Friday, 26 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
MBers have proposed that this new Round-Robin ‘Riting threat* thread be about humor, satire, and/or fractured fairytales. That’s fine with us. It’s your thread. Take it away, Musers!
NOTE: It doesn’t really get started until around Comment 60.
*It’s not really very threatening.
Date: April 16, 2007
Categories: Fiction, poetry, and fanfiction, Nonrandom Craziness
Wow! First post!
Which fairy tale?
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Preferably one that does not have evil, incompetent, or insignificant older or middle siblings. That’s my pet peeve.
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The original request was on the Ask the GAPAs thread.
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3- I know. I was one of the people who supported it. : ) Unfortunately, I feel that there aren’t a lot of MBers online right now, since I got first and second posts.
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Hey, I’m here! Alright, here we go…if you don’t like it, let me know, and we’ll start over. Also, let’s try to keep it going smoothly, and not just go off on wild tangents…I’d like us to publish this, if we can.
Melea looked out her window, longing to be out in the open fields. What good is living if you can’t live?, she thought.
And this was what Melea thought every day, except when her father, Lord Ragvuire, let her go for a walk with one of those stuffy boys from the rich section of Balitzia, in which resided “the only boys worth anything at all. She hated those boys, with their, “Oh, may I carry you across the mud, madam? We wouldn’t want to get your shoes dirty.” If she wanted her shoes dirty, then what business was it of theirs to tell her she can’t get them so?
Toran was the only boy she really liked, the only boy who understood her…of course, Toran was also the cook’s assistant, one of the lowest positions possible to fill in Lord Ragvuire’s household. But Melea didn’t care. Toran was nice, smart, good-looking…and an excellent cook! What more could a girl ask for? She would always sneak downstairs for a snack whenever she could. It was this treat that kept her at home as long as she stayed…not only could she get a delicious treat of pudding, or the like, but she also always got a delightful treat of talking to Toran, who was always up to something in the kitchen. And tonight she would go down again, “for a little snack”, she decided. And tonight would she tell him of her plan…her plan to escape.
She left the window to get some things together, all the while thinking of how she could ask Toran to come with her, without being painfully obvious in her reasons for doing so. Finally, she thought of something that just might work…with this in mind, she went downstairs “for a little snack”.
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Oops…quotation marks after “anything at all”…:oops:
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erm…. c’we do a Pratchett-style funnyfantasy?
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Alright, what fairy tale is it? Or is it just comedy?
More later.
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7-I don’t know…you continue…I’ve only heard of Pratchett…what’d he write?
8-It’s no fairy tale in particular…I made it up…but I guess it’s sort of an Alanna: The First Adventure/The Little Mermaid/whatever “rich girl running away from society” type story you can think of.
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Melea trotted down the staircase to the kitchens, and then another, and another… It was some time before she actually reached the kitchens themselves.
“Hello, Toran,” she called cheerfully to the handsome boy who was stoking the fire. “I thought I’d come down for a little snack, you know?”
“Yes, lady,” said Toran politely, as he closed the oven door. Melea looked at him suspiciously.
“Did you just call me ‘lady’?” she asked, unable to believe her ears. This was dreadful! Was he going the way of all those other boys, who wanted to carry her over the mud? Or worse, was he getting to be like the servants, who were always polite and only spoke when spoken to? Either way, this was the biggest catastrophe in all Melea’s not quite fifteen years. The world was crumbling around her, but she managed to keep her cool.
“What’s up, Toran?” said Melea, but her voiced sounded slightly strained.
‘The sky,” Toran replied with a hint of his old teasing.
“No, I mean, what’s the matter? You never call me lady.”
Toran’s eyes darted from side to side. He leaned in close and said in a whisper, “Your father will fire me if I talk to you.”
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Here’s something I forgot to mention. Let’s try to keep any romance as toned-down as possible. Naturally there will be some, unless my plan to get Toran out of it for a while succeeds, but nothing over the top. Like, no kissing. Please?
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Hey! I never heard about this one! I came up with the idea for a fractured fairy-tale RRR. So what is this story fracturing?
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Also, I forgot to say that not all fractured fairy-tales are funny comedies. Many are very serious. Think of “Wicked:The Life and TImes of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire, or “The Looking Glass Wars” by Frank Beddor. Those are two very serious remakes. One of The Wizard of Oz and the other of Alice In Wonderland.
Also, sorry Shadowkat, but I am not a fan of this story. I do not mean to be offending in any way whatsoever, but if you want to do a fractured fairy tale, then can you please do it on a well-known one, like Cinderella, or Hansel and Gretel, or Rapunzel, or even more modern ones, like Wizard of Oz. Please base one on the Brothers Grimm, or Alice In Wonderland, though. I have some really good ideas for them!!!
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13- Oh, I want to read the Looking Glass Wars! I only just heard of it yesterday.
Should we start over, then? I wouldn’t mind, if Shadowkat wouldn’t.
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I am really really good at bad humor and can make a joke out of most any situation so if you are in need of a joke just let me know.
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That’s fine, you can start over…I didn’t know that the request was for a fractured fairy tale…I thought we just wanted a fantasy story…sorry. 
So, then, you guys choose something to fracture, and I’ll pick up there, ok? Again, sorry.
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16 ~ Cinderella! hehehe. 
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17 – NOOOO!!! Keep the bunnies off this thread
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18 – good idea! let’s do a fractured bunny-tale! squee!
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17- Cinderella? Really? Ummmmmmmm. I want to do Childe Rowland, but it’s fairly obscure. Fine, really obscure. But it’s super cool and inspiring.
However, it’s got incompetent older siblings.
Pros:
Partly poetry.
I’ve been inspired by it.
In the book I have, the artwork is gorgoeus, IMO.
Cons:
Incompetent older brothers.
It’s not Grimm.
Really obscure.
No one knows what I’m talking about.
The cons outweigh the pros.
But do we have to do Cinderella?
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I really really don’t want to do cinderella, sorry to offend anyone. Maybe Snow White and Rose Red? I think it’s a Grimm fairy tale. Or East of the Sun and West of the Moon? I love that one., though it’s relatively obscure. It’s what East was based on.
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21- I agree. Snow White and Rose Red or East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Though because East was based on that, maybe we shouldn’t do that one. There’s also The Black Bull of Norroway, which is almost the same, but not quite.
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Here’s an idea:
The leaves began to rustle. The breeze was westerly, and the sun was setting. The red in it seemed to burn (insert a name-whatever I pick won’t work) ‘s eyes, and the breeze made them water. He turned towards the house, as if to run back. He paused, and wondered when super would be ready. He didn’t want to leave the sunset. He knew it would be a shadowy streak when he could return, and clouds were moving in that would cover the sun for at least several days. He decided to wait until his mother called him, or his father came out.
I know that isn’t exactly what you had in mind, but does anybody like it?
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23- I do like it, but what fairy tale is it?
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23-That sounds almost like something out of The Dragonriders of Pern…what is it?
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25- That’s what I want to know. Soon as I know what Fairy Tale it is, I’ll start writing. I nearly made it into Snow White and Rose Red, but whoever that boy is, he’s not a king’s son.
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I would like to help, but I think I fall in with the “slightly confused” group.
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I’d like to help with this one, and I’ll start writing when I know what’s going on.
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27- I’m with you in that group, definitely. And I’ve been here since the beginning, too!
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Oh, I’m sorry.
24-Are we supposed to use other stories? I’m confused.
25-Um, I just made it up.
Sorry for all of the confusion. If you don’t like it, that’s okay. I was just writing that as a suggestion, but if it’s not the right thing, that’s alright. Sorry! 
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30- It’s perfectly alright.
Here, I will explain. A fractured fairy tale is when you take a fairy tale and twist it around and rewrite it. I would be perfectly happy doing anything else, but Donaldo the SAN really wants it to be a FFT, I guess. Here is a list of fairy tales I do not want to do:
Cinderella
Little Red Riding Hood
Rapunzel
Sleeping Beauty
Here’s some that I would like to do:
Snow White
Childe Rowland (please tell me you know that, someone! Anyone!)
East o’ the Sun, West o’ the Moon
Snow White and Rose Red
And basically all the obscure ones.
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Here goes. It’s Snow White. If it still isn’t what’s wanted, then we can redo it again.
Prologue:
The young Queen looked out at the glittering white snow, freshly fallen this afternoon. A man in bundled clothes was passing by beneath the window. The Queen waved, and in doing so dropped her thimble. Dismayed, she watched it tumble in a silver arc to the snow, where it was lost among the glitter. She turned back to her embroidery with a sigh. She kept looking up restlessly, however and predictably, she pricked her finger. It was not a bad prick, but a single bead of red blood fell to the snow on the ebony windowsill. The Queen stared at it for a while, and thought, “I wish I had a child as red as blood, as white as snow, and as black as ebony.” Unwitting, she said it out loud.
A year later she gave birth to a child of exactly that sort, but she died in the process. Her last fevered mumbling was “Snow white,” and the King, wracked by grief, gave the child that name.
What do you think?
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Humor? Kool, I’m in. But do we have to do something based on a fairytale???
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dude.
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33- Clearly. If we didn’t, we’d have gone with the first one.
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Tis nice.
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Alice-If we do an obscure one that pretty much no one’s ever heard of, how’re we supposed to fracture it? And I don’t know…we could have fun with Snow White, but it’s not really my first choice…I’d like:
Peter Pan
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Shrek
Robin Hood
Aladdin
The Black Bull of Norroway
A few of those are kind of obscure, but I think they might work…
Peter Pan: A Fractured Fairy Tale
“Michael!” called Wendy, “Come here, and I’ll tuck you in.”
“But just look at the stars, Wendy!” said Michael, his clear blue eyes sparkling with his own set of stars.
“Yes, dear, they’re lovely, but you need to go to bed…now come.” She picked up the squirming boy and plopped him into bed, quickly pulling the covers over him so he couldn’t get away.
“John–” she started to say.
“I’m already in bed, Wendy.”
“Very good.” She leaned over and kissed Michael on the cheek, saying, “Good night, Michael.”
“Good night, Wendy.” was his response.
After a similar exchange with John, Wendy turned off the lights and started to leave.
“Wendy?”
She turned. “Yes, Michael?”
“What are stars?”
Wendy came back in and sat down on Michael’s bed. John propped himself up on his elbows to listen.
“Well,” she began, “stars are something like great big balls of fire, even bigger than Earth itself. These big balls–”
“But, wait, Wendy,” interrupted Michael, “how can stars be bigger than Earth? They’re so little…”
Wendy laughed, but not meanly. “No, Michael, stars just look small because they’re so far away. They’re really enormous!”
“Wow…” Michael breathed, eyes wide.
“Wendy, our sun is a star, right?”
“Yes, John, it is.”
“Then,” continued John, “since our sun has planets with life on them, and it’s a star, does that mean that other stars have planets with life on them, too?”
Wendy thought for a moment. “Well, no one really knows, for sure, but it’s perfectly possible, I suppose.”
“I think there are other people out there.” said Michael from the window, where he had crept to while Wendy was distracted.
“Oh, you!” Wendy strode to the window and scooped him up, then tickled him until he told her his stomach hurt. Putting him back in bed, she said, “There! Now, good night, boys.”
“Good night, Wendy.” they said in unison, as she closed the door.
What do you think?
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We should do a story where all the characters from fairy tales get thrown together. Like, not a Cinderella parody, but a Cinderella/Snow White/Peter Pan/Shrek kind of parody.
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Well, that’s fine…I just gave us a start. Let’s say that the Fairy Godmother from Shrek now comes and picks them (the Darling children) up to take them to see the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White, and her prince, who need help finding Cinderella (who’s gone underground) for Prince Charming to marry instead of Fiona, eh?
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39-No! Please don’t! I write many fractured fairy-tales and one thing I have learned is to never EVER have fairy tale creatures from movies!! EVER!
And I have an idea! What about a story about a bedtime story, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears? What if Goldilocks was a master jewel thief, and the Bears were the guardians of the Jewel of Farrak, a precious jewel that could tamper time and space.
Or, what about a story about the Wizard of Oz? What if Dorothy did not remember Oz after she came back and all of a sudden she had to come back to Oz to rescue someone or go on a quest, and everyone remembered her, but she did not remember a single thing
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Excuse me! Shrek is a movie, and one that I haven’t seen. Or I have, like five years ago, and I didn’t like it. Could we skip the Shrek bits?
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39-Or something like that. Let me try my hand at it now.
—
“WAKE UP!” yelled a voice. “We gotta get going now or we’re gonna be late for the wedding! Hurryhurryhurry!”
“Would somebody please tell me what is going on?” Wendy said groggily, but always keeping her poise. “In case you haven’t noticed we are sleeping.”
“Huh? Who are ya? Where’s Snow?” the man said in a very fast voice. “Whadja do with her?”
“What do you mean “what did I do with her”? I don’t even know who she is!” Wendy said sternly. “I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to leave.”
“Hmm, must have gotten the wrong address,” the man, who was very short with rosy red cheeks said, pulling his fingers across his stubby beard. “I’m Chatty, youngest of the 8 dwarve brothers, and I was lookin’ for my friend Snow. Unfortunately, Sleepy was pretty tired at the time and apparently gave me the wrong directions to her place. I’ll just be leavin’ now.”
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Um, why does it say threat instead of thread at the top of this page? Just wondering…
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I agree. Let’s try to stick mostly to Grimm brothers fairy tales, with a bit of Peter Pan/Robin Hood thrown in.
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“Chatty?”Wendy questioned.
“What ya never heard of the 8th dwarf? Ya know Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy and Chatty?” Chatty said, quite shocked that this girl hadn’t heard of him.
“Sorry but no. I’ve heard of all of your brothers though. Are you sure you aren’t an imposter?” Wendy said.
“Imposter? Me? Nope, I’m just Chatty Dwarf. Who are you?”
” I’m Wendy. I’m new to these parts.”
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42-I know I am disagreeing with a lot of stuff, and I really from the bottom of my heart apologize, and I like the idea of mixing fairy tales together, but do it gradually. The Dwarves in the real Snow White never had names. Your intro is OK but there is too much dialogue, and it does not make sense. The thing about fractured fairy-tales is they have to be kinda sorta realistic in some ways. Gregory Maguire’s “Diary of an Ugly Stepsister” was no more than a historical novel. In some I have read, the authors have changed the story to a battle(The Looking Glass Wars), in others they tell how fairy tale creatures beging(Peter and the Starcatchers), and in others they are comedy(The Stinky Cheese Man), and others still are changing the way a character seems(good to bad, bad to good i.e. Wicked by Gregory Maguire)
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46-So what do you suggest?
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47-read my post 40-I have some ideas of what we could do there. And I just had another idea: How about a story about Little Red Riding Hood? Or nursery rhymes like Little Miss Muffet and Old King Cole?(if anyone remembers those)
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I don’t think I’m going to write on this thread anymore. Nothing personal, but it’s just really confusing. I’ll check up on it, though, and if you ever settle on one story, then I might return.
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Donaldo-I started it…see post 37…and we can keep Shrek out of it, if you want.
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48-The Oz thing might be cool.
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Comedy is hard, as comedians will tell you.
I think you need to start over again with one character and no particular plan and just let it unfold. Let other characters enter the story as they come along. Be open to surprises. Now take it from the top:
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a…
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Oh, thank you, Robert!
I’m doing this with footnotes, so you can see where the thing or character came from.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Once upon a time there was a glass hill.* On top of that hill there lived a ferocious dragon named Snagglejaw. He owned a truly ridiculous amount of gold, silver, and jewels, which he slept on every night and thought quite as comfortable as any eiderdown mattress.
~~~~~~~~~~~
*The Black Bull of Norroway.
There, how does that work? Now Manniquin can come along and slay him. (Heart of Ice.)
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this is going absolutely nowhere.
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54- I know, but not from lack of trying. Let’s see, we’ve done:
Fantasy (Melea) – 2 posts, stopped by Donaldo the SAN.
Fantasy (an anonymous boy) 1 post, not carried on..
Snow White. (I liked this, why did no one else?) 1 post, not carried on.
A mix of fairy tales, mostly using movie characters. Sigh. 3 posts, stopped by general consensus (or at least that’s what it looked like to me.)
Fantasy (Snagglejaw the dragon) 1 post, not carried on (so far).
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Look, think up a character, a basic plot, NOT LINKED TO ANY OTHER EXISTING STORY, and get on with it. I’ll supply loads of laughs (I hope), so the comedy should be there.
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52 –
once upon a time,
in the middle of a rhyme
my father heard a sound
comin’ up from underground
as i looked at the terrain,
and it burrowed in my brain,
i felt the concussion
of the seriously insane
i know this should go on the lyrics thread, but i couldn’t resist. that’s seether, i think.
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56- I did. Well, sort of. I am not the one writing this. I will write, if someone else comes up with the story. I supplied Snagglejaw (:)) and someone else can make a hero to come and slay him. Just ’cause there’s a glass hill doesn’t mean it’s linked to any particular fairy tale. And I was joking about Manniquin.
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And this thread is a bit threatening actually. 
Oh, and that thing in parentheses is supposed to turn into a smiley.
Sorry ’bout the double post.
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There are plenty of stock fairytale characters you can dredge up as you need them. Shall I give you another nudge? Let’s take it a sentence at a time:
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far away, there lived a prince who — much to the consternation of his court and his subjects — wished with all his heart that he had been born a frog.
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Ha ha! You really should write on these too, though I know that’s somehow against all the RRRRs. (Round Robin Riting Rules.) Your last nudge did inspire me to write that bit about Snagglejaw, but no one responded. Anyway, let’s see what I can add to that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The reason was this: one day, as he was wandering along the river bank, he saw a beautiful and quite mad girl, catching frogs and kissing them, then letting them go again. When he asked her why, she replied that she was hoping one would turn into a prince.
“Why,” said the prince, “I’m a prince! Look no further!” For he knew that his father’s best physicians could certainly cure her of her madness, and then they could be wed.
The girl looked him up and down, all the while being careful not to look behind him (he had said look no further, you know) but she shook her head and went back to catching frogs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is it good enough to be continued?
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I like the OEAD’s. So I am continuing it. It will probably be killed by somebody who can’t accept that these things are group projects, but such is life.
Once upon that same time, but in a land even farther away, there lived a young noblewoman who wanted nothing more than to become a scholar.
And again upon that time, because these things are always in threes, was a boy who could grant the wishes of the prince and the noblewoman, if only he knew he had the power.
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Erg. This is what I get for thinking about what I write. Hmm…maybe mine could be a sort of prologue-ish thing to Alice’s.
61 (Alice)- What RRRRs? The only one that had those never got off the ground.
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My friends and I performed Snowygoldycinderpunzal on the stage for Winter Arts thing for Drama. We were probably one of the best ones there 
. We also did Puss and Boots.
That was sort of random, but hey, it was a fractured fairy tale.
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61- I think he should just want to be a frog. It would be more interesting if he didn’t want to wed.
Maybe he could end up being all the reason the princesses went trying to kiss frogs…
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(61, 62),
Excellent! Though I’d take those two posts in the opposite order. Here’s a brief continuation:
The experience (61) made the Prince reflect that being a prince had a fair number of drawbacks. He had to spend his days eating food that wasn’t good for him, holding endless meetings and audiences with nobles who had nothing interesting to say for themselves, and governing people who didn’t much want to be governed. He also had to spend an inordinate amount of time grooming himself. Princes are required to be impeccably groomed. When he totaled up the number of hours a week he spent having his hair styled, his nails trimmed, and his clothes tailored and laundered and brushed and buffed, it made him want to scream. “Oh, for the life of a frog!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.
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66- Actually, as he thought more and more on the subject, he bagan to realize just how much he didn’t want to be married, even. To think of all the planing and preperations that would be have to made for a wedding… and then spending so much time socializing and haveing those tedious, polite conversations with people he didn not care about and did not care about him. As a frog, why, he would only come out when he wanted. And he wouldn’t have to bother with washing and making himself presentable and untouchable. An end to those horrid social gatherings… Granted, eating bugs would take some time to get used to, but small children did it all the ime and didn’t seem any worse for wear.
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63- I dunno. I just made ’em up from what I’ve seen, and I liked how it sounded. I don’t actually know what they are.
I can’t think of anything at the moment, but in an hour or two I’ll have it.
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66- Now that he had made up his mind about it, all that remained was for him to figure out how to do it. So, he summoned the wisest man in all the land to help him.
The man’s name was Julian Perjorius. He was ninety-one and had traveled to every place worth mentioning, several places not worth mentioning, and at least one place that shouldn’t be mentioned even if one wanted to.
“How can I become a frog?” the prince asked.
Julian Perjorius was flabbergasted. “Why would you want to?”
“Never mind that. Do you know how I can turn into a frog?”
Julian thought he could bluff his way out of this, which was a serious mistake. “Of course! There are several methods. But a prince’s life is infinitely better than that of a frog. You shouldn’t even want to be a frog.”
“Well, I do. How do I do it?”
Julian Perjorius’s bald pate turned bright red, and he fumbled with the many amulets hanging around his neck. “Er… er…”
“Well?”
Julian Perjorius, of course, had no idea. He seized one last hope: to send the prince so far away that Julian Perjorius himself would be gone when the royal heir found out that he was a fraud.
“At the end of the world, the seas pour off in a great waterfall. In that waterfall is a rocky outcrop that forms an island. On that island there is a forest. In that forest there is a ruined castle. In that castle is a well. Drink from that well, and you will turn into whatever you wish.”
Julian Perjorius knew that the world was round, but he also knew that princes’ tutors weren’t paid enough to be accurate.
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Of course,. there was the inevitable anguish over what sort of frog. He didn’t fancy being a tree frog, for instance. Never could stand heights. And he himself employed foresters, whose job it was to keep the trees trimmed and tidy, and keep the rides open so that he and his cronies could go on jolly trips into the woods. What if they inadvertently trimmed him? The awful possibility suddenly dawned that among the forest’s log piles and compost heaps – effectively HIS log piles and compost heaps, although he’d never paid them any attention – there could lurk the sad remains of trimmed frogs. He’d have to have a word with the foresters. But what would he tell them? Watch out for small, green, highly camouflaged frogs and make sure they don’t get trimmed? Just how long would it take to do a comprehensive frog check? Were there actually any tree frogs in his dominions anyway? He seemed to remember they were sort of tropical. So that was all right, then. Maybe he should just cancel his regular order for bananas.
So, a pond-based frog, then. Living a life of sloth and decadence in one of the castle’s ornamental aquatic extravangances. Yes, but – ponds are wet. He wasn’t really very keen on wet. He was rather used to being carted round in a big carriage. The coachman got wet, but he didn’t. He’d never been really wet, apart from bath night, but that was all warm and regulated, and hot milk and biscuits were available. He thought of a blustery, wintry night, when the howling wind rattled the shutters and the rain made sloshing noises on the portico because he’d STILL forgotten to tell old Albert to fix the gutters. Then he thought of all the frogs in that chilly pond, plopping their heads underwater to avoid the rain, which seemed pretty futile. No, maybe he’d remain a prince a while longer, until he’d identified a less hostile froggy environment. Besides, he’d pinned his transmogrification hopes on the witch at the end of Crab Lane. Everyone always thought she was a witch, but last month she started claiming she was the reincarnation of an ancient Sumerian astrologer, and standing on her head for no apparent reason. They’d put her in an instituion, and she hadn’t escaped yet, so if she really was a witch, she couldn’t be very powerful. It didn’t bode well for the frog thing. On balance, thought the Prince, more consideration should be given to the matter. Further detailed planning was needed. He went off to find old Albert. At least the gutters were straightforward.
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“Thank you!” the prince exclaimed, and he promptly ran off to grab his backpack.
“My dear son,” his deep-voiced father said solemly. “Where are you running in such a grand hurry?”
“I’m off on a quest,” the prince laughed. “I’m going to become a frog!”
Before his parents could answer he had strode out onto the drawbridge and away he went.
—
We should probably give the price a name…how about Lakadaisicle? Or how about not.
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Mine is a response to 69, by the way.
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69- You were adding on to 66, but I think we can but mine right bfore yours, okay?
I don’t think the prince should believe the odl ‘wise man.’ We should give him a barain. Or some of one. He does know that a prince’s life isn’t all that, after all.
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73-Ugh, this is getting confusing…
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Here’s something that I have to put in in between Cat’s Meow’s post and Paul Baker’s post, because even in this story, you can’t be on a quest and fixing the gutters. (Or telling someone to fix the gutters.)
Remember, this goes AFTER Cat’s Meow’s post and BEFORE Paul Baker’s.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was about half an hour’s walk away from the castle when it began to get dark. He heard a wolf howling somewhere about a mile away. He tried to think whether or not he had forgotten his toothbrush. He seemed to remember it being on his dressing table when he left- unless that was his hairbrush. Either way, he had better go back to get it.
Once safe at home, of course, it was far too dark to set out again. He would leave tomorrow, he decided. Yes, that would be best. He sat down on his couch and ordered a box of chocolates. In the meantime, he could work out the technical difficulties of becoming a frog.
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73-I will give him a brain. And a name too. And an age also.
The prince had gone to school since the age of four and knew that the world was not round, like the old man had said. He had studied arithmetic, literature and geography. His father always told him he would be a brilliant king, absolutely brilliant, and he believed it. His tutors would often give remarks such as ‘Wonderful job, Ferdinand!’ or ‘Absolutely remarkable, Frank!’ Frank was his nickname, and he did not like anyone calling him anything but. Still, the wise man was pretty wise, so Frank decided he misewell believe him. The prince was not one to miss out on opportunities, so the boy went off into the woods, not exactly knowing where he was going, but he would get to the end of the world one way or another. And with that, the young prince, not even the age of 14, set off into the wilderness.
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This is weird. I think Jadestone’s right. Plus, if he’s pinned his hopes on a witch at the end of Crab Lane (70) then obviously he hasn’t pinned them on a fountain at the end of the world. No! I have it! I am going to shuffle some things around in my version, if no one minds. I don’t see why anyone should, I’m just rearranging things for my own pleasure.
Here’s the way I’ve put them:
60 (Robert)
62 (Pentatonikk.salir)
61 (Me)
66 (Jadestone)
70 (Paul Baker)
67 (Prarilius Canix)
71 (Cat’s Meow)
And you can forget about my post if you like, but you could also not. I don’t care one way or the other.
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Oops. 66 is by Robert, and after that comes 67, which is by Jadestone. Sorry.
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76- Um, don’t you think that’s a bit young? I was thinking more along the lines of seventeen.
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This isn’t working at all…fairy tales are hard!
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Frank had never walked very deep into the woods before. He’d gone to the unicorn pasture with his sister many times but that was in a clearing just a five minute walk from the edge of the croquet grounds. And there was a well-maintained path.
But now he was in what felt like the wilderness proper. He’d passed the unicorns about an hour ago. He was trying hard to make progress but he wasn’t getting very far. The brush was thick and tree roots kept tripping him up.
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re: Prince’s Brain: Erm…by giving the prince a brain, you should show how he’s more intelligent than a cabbage. Not just say he’s good at academics and such. We can develop his character and intelligence later on, yes?
77 (Alice)- I like your order.
Frank impatiently pulled aside a stubborn branch. He was beginning to wish that he’d brought along the sword his father was always after him to practice with. It might not have been much use, since he hated the thing and could barely hit anything with it, but it didn’t take much skill to whack blindly ahead.
Yank. Rip. Yank. Rip. Yank. Frank forged ahead, until suddenly there was nothing in front of him but a small green pool. Unprepared for this sudden freedom, he very nearly fell in and managed to save himself by grabbing onto a rock.
Which promptly unfolded under his fingers and bit him in one of the scratches he’d already gotten.
“You are grabbing a lady!” it screeched, in a rusty gravelly voice. “Where were you brought up, to have learned such manners?”
Frank was so surprised that he did fall into the water. It was cold and clear, and Frank swallowed a good deal of it before he surfaced. The lady who had spoken wasn’t, in fact, much of a lady. She had dark skin, riddled with pockmarks, a tattered dress, and messy grey hair. And she was about seven inches tall.
“You’re a rock fairy!” he said in surprise. Of all the thousands of rocks he could have grabbed in this horrible forest, it had to be a rock fairy.
“And you’re very rude and very lost, though I should hope that wasn’t your answer to my question,” said the fairy, crossing her spindly legs and sitting at the bank of the pool.
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“What question?” asked Frank, sucking his bitten finger.
“Where did you learn your manners?”
Frank shrugged. “My tutors, mostly. They didn’t have very good manners themselves.” He stood up, and the water only reached to his knees. Luckily for him, he was very used to being wet by now, or he might have to decided to go home right then and there. Remembering that frogs didn’t stand up, he sat down again. The rock fairy watched him with interest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m having trouble with picturing him now he’s got a name. Weird, I know, but it helped when I just called him the prince. Of, course, it doesn’t help that Donaldo the SAN said he was 13. I’m gonna stick with 17 in my head, okay?
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“You humans are quite unfathomable,” she observed. “A few minutes ago, you seemed eager to be somewhere else, though you weren’t getting there very efficiently. Now you’re not going much of anywhere at all. If you had more sense than most mortals, it might occur to you to ask directions from someone who has lived in these woods since pebbles were boulders and mounds were mountains. But I don’t suppose it will.”
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“Well, you see,” said Frank rather thoughtfully, “I don’t really know where I’m going myself.” He paused and thought for a bit about whether or not he should go about telling rock fairies, albeit slightly annoying ones, about his desires to become a frog. Sighing, he began to think that she might, after all, know how one goes about becoming a frog and it might be within his interest to tell her when she spoke up again.
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“It’s not my habit,” the rock fairy said, “to offer advice to those who almost certainly won’t benefit from it. I probably ought to wrap myself back up into a cobble and let you fend for yourself.” She frowned and rested a cheek on one of her blocky fists. “On the other hand, things have been dull around here for the past eon or so, and they say a good deed is never wasted. So.
“Off some ways in that direction,” she continued, gesturing with her chin, “stands a castle hewn of very high-quality red granite. Lovely stone; I watched it cool. A king and queen live there, doing whatever mortal kings and queens do.
“In that direction”–she gestured again–“the woods soon give way to low hill of pure glass, a geological anomaly, on top of which a dragon makes his home. I don’t know how he would react if you went there, but he’d probably eat you.
“Should you choose to remain in the woods, the only mortals you are likely to meet are a woodcutter and his daughter. At first I mistook you for one of them. Humans all look more or less alike to me.
“And apart from staying in that pond, which, of course, you’ve managed to find for yourself, I’d say that just about exhausts your options.”
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“What about that direction and that direction?” asked Frank, pointing to the only places that the rock fairy hadn’t gestured to.
“Well, both of those ways keep you in the woods for too long to actually constitute going out of it, but that way leads to a nice stone wall, been there for years, and the other way leads to the end of the world, or so I’ve been told. Of course,” she answered with a sniff, “everyone knows the world is round, so-” but whatever she said next was wasted on Frank, who was no longer there.
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Frank began walking in the direction of the rock fairie’s gesture, and was beginning to wonder if she was right. So far he’d not seen anthing, but then he decided not to complian, as the end of the world must be very far away. He walked and walked and found some interesting looking berries, which he promptly ate, not caring much as to whether they were poisonous or not. His tutors had never taught him much useful stuff, only latin and math which he knew very well, and how to answer questions of moral and to rule justly. It was all very boring in his mind. He occupied his time walking by thinking of everything that he could that began with either a, m, or q. He eventually came up with a very long list, until he was stopped by a very tall, and very ugly, monstrous beast.
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For conveniences sake, I’m putting what we have so far in the order Alice suggested in 77.
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far away, there lived a prince who — much to the consternation of his court and his subjects — wished with all his heart that he had been born a frog.
Once upon that same time, but in a land even farther away, there lived a young noblewoman who wanted nothing more than to become a scholar.
And again upon that time, because these things are always in threes, was a boy who could grant the wishes of the prince and the noblewoman, if only he knew he had the power.
The reason was this: one day, as he was wandering along the river bank, he saw a beautiful and quite mad girl, catching frogs and kissing them, then letting them go again. When he asked her why, she replied that she was hoping one would turn into a prince.
“Why,” said the prince, “I’m a prince! Look no further!” For he knew that his father’s best physicians could certainly cure her of her madness, and then they could be wed.
The girl looked him up and down, all the while being careful not to look behind him (he had said look no further, you know) but she shook her head and went back to catching frogs.
The experience made the Prince reflect that being a prince had a fair number of drawbacks. He had to spend his days eating food that wasn’t good for him, holding endless meetings and audiences with nobles who had nothing interesting to say for themselves, and governing people who didn’t much want to be governed. He also had to spend an inordinate amount of time grooming himself. Princes are required to be impeccably groomed. When he totaled up the number of hours a week he spent having his hair styled, his nails trimmed, and his clothes tailored and laundered and brushed and buffed, it made him want to scream. “Oh, for the life of a frog!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.
Actually, as he thought more and more on the subject, he bagan to realize just how much he didn’t want to be married, even. To think of all the planing and preperations that would be have to made for a wedding… and then spending so much time socializing and haveing those tedious, polite conversations with people he didn not care about and did not care about him. As a frog, why, he would only come out when he wanted. And he wouldn’t have to bother with washing and making himself presentable and untouchable. An end to those horrid social gatherings… Granted, eating bugs would take some time to get used to, but small children did it all the ime and didn’t seem any worse for wear.
Of course,. there was the inevitable anguish over what sort of frog. He didn’t fancy being a tree frog, for instance. Never could stand heights. And he himself employed foresters, whose job it was to keep the trees trimmed and tidy, and keep the rides open so that he and his cronies could go on jolly trips into the woods. What if they inadvertently trimmed him? The awful possibility suddenly dawned that among the forest’s log piles and compost heaps – effectively HIS log piles and compost heaps, although he’d never paid them any attention – there could lurk the sad remains of trimmed frogs. He’d have to have a word with the foresters. But what would he tell them? Watch out for small, green, highly camouflaged frogs and make sure they don’t get trimmed? Just how long would it take to do a comprehensive frog check? Were there actually any tree frogs in his dominions anyway? He seemed to remember they were sort of tropical. So that was all right, then. Maybe he should just cancel his regular order for bananas.
So, a pond-based frog, then. Living a life of sloth and decadence in one of the castle’s ornamental aquatic extravangances. Yes, but – ponds are wet. He wasn’t really very keen on wet. He was rather used to being carted round in a big carriage. The coachman got wet, but he didn’t. He’d never been really wet, apart from bath night, but that was all warm and regulated, and hot milk and biscuits were available. He thought of a blustery, wintry night, when the howling wind rattled the shutters and the rain made sloshing noises on the portico because he’d STILL forgotten to tell old Albert to fix the gutters. Then he thought of all the frogs in that chilly pond, plopping their heads underwater to avoid the rain, which seemed pretty futile. No, maybe he’d remain a prince a while longer, until he’d identified a less hostile froggy environment. Besides, he’d pinned his transmogrification hopes on the witch at the end of Crab Lane. Everyone always thought she was a witch, but last month she started claiming she was the reincarnation of an ancient Sumerian astrologer, and standing on her head for no apparent reason. They’d put her in an instituion, and she hadn’t escaped yet, so if she really was a witch, she couldn’t be very powerful. It didn’t bode well for the frog thing. On balance, thought the Prince, more consideration should be given to the matter. Further detailed planning was needed. He went off to find old Albert. At least the gutters were straightforward.
“Thank you!” the prince exclaimed, and he promptly ran off to grab his backpack.
“My dear son,” his deep-voiced father said solemly. “Where are you running in such a grand hurry?”
“I’m off on a quest,” the prince laughed. “I’m going to become a frog!”
Before his parents could answer he had strode out onto the drawbridge and away he went.
Wait. That lats sectiondoesn’t work. Where would 69 be? Hmm… before 71. And we can put Paul’s (69) after it, but 75 before that one. So it will be:
…Granted, eating bugs would take some time to get used to, but small children did it all the ime and didn’t seem any worse for wear.
Now that he had made up his mind about it, all that remained was for him to figure out how to do it. So, he summoned the wisest man in all the land to help him.
The man’s name was Julian Perjorius. He was ninety-one and had traveled to every place worth mentioning, several places not worth mentioning, and at least one place that shouldn’t be mentioned even if one wanted to.
“How can I become a frog?” the prince asked.
Julian Perjorius was flabbergasted. “Why would you want to?”
“Never mind that. Do you know how I can turn into a frog?”
Julian thought he could bluff his way out of this, which was a serious mistake. “Of course! There are several methods. But a prince’s life is infinitely better than that of a frog. You shouldn’t even want to be a frog.”
“Well, I do. How do I do it?”
Julian Perjorius’s bald pate turned bright red, and he fumbled with the many amulets hanging around his neck. “Er… er…”
“Well?”
Julian Perjorius, of course, had no idea. He seized one last hope: to send the prince so far away that Julian Perjorius himself would be gone when the royal heir found out that he was a fraud.
“At the end of the world, the seas pour off in a great waterfall. In that waterfall is a rocky outcrop that forms an island. On that island there is a forest. In that forest there is a ruined castle. In that castle is a well. Drink from that well, and you will turn into whatever you wish.”
Julian Perjorius knew that the world was round, but he also knew that princes’ tutors weren’t paid enough to be accurate.
“Thank you!” the prince exclaimed, and he promptly ran off to grab his backpack.
“My dear son,” his deep-voiced father said solemly. “Where are you running in such a grand hurry?”
“I’m off on a quest,” the prince laughed. “I’m going to become a frog!”
Before his parents could answer he had strode out onto the drawbridge and away he went.
He was about half an hour’s walk away from the castle when it began to get dark. He heard a wolf howling somewhere about a mile away. He tried to think whether or not he had forgotten his toothbrush. He seemed to remember it being on his dressing table when he left- unless that was his hairbrush. Either way, he had better go back to get it.
Once safe at home, of course, it was far too dark to set out again. He would leave tomorrow, he decided. Yes, that would be best. He sat down on his couch and ordered a box of chocolates. In the meantime, he could work out the technical difficulties of becoming a frog.
Of course,. there was the inevitable anguish over what sort of frog. He didn’t fancy being a tree frog, for instance… [followed by rest of pauls post, don’t want to put it in again].
Does that make sence? I don’t think I left anyone out. If there are any other bits plase add them in. I also think he should be 17.
88- Well, it apeared to be a hidious monster. So much so that he fell to the ground with a cry, sheilding his face with his arms so that when it leapt out at him, well, no use thinking about that. If only he had had his soard…well, it probably wouldn’t be much use actually, but it would give whoever found his body the impression that he had put up a fight. Much more nobel a way to die. Instead of ripped to shreads or eaten, as he was surely about to be…
But this was taking a rathe rlong time, wasn’t it? He peeked through his fingers. The monster stood there, impassively. He put his arm down. The monster still made no move. He got up, brushed some dirt off his trousers, and examened it. It was, in actuality, a gargoyle. A rather lifelike one, addmitedly, but nothing more than stone.
Was it? He warily eyed it, and kneeling he pulled a stick off the ground. He wasn’t going to risk touching it himself, no, he’d heared enough of the old bed time stories. He crept, advancing towards the beast. Or no-beast, or whatever the proper term was. He narowed his eyes, uickly prodded the thing, and leapt back with a gasp.
The gargoyle stood there. Still. He frowned. This is begining to become a slight waste of time… he thought to himself. Now what?
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Frank was interrupted from his contemplations of just what one should do in order to figure out if what apears to be a gargoyle actually is a gargoyle rather abruptly by two almost simultaneous events. The first was the rock fairy who, having seemingly recoverd from her bad mood after being left, hurtled into him at a rather fast speed shouting in a somewhat annoying high pitched voice. The second was that the seemingly still gargoyle yawned. Both of these things starlted Frank to the degree that he jumped quite a bit in the air, much to the annoyance of the rock fairy.
“Must you jump so? It’s rather bothersome… Where did you say you learned your manners from, again?”
“But, that gargoyle he… yawned!”
“Well, gargoyles get tired too, you know. Sitting in the same spot all day must be boring,” the rock fairy said while sticking her tounge out at the gargoyle who promptly stuck his out at her, “He’s my uncle, you know.”
“You’re UNCLE?!”
“Why yes, it’s not that unusual…”
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Personally, I wouldn’t mind my post being left out at all, if it made more sense. Here’s the most sensible order I’ve come up with so far:
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far away, there lived a prince who — much to the consternation of his court and his subjects — wished with all his heart that he had been born a frog.
Once upon that same time, but in a land even farther away, there lived a young noblewoman who wanted nothing more than to become a scholar.
And again upon that time, because these things are always in threes, was a boy who could grant the wishes of the prince and the noblewoman, if only he knew he had the power.
The experience made the Prince reflect that being a prince had a fair number of drawbacks. He had to spend his days eating food that wasn’t good for him, holding endless meetings and audiences with nobles who had nothing interesting to say for themselves, and governing people who didn’t much want to be governed. He also had to spend an inordinate amount of time grooming himself. Princes are required to be impeccably groomed. When he totaled up the number of hours a week he spent having his hair styled, his nails trimmed, and his clothes tailored and laundered and brushed and buffed, it made him want to scream. “Oh, for the life of a frog!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.
Actually, as he thought more and more on the subject, he bagan to realize just how much he didn’t want to be married, even. To think of all the planing and preperations that would be have to made for a wedding… and then spending so much time socializing and haveing those tedious, polite conversations with people he didn not care about and did not care about him. As a frog, why, he would only come out when he wanted. And he wouldn’t have to bother with washing and making himself presentable and untouchable. An end to those horrid social gatherings… Granted, eating bugs would take some time to get used to, but small children did it all the time and didn’t seem any worse for wear.
Of course,. there was the inevitable anguish over what sort of frog. He didn’t fancy being a tree frog, for instance. Never could stand heights. And he himself employed foresters, whose job it was to keep the trees trimmed and tidy, and keep the rides open so that he and his cronies could go on jolly trips into the woods. What if they inadvertently trimmed him? The awful possibility suddenly dawned that among the forest’s log piles and compost heaps – effectively HIS log piles and compost heaps, although he’d never paid them any attention – there could lurk the sad remains of trimmed frogs. He’d have to have a word with the foresters. But what would he tell them? Watch out for small, green, highly camouflaged frogs and make sure they don’t get trimmed? Just how long would it take to do a comprehensive frog check? Were there actually any tree frogs in his dominions anyway? He seemed to remember they were sort of tropical. So that was all right, then. Maybe he should just cancel his regular order for bananas.
So, a pond-based frog, then. Living a life of sloth and decadence in one of the castle’s ornamental aquatic extravangances. Yes, but – ponds are wet. He wasn’t really very keen on wet. He was rather used to being carted round in a big carriage. The coachman got wet, but he didn’t. He’d never been really wet, apart from bath night, but that was all warm and regulated, and hot milk and biscuits were available. He thought of a blustery, wintry night, when the howling wind rattled the shutters and the rain made sloshing noises on the portico because he’d STILL forgotten to tell old Albert to fix the gutters. Then he thought of all the frogs in that chilly pond, plopping their heads underwater to avoid the rain, which seemed pretty futile. No, maybe he’d remain a prince a while longer, until he’d identified a less hostile froggy environment. Besides, he’d pinned his transmogrification hopes on the witch at the end of Crab Lane. Everyone always thought she was a witch, but last month she started claiming she was the reincarnation of an ancient Sumerian astrologer, and standing on her head for no apparent reason. They’d put her in an instituion, and she hadn’t escaped yet, so if she really was a witch, she couldn’t be very powerful. It didn’t bode well for the frog thing. On balance, thought the Prince, more consideration should be given to the matter. Further detailed planning was needed. He went off to find old Albert. At least the gutters were straightforward.
Here I insert something I made up to make this next bit make more sense. It doesn’t much matter though, because all it says is that he practiced getting wet in the ponds in the castle garden.
Now that he had made up his mind about it, all that remained was for him to figure out how to do it. So, he summoned the wisest man in all the land to help him.
The man’s name was Julian Perjorius. He was ninety-one and had traveled to every place worth mentioning, several places not worth mentioning, and at least one place that shouldn’t be mentioned even if one wanted to.
“How can I become a frog?” the prince asked.
Julian Perjorius was flabbergasted. “Why would you want to?”
“Never mind that. Do you know how I can turn into a frog?”
Julian thought he could bluff his way out of this, which was a serious mistake. “Of course! There are several methods. But a prince’s life is infinitely better than that of a frog. You shouldn’t even want to be a frog.”
“Well, I do. How do I do it?”
Julian Perjorius’s bald pate turned bright red, and he fumbled with the many amulets hanging around his neck. “Er… er…”
“Well?”
Julian Perjorius, of course, had no idea. He seized one last hope: to send the prince so far away that Julian Perjorius himself would be gone when the royal heir found out that he was a fraud.
“At the end of the world, the seas pour off in a great waterfall. In that waterfall is a rocky outcrop that forms an island. On that island there is a forest. In that forest there is a ruined castle. In that castle is a well. Drink from that well, and you will turn into whatever you wish.”
Julian Perjorius knew that the world was round, but he also knew that princes’ tutors weren’t paid enough to be accurate.
“Thank you!” the prince exclaimed, and he promptly ran off to grab his backpack.
“My dear son,” his deep-voiced father said solemly. “Where are you running in such a grand hurry?”
“I’m off on a quest,” the prince laughed. “I’m going to become a frog!”
Before his parents could answer he had strode out onto the drawbridge and away he went.
You all know what comes next.
And now we can take it from Jadestone’s post about the monster.
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Er, e~a’s post.
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“They really don’t teach you much, Your Royal Wosserface, do they?” asked the fairy, settling herself on the shoulder of the gargoyle. “What are you doing here? Uncle, I’m old enough to take care of my own woods.”
The gargoyle made a sort of guttural hum. The fairy responded with a higher-pitched noise that sounded like a rock hitting a wall.
“My name is Frank,” said His Royal Wosserface, though he suspected this was rather irrelevant.
“And mine’s Jade. And his is Chartres. What’s your point?” Chartres grumbled.
“Er…nothing.”
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93- Do you mean Jade grumbled that?
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“You mortals are so confused,” said Jade, exasperated. “Not to mention rude.”
Frank considered answering as a frog would, but thought better of it and remained silent. So did Jade. So did Chartres.
After several very quiet minutes, Frank said, “I really must be continuing on my quest now. Thank you for the directions.” For he was determined to be polite after the Jade’s last comment on his manners.
“Oh, you’re on a quest,” said Jade. “Why didn’t you say so?”
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“Why, I’d love to come on a quest with you!” Jade exclaimed. “And so would Chartres.”
“Well, I wasn’t really asking you,” said the prince.
After an hour of arguing and debating, Chartres and Jade won out and so the prince was stuck with them till he became a frog.
Jade talked and talked for hours on end. Chartres remained silent, and took such tiny steps, Frank could barely see him move his feet, yet he still kept up with them.
“You want to be a frog?” asked Jade after a few hours.
“Did you just now realize that?” Frank asked, laughing.
“I know lots of people that could turn you into a frog. Well, there is that old witch in the gingerbread house, wait, no, she’d rather eat you. Oh! There’s the Wicked Witch of the West! No, no. She melted. Ooh! I know! Gandalf the White! Oh, wait. He is off fighting at Mordor. Well, I guess we will have to go to the end of the world like you say. I just wish-”
But Jade could not finish that sentence because at that moment, a wolf howled and a girl screamed. Prince Frank looked for the source of the noise and to his left, saw a little cottage, and in through the window, she saw a wolf running after a girl in a red cape.
—————————————————————————–
I thought it would be nice to throw some humor and other fairy tales in. I don’t think the girl in the red cape *red riding hood*hint hint* wink wink* needs to go on the quest with him, though, because we already have Jade and Chartres.
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Gandalf the White, huh?
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For a moment the Prince stared, dazed. Then something wriggled between his fingers, and he felt a weight in his right hand. He looked down to see the rock fairy crouching in his palm. “Throw me,” she said.
Frank blinked. “What?”
“Don’t just stand there gawking. This is an emergency. I’m a projectile. Throw me at the wolf!”
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Frank stared down, cunfused. Jade gave an exasperated sigh, leaned over, and bit him on the thumb.
YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAGHHHHHHH!!!!!! Frank howled. The pain in his hand was so intence he jerked, and the rock-fairy went hurtling out of his hand and stright at the wolf. With a solid thunk, she colided with it’s head and it dropped to the ground, stuned. Frank was still holding his offended finger. Chartres was making an odd grumbling noise Franl dimly thought was indegestion, but slowly realized was laughter. Jade sat up near the wolfs head, looking rather pleased with herself.
“Huh.” She said. “It worked.”
Frank glared at her. “You mean you might have nearly maimed me for nothing?!”
“I didn’t maim you.” She aid distractedly. “It’s hardly even bleeding that much.”
Frank glared at her. Chartres continued making sounds like grinding rocks. Jade brushed off her grey clothing, and glanced around. “Where’d the girl go?” She aked. The girl with the red cloack was no where to be seen.
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Frank shrugged and threw the fairy at the wolf. Partly because of his shrug, and partly because he wasn’t a very good shot, Jade did not hit the wolf on the head, as the Prince had rather hoped she would, but bounced off the hairy back of the large gray canine, who looked surprised and stopped chasing the little girl.
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Oops, let’s stick with Jadestone’s post. It came first, and it’s longer.
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Two different continuations arrived independently. Which shall it be? Knocked-out wolf and vanished Red, or fully conscious wolf pausing in mid-chase?
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Err… well that’s inconvientient. The wolf in mine could wake up, he was only stuned.
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No, that’s fine. Your version advances the action more.
Now, what about LRRH’s grandmother? Presumably the wolf has already swallowed her.
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I don’t mind if we just use Jadestone’s. Really.
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Quite abruptly, the wolf sat up and shook its head dazedly. He blinked several times, then muttered to himself “I really must stop going ’round eating pigs and old grannies. It seems to be going to my head.” He shook his head again and staggered to his feet. He attempted to step forward and swayed dangerously.
After a moment he sat down with a bit of a thump.
At this point, Frank let out a very un-princely squeak. He wasn’t sure whether it was because he was terrified out of his wits or because the wolf was so confused. Either way, the wolf heard him and looked up. Understanding dawned in the wolf’s eyes.
“Oh,” said the wolf, “that’s why I fell over. Good t’ know it’s not that granny I ate.” At this, Jade could restrain herself no longer and burst into annoyingly high-pitched laughter. “Anyway, the name’s Greg, but my friends call me the BBW, or big bad wolf.” The wolf thought for a moment, then added “O’ course, everybody calls me the BBW. But you can call me Greg. Or not. And what are you doing, little scarecrow thing, with a rock fairy and a gargoyle?”
“I’m on a quest…” proclaimed the prince.
“Ar, a quest is it?” said the wolf, with a longing glint in his eye.
“… To become a toad!” finished Frank.
“…Always wanted to go on a quest, but, well, we BBWs, we’re not really the questin’ types, are we? Still, it’d be fun to- Become a FROG!?” The wolf suddenly registered the prince’s rather backward goal. “Er… no offense ‘r anythin’, little princeling, but don’t frog princes usually mope around wantin’ to beome HUMAN again?” He eyed Frank quizzically. “Or have things changed since I was exiled for the murder of the Three Pig Brothers?”
Frank sighed wearily. “Look, I want to be a frog, ok? Go… chase the little redhead girl… or redhood girl, or whatever… Nice meetin’ you!” Chartres, Jade and Frank turned to go. Greg stared after them for a while, then looked over in the direction of the redhood girl. After a moment he shrugged and started following the crazy prince and his friends. They probably made better company than the three bears and the occasional law enforcement officer.
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er… i mean, “‘…To become a frog!’ finished Frank.” Not “‘…To become a toad!’ finished Frank.” Sorry… It’s late…
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Wow, you miss two days and look what happens.
Frank was slightly nervous about being followed by a convicted murderer, though Greg reassured him the psychological therapy he had undergone during prison helped him become a complete vegetarian; inquiries into his pursuance of the girl in the red hood and his comment about eating the granny were explained with a shrug and a mutterance of “Little relapse, nothing to worry about. Just for fun. Old habits die hard, you know.”
As the unconventional group headed deeper into the woods, the Prince had the mounting feeling that there was a sinister mood among the local flora and fauna. All the trees were gnarled, and there was not a bird in sight.
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97-Yes. I thought Gandalf the Gray became Gandalf the White. Correct me if I am wrong.
——————————————————————————-
“He’s following us,” Jade mumbled to Frank.
“You’re paranoid,” said the prince. “He’s friendly.
“Whatever,” said the rock fairy, rolling her eyes. “But I will keep a watch on him, just in case he tries to pull any moves. And I AM NOT PARANOID!”
A long time passed before the group came along anything else especially exciting. The wolf was still following them when they came to a huge green wall. No, it was not huge. It was gigantic! Enormous! Ginormous!
“I guess we have to walk around,” said Frank. And so they started walking, and walking, and walking, and walking. What is this place? the Prince thought. He could hear quiet music playing on the other side of the wall, but as far as he could tell, there was no way in.
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Oops. Sorry. Which one should we go with? Julieb or me? I don’t care one way or the other. We could have both, but they sort of contradict each other.
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Frank decided that it may be best to learn a bit more about their newly found companion.
“so… What do you like to do besides eating people?” he asked the wolf.
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109- Yeah, he did. It’s just amusing that he makes his way into this story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greg thought for a while. And thought. And thought. Since he couldn’t think and walk at the same time, he had to sit down, which slowed the pace of the little procession amazingly.
After what was probably fifteen minutes had passed, and Frank was beginning to think of moving on, Greg stood up. “I like to write novels,” he said.
“Novels?!” said the prince, understandably shocked. “You like to write novels!”
“Well, yes,” replied Greg, embarrassed. “I don’t like to talk about it. It’s not a very good profession for a wolf.”
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“What kind of novels?” asked the prince.
“Romance novels. A few sci-fi here and there. I also wrote a book about a boy named Harold Patter who learns he’s a wizard and goes to Pigpimples School of Wizardy and Witchcraft where he has to battle an evil wizard that tried to kill him when he was born. It was going to be a 10 book series, but someone stole my idea. I think her name was J.K. Prowling or something like that.”
Frank could not believe his ears. Jade was rolling over with laughter and Chartres was making his little indigestion snickers.
The wolf, at seeing this, grabbed Jade, and roared, “Tell no one! If you do, I will eat you.”
“And I will make you sick!” Jade retorted, and then she started crying.
“Oh, I am sorry! I didn’t try to be mean!” said the wolf, who broke down in tears. Frank thought it was very strange for a murderer to break down in tears because he was being mean.
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He also thought it was very odd for Jade to cry because she was threatened with being eaten. He scratched his head and thought about this, while the rock fairy and the wolf continued to sob.
The prince suddenly had a very good idea. “Have you ever published any of your books?” he asked (loudly, for Jade and Greg were making quite a din at this point.)
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Thw wolf looked a bit sheepish here, which was rather odd. Perhaps that had been the origen of the phrase ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’ Frank thought as the wolf mumbled. “Please, speak up.” He said over Jade’s sniffles.
“We-ell, technicly, no.” The wolf finally repled. “The whols publishin’ buisnss sort of scared me off… seemed like a bit to much work…”
(((I was thinking about having us see Red again, and her husband Robin Hood (note the shared surname) but things are going better without them it apears. Perhaps later on in the story when we run out of plot.)))
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Red’s like seven! Her husband? But then again, Snow White was seven too.
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“You’re a wolf,” said the prince incredulously. “And publishing ‘scared you off’?” Greg was obviously touchy about it though because he snarled at Frank, showing all his not at all white teeth.
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Jade regained some measure of composure at last, perching herself on Chartres’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said, giggling, “but you’re terribly funny for a wolf. Most of them just like biting rocks. It gets dull after a while.”
“Why does that make me funny?” asked Greg, turning his teeth towards Jade. But she continued laughing and didn’t answer.
“Don’t worry about her,” Frank advised the wolf. “She makes a big deal out of manners, but she’s quite rude herself.”
One of Jade’s tiny fingers detached itself from her hand and flew at Frank’s head. “Watch the way you talk, boy,” she said, still laughing. “Ah, gods, I love mortals.” The finger gave Frank one more poke for good measure, then returned itself to Jade. Frank stared at the little fairy. Was she supposed to be able to do that?
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He didn’t receive an answer to his questions but was forced to be satisfied by a diagreeable “You’re looking at me funny again!” that came from Jade during a pause in her continuing giggles.
Frank sighed and, as his curiousity was peaked by the wolf’s book writing process, began to ask more questions. Greg answered, shyly at first, but soon he and Frank were chattering away to each other the main chatterer being Greg who kept relating plots of novels to Frank who continued to encourage him to publish them. Jade and Chartres followed behind them.
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But after a few days of rounding the green wall, Frank realized they must have been going in circles, and he was all worn out.
“What are we going to do, guys? I can still hear people on the inside, but this wall is solid.
He sat down against a tree, and suddenly the tree shifted and groaned.
“Who wants to enter the wonderful, amazing, terrific, fantastic, et cetera, blah blah, yada yada yada Emerald City?” The tree asked, sounding very tired, and very annoyed.
Jade opened her eyes wide. “EMERALD CITY? This is the Emerald City? No way! WE DO! WE DO!” said Jade, her eyes sparkling.
“Well, actually, we were just trying to find our way to-” Frank began, but Jade cut him off: “SHUT UP, SIR WOSSYFACE! Of course, noble tree, we would like to go in.”
“OK, just get a move on. I can only hold the gates open so long,” said the tree guard.
With that, the tree leaned back and a gate opened right in the green wall, and the four went in, Jade on cloud nine(literally, on a cloud with the number nine on it), Frank a little confused, Chartres as silent as ever, and the Wolf, who just followed the others quietly.
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120 (Donaldo)- Don’t you think we should be trying to make this as original as possible, with only elements from real fairy tales? Lifting a whole setting from another book seems awfully like something Christopher Paolini would do uncreative.
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I think I’ll try to add some mystique presently. But not at the moment.
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I notice that stopped things dead. I would write, but I don’t CARE about the Emerald City, and I don’t see how I’m going to make it quite as, well, magical as I was hoping. The Emerald City was only emerald ’cause of green eye-goggles.
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Nah, hang on, I got an idea.
~~~~~~~~
As soon as they entered the “Emerald City”, the little cloud under Jade dissolved and she fell to the ground like, well, like a stone.
Frank, on the other hand, was enchanted.
The Emerald City wasn’t a bustling town, it was- much to Jade’s disappointment- full of trees. It was indeed emerald, as the sunlight filtering through the leaves stained everything a soft green. Among the trees, little houses stood, not blending in, but somehow fitting with the surrounding forest. And a soft music came from these houses, rising up to almost visible notes in the still green air.
~~~~~~~~
Sorry, I wanted something less urban than a city.
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Ok… I don’t really know if it fits in with the story, but we can try to make it work…
A disgruntled looking little person in green greeting them with a bored “Welcome to the Emerald City. Please keep to the right at all times. All visitors are asked to please wear the mandatory goggles at all times and to follow the yellow concrete pathway.” The group was handed ugly green tinted laboratory goggles. In response to the puzzeled expressions, the greeter shrugged and said “Budget cuts.”
On reflection, this might not help either.
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Oh, scratch that. I like Alice’s.
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Sorry- I am just a huge fan of Wizard of Oz. And we have already mixed in other fairy tales, so I thought, why not? So to speed things up a bit, I will add something here.
The group came to a huge tree with a door in it and a sign saying “MUSEUM” on it. The four decided to go in and began to look around. Inside, there were many things in glass cases, from a witch’s black hat and broom to a pair of silver slippers. Frank and the wolf looked upon in awe. The prince had heard several stories of the Emerald City, but never knew they were true. Jade, however, rolled her eyes and yawned, obviously not wanting to be here, while Chartres remained unmoved.
The group spun around when they heard a woman scream. And then a short little man came into the room and ran for the pair of silver slippers. He was about to break the glass surrounding them, when he said, in a high-pitched squeaky voice to Frank and the other three, “Don’t move or else I’ll shoot,” which was very strange considering that he had no gun.
PLEASE DO NOT tell me I am GETTING OFF SUBJECT! We can make this work! Trust me! It will go along with the plot! I am not trying to make any subplots! And PLEASE DO NOT make this new character go along with the group because we already have a convicted murderer traveling.
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Frank blinked for a moment then glanced over at Greg, who was, after all, a bit of an expert on criminals.
Greg shrugged and muttered “don’t make any sudden movements. Remember, robbers are more afraid of you then you are of them.”
“Are you quite sure that isn’t bears?” Frank asked as the robber bellowed his protest.
“I AM NOT! AND IF YOU DON’T STOP RUINING MY SUPERB RECORD FOR ROBBING MUSEUMS, I WILL SHOOT-” at this point, Greg jumped forward and covered the little man’s mouth.
“Might be difficult, shooting without a gun, eh?” he asked. The little man glared at him. “Also,” he continued, “when robbing a museum full of unarmed, innocent bystanders, it’s usually more productive to just STEAL the object, instead of shouting at said innocent bystanders while the law-enforcement officers get to the scene of said crime.” As Greg finished his rather lengthy speach, the police came.
“Well done, Mr… uh… BBW, sir,” the chief police said. “We’ve been tailin’ this ‘un since, oh, say round about September, I believe. ‘Mr. Sneec ‘ere is wanted for robbery, theft, stealin’, takin’ without permission, “borrowing” without returnin’, conning people out o’ their well earned money by nailing dead parrots to their cages and sellin’ ‘um, and running around in a spanish inquisitor costume. Here’s your $3,000 reward for assistin’ in the capture of this ‘ere dangerous fugitive.” The chief police tossed a bag of money to Greg, who tossed it to Frank. The police escorted Mr. Sneec to the Emerald City Jail, where he would be tied to a dishwasher rack and then spend a whole month in the dreaded “compfy chair.”
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post, people!
After the episode with Mr. Sneec, the four companions continued on their way through the Emerald City.
“When are we leaving?” asked Jade after a while. Frank shrugged. They walked on for a few minutes. “When are we leaving?” Jade asked again.
“And how?” added the wolf, who was thinking about the apparent lack of gates on the outer wall.
Frank shrugged again. Chartres, as usual, said nothing, but took on a slightly worried expression. So, on they went, Jade asking when they were leaving roughly every two minutes.
Frank started to get bored, though, and so decided that they should talk to whoever was in charge and find out just where they were.
After asking around a bit, they came to a largish sort of tree with ADMINISTRATION scrawled over the door in purple chalk.
They walked into the tree, where several secrataries sat reading thick stacks of paper. Jade marched up to the Head Secratary, who sat at a larger desk than everyone else, and asked to see the Mayor, or King, or whoever ran the Emerald City.
“Speaking.” said the Head Secratary (who was really the Mayor). “What do you want?”
Jade opened her mouth to speak but Frank stepped forward and cut her off. “We want to know where we are,” he said, “how to get out, and what happened to the REAL Emerald City, with the Witches, ‘n’ all.”
“Well firstly,” replied the Mayor, “you’re in the Emerald City, or at least what’s left of it. All the gates have been blocked, so the only way out is to use the old broom in the Museum, but no one can work it, so that might be difficult. See, the Emerald City fell into disrepair after the death of the Wicked Witch of the West and the departure of the Wizard. It was given back to nature and the rest is history.”
“We have to FLY to get out of here?” cried Greg, who was afraid of heights, though he didn’t like to admit it.
“‘Fraid so,” said the Mayor, simpathetically. “Feel free to try the broom, though I doubt it’ll fly for you. Legend has it that the Witch enchanted it as she was melting so no one but her murderer and the murderer’s decendants, but that could just be talk, and the broom is just stuborn.” The Mayor shrugged and the four unhappy travelers turned to go back to the Museum.
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T.N.O.-I just read your letter in the latest Muse mag. HILARIOUS! And great plot twist also. I don’t have any ideas right now, but I will get some soon. DARN YOU WRITER’S BLOCK!
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which mag?
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I am rather detached, due to my lack of interest in the story. Which is why I didn’t write.
Fractured fairy tales are all very well, but I’m disappointed with the lack of fairy-tale-ness.
It’s still amusing, but expect a lot fewer posts from me.
I really, really, don’t mean to be rude. I will still write.
Whatever happened to Snagglejaw? He had humorous potential, IMO, and he lived on a glass hill. But I’m biased. Don’t mind me.
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131- meaning which issue, of course, not “which mag?” literally.
132- hm. Maybe Snagglejaw could come into the story after they get out of the Emerald City. And not all fractured fairytales are fariytale-ish. Think of Wicked.
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I have never read Wicked, and I don’t really want to, quite frankly. But anyway, that is totally off topic. Sorry.
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Well anyway, the point is, not all fractured fairy tales are like actual fairy tales. and you should seriously read Wicked. It’s really good.
133- nevermind, i got it today. 
Yes, this thread is getting rather off-topic. Come on people! more on Frank and his motley crew before I spontaneously combust!
:idea:TNÖ:idea:
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I would, but I can’t stand the lack of “magic.” It’s so modernized. 
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There can be magic-just add it in. We can have MAGIC if you want. That is the point of a fairy tale. To have fairies and magic!!!
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I know I should add it in. And I will. But that wasn’t really what I meant. God, what did I mean? I don’t really know how to explain it- either you understand, or you don’t. If you don’t, then lucky you, because you will be perfectly satisfied with this story. If you do, then like me, you will not be satisfied with this story. That’s all there is to it. I would try to explain, but it might seem like complaining.
But since I am writing a fairy tale that fits that description (spiteful fairies, -though Jade is actually not one of my problems with this story- lots of fairy-tale magic, exciting, magical, phrases like West of West) so I should abandon myself to this modernized version.
Sorry ’bout the rant. I just had to say that.
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In my opinion, it went wrong at post 96, where we introduced the wolf and Red. It may have been because at that point we’d been kind of free-forming; it had scraps of other fairy tales, but no characters from them. And it got worse when the Emerald City came in. Same reason.
Yay, I finally articulated my problem!
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Well, whatever Frank walked into, he can walk out of. Or fly.
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138- I think I get what you’re saying… Maybe. Are you trying to say that there isn’t a magical enough feel to this story? Or something else? Or are you just interpreting your displeasure with the Emerald City and the wolf as displeasure with the lack of innate magical-ness?
139- yay! stating the problem is the first step! very good!
140- quite right! The EC isn’t a permanent setting, remember. ^_^
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141- Yes. In a way, there isn’t a magical enough feel right now. The Emerald City is very urban.
I’ll get them out because I’m not so very fond of the Emerald City. (No offense; it just doesn’t feel quite right.)
~~~~~~~~~
“You know,” said Greg as they approached the broom closet, “I quite like it here. I think I may stay a while.”
“Coward,” said Jade, and she stuck her tongue out at him.
“No, really,” said Greg.
Frank shrugged. “Whatever you say.” In actuality, he was very happy to get rid of his band of followers and continue on his quest, though he was too polite to say so. He felt rather sidetracked. The end of the world was a long way away, and though his companions were nice enough, and the citizens of the Emerald City were friendly and helpful, he was feeling his desire to be a frog loom large.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, that’s the other problem. Frank wants to be a frog, which nobody seems to remember.
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Maybe it’s time for Frank to meet a few frogs.
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142-You are right. I think we should edit it out in the final story. I think it started out OK, but it got worse and worse. I don’t like it much either.
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Yeah. That’s what I keep having to reminding myself: It’ll come out right in the end.
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But now for something completely different:
Meanwhile, back at the castle, the Queen was quite out of sorts.
“It’s OUTRAGEOUS,” she boomed. “A quest? At his age? Anything could happen to him. Why, at this very moment he could be lying by the roadside with his throat cut by brigands.”
“Now, Hortense,” the King replied mildly. “I’m sure nothing like that has happened.”
They were in their after-dinner throne room. The jesters and minstrels, sensing that their presence was not needed, had tiptoed off to bed about half an hour earlier. Nearby, in a low chair, Frank’s younger sister, the Princess Araminta (“Minty” to her parents when she was in their good graces, which at the moment she was not, and “Minch” to Frank when they were trying to annoy each other, which was most of the time), sat frowning into her tatting. “Oh, no,” she said half to herself. “I’m sure he’ll come hopping back home just in time for breakfast.”
“This is not a matter for jokes,” the Queen snapped. “Your brother is the heir to the throne. Who will rule the kingdom if anything should happen to him?”
Araminta tatted another stitch. She hated tatting. “I’ll rule,” she said quietly.
“And of all things, a FROG,” the Queen continued. “It’s unheard of. Why couldn’t he do something conventional–swap places with a commoner, or run away to sea, or turn Turk, or something? Why this fixation on becoming a cold, slimy amphibian?”
“No comment,” Araminta muttered.
“There’s nothing at all to worry about,” the King replied, forcing a smile. “This sort of thing happens all the time. Why, most young men at some point go through a fascination with herpetology. At his age I myself–” The sentence withered under the Queen’s glare. “Well, no, I never did. But it will pass, I’m sure of it.”
The Queen clapped her hands together. “I’ll not have it,” she said. “Such irresponsible behavior must not be tolerated. Tomorrow at first light we shall send out as many horsemen as we can muster to fetch the prince back to the castle and teach him to do his duty.”
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Ohmygod! You used the name Araminta! That’s one of my favorite names ever!
And my usual sign-off sentence when I’m on a RRR:
I’ll write later.
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(People seemed to be getting tired of the old storyline, so I thought I’d give you all the option of starting over with new characters and a new story: Araminta’s quest to find her frog-mad brother. You can ignore it if you like, or treat it as an additional plot complication, or shift focus — whatever best suits your purposes.)
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Darn it! I think we should use it as another part of the plot, backtrack through Frank’s quest to before the Emerald City (maybe even before the wolf), and send him in a different direction, and Araminta after him.
Who’s with me? I know it would be a major change, but I think it would work better with the original feel of the story.
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Oh, and the “darn it” was because I have no inspiration.
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149 (Alice)- That sounds good to me. And I will write, when I don’t have heaps of homework.
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Frank is on his broomstick now and could end up anywhere. Why don’t you put him on hold for a while and let him relate his adventures when Araminta finally catches up to him?
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Good idea.
~~~~~~~~~~
In the dead of night, Araminta slid out of bed and dressed in the dark, afraid to light a candle lest she wake someone. She tiptoed out of her bedchamber and through the cold and stony halls. The proper way to go about it would have been to tear up her sheets and make a rope out of them, but then it would have taken far too long to leave, and likely she would have been discovered and given new sheets, and have to start all over again.
~~~~~~~~~~
Not much, but it’ll work. I’m going to go edit Frank’s adventures to my satisfaction now. Everyone must realize that my version is the one that I will be happy with, and not the official story.
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When Aramint came to a thick wooden door, she opened it carefully and silently. Normally doors like this would creek as they were opened, alerting everyone to her presence, but the old librarian, Robert, kept it in good shape. He was her favorite out of the castle staff, and she often came to the library when she couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t tell her parents, and maybe he could help her find a way out and to her brother.
***
Named for Coontz-san, of cource. And if we don’t like the whole ‘Emerald city and wolf’ but, then how about we have him in the dragons, Snagglejaws, cave, and the dragon is watching him dream? The dragon could be on a diet so he didn’t want to eat him, but you can’t just let mortals you find go. So they’re all sitting in the clearing with Jade and Chartress, who upon waking are none to happy that they’ve fallen under the spell too, as they’re not mortals and it shouldn’t have affected them. Then I don’t know what. It’s a way to make the story more… whatever, the thing Alice wanted without cutting a whoe lot out.
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154- That’s a good idea. I had to cut a whole lot out in my version, but that’d make everything much better. It’s apt to look patchy until we edit it, but we could smooth it out when we do the aforesaid.
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154- good idea!
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154-Great idea! And Alice-cut out stuff as much as you want!
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Okay, Donaldo! : D : D : D
I’m taking out the Emerald City and maybe the wolf, but I’m leaving in the woods and the green wall, since I like those. I’m going to have to insert a few sentences of mine in to make everything work. When the story is over we can compare my version to everyone else’s and it’ll be amusing.
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Although I do like Greg. Maybe it’s just me (and I do know I have a sort of biased opinion), but I’d really hate to see him go. Perhaps we could substitute a fox, or wild cat, or something. Or not. Y’know?
:idea:TNO:idea:
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It’s not that I don’t like Greg, it’s that this story became very modernized. Here is what I dislike about him and the Emerald City. And Jade. Don’t kill me.
Greg:
Novels. I know I put that part in, but novels don’t really fit with my opinion of this story.
A convicted murderer. Please no. Save that for something else.
Psychological therapy? A vegetarian? A ) it’s too modern. B ) Ever seen Missoula Children’s Theater? The. Worst. Thing. Ever.
And that about sums it up. Too modern.
Emerald City:
Once again, too modern. Museums, guns, the like.
It’s from the Wizard of Oz, which honestly doesn’t count IMO.
Monty Python references. Funny anywhere else, but not here. Plus, I can’t really appreciate the Spanish inquisition skit since I didn’t see that one, only heard about it from my little sister.
Jade:
My few problems with Jade are connected to the aforesaid Emerald City and Greg, for about the same reasons.
I’m going to post my whole version so far here to see what everyone thinks. I don’t think we need to take Greg out, just redo him.
Anyway, here it is:
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far away, there lived a prince who — much to the consternation of his court and his subjects — wished with all his heart that he had been born a frog.
Once upon that same time, but in a land even farther away, there lived a young noblewoman who wanted nothing more than to become a scholar.
And again upon that time, because these things are always in threes, was a boy who could grant the wishes of the prince and the noblewoman, if only he knew he had the power.
The reason the prince wanted to be a frog was this: one day, as he was wandering along the river bank, he saw a beautiful and quite mad girl, catching frogs and kissing them, then letting them go again. When he asked her why, she replied that she was hoping one would turn into a prince.
“Why,” said the prince, “I’m a prince! Look no further!” For he knew that his father’s best physicians could certainly cure her of her madness, and then they could be wed.
The girl looked him up and down, all the while being careful not to look behind him (he had said look no further, you know) but she shook her head and went back to catching frogs.
The experience made the Prince reflect that being a prince had a fair number of drawbacks. He had to spend his days eating food that wasn’t good for him, holding endless meetings and audiences with nobles who had nothing interesting to say for themselves, and governing people who didn’t much want to be governed. He also had to spend an inordinate amount of time grooming himself. Princes are required to be impeccably groomed. When he totaled up the number of hours a week he spent having his hair styled, his nails trimmed, and his clothes tailored and laundered and brushed and buffed, it made him want to scream. “Oh, for the life of a frog!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.
Actually, as he thought more and more on the subject, he began to realize just how much he didn’t want to be married, even. To think of all the planning and preparations that would be have to made for a wedding… and then spending so much time socializing and having those tedious, polite conversations with people he did not care about and did not care about him. As a frog, why, he would only come out when he wanted. And he wouldn’t have to bother with washing and making himself presentable and untouchable. An end to those horrid social gatherings… Granted, eating bugs would take some time to get used to, but small children did it all the time and didn’t seem any worse for wear.
Of course, there was the inevitable anguish over what sort of frog. He didn’t fancy being a tree frog, for instance. Never could stand heights. And he himself employed foresters, whose job it was to keep the trees trimmed and tidy, and keep the rides open so that he and his cronies could go on jolly trips into the woods. What if they inadvertently trimmed him? The awful possibility suddenly dawned that among the forest’s log piles and compost heaps – effectively HIS log piles and compost heaps, although he’d never paid them any attention – there could lurk the sad remains of trimmed frogs. He’d have to have a word with the foresters. But what would he tell them? Watch out for small, green, highly camouflaged frogs and make sure they don’t get trimmed? Just how long would it take to do a comprehensive frog check? Were there actually any tree frogs in his dominions anyway? He seemed to remember they were sort of tropical. So that was all right, then. Maybe he should just cancel his regular order for bananas.
So, a pond-based frog, then. Living a life of sloth and decadence in one of the castle’s ornamental aquatic extravagances. Yes, but – ponds are wet. He wasn’t really very keen on wet. He was rather used to being carted round in a big carriage. The coachman got wet, but he didn’t. He’d never been really wet, apart from bath night, but that was all warm and regulated, and hot milk and biscuits were available. He thought of a blustery, wintry night, when the howling wind rattled the shutters and the rain made sloshing noises on the portico because he’d STILL forgotten to tell old Albert to fix the gutters. Then he thought of all the frogs in that chilly pond, plopping their heads underwater to avoid the rain, which seemed pretty futile. No, maybe he’d remain a prince a while longer, until he’d identified a less hostile froggy environment. Besides, he’d pinned his transmogrification hopes on the witch at the end of Crab Lane. Everyone always thought she was a witch, but last month she started claiming she was the reincarnation of an ancient Sumerian astrologer, and standing on her head for no apparent reason. They’d put her in an institution, and she hadn’t escaped yet, so if she really was a witch, she couldn’t be very powerful. It didn’t bode well for the frog thing. On balance, thought the Prince, more consideration should be given to the matter. Further detailed planning was needed. He went off to find old Albert. At least the gutters were straightforward.
Over the next few days he took to splashing in the ponds, confusing the under-gardeners, frightening his parents, and disturbing the real frogs, until he thought that he could make it as a frog.
Now that he had made up his mind about it, all that remained was for him to figure out how to do it. So, he summoned the wisest man in all the land to help him.
The man’s name was Julian Perjorius. He was ninety-one and had traveled to every place worth mentioning, several places not worth mentioning, and at least one place that shouldn’t be mentioned even if one wanted to.
“How can I become a frog?” the prince asked.
Julian Perjorius was flabbergasted. “Why would you want to?”
“Never mind that. Do you know how I can turn into a frog?”
Julian thought he could bluff his way out of this, which was a serious mistake. “Of course! There are several methods. But a prince’s life is infinitely better than that of a frog. You shouldn’t even want to be a frog.”
“Well, I do. How do I do it?”
Julian Perjorius’s bald pate turned bright red, and he fumbled with the many amulets hanging around his neck. “Er… er…”
“Well?”
Julian Perjorius, of course, had no idea. He seized one last hope: to send the prince so far away that Julian Perjorius himself would be gone when the royal heir found out that he was a fraud.
“At the end of the world, the seas pour off in a great waterfall. In that waterfall is a rocky outcrop that forms an island. On that island there is a forest. In that forest there is a ruined castle. In that castle is a well. Drink from that well, and you will turn into whatever you wish.”
Julian Perjorius knew that the world was round, but he also knew that princes’ tutors weren’t paid enough to be accurate.
“Thank you!” the prince exclaimed, and he promptly ran off to grab his satchel.
“My dear son,” his deep-voiced father said solemnly. “Where are you running in such a grand hurry?”
“I’m off on a quest,” the prince laughed. “I’m going to become a frog!”
Before his parents could answer he had strode out onto the drawbridge and away he went.
The prince had gone to school since the age of five and knew that the world was not round, like the old man had said. He had studied arithmetic, literature and geography. His father always told him he would be a brilliant king, absolutely brilliant, and he believed it. His tutors would often give remarks such as ‘Wonderful job, Ferdinand!’ or ‘Absolutely remarkable, Frank!’ Frank was his nickname, and he did not like anyone calling him anything but. Still, the wise man was pretty wise, so Frank decided he might as well believe him. The prince was not one to miss out on opportunities, so he went off into the woods, not exactly knowing where he was going, but he would get to the end of the world one way or another. And with that, the prince set off into the wilderness.
Frank had never walked very deep into the woods before. He’d gone to the unicorn pasture with his sister many times but that was in a clearing just a five minute walk from the edge of the croquet grounds. And there was a well-maintained path.
But now he was in what felt like the wilderness proper. He’d passed the unicorns about an hour ago. He was trying hard to make progress but he wasn’t getting very far. The brush was thick and tree roots kept tripping him up.
Frank impatiently pulled aside a stubborn branch. He was beginning to wish that he’d brought along the sword his father was always after him to practice with. It might not have been much use, since he hated the thing and could barely hit anything with it, but it didn’t take much skill to whack blindly ahead.
Yank. Rip. Yank. Rip. Yank. Frank forged ahead, until suddenly there was nothing in front of him but a small green pool. Unprepared for this sudden freedom, he very nearly fell in and managed to save himself by grabbing onto a rock.
Which promptly unfolded under his fingers and bit him in one of the scratches he’d already gotten.
“You are grabbing a lady!” it screeched, in a rusty gravelly voice. “Where were you brought up, to have learned such manners?”
Frank was so surprised that he did fall into the water. It was cold and clear, and Frank swallowed a good deal of it before he surfaced. The lady who had spoken wasn’t, in fact, much of a lady. She had dark skin, riddled with pockmarks, a tattered dress, and messy grey hair. And she was about seven inches tall.
“You’re a rock fairy!” he said in surprise. Of all the thousands of rocks he could have grabbed in this horrible forest, it had to be a rock fairy.
“And you’re very rude and very lost, though I should hope that wasn’t your answer to my question,” said the fairy, crossing her spindly legs and sitting at the bank of the pool.
“What question?” asked Frank, sucking his bitten finger.
“Where did you learn your manners?”
Frank shrugged. “My tutors, mostly. They didn’t have very good manners themselves.” He stood up, and the water only reached to his knees. Luckily for him, he was very used to being wet by now, or he might have to decided to go home right then and there. Remembering that frogs didn’t stand up, he sat down again. The rock fairy watched him with interest.
“You humans are quite unfathomable,” she observed. “A few minutes ago, you seemed eager to be somewhere else, though you weren’t getting there very efficiently. Now you’re not going much of anywhere at all. If you had more sense than most mortals, it might occur to you to ask directions from someone who has lived in these woods since pebbles were boulders and mounds were mountains. But I don’t suppose it will.”
“Well, you see,” said Frank rather thoughtfully, “I don’t really know where I’m going myself.” He paused and thought for a bit about whether or not he should go about telling rock fairies, albeit slightly annoying ones, about his desires to become a frog. Sighing, he began to think that she might, after all, know how one goes about becoming a frog and it might be within his interest to tell her when she spoke up again.
“It’s not my habit,” the rock fairy said, “to offer advice to those who almost certainly won’t benefit from it. I probably ought to wrap myself back up into a cobble and let you fend for yourself.” She frowned and rested a cheek on one of her blocky fists. “On the other hand, things have been dull around here for the past eon or so, and they say a good deed is never wasted. So.
“Off some ways in that direction,” she continued, gesturing with her chin, “stands a castle hewn of very high-quality red granite. Lovely stone; I watched it cool. A king and queen live there, doing whatever mortal kings and queens do.
“In that direction”–she gestured again–”the woods soon give way to low hill of pure glass, a geological anomaly, on top of which a dragon makes his home. I don’t know how he would react if you went there, but he’d probably eat you.
“Should you choose to remain in the woods, the only mortals you are likely to meet are a woodcutter and his daughter. At first I mistook you for one of them. Humans all look more or less alike to me.
“And apart from staying in that pond, which, of course, you’ve managed to find for yourself, I’d say that just about exhausts your options.”
“What about that direction and that direction?” asked Frank, pointing to the only places that the rock fairy hadn’t gestured to.
“Well, both of those ways keep you in the woods for too long to actually constitute going out of it, but that way leads to a nice stone wall, been there for years, and the other way leads to the end of the world, or so I’ve been told. Of course,” she answered with a sniff, “everyone knows the world is round, so-” but whatever she said next was wasted on Frank, who was no longer there.
Frank began walking in the direction of the rock fairy’s gesture, and was beginning to wonder if she was right. So far he’d not seen anything, but then he decided not to complain, as the end of the world must be very far away. He walked and walked and found some interesting looking berries, which he promptly ate, not caring much as to whether they were poisonous or not. His tutors had never taught him much useful stuff, only Latin and math, which he knew very well, and how to answer questions of moral and to rule justly. It was all very boring in his mind. He occupied his time walking by thinking of everything that he could that began with either a, m, or q. He eventually came up with a very long list, until he was stopped by a very tall, and very ugly, monstrous beast.
Well, it appeared to be a hideous monster. So much so that he fell to the ground with a cry, shielding his face with his arms so that when it leapt out at him, well, no use thinking about that. If only he had had his sword…well, it probably wouldn’t be much use actually, but it would give whoever found his body the impression that he had put up a fight. Much more noble a way to die. Instead of ripped to shreds or eaten, as he was surely about to be…
But this was taking a rather long time, wasn’t it? He peeked through his fingers. The monster stood there, impassively. He put his arm down. The monster still made no move. He got up, brushed some dirt off his trousers, and examined it. It was, in actuality, a gargoyle. A rather lifelike one, admittedly, but nothing more than stone.
Was it? He warily eyed it, and kneeling he pulled a stick off the ground. He wasn’t going to risk touching it himself, no, he’d heard enough of the old bed time stories. He crept, advancing towards the beast. Or not-beast, or whatever the proper term was. He narrowed his eyes, quickly prodded the thing, and leapt back with a gasp.
The gargoyle stood there. Still. He frowned. This is beginning to become a slight waste of time… he thought to himself. Now what?
Frank was interrupted from his contemplations of just what one should do in order to figure out if what appears to be a gargoyle actually is a gargoyle rather abruptly by two almost simultaneous events. The first was the rock fairy who, having seemingly recovered from her bad mood after being left, hurtled into him at a rather fast speed shouting in a somewhat annoying high pitched voice. The second was that the seemingly still gargoyle yawned. Both of these things startled Frank to the degree that he jumped quite a bit in the air, much to the annoyance of the rock fairy.
“Must you jump so? It’s rather bothersome… Where did you say you learned your manners from, again?”
“But, that gargoyle he… yawned!”
“Well, gargoyles get tired too, you know. Sitting in the same spot all day must be boring,” the rock fairy said while sticking her tongue out at the gargoyle who promptly stuck his out at her, “He’s my uncle, you know.”
“You’re UNCLE?!”
“Why yes, it’s not that unusual…”
“They really don’t teach you much, Your Royal Wosserface, do they?” asked the fairy, settling herself on the shoulder of the gargoyle. “What are you doing here? Uncle, I’m old enough to take care of my own woods.”
The gargoyle made a sort of guttural hum. The fairy responded with a higher-pitched noise that sounded like a rock hitting a wall.
“My name is Frank,” said His Royal Wosserface, though he suspected this was rather irrelevant.
“And mine’s Jade. And his is Chartres. What’s your point?” Jade grumbled.
“Er…nothing.”
“You mortals are so confused,” said Jade, exasperated. “Not to mention rude.”
Frank considered answering as a frog would, but thought better of it and remained silent. So did Jade. So did Chartres.
After several very quiet minutes, Frank said, “I really must be continuing on my quest now. Thank you for the directions.” For he was determined to be polite after the Jade’s last comment on his manners.
“Oh, you’re on a quest,” said Jade. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Why, I’d love to come on a quest with you!” Jade exclaimed. “And so would Chartres.”
“Well, I wasn’t really asking you,” said the prince.
After an hour of arguing and debating, Chartres and Jade won out and so the prince was stuck with them till he became a frog.
Jade talked and talked for hours on end. Chartres remained silent, and took such tiny steps; Frank could barely see him move his feet, yet he still kept up with them.
“You want to be a frog?” asked Jade after a few hours.
“Did you just now realize that?” Frank asked, laughing.
As the unconventional group headed deeper into the woods, the Prince had the mounting feeling that there was a sinister mood among the local flora and fauna. All the trees were gnarled, and there was not a bird in sight.
A long time passed before the group came along anything else especially exciting. Jade was still talking when they came to a huge green wall. No, it was not huge. It was gigantic! Enormous! Ginormous!
“I guess we have to walk around,” said Frank. And so they started walking, and walking, and walking, and walking. What is this place? the Prince thought. He could hear quiet music playing on the other side of the wall, but as far as he could tell, there was no way in.
But after a few days of rounding the green wall, Frank realized they must have been going in circles, and he was all worn out.
“What are we going to do, guys? I can still hear people on the inside, but this wall is solid.â€
Meanwhile, back at the castle, the Queen was quite out of sorts.
“It’s OUTRAGEOUS,” she boomed. “A quest? At his age? Anything could happen to him. Why, at this very moment he could be lying by the roadside with his throat cut by brigands.”
“Now, Hortense,” the King replied mildly. “I’m sure nothing like that has happened.”
They were in their after-dinner throne room. The jesters and minstrels, sensing that their presence was not needed, had tiptoed off to bed about half an hour earlier. Nearby, in a low chair, Frank’s younger sister, the Princess Araminta (“Minty” to her parents when she was in their good graces, which at the moment she was not, and “Minch” to Frank when they were trying to annoy each other, which was most of the time), sat frowning into her tatting. “Oh, no,” she said half to herself. “I’m sure he’ll come hopping back home just in time for breakfast.”
“This is not a matter for jokes,” the Queen snapped. “Your brother is the heir to the throne. Who will rule the kingdom if anything should happen to him?”
Araminta tatted another stitch. She hated tatting. “I’ll rule,” she said quietly.
“And of all things, a FROG,” the Queen continued. “It’s unheard of. Why couldn’t he do something conventional–swap places with a commoner, or run away to sea, or turn Turk, or something? Why this fixation on becoming a cold, slimy amphibian?”
“No comment,” Araminta muttered.
“There’s nothing at all to worry about,” the King replied, forcing a smile. “This sort of thing happens all the time. Why, most young men at some point go through a fascination with herpetology. At his age I myself–” The sentence withered under the Queen’s glare. “Well, no, I never did. But it will pass, I’m sure of it.”
The Queen clapped her hands together. “I’ll not have it,” she said. “Such irresponsible behavior must not be tolerated. Tomorrow at first light we shall send out as many horsemen as we can muster to fetch the prince back to the castle and teach him to do his duty.”
In the dead of night, Araminta slid out of bed and dressed in the dark, afraid to light a candle lest she wake someone. She tiptoed out of her bedchamber and through the cold and stony halls. The proper way to go about it would have been to tear up her sheets and make a rope out of them, but then it would have taken far too long to leave, and likely she would have been discovered and given new sheets, and have to start all over again.
When Araminta came to a thick wooden door, she opened it carefully and silently. Normally doors like this would creak as they were opened, alerting everyone to her presence, but the old librarian, Robert, kept it in good shape. He was her favorite out of the castle staff, and she often came to the library when she couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t tell her parents, and maybe he could help her find a way out and to her brother.
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160- i like it.
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161-Your name is a little too long. All you can see in the recent posts bar is the letter “i”.
©
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Thirty minutes later, Robert was still thinking, and Araminta was getting a little impatient. “Look,” she said for what may have been the fifth time, and may have been the seventh. “I’ll just go up to my room and pack, and you can think of a plan while I’m doing that.” She stood up to leave, but he shook his head, and she sat down again despondently. Araminta was a girl of action, and this anything but active.
~~~~~~~~~~
Just a little filler.
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160- Works for me.
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(163),
No, no, no! Please, no filler now. Things need to keep moving. As the inspiration for Robert, let me take the liberty of rewriting the scene:
As Araminta expected, the library was lit with dozens of candles. Robert often got so absorbed in his scholarly projects that he worked all night and slept during the day. The aroma of melting beeswax mingled with the familiar smells of oaken bookcases and worn leather bindings. As Araminta entered the room, the old librarian looked up from a desk at which he had been inspecting a pile of dusty parchments. “Ah, your royal highness,” he said with a smile. “Such a pleasure to see you at any hour. I’ve been expecting you. How can I be of service?”
Araminta hesitated. Expecting her? How? But there was no time for puzzles. “I need your help,” she said in a voice just above a whisper. “There’s something I need to do. It’s very important, and it has to be done right away. It concerns–”
“His royal highness, your brother the prince,” Robert finished for her, nodding slightly. “A search party has been ordered to set out just after daybreak. The grooms will be saddling the horses soon. I take it, however, that you have plans of your own.”
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Robert-you didn’t write in italics!!!
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Araminta nodded enthusiastically. “I’m going after him.”
~~~~~
Uh… That’s all, I’m afraid. Not much, is it?
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262- i know. I shortened it after a request on the pie isle thread. ^_^
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*162, i mean.
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“So I surmised,” the librarian replied. “Might I ask why, when their majesties your royal parents have already ordered their most accomplished men of arms to find him?”
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Araminta snorted. “Because I want to have an adventure too. It isn’t fair that he gets to go on a quest, and I have to tat lace.”
“But he doesn’t ‘get’ to go on a quest. Why do you think the men of arms have gone after him?”
“Well, he still went on one. So I will too. Just because he’s a boy and older than me doesn’t mean he can have adventures and I can’t. Anyway, he wants to be a frog? I would do better than that with my quest.”
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Is it okay if I write some too?
——————————–
Robert seemed annoyed with her, any any reaches, and he began to twiddle his fingers in an anxious way.
“But.. does it not seem… dangerous for a small girl to go on such a tall order of a quest? Why not start smaller, like pulling a golden ball out of a stream, or helping to match a maiden to her lost glassy high-heel?”
Araminta frowned in a manner that made Robert feel pressed to put an abrupt end to the conversation, but of course with him being right, and the princess being quite wrong.
“I have barely ever left the castle, and I want an adventure too. Besides, do you know how humiliating it could be to have a frog as a BROTHER? Having him eat off of a plate and be sitting on your pillow because he helped you with some sort of petty task? And then, the girl who wanted to marry him would have to kiss him on slimy pondswaterry lips! That would be disgusting! I beleive that he could do something better with his time than go looking for someone who could amphibitize him.”
Robert sighed.”All right, all right,” he said,”what is it that you want from me, exactly?”
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Araminta turned her most confident smile upon the librarian. She knew that when he sounded most crotchety, he was ready to provide her the assistance he’d intended all along.
“I’m sure you’ve studied enough books to know that as my Magical Helper you’re supposed to present me with a talisman of some sort to help me succeed in impossible tasks no one could possibly have predicted. Then you give me a strict warning of something I absolutely must not do or face dire consequences, so that, of course, I can be sure to do it at the earliest opportunity.”
Robert was already removing a leather-clad box from a drawer Araminta didn’t remember noticing before. The box was tooled all over with arabesques of thorny vines and curling leaves she didn’t recognize. Nor could she make out the letters of what she presumed to be the title. The box smelled of age and travel and deep promises. Feeling a little awed in spite of herself, Araminta quickly recovered her poise.
“But if you dare give me a magical tatting shuttle, I will never speak to you again.
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Robert smiled, now somewhat amused. “No, I didn’t intend to do so, my lady,” he said with a slight edge to his voice, and with an amazing flourishing gesture of his smooth hand, he removed the adorned lid of the glimmering box.
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*gasp* I really really want to know what’s in there… Unfortunately, my ideas are none of them right for this.
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“EEEEEEEEK!”
An ear-piercingly loud voice came out of the box. It sounded like someone scratching their fingernails on a chalkboard.
“EGADS! WHAT IS THIS PLACE? WHERE’S ROBERT? AAAAAH! HEEEEEEELP MEEEEEEEEEE! I’VE BEEN STOLEN!” the voice from the box screamed. Araminta was so surprised and scared she dropped the box, but caught it right before it hit the ground.
“AAAAAAAAAH! MURDER! MURDER! I WAS ALMOST MURDERED! ARREST THIS GIRL! SHE TRIED TO MURDER ME! WHERE’S ROBERT?” screeched the voice, getting more irritating by the second. Araminta tried to close the box, but she couldn’t- it was as if the box was pushing itself open. The old librarian calmly walked over and said in a quiet and kind voice, “Shh. Calm down.” The box, upon hearing this, quieted immediately. “Araminta,” Robert said, “I would like to introduce you to your magical talisman, Emma.”
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For a breif moment, Araminta could only stare. Then she said, “What? What do you mean? Talismin? How will it…er, she help me on my quest?”
Robert smiled, and reached a hand gently into the adorned box. Instantly, an ear piercing scream lit the air. “OW! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? ROBERT? EEEEEE!”
“Relax, Emma, everything is fine”, said Robert, and he pulled from the box a long sliver staff. It was crisscrossed with golden leaves, like the box, and at the top, held in by tight brass vines, was a crystal ball about the size of a very large tennis ball. And in the ball, swirling amidst white smokes, was a face. It was a pretty face, that of a woman. She had flowing raven-black hair, emerald oval eyes that glinted sharply, a straight nose, and a full mouth.”WHO IS THAT?”,cried the woman.”ROBERT! Who is she?”
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“She’s the princess, Araminta,” replied Robert. “She’s also your new ward. She’s going on a quest, and you are going with her.”
“I don’t want to go on another quest! I WON”T! DON’T MAKE ME!”
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Oops sorry it got cut off…
————————————————–
Araminta looked at the face in the ball in surprise, and even a little fear. But just as she settled down for a moment, the ball screamed, rattling the candleabras, tremoring the books in their shelves, and nearly bowling Araminta over.
“WHY.IS.SHE.IN.HERE! MAKE HER LEEEAVE ROBERT!”
Robert gave Araminta an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” he said,” but I didn’t know she would be this cranky. She is normally very sweet, you know.” Araminta highly doubted this. Her eardrums were still ringing with the sounds that had just filled the room as Robert spoke softly to the lady in the orb.”Now, now, Emma, I know it’s been almost a hundred year nap, but this is Araminta, the princess, and she needs your help on a … mission of sorts.” The lady, upon hearing this, smiled broadly, which was the very last thing Araminta had expected her to do. “Well, well! This certainly is a special turn of events, now isn’t it? I would be honored to help you, but first I need a little something in return.” “And.. what is that, madame?”, asked Araminta as politely as she could.
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[It’s a good thing it’s a big castle. Otherwise, all that screaming would have brought guards running down to the library, and Araminta’s quest would have been over before it started.]
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180- I agree. Wouldn’t there be guards anyways though, with the princess i mean? Like a Secret Service?
——————————————————-
Emma, the lady in the ball, grinned even wider. “I just need a favor… Do you know where the Warden of the West is?” Araminta shook her head no. “I’m afraid I haven’t been aquainted, madam. You see, I haven’t ever been far from the castle, and…” The lady cut her off. “I am sure that IF we are REALLY going on a REAL quest, she’ll pop up sooner or later, and when she does, I will need to speak with her about certain matters.” Emma peered aroundto make sure there was nobody else lurking in the shadows of the shelves, and then said, “What… exactly are we doing?” Araminta smiled happily, because this meant that surely she would get to go on her quest now. “We are going to rescue my brother the prince. He wants to be a frog, but my father won’t let him. He’s run away to be one, and my father has sent all of the best knights after him, but it seems that they hae had no luck.”
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[I don’t think the knights have left yet. It’s still before dawn on the morning they were supposed to leave.]
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181- Apparently not. Hmm. I don’t have any ideas right now, but when I do I’ll be sure to write.
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182-Oh.Ooopsies. Scratch that then.
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DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD DEAD THREAD
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185- Oh please! It’s only been four days since a story-post. It was weeks with the sci-fi RRR.
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Naturaly, ariminta leaves briskly so as to not let this thread die-riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggghhhhhhhhttttttt?*wink wink nudge nudge*
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187- Right. But she can leave briskly in an hour or so.
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sound fair
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It does, but then I didn’t keep up my end of the bargain. Maybe I’ll force my brain into writing something, so that this’ll be active again.
~~~~~~~~~
“Well, then,” said Emma, “what on earth are we waiting for? Dawn, when the knights will be leaving?”
Robert nodded. “She’s right, you know. You’d better leave right away if you’re going at all, which I don’t encourage. But I suppose I can’t stop you, can I?”
“No, you can’t,” said Araminta.
~~~~~~~~
There! It’s the long-awaited next part! Now quick, someone, write more!
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ok
___________________(i dont know the squiggly symbol)
so began a rather long journy, though the talisman-emma-
was usually very hard to conceal…as she was rather grouchy
__________________
i dont know what else to write…
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*deep breath*
~~~~~~~
All to soon Araminta found herself in the true wilderness, the forests which knew no paths, civilization, and certaintly no royalty. And she was stuck with what had t o be the most obnoxious talisman the world had ever had the great misfortune to know. Or not know, as the case may be.
Araminta had always thought of herself as more mature and practicle than Frank – didn’t the whole I-want-to-be-a-frog thing prove it? However, when she walked headlong into an enourmous spider web, she totally lost it. Screaming, kicking – the whole nine yards. A full blown tantrum, really.
“Oh, come on!” cried Emma. “You’ll wake up the spider, or whatever nasty creature made this web. And then where will we be? It’ll eat you, and I’ll be stuck here forever!” While Araminta wasn’t sure Emma would be lost forever, she had to admit that she had a point. Giant nasties weren’t something to be messed with.
But Emma’s warning had come to late, for the spider was creeping down the web towards the rather unfortunate duo.
~~~~~~~
post? pretty please? with sugar on it?
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Whew, it’s been a long time since I compiled this. Okay, T.N.O, I’ll write. It won’t be the best though.
~~~~~~~~~~
Araminta screamed again, and unsurprisingly, so did Emma. They didn’t have to worry about waking the spider, as it was already awake. After several seconds, Araminta had to pause for breath, and suddenly realized that the spider was coming very, very, slowly. If she ran quite fast, perhaps Araminta could get away before she was captured and sucked dry. However, she didn’t think about why the spider was moving so slowly . . .
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The spider, evidently thinking only to itself, was moving quite quickly toward the two at first, when only suddenly, he noticed a slight movement and then a sharp jolt to his legs. This jolt had no color or sound, but it slowed down the hampered spider so much that it could barely move, much les reach its’ prey.
Araminta pulled herself hard backwards, and almost at one, she and Emma were frww. Araminta ran, as hard and fast as her legs culd carry her, off into the farther deep of the woods. Soon she was so tired that she c ollapsed heavily on the dirt of the forest floor.The earth felt soft and cool under her sweating cheeks. But just as she was about to get back up, something made a slight noise behind her, as if a stick had cracked.Araminta’s head spun around. “Who’s THERE?” she asked slowly and cautiously. And all at once, a shape stepped gingerly out of the dark black foliage.
A figure, tall and semi-muscular looking, had crept out of the trees. It was a man, not older than Araminta herself. He had thick, wavy raven black hair. His eyes were dark, but full of light and played with a smile on them. He had a thin face with a small pointed nose and a strong chin. He wore a dark green tunic and trousers, and was shrouded in a thick black cloak with a hood, and on his belt was a thin strip of wood. It was embroidered c arefully with carved rope-like designs, and at one Araminta knew what it was. It was a wand.
“Hello”, said the man ,who smiled at her like a long lost friend. “I am Lucias. What is your name?” Araminta stuttered for a moment, not sure what to say. “I…I… I am ,er… Minty, a dairy maid in the village.” She felt so bad to lie to this boy, but he was an outsider. She owed him nothing so far, and if he knew she was the princess, he might send her back to the castle. “I… traveled into the woods looking for my pet… frog. He escaped you see, and I love him dearly, almost like a brother.” She paused, now not sure what to say. What if her brother wasn’t even a frog yet? The man grinned even more broadly. “Ah, a quest. I too am on a quest. I am looking for the prince. He has evidently run away to become a frog, and the king has sent me and other knights and … never mind… to come after him. Maybe… I could help you search for your frog, and you could help me search for mine?” She liked this man already! Why, they even thought alike! But… why did he carry such a precious wand? As if he could read her mind, Lucias pulled his cloak over his belt, offereing her his arm. “So, my lady,” he said, “what will it be?” His smile… It was like a sunbeam on her face. She answered,”I would be delighted, sir.” He grinned happily. “Then… lead the way, miss.” She took his strong hand and they began their way into the deep foliage, like two old friends, rejoined on the same path.
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Oh, that’s perfect, Agrrrfishi. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to write . . .
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was “fractured fairy tales” inspired by rocky and bullwinkle?
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I don’t think so . . . but you’d have to ask Donaldo the supercoolio awesome nerd, who doesn’t seem to be here right now.
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197-I AM BACK! YAY! I took a break for a couple weeks. I caught up though. To answer the question, I wikipediaed it, and it said there that Rocky and Bullwinkle shorts served as “bookends” for popular shows like “Fractured Fairy Tales.” Sort of like the Secret Squirrel shorts on Boomerang channel. As far as I know, though, fractured fairy tales have gone back a while, depending on your definition of it. The Cinderella story has been retold many different ways in many different cultures, which could make it fractured to some, but to others(like me) fractured fairy tales are considered stories that make fun of classic fairy tales, not just any retelling. BUT WE NEED TO GET BACK ON TOPIC. I THINK THE ENTIRE EMERALD CITY PART SHOULD BE EDITED OUT. AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING ELSE TOTALLY DIFFERENT:
Ok, nevermind. I can’t think of anything. BUT PEOPLE PLEASE GET BACK TO FRANK!
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198- Welcome back!
The Emerald City was edited out. It became a total disaster. I’ll post the whole story of what Frank was up to, as edited by me to take out all parts too modern. Tell me what doesn’t seem right, or you dislike.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far away, there lived a prince who — much to the consternation of his court and his subjects — wished with all his heart that he had been born a frog.
Once upon that same time, but in a land even farther away, there lived a young noblewoman who wanted nothing more than to become a scholar.
And again upon that time, because these things are always in threes, was a boy who could grant the wishes of the prince and the noblewoman, if only he knew he had the power.
The reason the prince wanted to be a frog was this: one day, as he was wandering along the river bank, he saw a beautiful and quite mad girl, catching frogs and kissing them, then letting them go again. When he asked her why, she replied that she was hoping one would turn into a prince.
“Why,” said the prince, “I’m a prince! Look no further!” For he knew that his father’s best physicians could certainly cure her of her madness, and then they could be wed.
The girl looked him up and down, all the while being careful not to look behind him (he had said look no further, you know) but she shook her head and went back to catching frogs.
The experience made the Prince reflect that being a prince had a fair number of drawbacks. He had to spend his days eating food that wasn’t good for him, holding endless meetings and audiences with nobles who had nothing interesting to say for themselves, and governing people who didn’t much want to be governed. He also had to spend an inordinate amount of time grooming himself. Princes are required to be impeccably groomed. When he totaled up the number of hours a week he spent having his hair styled, his nails trimmed, and his clothes tailored and laundered and brushed and buffed, it made him want to scream. “Oh, for the life of a frog!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.
Actually, as he thought more and more on the subject, he began to realize just how much he didn’t want to be married, even. To think of all the planning and preparations that would be have to made for a wedding… and then spending so much time socializing and having those tedious, polite conversations with people he did not care about and did not care about him. As a frog, why, he would only come out when he wanted. And he wouldn’t have to bother with washing and making himself presentable and untouchable. An end to those horrid social gatherings… Granted, eating bugs would take some time to get used to, but small children did it all the time and didn’t seem any worse for wear.
Of course, there was the inevitable anguish over what sort of frog. He didn’t fancy being a tree frog, for instance. Never could stand heights. And he himself employed foresters, whose job it was to keep the trees trimmed and tidy, and keep the rides open so that he and his cronies could go on jolly trips into the woods. What if they inadvertently trimmed him? The awful possibility suddenly dawned that among the forest’s log piles and compost heaps – effectively HIS log piles and compost heaps, although he’d never paid them any attention – there could lurk the sad remains of trimmed frogs. He’d have to have a word with the foresters. But what would he tell them? Watch out for small, green, highly camouflaged frogs and make sure they don’t get trimmed? Just how long would it take to do a comprehensive frog check? Were there actually any tree frogs in his dominions anyway? He seemed to remember they were sort of tropical. So that was all right, then. Maybe he should just cancel his regular order for bananas.
So, a pond-based frog, then. Living a life of sloth and decadence in one of the castle’s ornamental aquatic extravagances. Yes, but – ponds are wet. He wasn’t really very keen on wet. He was rather used to being carted round in a big carriage. The coachman got wet, but he didn’t. He’d never been really wet, apart from bath night, but that was all warm and regulated, and hot milk and biscuits were available. He thought of a blustery, wintry night, when the howling wind rattled the shutters and the rain made sloshing noises on the portico because he’d STILL forgotten to tell old Albert to fix the gutters. Then he thought of all the frogs in that chilly pond, plopping their heads underwater to avoid the rain, which seemed pretty futile. No, maybe he’d remain a prince a while longer, until he’d identified a less hostile froggy environment. Besides, he’d pinned his transmogrification hopes on the witch at the end of Crab Lane. Everyone always thought she was a witch, but last month she started claiming she was the reincarnation of an ancient Sumerian astrologer, and standing on her head for no apparent reason. They’d put her in an institution, and she hadn’t escaped yet, so if she really was a witch, she couldn’t be very powerful. It didn’t bode well for the frog thing. On balance, thought the Prince, more consideration should be given to the matter. Further detailed planning was needed. He went off to find old Albert. At least the gutters were straightforward.
Over the next few days he took to splashing in the ponds, confusing the under-gardeners, frightening his parents, and disturbing the real frogs, until he thought that he could make it as a frog.
Now that he had made up his mind about it, all that remained was for him to figure out how to do it. So, he summoned the wisest man in all the land to help him.
The man’s name was Julian Perjorius. He was ninety-one and had traveled to every place worth mentioning, several places not worth mentioning, and at least one place that shouldn’t be mentioned even if one wanted to.
“How can I become a frog?” the prince asked.
Julian Perjorius was flabbergasted. “Why would you want to?”
“Never mind that. Do you know how I can turn into a frog?”
Julian thought he could bluff his way out of this, which was a serious mistake. “Of course! There are several methods. But a prince’s life is infinitely better than that of a frog. You shouldn’t even want to be a frog.”
“Well, I do. How do I do it?”
Julian Perjorius’s bald pate turned bright red, and he fumbled with the many amulets hanging around his neck. “Er… er…”
“Well?”
Julian Perjorius, of course, had no idea. He seized one last hope: to send the prince so far away that Julian Perjorius himself would be gone when the royal heir found out that he was a fraud.
“At the end of the world, the seas pour off in a great waterfall. In that waterfall is a rocky outcrop that forms an island. On that island there is a forest. In that forest there is a ruined castle. In that castle is a well. Drink from that well, and you will turn into whatever you wish.”
Julian Perjorius knew that the world was round, but he also knew that princes’ tutors weren’t paid enough to be accurate.
“Thank you!” the prince exclaimed, and he promptly ran off to grab his satchel.
“My dear son,” his deep-voiced father said solemnly. “Where are you running in such a grand hurry?”
“I’m off on a quest,” the prince laughed. “I’m going to become a frog!”
Before his parents could answer he had strode out onto the drawbridge and away he went.
The prince had gone to school since the age of five and knew that the world was not round, like the old man had said. He had studied arithmetic, literature and geography. His father always told him he would be a brilliant king, absolutely brilliant, and he believed it. His tutors would often give remarks such as ‘Wonderful job, Ferdinand!’ or ‘Absolutely remarkable, Frank!’ Frank was his nickname, and he did not like anyone calling him anything but. Still, the wise man was pretty wise, so Frank decided he might as well believe him. The prince was not one to miss out on opportunities, so he went off into the woods, not exactly knowing where he was going, but he would get to the end of the world one way or another. And with that, the prince set off into the wilderness.
Frank had never walked very deep into the woods before. He’d gone to the unicorn pasture with his sister many times but that was in a clearing just a five minute walk from the edge of the croquet grounds. And there was a well-maintained path.
But now he was in what felt like the wilderness proper. He’d passed the unicorns about an hour ago. He was trying hard to make progress but he wasn’t getting very far. The brush was thick and tree roots kept tripping him up.
Frank impatiently pulled aside a stubborn branch. He was beginning to wish that he’d brought along the sword his father was always after him to practice with. It might not have been much use, since he hated the thing and could barely hit anything with it, but it didn’t take much skill to whack blindly ahead.
Yank. Rip. Yank. Rip. Yank. Frank forged ahead, until suddenly there was nothing in front of him but a small green pool. Unprepared for this sudden freedom, he very nearly fell in and managed to save himself by grabbing onto a rock.
Which promptly unfolded under his fingers and bit him in one of the scratches he’d already gotten.
“You are grabbing a lady!” it screeched, in a rusty gravelly voice. “Where were you brought up, to have learned such manners?”
Frank was so surprised that he did fall into the water. It was cold and clear, and Frank swallowed a good deal of it before he surfaced. The lady who had spoken wasn’t, in fact, much of a lady. She had dark skin, riddled with pockmarks, a tattered dress, and messy grey hair. And she was about seven inches tall.
“You’re a rock fairy!” he said in surprise. Of all the thousands of rocks he could have grabbed in this horrible forest, it had to be a rock fairy.
“And you’re very rude and very lost, though I should hope that wasn’t your answer to my question,” said the fairy, crossing her spindly legs and sitting at the bank of the pool.
“What question?” asked Frank, sucking his bitten finger.
“Where did you learn your manners?”
Frank shrugged. “My tutors, mostly. They didn’t have very good manners themselves.” He stood up, and the water only reached to his knees. Luckily for him, he was very used to being wet by now, or he might have to decided to go home right then and there. Remembering that frogs didn’t stand up, he sat down again. The rock fairy watched him with interest.
“You humans are quite unfathomable,” she observed. “A few minutes ago, you seemed eager to be somewhere else, though you weren’t getting there very efficiently. Now you’re not going much of anywhere at all. If you had more sense than most mortals, it might occur to you to ask directions from someone who has lived in these woods since pebbles were boulders and mounds were mountains. But I don’t suppose it will.”
“Well, you see,” said Frank rather thoughtfully, “I don’t really know where I’m going myself.” He paused and thought for a bit about whether or not he should go about telling rock fairies, albeit slightly annoying ones, about his desires to become a frog. Sighing, he began to think that she might, after all, know how one goes about becoming a frog and it might be within his interest to tell her when she spoke up again.
“It’s not my habit,” the rock fairy said, “to offer advice to those who almost certainly won’t benefit from it. I probably ought to wrap myself back up into a cobble and let you fend for yourself.” She frowned and rested a cheek on one of her blocky fists. “On the other hand, things have been dull around here for the past eon or so, and they say a good deed is never wasted. So.
“Off some ways in that direction,” she continued, gesturing with her chin, “stands a castle hewn of very high-quality red granite. Lovely stone; I watched it cool. A king and queen live there, doing whatever mortal kings and queens do.
“In that direction”–she gestured again–”the woods soon give way to low hill of pure glass, a geological anomaly, on top of which a dragon makes his home. I don’t know how he would react if you went there, but he’d probably eat you.
“Should you choose to remain in the woods, the only mortals you are likely to meet are a woodcutter and his daughter. At first I mistook you for one of them. Humans all look more or less alike to me.
“And apart from staying in that pond, which, of course, you’ve managed to find for yourself, I’d say that just about exhausts your options.”
“What about that direction and that direction?” asked Frank, pointing to the only places that the rock fairy hadn’t gestured to.
“Well, both of those ways keep you in the woods for too long to actually constitute going out of it, but that way leads to a nice stone wall, been there for years, and the other way leads to the end of the world, or so I’ve been told. Of course,” she answered with a sniff, “everyone knows the world is round, so-” but whatever she said next was wasted on Frank, who was no longer there.
Frank began walking in the direction of the rock fairy’s gesture, and was beginning to wonder if she was right. So far he’d not seen anything, but then he decided not to complain, as the end of the world must be very far away. He walked and walked and found some interesting looking berries, which he promptly ate, not caring much as to whether they were poisonous or not. His tutors had never taught him much useful stuff, only Latin and math, which he knew very well, and how to answer questions of moral and to rule justly. It was all very boring in his mind. He occupied his time walking by thinking of everything that he could that began with either a, m, or q. He eventually came up with a very long list, until he was stopped by a very tall, and very ugly, monstrous beast.
Well, it appeared to be a hideous monster. So much so that he fell to the ground with a cry, shielding his face with his arms so that when it leapt out at him, well, no use thinking about that. If only he had had his sword…well, it probably wouldn’t be much use actually, but it would give whoever found his body the impression that he had put up a fight. Much more noble a way to die. Instead of ripped to shreds or eaten, as he was surely about to be…
But this was taking a rather long time, wasn’t it? He peeked through his fingers. The monster stood there, impassively. He put his arm down. The monster still made no move. He got up, brushed some dirt off his trousers, and examined it. It was, in actuality, a gargoyle. A rather lifelike one, admittedly, but nothing more than stone.
Was it? He warily eyed it, and kneeling he pulled a stick off the ground. He wasn’t going to risk touching it himself, no, he’d heard enough of the old bed time stories. He crept, advancing towards the beast. Or not-beast, or whatever the proper term was. He narrowed his eyes, quickly prodded the thing, and leapt back with a gasp.
The gargoyle stood there. Still. He frowned. This is beginning to become a slight waste of time… he thought to himself. Now what?
Frank was interrupted from his contemplations of just what one should do in order to figure out if what appears to be a gargoyle actually is a gargoyle rather abruptly by two almost simultaneous events. The first was the rock fairy who, having seemingly recovered from her bad mood after being left, hurtled into him at a rather fast speed shouting in a somewhat annoying high pitched voice. The second was that the seemingly still gargoyle yawned. Both of these things startled Frank to the degree that he jumped quite a bit in the air, much to the annoyance of the rock fairy.
“Must you jump so? It’s rather bothersome… Where did you say you learned your manners from, again?”
“But, that gargoyle he… yawned!”
“Well, gargoyles get tired too, you know. Sitting in the same spot all day must be boring,” the rock fairy said while sticking her tongue out at the gargoyle who promptly stuck his out at her, “He’s my uncle, you know.”
“You’re UNCLE?!”
“Why yes, it’s not that unusual…”
“They really don’t teach you much, Your Royal Wosserface, do they?” asked the fairy, settling herself on the shoulder of the gargoyle. “What are you doing here? Uncle, I’m old enough to take care of my own woods.”
The gargoyle made a sort of guttural hum. The fairy responded with a higher-pitched noise that sounded like a rock hitting a wall.
“My name is Frank,” said His Royal Wosserface, though he suspected this was rather irrelevant.
“And mine’s Jade. And his is Chartres. What’s your point?” Jade grumbled.
“Er…nothing.”
“You mortals are so confused,” said Jade, exasperated. “Not to mention rude.”
Frank considered answering as a frog would, but thought better of it and remained silent. So did Jade. So did Chartres.
After several very quiet minutes, Frank said, “I really must be continuing on my quest now. Thank you for the directions.” For he was determined to be polite after the Jade’s last comment on his manners.
“Oh, you’re on a quest,” said Jade. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Why, I’d love to come on a quest with you!” Jade exclaimed. “And so would Chartres.”
“Well, I wasn’t really asking you,” said the prince.
After an hour of arguing and debating, Chartres and Jade won out and so the prince was stuck with them till he became a frog.
Jade talked and talked for hours on end. Chartres remained silent, and took such tiny steps; Frank could barely see him move his feet, yet he still kept up with them.
“You want to be a frog?” asked Jade after a few hours.
“Did you just now realize that?” Frank asked, laughing.
As the unconventional group headed deeper into the woods, the Prince had the mounting feeling that there was a sinister mood among the local flora and fauna. All the trees were gnarled, and there was not a bird in sight.
A long time passed before the group came along anything else especially exciting. Jade was still talking when they came to a huge green wall. No, it was not huge. It was gigantic! Enormous! Ginormous!
“I guess we have to walk around,” said Frank. And so they started walking, and walking, and walking, and walking. What is this place? the Prince thought. He could hear quiet music playing on the other side of the wall, but as far as he could tell, there was no way in.
But after a few days of rounding the green wall, Frank realized they must have been going in circles, and he was all worn out.
“What are we going to do, guys? I can still hear people on the inside, but this wall is solid.â€
~~~~~~~~~
I kept in the green wall, because I really like it and it has all sorts of potential, even not as the Emerald City.
I’m afraid this post may be too long, so I’ll hit submit now.
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MEANWHILE… *hint hint* *get back to *cough* Frank *cough cough*
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Our word count is 6126.
All right, Donaldo. But what’s wrong with Araminta?
I think I’ve become an idealist. I’m going to try to make all my posts long in the future so that the story becomes longer. Also, our word count is pitiful.
~~~~
Meanwhile, the Prince and his stony companions were sitting in front of the green wall. It was not green in the truest sense, but it was covered with moss and ivy, which, combined with the dim light, made it look rather as though it were carved out of a opaque green stone.
On an impulse, Frank stood up and went over to it. Jade took the opportunity when he wasn’t looking to snatch some of his bread, and found that it wasn’t quite as good as it looked, being quite stale.
Frank was scratching away at the moss, in the hopes of finding a door or something, but so far he had had no luck.
Jade said, “Yuck,” and Frank turned around.
“Hey!” he cried. “You’re eating my lunch!”
“It’s stale any-” began Jade, but suddenly the ground opened up and swallowed Frank whole.
People often wish that this would happen when they are embarrassed or bored. Frank was no exception, and indeed, he had probably wished it more than anyone, what with being a Prince and all. But this was something entirely different.
~~~~
How it is different, I’ll leave you guys to decide.
And don’t you dare try to make it modern, Donaldo.
Please?
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Fine, fine.
~~~~~
For one thing, he wasn’t being humiliated. For another, this was not at all what he’d imagined the ground swallowing him up would feel like. It was more like falling down a long vertical tunnel, without the tunnel sides around him. So more like falling into a very high-ceilinged cavern.
Very, very, high-ceilinged, since he hadn’t hit the ground yet. Maybe even bottomless.
It suddenly occurred to Frank that he was analyzing what it felt like to be swallowed by the earth. That was so utterly strange that he began to laugh. His laughter echoed around, confirming his suspicions that he was in a cavern. But it was odd how long he’d been fa-
~~~~~~~~
Note: He hit the bottom, be it water or stone or something else. But don’t make it stone unless you’re prepared to kill off our hero.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! It’s dying! Someone write something!
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202-What are you talking about? Since when have I made a story modern?
After a little bit of waiting, Frank hit the bottom. He immediately sunk into the ground, but his head and shoulders stayed above the ground. For some reason, a dim light shone from overhead, and Frank could tell he was stuck in sand. After a bit of squirming around, he got out of the sand and walked around, trying to get the best look at his surroundings witht the dim light provided.
—————————————————————————-
I will let you guys decide what his surroundings were like.
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204- Since you introduced the Emerald City. And a number of other occasions, which I will not name as it would mean going through the whole thread. And actually T.N.O had a good deal to do with the EC problem. And I am guilty of making Greg a novelist (back before we snipped Greg), so maybe I shouldn’t talk.
Apologies if I’ve just completely misjudged you.
I’ll write more a bit later.
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DEAD THREAD!!! DEAD THREAD!!! PEOPLE WRITE STUFF! AND GAPAS DON’T ZAP THIS LIKE YOU DID MY OTHER POST OR ELSE I WILL ATTACK MUSEBLOG WITH AN ARMY OF HPBs!!!
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Gah! Writer’s block! I can’t, Donaldo! Not right now!
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Can we make it something besides sand that he lands on? Because you don’t really sink into it if you fall on it. That hurts, and it’s only a bit better than normal ground. Maybe water?
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Maybe it’s quicksand! I dunno.
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I dont understand, are we supposed to start writing stories for people to add onto or what? *flustered*
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Well, sort of, except it’s well into the story. Someone or other (Robert, I think) posted a paragraph of story, and then some more people added onto it, and so on and so on, until we have a full-fledged story about a prince named Frank who wished to be a frog. It’s great fun. Would you like to join? If you begin reading here and read all the comments after, it should be fairly quick and a lot less confusing than if you read the whole thread, which will turn you off RRRs for once and for all. (It’s not usually very confusing, though.)
It’s a really short story, for all it’s a lengthy thread: only 6000 or 7000 words long.
Please write!
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Okay, back to my FAVOURITE RRR! I can change him to falling into something other than quicksand then, if you like. Also, please acknowledge my new name-PenDiamond. I’ve been Agrrfishi for a long time.
———————————————————————–
It suddenly occurred to Frank that he was analyzing what it felt like to be swallowed by the earth. That was so utterly strange that he began to laugh. His laughter echoed around, confirming his suspicions that he was in a cavern. But it was odd how long he’d been fa-
BLAM! The large blast echoed like an earthquake around the round tunnel. It shook the dirt crusted around Frank, who shook and vibrated horribly like a piece of spaghetti when you hold it loosely between your fingers and give it a gentle, firm tug. To Frank, there seemed to be no place from which the horrible rumble had come from, but as he pondered, he suddenly realised that he was nearing the…
THUD.Frank hit the musty-smelling floor of the pit with a sickening crunch.This dreadful drop might have killed him, but, as luck might have it, there was something under him that had broken his fall. He picked up one of the long thin objects to inspect it, butg he threw it down immediatly with a shuddery gasp. It was a long, thin mouse bone covered with caked blood and thick moss. As Frank peered haphazardly around the pit, he saw that there was a layer of thse bones about three feet thick, covering the dirt of the ground. Disregarding this unpleasant sight, Frank peered around at the walls of the pit and gasped.
The walls were not so much walls as they were entrances to tunnels. There were about eight large, gaping holes around the circular chamber, each leading into a thick blackness. He could not see beyond their depths too far, but did observe that there was a torch on a plynth near the entrance of each large tunnel opening.Frank knew that somehow, one of thse tunnels must lead out of the hole. He had no idea how, though. The opening through which he had fallen was so far up, it looked no bigger than the head of a bobby pin from his point of view. He was determined to get back to Jade, though, so he took a deep breath and stepped to the entrance of the first tunnel.
“I shouls mark my place, so I know I’ve been here,” he said to himself. “That way, I won’t choose this tunnel again.” He took two small mouse bones and placed them in an X at the start of the tunnel. Then, picking up the torch from the plynth, he struch it sharply against the stone wall of the first tunnel. The flame lit almost instantly, providing a narrow beam of light into the cavernous passage. He took another calming breath, gathered his last remaining pints of courage and steepd bravely into the tunnel.
It seemed to him that he walked for a very short time before he reached a wall at the end of the tunnel. There seemed to be no other way out, so he turned around and went the other way. He found himself once again in the cavernous room. He decided to choose another tunnel at random. He walked over to the black entrance to the fifth tunnel. He made an X with two bones once more, and placed it at the tunnel’s mouth. He then proceeded into the tunnel.
This tunnel was different. He walked for a long, long time, as the tunnel twisted and turned this way and that, this way and that.Suddenly, the tunnel stopped,and there was another opening immediatly to Frank’s right. I
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I will wait for you to finish your continuation, PenDiamond, and then i will continue. I really like what you did with the story.
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·Oops, sorry!
—————————————————
It suddenly occurred to Frank that the only way anyone could go through the cavern by abrupt trurns was into the next tunnel. Now he must be in the sixth tunnel. He turned left at the moment he entered the next tunnel, and continued walking on his sore feet, walkin, walking, until…
His torch blew out as a snuff of hot air flew unceremoniusly past him. The air was moldy and smelled of snot, and…wait a minute! He was in a tunnel, how could there be a wind?
Then he saw a small yellow light far into the tunnel. He began to run, fast and furious, toward the light. Hed ran and he ran, and then, suddenly, the light shone bright, so he could see around him.
Sitting on a stump of a small log was a dark gray cat.Beside its’ flicking tail was a shuddering lamp flame in a small lantern. Now he knew what had eaten all of those would be mice whose remains had broken his fall. And floatind by the cat, her wings fluttering, was…
“Jade!” Frank yelled with excitement. He ran over to her and the cat, whose beady eyes now flickered onto the pair of them. “How did you find me?”
“Easy,” siad Jade happily. “I flew after you, and chose this tunnel while you were probably in a different one. Then I met…” Her face paled. “Oh, no! I forgot! Frank, we… we have to get out of here right now!”
“I’ll say you do,” said a voice, and as the pair turned to face the sound, the cat on the stump began to change. The eyes grew to become large and green in sockets surrounded by a wrinkled old face. It was surrounded by lank grey hair, the exact colour of the cat fur. The woman’s dress was also grey, the color of the old stone walls, and was torn and ripped in several places. She spoke once more, saying,”The pet will be after you two. You have trespassed upon my land, and so he will devour you, as he has many of your fellows. It’s a shame, but I fear that it must be done. Nobody can know where I am.”
“Why’s that?”, Jade asked.”Never you mind,” the old lady groaned. “He will find you. He will, he will…” And with that, the woman fell to the floor.Her limp form became a gray cat once more, and the cat began to snore, letting out gusts of wind so large they were like small hurricanes.
“WE better get out of here,” Frank said hurriedly, and the two began to run down the tunnel. But as they reached the atrium point, they realised there was something wrong…
Something large and black was on all fours in the middle of the atrium. It was a beast that was so great and hairy, you could barely tell what it was. It was encased in coarse hair that when they collided with Jadeas the paw of it swept toward them, it was as though made of strips if nail.
The giant padded paw swept then both off of their feet and into a corner against a wall. But they were swift. Fast as lightning, they ran down the last tunnel. The beast’s paw flew in after them, swatting after their retreating backs, but it couldn’t go too far. Jade and Frank sat huddled against the wall, watching the great hairy appendage swipe against the bricks only feet away from them.
“We have to get out of here,”Jade said softly. “I have an idea.” She and Frank crept along the passage just as the paw pulled back out of the tunnel. Jade reached into her pocket suddenly, and pulled out a small bottle full of a shining blue liquid. She popped the top and handed it to Frank. “here, drink this,” she told him.”It’s a one-hour shrik potion. Just drink a drop. We only need ten minutes.” Frank carefully put a tiny drop onto his tounge.He felt hi mself growing smaller… smaller, and then he saw Jade fluttering above him. “Now climb into my hand,” she instructed. Frank did, and then they had reached the tunnel’s mouth. Then, without warning, Jade flew out of the opening. The dog let out a rattling howl, and spiped at her with all his might. But Jade was faster. She flew fast and furious up the tunnel. But the dog took a leap and stuck his caws deep into the wall. The bricks and dirt caused a rumbling avalanche under the dog. He kept climbing up the wall, jaws snapping at Jade. She screamed as one tip of a sharp inscisor scraped he leg, but then the had flown swiftly out of the tunnel and into the light. Jade’s wings finally gave out, and the two, with Frank growin to his normal size, fell hoplessly to the ground.
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Or did you mean to continue? I will do so right now.
~~~~~~~
Frank shrugged and stepped through. If this goes on, he thought wryly, I’ll reach the end of the world soon after all.
~~~~~~~
I’m sorry, I can go no further.
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Oh wow. That is a long post. But here’s a question. Is Jade normal size, or very small?
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Sorry to jump in here…
I liked “Agrrrfishi”!!! Why are u changing your name?
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Wow. That was quite an ordeal. I’m not sure how to follow it up.
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Yeah, I just thought about Jade’s size too… let me find the origanal description…
‘Yank. Rip. Yank. Rip. Yank. Frank forged ahead, until suddenly there was nothing in front of him but a small green pool. Unprepared for this sudden freedom, he very nearly fell in and managed to save himself by grabbing onto a rock.
Which promptly unfolded under his fingers and bit him in one of the scratches he’d already gotten.
“You are grabbing a lady!” it screeched, in a rusty gravelly voice. “Where were you brought up, to have learned such manners?”
Frank was so surprised that he did fall into the water. It was cold and clear, and Frank swallowed a good deal of it before he surfaced. The lady who had spoken wasn’t, in fact, much of a lady. She had dark skin, riddled with pockmarks, a tattered dress, and messy grey hair. And she was about seven inches tall.
“You’re a rock fairy!” he said in surprise. Of all the thousands of rocks he could have grabbed in this horrible forest, it had to be a rock fairy.
“And you’re very rude and very lost, though I should hope that wasn’t your answer to my question,” said the fairy, crossing her spindly legs and sitting at the bank of the pool.
“What question?” asked Frank, sucking his bitten finger.
“Where did you learn your manners?”‘
Ect.
Okay, sounds as if she’s smaller. But it could go wither way, really.
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We could take out the seven inches tall bit.
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Well… since Frank’s small when she carries him, I think she should stay seven inches tall. It’s more convenient with the whole turns-into-a-rock thing.
~~~~~~~
Now that Frank had really been swallowed up by the earth, he wasn’t keen to do it again, and so, like so many silly humans, wrapped his arms around a tree trunk and refused to budge, no matter what Jade threatened to do to him. So now Jade and Chartres were examining the wall with some interest.
It didn’t really look like a wall, and it didn’t sound hollow. It was more reminiscent of a glass hill Jade’s cousin’s friend’s uncle’s mother had supposedly stumbled on once than a natural formation or man made object.
Presently Frank decided that he could venture from his tree and rose to join his companions. He was some distance away and, now that he focused on the wall, he realized that he somehow recognized the shape… Though he couldn’t think where. Rounded, oblong, and smaller at one end… Yes, that was it. The wall looked like an egg.
~~~~~~~
Can’t really think of much else.
:idea:TNÖ:idea:
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If it was an egg, then it must have been sitting there a good while, for all that moss to grow on it, he thought. Therefore, it is in no danger of hatching, breaking, etc. and we are perfectly safe.
Naturally he didn’t feel perfectly safe, because if he had, he wouldn’t have bothered to go through the likelihood of it’s safety in his head. He edged over to Jade and Chartres, carefully keeping a firm hold on one tree or another all the while. “I think we should go,” he said nervously.
“Why on earth do you think that?” asked Jade, who was fascinated by wall/hill/egg and not at all afraid of being swallowed by the earth.
“Because that thing is an egg. And even though I’m certain it won’t hatch or break while we’re here, because of all the moss, I still think we should leave, because if it did hatch or break-” he suddenly realized he was babbling, and shut up.
“Oh,” said Jade, even more fascinated. “So it’s an egg. And it’s been here long enough to grow moss. Hmm.”
“Hmm?” quavered Frank. He didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that the only egg that takes that long to hatch is a dragon egg.”
~~~~~~~~~
Predictable, but who cares? It was fun to write.
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We just put about 2000 words onto the story! Yay!
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217- I just wanted a little variety….
I think that it would be better for Jade to be small. She is a fairy after all.
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Wait… what happened to Araminta, exactly?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frank, having been swallowed by the Earth and rescued with a very close call on getting out alive, did not much like the idea of hanging around and aging dragon egg, which could hatch at any moment. So, he took a hesitant breath, and said,”I’m really quite annoyed after being swallowed alive. Besides, my fater has no doubt already organized a search party, looking for me. I beleive that the best descision right now would be to move on. I REALLY don’t want to come face to face with a real drag-”
BOOM. BOOOM. BOOM. There was a loud, ear splitting, ground rattling booming noise coming from behind them. At once, Frank had an idea where it was coming from…
And then, a throttling CRAA-A-A-ACK came from the egg’s side. The giant oval was splitting right down the middle. Frank tried to yell,”RUN!”, but it was much too late. A green, leathery thing covered in green goop the color of the moss that had embossed the egg was a large, scaly wing, with a talon perched on the end in a claw. Then, there came a shriek so loud it was like a setup of a billion modern day stereo kareoke sets with a billion microphones set near the speaker, each turned up to their full extent of volume.
The trio turned on their speed at full energy and began to run, but not before they saw the face,the horrid face, poking more sinister than anything on earth out of the cracked shell. It was green, like that of a glistening snake. It had teeth longer than tree stumps, roots and all, and they were yellowed and shining. And the eyes.. a vivid purpler, full of malice and larger thana computer screen. They stared menacingly at the three frightened people, and had in them a horrid promise…
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225- Nothing. She’s with Lucias looking for Frank, but Donaldo requested that we return to Frank and Co. So I did, especially since I could think of an adventure for Frank but not one for Araminta.
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Hmm… how about Minty stumbles upon the newly-hatched dragon, and it takes her to be it’s mum?
That may have been used to much already though. Hmm.
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How about Minty stumbles upon the newly hatched dragon, feels sorry for it, and they set out to find its mother?
Is that also too overused?
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227, 228-No way! I was thinking about both of those things… so back to Araminta?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, and not too far away, Araminta and Lucias were continuing a prolonged and much thought out search for the frog-beguiled prince. Araminta was wishing with all her heart that he wasn’t a frog just yet. If only they could stop him, before it was too late…
The pair came into a small clearing in the forest.There were two forks on the other side of it. One pointed to their right, and one pointed to their left. “How are we supposed to get out of this one?”, she asked.
“Don’t worry, I can think of something…” Lucias’ voice trailed off as both of them heard a noise in the far distance. It was like a loud cacophony of yells, followed by a large screeching noise, horrible to the ear. The ground actually rumbled a litle bit. What if…
“Lucias! We have to follow that screech. Quick! Which way did it come from?” A puzzled look crossed his handsome features as he considered her question. Then, slowly and reluctantly, he pulled his wand from his belt. Araminta gasped.
“You’re going to do magic?”, she asked incredulously. “But magic is against the law! The royal family outlawed it long ago!” He stared at her long and hard.”You really don’t get out much, do you?”, he asked quizzically. Araminta blushed.
“No, I suppose I don’t. Well, if you must, I guess you must. Have at it.” She held her breath, waiting for it…
When she opened her eyes, she saw Lucias looking at her in amazement. “It won’t hurt anyone,” he said,”but it will make a little pop. Is that all right?”
“Yes, of course!” She was slightly embarrased. Of course he wouldn’t hurt anybody! Lucias took a deep breath and concentrated hard. He then opened his mouth and recited,
“Upon the earth from cores within
I summon the pow’r of the witches’ sin,
Let there be on the ground this day
A sign for us that points the way!”
The shot something dazzlingly purple from the tip of the wand, and it hit the ground with the pop like a firecracker. Immediatly, a glimmering purple arrow pointed down the left fork of the path.
Lucias slipped the wand back into his belt, and grabbed her hand, pulling her down the path. She didn’t need pulling. She dashed pell-mell after him down the dirt lane. And to her surprise, there was already something there…
Sittin there in a large spage clear of trees was a cracked open egg. What had once been white had long since been covered in green mosses. But what sat in the middle was what prompted Araminta’s shriek of unadulturated terror.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good, eh?
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By ‘No way!’ I mean that like a Cool! No Way! sort of way…
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229- Wonderful. I really really like it.
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229-AMAZING!!!!
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Araminta had never been the hysterical type. She despised her mother’s idea of a princess, a girl that sat in her palace waiting for a prince to come to rescue her, or fainted at the least sign of danger. But for once, she thought she might actually understand.
————–
Agrrrfishi, I must now accuse you of being too modern. Karaoke and computer screens? I mean, Frank and his companions know nothing of that sort of thing.
*remembers Greg the novelist* *looks at above post* I suppose we all have our moments, though. *apologizes to Donaldo and T.N.O.*
But still . . . *edits above post*
Note: It is the edited version of “above post” that you see, not the original.
Here’s something I’ve been wondering about. How old is Araminta, and how old is Frank? Agrrrfishi was calling Lucias a “man”, but he’s Araminta’s age, right? I think that Frank is about 17, and Araminta about 14/13.
How close is that to other’s views of them?
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_________________
can I have a summary
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Whatever you’re calling yourself, mine sister, you can start reading here: https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=799comment-199.
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235 – Is opal your sister?
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236- Yeah. I posted that as soon as I heard she was posting, which is why I didn’t know what she called herself.
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231, 232- 
But don’t accuse me of TOO modern plz. We know what they are. It’s only a comparison, after all. There aren’t actuall computers and blahbityblah.
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238- Okay. I just couldn’t not say that, since I’ve been complaining about that type of thing since the very beginning. I have a reputation to maintain!
Um. . . yeah.
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oh, perfectly fine. i’m at home with a cold, but still don’t have much time right now. i’ll write soon.
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Sorry, opal, I got the link wrong. You can start reading here:
https://musefanpage.com/blog/?p=799#comment-199
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Argh! Drat phooey bleh. Opal, here’s another link because I forgot that the previous one does not stretch to include Araminta. Araminta’s story begins here and you can ignore comment 160, as it’s just bound to confuse you.
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__________________
can we do another rrr ?
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(cont. from 233)
Of course, all this reasoning came later, after Lucias had revived her with cold water and she had stopped moaning terrified gibberish.
“What on earth is the matter, Minty?” asked Lucias, looking exceedingly consternated and placing himself between her and the dragon.
Araminta, embarrassed at having lost her cool, was attempting to regain her composure. At this question, however, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “What do you mean, ‘what’s the matter’? It’s only a dragon, that’s all!”
Lucias turned around to look at the dragon and studied it for some time. “It’s a baby. It can’t breathe fire yet.”‘
“It doesn’t need to breathe fire,” replied Araminta, doing a rather good job of controlling herself. “Look at its teeth.”
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Oops, I forgot Frank and Co. were still in the clearing. Let’s delete 144.
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244- Hang on. Can I put your post with mine, but just a little further down?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the very middle of the gigantic eggshell sat something so massive, it made both the adventurers feel like the heads of pins.It was a large thing, its’ many scales a deep jade green. It had narrow purpleish magenta eyes that seemed to pierce you straight through when they glowed. But although it was the smallest of its kind, the teeth.. They were like small swords, glinting fiercely in the morning sun. “It’s …a d-dragon,” Araminta
stuttered, and she collapsed in a heap on the forest floor.
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Okay, thanks! But what about Frank and Jade and Chartres?
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Umm… Jade and Chartres could have gone all rock-like when it hatched, and I guess Franl could have fainted and be recovering now.
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248- Yeah, that would work. I’ll write it in a sec.
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Let’s put this after 225, ‘kay? Then we can go right back to Araminta.
~~~~~~~~~
When Frank saw the dragon’s eyes, the first (and only) thing he wished was to be swallowed up by the earth again. Then the world went black.
Jade and her uncle stood still as stone, which in fact they were. They were much to hard to be of any interest to the dragon, but Frank, lying insensible right in front of it, was of a whole lot of interest.
~~~~~~~~~~
Now someone can go back to Minty.
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Remember Emma? What happened to her?
~~~~~~~~~~
“Well,” said Lucias, “we don’t need to worry about that. It’s about to fall asleep.”
“What- how do you know?” asked Araminta, but almost before she could finish her sentence, the dragon gave a rumble, and then a snort, and swayed on its huge taloned feet. Then, for all the world like a falling tree, it fell to the ground with an impact that made the earth shake.
“Dragons always fall asleep after eating,” said Lucias, a tad smugly.
Araminta’s eyes opened wide. “What- what did it eat?”
“Nothing,” broke in a voice. It was Emma, whom Araminta had almost forgotten about. “That boy put a spell on it. Though I imagine if he hadn’t, it would have fallen asleep soon anyways. Look.” She couldn’t point, due to her lack of arms, but somehow she managed to indicate a small figure laying right in front of the dragon.
~~~~~~~
We couldn’t just forget about Emma, could we?
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251-Thanks for reminding me about Emma! I almost forgot about her, and I created her!
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Where is PenDiamond?!?!?!? We need her!
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I dunno
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253-I’m right here! Sry, I was on vacation! No computer! ARRGH!*randomly pies many people* So why does you peoples need my help?Oops, hold on…
—————————————
The figure, whom the pair had not noticed before, was lying limply on the ground by the cracked and hopelessly shattered remains of the eggshell. It was a she, and the figure was almost invisible. Her dress was the exact same shade of deep green as the scales of the dragon, but torn and strangely thin, unlike the sturdy scales of the beast.Her hair was a straggly dirty blond, flung hopelessly over her delicate white arms and face, which was hidden from view.
Minty and Lucias , frightened of the dragon but grateful that it was asleep, crept over to the figure. “Miss?” Minty whispered. “Miss, are you all right?” Lucias strode over to the figure and flipped the hair gently away from her face. The blond layers revealed a pale face, with ruby lips shaped just right, and thick eyelashes. Lucias bent over her and spoke firmly. “Madam, are you well? Can… Can you hear me?”
As if by a sudden force, the young woman snapped up from the ground, sitting straight upright. “Well, of course I’m all right!” she said sharply.
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I lost all my stuff I typed last night. Grrr!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Well, of course I’m all right!” she said sharply. “You wouldn’t expect me to be sitting on the ground and actually be all right?” She looked around, mildly confused. Her voice had an English twinge to it, and was bouncy and soft, like raindrops pattering a rooftop. Her mouth was a full ruby red, and her eyes were blue. She looked young, yet very beautiful. In an instant, she seemed to snap back to reality. “Oh! Yes, I forgot! I just put this dragon to sleep. I thought you two might be frightened of her.” Araminta nodded, but the woman went on without noticing.”I guess I got a blast of it too, and dozed off a bit. Exuse me, I haven’t introduced myself!” She stood up. “I am Annabel Sarclopohagus, but you may call me Annie. I’m a dragon keeper. This litle beauty is a newly hatched Scotts Westley dragon. As of now, the abandoned dear is under my care.”
Lucias interrupted. “How did you put it…her to sleep?” Annie looked very worried. “I’m not sure I’m able to divulge that oinformation, but I guess that, considering our position, I can make an exception. ” She sighed. “I am a divinist, meaning I can divine the future. I am also fluent in the art of hypnosis, very common where I come from. You must keep it a secret, though. The king ordered a law a few days ago, issuing that anyone found doing magic would be put under immediate arrest.”
Araminta gasped. Why would her father do something like that? It seemed that he and her mother had always gotten along peacefully with the magically gifted. Lucias was looking at Annie. “What exactly are the magical properties of the dragon?” He looked intrigued by the beast. Minty shuddered. “This dragon can fly at a very long distance, protect its’ charges, or handlers, and she has an amazing sense of tracking and direction…” As Annie went on, Lucias and Araminta shared a glance. Amazing sense of direction…
“Excuse me, madam,”Lucias cut in, “but can she breathe fire yet? I am trying to protect my colleage here. I would really hate to see her hurt…”He blushed, and his voice trailed off. At this point, it is nescessary to say that at that point, Araminta felt something large and flowing spring up inside her. Lucias… cared, about her…
“No, she won’t breathe fire until she’s at least three weeks old, but if you are here when she wakes, she will become attached to you, and not harm you. If you are kind to her, she will do much for you. Maybe she’ll give you a ride later. Would you like that?” Annie smiled.
Minty and Lucias shared a glance. They both knew they wanted to. After all, a ride on a dragon didn’t come around too often… They both replied at the same time. “Yes!” Annie grinned. “Okay then! Let’s give this baby a try!”
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Hmm. That’s good. I’ll write some more later.
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Where is Frank, though? I thought he was near the dragon. Oooh, ideas . . .
~~~~~~~
Araminta sipped her tea, trying not to seem to eager, but buzzing inside. She could hardly wait to try to find Frank – not to mention to ride a dragon – but there were several problems she could see, the first being that although Annie would would let them ride the dragon, it was unlikely that they would allow them to take her on a quest for an indefinite amount of time. Another problem was that if Frank saw Araminta, her dairy-maid guise would crumble. And if these people – Lucias and Annie – knew that she was the daughter of the very king who had outlawed magic – which both of them were nonetheless proficient at – it could ruin two promising friendships.
Annie put down her teacup with a clatter, startling Araminta out of her reverie. “Ready?” she asked.
Araminta swallowed. “I’m ready,” she said, as calmly as she could.
Lucias saw her unease. “Don’t worry, Minty,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”
Annie turned around. “It will be fun – provided you’re not scared of heights.
“I’m not,” said Araminta, but she couldn’t tell them that that wasn’t what she was worried about, not at all.
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I beleive that Frank, Jade and Chartres were running pell-mell into the forest last we saw them. Maybe they aren’t too far. Hmm… but then that would end the story. Urgh, tough descision…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Annie grinned. “I don’t know about today, but this little one should be all ready to fly, come morning.”
“We really should be getting some rest…” Lucias said. “We should bunk here for the night.” Annie leapt to her feet, clattering her teacup on its’ tray. “Yes, I beleive I have some extra blankets in my kit!” She ran around to the farthest side of the clearing, returning moments later with three soft-looking blankets.
Araminta frowned. She had never been used to sleeping on the ground, and wasn’t very much interested. But she would do a lot fore her brother, and laying on the ground was the least of her problems… She and Lucias both took blankets from Annie, and finished their tea after they had lain them on the softest patches of dirt they could find.
As the sky deepened to a black navy, and stars began to twinkle like diamonds over their heads, Araminta wondered what it would feel like to fly on a dragon. Would it be frightening? Would it be… fun? And then, what was Frank doing at that very moment…?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAUSE: I would like to switch back over to Frank, if that’s all right. just for a little while. Then we can elaborate more on whther they se Frank or not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Staring, so very shaken and frightened from the varying events of the day, at the same stars as Araminta were Frank, Jade, and Chartres. Chartres was sitting, motionless because he was stone, on a large stump. Jade was perched on his head, in a position as if she were meditating. But Frank was lying spread on his back in the moss and leaves of the forest floor, wondering if his quest was a flop.It was so silent that he could hear himself think. Will I ever reach that well?
And then, in the silence, he heard a noise. It was a deep rucshing rumble, almost like…water. Frank jolted bolt upright. “Jade! Chartres!” He yelled it aloud, at such volume that both stone figures nearly toppled over in shock. “Come quickly! QUICKLY!”
“What is it ,Frank?” Jade asked quizzically. “It’s the middle of the night, for pete’s sake!” Frank was ecstatic.”It’s over the side of this hill! The waterfall at the end of the earth!”
And he began to run, as fast as he possibly could. One step closer… one step closer…Jade was worried. She flitted as fast as she could, as Chartres thudded after her. “Frank! WAIT!” the two yelled. But it was too late. There was no stopping him now.
Frank raced over the winding, swirling grasses that were leading him quickly out of the forest. He looked behind him. His two friends were ppinpricks. Not looking where he was going, he failed to notice that he was running on a path of sand, then…
SMACK! He collided hard with the side of a hard stone lodge building. His head was spinning, he could hear Jade. “Frank, Frank! Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right!” he called dizzily. When his vision cleared, he noticed that there was a large sign oin the side of the building. On the sign was a picture of a black boat. Underneath it were the words: GRIMM RIDERS’ PASSAGER TO ANOTHER WORLD…
As Jade and Chartres caught up with him at last, they both gasped as they read the sign. “It is true then” said Chartres. “This is the way to the Grimms’ Isle. I didn’t think the place existed, but…”
The trio walked carefully around the side of the hut. Around it was a small wooden door. It looked like it was made for a child. On it was the same picture of a black boat, made with dark black paqint. “I’ll knock, then” said Frank. He carefully placed a fist to the wood… and rapped three times.
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The door swung open, but no one stood in front of them. Inside, there was utter darkness. “Frank,” said Jade worriedly, “we should probably stay out here…” But the Prince ignored her, and ducked through the door. Chartres and Jade exchanged glances, but followed him nonetheless.
The trio stood in the blackness, staring around them but seeing nothing. However small the door had been, the building itself was large enough – or the ceiling high enough – for Frank and Chartres to stand upright. Jade fluttered nervously beside them.
“Is this really the way to the end of the world?” asked Frank, half expecting his voice to echo. Instead it sounded muffled and distant, even to him.
“I’m not sure,” said Jade. “It’s the way to Grimms’ Isle. Are you sure it’s really worth it to become a frog, Frank? We can still leave – I think.”
Frank did not like the sound of that, but he remembered the old man’s words about the waterfall at the end of the world and shrugged, before remembering that no one would see it in the darkness. “It’s worth it,” he said, but his voice cracked with fear in the middle of the sentence.
~~~~~~~~~~
I don’t want his sister to find him yet.
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Me neither.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then suddenly, without warning, a figure leapt out from behind the old wooden service desk. It was a man, old and hunched, and wrinkled beyond repair. His wispy white hair fell in clumps over his dead-looking black eyes. When he saw Frank, he grinned. It was an evil grin, with not many teeth.
“So. I have customers now, do I? How can I be of…assistance?” He laughed, hoarsley and like gravel. But Frank wasn’t afraid. “I would like a boat to the Grimms’ Isle.” Instantly, he knew he had said the wrong thing.
“Why?” The man asked as a dark look shadowed his face.”Why would you want to go there?” Then, he smiled again. Ah. I should have known it was you… Prince FRANK!”
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Then the man laughed. “No, I’m only joking. You look nothing like the prince, all dirty and ragged. It’s really none of my buisness why you need to go there. It is, after all, my duty to ferry you there after…” The man’s voice trailed off.
“Hey, doesn’t that sign say GrimmRiders’? Like, with an ‘s’?” asked Jade. At this the old man began to tremble. “Yes, it does. But my twin, my former partner… is no longer one of my worldly colleaugues.”
Jade looked down cast. “I…I am sorry for asking.” she said timidly. “Can you get us a boat?” Frank asked impatiently. “Yes, I’m sure I can find something.” The man laughed again. “Follow me.”
The trio followed the old man out of the building around to the other side. They gasped. In front of them were rows and rows of long black boats, stretching to the edge of the property. “Come,”the old man said. They followed him up the long rows of boats until they found one closest to the river. They all began to push it to the edge of the river. “From here, you must navigate to the waterfalls. Go very straight, and secure yourselves tight in.”
“Why do we need to secure ourselves?” asked Chartres. But the man didn’t answer. “Godspeed to you all, and I will see you on the other side.” Then, with a push, then man set the boat and oars onto the san, and the three climbed in. As the man pushed them away with surprising strength, they wondered if this was a good idea. But now, there was no going back.
The skiff sailed through the darkening night, as it traveled down the river. All three friends were rowing it, the paddles scraping against the bottom of the river. But then… “Do you hear something?” asked Jade.
“I can’t see anything from here…” Chartres said. but he was wrong. For as the three friends rowed along, they had no idea how close they were to death, which was at that time rowing by their sides, and awaiting the 2,000 foot drop that was the waterfall. Indeed, as the three soon found out, the man was right to have told them to secure themselves.
“Hey”, said Jade,”isn’t the front of the boat… tipping?” And suddenly, Frank knew. “HOLD ON!” he yelled. “We’re going over the falls!”
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The water rushed around them, icy cold and hard as hailstones above and below them. Frank screamed, and his mouth filled with water. Suddenly the nose of the boat hit comparably flat water and bobbed up, and the rest of the boat followed. They floated in the crashing bubbles at the foot of the waterfall for a moment, deafened and drenched, while their fear subsided. Then Frank picked up the paddles and started to propel them away from the deadly drop. Chartres followed suit, and Jade resumed whatever she did to make it look like she was paddling, as she was far too small to actually be very helpful.
They floated along in silence for a very long time. The black water was now smooth as a mirror, in sharp contrast to the bubbling cauldron by the waterfall, but oddly enough, it mirrored nothing. The stars were out above them, but the water showed only blackness. Frank shuddered, and wondered, not for the first time, if the whole quest was really worth his trouble. He had once been so sure that nothing was better than being a frog, and he would go through any trials to get to the waterfall at the end of the world – the waterfall! He whirled around, and the boat would have capsized if the gargoyle had not shifted his weight with a speed miraculous for something as stony as he. To be on the safe side, Jade seized the back of Frank’s tunic to keep him from falling out.
Frank stared mournfully back at the waterfall. Technically, he ought to have been glad that he could see no jutting piece of rock, as there would have been no way up to it now, but he felt only a desolation and despair as he saw that his quest was still not yet completed.
~~~~~~~
You know, I think we need more people to write. It’s just the two of us. Why haven’t any of the GAPAs written in a while?
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Yeah, I agree. Where are you, GAPAS?
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You all seem to be doing well enough without us.
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Yeah, but it’s fun when you write.
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And Jadestone will come back eventually, and Donaldo might post some, and TNÖ may return, and e~a suggested on the random thread that she might come back to write on this one sometime. But it’s still fun to have the GAPAs participating.
Here is the whole story, to pass the time. It’s pretty large, for amount of writing we’ve done.
ONCE UPON A TIME, in a land far away, there lived a prince who — much to the consternation of his court and his subjects — wished with all his heart that he had been born a frog.
Once upon that same time, but in a land even farther away, there lived a young noblewoman who wanted nothing more than to become a scholar.
And again upon that time, because these things are always in threes, was a boy who could grant the wishes of the prince and the noblewoman, if only he knew he had the power.
The reason the prince wanted to be a frog was this: one day, as he was wandering along the river bank, he saw a beautiful and quite mad girl, catching frogs and kissing them, then letting them go again. When he asked her why, she replied that she was hoping one would turn into a prince.
“Why,” said the prince, “I’m a prince! Look no further!” For he knew that his father’s best physicians could certainly cure her of her madness, and then they could be wed.
The girl looked him up and down, all the while being careful not to look behind him (he had said look no further, you know) but she shook her head and went back to catching frogs.
The experience made the Prince reflect that being a prince had a fair number of drawbacks. He had to spend his days eating food that wasn’t good for him, holding endless meetings and audiences with nobles who had nothing interesting to say for themselves, and governing people who didn’t much want to be governed. He also had to spend an inordinate amount of time grooming himself. Princes are required to be impeccably groomed. When he totaled up the number of hours a week he spent having his hair styled, his nails trimmed, and his clothes tailored and laundered and brushed and buffed, it made him want to scream. “Oh, for the life of a frog!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.
Actually, as he thought more and more on the subject, he began to realize just how much he didn’t want to be married, even. To think of all the planning and preparations that would be have to made for a wedding… and then spending so much time socializing and having those tedious, polite conversations with people he did not care about and did not care about him. As a frog, why, he would only come out when he wanted. And he wouldn’t have to bother with washing and making himself presentable and untouchable. An end to those horrid social gatherings… Granted, eating bugs would take some time to get used to, but small children did it all the time and didn’t seem any worse for wear.
Of course, there was the inevitable anguish over what sort of frog. He didn’t fancy being a tree frog, for instance. Never could stand heights. And he himself employed foresters, whose job it was to keep the trees trimmed and tidy, and keep the rides open so that he and his cronies could go on jolly trips into the woods. What if they inadvertently trimmed him? The awful possibility suddenly dawned that among the forest’s log piles and compost heaps – effectively HIS log piles and compost heaps, although he’d never paid them any attention – there could lurk the sad remains of trimmed frogs. He’d have to have a word with the foresters. But what would he tell them? Watch out for small, green, highly camouflaged frogs and make sure they don’t get trimmed? Just how long would it take to do a comprehensive frog check? Were there actually any tree frogs in his dominions anyway? He seemed to remember they were sort of tropical. So that was all right, then. Maybe he should just cancel his regular order for bananas.
So, a pond-based frog, then. Living a life of sloth and decadence in one of the castle’s ornamental aquatic extravagances. Yes, but – ponds are wet. He wasn’t really very keen on wet. He was rather used to being carted round in a big carriage. The coachman got wet, but he didn’t. He’d never been really wet, apart from bath night, but that was all warm and regulated, and hot milk and biscuits were available. He thought of a blustery, wintry night, when the howling wind rattled the shutters and the rain made sloshing noises on the portico because he’d STILL forgotten to tell old Albert to fix the gutters. Then he thought of all the frogs in that chilly pond, plopping their heads underwater to avoid the rain, which seemed pretty futile. No, maybe he’d remain a prince a while longer, until he’d identified a less hostile froggy environment. Besides, he’d pinned his transmogrification hopes on the witch at the end of Crab Lane. Everyone always thought she was a witch, but last month she started claiming she was the reincarnation of an ancient Sumerian astrologer, and standing on her head for no apparent reason. They’d put her in an institution, and she hadn’t escaped yet, so if she really was a witch, she couldn’t be very powerful. It didn’t bode well for the frog thing. On balance, thought the Prince, more consideration should be given to the matter. Further detailed planning was needed. He went off to find old Albert. At least the gutters were straightforward.
Over the next few days he took to splashing in the ponds, confusing the under-gardeners, frightening his parents, and disturbing the real frogs, until he thought that he could make it as a frog.
Now that he had made up his mind about it, all that remained was for him to figure out how to do it. So, he summoned the wisest man in all the land to help him.
The man’s name was Julian Perjorius. He was ninety-one and had traveled to every place worth mentioning, several places not worth mentioning, and at least one place that shouldn’t be mentioned even if one wanted to.
“How can I become a frog?” the prince asked.
Julian Perjorius was flabbergasted. “Why would you want to?”
“Never mind that. Do you know how I can turn into a frog?”
Julian thought he could bluff his way out of this, which was a serious mistake. “Of course! There are several methods. But a prince’s life is infinitely better than that of a frog. You shouldn’t even want to be a frog.”
“Well, I do. How do I do it?”
Julian Perjorius’s bald pate turned bright red, and he fumbled with the many amulets hanging around his neck. “Er… er…”
“Well?”
Julian Perjorius, of course, had no idea. He seized one last hope: to send the prince so far away that Julian Perjorius himself would be gone when the royal heir found out that he was a fraud.
“At the end of the world, the seas pour off in a great waterfall. In that waterfall is a rocky outcrop that forms an island. On that island there is a forest. In that forest there is a ruined castle. In that castle is a well. Drink from that well, and you will turn into whatever you wish.”
Julian Perjorius knew that the world was round, but he also knew that princes’ tutors weren’t paid enough to be accurate.
“Thank you!” the prince exclaimed, and he promptly ran off to grab his satchel.
“My dear son,” his deep-voiced father said solemnly. “Where are you running in such a grand hurry?”
“I’m off on a quest,” the prince laughed. “I’m going to become a frog!”
Before his parents could answer he had strode out onto the drawbridge and away he went.
The prince had gone to school since the age of five and knew that the world was not round, like the old man had said. He had studied arithmetic, literature and geography. His father always told him he would be a brilliant king, absolutely brilliant, and he believed it. His tutors would often give remarks such as ‘Wonderful job, Ferdinand!’ or ‘Absolutely remarkable, Frank!’ Frank was his nickname, and he did not like anyone calling him anything but. Still, the wise man was pretty wise, so Frank decided he might as well believe him. The prince was not one to miss out on opportunities, so he went off into the woods, not exactly knowing where he was going, but he would get to the end of the world one way or another. And with that, the prince set off into the wilderness.
Frank had never walked very deep into the woods before. He’d gone to the unicorn pasture with his sister many times but that was in a clearing just a five minute walk from the edge of the croquet grounds. And there was a well-maintained path.
But now he was in what felt like the wilderness proper. He’d passed the unicorns about an hour ago. He was trying hard to make progress but he wasn’t getting very far. The brush was thick and tree roots kept tripping him up.
Frank impatiently pulled aside a stubborn branch. He was beginning to wish that he’d brought along the sword his father was always after him to practice with. It might not have been much use, since he hated the thing and could barely hit anything with it, but it didn’t take much skill to whack blindly ahead.
Yank. Rip. Yank. Rip. Yank. Frank forged ahead, until suddenly there was nothing in front of him but a small green pool. Unprepared for this sudden freedom, he very nearly fell in and managed to save himself by grabbing onto a rock.
Which promptly unfolded under his fingers and bit him in one of the scratches he’d already gotten.
“You are grabbing a lady!” it screeched, in a rusty gravelly voice. “Where were you brought up, to have learned such manners?”
Frank was so surprised that he did fall into the water. It was cold and clear, and Frank swallowed a good deal of it before he surfaced. The lady who had spoken wasn’t, in fact, much of a lady. She had dark skin, riddled with pockmarks, a tattered dress, and messy grey hair. And she was about seven inches tall.
“You’re a rock fairy!” he said in surprise. Of all the thousands of rocks he could have grabbed in this horrible forest, it had to be a rock fairy.
“And you’re very rude and very lost, though I should hope that wasn’t your answer to my question,” said the fairy, crossing her spindly legs and sitting at the bank of the pool.
“What question?” asked Frank, sucking his bitten finger.
“Where did you learn your manners?”
Frank shrugged. “My tutors, mostly. They didn’t have very good manners themselves.” He stood up, and the water only reached to his knees. Luckily for him, he was very used to being wet by now, or he might have to decided to go home right then and there. Remembering that frogs didn’t stand up, he sat down again. The rock fairy watched him with interest.
“You humans are quite unfathomable,” she observed. “A few minutes ago, you seemed eager to be somewhere else, though you weren’t getting there very efficiently. Now you’re not going much of anywhere at all. If you had more sense than most mortals, it might occur to you to ask directions from someone who has lived in these woods since pebbles were boulders and mounds were mountains. But I don’t suppose it will.”
“Well, you see,” said Frank rather thoughtfully, “I don’t really know where I’m going myself.” He paused and thought for a bit about whether or not he should go about telling rock fairies, albeit slightly annoying ones, about his desires to become a frog. Sighing, he began to think that she might, after all, know how one goes about becoming a frog and it might be within his interest to tell her when she spoke up again.
“It’s not my habit,” the rock fairy said, “to offer advice to those who almost certainly won’t benefit from it. I probably ought to wrap myself back up into a cobble and let you fend for yourself.” She frowned and rested a cheek on one of her blocky fists. “On the other hand, things have been dull around here for the past eon or so, and they say a good deed is never wasted. So.
“Off some ways in that direction,” she continued, gesturing with her chin, “stands a castle hewn of very high-quality red granite. Lovely stone; I watched it cool. A king and queen live there, doing whatever mortal kings and queens do.
“In that direction”–she gestured again–”the woods soon give way to low hill of pure glass, a geological anomaly, on top of which a dragon makes his home. I don’t know how he would react if you went there, but he’d probably eat you.
“Should you choose to remain in the woods, the only mortals you are likely to meet are a woodcutter and his daughter. At first I mistook you for one of them. Humans all look more or less alike to me.
“And apart from staying in that pond, which, of course, you’ve managed to find for yourself, I’d say that just about exhausts your options.”
“What about that direction and that direction?” asked Frank, pointing to the only places that the rock fairy hadn’t gestured to.
“Well, both of those ways keep you in the woods for too long to actually constitute going out of it, but that way leads to a nice stone wall, been there for years, and the other way leads to the end of the world, or so I’ve been told. Of course,” she answered with a sniff, “everyone knows the world is round, so-” but whatever she said next was wasted on Frank, who was no longer there.
Frank began walking in the direction of the rock fairy’s gesture, and was beginning to wonder if she was right. So far he’d not seen anything, but then he decided not to complain, as the end of the world must be very far away. He walked and walked and found some interesting looking berries, which he promptly ate, not caring much as to whether they were poisonous or not. His tutors had never taught him much useful stuff, only Latin and math, which he knew very well, and how to answer questions of moral and to rule justly. It was all very boring in his mind. He occupied his time walking by thinking of everything that he could that began with either a, m, or q. He eventually came up with a very long list, until he was stopped by a very tall, and very ugly, monstrous beast.
Well, it appeared to be a hideous monster. So much so that he fell to the ground with a cry, shielding his face with his arms so that when it leapt out at him, well, no use thinking about that. If only he had had his sword…well, it probably wouldn’t be much use actually, but it would give whoever found his body the impression that he had put up a fight. Much more noble a way to die. Instead of ripped to shreds or eaten, as he was surely about to be…
But this was taking a rather long time, wasn’t it? He peeked through his fingers. The monster stood there, impassively. He put his arm down. The monster still made no move. He got up, brushed some dirt off his trousers, and examined it. It was, in actuality, a gargoyle. A rather lifelike one, admittedly, but nothing more than stone.
Was it? He warily eyed it, and kneeling he pulled a stick off the ground. He wasn’t going to risk touching it himself, no, he’d heard enough of the old bed time stories. He crept, advancing towards the beast. Or not-beast, or whatever the proper term was. He narrowed his eyes, quickly prodded the thing, and leapt back with a gasp.
The gargoyle stood there. Still. He frowned. This is beginning to become a slight waste of time… he thought to himself. Now what?
Frank was interrupted from his contemplations of just what one should do in order to figure out if what appears to be a gargoyle actually is a gargoyle rather abruptly by two almost simultaneous events. The first was the rock fairy who, having seemingly recovered from her bad mood after being left, hurtled into him at a rather fast speed shouting in a somewhat annoying high pitched voice. The second was that the seemingly still gargoyle yawned. Both of these things startled Frank to the degree that he jumped quite a bit in the air, much to the annoyance of the rock fairy.
“Must you jump so? It’s rather bothersome… Where did you say you learned your manners from, again?”
“But, that gargoyle he… yawned!”
“Well, gargoyles get tired too, you know. Sitting in the same spot all day must be boring,” the rock fairy said while sticking her tongue out at the gargoyle who promptly stuck his out at her, “He’s my uncle, you know.”
“You’re UNCLE?!”
“Why yes, it’s not that unusual…”
“They really don’t teach you much, Your Royal Wosserface, do they?” asked the fairy, settling herself on the shoulder of the gargoyle. “What are you doing here? Uncle, I’m old enough to take care of my own woods.”
The gargoyle made a sort of guttural hum. The fairy responded with a higher-pitched noise that sounded like a rock hitting a wall.
“My name is Frank,” said His Royal Wosserface, though he suspected this was rather irrelevant.
“And mine’s Jade. And his is Chartres. What’s your point?” Jade grumbled.
“Er…nothing.”
“You mortals are so confused,” said Jade, exasperated. “Not to mention rude.”
Frank considered answering as a frog would, but thought better of it and remained silent. So did Jade. So did Chartres.
After several very quiet minutes, Frank said, “I really must be continuing on my quest now. Thank you for the directions.” For he was determined to be polite after the Jade’s last comment on his manners.
“Oh, you’re on a quest,” said Jade. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Why, I’d love to come on a quest with you!” Jade exclaimed. “And so would Chartres.”
“Well, I wasn’t really asking you,” said the prince.
After an hour of arguing and debating, Chartres and Jade won out and so the prince was stuck with them till he became a frog.
Jade talked and talked for hours on end. Chartres remained silent, and took such tiny steps; Frank could barely see him move his feet, yet he still kept up with them.
“You want to be a frog?” asked Jade after a few hours.
“Did you just now realize that?” Frank asked, laughing.
As the unconventional group headed deeper into the woods, the Prince had the mounting feeling that there was a sinister mood among the local flora and fauna. All the trees were gnarled, and there was not a bird in sight.
A long time passed before the group came along anything else especially exciting. Jade was still talking when they came to a huge green wall. No, it was not huge. It was gigantic! Enormous! Ginormous!
“I guess we have to walk around,” said Frank. And so they started walking, and walking, and walking, and walking. What is this place? the Prince thought. He could hear quiet music playing on the other side of the wall, but as far as he could tell, there was no way in.
But after a few days of rounding the green wall, Frank realized they must have been going in circles, and he was all worn out.
“What are we going to do, guys? I can still hear people on the inside, but this wall is solid.â€
Meanwhile, back at the castle, the Queen was quite out of sorts.
“It’s OUTRAGEOUS,” she boomed. “A quest? At his age? Anything could happen to him. Why, at this very moment he could be lying by the roadside with his throat cut by brigands.”
“Now, Hortense,” the King replied mildly. “I’m sure nothing like that has happened.”
They were in their after-dinner throne room. The jesters and minstrels, sensing that their presence was not needed, had tiptoed off to bed about half an hour earlier. Nearby, in a low chair, Frank’s younger sister, the Princess Araminta (“Minty” to her parents when she was in their good graces, which at the moment she was not, and “Minch” to Frank when they were trying to annoy each other, which was most of the time), sat frowning into her tatting. “Oh, no,” she said half to herself. “I’m sure he’ll come hopping back home just in time for breakfast.”
“This is not a matter for jokes,” the Queen snapped. “Your brother is the heir to the throne. Who will rule the kingdom if anything should happen to him?”
Araminta tatted another stitch. She hated tatting. “I’ll rule,” she said quietly.
“And of all things, a FROG,” the Queen continued. “It’s unheard of. Why couldn’t he do something conventional–swap places with a commoner, or run away to sea, or turn Turk, or something? Why this fixation on becoming a cold, slimy amphibian?”
“No comment,” Araminta muttered.
“There’s nothing at all to worry about,” the King replied, forcing a smile. “This sort of thing happens all the time. Why, most young men at some point go through a fascination with herpetology. At his age I myself–” The sentence withered under the Queen’s glare. “Well, no, I never did. But it will pass, I’m sure of it.”
The Queen clapped her hands together. “I’ll not have it,” she said. “Such irresponsible behavior must not be tolerated. Tomorrow at first light we shall send out as many horsemen as we can muster to fetch the prince back to the castle and teach him to do his duty.”
In the dead of night, Araminta slid out of bed and dressed in the dark, afraid to light a candle lest she wake someone. She tiptoed out of her bedchamber and through the cold and stony halls. The proper way to go about it would have been to tear up her sheets and make a rope out of them, but then it would have taken far too long to leave, and likely she would have been discovered and given new sheets, and have to start all over again.
When Araminta came to a thick wooden door, she opened it carefully and silently. Normally doors like this would creak as they were opened, alerting everyone to her presence, but the old librarian, Robert, kept it in good shape. He was her favorite out of the castle staff, and she often came to the library when she couldn’t sleep. He wouldn’t tell her parents, and maybe he could help her find a way out and to her brother.
As Araminta expected, the library was lit with dozens of candles. Robert often got so absorbed in his scholarly projects that he worked all night and slept during the day. The aroma of melting beeswax mingled with the familiar smells of oaken bookcases and worn leather bindings. As Araminta entered the room, the old librarian looked up from a desk at which he had been inspecting a pile of dusty parchments. “Ah, your Royal Highness,” he said with a smile. “Such a pleasure to see you at any hour. I’ve been expecting you. How can I be of service?”
Araminta hesitated. Expecting her? How? But there was no time for puzzles. “I need your help,” she said in a voice just above a whisper. “There’s something I need to do. It’s very important, and it has to be done right away. It concerns–”
“His royal highness, your brother the prince,” Robert finished for her, nodding slightly. “A search party has been ordered to set out just after daybreak. The grooms will be saddling the horses soon. I take it, however, that you have plans of your own.”
Araminta nodded enthusiastically. “I’m going after him.”
“So I surmised,” the librarian replied. “Might I ask why, when their majesties your royal parents have already ordered their most accomplished men of arms to find him?”
Araminta snorted. “Because I want to have an adventure too. It isn’t fair that he gets to go on a quest, and I have to tat lace.”
“But he doesn’t ‘get’ to go on a quest. Why do you think the men of arms have gone after him?”
“Well, he still went on one. So I will too. Just because he’s a boy and older than me doesn’t mean he can have adventures and I can’t. Anyway, he wants to be a frog? I would do better than that with my quest.”
Robert seemed annoyed with her, any reaches, and he began to twiddle his fingers in an anxious way.
“But.. Does it not seem… dangerous for a small girl to go on such a tall order of a quest? Why not start smaller, like pulling a golden ball out of a stream, or helping to match a maiden to her lost glassy high-heel?”
Araminta frowned in a manner that made Robert feel pressed to put an abrupt end to the conversation, but of course with him being right, and the princess being quite wrong.
“I have barely ever left the castle, and I want an adventure too. Besides, do you know how humiliating it could be to have a frog as a BROTHER? Having him eat off of a plate and be sitting on your pillow because he helped you with some sort of petty task? And then, the girl who wanted to marry him would have to kiss him on slimy pondswaterry lips! That would be disgusting! I believe that he could do something better with his time than go looking for someone who could amphibitize him.”
Robert sighed. “All right, all right,” he said, “what is it that you want from me, exactly?”
Araminta turned her most confident smile upon the librarian. She knew that when he sounded most crotchety, he was ready to provide her the assistance he’d intended all along.
“I’m sure you’ve studied enough books to know that as my Magical Helper you’re supposed to present me with a talisman of some sort to help me succeed in impossible tasks no one could possibly have predicted. Then you give me a strict warning of something I absolutely must not do or face dire consequences, so that, of course, I can be sure to do it at the earliest opportunity.”
Robert was already removing a leather-clad box from a drawer Araminta didn’t remember noticing before. The box was tooled all over with arabesques of thorny vines and curling leaves she didn’t recognize. Nor could she make out the letters of what she presumed to be the title. The box smelled of age and travel and deep promises. Feeling a little awed in spite of herself, Araminta quickly recovered her poise.
“But if you dare give me a magical tatting shuttle, I will never speak to you again.â€
Robert smiled, now somewhat amused. “No, I didn’t intend to do so, my lady,” he said with a slight edge to his voice, and with an amazing flourishing gesture of his smooth hand, he removed the adorned lid of the glimmering box.
“EEEEEEEEK!”
An ear-piercingly loud voice came out of the box. It sounded like someone scratching their fingernails on a chalkboard.
“EGADS! WHAT IS THIS PLACE? WHERE’S ROBERT? AAAAAH! HEEEEEEELP MEEEEEEEEEE! I’VE BEEN STOLEN!” the voice from the box screamed. Araminta was so surprised and scared she dropped the box, but caught it right before it hit the ground.
“AAAAAAAAAH! MURDER! MURDER! I WAS ALMOST MURDERED! ARREST THIS GIRL! SHE TRIED TO MURDER ME! WHERE’S ROBERT?” screeched the voice, getting more irritating by the second. Araminta tried to close the box, but she couldn’t- it was as if the box was pushing itself open. The old librarian calmly walked over and said in a quiet and kind voice, “Shh. Calm down.” The box, upon hearing this, quieted immediately. “Araminta,” Robert said, “I would like to introduce you to your magical talisman, Emma.”
For a brief moment, Araminta could only stare. Then she said, “What? What do you mean? Talisman? How will it…er, she help me on my quest?”
Robert smiled, and reached a hand gently into the adorned box. Instantly, an ear-piercing scream lit the air. “OW! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? ROBERT? EEEEEE!”
“Relax, Emma, everything is fine”, said Robert, and he pulled from the box a long silver staff. It was crisscrossed with golden leaves, like the box, and at the top, held in by tight brass vines, was a crystal ball about the size of a very large tennis ball. And in the ball, swirling amidst white smokes was a face. It was a pretty face, that of a woman. She had flowing raven-black hair, emerald oval eyes that glinted sharply, a straight nose, and a full mouth. “WHO IS THAT?” cried the woman. “ROBERT! Who is she?”
Araminta looked at the face in the ball in surprise, and even a little fear. But just as she settled down for a moment, the ball screamed, rattling the candelabras, tremoring the books in their shelves, and nearly bowling Araminta over.
“WHY. IS. SHE. IN. HERE! MAKE HER LEEEAVE ROBERT!”
Robert gave Araminta an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” he said,” but I didn’t know she would be this cranky. She is normally very sweet, you know.” Araminta highly doubted this. Her eardrums were still ringing with the sounds that had just filled the room as Robert spoke softly to the lady in the orb. “Now, now, Emma, I know it’s been almost a hundred year nap, but this is Araminta, the princess, and she needs your help on a … mission of sorts.” The lady, upon hearing this, smiled broadly, which was the very last thing Araminta had expected her to do. “Well, well! This certainly is a special turn of events, now isn’t it? I would be honored to help you, but first I need a little something in return.” “And.. What is that, Madame?” asked Araminta as politely as she could.
Emma, the lady in the ball, grinned even wider. “I just need a favor… Do you know where the Warden of the West is?”
Araminta shook her head no. “I’m afraid I haven’t been acquainted, madam. You see, I haven’t ever been far from the castle, and…”
The lady cut her off. “I am sure that IF we are REALLY going on a REAL quest, she’ll pop up sooner or later, and when she does, I will need to speak with her about certain matters.” Emma peered around to make sure there was nobody else lurking in the shadows of the shelves, and then said, “What… exactly are we doing?”
Araminta smiled happily, because this meant that surely she would get to go on her quest now. “We are going to rescue my brother the prince. He wants to be a frog, but my father won’t let him. He’s run away to be one, and my father is ending his best knights after him, but we are going to beat them to him.”
“Well, then,” said Emma, “what on earth are we waiting for? Dawn, when the knights will be leaving?”
Robert nodded. “She’s right, you know. You’d better leave right away if you’re going at all, which I don’t encourage. But I suppose I can’t stop you, can I?”
“No, you can’t,” said Araminta.
So began a rather long journey, though the talisman – Emma – was usually very hard to conceal, as she was rather grouchy.
All too soon Araminta found herself in the true wilderness, the forests which knew no paths, civilization, and certainly no royalty. And she was stuck with what had t o be the most obnoxious talisman the world had ever had the great misfortune to know. Or not know, as the case may be.
Araminta had always thought of herself as more mature and practical than Frank – didn’t the whole I-want-to-be-a-frog thing prove it? However, when she walked headlong into an enormous spider web, she totally lost it. Screaming, kicking – the whole nine yards. A full blown tantrum, really.
“Oh, come on!” cried Emma. “You’ll wake up the spider, or whatever nasty creature made this web. And then where will we be? It’ll eat you, and I’ll be stuck here forever!” While Araminta wasn’t sure Emma would be lost forever, she had to admit that she had a point. Giant nasties weren’t something to be messed with.
But Emma’s warning had come too late, for the spider was creeping down the web towards the rather unfortunate duo.
Araminta screamed again, and unsurprisingly, so did Emma. They didn’t have to worry about waking the spider, as it was already awake. After several seconds, Araminta had to pause for breath, and suddenly realized that the spider was coming very, very slowly. If she ran quite fast, perhaps Araminta could get away before she was captured and sucked dry. However, she didn’t think about why the spider was moving so slowly . . .
The spider, evidently thinking only to itself, was moving quite quickly toward the two at first, when only suddenly, he noticed a slight movement and then a sharp jolt to his legs. This jolt had no color or sound, but it slowed down the hampered spider so much that it could barely move, much les reach its’ prey.
Araminta pulled herself hard backwards, and almost at one, she and Emma were free. Araminta ran, as hard and fast as her legs could carry her, off into the farther deep of the woods. Soon she was so tired that she collapsed heavily on the dirt of the forest floor. The earth felt soft and cool under her sweating cheeks. But just as she was about to get back up, something made a slight noise behind her, as if a stick had cracked. Araminta’s head spun around. “Who’s THERE?” she asked slowly and cautiously. And all at once, a shape stepped gingerly out of the dark black foliage.
A figure, tall and semi-muscular looking, had crept out of the trees. It was a man, not older than Araminta herself. He had thick, wavy raven black hair. His eyes were dark, but full of light and played with a smile on them. He had a thin face with a small pointed nose and a strong chin. He wore a dark green tunic and trousers, and was shrouded in a thick black cloak with a hood, and on his belt was a thin strip of wood. It was embroidered carefully with carved rope-like designs, and at one Araminta knew what it was. It was a wand.
“Hello”, said the man, who smiled at her like a long lost friend. “I am Lucias. What is your name?” Araminta stuttered for a moment, not sure what to say. “I…I… I am, er… Minty, a dairy maid in the village.” She felt so bad to lie to this boy, but he was an outsider. She owed him nothing so far, and if he knew she was the princess, he might send her back to the castle. “I… traveled into the woods looking for my pet… frog. He escaped you see, and I love him dearly, almost like a brother.” She paused, now not sure what to say. What if her brother wasn’t even a frog yet? The man grinned even more broadly. “Ah, a quest. I too am on a quest. I am looking for the prince. He has evidently run away to become a frog, and the king has sent me and other knights and … never mind… to come after him. Maybe… I could help you search for your frog, and you could help me search for mine?” She liked this man already! Why, they even thought alike! But… why did he carry such a precious wand? As if he could read her mind, Lucias pulled his cloak over his belt, offering her his arm. “So, my lady,” he said, “what will it be?” His smile… It was like a sunbeam on her face.
She answered, “I would be delighted, sir.” He grinned happily.
“Then… lead the way, miss.” She took his strong hand and they began their way into the deep foliage, like two old friends, rejoined on the same path.
Meanwhile, the Prince and his stony companions were sitting in front of the green wall. It was not green in the truest sense, but it was covered with moss and ivy, which, combined with the dim light, made it look rather as though it were carved out of an opaque green stone.
On an impulse, Frank stood up and went over to it. Jade took the opportunity when he wasn’t looking to snatch some of his bread, and found that it wasn’t quite as good as it looked, being quite stale.
Frank was scratching away at the moss, in the hopes of finding a door or something, but so far he had had no luck.
Jade said, “Yuck,” and Frank turned around.
“Hey!” he cried. “You’re eating my lunch!”
“It’s stale any-” began Jade, but suddenly the ground opened up and swallowed Frank whole.
People often wish that this would happen when they are embarrassed or bored. Frank was no exception, and indeed, he had probably wished it more than anyone, what with being a Prince and all. But this was something entirely different.
For one thing, he wasn’t being humiliated. For another, this was not at all what he’d imagined the ground swallowing him up would feel like. It was more like falling down a long vertical tunnel, without the tunnel sides around him. So more like falling into a very high-ceilinged cavern.
Very, very, high-ceilinged, since he hadn’t hit the ground yet. Maybe even bottomless.
It suddenly occurred to Frank that he was analyzing what it felt like to be swallowed by the earth. That was so utterly strange that he began to laugh. His laughter echoed around, confirming his suspicions that he was in a cavern. But it was odd how long he’d been fa-
BLAM! The large blast echoed like an earthquake around the round tunnel. It shook the dirt crusted around Frank, who shook and vibrated horribly like a piece of spaghetti when you hold it loosely between your fingers and give it a gentle, firm tug. To Frank, there seemed to be no place from which the horrible rumble had come from, but as he pondered, he suddenly realized that he was nearing the…
THUD. Frank hit the musty-smelling floor of the pit with a sickening crunch. This dreadful drop might have killed him, but, as luck might have it, there was something under him that had broken his fall. He picked up one of the long thin objects to inspect it, but he threw it down immediately with a shuddery gasp. It was a long, thin mouse bone covered with caked blood and thick moss. As Frank peered haphazardly around the pit, he saw that there was a layer of these bones about three feet thick, covering the dirt of the ground. Disregarding this unpleasant sight, Frank peered around at the walls of the pit and gasped.
The walls were not so much walls as they were entrances to tunnels. There were about eight large, gaping holes around the circular chamber, each leading into a thick blackness. He could not see beyond their depths too far, but did observe that there was a torch on a plinth near the entrance of each large tunnel opening. Frank knew that somehow, one of these tunnels must lead out of the hole. He had no idea how, though. The opening through which he had fallen was so far up, it looked no bigger than the head of a bobby pin from his point of view. He was determined to get back to Jade, though, so he took a deep breath and stepped to the entrance of the first tunnel.
“I should mark my place, so I know I’ve been here,” he said to himself. “That way, I won’t choose this tunnel again.” He took two small mouse bones and placed them in an X at the start of the tunnel. Then, picking up the torch from the plinth, he struck it sharply against the stone wall of the first tunnel. The flame lit almost instantly, providing a narrow beam of light into the cavernous passage. He took another calming breath, gathered his last remaining pints of courage and stepped bravely into the tunnel.
It seemed to him that he walked for a very short time before he reached a wall at the end of the tunnel. There seemed to be no other way out, so he turned around and went the other way. He found himself once again in the cavernous room. He decided to choose another tunnel at random. He walked over to the black entrance to the fifth tunnel. He made an X with two bones once more, and placed it at the tunnel’s mouth. He then proceeded into the tunnel.
This tunnel was different. He walked for a long, long time, as the tunnel twisted and turned this way and that, this way and that. Suddenly, the tunnel stopped, and there was another opening immediately to Frank’s right. It suddenly occurred to Frank that the only way anyone could go through the cavern by abrupt turns was into the next tunnel. Now he must be in the sixth tunnel. He turned left at the moment he entered the next tunnel, and continued walking on his sore feet, walking, walking, until…
His torch blew out as a snuff of hot air flew unceremoniously past him. The air was moldy and smelled of snot, and…wait a minute! He was in a tunnel, how could there be a wind?
Then he saw a small yellow light far into the tunnel. He began to run, fast and furious, toward the light. He ran and he ran, and then, suddenly, the light shone bright, so he could see around him.
Sitting on a stump of a small log was a dark gray cat. Beside its’ flicking tail was a shuddering lamp flame in a small lantern. Now he knew what had eaten all of those would be mice whose remains had broken his fall. And floating by the cat, her wings fluttering, was…
“Jade!” Frank yelled with excitement. He ran over to her and the cat, whose beady eyes now flickered onto the pair of them. “How did you find me?”
“Easy,” said Jade happily. “I flew after you, and chose this tunnel while you were probably in a different one. Then I met…” Her face paled. “Oh, no! I forgot! Frank, we… we have to get out of here right now!”
“I’ll say you do,” said a voice, and as the pair turned to face the sound, the cat on the stump began to change. The eyes grew to become large and green in sockets surrounded by a wrinkled old face. It was surrounded by lank grey hair, the exact color of the cat fur. The woman’s dress was also grey, the color of the old stone walls, and was torn and ripped in several places. She spoke once more, saying, “The pet will be after you two. You have trespassed upon my land, and so he will devour you, as he has many of your fellows. It’s a shame, but I fear that it must be done. Nobody can know where I am.”
“Why’s that?”, Jade asked. “Never you mind,” the old lady groaned. “He will find you. He will, he will…” And with that, the woman fell to the floor. Her limp form became a gray cat once more, and the cat began to snore, letting out gusts of wind so large they were like small hurricanes.
“WE better get out of here,” Frank said hurriedly, and the two began to run down the tunnel. But as they reached the atrium point, they realized there was something wrong…
Something large and black was on all fours in the middle of the atrium. It was a beast that was so great and hairy, you could barely tell what it was. It was encased in coarse hair that when they collided with Jade as the paw of it swept toward them, it was as though made of strips if nail.
The giant padded paw swept then both off of their feet and into a corner against a wall. But they were swift. Fast as lightning, they ran down the last tunnel. The beast’s paw flew in after them, swatting after their retreating backs, but it couldn’t go too far. Jade and Frank sat huddled against the wall, watching the great hairy appendage swipe against the bricks only feet away from them.
“We have to get out of here,” Jade said softly. “I have an idea.” She and Frank crept along the passage just as the paw pulled back out of the tunnel. Jade reached into her pocket suddenly, and pulled out a small bottle full of a shining blue liquid. She popped the top and handed it to Frank. “Here, drink this,” she told him. “It’s a one-hour shrink potion. Just drink a drop. We only need ten minutes.” Frank carefully put a tiny drop onto his tongue. He felt himself growing smaller… smaller, and then he saw Jade fluttering above him. “Now climb into my hand,” she instructed. Frank did, and then they had reached the tunnel’s mouth. Then, without warning, Jade flew out of the opening. The dog let out a rattling howl, and spiped at her with all his might. But Jade was faster. She flew fast and furious up the tunnel. But the dog took a leap and stuck his caws deep into the wall. The bricks and dirt caused a rumbling avalanche under the dog. He kept climbing up the wall, jaws snapping at Jade. She screamed as one tip of a sharp incisor scraped he leg, but then they had flown swiftly out of the tunnel and into the light. Jade’s wings finally gave out, and the two, with Frank grown to his normal size, fell hopelessly to the ground.
Now that Frank had really been swallowed up by the earth, he wasn’t keen to do it again, and so, like so many silly humans, wrapped his arms around a tree trunk and refused to budge, no matter what Jade threatened to do to him. So now Jade and Chartres were examining the wall with some interest.
It didn’t really look like a wall, and it didn’t sound hollow. It was more reminiscent of a glass hill Jade’s cousin’s friend’s uncle’s mother had supposedly stumbled on once than a natural formation or man made object.
Presently Frank decided that he could venture from his tree and rose to join his companions. He was some distance away and, now that he focused on the wall, he realized that he somehow recognized the shape… Though he couldn’t think where. Rounded, oblong, and smaller at one end… Yes, that was it. The wall looked like an egg.
If it was an egg, then it must have been sitting there a good while, for all that moss to grow on it, he thought. Therefore, it is in no danger of hatching, breaking, etc. and we are perfectly safe.
Naturally he didn’t feel perfectly safe, because if he had, he wouldn’t have bothered to go through the likelihood of its safety in his head. He edged over to Jade and Chartres, carefully keeping a firm hold on one tree or another all the while. “I think we should go,” he said nervously.
“Why on earth do you think that?” asked Jade, who was fascinated by wall/hill/egg and not at all afraid of being swallowed by the earth.
“Because that thing is an egg. And even though I’m certain it won’t hatch or break while we’re here, because of all the moss, I still think we should leave, because if it did hatch or break-” he suddenly realized he was babbling, and shut up.
“Oh,” said Jade, even more fascinated. “So it’s an egg. And it’s been here long enough to grow moss. Hmm.”
“Hmm?” quavered Frank. He didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that the only egg that takes that long to hatch is a dragon egg.”
Frank, having been swallowed by the Earth and rescued with a very close call on getting out alive, did not much like the idea of hanging around and aging dragon egg, which could hatch at any moment. So, he took a hesitant breath, and said, “I’m really quite annoyed after being swallowed alive. Besides, my father has no doubt already organized a search party, looking for me. I believe that the best decision right now would be to move on. I REALLY don’t want to come face to face with a real drag-”
BOOM. BOOOM. BOOM. There was a loud, ear splitting, ground rattling booming noise coming from behind them. At once, Frank had an idea where it was coming from…
And then, a throttling CRAA-A-A-ACK came from the egg’s side. The giant oval was splitting right down the middle. Frank tried to yell, “RUN!”, but it was much too late. A green, leathery thing covered in green goop the color of the moss that had embossed the egg was a large, scaly wing, with a talon perched on the end in a claw. Then, there came a shriek so loud it was like a setup of a billion modern day stereo karaoke sets with a billion microphones set near the speaker, each turned up to their full extent of volume.
The trio turned on their speed at full energy and began to run, but not before they saw the face, the horrid face, poking more sinister than anything on earth out of the cracked shell. It was green, like that of a glistening snake. It had teeth longer than tree stumps, roots and all, and they were yellowed and shining. And the eyes, a vivid purple, full of malice and larger than a computer screen. They stared menacingly at the three frightened people, and had in them a horrid promise . . .
When Frank saw the dragon’s eyes, the first (and only) thing he wished was to be swallowed up by the earth again. Then the world went black.
Jade and her uncle stood still as stone, which in fact they were. They were much to hard to be of any interest to the dragon, but Frank, lying insensible right in front of it, was of a whole lot of interest.
Meanwhile, and not too far away, Araminta and Lucias were continuing a prolonged and much thought out search for the frog-beguiled prince. Araminta was wishing with all her heart that he wasn’t a frog just yet. If only they could stop him, before it was too late…
The pair came into a small clearing in the forest. There were two forks on the other side of it. One pointed to their right, and one pointed to their left. “How are we supposed to get out of this one?” she asked.
“Don’t worry, I can think of something…” Lucias’ voice trailed off as both of them heard a noise in the far distance. It was like a loud cacophony of yells, followed by a large screeching noise, horrible to the ear. The ground actually rumbled a little bit. What if…
“Lucias! We have to follow that screech. Quick! Which way did it come from?” A puzzled look crossed his handsome features as he considered her question. Then, slowly and reluctantly, he pulled his wand from his belt. Araminta gasped.
“You’re going to do magic?” she asked incredulously. “But magic is against the law! The royal family outlawed it long ago!” He stared at her long and hard. “You really don’t get out much, do you?” he asked quizzically. Araminta blushed.
“No, I suppose I don’t. Well, if you must, I guess you must. Have at it.” She held her breath, waiting for it…
When she opened her eyes, she saw Lucias looking at her in amazement. “It won’t hurt anyone,” he said, “but it will make a little pop. Is that all right?”
“Yes, of course!” She was slightly embarrassed. Of course he wouldn’t hurt anybody! Lucias took a deep breath and concentrated hard. He then opened his mouth and recited,
“Upon the earth from cores within
I summon the pow’r of the witches’ sin,
Let there be on the ground this day
A sign for us that points the way!”
The shot something dazzlingly purple from the tip of the wand, and it hit the ground with the pop like a firecracker. Immediately, a glimmering purple arrow pointed down the left fork of the path.
Lucias slipped the wand back into his belt, and grabbed her hand, pulling her down the path. She didn’t need pulling. She dashed pell-mell after him down the dirt lane. And to her surprise, there was already something there…
Sitting there in a large space clear of trees was a cracked open egg. What had once been white had long since been covered in green mosses. But what sat in the middle was what prompted Araminta’s shriek of unadulterated terror.
In the very middle of the gigantic eggshell sat something so massive, it made both the adventurers feel like the heads of pins. It was a large thing, its’ many scales a deep jade green. It had narrow purplish magenta eyes that seemed to pierce you straight through when they glowed. But although it was the smallest of its kind, the teeth.. They were like small swords, glinting fiercely in the morning sun. “It’s …a d-dragon,” Araminta stuttered, and she collapsed in a heap on the forest floor.
Araminta had never been the hysterical type. She despised her mother’s idea of a princess, a girl that sat in her palace waiting for a prince to come to rescue her, or fainted at the least sign of danger. But for once, she thought she might actually understand.
Of course, all this reasoning came later, after Lucias had revived her with cold water and she had stopped moaning terrified gibberish.
“What on earth is the matter, Minty?” asked Lucias, looking exceedingly consternated and placing himself between her and the dragon.
Araminta, embarrassed at having lost her cool, was attempting to regain her composure. At this question, however, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “What do you mean, ‘what’s the matter’? It’s only a dragon, that’s all!”
Lucias turned around to look at the dragon and studied it for some time. “It’s a baby. It can’t breathe fire yet.”‘
“It doesn’t need to breathe fire,” replied Araminta, doing a rather good job of controlling herself. “Look at its teeth.”
“Well,” said Lucias, “we don’t need to worry about that. It’s about to fall asleep.”
“What- how do you know?” asked Araminta, but almost before she could finish her sentence, the dragon gave a rumble, and then a snort, and swayed on its huge taloned feet. Then, for all the world like a falling tree, it fell to the ground with an impact that made the earth shake.
“Dragons always fall asleep after eating,” said Lucias, a tad smugly.
Araminta’s eyes opened wide. “What- what did it eat?”
“Nothing,” broke in a voice. It was Emma, whom Araminta had almost forgotten about. “That boy put a spell on it. Though I imagine if he hadn’t, it would have fallen asleep soon anyways. Look.” She couldn’t point, due to her lack of arms, but somehow she managed to indicate a small figure lying right in front of the dragon.
The figure, which the pair had not noticed before, was lying limply on the ground by the cracked and hopelessly shattered remains of the eggshell. It was a she, and the figure was almost invisible. Her dress was the exact same shade of deep green as the scales of the dragon, but torn and strangely thin, unlike the sturdy scales of the beast. Her hair was a straggly dirty blond, flung hopelessly over her delicate white arms and face, which was hidden from view.
Minty and Lucias, frightened of the dragon but grateful that it was asleep, crept over to the figure. “Miss?” Minty whispered. “Miss, are you all right?” Lucias strode over to the figure and flipped the hair gently away from her face. The blond layers revealed a pale face, with ruby lips shaped just right, and thick eyelashes. Lucias bent over her and spoke firmly. “Madam, are you well? Can… Can you hear me?”
As if by a sudden force, the young woman snapped up from the ground, sitting straight upright. “Well, of course I’m all right!” she said sharply. “You wouldn’t expect me to be sitting on the ground and actually be all right?” She looked around, mildly confused. Her voice had an English twinge to it, and was bouncy and soft, like raindrops pattering a rooftop. Her mouth was a full ruby red, and her eyes were blue. She looked young, yet very beautiful. In an instant, she seemed to snap back to reality. “Oh! Yes, I forgot! I just put this dragon to sleep. I thought you two might be frightened of her.” Araminta nodded, but the woman went on without noticing. “I guess I got a blast of it too, and dozed off a bit. Excuse me, I haven’t introduced myself!” She stood up. “I am Annabel Sarclopohagus, but you may call me Annie. I’m a dragon keeper. This little beauty is a newly hatched Scotts Westley dragon. As of now, the abandoned dear is under my care.”
Lucias interrupted. “How did you put it…her to sleep?” Annie looked very worried. “I’m not sure I’m able to divulge that information, but I guess that, considering our position, I can make an exception. ” She sighed. “I am a divinist, meaning I can divine the future. I am also fluent in the art of hypnosis, very common where I come from. You must keep it a secret, though. The king ordered a law a few days ago, issuing that anyone found doing magic would be put under immediate arrest.”
Araminta gasped. Why would her father do something like that? It seemed that he and her mother had always gotten along peacefully with the magically gifted. Lucias was looking at Annie. “What exactly are the magical properties of the dragon?” He looked intrigued by the beast. Minty shuddered. “This dragon can fly at a very long distance, protect its’ charges, or handlers, and she has an amazing sense of tracking and direction…” As Annie went on, Lucias and Araminta shared a glance. Amazing sense of direction…
“Excuse me, madam,” Lucias cut in, “but can she breathe fire yet? I am trying to protect my colleague here. I would really hate to see her hurt…”He blushed, and his voice trailed off. At this point, it is necessary to say that at that point, Araminta felt something large and flowing spring up inside her. Lucias… cared, about her…
“No, she won’t breathe fire until she’s at least three weeks old, but if you are here when she wakes, she will become attached to you, and not harm you. If you are kind to her, she will do much for you. Maybe she’ll give you a ride later. Would you like that?” Annie smiled.
Minty and Lucias shared a glance. They both knew they wanted to. After all, a ride on a dragon didn’t come around too often… They both replied at the same time. “Yes!” Annie grinned. “Okay then! Let’s give this baby a try!”
Araminta sipped her tea, trying not to seem to eager, but buzzing inside. She could hardly wait to try to find Frank – not to mention to ride a dragon – but there were several problems she could see, the first being that although Annie would let them ride the dragon, it was unlikely that they would allow them to take her on a quest for an indefinite amount of time. Another problem was that if Frank saw Araminta, her dairymaid guise would crumble. And if these people – Lucias and Annie – knew that she was the daughter of the very king who had outlawed magic – which both of them were nonetheless proficient at – it could ruin two promising friendships.
Annie put down her teacup with a clatter, startling Araminta out of her reverie. “Ready?” she asked.
Araminta swallowed. “I’m ready,” she said, as calmly as she could.
Lucias saw her unease. “Don’t worry, Minty,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”
Annie turned around. “It will be fun – provided you’re not scared of heights.
“I’m not,” said Araminta, but she couldn’t tell them that that wasn’t what she was worried about, not at all.
Annie grinned. “I don’t know about today, but this little one should be all ready to fly, come morning.”
“We really should be getting some rest…” Lucias said. “We should bunk here for the night.” Annie leapt to her feet, clattering her teacup on its’ tray. “Yes, I believe I have some extra blankets in my kit!” She ran around to the farthest side of the clearing, returning moments later with three soft-looking blankets.
Araminta frowned. She had never been used to sleeping on the ground, and wasn’t very much interested. But she would do a lot fore her brother, and lying on the ground was the least of her problems… She and Lucias both took blankets from Annie, and finished their tea after they had laid them on the softest patches of dirt they could find.
As the sky deepened to a black navy, and stars began to twinkle like diamonds over their heads, Araminta wondered what it would feel like to fly on a dragon. Would it be frightening? Would it be… fun? And then, what was Frank doing at that very moment…?
Staring, so very shaken and frightened from the varying events of the day, at the same stars as Araminta were Frank, Jade, and Chartres. Chartres was sitting, motionless because he was stone, on a large stump. Jade was perched on his head, in a position as if she were meditating. But Frank was lying spread on his back in the moss and leaves of the forest floor, wondering if his quest was a flop. It was so silent that he could hear himself think. Will I ever reach that well?
And then, in the silence, he heard a noise. It was a deep rushing rumble, almost like…water. Frank jolted bolt upright. “Jade! Chartres!” He yelled it aloud, at such volume that both stone figures nearly toppled over in shock. “Come quickly! QUICKLY!”
“What is it, Frank?” Jade asked quizzically. “It’s the middle of the night, for Pete’s sake!” Frank was ecstatic. “It’s over the side of this hill! The waterfall at the end of the earth!”
And he began to run, as fast as he possibly could. One step closer… one step closer…Jade was worried. She flitted as fast as she could, as Chartres thudded after her. “Frank! WAIT!” the two yelled. But it was too late. There was no stopping him now.
Frank raced over the winding, swirling grasses that were leading him quickly out of the forest. He looked behind him. His two friends were pinpricks. Not looking where he was going, he failed to notice that he was running on a path of sand, then…
SMACK! He collided hard with the side of a hard stone lodge building. His head was spinning, and he could hear Jade. “Frank, Frank! Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right!” he called dizzily. When his vision cleared, he noticed that there was a large sign in the side of the building. On the sign was a picture of a black boat. Underneath it were the words: GRIMM RIDERS’ PASSAGER TO ANOTHER WORLD…
As Jade and Chartres caught up with him at last, they both gasped as they read the sign. “It is true then” said Chartres. “This is the way to the Grimms’ Isle. I didn’t think the place existed, but…”
The trio walked carefully around the side of the hut. Around it was a small wooden door. It looked like it was made for a child. On it was the same picture of a black boat, made with dark black paint. “I’ll knock, then” said Frank. He carefully placed a fist to the wood… and rapped three times.
The door swung open, but no one stood in front of them. Inside, there was utter darkness. “Frank,” said Jade worriedly, “we should probably stay out here…” But the Prince ignored her, and ducked through the door. Chartres and Jade exchanged glances, but followed him nonetheless.
The trio stood in the blackness, staring around them but seeing nothing. However small the door had been, the building itself was large enough – or the ceiling high enough – for Frank and Chartres to stand upright. Jade fluttered nervously beside them.
“Is this really the way to the end of the world?” asked Frank, half expecting his voice to echo. Instead it sounded muffled and distant, even to him.
“I’m not sure,” said Jade. “It’s the way to Grimms’ Isle. Are you sure it’s really worth it to become a frog, Frank? We can still leave – I think.”
Frank did not like the sound of that, but he remembered the old man’s words about the waterfall at the end of the world and shrugged, before remembering that no one would see it in the darkness. “It’s worth it,” he said, but his voice cracked with fear in the middle of the sentence.
Then suddenly, without warning, a light flared up and a figure leapt out from behind an old wooden service desk. It was a man, old and hunched, and wrinkled beyond repair. His wispy white hair fell in clumps over his dead-looking black eyes. When he saw Frank, he grinned. It was an evil grin, with not many teeth.
“So. I have customers now, do I? How can I be of…assistance?” He laughed, hoarsely and like gravel. But Frank wasn’t afraid. “I would like a boat to the Grimms’ Isle.” Instantly, he knew he had said the wrong thing.
“Why?” The man asked as a dark look shadowed his face. “Why would you want to go there?” Then, he smiled again. Ah. I should have known it was you… Prince FRANK!”
Then the man laughed. “No, I’m only joking. You look nothing like the prince, all dirty and ragged. It’s really none of my business why you need to go there. It is, after all, my duty to ferry you there after…” The man’s voice trailed off.
“Hey, doesn’t that sign say Grimm Riders’? Like, with an ‘s’?” asked Jade. At this the old man began to tremble. “Yes, it does. But my twin, my former partner… is no longer one of my worldly colleagues.”
Jade looked downcast. “I…I am sorry for asking.” she said timidly. “Can you get us a boat?” Frank asked impatiently. “Yes, I’m sure I can find something.” The man laughed again. “Follow me.”
The trio followed the old man out of the building around to the other side. They gasped. In front of them were rows and rows of long black boats, stretching to the edge of the property. “Come,” the old man said. They followed him up the long rows of boats until they found one closest to the river. They all began to push it to the edge of the river. “From here, you must navigate to the waterfalls. Go very straight, and secure yourselves tight in.”
“Why do we need to secure ourselves?” asked Chartres. But the man didn’t answer. “Godspeed to you all, and I will see you on the other side.” Then, with a push, then man set the boat and oars onto the san, and the three climbed in. As the man pushed them away with surprising strength, they wondered if this was a good idea. But now, there was no going back.
The skiff sailed through the darkening night, as it traveled down the river. All three friends were rowing it, the paddles scraping against the bottom of the river. But then… “Do you hear something?” asked Jade.
“I can’t see anything from here…” Chartres said. but he was wrong. For as the three friends rowed along, they had no idea how close they were to death, which was at that time rowing by their sides, and awaiting the 2,000 foot drop that was the waterfall. Indeed, as the three soon found out, the man was right to have told them to secure themselves.
“Hey”, said Jade, “isn’t the front of the boat… tipping?” And suddenly, Frank knew. “HOLD ON!” he yelled. “We’re going over the falls!”
The water rushed around them, icy cold and hard as hailstones above and below them. Frank screamed, and his mouth filled with water. Suddenly the nose of the boat hit comparably flat water and bobbed up, and the rest of the boat followed. They floated in the crashing bubbles at the foot of the waterfall for a moment, deafened and drenched, while their fear subsided. Then Frank picked up the paddles and started to propel them away from the deadly drop. Chartres followed suit, and Jade resumed whatever she did to make it look like she was paddling, as she was far too small to actually be very helpful.
They floated along in silence for a very long time. The black water was now smooth as a mirror, in sharp contrast to the bubbling cauldron by the waterfall, but oddly enough, it mirrored nothing. The stars were out above them, but the water showed only blackness. Frank shuddered, and wondered, not for the first time, if the whole quest was really worth his trouble. He had once been so sure that nothing was better than being a frog, and he would go through any trials to get to the waterfall at the end of the world – the waterfall! He whirled around, and the boat would have capsized if the gargoyle had not shifted his weight with a speed miraculous for something as stony as he. To be on the safe side, Jade seized the back of Frank’s tunic to keep him from falling out.
Frank stared mournfully back at the waterfall. Technically, he ought to have been glad that he could see no jutting piece of rock, as there would have been no way up to it
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Oops. It’s too long to fit in one post. Here’s the rest.
Frank stared mournfully back at the waterfall. Technically, he ought to have been glad that he could see no jutting piece of rock, as there would have been no way up to it, but instead he felt only desolation and despair as he realized that his quest was not yet over.
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Right. I really have horrendous writer’s block right now, and am thus at a comeplete loss.
Come on, GAPA, contribute! *bambi eyes* please?
:idea:TNÖ:idea:
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267-OMIGOSH, That is a loooong story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The three rowed along, silent and swift, for what seemed like ages. They rowed until they were too sore to row, until the darkness faded and gave in reluctantly to the first shafts of light. And in the light, Frank saw something looming, out of the darkness…
“It’s the Island!” he shouted joyfully. “The Grimm Island! we’ve reached it at last!”
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268 – Wow, just over the limit.
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271- It wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t written before posting it. But it is impressive, isn’t it?
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272 – I’ll say.
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They beached the boat and abandoned their paddles as they rushed up the shore. Even in the early morning light, shadows clustered in improbably places, reluctant to give up their hold on the Isle. The bedraggled, wet trio didn’t even care. Frank lay spread-eagled on the sand, Jade held a conversation with a pebble, and Chartres sat silent as usual in the first rays of sun.
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Hey everybody! Sorry I haven’t been here in a while. Can someone please give a summary? I know you guys don’t like too, but I am too lazy to read all those REALLY LONG posts.
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275- Alright. Agrrrfishi made it so that Frank landed on bones, not sand, and after he was rescued by Jade, the “green wall” turned out to be a dragon, and it hatched. Frank and Jade and Chartres ran away, and we skipped over to Araminta and Lucias. They saw the dragon, met the owner of the dragon, a woman named Annie, and Araminta discovered that magic had been banned by her (Araminta’s) father, the king. Annie promised to let them use the dragon to track the prince, and Araminta was worried because she didn’t want her disguise to crumble. Meanwhile, Frank and Co rented a boat from an old scary ferryman, and went over a waterfall, which was not the waterfall at the end of the world. They rowed down the river, and came to Grimms’ Isle.
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Oops. The green wall turned out to be a dragon egg.
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Later they held a conference. Frank was hungry, though Chartres and Jade, being stone, didn’t need to eat. Jade was curious about the rest of the Isle, as was the Prince, though he was too hungry to really care. In the end it was decided that they would explore the island, all the while looking around for anything edible (what little food they had had had been lost in the waterfall.)
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276-Yes it was! It has to be the one at the end of the world because Araminta is catching up, and we don’t have a lot of room left, and the just got to the island with the castle with the well but they don’t know that it is the island.
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279- But it wasn’t! Look here:
“At the end of the world, the seas pour off in a great waterfall. In that waterfall is a rocky outcrop that forms an island. On that island there is a forest. In that forest there is a ruined castle. In that castle is a well. Drink from that well, and you will turn into whatever you wish.”
Later:
Frank stared mournfully back at the waterfall. Technically, he ought to have been glad that he could see no jutting piece of rock, as there would have been no way up to it, but instead he felt only desolation and despair as he realized that his quest was not yet over.
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Oh well, we can edit that later.
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How about we have Araminta catch up to Frank, but, after much tears and emotional trauma, she helps him? Or, Araminta catches Frank, they head back to the castle, but before they get there, some scary plot twist happens, and they end up near the end of the world?
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282- I like the latter. I’ve never been one for tears and emotional trauma.
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Earlier in the story, it says:
“”Lucias! We have to follow that screech. Quick! Which way did it come from?” A puzzled look crossed his handsome features as he considered her question. Then, slowly and reluctantly, he pulled his wand from his belt. Araminta gasped.
“You’re going to do magic?” she asked incredulously. “But magic is against the law! The royal family outlawed it long ago!” He stared at her long and hard. “You really don’t get out much, do you?” he asked quizzically. Araminta blushed.”
So she knew magic was banned.
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284- Oh, yeah. Whoops. Jeez, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
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Eh, we can work it in. I think take out the part about her not knowing about te ban on magic would be best, she’s the kind of character who would likely know about that sort of thing.
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186- Yeah, she is. Oh well, we’ll fix it in the edit, I always say.
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Ah yeas, The Edit. Notice how that moment is ever far, far away. All the RRRs Ive been on died before that lovely point. Oh well, not this one!
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288- No, not this one.
And it’s not always far away. The science-fiction one has been being edited for ages, and we’re reaching the climax of the third book.
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Araminta soared over the countryside, laughing at the the tiny things below her, at the feeling of wind in her hair, and at the sheer giddiness of such of a beautiful world. The rough dragon scales beneath her hands felt just right, as did the steady beat with which the dragon flapped his wings. Araminta wanted to fly forever.
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I thought Jadestone wanted to keep this alive! Where is she? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOdon’tletitdie!!!!!!!!!!! Agrrrfishi’s on vacation, I think, so when she’s back it should pick up.
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But she couldn’t, much to her dismay. The dragon was still young, and despite its size, it had to let her down. Suddenly, she had an idea.
“Lucias, I have an idea.” ((Lucias is still with her, right? If not, then this whole post is pointless.))
“Yes, your Highness.”
Araminta was too enveloped in her plan to notice that he called her by Highness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now someone has to think of a plan that involves Lucias. If no one makes a plan, then this thread truly is dead, and it is just Alice and now, I guess, me, then we can request a new thread, or continue with this thread till someone comes back. See my thought process?
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292- I’ll think about it. But if we can hold on for 7 more posts (after this one), then we can have a new thread. I’ll try to think of a plan, I promise.
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Drat! I suck at plans! Where is TNÖ? She helped with this too!
~~~~
“See,” she explained, “the dragon is little and can’t carry us forever.”
“No, Highness,” Lucias agreed.
Araminta, bubbling with excitement and guilt, didn’t even hear. “Y’see,” she said again. It was so hard to say it! “Well, Lucias, can you make wings? With your magic? And then the dragon could track Fra–the Prince, and we could fly after him! Do you see?” She grinned at him eagerly, expecting him to agree, but instead he looked gravely back.
“Highness,” he said, “I think you should go home.”
Araminta’s smile vanished. “What do you mean?” she cried. “I’m not a ‘Highness’!”
“Don’t pretend, Princess. I know exactly who you are.”
“Lucias! I’m not the Princess!”
“This is too dangerous a task for you, your Highness. Your Majesty your father would kill me if something were to happen to you. I will call an escort.” He whistled sharply, and a trio of men stepped out from the brush.
“Take her Highness the Princess Araminta home,” Lucias ordered. “And return to meet me.”
Araminta looked helplessly from the trio of men to Lucias, who was now sitting on the dragon’s back. He was younger even than Frank, and yet so in charge of things! What was happening? She didn’t want to be sent home! Her mind already concocting a plan, she turned away, and, ignoring her escort, walked into the forest.
~~~~~~
Wow. A bit unexpected, but cool.
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Agrrrfishi probably won’t be best pleased to see what I did with Lucias. Oh well, sorry Agrrrfishi!
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The three men meant well enough. They alternately viewed her as a delicate and valuable artifact that must be treated with utmost care and as a child that had gone astray and must be taken home to its worried parents. Araminta wasn’t sure which was worse. She settled for a disdainful and aloof manner that was most unlike her, and did not bother to talk to the escort.
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When they camped that night, Araminta refused to eat. This was partly because of excitement at her plan, and partly because of the anger still simmering inside her from Lucias’ betrayal. The escort shrugged and ate their own meals, rather more loudly than usual, as though they could convince their charge to eat by showing her how much they enjoyed eating. Araminta thought it disgusting.
Finally two of them rolled themselves in their cloaks and went to sleep, with a few mutters of “I’ll take next watch” and “Fine by me.” Araminta continued to stare moodily into the fire.
“So,” said Brian, the remaining guard.
Araminta looked briefly at him.
“Well–hmm–I–”
“What?” said Araminta with as much scorn and bitterness as she could muster. “Out with it.”
“I–er–” Brian was clearly terrified. “Never mind.”
“Oh.”
They were silent. After a while Araminta stood up, brushing dirt off her pink brocade dress. Pink brocade! No wonder Lucias knew who I really was! Oh, what an idiotic thing to wear! she thought. “I shall go to sleep now,” she said aloud, in an icy tone.
“Very well, Highness.” Brian sounded relieved, and Araminta glared down at the middle-aged man cowering from the young girl. It was utterly ridiculous. She could almost see why Frank wanted to be a frog, except that frogs never had adventures. She wished she really was a dairymaid. Perhaps she ought to join her brother in his quest.
“I would like a bit of privacy,” she commanded, still not moving from where she stood.
“Yes, Highness,” said Brian, and scuttled off into the trees.
“Turn your back,” said Araminta. “It isn’t proper to see a lady asleep.” This was an entirely made-up rule, and Araminta’s heart thudded louder for fear Brian should realize this, but he did not. Araminta waited a moment until she could no longer see the glint of his eyes in the firelight, and then bolted off into the bushes.
It was not an elegant plan, and Araminta did not execute it elegantly. She heard Brian give a shout behind her, and ran harder, kicking off her pink and white satin shoes as she did so. When she was far enough from the camp, she climbed a tree and sat there in its branches till dawn, listening to the rustles and thumps below her in the forest. Only when light came and the forest quieted did she dare to climb down from her high perch.
Later that day, Araminta was dozing in the morning sunlight, with her sore feet in a small creek, when, perhaps through some strange dream or perhaps through some other means, it hit her. She sat up and desperately searched her cloak pockets, and then again. But finally she was forced to face the truth. Emma was gone.
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Thanks!
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Swearing in a very unladylike mannor (she had learned it from the captan of the guards, after bulling him into teaching her self-defence — she had wanted to learn to weild a soard, but he wouldn’t hear of it, and so she had made up some excuse about needing to protect her virture and so on, untill he turned red enough with blushing and let in), Arminta picked up a small stone and chucked it violntly into the water neer her feet, soaking the bottom portion of her skirt in the process. The brook bubbled away, laughter rippling across it’s surface.
“Oh, shut up!” She snarled.
“That’s not very polite, you know.” Said a gurgly voice.
Arminta gaped at the streem, a good-sized fish had surfaced and was staring at her reproachfully with large, soppy eyes.
“You could have hit me.”
“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Anyone was there.” Armint had recovere enough of her wits to remember her lessons on manners back at the castle, and she would not be caught being disrespectfull to anything that showed vauge signs of magic.
“Are you… a faery?”
“Heavens, no.” Said the fish. “I’m a fish.” He chuckled a bit, the brook echoing his laughter as he started to sink below the surface.
“Wait! But… you’re talking!” Minty was flabergasted. Normal fish didn’t talk, but it wasn’t a faery? What else could it be?
The fish looked slightly suprized. “Of cource I am! You aboviously haven’t gotten out much.” With that last remark, he flicked his blue-green tail and vanished.
***
I’m going to contnue this in another post, I have to go for a minute now though.
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“No,” sighed Araminta, sitting down on the bank again. “Obviously I haven’t.”
~~~
Can we have a new thread? Not that it will be very helpful, but it’s been my goal for so long, I have to be consistent! 
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New thread? Please? P*ease, even?
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Yes, I believe a new thread is in order.
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