. We simply ran into each other.
“The hell are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Talking to you, silly!” Applejack tilted his head, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yeah, no, I got that.” Athena massaged her temples in slow, irritated circles. “Why did you come here?”
A pause. Applejack tilted his head to the other side, still smiling wide and vapid. “To find you?”
“Dude,” she said, slowly. “Why did you come find me?”
“Ah!” he said. “I want to marry you!”
“What.”
The giant door clicked open.
