Writers Untie!

Byrophyta--A Fairytale

It was a dark and stormy night, that cliché way that all creepy stories are dark and stormy. Only on this night, it was particularly dark and stormy. Our stock female protagonist—we’ll call her Emily—was walking along a gravel-strewn path in the dark and stormy night. Why was she walking along a gravel-strewn path that dark and stormy night? Well, you see, she had just left the house of her elderly grandmother after taking her some homemade chicken soup and—oh, who are we kidding? She had snuck off to see that good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers. You know, the one her parents had forbidden her to see ever. The one that she swore up and down really was good to her and had promised not to hurt her and would marry her some day. He was so good-for-nothing that he let her go out into the dark and stormy night all alone! Who knows what evils lurked out there in the woods on a dark and stormy night! Honestly!

Well, at any rate, morose little Emily wandered down this gravel path until she came to an unfamiliar river with an unfamiliar bridge. She had gotten lost, but not being the brightest of girls, she didn’t realize it. “I wonder who put that river there,” she more-absently-than-usual thought to herself. Neverminding that she was lost, she decided to cross the unfamiliar bridge over the unfamiliar river. Requistely old and creaky, the shabby wooden bridge sighed under her weight. Not that she was heavy—on the contrary, she was rather slender and light. But the bridge would have creaked under any weight at all. There was a particularly sinister crack, and suddenly, Emily was in that unfamiliar river, flowing down the unfamiliar waters to an unfamiliar death!

Or so she thought! Dun dun dun. Until she found herself mysteriously pulled out of the waters by a normal-looking-but-in-reality-six-toed-kind-of-handsome-if-you-were-somewhat-inebriated-which-she-was man. “Thank you! I think I was about to die,” she said rather stupidly.

“You were,” said the increasingly-fascinating-to-this-drunk stranger. “But I saved you!” he said gallantly, tossing his blonde mane. “There were rocks up ahead and limestone and moss, and--say you look like you’re cold. The only way out is over more limestone, which may be crumpling and especially slippery from the dark-and-storminess, but never fear, I will test it out before we ascend the approximately 15-foot climb.”

So Emily, wet and shuddering with cold, followed the gallant stranger down the rivers edge until they came to a moss-encrusted-not-big-enough-to-be-a-cliff-but-steeper-than-a-hill . . . thing. Emily was sobering slightly by this point, at least, enough to begin to be afraid of what was going on. Yet what choice did she have but to follow the still-handsome-even-though-she-wasn’t-really-drunk-anymore gentleman? Up he clamboured gallantly (after all, he is blonde—gallantry is a perpetual requirement!) over the green bryophyte (that’s moss for you non-scientists) that hid the shaky limestone. “Nothing to it!” he bragged. “Come up after me!”

And so Emily did. Or, at least she tried to. She was no sooner to the top than she lost her footing and slid backwards. Down, down, and then down a bit more she tumbled, miraculously missing the limestone rocks that jagged out all around her. In a heap she landed at the bottom, greatly confusing her would-be rescuer. Still gallant, he dashed down to the bottom of the rocks—apparently, there was a path that wouldn’t have involved climbing iffy limestone if he had gone just a bit further to his left. There the now fully-conscious-but-wishing-she-wasn’t Emily lay, looking more than cold and wet by this point. The stranger picked her up from her pathetic state and gently carried her to his horse—which also was nowhere near the limestone. So what he was thinking to begin with, no one is really sure.

At any rate, there was Emily, in pain and afraid and now on the back of the mystery man’s equally mysterious horse. “Let me take you to my castle,” he said.

Emily came out of her haze enough to realize that this mystery man was evidently of noble birth. Dang! She knew how to pick disasters! The rest of the ride was a blur.

At last they arrived at the aforementioned castle, appropriately strong and steady against the dark and gloomy night that still set the atmosphere. Mystery Man conveyed the shaken-and-somewhat-stirred Emily to the castle. There, he discovered what had brought her to the woods and convinced her that he needed to send out his finest soldiers to smack around her boyfriend a little bit for letting her out alone and drunk on a night like that. Emily readily agreed.

And so the blonde rescuer—who at last turned out to be named Pancratius, Jack for short—rescued Emily from a river, from some rocks, and from a lousy boyfriend. Not bad for knowing her for 4 hours!! Emily thought it was impressive. And they lived happily ever after.

*with input from Linny Jane!

posted by Anna Clare @ 8:39 PM