Stormfyre Chapter Seventeen

            Their host's name was Blain Crestworn, a former fisherman from Twin Port. He had lived most of his life on the sea, running nets behind the sleek sailing vessels that he commanded, taking in shallow fish for the market. That had been his lively hood, having spent better then forty years on the ocean to the south, making runs north in the summer months and going far beyond the boundaries of Umbriel when the chill of winter made fishing more slim. He retired from the port life three years ago, living the life of solitude that he always wanted for himself. He had never married, telling the young men that women were a blessing that could ruin their lives, laughing heartily after he told them.

Gillian's Story, Part One, Act 4

Act Four: The Empire Strikes Back Really Hard!

            Now that the princess and the sword wielding peasant found the yellow block road they followed it, singing and skipping all the way. Their voices rang gaily through the land until they stopped and looked at each other. “What in the world possessed me to sing like such an idiot, I wonder?” the princess said. “I don’t know, but those are some fetching slippers you have on. Are those ruby?” The princess looked down at her feet and grinned girlishly. “No, I just painted my feet that color so I’d never have to wear shoes! Everyone’s fooled by them.” “Wow,” the peasant said, “That’s incredible. You must be a super genius.” The princess blushed. “I did attend Harvard.”

Gillian's Story, Part One, Act 3

Act Three: The Saga Continues!

            As the princess and her party traveled to the next village, which was far, far away, she received an impromptu haircut from the sword wielding peasant, who hacked it off to her shoulders. “Oh thank you!” the princess exclaimed happily, “all of those woodland animals living in my hair was really beginning to hurt my scalp! It was like being back in the Shining Castle and having my mother dragging me up and down the stairs by it all over again!” The sword wielding peasant looked horrified. “Why did she do that?” The princess was suddenly confused. “I’m not certain. I’ll have to ask her when I go home. By the way, you are really good with your sword. The way you chopped my hair without accidentally cutting my ears off, and the way you threatened that poor old woman who wasn’t armed. That was so macho!” The peasant puffed up with manly pride, “I told you I was good.” “Why don’t you put that thing down and hold me?” the princess asked. “Because I can’t. I’ve carried it so long that I can’t let go of it anymore. It makes for a real pain when I’m eating, or trying to take baths. So I gave them up.”

            Just then they came to a fork in the road. Sven picked it up and put it in his pocket. (No one knew that Sven was secretly a kleptomaniac. He already had all of their money and jewelry in his pockets.) The princess stood beside the sword wielding peasant in confusion, looking both ways. “Which way shall we go?” she asked. One way was cheerful and happy, with a shining sun and green fields where doves flew and fruit trees bloomed. The other way was barren and dead, with bent trees and scorched grass, and a riverbed that had dried up, revealing the bones of former travelers at the bottom. “I’m not sure,” the sword wielding peasant answered. “I don’t remember how to get to Happily Ever After any more. Too bad there isn’t someone we might ask.”

            Just then they heard, “There is someone.” They looked both ways again and saw no one. They looked back at Sven, but he was busy stealing cookies from a troop of passing girl scouts. “Who said that?” the princess demanded. “I’ll know who’s speaking to the princess of Shining Castle!” Then they saw a scarecrow on a pole at the divide of the road. “I said that,” he told them. “Would you do me a favor and let me down?” he asked. “I got stuck here by my fellow fraternity members, who thought it would be funny to hang me here and dress me like a scarecrow.” The sword wielding peasant raised his sword up. “I think the scarecrow is talking to us,” he said. The princess looked angrily at him. “Scarecrows can’t speak. Now where are you, stranger? Why do you throw your voice like that? Although I must admit I’m rather impressed by it.” The scarecrow sighed. “I spoke! I’m stuck here! Will you let me down?” The princess shook her head. “If you won’t answer, then I’m afraid we must leave. Come Sven! We’re going to travel down the really dark and scary road.”

            Just then the royal guard arrived. They all drew their swords and surrounded the three of them. (Sven had already stolen one of their swords.) “You knave! Release the princess to us or we’ll beat you up!” they declared. The sword wielding peasant bravely stepped forward. “I confess: Sven here kidnapped her and made me carry his weapon for him. He’s a criminal mastermind and you must arrest him at once!” So they did, and they rode down the highway with Sven, completely forgetting why they had come to begin with. “Quickly, while they’re harming our innocent traveling companion, let’s get out of here!” the sword wielding peasant stated. “That was very brave of you to squeal on Sven like a little girl,” the princess admitted, and the peasant blushed. “Now, let us follow the yellow block road to Happily Ever After!” And so they linked arms and skipped away, singing out of tune. The scarecrow/fraternity brother looked after them and sighed again. “Will someone let me down from here? I have to pee!” To be continued…?

An Interview with Living Stones

I just had the pleasure of being the recipient of an interview with Michelle from Living Stones News: a Christian newspaper based right here in Duluth, Minnesota. She came by my house and we chatted for about an hour about my conversion, my prodigal wanderings, my return to Christ my Lord, and the conception of Andurun.

It was an interesting experience to be sure. It was my third interview in all; the first being a youtube interview with David Beauieu, followed by an online interview with Glynn Young of Faith, Fiction, Friends. It is wonderful to be able to share my witness for Jesus Christ and my own long walk as I returned to my faith and using this God-given gift for something that glorifies the God who first gave it to me.

The interview will be available this September in Living Stones News, and I will post links on my facebook account and on my website for anyone who wants to read it. FYI: this site, as of the end of this month, will cease being my primary site for posting tidbits on Andurun and my other writngs and I will be moving entirely to Andurun.com, my new website. I invite you to join me there. I'll post more about the article when I know of its arrival. God bless!

Gillian's Story, Part One, Act 2

Act Two: The Sequel

            As the royal guard went galloping out of the Shining Castle the princess was busy looking for work still. She had the distinct impression that no one would hire her at the village, so she was forced to move on to another village, aptly named Next Village. Next Village was a prosperous place that was filled with happy people, but they were plagued by the evil queen of Castle Neverknow, and lived in fear of when she came to their village.

            Now it happened to be that the princess and Queen Neverknow came to Next Village at the same time. The princess was covered in mud still, and her long, long hair had been dragging in the dirt since the last village, so small woodland animals began to nest in it, since all woodland animals loved princesses, no matter what princess it was. It was very heavy to drag with, so she was tired and irritated by the time she entered the village and found Queen Neverknow harassing old people and stealing children’s shoes. Irate, the princess stormed over to the evil queen, woodland animals and all, and demanded to know what she was doing. The queen took one look at her and huffed, “Who are you to demand to know what I’m doing?” The princess said, “I am the princess of the Shining Castle, and these are my people!” the queen looked horrified. “Look at you! The rumors about your parents being broke to pay their light bill must be true. They can’t even afford clean clothes or bath water for you! You aren’t even worth kidnapping for ransom! I’m sure the electric company has already thought of that, anyhow.”

            The princess sneered at the evil queen. “What is your name, if you don’t mind?” The queen told her, “I am the queen of Castle Neverknow.” And when she said it lightning forked in the sky, and small animals scampered off in terror, including the ones that had been nesting in the princess’s hair, to which she was grateful. “Why is your castle named Neverknow?” she inquired. “Because you’ll never know! Wa ha ha ha ha!” The queen threw back her head in laughter for many, many minutes, as if expecting the scene to fade to black before she was finished. When it did not, she looked around in mild confusion and shrugged her shoulders. The princess, who had been patiently waiting for the queen to finish her evil laughter, folded her arms across her chest and said, “That was stupid. Did you ever finish high school?” The evil queen squealed in anger. “How dare you accuse me of not graduating high school! I received a diploma and it was a happy day for me, long before you were ever born! Why, I was the girl with perfect attendance! I suppose you finished high school?” The princess scoffed. “I went to Harvard, I’ll have you know.” The evil queen’s eyes lit up, and she rubbed her hands together. “Perhaps you are worth ransoming, after all!”

            The princess became suddenly afraid and backed away from the evil queen, who was ready to seize her. All at once, a handsome young man leapt between them, sword drawn. “Stand away, Queen Neverknow!” he declared, “I have been training with this sword since I was three years old, and have never had a job or a girlfriend, so I am very dangerous with it, believe me!” The evil queen stepped back. “Why are you interfering, peasant?” The young man scratched his head as he tried to puzzle out the answer. “I’m not certain,” he said at last, “but like small woodland animals that love princesses, I am the obligatory handsome, sword wielding young man that is here to rescue her in the nick of time, so we may elope, and have many, many children.”

            “You have won this time, fools, but I will return, and I will bring the magical mice that you set free princess, for they wish revenge on you now! Wa ha ha ha ha!” With that the evil queen vanished, literally, and everyone was safe. “You’re my hero,” the princess told the young man as she stared into his eyes. “Where shall we go now?” “The land of Happily Ever After,” he replied. “That is where I must take you now. You will be happy, and your parent’s light bill will be paid for. But we must make haste before the royal guards or Queen Neverknow return to thwart us.” And so they went, the young man, the princess, her animal friends, and some mute guy named Sven that just followed after them for some reason. To be continued…?

Gillian's Story, Part One, Act 1

For your reading pleasure, and to honor the month of my wife's birth, I am going to share a story I wrote for her before we began dating. It is not my usual fare by any means so be warned. It is my attempt to try out comedy by mocking fairy tales. There are now four such stories in existence, and if no one minds I will share them one by one for the reader's pleasure. Again, you have been warned; this was a deliberate effort to be nonsensical and whimsical. There is no sobriety beyond this point...

Act One: Gillian’s story

            Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a radiant princess in a shining castle. She was college educated and very sensible, and often wondered why her castle shined all the time and no other building anywhere in her kingdom did. Secretly she feared that her parents made the castle shine because they were afraid of the dark, so without thinking twice on the matter she went out to find a job so she could help support her parent’s light bill. It had to be a huge light bill to keep an entire castle shining day and night seven days a week.

            Anyhow, the princess woke up one morning, had her bubble bath, pony ride and consultation with her magic mirror (which always had an image of Fabio waving his hair about when it spoke) and set off to the village. When she entered a shop the owners would beg her not to have her father behead them or raise their taxes, which she thought was bizarre. And she couldn’t get within one hundred feet of someone without them falling to their knees and bowing before her. It was awfully sad because people working in high places would do this as well, and then they would slide off their roof and break something vital, and they would make the most vexing noise.

            So finally she stopped someone from bowing and asked how they knew her for royalty. The peasant replied, “My lady, I am a simple beggar, clad in street raiment and covered in filth, but you are perfumed and clean, clad in fine silk and shimmering pearls, with teeth that are very white and hair that is so long that it takes four grown men to carry it for you. Your gown trails through the street thirty feet in your wake, and magical scampering mice are everywhere, chewing on fruit and food, and small children when they’re sleeping, which is highly unsettling. Plus you have a large, fat man blowing a trumpet and declaring who you are before you enter a shop or residence, so it is easy to discern your identity.” The princess considered these words, and relied heavily on her aforementioned college education to deduce an answer.

            Firstly, she set free her mice, who magically scampered away and devoured all the crops in the village, creating a minor blight. Then she had her trumpet man put to death for announcing her presence to everyone. Finally, she found a nice, cool mud hole to jump in, and became utterly filthy. This, she surmised, was an excellent way to escape notice. She then entered another shop, and the owners within were taken aback by her. “My lady!” one mane screamed in alarm, “what in heaven happened to you? Why are you clad in silk and shimmering pearls, smelling of fine perfume and dripping from head to toe in mud?” They looked past the princess, to the men still carrying her hair for her, and became irate. “Fiends!” they cried, “You dare drag this young woman of proper breeding through the mud by her hair? Stone them!” And without further ado they were chased out of the village by an angry, torch wielding mob of peasants. In the meantime the princess continued her hunt for employment.

            Meanwhile, back at the castle, the king and queen, half blind from years of living in a shining castle, began to wonder where their daughter had gone off to. The king fetched his guards, and asked if they knew of her presence, and the men informed the good king that she went to the village to find a job. “My daughter is getting a job?” the king asked. “I told you that sending her to Harvard was a bad idea!” the queen ranted at him, “Now she’s going to be filthy rich and have life experiences! What self-respecting prince will ever marry her?” The king became very angry and commanded his guards to find her at once. “My daughter will not have any life experiences if I can help it! Guards! Bring her back, along with her magical mice, trumpet man and four hair carriers! Do not fail me!” The guards departed, on their quest to find the missing, tomboy princess…to be continued…?