Hello hello, all! Becky/ruffwriter here. It's been a while, but the Original Fiction Drabble-thon is once again underway! I hope you'll be able to join us
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When all was said and done, that was why the kingdom broke and caravans sent thousands south and east, backs to the sea they loved and lived off of. It was stained now, blemished by the northwestern wind's kin and seemed to laugh at their leaving, slapping the water against the cliffs like it was all a big joke to them, these silly mortal dramas. Perhaps it was. Some were bitter enough about it to believe such things - the older ones, the ones who still would sit in silence and listen for the tittering of bodiless voices in the wind and water. The younger ones, the flexible ones who stayed, they rolled their eyes and picked up the abandoned spades and hammers and grumbled about the freshly endless work that was now their early inheritance. Everyone grumbled, and none were altogether satisfied, not even the man who had caused it all. None, save for the woman.
She smiled through funerals and banquets alike with a serene, detached countenance that made her all the more unapproachable to the people who had to learn to embrace her. Highness, queen, majesty...The titles were practiced and ingrained, but always came out like an unseemly taste in their mouths. If it ever harmed or affected her, none could tell, not even the king. She giggled and laughed at concern for her - her, of all things to be concerned about! Didn't they know? Of course they knew. Silly, sweet little mortals going through their courtesies with a creature so unlike them. It charmed her anew each time, and each laugh and flick of her wrist set the people further away from her.
If one were to disregard her as the entity she was, there was little evidence any could bring forth to accuse her as wrongly present. Kings married foreign maids for the interests of all - she was the most foreign of any, for certain, and what benefits their union may bring in the future were the subject of a debate as endless as the arguments against their union from the start. She was not unkind, but she was unlike. Her empathy and attention was fleeting, seemingly saved for only the tiniest number of persons around her at any given time, all dashed completely away in the presence of her husband. Her wrath, too, was a short-lived thing; the first true agonies of childbirth had offended her so greatly that many feared to be near her months past, when in all reality, she had forgotten such things days passing. Such was her nature: A fleeting feeling, only recalling things once they were touched upon again. It was as it had always been, and even a mortal body could not take something so ingrained in herself away.
She was no dissident, had no taste for trial or law, carried no aspirations for power or a changing of tradition (save for the one that prohibited her marrying the king in the first place), and, had she been anything other than what she was, would have been the most acceptable, most ideal queen that ever was. But it was not so, as she was the wind, and the priests and acolytes were firmly set against any tampering with the immortal and unseen. Their protests had not ceased since the day the then-prince declared his ambitions.
Ignored and incensed, the superstitiously-minded were gathered up in small unions that grew under the banner of their most charismatic speaker. He had no hate in his heart for the creature who wore a woman's crown; he often spoke of hearing and feeling the presence of gods and immortals around him, and it was sometimes true. He spoke out in fear, not hate; fear of the repercussions that would befall all mortal things for breeching such a barrier, fear of the stain in the line of the ruling family, and fear of what terrible unions would be forged in the future by the darker lands and leaders. The door that the king had pried open must be barred shut, he insisted. Many threw up their voices alongside in agreement.
She smiled through funerals and banquets alike with a serene, detached countenance that made her all the more unapproachable to the people who had to learn to embrace her. Highness, queen, majesty...The titles were practiced and ingrained, but always came out like an unseemly taste in their mouths. If it ever harmed or affected her, none could tell, not even the king. She giggled and laughed at concern for her - her, of all things to be concerned about! Didn't they know? Of course they knew. Silly, sweet little mortals going through their courtesies with a creature so unlike them. It charmed her anew each time, and each laugh and flick of her wrist set the people further away from her.
If one were to disregard her as the entity she was, there was little evidence any could bring forth to accuse her as wrongly present. Kings married foreign maids for the interests of all - she was the most foreign of any, for certain, and what benefits their union may bring in the future were the subject of a debate as endless as the arguments against their union from the start. She was not unkind, but she was unlike. Her empathy and attention was fleeting, seemingly saved for only the tiniest number of persons around her at any given time, all dashed completely away in the presence of her husband. Her wrath, too, was a short-lived thing; the first true agonies of childbirth had offended her so greatly that many feared to be near her months past, when in all reality, she had forgotten such things days passing. Such was her nature: A fleeting feeling, only recalling things once they were touched upon again. It was as it had always been, and even a mortal body could not take something so ingrained in herself away.
She was no dissident, had no taste for trial or law, carried no aspirations for power or a changing of tradition (save for the one that prohibited her marrying the king in the first place), and, had she been anything other than what she was, would have been the most acceptable, most ideal queen that ever was. But it was not so, as she was the wind, and the priests and acolytes were firmly set against any tampering with the immortal and unseen. Their protests had not ceased since the day the then-prince declared his ambitions.
Ignored and incensed, the superstitiously-minded were gathered up in small unions that grew under the banner of their most charismatic speaker. He had no hate in his heart for the creature who wore a woman's crown; he often spoke of hearing and feeling the presence of gods and immortals around him, and it was sometimes true. He spoke out in fear, not hate; fear of the repercussions that would befall all mortal things for breeching such a barrier, fear of the stain in the line of the ruling family, and fear of what terrible unions would be forged in the future by the darker lands and leaders. The door that the king had pried open must be barred shut, he insisted. Many threw up their voices alongside in agreement.
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