Gingerbread #1, Boysenberry #24 - new author
Author: Jayalalita
Challenge: Gingerbread #1 - once upon a time ; Boysenberry # 24 - tie the knot
Rating: PG
Word Count: 712
Story: The Stepdaughter
Summary: Fairy tale beginnings!
Notes: This is my first posting of nonsense in this otherwise quite lovely community. I beg you to forgive my silliness! If I have erred in my posting, please smack the learning into my head. Thank you, thank you!
There once lived a man who married a woman with three grown daughters. Now, this man was not very young, nor very handsome, nor very rich, nor very kind, and neither was the woman, but they were not altogether bad as surely as they were not altogether good.
The eldest daughter was a shapely, jolly girl who loved to work hard and laugh hard. She married a fat, laughing man and had many fat, laughing children, and the sun-creased corners of their eyes were always merry.
The youngest daughter was a slender, delicate girl, with refined sensibilities and a refined temper. She married a wealthy, haughty man, and they had no children, just as they both preferred, and she kept her skin pale as cream in a richly decorated chamber darkened by thick curtains.
But the middle daughter did not marry. She had daggers for eyes, wielded by the quick turn of her brows, and she sought no suitor, and no suitor sought her.
The man had no wish to keep a spinster for the rest of his days, so soon after moving into his wife's home, he asked the girl, "Will you not marry?"
And the daughter replied, "I do not wish to marry." But this was a lie, for she had longed to marry the neighbor's son since she could remember.
A month passed, and the man asked, "Stepdaughter, is there no one you love?"
And she replied, "I love only myself." But this was a lie, for she had by now come to desperately love her mother's new husband.
Three months passed, and the man, exasperated with the stubborn girl, asked, "Is there no one you would have?"
And the girl replied, "Stepfather, I would have only you." And she spoke the truth, so far as she knew it, for she was too heart-weary to lie any longer.
The man was taken speechless, having never encouraged the girl's affections, nor desired them in the slightest. In the passing days after her confession, the stepdaughter became unduly familiar, addressing him by his given name with too much warmth in the inflection, and quickly stealing his fingers in her own in moments when chance and proximity left them alone together.
"Gregor," she would whisper, "I am much younger and sweeter than my old mother. You should have me instead." And each time he would push her away, but she was persistent, gazing longer and stepping closer each day.
He spoke to his wife of her daughter, and they agreed she must be quite ill or quite wicked, and that the affliction must be put to an end at once. The mother went to her daughter and said, "There will be no more of this. Your sister Tansy is married and well-fed, as she wishes it. Your sister Rue is married and quite rich, as she wishes it. What is it you are wanting for, my Sorrel?"
And she replied, "I want to love a man right, and I know how to do it, and I will have your man before it's all done, and love him right. That's what I want."
The mother had a huff at this, and the household was soon wound taut enough to pluck a tune upon, which its members did, playing at each other's strings.
"We must be rid of her," the man and his wife muttered under their breath in their bed at night, scheming for some way to free their house. "We must find someone, anyone, who will marry her."
But Sorrel had keen senses, and could feel their plotting prickle along her spine as sharply as she could hear their low voices through the wall.
She went into the night, cold with the dregs of winter, and looked at the black of the sky, spiting the stars and their unwelcome light. "I won't have it!" she hissed. "I will marry no one!" She turned to the moon, and its still indifference angered her further. "You hear me! No one will wed me! No one will take me!" And with that, she spat on the ground as if it were the moon's own shadow she defiled, and ran back in to her bed, where a girl's anguish is best treasured.
Challenge: Gingerbread #1 - once upon a time ; Boysenberry # 24 - tie the knot
Rating: PG
Word Count: 712
Story: The Stepdaughter
Summary: Fairy tale beginnings!
Notes: This is my first posting of nonsense in this otherwise quite lovely community. I beg you to forgive my silliness! If I have erred in my posting, please smack the learning into my head. Thank you, thank you!
There once lived a man who married a woman with three grown daughters. Now, this man was not very young, nor very handsome, nor very rich, nor very kind, and neither was the woman, but they were not altogether bad as surely as they were not altogether good.
The eldest daughter was a shapely, jolly girl who loved to work hard and laugh hard. She married a fat, laughing man and had many fat, laughing children, and the sun-creased corners of their eyes were always merry.
The youngest daughter was a slender, delicate girl, with refined sensibilities and a refined temper. She married a wealthy, haughty man, and they had no children, just as they both preferred, and she kept her skin pale as cream in a richly decorated chamber darkened by thick curtains.
But the middle daughter did not marry. She had daggers for eyes, wielded by the quick turn of her brows, and she sought no suitor, and no suitor sought her.
The man had no wish to keep a spinster for the rest of his days, so soon after moving into his wife's home, he asked the girl, "Will you not marry?"
And the daughter replied, "I do not wish to marry." But this was a lie, for she had longed to marry the neighbor's son since she could remember.
A month passed, and the man asked, "Stepdaughter, is there no one you love?"
And she replied, "I love only myself." But this was a lie, for she had by now come to desperately love her mother's new husband.
Three months passed, and the man, exasperated with the stubborn girl, asked, "Is there no one you would have?"
And the girl replied, "Stepfather, I would have only you." And she spoke the truth, so far as she knew it, for she was too heart-weary to lie any longer.
The man was taken speechless, having never encouraged the girl's affections, nor desired them in the slightest. In the passing days after her confession, the stepdaughter became unduly familiar, addressing him by his given name with too much warmth in the inflection, and quickly stealing his fingers in her own in moments when chance and proximity left them alone together.
"Gregor," she would whisper, "I am much younger and sweeter than my old mother. You should have me instead." And each time he would push her away, but she was persistent, gazing longer and stepping closer each day.
He spoke to his wife of her daughter, and they agreed she must be quite ill or quite wicked, and that the affliction must be put to an end at once. The mother went to her daughter and said, "There will be no more of this. Your sister Tansy is married and well-fed, as she wishes it. Your sister Rue is married and quite rich, as she wishes it. What is it you are wanting for, my Sorrel?"
And she replied, "I want to love a man right, and I know how to do it, and I will have your man before it's all done, and love him right. That's what I want."
The mother had a huff at this, and the household was soon wound taut enough to pluck a tune upon, which its members did, playing at each other's strings.
"We must be rid of her," the man and his wife muttered under their breath in their bed at night, scheming for some way to free their house. "We must find someone, anyone, who will marry her."
But Sorrel had keen senses, and could feel their plotting prickle along her spine as sharply as she could hear their low voices through the wall.
She went into the night, cold with the dregs of winter, and looked at the black of the sky, spiting the stars and their unwelcome light. "I won't have it!" she hissed. "I will marry no one!" She turned to the moon, and its still indifference angered her further. "You hear me! No one will wed me! No one will take me!" And with that, she spat on the ground as if it were the moon's own shadow she defiled, and ran back in to her bed, where a girl's anguish is best treasured.