"No fear...."
This is based of a story in the Thousand and One Nights, and concerns the story told by an old man. I'm working on it, and it was also written from three to five in the morning. Point out my mistakes now, as it must be turned in by three tomorrow/today.
Let it be known, O happy king, that though the demon had pardoned the life of the merchant who had killed his son, he was yet restless and beset by grief. Unable to allay this feeling he journeyed to find the old men that had bought thirds of the merchant's guilt and thus erased it completely. Perhaps their stories could again distract him from his mourning. For this reason he sought out the first old man, but it was not the man that he wished to speak to. The demon had heard the old man's story and granted one-third pardon to the merchant, but there was more of the story than the old man told, or so the demon supposed. So it was that the demon found the old man again, slumbering on the roadside in the shade of a tree, his enchanted wife watchful at his side.
The demon approached the pair, casting a deep sleep over the old man's eyes. When the deer noticed the demon's coming she began to attempt awakening her slumbering husband, but he did not wake. Versed in enchantment and wizardry, the deer realized this and ceased her efforts. She turned to the demon, waiting for him to speak and tell why her husband had been thus bespelled to sleep.
The demon spoke to the deer. “I have come to hear more of the story your husband told to me, with which he bought one-third of the sin of the merchant. In my grief for my son I cannot stay still and remain pleased with the tales I heard, but must instead know all I can of those whose lives the stories tell of. Tell me of your own story, and of why it came to be that you hold your current form.” In that instant he cast a spell on the transformed woman, allowing her the voice she had lost when her human form had been taken from her.
The deer performed a bow, altered though it was by the body she now possessed. “O demon, my story is as the one my husband told to you,” she said, head bowed in respect to the demon.
“I will hear it,” he responded, and she answered, “If that is what you wish, so it shall be.”
O demon, as my husband once told you I am his cousin, born of his mother's brother and raised alongside him. Of all my cousins he was the kindest, and treated me well. I loved him dearly, and thus our marriage was a blessing to me. However God Almighty did not see fit to extend blessing to my husband, as I was not able to produce children and could not provide my husband with a son.
Thirty years passed, and at length my husband took a mistress to bed. God smiled upon her, as she bore him a son both strong and beautiful. The mistress, a kindly and gentle woman, cared for him herself, assisted only by an old female slave. The boy and his mother were often visited by my husband, who loved both more than he loved me, or so it often felt. I watched all from afar, a poisonous jealousy rising in me that, in time, would be my undoing.
In this time I found old books of spells and oaths, remnants of my childhood studies on the subject. I had neglected them for thirty years, happy as I was with my husband. Now I opened them again and read the pages denoting spells and secrets that had remained hidden during those thirty years. My husband would come and visit me at times while I read my books, each time being more attentive and loving than the last. But jealousy had taken hold of my heart, and I was blinded to his attention. Instead my eyes flew to his mistress and son, and my heart burned with hatred whenever he visited them.
One evil day my husband found it necessary to embark on a journey that would keep him far from home. Unaware of the wickedness that had overtaken me, he left his mistress and son in my care. As he departed he warned me not to be harsh toward his mistress or son, as both had recently fallen ill of a strange sickness that had swept the region and were only then recovering. I had been spared the sickness, as I had hastened to perform certain rites and invoke such words that no illness could touch me when I had first caught wind of the malady.
So it was that my husband's mistress and son came into my care, whereupon such plans as I had laid when envy had first taken hold of me began to unfold. Long had I wished for retribution upon those two for stealing away the love of my husband, whom I had loved longer than they.
I dismissed the servants who tended them, instead caring for them myself. Unaware of my artifice, the mistress thanked me for my care, her eyes showing only gratitude toward me. Blinded as I was, I paid it no heed but painted on a pleasant face for her to trust, and so she did. Her son, young and knowing only that I was the one helping him to recover from sickness, knew nothing more than to do as his mother and place his faith in me as his caretaker. So both came to love and trust me, as I wished.
So it was that one night when the moon was a mere crescent in the sky, lending only a little light to the land below, I led both out to the pastures, saying only that there was something I wished to show them. They followed without complaint, the mistress asking only that we bring a small water-skin in case her son become thirsty. When she had voiced this request I bade them to wait for me as I fetched the water, waving away the mistress' distressed insistence that I needn't trouble myself with the task when there were servants and slaves whose lives were to perform such things. Into the water-skin I placed water enchanted with certain spells, such that whoever drank of it would become animals of my choosing.
At length we reached the pastures whereupon our cattle grazed, though they were then beyond the crest of a near hill, hiding them from sight. Thus were we separated from everyone, to the confusion of the mistress and her son. I acted as if bemused, and asked if perhaps the herdsman were over the hill. The mistress, her innocent mind still dwelling on the perceived insult she had paid me in requesting the water skin, thought to journey over the hill in search of the man. I allowed her to do so, asking only that she bid the man to leave the cattle to his underlings for a moment and attend to me.
So the mistress left me alone with her son, who held my hand and wondered at the night sky above us. My blackened heart gloried in his trust, as it made my task all the easier. As his mother vanished over the crest of the hill, I brought forth the water-skin and bade the boy to drink from it. He lifted it to his lips, and drank deep of the water.....
At that moment dawn broke on the horizon, and Shahrazad lapsed into silence.