Fairytale fragment
Sunday, October 5th, 2008 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsaikoRowan was very, very, very tired of being his mother's son. His father, King Kendrick, said that his mother meant well. She had always wanted a daughter and it had broken her heart and her mind when Rowan was born. After the birth the healers had told her there would no more children. King Kendrick loved his wife and they already had an heir and two back-ups should anything happen to the heir. When Queen Oriana asked to raise their fourth son like the daughter she hadn't had, he had relented.
The problem was that Rowan wasn't some doll to be dressed up and paraded around whenever Queen Oriana felt the need to believe she had the daughter. He was a person with his own thoughts and his own feelings. Never mind that Rowan enjoying dressing up whether it was in dress or armor. That was besides the point. The point was that he wanted to do it on his own terms, and not his mother's.
When he turned fourteen, Rowan had turned obstinate. That year he began fencing and archery lessons despite the Queen's protests. His mother told him how disappointed she was at least once a day. Just before - or maybe just after? - his fifteenth birthday he'd cut his dark hair short like a boy's. His mother had yelled for weeks. Rowan eventually let it grow back out because he missed his hair. Half way through is sixteenth year, he'd stopped wearing dresses in public, switching instead to pants and richly embroidered shirts. She'd cried.
"You are an evil, evil child. You're breaking your mother's heart."
"What heart?" he had snapped back.
That had earned him a whole month of freedom before Queen Oriana returned to pester him about how children should be obedient. The lectures had set his teeth on edge, but he had learned to ignore them. Mostly. Except when it all became too much and he and his mother wound up in a full out screaming match loud enough to be heard in the kitchens.
Things had calmed down some by the time he turned seventeen. Rowan was sure it was a sign that his mother was finally, finally, accepting the fact that he was not a girl until the day of his birthday. "My daughter..." for that was how Queen Oriana referred to Rowan, "... is going through a rebellious phase. I will let her get this out of her system. But when she turns eighteen, I will make a true princess out of her. You will see."
It took two of his brothers to keep Rowan from strangling his mother.
The fights between Rowan and Queen Oriana escalated. Queen Oriana ordered Rowan's entire wardrobe replaced with dresses. Rowan countered by entering the main hall wearing boots, a hastily devised loincloth, and nothing else. At the King's order, Rowan's original wardrobe was returned. In another incident, Rowan threatened to join a monastery and become a monk. Frantic, Queen Oriana spent all her personal money and a portion of the national treasury donating money to all monasteries in the kingdom so that they would turn Rowan away. King Kendrick made Rowan apologize to his mother and had him scrubbing the castle chapel from top to bottom for a week. Over and over again, the two butted heads. King Kendrick and the rest of the castle was heartily sick of it all.
Two months after Rowan's eighteenth birthday, things came to a head.
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 02:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 02:04 pm (UTC)I'm working on getting it written.
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 02:22 pm (UTC)But I don't know fairytales very well.
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 02:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 03:27 pm (UTC)Sleeping Beauty?
The Princess and the Pea? (Where Rowan is the princess and he runs off?)
Snow White, maybe?
Rapunzel? (Rowanzel?)
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 05:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 05:00 pm (UTC)Rowan countered by entering the main hall wearing boots, a hastily devised loincloth, and nothing else.
The image this sentence provided made me sporfle, though. I can just picture him, and his mother's expressions... *laughs*
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 05:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 05:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 09:32 pm (UTC)May be if his mother sees the "prove" that he is really a HE...
May be she didn't look carefully last time. She could have lost her glasses...
("roles on the floor laughing")
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 05:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 05:43 pm (UTC)i just... can't remember what it's called. i read so many and then even more different takes on them, it's hard to keep them all straight, you know?
i'll see if i can find it from the internetz
(no subject)
Date: 10/5/08 11:34 pm (UTC)I hope we get to read more soon! :D
(no subject)
Date: 10/7/08 01:18 pm (UTC)