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Entry tags:
fiction - brigits_flame - shade
Good lord, you children again! What on earth are you doing here at this time of night? Can't sleep, eh? Nightmares, eh? I can't imagine why you'd all be having nightmares. You all go to bed when you are supposed to, don't you? Because you may recall that if you don't go to bed when you're supposed to that faeries will come and pour nightmares into your ears. You do remember that? Excellent. Learning is so important for young people.
So you want a bedtime story. From me. You've clearly thought this through.
Once upon a time there lived a faerie named Reginald Sparkleshimmer. As you've probably already guessed, he was as cruel and vicious a faerie as there has ever been. More twisted and vile than Maelifarious the Loathsome, more loathsome and twisted than Clatterkcackle the Vile, and a better violinist than Twisty Villeloathe, which isn't particularly relevant to this story but is rather remarkable.
Now, Reginald was a bit of a nomad, partly because he had a restless spirit and partly because angry mobs tended to chase him out of places. One day, his latest aimless wandering found him following the banks of the Burbling River. Rivers, of course, do not burble. They rush, they rage, and sometimes they even ramble, but only brooks ever burble, and no self-respecting river ever wants to be mistaken for a brook. But the Burbling River had been named by the same heartless and contrary folk that had named the Low Mountains where the river had its source, and the name had certainly left its mark on the poor waterway. It was difficult to travel upon due to its many rapids, perilous to cross due to its bed of viciously slippery rocks, and unpleasant to drink from due to its bitter taste. I think it was also full of poisonous fish.
A river like that is not one with which to be trifled, and so it was strange that not far ahead of Reginald the river appeared to deliberately change its course to avoid a large apple tree. The weather that day was unpleasantly hot, as the sun beat down upon the land with no more mercy than you might expect to get from the cantankerous river or the wicked faerie. The deep, dark shade provided by the apple tree looked especially inviting in such circumstances.
Now, as a cruel and spiteful person, Reginald naturally saw such qualities in everyone and everything around him, and he assumed that there must be some sort of feud between the river and the tree. Perhaps the river cruelly avoided the tree so as to deny it water for its roots, and the tree cast a particularly cool and refreshing shadow just out of the river's reach just to be spiteful. Certainly it didn't occur to Reginald that the wild and fierce river was terrified of the tree.
Reginald strolled right up to the tree and stepped into the cool embrace of its shadow. He felt immediately lighter, as if the hot sun had been a heavy burden weighing him down. He smiled and sat down with his back resting against the tree trunk and, deciding to take a short nap, fell almost instantly asleep.
And that's where the story might have ended, had not Reginald been the beneficiary of a bit of much undeserved good fortune. The tree was so delighted to have caught such delicious prey that before it was done feeding it quivered with glee and accidentally dropped an apple on Reginald's head.
Reginald awoke in a predictably foul mood, and probably would have done something rash like burn the tree to the ground or turn the soil around it into tar if it weren't for the fact that he was distracted by a strange feeling that he couldn’t quite identify. He started to walk away, befuddled and confused, without taking any kind of excessive vengeance for the fallen apple at all. But the moment he stepped foot back out into the harsh sun he realized what had happened.
The tree had eaten his shadow.
Well. You can imagine how furious he was. In fact, Reginald was so incandescent with rage that his bones nearly burst into flames on the spot. However, he finally managed to calm down enough to run screaming up to the tree and hammer the trunk with his fists until they bled. Upon calming down a bit more, he demanded that the tree return his shadow immediately, or there would be dire consequences.
The tree did not answer.
Now, there were any number of things Reginald could have done that would have killed the tree. Many of them would have killed everything for several miles. But of course Reginald did not want to actually kill the tree until he'd managed to retrieve his shadow first, and that required a lighter touch than Reginald was used to employing.
His first thought was to hack the tree open with an ax. He did not actually have an ax, and so this particular plan required him to storm off into the nearby forest and find a woodcutter to steal one from. The forest seemed frustratingly empty of woodcutters, however, and in the end Reginald fell back on the proven method for summoning a woodcutter that involved a small girl wearing a red hood, her grandmother, and a wolf. Reginald snatched away the woodcutter's ax as soon as he appeared, to the great delight of the wolf, who hadn't eaten so well in years.
Reginald immediately returned to the tree and started flailing away with the ax. However, it soon became apparent that chopping down, or even merely chopping open, a tree with an ax required both hard work and patience, two things antithetical to Reginald's nature.
Antithetical? It means that he gave up and tried something else.
Reginald's second plan was to send an enchanted squirrel into the tree to retrieve his shadow. This was actually a rather clever idea, and it might have succeeded if Reginald hadn't had the misfortune to enchant a squirrel that hadn’t always been a squirrel, but had previously been a small human child who had been caught stealing from pixies. Real squirrels are of course born with a variety of instincts, including techniques for evading the snares of predatory trees. It might also have helped if Reginald hadn't executed this plan during the middle of the day, when the tree's carnivorous shade was at full strength. Alas, Reginald's squirrel quickly lost its shadow, then its soul, and finally its heartbeat.
Finally Reginald could think of nothing but to do something even more antithetical to his nature than patience and hard work; he asked for help. But of course there's only so much one can act against one's nature, so he didn't do anything so humbling as asking for help from a woodcutter or someone able to tell the difference between a squirrel and a human child that's been transformed into a squirrel. No, Reginald waited until the middle of the night and then asked for help from the moon.
As I'm sure you know, faeries have long had a close relationship with the moon, but that will only get a faerie so far. In the end Reginald had to promise some pretty extraordinary favors in return for the moon's assistance. But the very next day there was an unscheduled eclipse, which I can tell you really upset the local astronomers, astrologers, and sundial crafter's guild. The sun wasn't too happy about it either. The shadow of the moon fell over the land, and particularly over the tree, and the moon drank away all of the tree's stolen shadows, souls, and heartbeats. And, as promised, it took the tree's shadow as well. The moon gave Reginald back his shadow, then rushed back down across the horizon before the sun could get any angrier. The rest of the day was a real scorcher, though, let me tell you.
Reginald stood triumphant before the shadowless tree and pointed and laughed and engaged in all manner of gloating. And then, rather than show his defeated foe any mercy, he left the tree to starve.
The Burbling River, on the other hand, was not willing to be so patient. The very next time it rained, the river flooded its banks, carving the earth out from under the tree until it toppled into the water. Then the river carried the evil tree all the way to the ocean, where it spat it out to be battered apart by the tides.
The lesson to be learned here is that if you keep introducing transformed children into the local animal population you can throw off the entire ecology of a place so badly that trees turn into horrible monsters and start killing people. Also, always be careful about crossing rivers, in every sense of the word.
Now all of you go home and go to bed. I'm sure you'll be able to find your way. It's a full moon tonight.
So you want a bedtime story. From me. You've clearly thought this through.
Once upon a time there lived a faerie named Reginald Sparkleshimmer. As you've probably already guessed, he was as cruel and vicious a faerie as there has ever been. More twisted and vile than Maelifarious the Loathsome, more loathsome and twisted than Clatterkcackle the Vile, and a better violinist than Twisty Villeloathe, which isn't particularly relevant to this story but is rather remarkable.
Now, Reginald was a bit of a nomad, partly because he had a restless spirit and partly because angry mobs tended to chase him out of places. One day, his latest aimless wandering found him following the banks of the Burbling River. Rivers, of course, do not burble. They rush, they rage, and sometimes they even ramble, but only brooks ever burble, and no self-respecting river ever wants to be mistaken for a brook. But the Burbling River had been named by the same heartless and contrary folk that had named the Low Mountains where the river had its source, and the name had certainly left its mark on the poor waterway. It was difficult to travel upon due to its many rapids, perilous to cross due to its bed of viciously slippery rocks, and unpleasant to drink from due to its bitter taste. I think it was also full of poisonous fish.
A river like that is not one with which to be trifled, and so it was strange that not far ahead of Reginald the river appeared to deliberately change its course to avoid a large apple tree. The weather that day was unpleasantly hot, as the sun beat down upon the land with no more mercy than you might expect to get from the cantankerous river or the wicked faerie. The deep, dark shade provided by the apple tree looked especially inviting in such circumstances.
Now, as a cruel and spiteful person, Reginald naturally saw such qualities in everyone and everything around him, and he assumed that there must be some sort of feud between the river and the tree. Perhaps the river cruelly avoided the tree so as to deny it water for its roots, and the tree cast a particularly cool and refreshing shadow just out of the river's reach just to be spiteful. Certainly it didn't occur to Reginald that the wild and fierce river was terrified of the tree.
Reginald strolled right up to the tree and stepped into the cool embrace of its shadow. He felt immediately lighter, as if the hot sun had been a heavy burden weighing him down. He smiled and sat down with his back resting against the tree trunk and, deciding to take a short nap, fell almost instantly asleep.
And that's where the story might have ended, had not Reginald been the beneficiary of a bit of much undeserved good fortune. The tree was so delighted to have caught such delicious prey that before it was done feeding it quivered with glee and accidentally dropped an apple on Reginald's head.
Reginald awoke in a predictably foul mood, and probably would have done something rash like burn the tree to the ground or turn the soil around it into tar if it weren't for the fact that he was distracted by a strange feeling that he couldn’t quite identify. He started to walk away, befuddled and confused, without taking any kind of excessive vengeance for the fallen apple at all. But the moment he stepped foot back out into the harsh sun he realized what had happened.
The tree had eaten his shadow.
Well. You can imagine how furious he was. In fact, Reginald was so incandescent with rage that his bones nearly burst into flames on the spot. However, he finally managed to calm down enough to run screaming up to the tree and hammer the trunk with his fists until they bled. Upon calming down a bit more, he demanded that the tree return his shadow immediately, or there would be dire consequences.
The tree did not answer.
Now, there were any number of things Reginald could have done that would have killed the tree. Many of them would have killed everything for several miles. But of course Reginald did not want to actually kill the tree until he'd managed to retrieve his shadow first, and that required a lighter touch than Reginald was used to employing.
His first thought was to hack the tree open with an ax. He did not actually have an ax, and so this particular plan required him to storm off into the nearby forest and find a woodcutter to steal one from. The forest seemed frustratingly empty of woodcutters, however, and in the end Reginald fell back on the proven method for summoning a woodcutter that involved a small girl wearing a red hood, her grandmother, and a wolf. Reginald snatched away the woodcutter's ax as soon as he appeared, to the great delight of the wolf, who hadn't eaten so well in years.
Reginald immediately returned to the tree and started flailing away with the ax. However, it soon became apparent that chopping down, or even merely chopping open, a tree with an ax required both hard work and patience, two things antithetical to Reginald's nature.
Antithetical? It means that he gave up and tried something else.
Reginald's second plan was to send an enchanted squirrel into the tree to retrieve his shadow. This was actually a rather clever idea, and it might have succeeded if Reginald hadn't had the misfortune to enchant a squirrel that hadn’t always been a squirrel, but had previously been a small human child who had been caught stealing from pixies. Real squirrels are of course born with a variety of instincts, including techniques for evading the snares of predatory trees. It might also have helped if Reginald hadn't executed this plan during the middle of the day, when the tree's carnivorous shade was at full strength. Alas, Reginald's squirrel quickly lost its shadow, then its soul, and finally its heartbeat.
Finally Reginald could think of nothing but to do something even more antithetical to his nature than patience and hard work; he asked for help. But of course there's only so much one can act against one's nature, so he didn't do anything so humbling as asking for help from a woodcutter or someone able to tell the difference between a squirrel and a human child that's been transformed into a squirrel. No, Reginald waited until the middle of the night and then asked for help from the moon.
As I'm sure you know, faeries have long had a close relationship with the moon, but that will only get a faerie so far. In the end Reginald had to promise some pretty extraordinary favors in return for the moon's assistance. But the very next day there was an unscheduled eclipse, which I can tell you really upset the local astronomers, astrologers, and sundial crafter's guild. The sun wasn't too happy about it either. The shadow of the moon fell over the land, and particularly over the tree, and the moon drank away all of the tree's stolen shadows, souls, and heartbeats. And, as promised, it took the tree's shadow as well. The moon gave Reginald back his shadow, then rushed back down across the horizon before the sun could get any angrier. The rest of the day was a real scorcher, though, let me tell you.
Reginald stood triumphant before the shadowless tree and pointed and laughed and engaged in all manner of gloating. And then, rather than show his defeated foe any mercy, he left the tree to starve.
The Burbling River, on the other hand, was not willing to be so patient. The very next time it rained, the river flooded its banks, carving the earth out from under the tree until it toppled into the water. Then the river carried the evil tree all the way to the ocean, where it spat it out to be battered apart by the tides.
The lesson to be learned here is that if you keep introducing transformed children into the local animal population you can throw off the entire ecology of a place so badly that trees turn into horrible monsters and start killing people. Also, always be careful about crossing rivers, in every sense of the word.
Now all of you go home and go to bed. I'm sure you'll be able to find your way. It's a full moon tonight.
no subject
Oh, how I've missed you, Hwango.
no subject