Transgendered Fairy Tales
by Kaleigh Way

VI

The King of the Low Countries was a rather unscrupulous person, and his daughter took after him. This was why she had been changed into a serpent. Along with that curse came a prophecy: that she would be delivered by a little soldier, and that she must marry him, unless he failed to appear at the meeting-place three times running. The cunning Princess then laid her plans accordingly.

The wine, the bouquet, and the scarf, all had the power of producing a death-like sleep. And we know what effect they had on John.

Now, even in this critical moment, Ludovine did not lose her head.

"I thought you were simply a street vagabond," said she, in her most coaxing voice. "Now I find you are more powerful than any king. Here is your purse, and with it, my heart. Did you keep my scarf and my bouquet?"

"Here they are," said the Kinglet, delighted with this change of tone, and he drew them from his breast pocket. Ludovine fastened the bouquet in his buttonhole and tied the scarf round his arm. "Now," she said, "you are my lord and master, and I will marry you at your good pleasure."

"You are kinder than I thought," said John, "and you shall never be unhappy, for I love you."

"Then, my little husband, tell me how you managed to carry me so quickly to the ends of the world."

The little soldier scratched his head. "Does she really mean to marry me," he asked himself, "or is she only trying to deceive me again?"

But Ludovine repeated, "Won't you tell me?" in such a tender voice that a thrill ran through him, and he didn't know how to resist her.

"After all," he said to himself, "it doesn't matter if I tell her, as long as I don't give her the cloak."

And so he explained the power of the red mantle.

Ludovine smiled and pretended to yawn. "Oh dear, how tired I am!" she sighed. "Do you mind if I take a little nap? When I wake up, we can talk about our wedding plans."

She stretched herself on the grass, and the Kinglet did the same. He did not intend to sleep, but soon the bouquet and the scarf quite overcame him.

Ludovine lay with her eyes closed, but as soon as she heard him snore, she slipped the purse from his pocket and put it in her own. Next she unfastened the mantle, drew it gently from under him, and wrapped it round herself. She said, "I wish I was back in my own room," and the next moment she was there.

You can imagine how foolish John felt when he woke up a day later, and found himself without purse, mantle, and princess. He swore and pulled his hair. He trampled the bouquet to dust and tore the scarf to atoms.

When he was finally calm, he realized that he was very hungry, and had nothing to eat.

He thought of all the wonderful advice his grandmother had given him when he was a child, but none of her wisdom helped him now. He was in despair. Then he happened to look up, and saw that he'd been sleeping under a plum tree, and the tree was full of fruit as yellow as gold.

"All's fair in war," he said out loud. "Plums, prepare to meet your doom!"

He climbed the tree and started eating. But he had hardly swallowed two plums, when to his horror he felt as if something was growing on his chest. He clutched himself, and found a good-sized pair of breasts!

Shocked and barely able to speak, he ran his hands between his legs. Alas! His manhood was quite gone, and in its place were the secrets of a maiden.

He leapt, almost tumbling, down from the tree and rushed to a stream that flowed close by. He stripped off his clothes and looked at himself and his reflection. There was no escaping it: he'd been changed into a lovely young girl. Even his face was now girlish and sweet, though his hair was as short as before.

It was then that his courage failed him.

"Wasn't it enough that a woman should trick me, and leave me alone in the wilderness? Now the devil himself has to stick his nose in and change me into a girl!" He turned himself this way and that, studying his reflection. "What a figure I'd cut if I went back like this! I could never marry the princess now!" He frowned. "Not that I would want to, of course."

He spent a long time admiring himself and exploring his new-found charms, until his stomach rumbled and he realized that it might be prudent to put his clothes back on. So he dressed and decided to look for some other fruit.

Nearby stood another plum tree, but its fruit was a lovely green. No sooner had he eaten two of them, than his breasts disappeared and his manhood was restored.

The soldier was enchanted, though greatly surprised, and realized that he had despaired too quickly. After he'd eaten enough to satisfy his hunger, an idea suddenly occurred to him.

"It may be that these pretty little plums can help me recover the purse and mantle, and play quite a trick on that wicked princess. When I met her, she had the body of a snake. Let's see how she likes having the body of a man!" So he plaited a basket out of willows, and carefully placed in it half a dozen of each kind of plum. Then he walked bravely on for many days, with nothing to eat but the berries on the wayside. Though he was in great danger from wild beasts and savage men, he was afraid of nothing, except that the plums should decay, but somehow they kept as fresh as the day he'd picked them.

At last he came to a civilized country, and by selling a few of the jewels he had about him, he boarded a ship bound for the Low Countries. At the end of a year and a day, he arrived once more at the capital.

Though John still had several jewels that he could sell, his most precious possessions were the plums, and he never let them out of his sight. Without them, he would have nothing.

To put his plan into action, the Kinglet rented a little house and bought a few supplies. Then he locked the door and drew the blinds.

He squeezed the juice from the golden plums into a jar, and took a healthy sip. After a second gulp of the juice, he felt his breasts grow and his manhood shrink. He took one more sip, just to be sure, and then he dressed himself in the sort of clothes a farmgirl might wear on a Sunday. He brushed his long hair, pinched his cheeks, and tried to make himself as pretty as possible.

Then the Kinglette went out and hired a man to carry a little table to the front of the church. The pretty soldier-girl carefully spread a fine white cloth, and set out four of the green plums. They looked for all the world as if they been freshly gathered, and no one had ever seen a more beautiful plum. As soon as the Princess came out of the church, the Kinglette began to call in a high, pretty voice, "Fine plums! Lovely plums!"

"How much are they?" asked the Princess.

"Fifty crowns a piece."

"Fifty crowns! And what, pray tell, makes them worth fifty crowns? Do they make a person smarter, or more beautiful?"

"They could not increase what is perfect already, milady, but still they might add something."

In a year of wandering, our soldier had gained a little polish, and now she put it to good use.

Princess Ludovine gave the plum-seller a look. It brought to mind the sharp green eyes of the flaming serpent. "What will they add?" the Princess asked.

"You will see when you taste them, milady. It will be a surprise for you!"

Ludovine looked at the plums, and at the girl, then asked, "And have these plums made you as pretty as you are?"

The little soldier-girl couldn't resist. "Without a doubt, milady," she said with a grin.

Ludovine's curiosity was roused. She reckoned that if she paid with her magic purse, the plums would cost her nothing.

Yet, Ludovine also remembered how she once had become a serpent, and how unpleasant an experience that had been! "Once burnt, twice learnt," as the saying goes, and the lovely princess had no intention of being burned again.

She drew out her purse and shook out four heaps of fifty crowns. Then she picked up the basket of plums. The little soldier-girl had a wild desire to snatch the purse from her and call her a thief, but she managed to control herself.

The plums were sold, so the girl began to shut up shop and gather the coins. The Princess turned away and spoke to one of her bodyguard, who immediately went round the little table and took the Kinglette by the arm, saying, "Gather your goods and come with me, miss."

"How dare you?" cried the girl. "What do you mean by this?"

"By order of the Princess Ludovine," the man replied. "Come along now."

"Pay attention, there," the Princess called, "She has another basket under the table: bring that along, as well. I say, be careful!"

The guard was distracted when the Kinglette began to struggle, and accidentally gave a kick to the basket that lay hidden under the table. Two more green plums went a-rolling, but the Princess quickly snatched them up. In the confusion, the clumsy guard gave the table a hard knock, and shattered the jar of golden plum juice.

"What have you done?" the Kinglette cried, as the juice ran in every direction. "Let go of me!"

"Keep quiet, girl," the Princess commanded. "You'll come whether you like it or not." She ran her fingertips over the plums. "I want to be sure there's nothing strange about these plums. There isn't, is there?"

The little soldier-girl bit her lip and didn't know what to say, but the Princess hadn't waited for a reply. She was already climbing into her carriage. The Kinglette was lifted up behind, and rode outside the coach all the way to the castle.

Once they arrived at the castle, the Kinglette was put in a pretty room, where she was told to wait quietly.

After she was locked in, the little soldier-girl began to think. Perhaps the situation was not as desperate as it first seemed. After all, she was back in the castle. In one way or another, the Princess would have to speak with her again. A new plan began to form in that pretty little head. All that was needed was for Ludovine to eat the plums. The Kinglette felt quite sure that she would.

And so Ludovine did. But first she took the precaution of feeding half a plum to her dog, and the other half to her maid. At first, nothing seemed to happen, although Ludovine imagined that her maid seemed a slightly prettier and a bit livelier than before. With that reassurance, the Princess ate first one plum, and then a second. They were delicious, better than any plum she'd ever tasted! She would have eaten more, but instead she went to study herself in the mirror. Certainly, the plums had added to her beauty! Hadn't they? There was a certain "something" — was there not? Perhaps a brighter shine to her cheeks, a lighter twinkle in her eye? Ludovine searched for changes and improvements, and she found them.

The next morning, she ate two more plums, and felt even lovelier than before.

The King commented on her appearance, and everyone who saw her remarked that the Princess was growing more beautiful with each day that passed.

"Quite a good thing, too," the King told her, "because there's a young prince I'd like you to meet. A capital match! You'll like him, I'm sure."

Ludovine reserved her judgment, but she immediately thought of the plums, and ran to eat another. When she realized that only two remained, she hesitated. "I must find out where they come from!" she told herself, and sent for the pretty plum-seller.

The little soldier-girl smiled when she was brought to see the Princess, but when she saw that Ludovine was as charming and feminine as ever, her smile fell away.

"I want more of those plums," the Princess told her. "Is your farm nearby?"

"No, milady," the girl replied. "They come from a land far, far away."

"Don't lie!" Ludovine commanded, her eyes flashing. "You must have picked them yesterday."

The Kinglette was confused. Had Ludovine eaten the plums?

"It's no lie, milady. The plums never lose their bloom; they're always good as fresh-picked."

Ludovine studied the girl for a moment, then asked, "Is the magic plum tree a secret? Believe me, I will tell no one."

"No, milady," the little soldier-girl replied. A new plan came into her head. If Ludovine wanted the plums, she could have as many as she liked. "It's no secret. It's only that the place is very far. It would take a month on horseback to get there."

The Princess licked her lips and thought for a moment. "That won't be a problem," she said. "No matter how far." Then she took a key from her pocket and unlocked a cabinet. She drew out the purse and the mantle, and laid them on a table.

Then came a knock on the door. "Wait a moment," the Princess told the girl, and went to answer.

A maidservant had come to present her with a small portrait of the prince her father had mentioned. As this was the Princess' first look at the man she might possibly marry, she was understandably distracted, and quite forgot about the Kinglette and the enchanted plums.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, the little soldier-girl wrapped herself in the cloak, seized the purse, and cried, "I wish I were at the ends of the earth!"

The little soldier-girl found herself in a vast, treeless wilderness. There was nothing to see in any direction: no water, no trees, no grass. There was not a sound; not even the smallest breath of wind.

"I guess there must be more than one end-of-the-earth," she told herself, and wrapping the cloak tightly around her, she wished herself in the place of the plum trees. In the next moment she was there.

However, things were not the same as before.

The season had changed, and the trees, which earlier were filled with colorful fruit and dark green leaves, were now bare. The little stream still flowed nearby, but it was choked with dead leaves and sticks. As far as she could see, there was nothing but the barren lifelessness of winter.

She sighed a deep and heavy sigh. Now there was no way to change herself back until Summer came to this strange, faraway place. She sat down heavily on the ground, and thought about her strange adventures. Out of an old habit, she reached for her pipe, but there was no pipe or tobacco in the pockets of her dress, and strangely, she didn't have the taste for it just now.

"The plums must not work the way I thought," she reflected. "I must have had it all wrong."

The Kinglette watched the clouds blow across the winter sky. "At least now I'm quit of that horrible Ludovine," she told herself. "I should have known she was as much a snake as she first seemed to be."

After a long while, the girl began to feel a chill, and her thoughts turned to the Seagull. "At least I can bring his purse back to him," she thought, "and he may let me borrow the mantle next Summer."

So she stood up, brushed herself off, and straightened her hair. Then she cleared her throat and licked her lips. In a gentle, clear voice wished herself in the house of the Seagull.

He was sitting by his window, mending his net, and from time to time his eyes wandered to the sea and sky. The Kinglette reflected that the Seagull had somehow become more handsome and strong in the year that had passed.

Startled by the noise made by the little soldier-girl, the Seagull looked up, astonished. "Who are you?" he asked, "And how did you get here?" His eyes fell on the purse and the mantle, which the Kinglette was quick to put in his hands.

Then she told him all her adventures, and he was astonished. "Now, I've come to give your treasures back to you. I'm sorry I kept them so long."

"These treasures didn't bring you happiness." the Seagull asked the girl. "So what am I to do with them?"

"I don't know," the girl replied.

"If you need the cloak to return to what you were, you may keep it," the Seagull told her with a smile. "But I hope you don't mind if I tell you that I like you much better the way you are now."

The Kinglette blushed and looked at the floor.

"Let us put the purse and mantle back in the copper vessel," the Seagull proposed. "When Summer comes in that other place, you may take them out and use them if you like. In the meantime, you can stay with me and try a simpler sort of life."

The Kinglette agreed, and soon found that she liked the life of a fisher-girl. She came to love the tang of salt air, the roar of the ocean, and the company of the Seagull.

The months passed, and at last one night the Seagull said to the girl, "By my reckoning, it must be Summer in that other world by now. Are you going to go?"

The fisher-girl hesitated. "I–" she began, but did not finish the thought.

"Or will you stay with me?" the Seagull asked, "and be my wife?"

"Yes, I will," answered the Kinglette, blushing red as fire, "but on one condition: that we seal up the purse and the mantle in the copper vessel, and throw them into the sea!"

And that's just what they did.

© 2007 by Kaleigh Way