Author: Willow
From: LiveJournal
Flavours: Mango #9 your attention, please.
Topping: Rainbow Sprinkles
Extra: fresh blueberries
Story: Pale Faces
Title: Son of a Legend
Rating: G
Word Count: 531
Summary: Alex dramatically tells the trees a story of Tashvanhai’s most feared robber.
“Deep in the forests of Tashvanhai, the home our element Earth, prowls a glorious robber,” said Alex as he strolled through the trees telling them his tale. Crisp, spring moss carpeted the land in a way he had not seen for years and the morning sunlight filled him with zeal. “When he moves, he is as if a shadow.”
Alex turned sharply on the spot, crouched and surveyed the trees dramatically. They chuckled at him.
“His midnight cloak is perhaps the only thing to warn you of his presence as it ripples in the wake of his deftly speed. His mighty hat casts mystery over his eyes, the centre of it adorned with the Great Lady’s pentacle.” Alex stopped again but to kiss his padded fingertips this time. He touched them to his right shoulder, staring up at the tree leaves with reverence…then carried on walking.
“When he strikes, either no one knows until the sun makes birth over the horizon… Or they tremble in their boots and spin in disarray as his nimble sword strikes and…strikes!” Alex wiped out his sword and began to parry with the air, hopping over fallen branches and causing the trees to creek with worry about his swinging blade. The young man noticed soon enough. “Oh, sorry,” and sheathed his sword.
Sheepishly clearing his throat, Alex raised his head and carried on his meaningless journey. Almost instantly his emphatic demeanour was back. “This thief, oh, this crafty thief hath made many an enemy within the empire, but lo, can they catch him?” Alex laughed as if triumphant and gazed with wisdom upon the trees nearest him. “No, for he is dexterous, my friends – no… A master of his trade! And the father of this glorious thief is just as notorious, his name whispered with fear and awe. But now, with his lustrous, throbbing voice and dark, merciless eyes comes forth the notorious robber’s son!”
Alex, suddenly filled with excitement over his own storytelling, raced up the face of a boulder jutting out of the earth and posed himself on top – hands on his hips. “And his name, now also so greatly feared…is Alexander the III!”
Alexander proudly held his snout in the air a moment longer, and then doubled in a humble bow…his large navy hat tumbling off his head. He swiped for it with clumsy hands but missed and it settled in the gooey mud below.
He slumped with a pitiful sigh, his ginger ears flattening against his head as if he were a fox most familiar with bad luck. “But of course,” he muttered at the hat. Dropping down, Alex plucked the hat out of the mud and groaned as he observed the now ruined cockerel feathers. “It nearly cost me my eyes to get these and where would a robber be without his eyes?” He irritably flicked the long, soggy feather bones and was dually hit in the eye with flecks of water. A startled yelp escaped him.
Noticing that the trees were again laughing, Alex replaced his hat on his head, nose held high and set off in the direction of home – his foot landing straight down a rabbit hole.
Willow H. Wood 