Monsters Eat Cakes?

This is a world like no other, brimming with mystery and teaming with danger. Filled with hundreds of islands stretching across vast seas to those who live according to their own rules. Seeking a life of freedom and advantage.

This is a world of monsters, and some eat cakes. Not Sweeney Todd style cakes, but fluffy cakes decorated with sprinkles. Unfortunately, not everyone lives.

Mrs Otter had been half-elf and half-Otter after helping the king of Otters from under a fallen rock. As a gift, he had given her Otter shape-shifting and the ability to either be water elf or Otter at will.

Shape-shifting Otters moved around elf towns during the annual Heritage Day Festival to see the loud plays of the Red Dragon banished to the human world with flame red hair and gaunt pale skin.

The elves laughed at the former dragon king Qenya in his human form as he looked strange in the quiet English village selling pumpkins at Halloween, wearing orange and black long socks and a green elf costume. Especially when the elf Queen had erased his memories of the elves.

During the Red Dragon war, Mrs Otter's family was bombed into hissing mounds of burned flesh in the water elf home world of Tanea. This memory haunted Mrs Otter in her nocturnal nightmares.

Her favourite happy memories were with her sweet family: Splashing near the new dam they made together as a family that morning, Mrs Otter chirped her joy at her playful children.

Cute, shiny paws chase a pebble and roll it around each other's noses for fun. While Mr Edward Otter flapped his tail to splash them all while adjusting his red-check bowtie.

"Ha ha Bernice, your chirp is so infectious I will smile for a month." Called Mr Otter.

A fish came to see what all the fuss was about, and was caught for dinner. Shredding its flesh into thin, tasty strands, so that her children can gobble up while grinning and wavy their paws.

"What a game of pebble that was mumma. You find the smoothest pebbles, you’re the best." Beamed little Herbert Otter.

Chuckling, Mrs Otter laughed at the fading last bright memory, before relinquishing her elf-half, along with those precious memories of her family, to the elf Queen's Blue Stone Magnifier to keep safe.

Mrs Otter's close friend was a head mistress at the water elf prestigious Elhellen School of Magic. She had agreed to remove the essence of the magic elf from Mrs Otter, so that she could be a full Otter monster and leave her sad elf memories behind of her burned family. The elf Queen had offered to help, as Mrs Otter had suffered so much.

Strictly speaking, Otters are not seen as monsters unless they scare humans or grow larger than black bears with their sharp fangs. However, once Mrs Otter relinquishes her elf-half essence, her unfettered shape-shifting abilities would lead her to develop into the size of a large tree. Mrs Otter still preferred to wear fine clothes once a year to attend the elf festivals and enjoy the cake shops selling pretty little cakes. Thanks to her shape-shifting, she would shrink to the size of a human, so as not to scare the elf villagers while enjoying their cakes.

Looking at the neck of the customer and avoiding their gaze, she froze. Her stomach knotted, and the familiar feeling of wanting to hide in her room upstairs rooted her to the ground. Her warm tray of fragrant baked cakes had the customer lick their lips.

"Julie lay out your gorgeous cakes, the line is out the door." The oven timer beeped and called Julie Straphorn back into her haven.

Releasing the knot in her stomach, Julie took hold of a glass of water and gulped down some to ease her dry throat. Clicking open the oven door, the sweet steam hugged her face, and her previously taut expression spread into a radiant smile. "Let me look at you, my beauties. Oh yes, golden and warm, ready for icing in a jiffy." Leaving them on the cooling shelf, Julie expertly slid in the next four trays of cakes. The smell of warm cakes grew the line of customers around the corner.

"My Annie loves Julie's cakes. Though I know she's a bit of an odd one that straphorn. I have never seen her mutter a word to a customer. I once said good morning to her, and her hairline sprang a leak. Her sister took the tray of lush cakes from her and ushered her back into the kitchen. All a bit odd if you ask me."

"My older sister knew her at school, and Julie was like it then. The only time she spoke was to say what the ingredients were in one of her cakes. Then she stared at my sister’s neck, choked, and ran to the drinking tap for water. We avoided her after that, which she seemed to prefer."

"I know those straphorns like goat blood, but like to replace their blood-craving with baking, but she isn't hiding it that well, I can tell you." Mrs. Samantha Goatgrass said, folding her arms and leaning towards Miss Dolly Goat, her cousin on her mother's side.

"Well, at least her cakes are good, but once a year they attract these strange elves and otters. That Julie Straphorn can nod to those weirdos, but I expect she is weirder just like them and nothing like us nice grass eating goats.”

"Talking of grass, Mrs. Goatgrass, the grassmongers have a special on grass cakes today, ten for a groat or fifty for a grass rock." Daisy nudged her cousin's elbow as Julie Straphorn slowly shuffled into the shop with another batch of warm grass buns and blue cupcakes. Both the elves and the goats in the line breathed in the swirl of allure that tempted them closer.

Julie's sister Bretta was confident of keeping this throng calm. “I have bagged ten grass cakes, so next customer please. Right behind this bag are ten blue cupcakes that sing when you bite into them, so keep your place in the queue so you can munch these beauties.”

Those who had stepped out of the queue slid back to their place and licked their lips.

The timer went off, and Julie's tense face and white knuckles released to return to her no-customers-allowed-neat-quiet kitchen bakery.

Mrs Otter asked for her special order in a white cake box, with a blue fish emblem of her water elf and otter shape-shifting self on it. “Thank you Julie for your wonderful baking. I shall eat these in the park with some cold milk.” Mrs Otter knew Julie hated crowds, and their bakery was always packed with hungry customers.

'Oh, we're now selling milk from Bertha's hog. Mabel had a litter of three hoglets, so there is loads of milk to spare," Bretta explained, holding up a covered white jug with blue muslin fabric stretched over it.

"Yes, please, that would go with my annual treat Bretta. How much is that?" Mrs Otter lifted her blue silk flap to reveal her woven grass bag, ready to pay.

“That’s two groats please, as we have a special on today because of the festival.

The water elves have kindly put a spell on the jug so it doesn't run out all day. So don't push, you can buy some for one groat a cup. Here’s my cup measure ready.” Beretta held up the white thin cup with the water elf blue Moon vine emblem on it which was one of Elhellen’s water elf Houses.

“Oh that’s a bit posh Bretta you getting help from one of the royal houses near Elhellen.” Mrs Goatgrass nudged her cousin, who giggled.

A water elf lifted her head to stand over both goat monsters and stare closer at how sharp their front claws were. The water elf scrunched up her face and rolled her eyes as she stepped back in line.

Mrs Otter nodded to Julie and Bretta and flapped her tail from her blue, well-made dress to hold her cake box. With two small brown hands, she held the lush yellow milk and sipped it as she moved towards the bakery exit. Mrs Otter's webbed feet feet made a flip-flap sound on the dark blue tiled bakery floor, causing a low echo which made the two goat monsters giggle.

Sighing with joy at the moment, when she would bite the fish sponge, drizzled with sticky blue icing. Mrs Otter moved towards the nearby park. Sitting on the dirty wooden park bench, Mrs Otter licked each paw after each mouthful until the box and cup had no crumb or dreg.

“Excuse me,” a tiny voice in her ear surprised Mrs Otter, causing her to flap her tail on the path in surprise.

"Who's there?" Mrs Otter could hear wings, but could not see anyone.

"Look ahead, I'm right in front of you. I am an earth elf and need to know how to bake cakes, so that I can help free my sister from the bedroom of the water elf Queen."

Mrs Otter then noticed the hovering clump of moss with eyes. "Hello to you," Mrs Otter smiled.

“Can you help me?” The earth elf said in a high voice near Mrs Otter’s face.

“I know a baker who doesn't like crowds who will think about helping you. Tell her what to make, and she will make it for you.”

“We earth elves love water elf sponge cupcakes, can she make them? My sister hasn't been fed since Queen Elvina left to go to Elhellen in September last year. The family has forgotten to feed her, so I have to get there quickly before she fades to soil."

“What’s this little morsel of otter? Are you waiting for me as a snack?”

Mrs Otter knew the elf village was dangerous, but to be thought of as lunch was far beyond what she expected. So Mrs Otter changed her shape to show her whole pelt, so that the dress wouldn't be ripped.

"Taking off the wrapper, how thoughtful.” the hammerhead monster sneered, shaking the sea from his wide nose.

“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” Mrs Otter returned to her full size and looked down at the hammerhead: "Time to send you back to your mother to learn some manners." Lifting her tail and sliding it behind her, Mrs Otter flung her tail at the hammerhead, who pinged off towards the sun with a very long yell.

"That's one way to deal with the rudeness of the hammerhead," the earth elf smirked.

"It's a nuisance if Hammerheads don't even try to be less monster and use their manners," Mrs Otter sighed, returned to her human-sized Otter self and changed her full pelt for the thin gleaming blue dress.

“Where to next and what’s your name?” Mrs Otter asked, returning to the park bench to rest.

“My mother named me clot when I was a baby, because my hair looked like a clot of grass sticking straight up. We are going to your baker friend, right?”

“Right, but it will be tomorrow, as I need to sleep now.”

“Good idea, I can give you an invisible moss bed to sleep on if you don’t mind sharing?” Clod smiled and sneezed.

"I like to sleep near flowers when they sing at night, it's the perfect lullaby to me," Mrs Otter smiled yawning.

Clot's moss bed was on top of the park bench, so Mrs Otter shrank to half a human size to fit on to the little moss bed, but her tail still flopped over the edge.

"Hang on a minute, I'll just expand it for you," Clot said yawning.

As the sun whispers farewell and she chases the next day, evening quietens to night and a little round circle of light grew. Perfect for the flowers to showcase their night singing talents. Earth elves appeared and gathered in a crescent to hear the twilight choir. A soft sound carried in on the dead of night, whispering to their minds while caressing their ears. Harmony of such soothing magic that every earth elf was quiet in slumber when the glistening orb of night was at its highest.

The choir of flowers closed their petals to rest, after receiving slumber as an ovation. The park was almost quiet, except for the soft wind carrying the last murmur away.