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metamorphosis2010-05-06 04:58 pm
flair) wrote in metamorphosis2010-05-06 04:58 pm
Entry tags:
91;
Title: Why It Rains
Characters: Original characters: Henry Bower, Lord Fernando de Castile, Domenico de Lisbon, Yves d'Arles, Prince Mtoto, King Abhiraj, Princess Sabeen, King Baltasar
Rating: G
A little thing I wrote for my CW class. Modeled after The Arabian Nights-style of narration.
Once upon a time, there was a fair-headed boy named Henry Bower with eyes as bright as the sky that was inquisitive of all things natural, and so he wondered why the sky was crying and why it never stopped in England. So he rode his dappled grey, a little horse of four feet who was mostly suited to the boy’s talents, to the country of sun – Spain. There, he met a young lord of ample grace and of hair and skin darkened by sunlight yet lightened by noble blood named Fernando de Castile. The young lord knew English quite well, and so Henry was glad to know this, for his Spanish was rusty and out of use in the French-bound courts of London, though his house of residence was strictly in Chestershire where it hadn’t mattered what other language you spoke as long as you spoke English well enough. Young Henry pointed to the dark clouds just beyond the English channel, which headed towards them like a turtle walks to a cauldron to be made into soup, and asked Fernando,
“Sir, why does the sky always cry over London, where my mother and sister do live and suffer greatly from the rain-drenched streets with nary a day of relaxation, for there is no fun to be had inside other than the wicked ways of gossip?”
As the lord was Spanish, and the boy was English, he thought about his answer, for the English were slow witted in manners of nature. Among that fact was another: the Spanish and the English held animosity towards each other, and so he sought to make his answer as wise and as hurtful towards the island nation of England as he could while under the tactful guise of helping Henry. So Fernando laughed and patted the boy’s head, then opened his arms to the sky and smiled into the sun that beat down upon the farmland with an unnatural intensity.
“The sky feels sad when it stretches so far north, away from el pais del sol, and so it cries and cries.”
Henry mulled over this and thought it wise, and so he sat among the green stalks that grew so healthily with the sun above them and the channels of water between them, and wondered if it stayed so sunny in the confines of the plains. Surely they must have rain, he decided, for one man could not always do the work of twenty. However, with such animosity towards the Spanish he selected his answer carefully but not with tact, for it was a fact of life that such lifestyles led the nobles to laziness and incompetence. He waved his hand in the air, to the passing cumulous clouds above, stark white against the sky that reflected in his eyes so prettily, and smiled. Then he asked, with childish curiosity in his tone,
“Surely it rains here as well, my lord? It would be blasphemy if God did not intend a place like this to be a wasteland, though surely it would have been better off as one.”
The soft pitter-patter of rain began, and Fernando seemed to take no notice of the strange sun rain that blossomed rainbows and other enchanted things of fantasy.
“Of course, but that is because the sky, which wept so grievously over England, is weeping tears of joy at being over Spain. It is a fact of life that the sky loves Spain more than the English dogs, for there is an endless amount of it to cover while England is not but a rock in the middle of a sea, bounded and hopefully soon to sink.”
The boy thought this over and, as he was but a poor, uneducated farm boy, could not find quarrel with this response despite the harsh words that Fernando had replied with. He thanked the gold and ruby clad lord, feeling much ashamed of his wooly rags and dirty composure, and rode to the west where he met a scholar of Portugal named Domenico who had the appearance of the young Spanish lord Fernando but with kinder grey eyes and lighter skin because of the monastery that compelled him to study rather than play. Now, the Portuguese and the English had excellent relations at this time, and so the scholar was more than happy to help Henry. So he extended his hand in silent invitation, for he was not permitted to speak, save to tell his name, outside of the monastery. They entered it in silence, with only the sounds of books and hymns to greet them, and smelt the musty scent of documents aged well with time and prayer. The room they entered – and so Henry assumed it was Domenico’s room – was dusty but well-kept, neatly lined with treasures and valuable maps. The scholarly man spread his arms much as Fernando had, with flourish and smiles and proclaimed in a soft whisper,
“The greatest books are here, from the Orients to our very own city, Lisbon, and so are the smartest men, from scholars of Socrates and Plato to the up coming philosophers of our time! What ever questions you have, I am sure we may yet find an answer to them among such resources.”
Henry smiled and nodded, pleased with this house of monks, and rang out his cloak of bark as he glanced at the maps and saw one of Europe, of which England most certainly was no part of yet the map described it as such. He moved closer to it and studied it, thought of where indeed he had rode to and met the Spanish lord, and pointed to it on the map, drawing an invisible line with his index finder to London. He turned and bowed deeply, for even such a young monk had connections to God and it was unwise to disrespect any servants of the Lord, and asked meekly and with much respect,
“Oh scholar, why does the sky cry so heavily over London, but not León, where I landed with my horse, a dappled grey mare of four feet who is now in your pleasant stables likely eating such luxurious hay and oats named Blissful?”
Now, the Portuguese disliked the Spanish almost as much as the English did, if not more as they were brothers of the land and thus fought over the smallest of things, and so the scholar Domenico answered this in a clear, up right voice that betrayed none of this ill will:
“It weeps tears of love for England and is grateful to God that it does not see Spain, for that country flirts heavily with the sun and the sky is a very jealous being, one who loves all but is not loved in return save by England, who will welcome her wherever she would like to be.”
This confused Henry, for he had heard much differently from Fernando de Castile. He thought, then, that the scholar was more well-read than the lord and so believed his words with haste. He thanked him by offering his services, and so he helped tend to the gardens for three days as he recuperated from the long ride from Spain to Portugal. He was rewarded a sack of oranges for his help and rode on to Bordeaux, away from dark hair and dark eyes and closer to the fair hair and light eyes of his people, though by no means were the slimy French frogs related to the mighty English. When he arrived he met a young farm girl, surely no more than seven or eight to his ten years, dressed in grey and patched rags with greasy, filthy blonde hair that high lighted the mud and pale of her skin, who avoided him and refused him answers of her name until he produced an orange from his sack and gave her it. With one bite she asked for more for her family and took the whole bag in exchange for her newest calf, white and brown and still shaky on its legs. When she had calmed down, Henry learned her name was Yves and she was from the small town of Arles in southern France. When he asked her the question he had asked so many before, as she was a farm child like him and surely had her theories, she laughed and replied,
“It is because of the Africans, monsieur, for many shamans chant for rain and for the sky to cry as it does. They mean it for their plains, so dry and dusty, but it winds up too far north, up to that God-forsaken rock you call a home.”
Though insults had been said by the Spanish lord Fernando, this one stung as heavily as any wasp. The French and the English have always had a rocky relation of love and hate, and so Henry retaliated with tooth and nail, shouting,
“At least my people are not easy to bed!”
When the ungrateful Yves had been thoroughly thrashed he rode for a year to the great plains of Africa, where he met a Swahili prince by the name of Mtoto. He rested in the Prince’s lavish quarters and soon forgot his question among the soft satin pillows and crimson threads of gold. One morning, though, he awoke to chanting outside his gilded window. He peered out of it and saw dark brown men dressed in vivid reds and blues and greens and gold, rubies and sapphires and emerald adorning their skin. They raised spears to the sky and howled in their native tongue, shook their carved shields of monstrous faces and hooted as dark clouds began to form. When the Swahili prince Mtoto found out Henry had seen, he banished him to India. The English boy was very humiliated as he knelt before the blind Indian king Abhiraj, who was dressed in luxurious blue and silver that seemed to make his eyes of stone shine with life, and explained his story:
“I sought the answer of a simple question and upon finding the answer, as a French girl said it was, I was banished to here and I can only hope you will show me kindness, O Mighty Lord, for I come to you as a humble farm boy who has strayed too far from home.”
Now, while the English and the Indians did not have very good relations, Abhiraj felt the boy was quick-witted, if uneducated, and took him in as his own. Henry learned as a prince would, with many books and many years. In his seventh year of learning, he met the beautiful princess of Syria, Sabeen. Captivated by her gilded skin and raven hair, he sought out her father, the king of Syria called Baltasar who resided in the hidden city of Masyaf. He could not find the desert alcove and so turned to his father for guidance. He entered and royal chamber with steps of thunder, stopping to bow before his father. This is what he said to him, eyes to the ground and bearings stripped, yet with a voice of barely contained fury and of jealous rage:
“Oh father that I have known so many years, I require your assistance in finding the city of Masyaf! I have looked and looked for it but looked for it in vain! Am I not good enough, oh great king of India? Am I, a rags-to-riches prince, not worth of love?”
When Henry, now a strapping young man of eighteen, grew silent, the king, now as old as the cosmos themselves, spoke in a voice as ancient and cracked as time.
“Be still, my son, for you are more than worth. You have been impulsive and have left without knowing the test of the Masyaf, for all who reside there are assassins and are hard to find.”
The prince went to the library, vast and filled with the stench of rotting knowledge, to see if he could find out anything of these Hashashians. He learned of their city, nestled high in the mountains of Syria and away from civilizations, and so rode out to find it on the same horse he had arrived on, though it was taller and stronger by Arabian training. The moment he trotted in he felt watched, by eagles and hawks sitting high above and by human eyes. He felt something strike him in the back of the head and he fell, losing the visions of the blue sky to the swirling darkness of unconsciousness. When he awoke, he found himself in a simple room of a scribe, with decorative inkwells and the sandy walls, much like he had seen in Damascus on his way through. A woman dressed as a scholar entered, and when she removed her hood he gasped out loud, for it was none other than his beautiful princess, Sabeen! When he tried to embrace her she moved skillfully, shaking her head and smiling.
“We cannot. My father has said whoever can bring rain to Masyaf will have my hand in marriage, and I hope you can do such a thing for our crops are withered and our people die each day.”
With this knowledge he made his way to the center of the Assassin’s village, spread his arms and proclaimed,
“I can make it rain! With the knowledge of African shamans, I can bring you rain!”
And so Henry danced and howled, repeated the chants he had heard seven years before; he shook mock shields to the sky and continued this ritual until dark clouds began to form and rain poured across the city. The crops sprung to life and ripened in haste as it rained, and, as the king Baltasar was a man of his word, he gave his daughter Sabeen to Henry. It rained for three days and three nights, and through this rain they were wedded. Henry returned to India with his bride and bowed before his father Abhiraj, who was close to death by now and was withering away in his golden throne, and thanked him heavily for all he had done. When the king died, Henry was crowned King of India, and Sabeen the Queen, and so they lived happily ever after.
Characters: Original characters: Henry Bower, Lord Fernando de Castile, Domenico de Lisbon, Yves d'Arles, Prince Mtoto, King Abhiraj, Princess Sabeen, King Baltasar
Rating: G
A little thing I wrote for my CW class. Modeled after The Arabian Nights-style of narration.
Once upon a time, there was a fair-headed boy named Henry Bower with eyes as bright as the sky that was inquisitive of all things natural, and so he wondered why the sky was crying and why it never stopped in England. So he rode his dappled grey, a little horse of four feet who was mostly suited to the boy’s talents, to the country of sun – Spain. There, he met a young lord of ample grace and of hair and skin darkened by sunlight yet lightened by noble blood named Fernando de Castile. The young lord knew English quite well, and so Henry was glad to know this, for his Spanish was rusty and out of use in the French-bound courts of London, though his house of residence was strictly in Chestershire where it hadn’t mattered what other language you spoke as long as you spoke English well enough. Young Henry pointed to the dark clouds just beyond the English channel, which headed towards them like a turtle walks to a cauldron to be made into soup, and asked Fernando,
“Sir, why does the sky always cry over London, where my mother and sister do live and suffer greatly from the rain-drenched streets with nary a day of relaxation, for there is no fun to be had inside other than the wicked ways of gossip?”
As the lord was Spanish, and the boy was English, he thought about his answer, for the English were slow witted in manners of nature. Among that fact was another: the Spanish and the English held animosity towards each other, and so he sought to make his answer as wise and as hurtful towards the island nation of England as he could while under the tactful guise of helping Henry. So Fernando laughed and patted the boy’s head, then opened his arms to the sky and smiled into the sun that beat down upon the farmland with an unnatural intensity.
“The sky feels sad when it stretches so far north, away from el pais del sol, and so it cries and cries.”
Henry mulled over this and thought it wise, and so he sat among the green stalks that grew so healthily with the sun above them and the channels of water between them, and wondered if it stayed so sunny in the confines of the plains. Surely they must have rain, he decided, for one man could not always do the work of twenty. However, with such animosity towards the Spanish he selected his answer carefully but not with tact, for it was a fact of life that such lifestyles led the nobles to laziness and incompetence. He waved his hand in the air, to the passing cumulous clouds above, stark white against the sky that reflected in his eyes so prettily, and smiled. Then he asked, with childish curiosity in his tone,
“Surely it rains here as well, my lord? It would be blasphemy if God did not intend a place like this to be a wasteland, though surely it would have been better off as one.”
The soft pitter-patter of rain began, and Fernando seemed to take no notice of the strange sun rain that blossomed rainbows and other enchanted things of fantasy.
“Of course, but that is because the sky, which wept so grievously over England, is weeping tears of joy at being over Spain. It is a fact of life that the sky loves Spain more than the English dogs, for there is an endless amount of it to cover while England is not but a rock in the middle of a sea, bounded and hopefully soon to sink.”
The boy thought this over and, as he was but a poor, uneducated farm boy, could not find quarrel with this response despite the harsh words that Fernando had replied with. He thanked the gold and ruby clad lord, feeling much ashamed of his wooly rags and dirty composure, and rode to the west where he met a scholar of Portugal named Domenico who had the appearance of the young Spanish lord Fernando but with kinder grey eyes and lighter skin because of the monastery that compelled him to study rather than play. Now, the Portuguese and the English had excellent relations at this time, and so the scholar was more than happy to help Henry. So he extended his hand in silent invitation, for he was not permitted to speak, save to tell his name, outside of the monastery. They entered it in silence, with only the sounds of books and hymns to greet them, and smelt the musty scent of documents aged well with time and prayer. The room they entered – and so Henry assumed it was Domenico’s room – was dusty but well-kept, neatly lined with treasures and valuable maps. The scholarly man spread his arms much as Fernando had, with flourish and smiles and proclaimed in a soft whisper,
“The greatest books are here, from the Orients to our very own city, Lisbon, and so are the smartest men, from scholars of Socrates and Plato to the up coming philosophers of our time! What ever questions you have, I am sure we may yet find an answer to them among such resources.”
Henry smiled and nodded, pleased with this house of monks, and rang out his cloak of bark as he glanced at the maps and saw one of Europe, of which England most certainly was no part of yet the map described it as such. He moved closer to it and studied it, thought of where indeed he had rode to and met the Spanish lord, and pointed to it on the map, drawing an invisible line with his index finder to London. He turned and bowed deeply, for even such a young monk had connections to God and it was unwise to disrespect any servants of the Lord, and asked meekly and with much respect,
“Oh scholar, why does the sky cry so heavily over London, but not León, where I landed with my horse, a dappled grey mare of four feet who is now in your pleasant stables likely eating such luxurious hay and oats named Blissful?”
Now, the Portuguese disliked the Spanish almost as much as the English did, if not more as they were brothers of the land and thus fought over the smallest of things, and so the scholar Domenico answered this in a clear, up right voice that betrayed none of this ill will:
“It weeps tears of love for England and is grateful to God that it does not see Spain, for that country flirts heavily with the sun and the sky is a very jealous being, one who loves all but is not loved in return save by England, who will welcome her wherever she would like to be.”
This confused Henry, for he had heard much differently from Fernando de Castile. He thought, then, that the scholar was more well-read than the lord and so believed his words with haste. He thanked him by offering his services, and so he helped tend to the gardens for three days as he recuperated from the long ride from Spain to Portugal. He was rewarded a sack of oranges for his help and rode on to Bordeaux, away from dark hair and dark eyes and closer to the fair hair and light eyes of his people, though by no means were the slimy French frogs related to the mighty English. When he arrived he met a young farm girl, surely no more than seven or eight to his ten years, dressed in grey and patched rags with greasy, filthy blonde hair that high lighted the mud and pale of her skin, who avoided him and refused him answers of her name until he produced an orange from his sack and gave her it. With one bite she asked for more for her family and took the whole bag in exchange for her newest calf, white and brown and still shaky on its legs. When she had calmed down, Henry learned her name was Yves and she was from the small town of Arles in southern France. When he asked her the question he had asked so many before, as she was a farm child like him and surely had her theories, she laughed and replied,
“It is because of the Africans, monsieur, for many shamans chant for rain and for the sky to cry as it does. They mean it for their plains, so dry and dusty, but it winds up too far north, up to that God-forsaken rock you call a home.”
Though insults had been said by the Spanish lord Fernando, this one stung as heavily as any wasp. The French and the English have always had a rocky relation of love and hate, and so Henry retaliated with tooth and nail, shouting,
“At least my people are not easy to bed!”
When the ungrateful Yves had been thoroughly thrashed he rode for a year to the great plains of Africa, where he met a Swahili prince by the name of Mtoto. He rested in the Prince’s lavish quarters and soon forgot his question among the soft satin pillows and crimson threads of gold. One morning, though, he awoke to chanting outside his gilded window. He peered out of it and saw dark brown men dressed in vivid reds and blues and greens and gold, rubies and sapphires and emerald adorning their skin. They raised spears to the sky and howled in their native tongue, shook their carved shields of monstrous faces and hooted as dark clouds began to form. When the Swahili prince Mtoto found out Henry had seen, he banished him to India. The English boy was very humiliated as he knelt before the blind Indian king Abhiraj, who was dressed in luxurious blue and silver that seemed to make his eyes of stone shine with life, and explained his story:
“I sought the answer of a simple question and upon finding the answer, as a French girl said it was, I was banished to here and I can only hope you will show me kindness, O Mighty Lord, for I come to you as a humble farm boy who has strayed too far from home.”
Now, while the English and the Indians did not have very good relations, Abhiraj felt the boy was quick-witted, if uneducated, and took him in as his own. Henry learned as a prince would, with many books and many years. In his seventh year of learning, he met the beautiful princess of Syria, Sabeen. Captivated by her gilded skin and raven hair, he sought out her father, the king of Syria called Baltasar who resided in the hidden city of Masyaf. He could not find the desert alcove and so turned to his father for guidance. He entered and royal chamber with steps of thunder, stopping to bow before his father. This is what he said to him, eyes to the ground and bearings stripped, yet with a voice of barely contained fury and of jealous rage:
“Oh father that I have known so many years, I require your assistance in finding the city of Masyaf! I have looked and looked for it but looked for it in vain! Am I not good enough, oh great king of India? Am I, a rags-to-riches prince, not worth of love?”
When Henry, now a strapping young man of eighteen, grew silent, the king, now as old as the cosmos themselves, spoke in a voice as ancient and cracked as time.
“Be still, my son, for you are more than worth. You have been impulsive and have left without knowing the test of the Masyaf, for all who reside there are assassins and are hard to find.”
The prince went to the library, vast and filled with the stench of rotting knowledge, to see if he could find out anything of these Hashashians. He learned of their city, nestled high in the mountains of Syria and away from civilizations, and so rode out to find it on the same horse he had arrived on, though it was taller and stronger by Arabian training. The moment he trotted in he felt watched, by eagles and hawks sitting high above and by human eyes. He felt something strike him in the back of the head and he fell, losing the visions of the blue sky to the swirling darkness of unconsciousness. When he awoke, he found himself in a simple room of a scribe, with decorative inkwells and the sandy walls, much like he had seen in Damascus on his way through. A woman dressed as a scholar entered, and when she removed her hood he gasped out loud, for it was none other than his beautiful princess, Sabeen! When he tried to embrace her she moved skillfully, shaking her head and smiling.
“We cannot. My father has said whoever can bring rain to Masyaf will have my hand in marriage, and I hope you can do such a thing for our crops are withered and our people die each day.”
With this knowledge he made his way to the center of the Assassin’s village, spread his arms and proclaimed,
“I can make it rain! With the knowledge of African shamans, I can bring you rain!”
And so Henry danced and howled, repeated the chants he had heard seven years before; he shook mock shields to the sky and continued this ritual until dark clouds began to form and rain poured across the city. The crops sprung to life and ripened in haste as it rained, and, as the king Baltasar was a man of his word, he gave his daughter Sabeen to Henry. It rained for three days and three nights, and through this rain they were wedded. Henry returned to India with his bride and bowed before his father Abhiraj, who was close to death by now and was withering away in his golden throne, and thanked him heavily for all he had done. When the king died, Henry was crowned King of India, and Sabeen the Queen, and so they lived happily ever after.