There was a king who had three daughters. The eldest dark, the youngest fair. The middle with plain brown hair and no murderous tendencies. A trait which distanced herself naturally from her eldest sister.

Murderous tendencies? An odd thing to point out. But regrettably necessary. She had recently seen her older sister Anne drown the youngest, Margaret, earlier that week. She'd been on edge ever since.

"Oh how are you, dear?" her father the king would say to the middle daughter (Estelle, her name turned out to be) and she would go:

"Perfectly fine, father!"

"Seen your sister Margaret around, have you?" the king would ask.

Estelle would get a glimpse of Anne fingering her steak knife and simply go: "She must be off having an adventure, you know how little sisters are!"

Anne would put down the knife.

Estelle was considering running of to France.

Now, adventure wasn't such a far-fetched thing to suggest. In that day and age, it was quite modern. The youngest, not in line for any useful inheritance, could run off and have an adventure and earn great fame and fortune or get eaten by a dragon. It solved a lot of problems.

Margaret, poor soggy Margaret, had the right traits. Bright and fair, good natured, and youngest of the sisters, it seemed natural she'd go out and seek her fortune. Even though she had a boy at home, a nice lad named William that Anne was currently making the moves on.

Margaret of course was on no such adventure. Margaret was at the bottom of the river or eaten by swans or whatever happened to drowned girls. Estelle wasn't sure.

Estelle thought about asking their brother Hugh, but sadly while he was the main heir he was more of a footnote in Estelle's life. Estelle felt like a footnote in her own life. Sometimes she wasn't entirely sure if people knew she was actually there.

She wished Anne didn't know she was there.

This environment, Estelle reflected, was going to give her grey hair. She wondered what France was like this time of year. It's not like she had a chance of turning state's evidence on Anne without Anne getting her first. Anne was just that sort of person. Even if dear waterlogged Margaret had thought she could negotiate with Anne as she sank beneath the water.

Estelle had run downstream, hoping Margaret was still alive and she'd be able to pull her out. Sadly the Margaret that bobbed up just once had been far beyond saving. To add insult to tragedy, Estelle had then been chased off by the bloody swans that seemed to be everywhere.

Eventually their father was going to start looking for Margaret, excuses of adventure be damned. Maybe then, Estelle decided, she could start dropping heavy hints.

Margaret had met her fate barely a week ago and Estelle couldn't take much more.

That was when the harper appeared with the gruesome, singing harp and Estelle's problems were solved. Anne's had just begun.

His name had once been Shogreath, Defiler of Corpses, Ruler of the Dark Woods. Armies had trembled at his name. Not even death would let those escape him. And then one day a shining hero appeared and cast him out of his tower to the rocks below.

He had not died. But he had changed careers.

If people didn't want to be terrorized and ruled over, fine. They were on their own. He had better things to do. He could find himself. Get to know who Shogreath was, deep down.

He changed his name to Seamus.

As a child, he'd been rather musical. An artistic soul, his mother had called him. That was shortly before his father insisted on apprenticing him to a dark wizard so that Seamus could make something of himself and do the family proud.

His father's skull was still back at his tower. Almost assuredly giving that damned shining hero an inferiority complex disguised as advice right this minute. Unless it got pitched into the water below. His mother was fine, she had a nice cottage in a much less evil forest.

Seamus had visited her first, after taking up his new career.

Seamus was a musician. He brought joy to people's lives. They certainly laughed enough when he played. Then threw tankards at him.

Unfortunately the last tankard had gone right through the spine of his harp, leaving it in two pieces. Since Seamus had decided to give up the path of evil, simply re-animating a graveyard and using it to rob a town blind wasn't feasible.

And so he needed to resort to another method of gaining a new instrument. Sadly, tips had not been generous enough and no Devils had appeared to challenge him to a harping contest. A gold harp he could sell after forcing the Devil into a sealed bottle, that was the ticket. He'd tried to lure one. No go.

That was when fortune struck.

He'd been walking along past a windmill, he rather liked them as they reminded him of giants, and heard a girl screaming. After making sure it wasn't about him, he'd gone to investigate. What he'd found was perfect.

The girl and her father were looking horror struck at the body of a dead noble girl. Or as Seamus thought of it, raw materials.

He crouched behind the bushes planning his next move.

That was when he had his next stroke of good fortune. The overabundance of swans he'd noticed ALSO noticed the miller and his daughter and they converged.

"Get inside!" called the Miller. "We'll come out when it's safe and fetch a magistrate to deal with this poor soul!" And they had run away into the windmill.

That was when Seamus struck. Sure, the swans could beat him to a bloody pulp but he couldn't let an opportunity like this pass. He raced in, scooped up the corpse, and ran like mad as far as he could. He could see it already. From her breast bone he'd make the body of the harp, harp pins of her finger bones, and strings from her golden hair. He had always been artistic.

It took him a while. He was out of practice. But when he was done, it was beautiful. It was bone-white, and the golden strings fairly hummed with untold potential. Only someone with a keen eye would see that the harp had… a rather organic origin. He rubbed his chin at that thought. Trees were organic? Strings were made of catgut, weren't they? So this wasn't too far off. What really defined a tree from a body?

These were the sorts of question why he had been taken out of school at a young age.

Things came in three, so he waited for his third stroke of good fortune. It did not come.

The harp ruined everything and started singing of its murder.

"Oh you damned thing," said Seamus. "You couldn't sing a nice bawdy tune, or something I could dance to, could you?"

"My false sister Anne's to blame, not me," said the harp with a definite note of reproach. At least it had stopped singing. Seamus was seeing his dreams of fortune or free drinks go up in smoke.

"Well, stop. We have a musical career ahead of us, harp," said Seamus. He had his hands on his hips, unamused. "The amazing harper Seamus and his magical singing harp is just the chance I need. Imagine it. On billboards!"

"I'll not sing naught else but this crime till I'm avenged," said the harp. Somehow it imbued five times more reproach than before.

Seamus sighed. "I'm out of the killing business, you know. I found you. A little grave-robbing, well, shore-robbing, isn't the same thing as avenging. Avenging's bloody business."

"Perhaps," said the Harp, "We could make a deal."

"I'm listening," said Seamus.

And that was how they came to be in the court of the king with Seamus nervously eyeing the exits while the Harp (Margaret, she'd told him eventually after striking their bargain) sang. In rhyming detail, exactly what sort of murderous cow her sister was.

The king looked stunned. The queen was weeping. The dark-haired sister was being held by the guards.

A mousey brown-haired princess held up her hand.

"Sir," she asked, "Why is our sister a harp now?"

"Uh, found her like this," said Seamus. "Damndest thing."

He smiled.

The king gestured to the guards.

"Come back for me!" yelled the Harp while Seamus legged it. They had a future in music together and that, to Margaret, had sounded like a grand adventure.