fiction - brigits_flame - strawberries
May. 9th, 2010 07:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwangoWhat? How long have you children been sitting there? A story? You don't want to hear a story from me. You do, eh? Well, if you're sure. But it's going to be educational. Ah, not so eager anymore, eh? Too late now.
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a beautiful faerie with a magical garden. Actually, it was a magical faerie with a beautiful garden. Or possibly both. It was quite some time ago and the details are a bit hazy. Wait, now that I come to think of it, one of the faerie's ears was shorter than the other, since the point had been bitten off by a goblin during a bar fight several years previous, so it was the garden that was the beautiful one. Except for the ratty old scarecrow. Anyway, that's not important.
What is important is that in this mostly beautiful and quite probably magical garden the faerie grew strawberries. Huge, wonderful strawberries as big as apples! And they were sweet and delicious and he was justifiably quite proud of them.
Across the road from this faerie there lived another faerie. In order to avoid confusion, I'll tell you now that the faerie with the strawberry garden was named Lavender and the other faerie was called Douglas. Yes, go on, argue among yourselves over which is the dumber name for a faerie. I'll just wait here patiently. Finished?
Douglas had an apple tree in his garden. It grew huge, wonderful apples as big as...um...rather large oranges, I guess. What? No, the strawberries were just the size of regular apples, which is still enormous for a strawberry. Anyway, they were quite tasty apples, and Douglas was every bit as proud of them as Lavender was of his remarkable strawberries. It would be nice to think that the two had enough in common to be great friends, but as it happens there was a long-standing grudge between the two originating from a disagreement over a colony of bees both faeries wanted to contract to pollinate their respective territory and so in fact they were bitter enemies. Do you children know what the word "nemesis" means? Well, look it up later, I don't feel like explaining it right now.
One day, a messenger came and told Douglas and Lavender that the king of the faeries was having a party, and he expected all of the guests to bring delicious food for everyone to eat. Naturally, Lavender planned to bring some of his strawberries, and Douglas would of course bring some apples. Each periodically glared at the other while they set about picking their fruit.
Douglas shouted across the way to Lavender, saying "I can't believe you're going to insult the king by bringing those dreadful things to the festival! My apples are far more delicious and have a much more pleasing texture!"
It would be inappropriate for me to recount Lavender's reply in the presence of children, but I will say that his suggestion was most likely physically impossible, and certainly inadvisable.
Lavender filled several large baskets with his strawberries and then loaded them into a rickety old cart pulled by a donkey that used to be a human child with poor table manners who had been carried off by the faeries several years ago.
Douglas smugly loaded his crates of apples into the back of his fancy new cart that was pulled by a handsome white horse that used to be a lazy human child who didn't do his chores who had been carried off by the faeries several years ago. "That cart is a piece of junk, and that miserable donkey is an embarrassment! Surely you can do better than that – there are so many disobedient children in the world!," Douglas said.
Lavender's reply was even more vile than the other one that I mentioned before, and I feel a bit ill just thinking about it.
They both set out on the path leading to the castle. At first Douglas was going to race ahead to show off how impressive his horse was, but then he decided it would be better to keep pace with the donkey so that Lavender could be consumed with envy for Douglas's obviously superior animal, vehicle, and produce. Lavender, however, ignored him, much to Douglas's profound disappointment.
And so more than an hour passed in silence as the two plodded slowly down the winding path to the castle. Gradually the two became aware of the sound of thundering hooves approaching, and they looked up to see a huge unicorn charging towards them. Lavender's donkey was too stupid to be paying any attention and did not slow its pace, but Douglas's horse panicked and reared and with its flailing hooves knocked Lavender's cart right over. The old cart broke apart and sent his carefully packed baskets of precious strawberries tumbling out into the road, where they were quickly trampled by the unicorn as it raced by them and disappeared into the forest.
"Oh no!" cried Lavender. Douglas pointed and laughed.
"See!" he shouted with malicious glee, "your strawberries are so soft and fragile compared to my nice hardy apples! Ha ha ha!"
"Oh, what will I do now?" moaned Lavender, weeping over his crushed fruit. And then he had a brilliant idea. He -
Oh, you've guessed what it is have you? Jam? No, don't be absurd. They've been trampled into the mud by a unicorn. You'd have to be insane to serve muddy jam to a king. No, Lavender took out his knife and sliced Douglas right open, leaving him to bleed to death in a ditch, and stole his horse, his cart, and his apples. And everyone at the festival said they were the most delicious apples they'd ever eaten and remarked on how proud he should be of them and he lived a long rich and happy life.
The lesson to be learned here is to mind your manners and always do your chores, or faeries will come steal you away and transform you into an animal. Or possibly that if you've got a cart full of delicious apples to watch out for a faerie with a knife. Actually those are both pretty good lessons. Now go away, all of you, and get back to your chores.
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a beautiful faerie with a magical garden. Actually, it was a magical faerie with a beautiful garden. Or possibly both. It was quite some time ago and the details are a bit hazy. Wait, now that I come to think of it, one of the faerie's ears was shorter than the other, since the point had been bitten off by a goblin during a bar fight several years previous, so it was the garden that was the beautiful one. Except for the ratty old scarecrow. Anyway, that's not important.
What is important is that in this mostly beautiful and quite probably magical garden the faerie grew strawberries. Huge, wonderful strawberries as big as apples! And they were sweet and delicious and he was justifiably quite proud of them.
Across the road from this faerie there lived another faerie. In order to avoid confusion, I'll tell you now that the faerie with the strawberry garden was named Lavender and the other faerie was called Douglas. Yes, go on, argue among yourselves over which is the dumber name for a faerie. I'll just wait here patiently. Finished?
Douglas had an apple tree in his garden. It grew huge, wonderful apples as big as...um...rather large oranges, I guess. What? No, the strawberries were just the size of regular apples, which is still enormous for a strawberry. Anyway, they were quite tasty apples, and Douglas was every bit as proud of them as Lavender was of his remarkable strawberries. It would be nice to think that the two had enough in common to be great friends, but as it happens there was a long-standing grudge between the two originating from a disagreement over a colony of bees both faeries wanted to contract to pollinate their respective territory and so in fact they were bitter enemies. Do you children know what the word "nemesis" means? Well, look it up later, I don't feel like explaining it right now.
One day, a messenger came and told Douglas and Lavender that the king of the faeries was having a party, and he expected all of the guests to bring delicious food for everyone to eat. Naturally, Lavender planned to bring some of his strawberries, and Douglas would of course bring some apples. Each periodically glared at the other while they set about picking their fruit.
Douglas shouted across the way to Lavender, saying "I can't believe you're going to insult the king by bringing those dreadful things to the festival! My apples are far more delicious and have a much more pleasing texture!"
It would be inappropriate for me to recount Lavender's reply in the presence of children, but I will say that his suggestion was most likely physically impossible, and certainly inadvisable.
Lavender filled several large baskets with his strawberries and then loaded them into a rickety old cart pulled by a donkey that used to be a human child with poor table manners who had been carried off by the faeries several years ago.
Douglas smugly loaded his crates of apples into the back of his fancy new cart that was pulled by a handsome white horse that used to be a lazy human child who didn't do his chores who had been carried off by the faeries several years ago. "That cart is a piece of junk, and that miserable donkey is an embarrassment! Surely you can do better than that – there are so many disobedient children in the world!," Douglas said.
Lavender's reply was even more vile than the other one that I mentioned before, and I feel a bit ill just thinking about it.
They both set out on the path leading to the castle. At first Douglas was going to race ahead to show off how impressive his horse was, but then he decided it would be better to keep pace with the donkey so that Lavender could be consumed with envy for Douglas's obviously superior animal, vehicle, and produce. Lavender, however, ignored him, much to Douglas's profound disappointment.
And so more than an hour passed in silence as the two plodded slowly down the winding path to the castle. Gradually the two became aware of the sound of thundering hooves approaching, and they looked up to see a huge unicorn charging towards them. Lavender's donkey was too stupid to be paying any attention and did not slow its pace, but Douglas's horse panicked and reared and with its flailing hooves knocked Lavender's cart right over. The old cart broke apart and sent his carefully packed baskets of precious strawberries tumbling out into the road, where they were quickly trampled by the unicorn as it raced by them and disappeared into the forest.
"Oh no!" cried Lavender. Douglas pointed and laughed.
"See!" he shouted with malicious glee, "your strawberries are so soft and fragile compared to my nice hardy apples! Ha ha ha!"
"Oh, what will I do now?" moaned Lavender, weeping over his crushed fruit. And then he had a brilliant idea. He -
Oh, you've guessed what it is have you? Jam? No, don't be absurd. They've been trampled into the mud by a unicorn. You'd have to be insane to serve muddy jam to a king. No, Lavender took out his knife and sliced Douglas right open, leaving him to bleed to death in a ditch, and stole his horse, his cart, and his apples. And everyone at the festival said they were the most delicious apples they'd ever eaten and remarked on how proud he should be of them and he lived a long rich and happy life.
The lesson to be learned here is to mind your manners and always do your chores, or faeries will come steal you away and transform you into an animal. Or possibly that if you've got a cart full of delicious apples to watch out for a faerie with a knife. Actually those are both pretty good lessons. Now go away, all of you, and get back to your chores.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 04:33 pm (UTC)(lies.)
Giggleriffic.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-09 06:28 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed this - especially the voice of the narrator. I liked how it was very incongruous with the subject - good work!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 05:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 02:56 pm (UTC)Also: "I can't believe your going to insult the king...
(you're)
*scuttles away*
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 08:50 pm (UTC)Whoops, I totally forgot to go back and spell check. I had shut it off temporarily because I find it incredibly distracting when it highlights problems as you type. Thanks for catching that, and I also went and fixed some more that I'd missed.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 04:00 am (UTC)The ending creeped me out, though.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 05:31 am (UTC)Sorry for the creeping, but it could have been worse - my first impulse for the lesson taught was "You can solve just about any problem if you have a sharp knife and the guts to use it." But I decided maybe I'd better reign in the madness just a little. = )
no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-10 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-19 03:17 pm (UTC)psst one thing for you:
Lavender's donkey was too stupid to be paying any attention, and did not slow its pace, but Douglas's horse panicked and reared and with its flailing hooves knocked Lavender's cart right over.
you don't need that comma after "attention"
Yay Wes! More fun and brilliant stories, coming soon? *hopes*
no subject
Date: 2010-05-20 12:44 am (UTC)Thanks for pointing out my stray comma. That continues to be a problem for me. I still haven't managed to seal that gateway to a dimension of nothing but commas.
I'm afraid I dropped the ball on Mechination. I couldn't find an actual definition, and the writeup left me trying to figure out if it was supposed to be "Mechinism," "Mechinization," or something else entirely. In spite of that, I had an idea that I halfway liked, but it didn't come together for me. If week 4's prompt is really cool maybe I can do something just for fun. If not, we'll keep our fingers crossed for July.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-20 12:48 am (UTC)How have you been in your hiatus? Anything awesome happen recently?
no subject
Date: 2010-05-20 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-20 05:28 am (UTC)I know I ramble a lot, but I'm glad to see you around and doing well. That's all :)
ROAR
Date: 2010-05-22 03:59 pm (UTC)Re: ROAR
Date: 2010-05-30 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-05 04:16 am (UTC)