It's another story about Svendoolia. This one is kind of short, but I plan on writing more of them
and putting them together into a book. Here it is:
I woke up this morning and decided I felt like writing a story. I didn’t know what to write about, but I knew I wanted to write something. So I decided to start with a true story. That way I don’t have to make up anything. So. I’m going to tell you a few true stories, about my adventures in this kingdom.
But anyway. Let me explain something. My name is Forsythia Ridgewood. I am the Queen of Svendoolia, a nice, medieval looking little kingdom on the Big Planet. The Big Planet has a name, but you couldn’t pronounce it. I specify what planet I live on because I do not live on the Little Planet. The Little Planet is what we call earth; Mainly because it’s a lot smaller than the Big Planet. I think we’re somewhere around half the size of Jupiter. No, we don’t live in an alternate dimension or a fairy realm or anything, just a regular old planet. Quite close to the Little Planet, actually, right in the neighborhood. If it weren’t for certain cloaking devices, you’d- you know what? Nevermind. This all has nothing to do with the story I’m about to tell you. I’ll try to stay on topic from now on. Mind you though, I said try, not succeed.
So. Here we go.
The Hurricane.
I think it was July, and my sister Lucie had been going on this health kick all week. No grains, no starches, more veggies. And she was doing yoga. One day she convinced me to try it with her.
We walked through the halls and out into the throne room, carrying our yoga mat. Yes, “mat”, singular. It was a pretty big mat. Both of us were wearing yoga clothes; t-shirts, sweatpants, and a lack of shoes.
I feel I should tell you what we look like. We’re about the same height, (5’5, I think) and we have about the same color hair, which is dark brown. Ever seen 90% chocolate? That kind of dark.
The differences between us are that Lucie has gray eyes, and mine are brown. She’s a bit thinner than I am. Her hair is a lot straighter too. Mine is fuller and wavier. Oh, and on this particular day I was wearing a scrunchie. A purple one. Anyway, we walked out into the middle of the floor and lay out the yoga mat. It was big enough to cover about 80% of the floor, which is a good amount considering how big the throne room is. “Why are we doing this in the throne room again?” I asked Lucie as I straightened out some folds in the mat.
“Because a yoga environment is supposed to be open. This is the biggest room in the palace.”
She paused. “Except for the observatory.” She added. “But that’s mainly taken up by the telescope.”
“So if we need an open environment,” I asked, “why don’t we do this outside?”
She looked at me. “Because it’s raining.”
“Really?” I said. “Why didn’t I notice?”
“Because you’ve been inside most of the day and it’s a light rain, so I guess you couldn’t-“
She was cut off by a boom of thunder and the sound of sudden, heavy rain. “Hear it.” She finished. “Okay, well, all the more reason to stay inside.” We walked onto the mat. “Alright.” She said. “let’s start with sun salutations.”
Sun Salutations, it turns out, is a series of poses in an up-and-down motion to mimic the rising and setting sun. I just know that the first pose, waterfall, made my back hurt.
We were transitioning from bamboo into tree pose, when another clap of thunder sounded and threw me off balance. I stumbled and fell hard on my back end. Then I froze. This is something I do when I’m startled; I freeze in place. My theory is that I have squirrels in my ancestry.
Lucie looked out the window. “Wow.” She said, as I unfroze and stood back up. “That was really loud.” She began to walk toward the door. “It must be coming down pretty hard out there.”
She opened the door just a smidge to see how bad the rain was, but the wind blew it out of her hand and knocked her back.
Lightning flashed and thunder clapped, the sky turning a dismal grey. The wind was howling menacingly. I had never actually heard wind howl before.
I scrambled to my feet and helped Lucie close the door. “wow.” I said when we had it safely latched. “Is that a hurricane?”
Lucie nodded. “I think so.” She said. Lightning flashed, and we began to count. The thunder sounded a second later. “wow.” She breathed. “It’s right on top of us.”
Somewhere in my head, I registered this: a hurricane is bearing down on us. If it hit the palace, that means it’ll hit the village as well. Queen-mode kicked in.
“Okay.” I said. “We need to evacuate the villagers into the castle before it gets too bad.”
The castle is reinforced: thatched-roof huts are not.
“You go tell the palace guard to head out, and I’ll join them in a bit. I need to tell Daisy to start laying out cots and blankets.” Lucie nodded seriously and ran out of the room.
Daisy is the palace chef, and also a good housekeeper. She’s the one who knows where the cots are. I ran through the halls to the kitchen, and burst through the door. “Daisy!” I shouted.
“What?” she asked, clearly annoyed, and turned to face me so her tail nearly knocked over a few dishes. Did I mention Daisy is a duck? She stood there in all her yellow-feathered glory, wearing an apron and oven-mitts.
“We’re evacuating the villagers in here because of the hurricane. Start laying out cots anywhere you can fit them.”
She dropped the pan she was holding and walked quickly toward the door. “I’m on it.” She said.
She was mostly down the hall when she paused and looked over her shoulder. “Where are you going to be?” she asked.
“I’m going to help the palace guard evacuate the villagers.” I replied, really anxious to get going.
“Of course you are.” She smiled, and rushed down the hall.
I ran breathlessly toward the stables. There, in the courtyard, was our resident dragon, Miyuki, A beautiful girl, with pearly-white scales and a tuft of blue fuzz on her head. I had expected to see her struggling to stand up against the wind, but I had forgotten how many tons she weighed.
“Hey girl.” I said as I approached her. “I’ve got to get to the village real soon, alright?”
She gestured with her head in the direction of the stables. “Not today.” I said. “There’s no time for a saddle, I’ll have to ride bareback.” She lowered her head and neck to my level, and I jumped on, held tight, and said, “Go!” she raced off into the sky.
You’d think it would be hard for her to fly in this wind, but dragons have a way of counterbalancing the forces against them to fly smoothly. It is, however, a different matter entirely for the rider to stay on the dragon. She dipped and dived, twisted and turned to avoid the strongest winds, and I was stuck digging my hands into her fur and hoping I didn’t fall off.
Beneath me I could see the giant gorge that separates one side of Svendoolia from the other. Both sides of the gorge run into the sea, and a river runs at the bottom. I guess, technically, Svendoolia is one country resting on two continents. The palace rests on the edge of the gorge. You can tell when you’re getting closer, because that side has smaller windows and thicker walls, to prevent anything important from falling out.
Soon we arrived at the village. The wind was blowing so hard it seemed like all it wanted was to rip the whole village out of the ground. Thatch was being pulled off of roofs. The palace guard was already here; they had their own dragons with box saddles, which could carry many people at a time.
“Queen Forsythia!!!!” one of the guards shouted. It was Jesse, captain of the guard.
Jesse is decades older than me, but that doesn’t mean he’s no stronger. He’s got a rough, white beard and an eye missing. He looks like a guy in a pirate story. “Most of the civilians have been evacuated!”
He shouted over the wind. “But there are still some on the outer edges of the village that haven’t gotten the message!” I nodded, and took a lantern from the packs in one of the box saddles.
“I’ll help you to get them out!” I shouted. I took a few guards with me and made my way to the outer edges of the village. Good thing it’s a small village. We were there pretty soon.
I could see through the windows of the little thatched-roof huts, villagers still huddling under blankets trying to wait the storm out. “You guys start evacuating villagers!” I shouted to the four guards who had come with me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the roofs of the thatched huts was about to fly off. I ran in through the door of the hut, and found a woman and two children trying to keep a fire going in the fireplace. They looked up in surprise, and the fire went out. “You have to come with me!” I shouted. “We’re evacuating everyone into the palace, and your roof is about to fall off!” the woman nodded. She took her children in her arms, (they were very small children; one girl and one boy.) and walked quickly out the door.
Soon we had gathered everyone from the village. The guards gathered into one box saddle, and the villagers gathered into another with Jesse, who knows how to ride dragons. I climbed onto Miyuki’s neck. We headed toward the palace.
When we landed, the storm was still getting worse. We rushed everyone through the courtyard and toward the doors as the wind whipped in our ears. The sky got grayer, and thunder clapped every few seconds. The villagers all tried to push through the palace doors at one. Good thing the doors are pretty big. Once everyone was in the throne room, Lucie, (who had been here waiting) Jesse and I all pushed our hardest on the door, and finally got it closed and latched against the wind.
Everything suddenly seemed very quiet, compared against the din outside. We could still hear the furious wind and rain, but it was muffled by the walls around us. The occasional ear-ripping clap of thunder prompted squeaks from the younger children in the room.
Now that everything was a little calmer, I took the time to look around the room.
Daisy had done her job; she had laid down at least one cot for each person in the village. It was a small village, but she still had to put some under the stairs and in the adjoining hallways. It seemed everyone had claimed themselves a cot. The second thing I noticed was that it was very dark. No one had lit any candles for worrying about the hurricane. And with all the candles it takes to light this room up, it seemed like trying to get them all lit now would be like filling a bucket with an eyedropper.
Jesse and the rest of the palace guard were still here, standing around twiddling their thumbs. It was then that I remembered that the barracks, where the palace guards slept, was a separate building from the palace. They would have to venture outside to get there. Sighing, I gestured to Daisy, who was running around busily offering mugs of hot tea to the villagers. “She knows where the cots are.” I said.
The men of the palace guard hurriedly ran to Daisy to ask if there were cots left for them. Even Jesse had sense enough not to go outside, though he didn’t seem in such a panic about it.
A clap of thunder sounded, louder than ever, and the whole room jumped. As I tugged on my ear to get it to stop ringing, I made my way toward one of the many candelabras lining the walls and took down a few candles. There was a closet in the wall to my right, where I found candle holders. I lit them with the matches in my pocket. Or I would have, if I hadn’t realized then that I was still wearing my yoga clothes. And bare feet. Wondering how my poor feet had survived the day, I called to Jesse,
“Hey, Jesse; you got any matches?” He was lying triumphantly on the cot he had seized for himself. He got up, Shuffled over to me and gave me a matchbox from his pocket. I thanked him, and lit the candles. Everyone in the room immediately shuffled a little closer to them. Whether they thought the light or the heat would be comforting, I don’t know, but it was a little funny, despite the situation.
“Alright everyone.” I stood up and addressed the room. “As you know, there is a hurricane going on outside.” Everyone nodded. Of course they knew about the hurricane. “Given the intensity of the hurricane, I think it’s safe to say none of you are going home tonight. You will be able to return to the village tomorrow morning at the earliest.” I paused to look the room over. Everyone looked dejected. “During the hurricane, no one is going outside for any reason.” The room nodded. “Alright then.” I said, and sat down with everyone else. I grabbed one of the extra cots and sat down, lighting a few more candles. Lucie walked over my way and sat down on my cot with me.
“You know you have a bed in the palace, right?” she said, amusement in her voice.
“Yeah.” I replied. “But I want to stay here.” She laughed a bit and pulled over one of the extra cots (we have a LOT of cots) to sit down next to me.
“I guess I’m staying too.” She said.
For a while everyone just sort of sat there, trying to fall asleep so at least they’d have something to do. Of course, it may have looked like nighttime outside, but in reality it was still about five o’ clock.
My legs were beginning to fall asleep when I noticed out of the corner of my eye, a little boy next to one of the candles. It was one of the kids I had helped out of the hut with the roof that was falling off.
I got up and walked over to him. He was making shapes with his hands in front of the candles, projecting the shadows onto the wall.
“Hello.” I said, sitting down next to him.
“Hello.” He said.
I smiled. “What’s your name?”
“Jimmy.”
“That’s a nice name, Jimmy. I’m Forsythia.”
He kept on making shadow puppets.
“What are you doing, Jimmy?” I asked.
“Shadow puppets.” He replied.
“That’s nice. Can I do them with you?”
He nodded. I pulled one of the candles over and made an eagle with my hand. And a goose. And a dog. These are the only three I know. Soon, the boy’s mother and sister came over to join us.
The boy and his sister were playing, making their puppets fight and eat each other.
After a while, Jesse joined us.
“Might as well have something to pass the time.” He said in his gruff voice.
Soon some of the palace guard joined in, then some of the villagers. And soon we had so many people playing shadow puppets that we had to light almost all the candles in the room! People were getting together and sharing tips on how to make your puppets more realistic, and putting on entire plays with each other. The hurricane, in forcing us into a room together, had made us into a community. It was beautiful. Of course, everything gets boring after a while. So when the puppets had lost their luster, and even Jimmy was getting bored, someone in the crowd shouted;
“How ‘bout some scary stories?”
And that’s how we spent the rest of the night; seated around a bunch of candles as if it were a campfire, telling scary stories. Would you believe it, Daisy even brought out some marshmallows and sticks to toast over the candles. We nearly put them out, everyone trying to toast their marshmallows at once.
It was a good night.
The next day, everyone woke up to the sound of one of the villagers shouting in joy,
“THE HURRICANE’S OVER!!!” everyone at once rushed to the door and opened it up, stepping outside to be greeted by sunny skies and wet dirt; A cheery combination.
“Hey, look!” Lucie shouted, pointing at the sky. “A rainbow!”
Everyone followed where she was pointing and sort of exclaimed simultaneously. She was right; there was a rainbow hovering there in the sky; a circular rainbow. Everyone stood there and looked at it in amazement for a while, but eventually it was time to get down to the village and see what damage was done. The palace guard directed everyone into box saddles on some of the tamest dragons, and we flew at a leisurely pace to the village. I, for one, got to use a saddle this time.
When we got there, everyone was shocked. Well, not really shocked so much as unhappy, since we were all expecting it. The village was flooded up to our chests. The only good news was that there were no bodies floating in the water. That was very good news.
Everyone sort of walked around in a daze, looking around at their ruined houses that would have to be rebuilt from scratch. Pieces of lives floated on the surface of the water; dolls, books, kitchenware. People waded in the shallower parts, picking up their possessions.
That’s when I saw Jimmy’s sister, Abigail, wading into the shallower part of the water to pick up a doll she saw floating there.
“Thank goodness!” she said, sighing with relief. “Priscilla’s okay!”
At that, everyone kind of decompressed a little, and the whole group felt lighter.
Sure the village was done for, but not the land it sat on. They, we, could rebuild.
And at least Priscilla was okay.
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