strangeness and charm

strangeness & charm

1. Animal Communication

The first major fairytale figure Tedros remembers meeting is Snow White.

He'd been probably three or four when the already-elderly princess had come on a state visit, not long after surrendering her throne to her daughter. Tedros hadn't really been old enough to know what was happening, or who she was, but he still vaguely remembered it. Now, Tedros thinks she'd probably made Guinevere feel insecure, which was why he has a vague recollection of his mother seeming off; Snow White was the unattainable standard all Evergirls strived for. The expectation had to come from somewhere, and the current one came from her. She was soft-spoken and sweet, and beauty still clung to her, even in old age. She liked birds, animals, and babies, which was why Tedros was almost immediately presented to her like some sort of mollifying present. He thinks he was quite often presented to dignitaries, but this particular one had been exceptional, because if he remembers correctly, Lancelot had been the one to suggest it– and she had actually seemed charmed, rather than vaguely amused turning to disapproving once Tedros started getting fussy or rambunctious. In retrospect, it had clearly been a tactic to get the old princess to come out of her shell. Soft-spoken often transformed into completely silent, with Snow White, and at times she seemed distant. Tedros doesn't know how Lancelot had come up with give Snow White my best friend's toddler son to entertain as a tactic, but Lance had always been a good tactician, and clearly he saw an opportunity to both please a valuable dignitary, and get Tedros to behave, in one fell swoop.

She held his chubby hand and got the rabbits that usually fled before his toddler steps to come to them, and Tedros thinks Guinevere had looked on dubiously, because although she loved animals, they never came to her quite like that. She'd been kind to him, he thinks. Patient.

Yes, she was the standard.

Agatha does not do standard very well.

Not that he'd wish her to. But... well, she's certainly not Snow White. Agatha doesn't talk to rabbits or deer. They don't like her very much, either; they think she's tall and stomps and smells funny, according to Beatrix, who actually paid attention in Uma's lessons. And she doesn't sing to birds. She'd probably scare them off; her voice is terrible.

But she excitedly plucks frogs and toads from ponds and points out all the grisly anatomical bits and holds them up, saying don't their eyes look like mine? and when Tedros says not really, pointing out that she's a woman and that's a frog, she ignores him. He suggests she should kiss one. She grins wickedly and asks what he would do if she did save an enchanted prince, like the girl in The Frog Prince? Tedros asks what she would want him to do. Agatha shrugs. I dunno. Duel him for my honour and hand in marriage? It's not delivered with any real expectation. Tedros points out he already has her hand in marriage. Agatha says she doesn't think legal marriage matters to frogs. But if it does, she wonders, then, does the hypothetical frog prince have a frog wife? He could also have a frog husband, Tedros suggests. As well? Blinks Agatha.

What? Oh. Dunno. Tedros clarifies he'd meant instead of. They wonder if frogs do polygamy, and decide they don't know. Agatha's solution is that Tedros should also kiss the frog, just in case. (Tedros says he isn't going to snog a frog, thanks. Agatha says he's weak.) Then she wonders, if the frog turned into a prince, would she be some sort of froggy homewrecker? Tedros says that's what he used to call Lancelot, and she cackles. Then she kisses one, just to wind him up. It stays a frog, to no one's surprise. Then she tries to kiss him and they nearly fall in the pond while Tedros tries to avoid her frog-contaminated face. Tedros asks if she would still love him if he was a frog and she says she'd love him more if he was a frog, which Tedros isn't very impressed with. Agatha puts the frogs back in their ponds and says sorry for catching them.