Gooseberry

Content notes: (none that I am aware of)

Gooseberry had been a fairy godparent for most of their life. When children are born, their parents often invite the fairies, hoping for a blessing. If the parents throw a lavish feast, or there is a potential for destiny in the air, the fairies come, invited or not, to celebrate and get a chance to become a fairy godparent. And to enjoy the food.

The assembled fairies choose, by way of looks and hidden signals, who gets to have the honor, much like baseball coaches do. This is also the reason why fairies are fascinated by baseball. They do not care much for the game, but they take immense joy in figuring out what the signs are and what they mean.

When a child is born to a poor family, it is much less of a thrill to be present, since there is no good food or drink, no glory in battling curses, or anything like that. More often than not, no fairy comes at all; and if one does, chances are good that it will be Gooseberry.

If asked, fairies would of course say that all children deserved help and good fortune. They might even grudgingly admit that more children would get that help if the fairies did not show up in large numbers at big feasts and spread out more. And then they might quickly find a reason to be elsewhere, before someone suggested that they could be the ones spreading out.

Gooseberry knew this, because they had this conversation, trying to get more shoulders to share the burden. But while fairies were generally helpful, they also had their weaknesses. And one of those were opulent treats.

So Gooseberry picked up all the children with little hope, no foes other than the way the world is, and no big victories in sight. Because someone had to.

Gooseberry would have loved treats, too. But they did not think it right to go to a party just for the fun of it, while another child went without a fairy godparent.

With what resources they did have, spread thin over so many wards, they made sure that their godchildren did not starve, did not get assaulted in the alleys near their homes and were somehow in the right spot when a decent person was looking for a maid, or a runner, or temporary help. Anything that paid something for honest work. And while doing so, their heart still hurt for all the children that did not get to be that maid, that runner, that hired help. But they told themselves fiercely that they could not help everyone and they had to focus on their wards if they wanted to get anything done at all. And it was not always enough.

One day it happened that three important births were celebrated at the same time: A princess, a pair of twins that were set to defeat a dark curse, and a poor boy who might one day save and counsel the queen.

As fairies are rather fond of grand parties and really bad at organizing themselves, it turned out that they all showed up for the twins and the princess, but only Gooseberry visited the poor boy.

Gooseberry was rather confused to be the only one there, as potential hung thick in the air and they were not very sure they could handle this with the limited time and power they had. But if they did not become the godparent, no fairy would, as you had to be present at the naming. The parents, unaware of the boy’s possible future, were overjoyed to see a fairy at all, so everyone was happy. Everyone but Gooseberry, but that was nothing new.

The fairy watched the boy grow up, and kept as close an eye on the patterns evolving around him as they could, with other godchildren to look after. When there was a branch of futures approaching, it almost went unnoticed. Gooseberry realized just in time that if the boy went to the next village come Friday, he would run into someone who would take him under his metaphorical wing, as opposed to Gooseberry’s very real wings.

There were other branches ahead that would determine what he would do with the schooling he would receive, but even if he did not rise to the position of counselling the queen on laws to help the poorest of her people, he would still do good. If he did not make it to the market… let’s just say that it would make Gooseberry’s job much harder and the boy’s choices more limited.

Gooseberry could not very well fly up to the kid and tell him to go to the market. It was not allowed, as fairy godparents had rules to operate under. It was not entirely clear what would happen if you attempted to break the rules, but it was best not to find out. For both the fairy and the child.

As there was not much time left, Gooseberry could not set up an intricate plan that would naturally get the boy to the right place, so they decided to bend the rules a little bit. While they could not approach the boy or his parents, they could enlist the help of former, happy godchildren. Probably.

After some searching, they found a family where both parents had been under their care and the children were still young enough that the parents could see fairies. They were delighted to see Gooseberry again and agreed to help. They were happy to help give someone else the chance that Gooseberry had given them.

Come Friday morning, the husband went to the family of the poor boy, whose mother earned a few coins by selling pastries. Gooseberry had scouted ahead to see what ingredients were at hand and made sure that he ordered a pie that the mother did not have the filling for, for a sum that was both believable and tempting. As expected, she soon sent her son off to pick the gooseberries she needed for the pie (of all the things, but you work with what you have) in the nearby forest, and off he went.

In the forest waited the wife, near the now already picked-clean gooseberry bushes. When the boy said that he needed some, she offered him a bargain: if he helped her get the berries to the market in the next village, he could have as many as he needed.

And thus the boy went to the market, ran into his mentor, and got started on a road that would see him much better off than he had been. Gooseberry would, in time, see to it that he took the right turns as if by chance, and in the end the boy would not need them anymore, freeing up Gooseberry’s resources to help others again. And he would make their task easier, as through him the queen would do her part as well.

For tonight, though, Gooseberry was very happy that although they might not have much in the way of magic, they had a lot in the way of friends willing to help. And sometimes friends can make things happen that all the magic in the world cannot.