[Nell]: 226.Stories.The Fairytale.Part 2

Annabella was ecstatic!
'I'm going on an adventure!' she crowed inwardly.
After another glance at the road, she decided not to try crossing it again. She didn't need to go to the town square anyways, since she knew what the gossip would be anyways; The Eveal Oun rides into town and gives their noble Annabella a long awaited adventure. Besides, she was tired of nearly getting pasted.
Oh, she just couldn’t wait to tell her sisters all about it! They'd finally see that she was just as special as they were. Annabella thought she must be pretty lucky too, for how many people got a three-day notice beforehand?
She never made it back to Castle Ice.
As she dashed up the icy slopes towards home, she caught sight of a figure on the path. She did a double-take, then stopped in her tracks. A pale boy, no older than five or six, with bright blue eyes and wispy blond hair, stood shivering in a snow bank up to his thighs. A meager grey tunic was all he wore, so he couldn’t have been out there long, for surely he would have frozen to death in the hour.
Though Annabella was not one to be drawn to perform acts of kindness, just the sight of that small helpless child, with those big, pitiful, glassy eyes, was enough to distill in her a sense of motherliness. Quickly she unfastened her mink-lined cloak and wrapped it around the boy. Then, hunkering down, she scooped him out of the snow and onto her lap, where she began rubbing his hands with hers for warmth.
“You poor, poor thing,” she cooed. “How did a beautiful boy such as you end up out here? Where are your parents? We must get you up to the castle quickly before you turn into a little block of ice!”
“That’s it! I’m calling it quits!” the boy spoke in a surprisingly adult voice. “They were right, this is hopeless! I mean, what’s the point if they keep helping you before you can even beg for something? Great Avalanche! What a bother! I should have just stuck to the grandmother act.”
Annabella didn’t have a clue what the boy was going on about, but he clearly had an affliction of the head, from being out in the elements so long.
“Come on now,” she said soothingly. “Let’s get you some somewhere nice and-”
“Oh, quit it Kid,” said the child. “If you hadn’t guessed already, I’m not what I appear.”
Annabella blinked. “You aren’t?”
“No! I’m a Road Watcher.”
Annabella was silent for a moment then blinked again. Yes, he was definitely suffering from some sort of numbing of the brain cells…
“Look, Kid,” said the little boy, his voice inflected with irony, which caused Annabella to do a couple more eyelid spasms. “I’m one of those people who stand around by the side of a road watching for people to give good advice or curses to, depending on whether or not they show us kindness. Usually we like to take the form of old women. However the problem is, that guise has become too well known! People seem to spot an old woman from a mile away, and give her a wide birth unless they’re willing give her what ever she asks for. So I said to myself, Maggie,” the boy pulled a pipe out from under his tunic and lit it. “It’s time for you to try something new!”
Annabella’s feet were going numb from crouching in the snow with the boy…thing…on her lap. And watching as the five-year-old blew smoke rings in her face was not improving her mood. Plus, it was getting downright chilly without her cloak. She eyes the mink, wondering how she could get it off the Road Watcher without its noticing.
‘Well, this is what you get for trying to lend a helping hand, Annabella thought to herself. ‘Give them a little kindness, and they take it as a cue to tell you about their life woes.’
Indeed, the strange child was going on; “So then I decided that I’d try being a comely woman, see if the effects were the same as an old woman. Hah! People either looked scared and walked faster or they saunter up to me and say; ‘How can I help you?’ If ya know what I mean. No, you probably wouldn’t. Never mind that, but then there was the time I tried…”
Annabella’s eyes glazed over. Her mind glazed over too. Her entire body was probably becoming petrified, getting glazed over with ice. This was not fun. She certainly hadn’t planned on being accosted by a verbose boy with a brain disorder and bad smoking habits on her way home today. Especially not one who had this weird notion that you had to be nice to every beggar you meet. If she was like that, her family could go broke! What was the point? They always took advantage of you once you gave them something for free. She guessed that Road Watching must be pretty dull to conjure ideas like that in your head. Pretty lonely to, judging by the way this child kept yammering on and on to the first person he/it met.
Finally the boy seemed to be coming to the end of his prolific account. “…that’s when I thought; ‘Ok, what’s the most opposite thing from an old woman?’ A young boy of course! But that one doesn’t seem to be working either ‘cause now everyone wants to help me! And whenever I give someone advice they always say; ‘That’s nice, why don’t we go find your parents?’ I tell ya, Kid, finding a good replacement for the ‘old gal’ is not easy.” He shook a tiny finger at her and blew another smoke ring. “But anyways, I guess I should give you your advice since you’ve been so patient with me. Now, look deep into my eyes.”
Annabella was caught off guard as the boy stared fixedly at her eyes, and she felt herself sinking into his own two blue pools.
Suddenly she snapped out of it.
“Great Avalanche, Kid! You didn’t take an adventure from the Eveal Oun, did you?” he burst out, dropping his pipe in the snow.
Annabella started in surprise. ‘Now how could he have known that?’
“You want my advice, Kid?” the child looked at her sternly. “Then here it is;”
“Don’t Go Home!”