Friends and Fairy Tales

by CrackedInkWell

Chapter 14: The Nanny and the Sultana

While the royal trio was off to fetch Cinderella, Mary Poppins was dragging Peter by the ear towards the massive crystal structure that seemed to take the form of a tree. “For a Princess that has a palace in the middle of a town, one would think there ought to be guards around,” she thought aloud as they walked up the steps and through the front door. As she did so, she entered into a great hall that towered over her in violet, blue and yellow crystal, giving her a moment of pause. ‘Why do I keep having the feeling of déjà vu, especially in here?’

But the nanny shook her head and resumed to go to the first hallway on the right and go forward to the library at the end. “Now then Peter, what is it that you’re about to write six hundred times?”

The blue Pegasus groaned, “’I will not steal or start a revolution.’ But I keep telling you, I can’t write, not even the smallest word.”

“And I’ll tell you once more, I’ll teach you how.” She opened the library door, “After that you may start your-” This was as far as she got before she ran into something.

“Oh! Beg your pardon,” Mary backed up to find that she ran into a Zebra, “I didn’t see you barged in.”

“Who are you?”

“Zecora is my name, though I could ask the same. Are you are Blueblood, the Princely stud, or maybe you are some other character in a different cover?”

“Well, since you asked. My name is Mary Poppins, tell me, do you know where there’s a nearby chalkboard?”

The shamare looked over the unicorn’s shoulder. “Is that Rainbow Dash in your shadow, or is it some other that you know?”

“It’s none of your concern,” she said. “You haven’t answered my question.”

With a raise eyebrow, she pointed over to where the huge chalkboard was. “What you seek is over there, and I should let you be made aware that this does concern me, because I’m dealing with a pony like thee.”

“You mean there’s someone else here?” Peter asked as the nanny pulled him towards the board.

“What did I say about talking?” Mary asked scornfully.

“To answer the question from the rainbow, there is another pony that I know. One that I’ve been trying my best to console that she sees her reality isn’t whole.”

Mary raised an eyebrow, “Is that so? So I assume that she’s like us then?”

“She realizes that she is a character of a book, it is still over there if you wanted to look.”

The nanny looked over to where the Zebra was pointing at, and levitated the tome over to her. “Hmm… Tell me, dose this pony say that he or she is a child or an adult?”

“A frighten Queen from afar that realizes she’s in a situation bizarre.”

“Where is she now?”

“Next door in one of the guest rooms, I was off to fetch my special tea before her panic resumes.”

“Why do you rhyme?” the Neverland boy inquired.

“Peter, it isn’t polite to ask personal questions,” Mary then picked up a piece of chalk and wrote down the sentence on the blackboard, “Now copy it.”

“Before I leave to get the tea,” Zecora said, “could you do a favor for me?”

“What?” Mary asked, getting annoyed.

“Could you make sure that she is still in her here now and then, just so she doesn’t try to run off again?”

The nanny placed the piece of chalk into Peter’s hoof, “Very well. But please hurry back, I have this boy to watch over as well.”

_*_

Never in her entire life did Scheherazade ever think that something like this would happen to her. Not in her most wild of fantasies of her universe of an imagination had ever conceived of being in such a situation before. This Queen of Storytellers had invented the remarkable tales of Ali Baba, the rags to riches of Aladdin, and weaved his husband’s personal favorite stories of the Voyages of Sinbad.

But never, with all the sleepless nights of telling the Sultan where she had to improvise each and every story, did she ever thought she would become one herself!

In a guest room, the Sultana was recovering from having such a shock at realizing this. She never thought that she would hold a book in which contained not only her and her husband’s life story, but all of the stories she had ever told him. Even some that she clearly didn’t remember telling him about!

“By Allah, was any of it real?” she asked herself. “Could it hath been that I fell asleep and dreamet it all? That I read from the Arabian Nights and mine sleep convinced me that I was once that Queen of Persia. But why even now that it is still fresh in my memory? Where did that book and this place come from? And why am I here?”

Her mind was spinning. Although she was a cleaver woman, being in such a predicament was giving her a headache. The Zebra, Zecora, had promised that she is going to fetch something to calm both her mind as well as her nerves.

Then, her ears picked up something. It was part tapping and part scratching that was very slow. Curious, Scheherazade rose from the bed to investigate where the sound was coming from. Opening the door, she could trace that it was coming from the library. There was squeaking and at time high pitch grinding as she round the entrance.

There by the enormous chalkboard was a Pegasus as blue as the sky with a piece of white chalk in one hoof and a frown on her face was writing the same thing over and over. Sitting on a cushion behind the grumpy Pegasus was a white unicorn with a blond mane, forelegs folded with a solemn look.

Scheherazade tilted her head, “Do I know thee?”

Mary looked up and so did Peter, in which Poppins pointed a hoof towards the board. With a frustrated sigh, the Pegasus resumes writing clumsily. “Somehow, I know your face. I think we’ve might have met before. Correct me if I’m wrong, but was cake ever involved?”

“And the feeling of ire against thee as well?” she asked. “I believe so, doth thou knowest the name of Rarity as I am being referred to?”

“I don’t remember your name, but your face is familiar to me.” Then Mary tilted her head, “Why are you speaking in Shakespearean English?”

“Tis the way that I always speak, but tell me, what is thy name?”

“Apparently I have two names today,” Poppins answered, “One is from a cleaver but overall unpleasant stallion name Prince Blueblood. The other, which I know is the real me, is Mary Poppins.”

“How peculiar, so am I, only I do not know which one is the real one. For either I am Rarity, or Queen Scheherazade.”

Peter paused for a moment, “What did you say your name was?”

“Scheherazade?” she raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I think I might have heard from you before,” he said, resuming to coping the same words on the blackboard. “Wendy tells us stories every night from what she heard from her mother. I think she mentioned your name before, that you told a story every single night to the king to save yourself from execution.”

“The story of my life,” she nodded, “I suppose thou hast read my story as well?”

“Are you kidding?” Peter snorted, “I can’t read. Wendy is the one that knows all kinds of stories before any of us Lost Boys go to sleep. She would tell about brave adventurers like Sinbad, or the cleaver bloke Ali Baba and Aladdin. So, are you really her? The first one to tell those stories?”

“What did I say about personal questions?” Mary stepped in. “The sooner you finish your work, the sooner you’ll get to leave.”

“Please excuse me,” the Persian Sultana asked, “But why is he writing the same thing over and over?”

“It’s his punishment,” the nanny said. “This troublemaker has been causing mischief all morning, or at least, one of many.”

“Really? What did she do?”

“I’m a boy,” Peter corrected before Mary pointed at the board.

“It’s rather a long story I’m afraid,” the nanny told her. “With all that has happened to me and the children, I’m not so sure if I’m ready to return to London until everything is straightened out.”

“What is London?” Scheherazade asked, in which she received stunned stares from the two ponies.

“Are you daft?” Mary questioned, “The capital of the British Empire? London, England.”

The queen shook her head, “I’m afraid that I hath no knowledge of this place. I have read adventures of travelers that went to all corners of the world and studied maps from days of yore. But I’m afraid that I do not recall a city called London. Pray tell, what is it like?”

Mary looked on in disbelief until a thought popped in her head, “Hold on, something isn’t right here… Peter, do you know what year this is?”

Peter looked over his shoulder in confusion, “Year?”

“Yes, what year is it, or don’t you know?”

The Neverland boy scratched his head with the tip of his wing. “If I remember this right from Wendy, I think it’s… nineteen-hundred-and… eleven? Why?”

Mary quickly turned to Scheherazade, “What about you? What year do you think it is – from the Gregorian calendar?”

“The calendar of the Christians?” she asked, “Let me think…” the Persian Queen calculated in her head over this question, “I maybe off, but if I’m right, it would be… nearly twelve-thousand-and-seventeen years since the birth of Jesus (peace be upon him). Why would thou ask about the Gregorian cal-”

“Don’t you see there’s a pattern?” Mary asked. “Peter is from the year nineteen-eleven, you’re from the thirteenth century, while I’m from nineteen-thirty-four! Somehow, in some way, we’re not in our own time-frame!”

“But, if thou art right,” Scheherazade said, “then that would mean that not only art we not in our own world, but we art from different periods in history?” She put a hoof underneath her chin, “That… might explain a lot.”

“What do you mean?” Peter asked.

“Tell me, apart from thy pony memories, doth any of thee know about this land called Equestria?” They shook their heads, “What if there’s a reason that we know this now? This morning, I hath found a book in which contained my life, and that of my husband’s, in which holds in the written word, all of my stories done in perfect detail. Then suppose, for a moment, it is the same for both of thee? That out there in this world, there’s a book that contained our lives therein. Each is taken place in a different world, a different city, a different time and circumstance. Suppose, if we art real, these books art but… pockets of our own reality we know so well? But, now we somehow gotten out of it, and here we are. Above all, what if this is a good thing?”

“How, in the name of sanity, is any of that a good thing?” Mary Poppins questioned.

“The fate of a character is set in a book, are they not?” Scheherazade questioned. “That one can open any page of a book, or any part of a scroll to any time of their lives and that character has no say in how it ought to end or begin because everything in a book is fixed. But, if I am right, then that means we art free to do with our fate as we please. The other characters we know from our lives cannot do anything, time for them is frozen until we somehow return to it. Thus giving us all extra time here to do whatever we please, even if we knew how to return, where is the rush?”

“Yeah,” Peter nodded, “this world, this Equestria is full of adventure! For you Poppins, you can go anywhere, take all the time you want and be back in time for tea.”

“I suggest that you use your time wisely,” Mary said, “and get back to that writing.”

Comments

[Skye Mist]

Oh snap, they're turning over slowly...

[HB_DS2013]

It would be nice to let the storybook characters mull things over before Twilight reverts 'em back.

[CrackedInkWell]

7355915 Hmm... CMC, Dorothy Gale, and Alice Liddle... What can I do with these characters before the adults find them?

[HB_DS2013]

7355919 Other than being covered in tree sap? I was thinking that Dorothy and Alice would have differing opinions.