A Semi-Dramatic Adventure with A Leprechaun and Some Paperclips

Scotty is dragged into saving his kidnapper's from their own kidnapper, with only the help of some paperclips and a cross dressing fairy.

Once upon a time, in the land of Marshmallows and Make-Believe, there lived a leprechaun named Scotty Allen McFlie. Now, Scotty was no normal leprechaun. Sure, he had a unicorn named Marie, and they regularly rode off into the sunset together, just like every other leprechaun in the land. And he had other friends too, like Dave, his tiny little cross-dressing fairy friend. But what really made Scotty different from all the other leprechauns was his pot of gold.

Or rather, his lack thereof.

Scotty was the only leprechaun in the entire land of Marshmallows and Make-Believe who was too poor to have a pot of gold. (He came from a long line of gambling leprechauns.) So instead of gold, Scotty had the only other metal in the land; he had a pot of paperclips. (He wasn’t really sure why they had metal for paper clips but not for important things.... Like, ya know, buildings.) But Scotty valued those paper clips, because they were very special.

Everything in the land of Marshmallows and Make-Believe was magical, and those paper clips were no exception (Though honestly they should have been. When is someone ever going to need magical freakin’ paper clips?) But since only Scotty could make them magical, he wasn’t exactly worried about people stealing them.

Then, one (not really) fateful day, Dave the Cross-Dressing Fairy was talking to his girlfriend, Alice the Elf, and he mentioned Scotty’s pot of paper clips. Alice was a curious elf, and she started thinking a lot about those paper clips. So Alice went to her friend, Terese the Centaur, and together they agreed to steal Scotty’s magical paper clips.

However, Terese and Alice had no idea how to do that.

They travelled across the land to find the famous Sorcerer Henry and seek his advice. But when they found him, Henry told them to just suck it up and take the freakin’ thing because it was a pot of paper clips, no one else wanted it, and it was literally sitting out in plain sight.

(No one else really knew they were magical, so no one else wanted it. Scotty could, and did, keep the pot under the middle of the rainbow instead of at the end.)

So Alice and Terese set out to do just that. They found Scotty’s paper clips right under the rainbow, but right as they were coming to take it, Scotty spotted them and cried, “My paper clips!”

“We want their magic!” Alice yelled in defiant reply. She grabbed a handful of paperclips and threw them at his face, proclaiming, “Paper clip magic, go!”

But they didn’t do anything.

(Oh geeze, really? Shocker there.)

“Ha ha!” Scotty laughed triumphantly, pointing at them. “They are magical, but only I know the secret!”

“Well, shoot.” Alice said despondently, looking sadly at the pot. “Will you tell us the secret?” She asked, turning to look at him with a suddenly hopeful and slightly pleading smile.

“No.”

“Why not?” Alice demanded.

“Because they’re mine! I don’t want you to have them!” Scotty replied in a tone that implied his reasoning to be very obvious.

(Which it was. But it was worth a shot, eh?)

“Tell us.” Terese commanded.

Scotty and Terese had a short stare off, in which Scotty lasted an impressive 10 seconds before he couldn’t handle her intense stare and said, “Okay fine, you win.”

Alice did a merry little dance and cheered as Scotty approached the pot. He grabbed a paper clip, and Terese and Alice leaned toward him in hungry anticipation, wondering what could possibly make those flimsy little things magical...

Scotty licked the paper clip.

(Sometimes even Scotty wondered at the abnormalcy of their world.)

Alice and Terese stared at him.

“Dude, what the hell?!” Terese exclaimed at the same time Alice yelled, “Ewww!”

“That’s the secret!” Scotty said, throwing his arms out to the side in a challenging way. “You said you wanted to know, so I showed you!”

“But why do you have to lick it? Can’t you change that?” Terese asked.

“Don’t you think that if I had the power to do that, I would have already?” Scotty replied.

“So, do you, like, have to lick them all? Individually?” Alice asked, her face set in a disgusted expression.

“Yes.”

“Have you done it before...?” Terese asked hesitantly.

“...Maybe.”

“Why?!”

“Why are you still asking questions?” Scotty wondered with a slightly helpless expression.

“Because I don’t understand.” Terese replied.

“There was a thing, with a guy, and I needed my paper clips!” Scotty said vaguely, not entirely willing to expand on that story much more.

“What do they do?” Terese asked.

“What do you need them to do?” Scotty countered.

“Can they turn my hair purple?” Alice asked.

Scotty pointed the paper clip at her, and a few seconds later the blonde locks around her face shimmered into a loud, vibrant violet. He spread his hands out and the paper clip morphed into a small round mirror, which he held out for her to look in.

While Alice was busy screaming about her “sexy” purple hair, Terese looked Scotty dead in the face and announced, “We’re taking those.”

“The hell you are! They only work for me, anyway.” Scotty said smugly, crossing his arms over his chest and assuming he’d won.

(Which was incorrect, especially against Terese. It was a well known fact that no one won against her. No one. Ever.)

“Then we’ll take you, too.” Terese said simply with a half shrug.

“Wait, what?” Scotty said with a blank look, blinking. Terese started towards him, and on pure instinct Scotty took off running in the opposite direction. He didn’t get very far before an arrow whizzed past his head, and the next thing he knew, he was pinned to a tree by arrows and Terese was casually strolling towards his completely immobilized body.

“Damn it.” he muttered as Terese tied him up. She dragged him along while Alice grabbed the pot of paper clips, humming happily all they way back to their home.

*0<~>0<~>0<~>0*

It had been 5 days, 29 hours, 59 minutes, 60 seconds and 6 milliseconds (give or take) since Terese and Alice had captured Scotty and his pot of paper clips. They apparently lived in some kind of rabbit’s hollow in the middle of freakin’ nowhere (underground, too). Scotty was held in a well-sized caged room, which wasn’t too bad since he kinda had everything he needed, but still. It was a cage, with bars stretching from floor to ceiling, regardless of the other details. And he wasn’t fond of it.

But one day, Scotty got a visitor. It was indirect (and not really an actual visitor since he came down with other intentions), but Dave, the cross-dressing fairy, stumbled down the stairs one day while he was over visiting Alice.

“Dave!” Scotty cried happily, ecstatic to see someone other than Terese or Alice. (And someone that wouldn’t make him lick another freakin’ paper clip.)

“Hey, Scotty!” Dave replied. “I just came down to grab some sugar. Alice’s baking again.”

(It wasn’t questioned why Alice and Terese kept the extra sugar in the basement. Or why half the room was caged off. It was just easier to let the two do what they liked, regardless of logic.)

“Dave, you gotta help me.” Scotty said as Dave went about looking for the sugar.

“With what?” Dave questioned.

“I need to get out of here. Do you know how bad this sucks?” Scotty bemoaned.

“Ha, noooo way, dude!” Dave exclaimed, grabbing a bag of sugar and turning to look at him. “Do you know how badly Alice will kill me if I helped you get out? My a*s is too awesome to die this young!”

“But I’m in a cage!” Scotty protested.

Dave just shook his head regretfully. “I can’t do it, man. Don’t worry, they’ll run out of paper clips eventually, though. Then they’ll have to let you go!”

“They don’t run out.” Scotty explained. “I can lick them over and over again and they’ll still have their magic.”

“Well, I guess you’re out of luck.” Dave shrugged. “My hands are tied. There’s nothing I can do.”

Right as Scotty was about to get really desperate with his begging, they heard a loud crash from above them, a little screaming, and a lot of cussing. They exchanged quick glances, then Dave dropped the sugar and took off upstairs, leaving Scotty to pound frustratedly on the bars of the cage.

(Unfortunately, little leprechaun hands aren’t very strong, even against thin, wooden bars.)

Dave came storming back down the stairs and Scotty pressed himself against the back wall of his cage as Dave violently punched a rough hole in it. (Manliest fairy in a dress you’ll ever find, guaranteed.) With slightly wide eyes, Scotty cautiously asked, “What happened up there?”

“They’re gone.” Dave said. “I saw a dragon flying away. Get outta that cage, grab your paperclips, and we’re going after them.”

Scotty wanted to object to the idea of rescuing his kidnappers (Is that an oxymoron or just irony?), but one look from Dave had him clambering out of the cage and upstairs to his pot of paperclips.

“Can those do anything to help us get to Terese and Alice?” Dave asked.

“Probably.” Scotty shrugged. He worked a little magic (which sounds much, much better than saying he licked a handful of paperclips), and when he finished he held two objects; a weird little flute thingy and a beeping tracking device (which was way ahead of their time, but that’s what magic does for ya).

Dave shot him a questioning look, but Scotty put a finger up, signaling for him to hold the thought, and he put the flute thingy to his lips and played a pretty little (Irish) melody. A few moments later, a majestic pink unicorn with sparkling silver wings came flying in through the giant hole in the roof (er, ground, actually) and landed next to them, tossing her silver mane as the sun sparkled off her pretty purple horn.

“This is my unicorn, Marie.” Scotty said.

“Your unicorn?” Marie interrupted. “Nuh-uh, you’re my leprechaun, Pretty Boy.”

Ignoring that for the most part, Scotty continued with, “We can ride her and use the device to find Terese and Alice. They’ve used my paper clips, so the device will be able to track the residual magic around them.”

“Both of you?” Marie said, blue eyes travelling from Scotty to Dave. “Oh hell no. I can’t carry both of you, that’s too much! I’m a one-person unicorn, thank you very much.”

“Sassy, isn’t she?” Dave commented.

Scotty immediately clapped his hands over Marie’s ears. “Shhh!” He urged. “If she hears something she doesn’t like, she’ll be impossible to work with. More so than she already is.” He removed his hands and quickly said, “You’re the most beautiful unicorn in the whole land of Marshmallows and Make-Believe.”

Marie held her head up a little higher and tossed her mane again. “You’re damn right I am.” she replied (oh so modestly).

With some well practiced persuasion (and a few bribes), Scotty managed to convince Marie to take them both. And so Dave and Scotty set off into the sunset with Marie, the tracking device leading the way to Alice and Terese.

*0<~>0<~>0<~>0*

“Alright Pretty Boy, here’s your stop.” Marie declared, landing with wonderful unicorn grace at the bottom of a rather steep and rocky cliff. Scotty and Dave looked up, up, up, stretching their necks back to see to the top. They could just barely make out what looked like a cave up there, with a light trail of gray smoke billowing out. (Which, not going to lie, seemed pretty ominous to them.)

“Why is our stop down here?” Dave demanded. “Take us up there! You’ve got wings!”

“Are you crazy?” Marie replied. “There’s a freakin’ dragon up there! I don’t want to die! You guys are on your own.”

“There’s a dragon up there?!” Dave exclaimed at the same time Scotty casually looked up and said, “Well s**t.”

Marie huffed, annoyed. “Duh. Why do you think nothing flies up there? We know better! Good luck~!” And with that, she flew off. (Scotty felt like the wish of luck was a bit sarcastic, but chose to accept it anyway.)

“Great.” Dave grumbled, glancing up again. “How do we get up there now?”

“Weeeeeell...” Scotty murmured, playing with another handful of paperclips. “We’ve got a few options here, I think.”

It took a lot of trial and error (leprechauns aren’t the best problem solvers), which included a magic carpet that thought it was a mechanical bull and continuously threw them off, a sketchy elevator which randomly dropped several feet at a time, a long set of stairs that ended up being way too tiring, and even a device to call forth a mass of bluebirds to lift them up (Snow White?). The only problem with the last one was that the birds tried to turn this comedic adventure into a musical and the author disapproved greatly of that. (Oh no fourth wall, where did you go?)

When they had finally managed to get up the mountain via a giant slingshot (Because how else are you going to do it?), the sun had sunk down and was sitting on the horizon, painting the sky in shades of reds and oranges and yellows, casting long shadows around. Scotty and Dave charged headfirst into the cave, forgetting to maybe find some kind of weapon beforehand. Oh well.

However, as it turned out, they didn’t really need any weapon. Upon their dramatic entrance, they were met with an unexpected turn of events. (Plot twist yay!)

Alice and Terese were not in some kind of cage or anything of the sort like Scotty had been expecting, and were actually instead sitting around what appeared to be a campfire. There was another girl with them who gave off the distinct feel of a witch, and a large, lean dragon lay curled around them, it’s snout pointing toward the fire and a light cloud of steam billowing from it’s nostrils as it slept. (Not nearly so ominous anymore).

The three were laughing and, it looked, making s’mores over the fire.

They all looked over at Scotty and Dave, and Alice immediately ran up to (dramatically) give her boyfriend a hug.

“Hiiiiii~!” She cried happily. “Wanna s’more?”

Dave just stared at her, uncomprehending. “B-But, I thought....”

“Yeaaah~” Alice replied. “We were kidnapped. But you guys took forever, so Terese and I just busted ourselves out!”

“How did you manage that?” Scotty wondered.

“Magic!” Alice stated. (Obviously.)

Terese came over as well, grinning. “Then as we were leaving, Beth Ann,” She pointed to the witch, “caught us, but we ended up fixing things ourselves. So now it’s all good.”

“Really?” Scotty said.

“Yeah.”

Finally recovering from the shock that he and Scotty really wasted all that time for nothing, Dave asked, “Well why did she kidnap you in the first place?”

“She slapped me!” Beth Ann answered, waltzing over to join them. “I had to get them back.”

“So you kidnapped them?” Dave countered.

“It isn’t fun any other way~” Beth Ann sang.

Alice laughed, and then she dragged Scotty and Dave over to the bonfire. They all proceeded to roast marshmallows and make s’mores and have a jolly good time. That is, until Scotty accidentally ruined it.

All he wanted to do was stretch out one of his paper clips and use it to roast the marshmallow with. But he completely forgot that eating the marshmallow from said paperclip would get saliva on it, therefore activating it’s magical powers. (Paper clip, I choose you!)

He didn’t realize it at first and since he was kinda focused on the fire, he was rather surprised when his paper clip exploded.

(And I’m not talking one of those puny little explosions, I mean the kind that take off the eyebrows.)

As a result, Beth Ann kicked them out of her cave and Terese and Alice once again took an unwilling Scotty home. In the end, they were back to where they started, with Scotty being the unwilling prisoner of Terese and Alice, who had free unlimited access to all his magical paperclips.

But this time, they let him out of the cage (for about an hour a day).

In the end, everyone won.

Except Scotty.

But he had this whole freakin’ story written about him, so he should be pretty happy anyway.

And if he’s not, I’ll just put him to work rebuilding this fourth wall that I (apparently) love to destroy.

Fin.

Author's Note

I actually wrote this for fun on a dare by my friend (Scotty) who also insisted I use all my friends as characters. It's not a serious work and it's really only meant to put a small smile on your face.