• Everything was a mess.

    Really, couldn’t Kieron ever eat her dinner in peace? Oh, sure, he loved magic, but she set everything off. The three-year-old wasn’t quite old enough to control her powers, though she was dead-set on learning how. Her temper tantrum today was induced solely by him. Refusing to teach his daughter how to make objects float wasn’t a very good idea when she was unbearably hungry.

    A sigh. Well, there went his Dragoblosc. Watching it spill over the side of the table wasn’t quite as painful as it had been before. His beloved drink had been so abused in the past three years that he had given up on chastising her, taking to walking around the house with a bottle in-hand at any other given moment. Any bottle filled with electric blue liquid was doomed to spill.

    “I’ll clean it.” Abraxas mumbled, rolling his eyes as he lifted his fingers and directed the aphrodisiac toward the sink. It slid down with a rather pronounced slurping noise that made both his daughters giggle. He wasn’t as good of an elementalist as his cousin, but it got the job done, didn’t it?

    He felt for his dinner, though. The meat and vegetables were stained blue, looking like they’d just come out of a poisonous tanning booth. Dragoblosc had a wonderfully strange effect on food – its fire-and-ice properties heated and cooled it so that within the same minute it had been charred and frosted. The magician knew better than to try his luck inside.

    Unfortunate, that; Alice’s cooking was always superb. It was only a matter of whether or not he decided to take his drink to the table. Oh well; he could always cook breakfast in the morning. His strong arms wrapped around Kieron and Lalaine’s middle sections, pulling them up as he left a token of affection atop his lover’s head.

    He could never say he was much of a tuck-in sort of father. Alice had always been the better one at telling a story in his view and, after all, wasn’t he insane? Hawking wasn’t sure he wanted his children to grow up not knowing the classic stories that their mother did, looking like fools as they stumbled through school without a clue as to who Old Mother Hubbard was.

    But then again, what did he care? They were going to grow up to be strong, independent young women – the professor would make sure of that. He set the two children down on a pair of twin-sized beds. There was enough space for Alice to wedge through without breaking anything, even with her key. They’d designed the room around the extra extension along her back, an unfortunate repercussion of her curiosity that had been ‘rectified’ more than eighty years ago. Abraxas had never minded her key, finding it an intriguing and rather charming part of the woman he’d come to care for; even their children had accepted it. Kieron went as far as to swing on it, provided Alice was sitting down. It gave the woman the most horrible back problems though – he’d need to teach her not to do that, hard as the task would be. She was as hardheaded as he had been at her age.

    The invalid turned to leave, his intent to find his wife and perhaps glance over whatever book she might be reading after tidying up, when a small hand stopped him.

    “Daddy? Will you tell us a story?”

    The man could’ve sworn he’d seen the two girls exchange a conspiratory glance.

    “Don’t you think you should sleep?” He asked, pausing by the door and allowing his fingers to play against the cherry wood paneling.

    “That’s no fun.” Pouted Kieron. Really, what kind of father was he?

    She left Lalaine out of it; they got along, but her sister wasn’t as boisterous and loud as she was. More like her mother than her father in some ways. It was something that the magician tended to notice about the two young girls in front of him. Twins they might have been, but sometimes they were as different as night and day.

    Dis, but he’d planned to spend the night with Alice! As much as he could, anyway; sometimes his company simply couldn’t compete with a good novel and a cup of tea. Perhaps if he gave in and got the story out of the way he’d be able to salvage whatever time was left of the night. Mrs. Hawking tended not to like staying up very late.

    “All right.” Clearly he had no idea what he was getting himself into – it caused the girls to smile (Almost smirk, a nasty habit they’d picked up from their dear uncle Alastair). As they settled further into their beds, the professor attempted to pull together as much of a fairy tale as he could muster. It was Alice, after all, who read the books. Not him.

    “Once upon a time,” there was no way to back out of it now. They were already listening with rapt attention. Hawking dimmed the lights with a wave of his hand and pulled himself into the little rocking chair his wife often used. “there was a marshmallow that lived in a cupboard…”

    There was no way he would be overlooked. After all, he was a marshmallow – sweet and fattening and perfect for hot chocolate. No, being put in the cupboard wasn’t good at all. Of course his packmates didn’t mind, complacent as they were behind the dark confines of the door. They didn’t care if they were going to rot in a plastic bag. They didn’t care if any human beings noticed them for years and years without being used. No, as long as they were used someday, what did it matter?

    But it wasn’t good enough for him!

    Marshy the Marshmallow poked his way out of the plastic bag’s opening. The air in the cupboard was stale. It smelled of old spices and unused salts. Coughing his disgust, Marshy tumbled out of the bag and dragged his way toward the imposing cupboard door.

    He squeaked, knowing he couldn’t open that by himself. With a dusty sigh, the marshmallow pushed against the heavy wood. No good – his body squished and conformed to the hard surface. Marshy grumbled and scooted away. How was he to make his statement if he couldn’t even find his way out of the cabinet?

    Frustrated with his lack of strength, the marshmallow leaned against a tall bottle of oil. It was only a quarter of the way full – light enough for him to push over but heavy enough to open the door. In delight, he giggled, hopping out of his prison and into a freshly washed bowl of fruits.

    The outside world was not quite new to him. Being at the top of the bag had its advantages, such as an allowance of space and a view that others of his kind didn’t often get to see. Whereas the bag had suffocated him and gagged him with the musty stench of lard day and night, the kitchen was intoxicating. Delicious scents wafted from the strange machines that lined the walls and an effervescent, homey presence surrounded him.

    Marshy sniffed the surrounding area, testing himself. Through his sugar-dusted nose everything seemed at least a little sweet, but there were other types of flavor, too. The apple on the left was tangy, the grapefruit next to it sour. The twin pears sitting on top of each other were sickeningly sweet – were they overripe? Shaking himself, the marshmallow hopped around the crowded bowl until a voice stopped him.

    “Halt! What are you doing in this bowl?”

    The fruit was large, round and orange. Marshy knew that it must not be an orange orange because it wasn’t shaped like a circle; it was more oval-shaped – almost oblong. He craned his chubby white neck to look up at the fruit that had addressed him. It smelled tangy and tropical, something that he had never experienced before.

    “This bowl is for fruits only.” It rumbled. The marshmallow could tell that it was female, but only by the way its voice seemed to lilt. Otherwise she could have been any gender under the suns. “You don’t smell like a fruit.”

    “That’s because I’m not!” Marshmallows were proud of their heritage. They lived to please and loved their job. Besides, they usually got the cushy jobs in the sticky, brown hottubs or were squished by big crumbly blankets. Either way, they enjoyed themselves. He couldn’t ever see a fruit making people happy the way they did. “I’m a marshmallow! I’m made of lard and powder and lots of other strange things.”

    “Well, shoo then. Go on, get out.” Marshy got the distinct impression that this fruit was particularly Foodist against what most people called ‘junk food’. He’d never personally had any grudges against foods, and being in a bag had left him quite sheltered. Marshy scrunched up and leapt out of the bowl, managing to land on the brim and flop awkwardly onto the counter.

    “Fine! I don’t wanna be around stuffy old fruits anyway.”

    The marshmallow tumbled and rolled, frolicking around the kitchen counter when, scarcely a moment later, a human entered the room.

    Marshy the Marshmallow had never seen anyone quite like him before. With purple hair and odd, violet eyes, the stranger eyed the fruit bowl before spying the lone treat sitting on the otherwise pristine counter.

    Excitement bubbled within his squishy little heart. Was this what it was like to be eaten? As the warm, tanned fingers picked him up – he supposed, in order to examine him more closely – he attempted to get a closer look at where he might be going.

    Down there? As the human hesitantly opened his mouth, Marshy attempted to conceal his joy. He’d never seen such a long slide before. Little children tended to be short and had smaller mouths, so those marshmallows tended to suffocate. This human looked big enough to slide down comfortably. When the man opened his mouth again, the marshmallow could hardly help himself. He leapt into the dark hole and began his descent.

    The man choked. Had a marshmallow just jumped down his throat? He attempted to throw it up but it was too late; it was lodged in his throat and would not budge. Haphazardly, he grabbed a glass and filled it with water in an attempt to wash the marshmallow down.

    “Whee!” He hadn’t known that it was a water slide. Marshy gleefully sped down the passage and landed with a thump against the acidic stomach lining. There were all sorts of things in a stomach, noted the marshmallow. There was a piece of melting paper and a few old crackers, and next to another dark tube there was a small puddle of chopped up fruit that was slowly disintegrating.

    Well, it wasn’t spacious and it definitely wasn’t coated in sticky brown matter, but he could live here. Marshy hopped over to an empty corner and sighed, happy to be eaten away by the acid.

    “What happened to the man, daddy?” Kieron’s eyes were wide with fascination. Marshmallows could jump down peoples’ throats?

    “He lived, but just barely.” Abraxas shrugged, nonchalant. He would have found their expressions adorable if not for the morbid fascination and fear on their faces. “He was just lucky he installed the pipes like his wife told him to.”

    Which, he thought, was true. There hadn’t been an Alastair around to give him water that day, so having the faucet handy had certainly saved him a lot of pain. Abraxas straightened from his position in the chair and swept away, murmuring a goodnight to the girls.

    The next morning found him sitting with an electric blue bottle clasped tightly in his hands. The rest of his family was just barely awake – it was the perfect time to down his favorite drink.

    He eyed Kieron and Lalaine only briefly. Neither had taken showers and the twins’ hair had been carelessly fluffed in sleep.

    “Morning, daddy.” They echoed, each rubbing their eyes of the dust that had accumulated there.

    “Good morning, girls.”

    Kieron moved toward the counter and stood, Abraxas sighing and rising to help her. She seemed not to want to eat fruits today. The man picked up his three-year-old daughter and raised her so that she was eye-level with the cabinets.

    “I want cereal.” declared the girl, who swung the cupboard door open. To her surprise, the bag of marshmallows stacked on the top shelf fell forward, a single white cylinder falling into her waiting palms.

    In shock, she squirmed out of Abraxas’ grasp and ran back to the master bedroom, jumping into her mother’s sleeping lap. The magician only chuckled, following behind with his youngest daughter in tow.

    “Mommy, the marshmallow is going to make me eat him!” Kieron tugged at the front of Alice’s shirt and clung to her mother desperately.

    “What did you tell them last night?” she had learned long ago that his stories, while not sub-par, were certainly not ones that children would expect to hear.

    “Nothing.” His face lit up with mild surprise, though the woman could see that his eyes were aglow with impishness. “I simply told her what a marshmallow’s life was like.”