while waiting on the queen of need to muster her forces for her final assault on my beloved Curmudgeons, my muse spent a good part of the week resting up, and i revisited the first pages of my story, which had gotten scant attention in the two years since i wrote them, having at the time no idea of what i'd embarked upon. here then, are the first, freshly spruced stanzas, seeing my amply-hearted heroine safely through her first night in the forest.
*** * *** * *** * *** * *** * ***
a
tale is told of an unresponsive king
of
the sort often surfacing in fiction,
whose
second wife was a vain and haughty thing
much
given to concocting contradiction.
now he
wasn't a benevolent monarch
but proponents of exception seldom are.
as privileged patrons of plutocracy go
his
malevolence was rather under par.
his overlooked daughter of an unfulfilled heart
gazing at the world through diffident eyes
wore singular skin of an uncanny hue,
very like mayonnaise just after it dies.
in
the dark it emitted an eerie glow
and
though genetics might have played a factor,
most
likely it came from eating the produce
grown
downwind from a nuclear reactor.
it's
said her lips were red as royal rubies,
since
her overbite was always drawing blood.
and
the bloom in her cheeks was likened to a rose
that
an early frost has nipped in the bud.
when
the powers handed out attributes
the
bestowers of beauty must have bypassed her.
for
her countenance was compared frequently
with
the prospect of impending disaster.
she
was prone to pacing the ramparts at night,
a
muddied snow pallor lighting up her face;
looming
like a phantom or will-o'-the-wisp,
solacing
the sadness that haunted the place.
the
sentries attended her sweeping glances.
in
her glimmer dozing children flouted fear.
she
was christened Sludge White by the town criers,
Princess
Pasty by those friends that held her dear.
but
the queen could not be counted among them
for
she was nursing an astonishing spite
and
constantly plotted against the princess
in
the disconsolate hours of the night.
poor
Pasty seemed to stimulate her envy
though
why this was the case was hard to answer.
yet
the queen had conjured the green-eyed monster
and
it swallowed up her soul like a cancer.
her
most treasured possession was a mirror
hosting
a waggish, irreverent essence,
partial
to bouts of ironic reflection,
slinging remarks, and concealing his presence.
obscenely
obsessed with smiting competition
she
kept him unremittingly on call,
to
pry on her peers and relentlessly tell her
that
she was rated fairest overall.
as this dull repetition grew wearisome
the
mischievous mirror had devised a prank.
and
when next his thoughts were sought on the standings
Sludge
White was ensconced in preeminent rank.
but
this thrust Her Highness into a frenzy
for
her hubris could tolerate no equal.
and reviewing her notes on Medea's exploits
she set her sights on mounting a sequel.
when
the mirror glimpsed this grisly ambition
his
sheen glazed over with a shocked pink regret.
for
he was loathe to see harm befall Pasty,
thus
augmenting his prodigious karmic debt.
but
alas! his fear of rebuke was too great
for
recanting the rashly planted rumour.
while
the queen showed scanty sense of proportion,
she
was entirely bereft of humour.
hence
he observed an ambivalent silence
when a woodcutter was summoned to the throne,
and compelled
to grovel in the pitiless dust
of jarring remorselessness set in stone.
he appeared not to heed the deep-seated need
to fill such a stark, uninhabited part
that triggered the barter of the woodsman's life
for
a casket embellished with Sludge White's heart.
and the carpenter was stricken speechless,
but dared not disobey an overlord's demands.
for
cruelty is ever the first resort
in
Christendom's clique of self-preserving lands.
so
he blindly stumbled into the forest,
a
condemned accomplice, untethered from hope
shrinking
from the trusting hand of the princess
as
though he was shying from the hangman's rope.
racking his brain in a bruising torment,
reeling from instructions he couldn't even say
he searched for a miracle to save both their hearts
from
this brutal, unendurable day.
it
was then that unseen powers stepped in,
altering
events in their elemental guise.
for
Pasty caught wind of unexpressed death
twisted in the panic that was fleeing his eyes.
the forest hushed, as if gathering breath.
then it raised a lament like a reticent sigh.
and
she took to her heels with all of her might,
skimming
the surface and appearing to fly.
and the trees clasped branches once she passed them.
and
shadows descended to cloak her path from sight.
and
the trembling woodsman fell to his knees,
sobbing whilst abandon settled in with the night.
Sludge
White touched down in a patch of mushrooms
of psychedelic hue and a staggering size
just
as the dusk secured her seclusion,
draping
its veil over periwinkle skies.
cedars
and willows were rallied around her
in
an endless caress of gently linked arms.
and
silvery vines dangled sapphire bells,
jingling
in the breezes like musical charms.
a
medley of mammals soon flocked to her side
bringing
comfort to the palisaded keep.
and
they mounted a vigil to fend off harm
while
serenading crickets lulled her to sleep.
when
morning came and streaked the sky with amber
inquisitive
nudgings brushed against her cheek.
and
she breakfasted on pine nuts and berries
harvested
by paws, and carried in a beak.
following a dazzle to a babbling brook
she imbibed its joyful effervescence
enfolding
herself in the roots of an oak,
in
the shade of its penetrating presence.
insightful
impressions welled up to the surface
as
she fathomed her lamentable plight,
pondering
the queen's fell machinations
and
the hazy dynamics of magical flight.
that
Her Grace's hatred had sprouted arms and legs
was
a painful development to face.
yet
the singular help from the elements
cast
a novel ray of light upon the case.
returning
to her father's frosty castle
was
without a doubt an injudicious course.
so
she opted for staying right where she was,
throwing
in her lot with the mystical force.
*** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * ***
-
Evan Hawthorn, the 16th of April, 2016
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