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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

She Writes with Love - for Katie Jennings


I have a story for Katie Jenning's friend. I just wrote it for her now because she may be young and not knowing love is sometimes a faery tale and sometimes Persephone finds it in Hades and comes back.

I don’t expect it to be in the eBook as her good friends have already collaborated but I will send it to you now.

It’s about a Pirate Duke.....................................
.............and a Princess, whom I court for 39 years.

  • I published this same faery tale a few days ago. 

  • I want it to have a new twist and so I invite my readers to make their own ending. I will give you three alternative endings. You may choose one or write your own. Your choice. Or neither or none.


  • Do you think it was wise for the Duke to wait so long before rolling the gold dust into a ring?

  • Should the violent Princess accept it?

  • What do you think of the new ending(s)?

  • What's your favorite? Traditional, baroque, postmodern, or insane?

  • I wait for your own stories of love unrequited for 39 years and its conclusion, successful or otherwise.

A LOVE STORY FOR A FAERY PRINCESS AND A DUKE


Her eyes were black and deep like a subterranean pool, her skin olive, her nose aquiline; she said she was Irish. “The black Irish” my mother would have said, and with that came the kiss of the blarney stone, for she was double-tongued and manipulative. I thought she was probably First Nations, Indian dark skinned and salt and pepper hair, and I thought she was bipolar because of her insane mood swings and her long episodes of withdrawal.

She and I shared that secret.

I was forward, dark too, honest and blunt. Persephone loved me for I came from a secret place in the underground, cursed by Hades. I thought I was possessed by the Devil and indeed I was, the devil's spawn this Dark Duke I was, and courted by his demons in Hell. I had escaped only to find the faery Princess more knowledgeable than I. She saw through me to the dark pits of my soul and was frightened, but more shocked than frightened, and more sickened than shocked. So she loved me and tried to help.

In 1974 she broke the hell hound’s spell when she confronted the Beast within me. Since then she fled, fearing the goblins and fiends unleashed as I ran wild over the heather in northern Scotland and the shamrocks in County Cork, wild to the pubs of Canada, the Druid and Kelly’s Bar, unable to imbibe because the whiskey had got the best of me by then. That scared her too, no doubt, I have no means of knowing because I didn’t see her again until 1991.

By that time I was tamed but splashing holy water on the walls of the psychiatric hospital to still the flames that roared from Hades in every crack of the old building. It worked, too, especially when the staff murdered me with a lethal injection.

They didn’t really kill me, of course, any more than they killed the love I had for her and she for me. I was a violent pirate Duke and she was a faery Princess who believed in violence to strip away the evil that lurked in every man's soul. The evil that lurked in my own in particular, although when I looked in a mirror the fierceness vomited back at my image and I was cured through homeopathy.

By 2009 I loved her enough to go to jail for her and say I was guilty of her own offense, her offense of lying and control and holding grudges.



The offense was really love and hope, though, and I pleaded love and hope.
Somewhere over the desire of the mountain to the east, rose a pink blush of moon. Not the sun yet, though that would come after the long silver night had shivered and worn its way down the horizon.

A thousand suns would rise on the morning we awakened, blasting the feeble goblins in Hell to sing anthems, and Hades himself to smile at the triumph of something he could not control, the triumph of her love over mine, and my love over the weakness of my body and mind.

She never liked the pirate or the Duke but bits of them remain to tease and torment her.

They may explain my triumph now, in the 39th year, and the desire of the mountain is gold dust in my hand.

 I won’t forge a chain with it, or a ring. I’ll blow the dust onto the stamens of her orchids and ask for forgiveness and compassion, which once she offered but I did not accept.

If there is a ring it speaks of hope, compassion, forgiveness, forbearance, patience, laughter, and love.

Don’t take yourself too seriously, Duke, the faery princess will not always love you. She will care for you intermittently as you’ll be a Pirate till the day you die, and the lady does not always love an outlaw.

 It’s not so easy to be a lady’s duke and love a lady who loves control, but that, too, can change.

As the dove came back to Noah and the thrush sang Aura Lee, the white bird entwined with roses came back to her and me.

I wrote it today for Katie's friend, thinking she would not get another love story like this one. 
 I may save it for a future novel, of a Black Duke and a violent Faery Princess who are brought together by roses and music after 40 years of wandering…

ALTERNATIVE ENDING I

  • It's not so easy to be a lady's duke and know that every lady loves your charms and interesting soul.

  • It's not easy to be a lovely Faery Princess and know that your handsome warrior will never be yours for more than a day in 40 years.
  • As the dove came back to Noah and the thrush sang Aura Lee, the white bird tangled in thorns sang its song for her and me.

ALTERNATIVE ENDING II


  •  It's not easy to be a Duke Pirate and love the adventure more than the lady herself.

  • It's not easy to be a violent Princess who controls the destiny of the obsessed man she loves.
  •  A murder of crows surrounded us in the graveyard where we met and the dove was wet with tears. I took my arrow and killed the dove, and the lady buried it in her garden and wept that a little bit of love should die so soon.

ALTERNATIVE ENDING III

  • I presented with army and shield, and a red sun behind me. 




  • The Princess romped on the hills of Rome in a toga and sandals. 

 

  • We were one for the history of all dangerous Dukes and careful Faeries. We loved one another like butter loves corn, like the cherry blossoms of spring, like magnolia trees and fountains in spring, like the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen classical Chinese gardens of Vancouver where history and culture intertwine, and we are not Roman nor First Nations nor Irish nor Scottish, we are Canadian lovers who have loved since the first sunrise.
Map of Canada

  •  She is a stranger in a strange land and I am a poor wayfaring stranger in my own skin, or was before she stitched up my many wounds with her careful hands.
  • Now the dove comes back to Noah and we celebrate, but gently, for the violence has forced us to take care.
Pastel bird on a branch

  • The white roses cascade from the sword, which cuts the Gordian knot and frees us.
  • We love.
White rose
Man running free


Plane flying into sunrise

4 comments:

  1. Lovely writing, Kenna. A strange story indeed. Don't you think people might think you're a lesbian? I know you're not, but...

    I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so I'd choose the happiest one.

    Time has a way of eroding the edges of what was once sharp and jagged, turning lightning bolt illumination into softly glowing light. Memories are both enhanced and faded in a sort of mystical settling down into a greater, calmer reality.

    This started out as an alternative ending. But I got tired of typing. so

    The Duke and the Princess lived happily ever after. The end.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, people might think I'm a Lesbian like Sappho whose manuscripts were all burned by Christians. They may think I'm the Princess, too, who is odder than the Duke.

    Or they may think it's just an odd story.

    I like your ending and your writing is lovely, but my story has the advantage of being true.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love your story, Kenna! Beautiful writing :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you, Katie, I hope you liked it on your blog, too. It may have been misplaced there but I wanted your friend to have her pick of stories and happy endings. We all know love should be friendship first.

    ReplyDelete

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