Three Idiots and a Badger

He looked between us once more and said, “It’s either her or me…”

Silence. Tense, exasperated silence in the room. The kind that hangs in the air like the scent of burned toast or a potion that caught fire. “I—what?” I blinked, still covered in sparkly green chicken feathers, the residual effect of a misfired polymorph. “Did you seriously just make this into a jealous ultimatum, Gregory?”

Gregory, a fellow sorcerer, crossed his arms, his long crimson robes billowing a little too dramatically in the windless cave. “Yes. Yes, I did. You’ve forced my hand, Rowan.” I turned to the other half of the ultimatum: Princess Nyla, formerly a statue, currently fuming. “Oh for gods’ sakes,” she muttered, clutching the hem of her extremely wrinkled royal gown. “You freed me from a thousand-year curse five minutes ago and now you’re fighting over me like I’m a goblin-market trinket. Stop it. Both of you.”

Gregory dramatically pointed a gloved finger. “She tried to bite me!”

“You startled me while I was de-petrifying!” she shouted. “Okay, okay! Everyone calm yourselves,” I said, still slightly dazed from the spell backlash. “Let us just...take a breath, yes?”

Gregory huffed, pacing around with a grudge. “A breath? Rowan, I have a bite mark on my arm and a princess lounging in my reading chair like she owns the place!”

“Would you like me to own the place?” Nyla asked sweetly, eyes glittering with the kind of dangerous amusement only a dethroned royal with nothing left to lose can muster. “I did conquer three minor kingdoms before the curse. Four, if you count West Fennel.”

“No one counts West Fennel!” Gregory snapped.

“They had a flag!”

“Made of lettuce!”

“Would you two stop?” I cut in, waving away a lingering feather that was drifting into my nose. “I just de-cursed someone who was conscious for a thousand years! I am half-magicked and entirely exhausted. And if either of you makes me cry, I swear by the moons, I will polymorph both of you into matching toads and feed you to Hubert.”

Hubert, the badger, hissed from his spot on the bookshelf as if in agreement. Or indigestion. With Hubert, it was hard to tell.

Gregory stopped mid-rant, deflating slightly. Nyla adjusted her torn sleeve and sat a little straighter, regal despite the soot in her hair.

“Look,” I said, rubbing my temples. “Greg, you’re my co-sorcerer. My spell-sibling. My alchemical partner in slime. And Nyla, you’re… well, newly un-statue’d and clearly harbouring ancient military instincts and an alarming tolerance for chaos.”

“Thank you,” she said graciously. “I have declared this house a sovereign duchy.”

I gave her a flat look. “No duchies.”

“Fine.”

Gregory cleared his throat. “Rowan. All I’m saying is, she can’t stay here.”

“Where is she supposed to go, Greg? She woke up and the empire she ruled is now a mall with a cursed fountain and a juice bar. Her castle is a parking lot. Her horse is in a museum.”

“The audacity,” Nyla muttered. Gregory threw his hands up. “And that’s my problem because…?”

“She’s just a very confused, slightly aggressive princess with outdated geopolitical opinions and a fondness for siege warfare. We can manage.”

Gregory narrowed his eyes. “She rearranged my crystal shelf by colour and magical toxicity.”

“I made it more efficient,” Nyla sniffed. “Your fire gems were next to your sleeping salts. That’s a hazard.”

“They were alphabetized!”

“Alphabetical storage is for cowards and librarians.” Gregory gasped like he’d been physically wounded. “Take it back!”

“Make me.”

“Okay!” I snapped, waving both hands. “New rule: no insulting alphabetical order in this house.” Nyla muttered something about “librarian sympathizers” and Gregory just sulked, which meant he was mostly fine.

“I’m not picking,” I said, sitting down in a pile of discarded cloaks. “I’m not choosing between my best friend and the un-cursed princess I accidentally brought back to life. You’re both staying. You’re both dealing with it. I am too tired to care about what gets turned into a toad tonight.”

Gregory looked scandalized. Nyla looked...smug.

“I claim the good chair,” she said.

“NO!” Gregory shrieked, already lunging.

I watched them crash into the bookshelf, making Hubert jump down to join the brawl, and leaned back with a groan. Hubert, our highly judgmental badger, launched himself onto Gregory’s back with a screech that could peel paint, apparently deciding that this chaos was worthy of his participation. There were yells. There were sparkles. There was, at one point, a flying ham.

“Gregory!” I shouted over the cacophony. “That is an ancient armchair imbued with the spirit of a very angry grandmother. Stop swinging it around!”

“She started it!” Gregory shrieked. “I claimed it under sovereign duchy law!” Nyla yelled, fending him off with a rolled-up tapestry that used to be our bathroom curtain. “Finders keepers, usurpers weepers!”

“Oh, very mature,” Gregory snapped. “Your diplomacy is as outdated as your hairstyle!”

“My hairstyle is classical warfare chic!”

“And your duchy is imaginary!”

“You’re imaginary!”

I buried my face in my hands. Somewhere beneath the roar of magical static, I could feel my will to live crumbling like our last batch of experimental muffins—smoky, loud, and potentially lethal.

“I’m going to start screaming,” I said conversationally. “I’m just letting you both know. Not casting a spell. Just a long, horrifying noise from my soul. It’s happening. Any moment now.”

Neither of them acknowledged me. Gregory had conjured a floating orb of lemon custard which he was trying to aim directly at Nyla’s hair. Nyla had somehow acquired a broom that she was using the whack Gregory with. And when that broom collided with a huge blob of custard, an explosion erupted.

It detonated midair in a splatter of glowing lemon goo and magical backlash, painting Nyla, Gregory, the walls, the floor, the armchair, me, and Hubert—who immediately screamed and vanished into the bookshelf with a furious huff—in shimmering yellow sludge.

“You know what?” I said calmly, feeling the custard roll down my face. “No more ultimatums. No more sovereign duchies. No more enchanted desserts.”

Gregory coughed out a lemon bubble.

Nyla licked her lips and nodded. “This…actually isn’t bad.”

“Oh my gods,” I whispered. “I live with idiots.”

​​Then the roof caved in.