Friday, December 5, 2008

   A retelling
I decided to post the beginning of a story that I am trying to work on with little success. I started it for Nanowrimo, but my comp crapped out. C'est le vie yet again . . .


He was beautiful. His ebony curls pulled back to stay out of his chiseled feature filled face even as he took off his gleaming and equally ebony metal helmet. Had this been any other young man casually disarming himself on a jousting field after having unseated four consecutive practice dummies Morgan would have been wondering to herself what metal he'd used to make it that lovely shade of black or if it was a caused by the way it was heated. But the man standing on the field, eyes shining with pride at his work, body near soaked in sweat was not simply any other man. He was the American National Jousting Champion, Reeve Talbot. And this year he was aiming to become the North American Jousting Champion. A competition that Morgan had managed to not only win tickets to but to also win a dinner with the man that she had idolized since high school.

"You know, she'll have to blink at some point." The deep voice beside her pulled her softly out of her imaginings of what this dinner might consist of; some talk of his amazing jousts, her work with unstable compounds at the college, and then maybe into the common ground of their love of all things medieval and renaissance fairish.

"That is unless she managed to learn how to breath through her eyes. Like those one creatures. What are they called?" Her mother's bird-like tones brought her back to earth completely.

"There isn't a creature that breathes through it's eyes, Mom" Morgan sighed and patted her mother's thin graying quaf as she stood from the wooden bleacher where she'd been glued for the last hour and a half. "You're thinking of the Yogi from that episode of Roseanne." The older woman was forever mixing up episodes of Roseanne and reality. Morgan simply supposed it happened when you got older and figured out the wonderment of being able to watch your favorite show over and over and over again because every episode was on a little disc that could be tossed into that thing that the kids now use to watch movies.

Smoothing her shirt over her all too flat hips, she smiled as her mother nodded placidly, the thoughts of whether or not her daughter was correct already having left her mind. And without a pause Morgan's mother turned to her husband and asked him if he had remembered to take his heart medication that day or not. Morgan shook her head, a familiar smile passing over her lips and causing her to find her parents in that fond spot at the edge of her vision. The one that always is there but is so easy to forget when at any given moment they can turn around and nag at you. Remember not to eat that giant turkey leg. Those things can't possibly be cooked thoroughly. And then there were the warning about behavior. Don't pick your nose in public, Morrie. You never know which of the men you're looking at is going to be your husband some day. Oh, and there was one that she heard more often than any other. Always wear clean underwear just in case you die or for some reason have to go to the hospital. That way you'll never be called a whore. Her mother always had a way with advice. She gave it freely and often, never expecting any in return.

The sound of the planks beneath her feet were soothing with each step. Nearly as if she'd heard them all of her life. They made her feel as if she were home and as if it were right. There was not a real explanation as to why. It was simply a feeling that she'd retained since her first walk around a Faire. Boots crunched against the falling leaves below as costumed actors, jousters, wenches, pirates mingled with paying customers, visitors to the land of Medieval Great Britain. Horses and dogs, the occasional pig and even a cow could be seen. One lady kept a little green fluttering feathery thing in a sparkling gilded cage. Nothing that could be easily pegged as a bird or bug. It was probably no more than a trick of sorts. Like the idea of walking an invisible dog that was so popular at amusement parks the world over, but that were only metal wires attached to a collar that seemed to levitate like a pup of some magical sort.

Here Morgan felt at home. Here she felt that she belonged. She wasn't some odd science geek. She wasn't that girl in the second floor dormitory that only reads fantasies and books that no one can decipher the title let along pronounce it. She was Morgan Emrys. A wench who, when asked could juggle near anything she was handed. An excellent swordsman and fencer. And also the assistant to the flame Swallower, who had a show at the Faire each year for seven of the ten weekends it ran. She was known by all but the jousters, whose faces changed with each year and each weekend.

Each year new stands were erected for all manner of new trinkets and interesting nick knacks to be sold by the various vendors. It was never old nor stale. It was by far more and more intriguing with each passing day. The first time that Morgan had gone to visit a Faire she'd been with her ninth grade English class on a field trip. It had been within those first twenty minutes that she had fallen irrevocably in love with the entire Faire. From the animals to the jousters, not that the two were always so easily distinguished from one another. And from the wenches to the Queen. Morgan loved it all and had applied that next year to work anywhere, doing anything. She'd done it all thanks to that. From cleaning the privies to picking up trash and aiding anyone who needed a hand. The past two years, however she had been a fully fledged wench, able to aid the Performers. Something she dearly loved, as most were happy to teach their helpers whenever a break in the schedule appears.

That was how she had learned to juggle. A wandering juggler had seen her bored during a break and had taken pity on her, having her stand and giving her the benefit of the doubt. Two days later she was juggling without help. Entertaining children as she walked through the dirt paths and over the wooden bridges. Tossing pine cones into the air with no sort of care or worry that they might fall. That was the key. Knowing that it was possible to accomplish the task. That had also been the key to learning to use a sword. You had to be certain in your ability. She was a natural, or so she'd been told by the self proclaimed Master at Arms. He had spent the days in which the classes had visited giving demonstrations on sword play and she had been the more than willing student. Bruised though she had become she had enjoyed every moment of it. For two solid weeks they had class after class come from schools all over the state. To witness and to learn about Queen Elizabeth's England. She'd gotten good. And she knew that soon she'd be able to compete. That was if she hadn't been the only woman at the Faire this year that was knew how to handle a broadsword.

Morgan waved to the blacksmith who serviced all of the horses that were brought to run around the practice field. He'd gotten her the entry form to win the evening with Reeve. And had acted much like her father. Morgan would have to introduce them to each other. Both reenacted the Civil War on their days off. She supposed that was where she got her longing to reenact this period. Her father and his love of all things that resembled the seemingly long forgotten past.

"Ye cannah wish for a lovelier day, lass. Care for ah romp on ma dragon?" Morgan felt a laugh bubble inside of her throat as she turned around, towards the sound of the deep Scottish brogue. Collin could make anything sound dirty with that voice, but as he stood in front of a large mechanical dragon ride resembling a small roller coaster, that the owner of the property had insisted be a part of the Faire to assure that money was being made, it was clear that there was no sexual bent to his words. This time.

Her laugh was easy, and soft as she faced the tall, broad man. His red mop was disheveled as he ran a work worn hand through its tresses. "Ah. Morgan, didn't know it was you. First time I've seen you without your corset." His smile was lopsided, making his entire face look off center. But in the way a lolling tongue makes a puppy look off center. It fit his broad jaw, that smile. It fit his all around hugeness. He truly looked the part of a man who had tamed a dragon and was now offering rides. Complete with a faux dragon skin vest that barely fit across the expansive chest.

His almost Southern baritone moved right through her. The deep tune nearer to a bass than tenor. It had a slight lulling effect, making her feel as at ease with him as she felt at home when she entered the Fairegrounds themselves.

"You mean that I am clothed for the first time in our acquaintance?" His eyes scanned her for a moment, as if he'd barely noticed what she was wearing before her having mentioned it. From the tip top of her brown curls, pulled back into the laziest of pony tails to her basic brown t-shirt, jeans, and her one true splurge. The Nike's on her feet.

"Nah." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the stair post that stood poised at his back, not quite able to manage the nonchalant air he was too obviously trying for, but looking instead like he might have been unduly cocky in himself, when in truth he was nothing more than a somewhat clumsy farm boy who enjoyed being at a good Faire. "Ya always wear your hair up with a Celtic knot hair thingy."

Morgan looked at him for a moment. She hadn't thought that anyone would notice her mother's silver hair clip. The Celtic knot had come with her mother's grandmother when she'd immigrated from Ireland. It was the only thing Celtic that she owned and she had seen many like it at the various Faires. No one had mentioned it to her until now. Collin was looking right back at her. His face plainly searching hers for what she could be thinking.

"I've always thought that kinda made you look a bit . . . earthreal. Like you were one of the faerie folk or somethin'." He shook his head as if making it let go of something and turned towards a crowd of teens wearing beaten metal crowns and battling against each other with painted wooden swords. "Arrre any of ye brave enou to ride the dragon?" The brogue was as thick again as if he'd spent his entire life in the Scottish highlands farming sheep instead of having grown up in rural Southwestern Ohio farming fields of corn.


(Write what you know . . . Well, I know Faires, farm boys, and girls who's parents think they know what's best for her. . . . And although I don't know them I have a real thing for jousters and Scotsmen . . .)
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