Creative Challenge: Post 9

It had to be done.

“Nooo! Nooooo!” Arietta cried pitifully. It broke his heart, but it had to come out.

“Just hold still. I’ll do it quickly!” he said. It hurt him almost as much as it hurt her, but delaying it any longer would only make it worse.

“Nooo! Nooo, Papa, Nooo! Don’t!!”

Her little fingers covered her mouth, protecting her wiggly tooth, and the shiny adult one growing in under it crookedly.

It had to be done!

“Just…” he paused, then smiled. “Did I ever tell you the story of the Black and White Princess?”

Her eyes went wide, as they always did at the prospect of a story. Her hands stayed en guard, but she opened up a little bit.

“No. I don’t remember that one,” she said timidly. She crawled up on his knee, and sat watchfully, in case he tried to do something.

“Well...Long ago, there was the land of the Black, and the land of the White. The two got along together very well, until a prince from the White fell in love with a princess from the Black. The princess, however, did not love him back, and the two countries went to war for many years.

“One day, many generations later, the young Princess of the land of White, named Arianna-”

“That’s almost like my name!”

“Yes, so it is!” He laughed. “Well, one day, Arianna decided that enough was enough! She went on a secret journey, slipping away in the night, to cross the boarder and head to the land of the Black, to try and gain an audience with the King. However, she ran into someone on the way-”

“A witch?”

“No…”

“A monster?” Her hands came away from her face, eyes shining with wonder.

“No. It was the princess of the Black!” A little gasp escaped her mouth. “She had been doing the exact same thing: going to the other side to convince the kings to stop the wars.”

“They were very brave.”

“Yes. But the Black princess realized that, if they both disappeared, their fathers would think they had been kidnapped. So, they decided to switch, and pretend to be the other, so no alarm would be raised, and at the same time, tomorrow evening, tell each king what they had done. The princesses were both very beautiful and similar in appearance, except…”

“Except what?”

“Except that the princess of the land of Black had a tooth missing, just like your wiggly one. It had fallen out the night before.”

“But then they’d know! They’d see as soon as she smiled!” Arietta said in horror.

“They would! So the White princess had to be very brave. Her tooth was also wiggly, so the Black princess took her fingers like this…” he carefully inserted his fingers into Arietta’s mouth, who waited, unresisting, to hear the rest of the story, “…and pulled hard-” He pulled with a sharp tug. The tooth came without much resistance, and it took Arietta a moment to realize what had happened. Her tongue flicked to it immediately, and she stared at her father in awe.

“And then they matched!” he continued, not missing a beat, setting the tooth on a table. “So they switched places for one day, and then, when the time was right, told both the kings their plans. And the kings saw that, if their daughters and people were so concerned about the war, that it should be stopped. And they did! The princesses returned to their castles, but remained fast friends for the rest of their lives.”

Arietta’s face showed that she barely remembered the tooth. So pleased was she by the story that she clapped, and only realized that she was supposed to be upset once she caught a glimpse of the tooth on the table. She slid off his knee and went to go look at it.

“Thank you, Papa,” she said quietly. She smiled at him, now with one less tooth.

Creative Challenge: Post 6

This wasn’t where he wanted to be. His legs were really tired, and his feet hurt bad, and his sister was just acting so perfect, he wanted to pull her hair. Her tail was still, her ears flattened, and she walked diligently forward, holding their father’s hand.

“Why do we gotta walk so far to see nothing?” Taro asked unhappily, hopping on one foot as he tried to get a rock out from between his toes.

“You know why,” replied his father shortly. Arietta shot him a mean look, then turned back straight ahead. Grumpy, Taro continued onward.

“But I don’t get it. I don’t even remember-” he started to complain a few minutes later, and Ronin stopped. Taro stopped talking, and looked at him.

“I do. And you owe her this much,” he said in a low growl. The threat was real, he knew, so he stayed quiet until they got there.

It was outside a little house that he knew was theirs (not that they lived in it). The garden was gross, weeds everywhere, and bugs swarming around tomato plants long gone unpicked. Arietta recoiled from this a bit, and Taro sneered at her.

They moved around to the back of the house and out a little way, to the edge of the forest. Arietta knelt quietly by the pile of rocks that marked the empty grave of their missing mother, and their father followed. Taro took one look at the rocks, rolled his eyes, and headed off into the forest.

“Where do you think-” Arietta called after him, but Taro waved a hand to stop her.

“I wanna be by myself. I won’t go far,” he said. He expected his father to call after him too, but surprisingly, he stayed silent. Instead, the beating of wings followed him, and Kietaro was at his side. He landed, and walked like a dog next to him, eyeing him.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” he said reproachfully, but Kie just snorted and shook his head.

“You’re six, what are you going to do if a boar or outlaw comes for your hide, hm?” he asked.

“I’ll gut ‘em!” he said, and drew his little knife, slashing wildly at the trees. Kie just snorted again.

“Put it away, before you hurt me or something,” he said. Taro obeyed, but only because he wanted to.

“So, why do we gotta do this every year, anyway? She’s probably dead,” he asked, kicking a stone.

“It’s what people do when someone they love dies,” Kie said, perching on a rock in a sunbeam peaking through the canopy. “Sit down. This is far enough.”

“Yeah,” he said, flopping on the ground. He picked up a stick and drew circles in the dirt with it. “But I don’t even remember her, what she looked like, or anything. I woulda wanted to stay with Mai and Lycan and them. It’s more fun there. Aioru was gonna teach me how to do that Mi-whatsit dance thing with my knife.” He sighed heavily. “Father just gets so mopey this time of year, and it makes Arietta sad.” And me, he thought, but he didn’t say it. When his father got depressed, he didn’t like to tell stories, or play with them; instead, he liked sinking in dark corners with his thoughts, eating little and drinking too much.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t handle it well. He really liked your mother,” Kietaro said.

“Tell me something about her,” he said. He was bored, and wanted a good reason why she was so great. Maybe Kie would tell him something other than ‘she was beautiful, kind, and loved you very much.’

“She…” he uncurled his head to look up in thought. “She was pretty, with all her cattyness, and stronger than she looked. She had a voice that would beat Ronin into submission with just a few words.”

“But he’s so tough! Was it like, magic words?”

“Nope, just threats. But she carried through on them. I remember once…Ah, but you’re a little small for that joke. Let me think.” He paused again, Taro blinking. “When they met, your father was stone drunk in the middle of a temple. She came in seeking help, and he tried to shoo her away. He gave in from her shouting and because she was pretty, and did the favor she wanted from him.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, to go slay this big evil bad guy that had done her some wrong,” he said. “She had gotten into some pretty serious stuff. But, your dad realized it would take a long time to track this guy down.”

“So he left?”

“No...He stayed. She was a fiery woman, and he liked that. She knew what she wanted, and she could fight for it if she had to. She wasn’t one to sit down and let things happen.”

“She sounds like a great warrior,” he said. Why had this never been mentioned?

“She liked peace more. After a while, they gave up on their great chase, and settled down. By then, your dad loved her very much, and they wanted to be together permanently. I was fine with this, cause your mom had a smokin’ hot dragon companion, which I-”

“Really? Both of them gave up? What wimps!”

“No, no. They realized it wasn’t important: vengeance was just taking over their lives. It was your mother that convinced your dad that the fight wasn’t important anymore. Besides, they could go kill him later, once they felt like it. But they wanted to have you, so they did.” He paused. “Then one day she vanished.”

Taro sat in silence for a while, pondering this. His mother before now had been faceless, just some maiden Finan who his dad had been taken with, not a proud warrior who had decided that making his sister and him was more important than fighting. He felt guilty that he hadn’t cared.

He stood up and bolted back the way he came. Kie followed him swiftly on foot, shifting to something more apt to running through the underbrush. He broke out of the forest to find that his father and sister had gone inside. He knelt, alone, at the pile of rocks with his eyes closed. He heard shuffling behind him a few minutes later, and peeked to see his father with a smile on his face kneeling next to him, curling his tail around his own.

“Sorry,” Taro said. Ronin nodded. “I didn’t know how brave she was.”

“I’m sorry too,” his father said, looking up at him. Taro shifted and looked back. “For being a bad father recently. And you’re right,” he said suddenly. His face showed signs of sadness, but the smile broke it. He ruffled Taro’s hair. “We don’t have to walk so far for nothing anymore. The place doesn’t matter. Just...think about her sometimes, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. Together, they got up and went back into the house, the stars shining above their heads. Taro looked up, and wondered if his mother still saw the same sky.

Happy, Badly-Drawn Family

Summarized in the title.

Oh well, it's Ro and his little twins Arietta and Taro. Aww...

((Double-posty! Yay!))

Confessions, Pt 2

Part 2!