A Faery tale...
Sort of…
Once upon a time;
There was a queen of the fair folk, wonderful and beautiful, She shined like Moonlight and stardust.
Serendaenu was her name. Well, to be right and proper, Serendaenu Ceridwen Morrigu. Which is to say, Stardust sacred love the great queen.
Now this great queen had three children, A boy, Myrddynn, and two daughters. Serenanfa Aeryn, the oldest daughter, And Athyn Fionabarr the youngest. Now you should know that among the fair folk names are very important. Names have great power and meaning.
Myrddynn, means Merlin, which means falcon. Myrddynn was a god of hill tops, caves, the wind and magic.
Prince Myrddynn was as good as his name. He didn’t know it yet, but one day he would become a great warrior and wizard. Just like his namesake. Well to be sure, maybe he did know it all things considered. Because prince Myrddynn was already a good big brother, brave and honest as the sun is bright, fiercely protective of his sisters. His little sisters knew this, and they loved him dearly even tho they made him crazy a lot of the time. Of course that’s what little sisters are supposed to do aren’t they?
Princess Serenanfa was the oldest girl, and her name was very powerful, Star-Storm the flash of a striking sword. She would grow up one day to be a great warrior, a dragon tamer and slayer of monsters.
Princess Serenanfa had a special treasure, that her daddy had given her, A real live dragons egg, that she had buried in a secret place. she would sneak out to check on it and talk to it every day, so that the baby dragon would know her and love her when it hatched.Princess Serenanfa was very smart and very brave. One day she would be queen of all the fair folk, of mountains, skies and rivers.
Princess Athyn was the youngest, her name meant Silver’s fire, the fair one. She was very special too.
Like her name she was very beautiful like her sister . Of the three, she looked most like her mother, great queen Serendaenu. One day Princess Athyn would grow up to be queen of all the fair folk of the forest, lakes and flowers. She could already talk to the animals. The birds and the bunnies and squirrels would come and tell her secrets and jokes because they loved to make her laugh. Anyone that heard her laugh would just instantly fall in love with her
Great queen Serendaenu had three very special, wonderful and magical children indeed.
They lived in a little town simply called The Pass, between the mountains and the big river, on the edge of a desert. Now no one in the pass, knew that this was the royal family. It was a secret! They were in hiding!
There were terrible creatures searching for them, because their father was away fighting a war against those horrible critter-monsters. Their father, Lord Donal, called Donal of the thunders, ( thunders because beans made him expressively explosive, gassy.) was a warrior and a bard, a seeker of secrets and mysteries. He had heard frightening news of the evil penguins and their plan to conquer Faery land!
Now these weren’t just any penguins, no, no simple chubby little flightless birds were these!
These were giant emperor penguins, Evil with hearts as black as a moonless cloudy night.
They came from a land at the bottom of the world, a horrible place with nights that lasted half the year, a place with no tree’s or grass or warmth at all. Just bare rocks, snow and ice and bitter cold.
For untold years they had lived there shivering and complaining because the snow was deep and their short little stumpy legs wouldn’t keep their little birdy butts out of the snow. Now I don’t know if you have ever had frozen snow butt, but let me tell you frozen snow butt will make anybody mad! BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
Well one day the evil emperor of the evil emperor penguins hatched an evil little bird brained plan.
They would all swim north, to find a place where they could live all cozy and warm! No more frozen snow butt!!! There was only one problem with their plan, everywhere they went they found people and big fierce critters already living there. Being selfish and greedy, the evil penguins never even bothered to ask if any one would share. They just swam on and on till they were too tired to swim any more, then they just floated on the sea, eating fish and drifting along. At least it was warmer!
Then one day the waves washed them up on a place with sand as black as their evil little penguin hearts. A volcanic island. Great, and there were no people there, just rocks and black sand and giant hungry spiders! After the spiders caught and ate some of the slower penguins, The evil emperor of the evil emperor penguins decided to try to talk to the giant hungry spiders.
The evil penguins caught a whole lot of tasty fish and piled them up on the beach as a peace-offering. The Giant hungry spiders swarmed all over the fresh fish and ate, while they ate, the evil emperor of the evil emperor penguins talked and he talked, and the giant, now not so hungry spiders listened, they liked what he said.
So the evil penguins and the giant hungry spiders agreed to work together.
The spiders spun many webs, and the evil penguins wove that spider silk into boats and sails. Spider silk is stronger than steel you know. Then they all sailed away to the main land where it was warm and there was plenty to eat . The only problem was, there were people already living there, but when they saw the Evil emperor penguins riding on the giant hungry spiders, the people were very scared and just ran away!
That was how lord Donal heard about the evil emperor penguins and the giant hungry spiders. He was very worried, and took his magic sword and went to see this for himself. It was horrible to see, lord Donal was even more worried and hurried back to tell great queen Serendaenu what he had seen. She was very worried, they knew that their army was just too small to stop the evil penguins and giant spiders, so they talked and made a plan.
Great queen Serendaenu would take the children and hide in the town of The Pass, between the mountains and the big river. Next to the desert, because penguins being water birds just hated the desert, and if spies for the evil penguins found them, they could escape and hide in the desert.
Lord Donal would go north, to lead the spies of the evil penguins away, and to find help in the great white north. Lord Donal was searching for the king of the polar bears, the biggest scariest and prettiest bears in all the world, and the nicest. He was hoping to rent the polar bear army to help fight the evil emperor penguins and the giant hungry spiders.
End of part 1,
Next Donal and the Polar bears
" Hey, Look you, I just wanna talk!!!”
Donal yelled as loud as he could, but seeing as how his head was firmly in the huge polar bear’s mouth, and the rest of his body was held in a massive bear hug so close and tight he could barely breathe. Donal was pretty sure he wasn’t being heard.
The sound of the polar bears teeth, grating and breaking on his helmet seemed louder than Donal’s feeble shouts. For the first time in his long journey, Donal wasn’t complaining about how heavy and uncomfortable all of his armour was, in fact, Donal was very happy that he was wearing all that armour right at this moment. With a loud PTHWAACH sound the polar bear spit Donal’s head out of it’s huge gnarly mouth.
“No talk...Crunch much!” the white bear growled.
The polar bears rotten fish and seal blubber breath made Donal gag. “Look up there,” Donal pointed, “That’s my pack in the tree, There is food there, I’ll be happy to share it with you if you will just promise to stop trying to eat me!” Donal managed to gasp and weaze out. The giant white bear dropped Donal in the snow and stood up on his back legs, stretching up towards the pack. He couldn’t reach it.
With a huffing noise the polar bear sat down, and began pawing at his mouth and spitting out teeth. ” Little man taste bad and hurt teeth.” the bear growled. Donal scrambled for the tree and tried to climb up but kept sliding back down because there was so much ice. Then He smelt the bears foul breath and felt himself boosted up, high enough to reach the limbs and begin climbing higher.
He untied his pack and climbed higher, then fished out one of the small apple pies that queen Serendaenu had baked and packed for him, Donal took a bite, ” MMMNNN Good!” and dropped it to the waiting, albeit impatiently, polar bear. The Bear gulped it down then promptly fell down and began to roll around making all sorts of embarrassing noises. Donal began to get kind of worried as he watched this, but then the polar bear sat up a quite clearly asked ” may I have some more please? That is the best thing I have ever tasted, I promise not to eat you, may I please have another? You do have more don’t you? Pretty please?” Now Queen Serendaenu has to be the best cook in the whole wide world, Her baking even soothes angry hungry polar-bears!
And so, munching hot apple pies and cheesy herb bread and brioche, did I mention that queen Serendaenu bakes the best breads in the entire world? The don’t call her great for nothing! Anyway...Donal and Krump, who just happened to be the chief general of king Krunch’s armies Talked bout the Evil emperor penguins and the giant hungry spiders that want to take over the whole world. and why Donal had come to the great white north.
Krump asked how penguins tasted, Donal had no idea never having taken a bite out of a penguin, he had been too busy hiding and spying to wonder about that tidbit. Donal thought fast, ” um kinda like chicken i guess...“Because absolutely everything that you don’t know what it taste like, tastes like chicken. " That’s good, but crunchy as they sound, I don’;t think giant spiders would taste so good. I don’t think my polar bear warriors would like them very much.” Krump mumbled around a mouthful of sweet crumbly brioche. Now polar bears are very messy eaters and don’t have really good table manners, you should probably remember that in case you ever invite one over for dinner.
Donal was still worried. The polar bears would most likely take care of the evil penguins, but that still left the giant hungry spiders to deal with. As Donal sat thinking, and trying to avoid Krumps bad breath, Krump suddenly laughed and said, ” You know, a couple of winters back I met a real strange fellow. He was from someplace called Down Under, I think everything is wrong side up or some such there or something like that, but he might be able to help you with your pesky spider problem.”
Krump described the funniest sounding critter Donal had ever heard of. It had webbed feet and a bill like a duck, a beavers tail and fur like a mouse. ” His name was Nigel. Nigel the platypus , He was just crazy for bugs! That’s what they eat you know, Bugs! Oh and he was pink and purple, his fur was all pink and his bill and feet and tail were purple. I don’t know if that were normal it seemed sort of unnatural but it could have been the cold you know, poor guy was always shivering and sneezing.”
Donal and general krump haggled over the price of renting the polar bear army. General Krump didn’t care about gold or jewels which made it kind of difficult, but they finally settled on ten apple pies and a dozen loaves of cheesy herb bread and sweet crumbly brioche for each polar bear, plus all the evil penguins they could eat.
Donal quickly wrote queen Serendaenu a letter explaining about the agreed contract for the polar bear army and then sent it off air mail, via snowy owl, it cost him the last of the apple pies. then Donal set off looking for the place called the land down under, thinking about the terror this army would bring to the evil penguins and the giant hungry spiders. Thousands of huge white polar bears with pink and purple platypii riding on their backs. Donal didn’t know whether to be frightened at the thought or burst up laughing at the thought.
Hoping great queen Serendaenu wouldn’t be too angry and would forgive him for all the baking she was going to have to do. Donal set off for the land down under and the pink and purple platypii.
Next : Donal in the land of Miss-EE-Gone
Donal walked south for a couple of weeks, worried and wondering just how he was going to find the mysterious land down under. Everyone he talked to, had never heard of the place or pink and purple critters called platypii, at least that’s what they all said after the stopped laughing.
Eventually Donal came to a great lake. This lake was so big he couldn’t see the other side. Really more like the ocean than a lake, it had waves!! and the squirrels were surfing!!! Donal decided that it was too far to swim across, besides the water was very cold. those squirrels were nuts!
Donal traded one of Great queen Serendaenu’s Awesome green chilli chicken enchiladas to one of the natives for a canoe ride across the great lake. Donal had started to notice that people liked queen Serendaenu’s cooking even more than jewels and gold. In fact he still had every bit of the gold and jewels he had started out with. it seemed that people would do almost anything for queen Serendaenu’s cooking.
Donal was very thankful for the magic lunch bag that Queen Serendaenu had packed for him. It kept the hot things hot, the cold things cold and the fresh stuff fresh, plus it held a whole lot of tasty food and it didn’t weigh very much at all. he walked down the rocky beach until he came to a little town with an inn.
Donal thought it would be nice to sleep indoors and on a bed for a change. he had been traveling and sleeping outside for an awful long time now.
While Donal sat a table drinking his spiced cider, He listened to the people and did not say much himself. As he listened he learned quite a few interesting things. The first thing Donal noticed about the people was that they were very abrupt. Back home where Donal was originally from, deep in the south mountains, the people there would have thought this abruptness very rude and that they wanted to fight!
The people of the south mountains would usually spend about half a day talking about the weather and how their families were doing. Everyone down there was related in some way or another, so everyone was interested in their big extended family, kind of a clan really. Anyway after half a day or so they would get around to what they really wanted to talk about. The people here in Miss-ee-gone did not bother with any of that, they just got right to the point. Donal thought that was a little rude, but sure did save a lot of time even if it wasn’t as much fun.
The second thing Donal noticed was that no two people could agree about what Miss-Ee -Gone exactly meant. Some thought that the place was named after someone named Missy that was gone now or missing or some such, some thought it meant that a long time ago some one important missed someone named Egon. they just seemed to love to fight and argue about which one was right and true. It made for a terrible uproar.
Donal decided that he would rather camp out because it didn’t look like he would get any rest with all the hollering and uproar. So Donal finished his cider and walked south until he found a pretty little river that was just littered with pieces of flint. He didn’t know what the river was called, so he just called it Flint river to himself. He followed the Flint river south for a while till it finally started to get dark.
He was still far enough north that it didn’t begin to get dark till what was normally late at night. There was only about seven or eight hours of darkness here at night during the summer. This did make it so that he could cover more ground each day before it got too dark to travel anymore. The extra hours of sunlight was kind of nice.
As Donal was setting up his camp for the night, Raven-song, his magic sword started to remind him, as she did every night that it was time for their daily dancing. She was very insistent. Donal told her to calm down and let him eat his supper then they would dance awhile. Raven-Song was just about Donals best friend and she was a very pretty, if longish magic sword.
Even though Donal was very tired and didn’t really feel like dancing, it made Raven-Song happy, so Donal took off his armour and boots, sat down by the “flintriver” and wiggling his sore toes in the cool water, quickly ate his supper. After he cleaned up the dinner mess, Donal drew Raven-Song from her scabbard, politely kissed her blade, and began to dance with her.
As they whirled and twirled her long shiny blade flashed in the full moons light. Faster they danced until Raven-Song began to laugh and sing. Donal loved to hear her sing, it made him happy that his friend was so happy. Donal and Raven-song were having a grande time, dancing and singing when suddenly Donal felt a sharp pokey type pain in his foot. He looked down to see if he had stepped on a thorn or something and was startled by what he saw.
A tiny little man was holding on to what looked like a tooth pick or something that was sticking out of Donal’s foot. Donal was not very pleased with this and began to hop about shaking his foot hollering at the little man.
The little guy held on for dear life slung to and fro till the little stick broke off in his tiny little hands, flinging him off into the bushes.
Donal sat down and twisted and turned about trying to see what was the matter with his foot, but he just couldn’t twist around enough to see the bottom of his foot which hurt really really bad. Donal started to feel kind of fuzzy headed then suddenly just fell over and didn’t move. Now, it turns out that it was a pixie spear, and Donal had almost stepped on a pixie knight. It also turns out that the pixies use a poison called “infection” on their tiny little tooth pick sized spears and arrows. Donal had just found this out first hand, or foot rather.
Raven-Song was a very unhappy magic sword now. First of all it was clear that something was badly wrong with Donal. Secondly she was most unpleased about being dropped on the ground, something Donal had never ever done before. Raven-Song began to flop around yelling and calling the pixies, which had began to swarm about and were climbing all over Donal, bad names. She called them cowards and tiny little bugs, and told them to come closer so she could swat them like the flies they were.
Yes Raven_song was a very unhappy extremely angry magic sword. This went on for quite a while, with the pixies staring and pointing and Raven-Song ranting and raving until the pixies suddenly got very quiet. The pixie wizard had come to see what all the ruckus was about. The little wizard talked to the pixies, looked at Donal’s now swollen and red and icky foot, then approached Raven-song, very carefully and respectfully.
In a soothing, though high-pitched voice he tried to calm her down and asked what had happened.
After talking to Raven-song and the pixies who had seen everything that had happened, the pixie wizard decided that it was all just a really big and very bad misunderstanding. Then promptly went to work getting the pixie spear out of Donals foot. The pixie wizard Gave Donal the antidote to the pixie poison, which was just a smelly tea made from moldy bread crumbs. He dribbled it drop by drop into Donal’s mouth..
After about a week of dribbling the antidote and honey and nectar-pollen teas, Donal finally woke up. He felt much better, Donal’s foot didn’t hurt at all and he was very very hungry.
The pixie wizard explained everything that had happened while the pixie knight that had stabbed Donal apologized. Donal agreed that it was all just a really bad misunderstanding and apologized to the pixie knight for almost stepping on him.
As Donal ate, he offered the pixie wizard a pixie sized piece of the cheese cake queen Serendaenu had baked and packed for him. After taking a small, even for a pixie, bite, the pixie wizard fell over and began making all sorts of embarrassing noises. When he stopped quivering and rolling around the wizard sat up and exclaimed, ” That is absolutely the finest thing I have ever had the pleasure of tasting and I have been around for quite some time!”
All of the watching pixies wanted to try some as well, so Donal fished out a full-sized slice and the pixie wizard divided it up to share with all of the pixies. Pretty soon all of the pixies were rolling around making all those now unfortunately familiar embarrassing noises. Did I mention that queen Serendaenu makes the best cheese cake in the whole wide world? When he had recovered, the pixie wizard and Donal spent the rest of the day and most of the night talking about the evil emperor penguins and the giant hungry spiders. Donal and the pixie wizard came up with a plan.
The pixie knights, of which there are two types, the land knights, which rode on war trained chipmunks, and the sky knights which rode war trained humming birds, would act as spies and scouts, harassing the evil emperor penguins with their poison spears and arrows. In return the pixies would be paid in queen Serendaenus cheesecake. it seems pixies would do almost anything for more of her cheese cake.
Donal hoped the great queen wouldn’t be too awfully mad, it was looking like she was going to be spending a lot of time in the kitchen, not to mention, Donal was sure he would be washing tons of dishes! Donal just hoped somebody would want some the silver and gold he was carrying, it was heavy! and, He was getting worried about running out of food!
So while the pixie wizard got the pixie knights ready to move south, Donal set out once again in search of the mysterious land down under and the spider munching pink and purple platypii.
End of part 3, more coming as soon as I can think it up!