The Prophesized Hero of a Kingdom of Comically Evil Elves

The glare of the screen was a harsh mistress. It was three minutes to midnight and I still had maybe a third of the case briefing to write. And an early class tomorrow…

Same old, same old, basically. Not like law school had been my wet dream. But when your mom runs one of the top firms in the country, you already know what you’re doing since you learn your ABCs.

It could be worse, I guess. I didn’t hate it… I just didn’t care.

What did one of my professors say? Brilliant but unmotivated? Something like that. I was focused more on her sweater puppies fighting mightily against all those buttons. Just drop them on my face, Teach.

Yeah, I had a crush. Sue me.

Also, what the fuck was going on with this garbage website? Thing was on the fritz.

Click. Tap. Tap.

“Adam.”

…The fuck? It didn’t even come from my speakers. And the contrast just jacked itself up so high that it looked like the Teletubbies threw up on my screen.

“Adam.”

I always laughed at the dumb shit people did in serial killer movies, but watching your piece of shit laptop get possessed in real time, it just hits different.

“̶̡̰̩̿͠Ą̶̼̿͘ͅd̶̺͇͖͈͓̈́ā̸̛̯̝̣̯̀̂̚̕͜m̷̘̤̽̕.̸̻͙̮̦̈́”̷̯͓̖̻͚͆̿̄͘

It was some Alice in Wonderland shit what happened next. And on the other side of the proverbial rabbit hole…

A cave. With psychedelic mushrooms and everything. At this point I was seriously wondering if someone had slipped me some LSD.

There was also someone staring at me. A girl? Even on her tip-toes she’d probably only reach my shoulders. Then it only got weirder from there, cause pointy ears? Seriously? And what was going on with her hair? It was like someone upended a couple buckets of paint over her head.

“!@&$$@£€%%#” she sing-songed. And I mean sing-songed. It sounded like something in between a bird and a tiny violin.

That settles it. Acid trip confirmed.

“?££¥*%~~|$&…”

Another one! They were even more fun-sized, and covered head-to-toe in neon green armor.

“€%#¥£%%?” they continued nonsensically, the sounds like a demented chipmunk echoing behind the helmet.

The girl was suddenly laughing like a lunatic. “£€£¥£$&@!!”

Actually, what was she even wearing? It looked like an orange fucked a banana. And then took a swim in glitter.

I also just noticed the literal crown in her head as she settled down, doing some kind of ridiculous pose as her pink eyes stared at me. Eyes like a cat.

“Hi?” I tried.

“!&@%#££¥!” she beatboxed at me. Then she stood on her tiptoes to touch one of her very pink and very sharp nails to my…

I shivered as something like static went through me, my brain and tongue feeling like they were scrambled.

When the fun-sized knight next spoke, it was in English. “Princess—”

“No! No! No!” She stomped her foot. Yeah. “The spell has been tried a !£¥¥%# times and it’s never worked! Until now!”

They both still sounded like something out of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

“It brought to us a monkey. The very filth the hero will cleanse from the earth.”

Settle down there, Fun-Sized Hitler. I really had a vivid imagination…

“A glamor to test us.” Those neon pink eyes burned into mine again. “I have figured you out, Hero.”

“…Yup. Glamor. You got me.”

Fun-Sized Hitler took affront to that for some reason, and was suddenly pointing a rainbow sword at me. You heard me right, a fucking rainbow sword.

“I can smell the lie on it. It did not even know how to produce a simple enchantment.”

“It? You look like a squirrel fucked a lime.”

“Filthy, empty thing.” Fun-Sized Hitler squeak-echoed at me. “You dare—”

“%%#€€£¥…” the princess whined.

“Allow me to take its head and show it false.”

I watched as the rainbow sword shat out another one, then another and another, all of them spinning around them like something out of an anime.

“Fiiine.” Crossing her arms, she pouted exactly like a spoiled princess would pout.

“Maybe we should all—” I tried, but one of the rainbow swords already tried to skewer me. There was no way I was dodging all that shit. “Fucking chill, you psycho squirrel. I don’t even know…”

Wait, that worked? The rainbow swords all came to a stop as my heart was trying its best to separate from my chest.

Fun-Sized Hitler was practically vibrating in place. “A geas…”

The princess clapped her hands like a hummingbird for it.

“Mother will be so jealous! Livid! Ahahahahahahahaha!”

I slowly felt the adrenaline bleeding away. That felt way too real…

“We will wipe our old lands clean of the monkeys that have infested them.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “I will be enshrined into every song and story. Ahahahahahahahahaha!”

Great. Two Hitlers.

“I must still… advise caution…”

“You always advise caution, %%#€€£¥.” I’m guessing that was Fun-Sized Hitler’s name.

The chuuni princess stepped closer, over the white symbols and shapes chalked? into the blue-and-orange stones.

“I would have you swear to me, Hero.” Her hand was soft, and her technicolor hair tickled me as she leaned in. She even smelled like berries. “Give me your heart and it will never be found wanting.”

Everything kind of just clicked into place. This was some fairy shit.

“Nah. Nice try.”

Her face twisted monstrously, and just as suddenly she was pouting again. “Ptooh.”

“The geas…”

“Hmph. You should be punished for your doubt, %%#€€£¥.” The chuuni princess sent me a smile like a piranha. “Make her grovel for forgiveness, Hero.”

Her? And talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

“I…” Whatever I did earlier gave me an idea, and I was about to “geas” her to send me back home when something told me that would be a really bad idea. “You brought me here, right? Why?”

Now she was back to pouting up a storm. “In our darkest moment we would call, and a hero would answer. A hero that would lead us to victory over the monkeys. And I, $$&@€£¥ of $&@>, have done it. Me!”

“…Monkeys?”

Something ugly came over her for the question. “Once we reigned over the earth as was our right. Until the monkeys came with their accursed iron. Our powers withered before it, and so we fled where the monkeys could never find us…”

A shadow of a man appeared. A shadow with a shadow.

“The hero would wield song and story as we do, it is said, but so too would they wield falsehood and accursed iron. Don’t you see, %%#€€£¥?”

“There is no… glamor…”

“Yes, a lie! Oh, the terrible irony! The hero is a monkey!” I scratched the tip of my nose awkwardly as she giggled madly. “Mother cowered at the very thought. But I didn’t.”

“You knew…”

She rolled her eyes, reaching out to touch my arm again. “Together we can cast her down from her high throne.”

This was some real Byzantine shit.

“You would never die as long as your songs and stories survive,” she crooned. “All that is would exist only to amuse us.”

Yeah, even if that didn’t sound too good to be true, it sounded exhausting. Somehow I didn’t think she’d like me comparing her to my old lady though.

“This after you tried to steal my heart?”

She smiled like a piranha again. “You would have only your own dull wits to blame if you agreed.”

Wow. 10/10 girlfriend material right there.

I wanted to run for the hills, but I didn’t see any. Plan B it was. I had to basically pick her up to press a kiss to her lips.

Huh. She tasted like bubblegum or cotton candy.

Anyway, as I hoped, she wasn’t a fan.

“H-How dare you! A monkey! Ewwwwwwww!” Okay, the gagging was uncalled for.

“Hey. You were giving all the right signals.”

“I didn’t mean I wanted to sport with you!”

“Doesn’t look like this is going to work, huh? Shucks. You’ll have to send me back.”

She was staring at me like an angry cat now. “You can sport with %%#€€£¥. A fitting punishment.”

The psycho squirrel let out an impressive squeak for it. And she was vibrating even more now.

"Yeah, I'm not into squirrels.” I shrugged my shoulders like it couldn’t be helped. “And you’re free to go, assuming you don’t try and stab me again.”

She did sheathe her rainbow sword as she scurried away from me.

“Anyway, nice meeting you two. But I do have a class to get to in the…”

I was suddenly watching a Tom and Jerry episode, even if “Tom” was only a head taller than “Jerry” here, who was quickly cornered, caught, and dragged back, her neon green armor melting away like wax.

Pointy ears, pale skin, red-and-green hair…

Wait. No. Bad. Fun-Sized Hitler was not cute.

“Slake your lusts, Hero. Once your good sense is returned to you, we—”

“Something you don’t know about us monkeys. We’re deathly allergic to, uh, green things.”

The chuuni princess looked at me suspiciously. I struggled not to laugh when some of her hair turned green. “That never stopped you monkeys before.”

“Some of us, I mean. Rare genetic condition.”

“It’s lying again.”

I gave the psycho squirrel the stink eye. Was she a moron as well as a psycho?

Her princess continued manhandling her. “I don’t understand.” And her pout returned with a vengeance.

Plan B was working like a charm.

“Look. It’s not you. It’s me. You want to take over the world, I want to take it easy. It just wouldn’t work.”

Also, why were we suddenly being swarmed by fireflies?

“Mother’s found us.”

Oh. Suddenly we were somewhere else. Somewhere shiny and golden and shiny. Did I say shiny?

There were three thrones, each with rainbows perched above them. One was empty.

“What have you done, Daughter?”

Wow. Hair as bright as the sun, and long enough to touch the foot of her throne. A white dress soft and sheer as a cloud, her nipples poking through like…

“I have fulfilled the promise of ¥£€%$@&, Mother. The hero walks among us now. The only step left is war.”

There were others on the sides, a whole gallery of pint-sized monsters. Suddenly all their eyes were on me, their whispers like a storm. Even their queen’s.

It’s just too bad she was looking at me like a bug instead.

Her eyes, also like a cat’s, returned to her daughter. “You had not asked for permission.”

She stared right back as her pink nails turned monstrous. “You wouldn’t have permitted it. Now you must.”

The temperature suddenly went from spring to summer. Like summer in the desert summer.

“Is that a challenge?”

The short king (literally) on the throne next to her tried to touch his hand to her, only for him to retrieve it blackened and burnt.

I wasn’t sure if either of them even noticed. “I have no regrets.”

Whew. I could feel the sweat on my brow under the sweltering heat.

I would have asked why I was being punished if it wouldn’t get me charbroiled.

“Perhaps some time in iron will teach you some humility.”

Something nervous touched her daughter. “You wouldn’t dare. The only taboo I have broken is daring.”

“You can rot until I figure out what to do with you. Begone.” The heat had turned unbearable, but just like that, it was gone.

It looked like we were back indoors or underground, like stepping out of summer into winter. And the walls on every side were misshapen metal.

Oh. Iron. Almost all the color had gone out of the two when I finally looked, leaving them shivering like they were on their deathbed.

“I s-s-swear I’m going to t-tear out her eyes one d-day. I’ll eat them with salt.”

I could have snarked about the first step of her master plan to overthrow her mother not going very well, but I had a heart. Maybe too much of one.

The psycho squirrel had curled up on herself, whimpering. Even after she tried to murderfuck me with rainbow swords earlier, the sight still pulled on my heartstrings.

I imagined she was real confused when I sat down next to her and hugged her to my chest. Not that she protested. If anything she snuggled even deeper into my sweater, her nails digging uncomfortably into my sides. I toughed it out.

While I didn’t comment on it, she might have actually weighed only as much as a squirrel too.

Meanwhile her princess was fighting against gravity, and losing. If it wasn’t for her being half a cat, she would have already lost with how ugly her shivering was. And if she was trying to melt the walls by glaring at them, yeah, it wasn’t working.

“Come join the snuggle pile, Your Highness.”

She stubbornly ignored me. At least until her strength gave out and she hit the ground like half a corpse.

It was a good thing they were both on the shorter side. The snuggle pile would have been much more awkward otherwise.

“This is the most humiliating thing I have ever experienced,” she soon grumped into my sweater. “I demand you unhand me.”

“Nah.”

“I will flay your skin from your miserable body and wear it as a dress. I’ll use your hands for…”

I tuned her out, running my fingers through her bleached gray hair instead. It did seem to calm her down, or maybe she was just stupefied by my audacity.

I also thought of a name for her that I could actually pronounce. Pink, for her neon pink eyes and nails. Also because it was close to Puck. Which obviously made her parents Titania the Titillating and Oberon the Pantsless.

It was hard keeping track of time, but it had to have been a few hours at least when a part of the walls opened to reveal a monster. Wait…

It suddenly hit me. It was a man, rocking a patchy white beard and a balding head. A human. The poor fucker’s arms and legs looked like they were stretched out like rubber and bent in unnatural ways. It was something right out of a freak show.

“She will see you now. Only you.” He pointed a gnarled finger at me despite his eyes being glued to his feet.

I didn’t want to leave them there alone, but this sounded like something out of the Godfather. An offer you couldn’t refuse. I left them my sweater to snuggle with, which Pink immediately hogged to herself.

“Ware your steps. It is a treacherous journey.”

He wasn’t joking. Bridges as narrow as a penny. Potholes connected to the abyss. Fucking stalagmites raining down on you.

A pair of solid gold doors marked the end of it.

“She waits for you. Knock thrice.” He vanished back into the gloom after the words.

So I knocked once. Twice. Thrice.

AN: Only a few weeks late. :V

AN2: But I have learned my lesson! No more trying to speedrun worldbuilding from scratch.