illustration credit: Steven Stahlberg
Ah, the poor fairy, about to be devoured, or tortured, or somehow taken, by the murderous serpent…
Or, the serpent simply delights in terrorizing her…
Or, the fairy has mesmerized the serpent and has him under her spell…
Who is taking whom? Who is in control? Who has the power to transform the other?
She seems intent, focused…the serpent is drooling…she is speaking to him?
How might this story end? That she makes a deal with the serpent to kill her older sister instead, and frame her sister the Fairy Queen’s husband, the Goblin Prince, thus starting a war between the fairies and the goblins? Which, in the serpent’s eyes, is far greater a reward than he would receive from merely killing one fairy…
Tirika