Of Dogs and Parrots
Appy and Sweet were sitting around in Sweetcherrie’s room listlessly, wondering what to do. Then Sweet remembered something that had been going on last month and exclaimed:
“Let’s play pirates!”
Appy cheered at this idea and bounced around, looking for something to use as a sword, while Sweet took a dive into her cupboard. She emerged with her arms full of pirate things, most of it falling down while she walked to the middle of the room, leaving a trail of plastic swords, stuffed parrots and red and white striped clothes.
“Hmm, do they have pirates on roller skates?” Sweet asked, holding up her pair.
“Of course! You can be Skeeter tha Pirate with that!” Appy shouted from under a pile of pirate clothes. The two girls started dressing up and Appy emerged with an eyepatch on asking, “Can I be the One-Eyed Bandit then?”.
Sweet nodded absentmindedly as she had difficulty with tying a bandana around her head.
“Of course..” she mumbled, and shortly after cheered her triumph as the bandana was firmly fitted on her head. After sticking two daggers in her sash she picked up a great sword and almost fell over under the weight, plastic or not, this thing was heavy!
Appy giggled at the struggling Sweet, grabbed another plastic scabbard, and drew out the scimitar, flourishing it at Sweet.
“Avast! Haarrrr”
“I will fight you, you scurvy rat!” Sweet replied as she held out her sword with two hands around the hilt. The girl swayed under the weight of the great sword and almost lost her balance before managing to step forward and wave her sword a bit. “I will stab you!”
Appy giggled again and goes “HarHarHaarrr!”, in true Pirate-speak, before lunging at Sweet.
“Have at thee!”
“Eeep!” Sweet tried to defend herself against Appy’s ineffective poking. “I’ll make you walk the plank, Skeeter tha Pirate!” Appy screamed as she doubled her efforts. Sweet stopped mid-swing, almost fell over again, and asked: “Plank? We don’t even have a ship!”
Appy lowered her scimitar, raised her eyepatch and looked around. “Yer right.. what’s a pirate without a ship!” The two girls looked around, looking for something that could serve as a ship. Not finding anything suitable, Sweet said: “I should practise my daggers, we can do that..” and looked at Appy.
“Dagger practise? Alright, I’ll stand over here and you try to hit me” she said, walking over to the wall.
“Nooooo, I’ll try NOT to hit you! That’s how it’s done y’know, I saw that once in a circus..” Sweet said, as she took out the daggers she had in her sash. A sunbeam gleamed on the very real looking blade. “Oh, and don’t tell Sweetcherrie ok? She doesn’t like me practising with these.”
“Course I won’t tell!” Appy said, before trying to stand as still as possible.
Sweet weighed the dagger in her hand, and held it up. “Stand very still!” she warned Appy, even though the other girl already looked like a slightly pale statue.
Sweet pulled back her hand some more and aimed…
“What’s all this shouting in here?” Apaltra asked from the doorway. She took in the scene and screamed: “Sweet! No!”
The girl startled and tried to hide the daggers behind her back as she turned to Apaltra.
“What?” she asked, while trying to look as innocent as possible.
Apaltra looked from Sweet to Appy and back.
Sweet felt compelled to add: “We were.. we were.. playing!”
“By throwing real daggers at each other?” The ranger sighed and shook her head, “You could’ve seriously hurt someone!”
“But I need to practise!” Sweet complained, “Otherwise I keep hurting people…”
Appy shuffled her feet and mumbled something that sounded like “’sright..”.
Apaltra sighed again, pinched the bridge of her nose and seemed to talk to herself when she said: “Oh my, how am I going to explain this one..” she looked at the girls and made a decision.
“I have an idea, why don’t you sit down with me, and I will tell you a story. Maybe then you’ll understand what I mean.”
Sweet immediately dropped the daggers behind her and Appy’s eyes grew big as she took a tentative step forwards.
“Story?”, the girls said in unison.
Apaltra nodded at the two, while getting comfortable on a pillow, motioning for them to sit next to her.
“Story.” She said again, smiling.
Sweet and Appy bounced over and settled in on the pillows, giving Apaltra all the attention the little girls could muster. Sweet shoved her bandana up and said: “I’m ready! What sort of story is it? One with pirates?” the girl bounced on the spot with anticipation, then sat as still as possible and listened, as Apaltra spoke.
“This is a fable, one that was told in my country of old… “ She looked down at Sweet.
“Pirates you asked?.. Hmm there’s a parrot in it, will that do?”
Sweet nodded earnestly, “I like parrots.” She seemed to think up another question, Apaltra waited patiently, and sure enough the little girl continued: “Whatsa fable anyways? Is it a kind of bird?”
Apaltra laughed and replied: “No, not a bird. It is a story, designed to bring a specific message to the people, and there’s usually animals in it. Talking animals even. I figured you both would like that.”
“Oooh, yay! I do!” Sweet exclaimed before she sat still again. Appy just nodded and stared at Apaltra, determined not to miss a word.
“This is a tale with a double morale, the first of which is, that you should never steal. Like the pirates do that you were pretending to be.” She looked at the girls and they nodded that they understood, “Now then, listen well, so you can tell me what you learned afterwards, ok?” the ranger explained.
The girls chorus an “Ok!” and Apaltra started the telling, throwing her voice when needed, making hand gestures elsewhere, keeping the girls rapt in their attention
“Once upon a time, in a land far far away, where it is hot during the day, but cold at night all year ‘round, there once lived the most unusual pair of friends. They were a dog and a parrot, who had met on the streets on which they both lived.
The parrot, being the smarter of the two, thought they would get much more food if they would search together, and he had been right.
He could fly up and search from the sky, and the dog could dig, and search with his nose. This is how they became companions at first, and friends soon after, and they had been living together like this for a year already.
Since animals usually don’t have names like we do, we shall call them Dog and Parrot.
One cold night, while they were lying close together to keep warm, Parrot woke up from a dream so wonderful and genius, that he woke his friend and said: “You know how there’s a lot of houses around here, right, with food in them, right? But we never get inside, because all humans chase us out, right?” Dog nodded mutely, grumpy from having been woken, but still curious as to where this would lead to. Parrot had had ideas often before, but they didn’t always turn out good.
“Now.. what if we, right. Well, you, more specifically, take me in your mouth as if you just caught me, right?”, Parrot continued, “And then walk up to a house, and show off, right? Like dogs tend to do, right?”
Dog nodded again, even though he didn’t like the idea of holding his friend like that. But he kept listening politely as the bird continued.
“Then those humans would take pity on me, right? With my wooden leg and all that, right? So they’ll chase you off and take me in, because I’ll be all like ‘Ow it hurts, I’m in pain, wailey wailey!’, right?”
“But how would that get ME food?” Dog asked, and added sullenly, “I don’t like being chased off….”
“I’m getting to that part!” Parrot interrupted, “You see, once I’m in, right, I will be fed and such, right? And pretending I can’t fly, right, so they’ll let me run around, right? So I’ll steal stuff for you as well!” He looked triumphantly at his friend: “Well? What do you think, right?”
Dog thought long and hard, but eventually he could not find any flaws in the plan. And frankly he had been sick of having to dig in garbage heaps to stay alive for long already.
Thus he agreed to try this plan, and the next morning they picked a likely house, and did as Parrot had explained.
Sure enough, as soon as the woman saw the dog with the parrot in his mouth, she chased him off. Before rounding a corner, Dog let go of Parrot as they had planned, and made his way out.
Immediately Parrot started wailing and flapping as if he was hurt, and the woman took pity on him. She brought him in the house to nurse him back to health.
For the next few days, Parrot lived good on what he was fed, and Dog lived just as good on the food that Parrot dropped outside for him every night.
After a week, Parrot flew a couple of rounds in the house, shouting that he was cured, and swooped out the door before anyone could stop him.
The two friends met up again in their old spot, and laughed their hearts out. The plan worked! And in addition they were both having a lot of fun, as it much resembled some of the games they had played when little.
For months they lived like this, always moving from house to house, from city to city, and thought themselves kings. Now that they were well-fed it HAD turned into a game, and they were enjoying themselves immensely.
Until, one day, they came upon the biggest house yet. It had a huge, well tended garden, and a big veranda in front. The overall picture radiated wealth, which appealed to Parrot a lot.
Dog however, was sceptical. Of those people who had chased him, the rich had been the worst, and he said so to Parrot. They argued for a while but in the end it was Parrot who convinced Dog to go through with it.
Still cautious, Dog walked up to the house, Parrot save in his mouth, tail between his legs.
“You have to act better!” Parrot said with a muffled voice from his mouth. Dog nodded and ran up the lawn to the house to parade in front, tail up high. After what seemed a very long time, a man ran out the front door, holding a stick and shouting.
Dog bolted, expecting to be chased, but the opposite happened, as the man just stood there, pointing his stick.
At the same time that there was a loud noise, a stinging pain hit the dog’s tail, making him yelp and run even faster.
He ran and ran and ran, and when he couldn’t run anymore, he halted behind a shed, panting.
That’s when he realised he was still holding his friend in his mouth! Quickly dropping Parrot he backed away, ears flat and eyes closed, waiting to be scolded that he didn’t keep to the plan.
When nothing happened he opened an eye. Parrot was still lying just as he had dropped him. Dog walked up to nudge his friend, and caught the scent of blood! Dog whined and nudged his friend, but Parrot didn’t move.. couldn’t move anymore.
From shock, and pain, he had bitten his friend so hard, he had killed him…
Even to this day, people in the big house complain about some ghost parrot bothering them about food, and in the city a dog is heard howling, once every night…
The End”
Apaltra looked at Sweet and Appy, and waited patiently for the children to digest the story in their own time. Sweet sat and blinked, looking very sad. She turned to Apaltra and asked:
“He.. he…he.. died?”
Apaltra nodded slowly, a knowing smile on her face.
“But.. but…”, Sweet’s eyes started to fill up, “he can’t just die!”
Apaltra explained with a soft voice: “It was an accident of course, Dog never meant for anything to happen.. but…. that didn’t change the outcome.”
“Poor parrot..” Appy muttered, the look on her face strangely devoid of emotion.
Apaltra grabbed a piece of cloth and handed it to Sweet, who was crying for real now.
“Here, use this”, the ranger said with empathy in her voice.
After Sweet had calmed down a bit, Apaltra asked: “So, what did this tale tell you little one?”
Sweet answered with conviction: “You shouldn’t play games!.. I will never play games anymore!” She looked at Apaltra, her eyes big and scared at the idea of never playing games again. The ranger laughed at so much conviction, but stopped herself as she saw the girls expression. She hugged the confused girl and explained: “No no no, playing games is fine! But, you should always be well aware of the dangers that exist in every day live. For instance, what would’ve happened, had you miscalculated your aim when you threw that dagger at Appy?”
“I.. I dunno..”, Sweet answered, as she shrunk smaller and smaller as the realisation dawned on her.
“I think you do,” Apaltra said, “and I also think that you’d rather not think about it, correct?” Sweet nodded mutely.
“But if you don’t think about it, things will happen that you don’t want to happen… so…” Apaltra got up and hugged both girls, “No more playing with life-blades, do you understand?”
Appy sulked a bit, but nodded when Apaltra looked her way. Sweet picked up her daggers, holding them carefully in front of her and walked back to Apaltra.
“Can you.. keep these for me. Until I’m big enough I mean?”, she asked.
Apaltra smiled and took both daggers reverentially. “That I will, and thank you for trusting me to keep them save. If you want, I can even give you lessons.. when you’re older.”
She stored the daggers somewhere under her cloak and left the girls alone again, after one last warning to be careful with each other.
Sweet turned towards Appy.
“I’m soooooooo sorry, I didn’t never ever want to kill you!”
“I know!”, Appy replied and the two girls hugged.
“Shall we play a different game now?” Sweet asked as they walked out of the room.
Appy nodded and mentioned something about a pocket knife stored under her blanky before they rounded a corner of the Keep hallway, joined little-girl-giggles fading into the walls…
Disclaimer: A big huge 'Thank you!' goes out to Sweetcherrie for Role Playing most of the above with me so I could get it right, and to those who were present in #thepen on irc at that time, for putting up with us
And thus I mark the beginning of my Quill Quest. The theme, as you might’ve guessed, will be Fairy Tales, and all related story-telling. There will be three parts, and for each of them I ask for your participation and input.
The three parts are, in this order:
- Writing a fairy tale, fable, or myth about whatever content you give me.
- Converting known fairy tales and fables into poetry.
- A slumber party RPG, with the girls of the Pen.. (still in the stage of fleshing out the precise how, who and what.)
For the first stage, what I’ll need from you is input on what kind of fairy tale, fable, or myth you would like. This can be anything. A few examples are:
- I want to hear a fable that tells people not to steal.
- Tell me a story about a dragon and a pearl.
- I want to be in a myth together with my good friend (insert name here)
Feel free to mix these examples, I just ask for you not to make it too specific, or elaborate.
There is also the possibility, especially with the last one, to ask me to recreate a known fairy tale so that you or someone else can be in it. Pennify it, so to speak...
With this last option I might ask you about the fairy tale in question if I don’t know it. I doubt that will happen often, if you can provide me with correct titles though.
In addition to these three stages, I will try to give some information here about what a fairy tale is, and where the differences lie between the six known forms of 'story telling of old'.
These forms are:
- Fable
- Legend
- Saga
- Myth
- Folk tales
- Fairy tales
Sign-up thread for the first Chapter has been opened. I hope you’ll have fun, I’m sure I will
