Rhiannon meets Trey

[Sweetcherrie]

“The flowers were dry and cold, they needed sunlight and water. In the darkness she looked over a field of flowers all crying out to her ‘help us’ she ran from flower to flower and tried to sooth their pain and worries, suddenly she heard a scream…” Rhiannon awoke sitting up straight in her bed, she was sweating and realised that the scream had been her own. Kevin was next to her and had been awoken by her screaming, he held her in his arms and rocked her like a baby. She realised with a shock that she loved him. Never before had she felt so safe and secure with someone and he seemed to feel exactly what she needed. His lips found hers and with a burning heat he kissed all her sorrow away. That night Kevin taught her how to make love, and she took it in like she would do with water after having been in the dessert. His love quenched her thirst and fed her hunger. Only leaving her wanting more and when they finally went back to sleep, she had only dreams of pink clouds.

 

When she woke up the next morning he still had his arms firmly around her and was deep asleep. Sunlight was coming trough the window and playing a shadow game on his beautiful face. She wormed out of his embrace and decided to take a walk in the first rays of morning sun. She got dressed quietly and left the house.

 

Rhiannon was walking though the forest and was simply enjoying the trees. “This world wasn’t so bad” she thought, “This is quite pretty, really pretty actually.” When she was walking along she let her hands slide over the stems of the trees she passed. Every now and than she stopped to pick up some leaves and held them close to her nose, she wanted to take this beautiful thing in as much as possible. She was walking down a path that was surrounded by trees, the sun was playing with the leaves and they formed a green roof above her head that left darker green shadows on the ground before her. She let her mind wonder to what happened the night before; she had never experienced or felt anything like that before. Well sure she had met other men, but with Kevin this seemed so perfectly different, so whole. She was walking on pink clouds, and it took her a moment to get back to earth and see that she had arrived at a clearing in the forest.

 

In the middle of this clearing she saw a very high tree. It was a beautiful tree and Rhiannon walked over to touch it. It felt warm and seemed to vibrate in the morning sun. The tree was so big that she couldn’t even put her arms around it. She stood there happily hugging the tree for a while. When she heard a noise coming from above. She looked up: “RAM, BAM, CLATTER, RAM, ROOTSH…..BAFF” The noise had come from something falling out of the tree on top of her head, knocking her to the ground. She shook her head and realised that whatever fell on top of her was alive. She looked at it and asked: “Are you ok?”

“I will be if you just shut up for a minute!” was the grumpy reply. Rhiannon studied the animal. It looked like a Koala bear, only it had the tale and snout of a pig, the colourful wings of a butterfly and its body was furry with black and white stripes like a zebra. Altogether it formed an adoring picture, if it would have been made into a stuffed animal she was sure that kids all over the world would love it for its high cuddling factor.

“What are you looking at?” the animal spat out the words at her, as if she was the weird item in this conversation. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Rhiannon apologised “I didn’t mean to insult you, but I have never seen….” Rhiannon thought for a moment to find the right words here “…a being like you. May I ask of what race you are?”

“What I am, What I am? I am Trey and I am a quafter” And as if that said it all, it turned its head and stood up; shaking its whole body the way dogs do when they come out of the shower. “Don’t you know anything, you silly little girl” it continued in the same patronising tone of voice. Rhiannon was looking at the pompous quafter and had difficulties holding back her laughter “I’m sorry but I am new around here and I don’t really know what a quafter is.” Trey looked down at here, for she was still on the ground, and zoomed in on her head “hmm, yes it’s true I haven’t seen your face before. Ok, listen carefully because I hate repeating myself. You’ve heard of a shape shifter? An animal that can change his shapes at will? I can change into four different shapes, you see quatro and shape shifter makes a quafter.”

Rhiannon took in the information for a minute, and than asked: “But why are you four animals at once?”

 

The quafter suddenly shy, stared at the ground blushingly and with one of its paws it was twisting a whole in the grass “I erm, I kind of erm, like experimenting and erm, it kind of went just an teensy bit wrong last time, so I’m stuck until I find a way to get unstuck.” The quafter was still looking at its paws and the whole in the grass had gotten deeper with each word he had said.

“Oh well, I really like this combination.” Rhiannon said wholeheartedly. The quafter looked up at her face and saw that she was sincere, a big grin appeared on it’s pigs snout “I like you” it said “I don’t care where you come from, but I like you.” He sat himself down next to Rhiannon “But just out of curiosity, who are you? Where do you come from?”

 

“My name is Rhiannon and when I was little I lived in the house at the edge of the forest together with my grandmother, I have only just discovered that I am an elf, well partly anyways. My friend Kevin took me here to meet the king, my grandfather.”

Trey’s mouth dropped open, “Do you mean to tell me that you are The Rhiannon? The granddaughter of Rórdán the king?”

“I guess I am, my grandmother told me this, but I’m just Rhiannon”

Trey stood up and bowed so deep that his pony ears touched the ground, “I am so sorry for my rudeness your majesty, I hope you will forgive me?”

Rhiannon could do nothing but laugh “As I said, I am just Rhiannon. Tell you what, from now on I will call you Trey, if you will call me Rhiannon?”

Trey closed one eye while he was thinking about it, then his whole snout turned into a big grin “Deal!” he said and they shaked paw and hand on it.

 

 

 

I hope this is the way I am supposed to do this. if not please let me know

[Peredhil]

Peredhil ambles by to deliver fruit cake to Melba, the Almost Secretary of the Pen. Listening to the story, he sighs happily.

 

That's just fine! Good job and welcome! Wyvern should be around at some point - if not, we'll send Melba out looking for him.

 

Hugs Melba, Sweet Cherrie, and nods to Door, then wanders on his rounds.

[reverie]

**Claps**

 

 

wonderful and welcome...

 

 

revery

the dreamlost

"so what if I was romeo in black jeans? (m. penn/no myth)

the dream continues...

[Wyvern]

Wyvern darts into the Recruiter's Office just as Peredhil heads out, waving to the polite bard briefly with one of his claws as he steps into the Office. Nodding to reverie and grinning, the overgrown lizard steps towards Sweetcherrie and swiftly bows to her, nearly embedding his horns in a nearby applicant easychair as he exclaims:

 

"Welcome to the Pen, Sssssweetcherrie. I'll be responding to your application shortly."

 

With that, the reptilian Elder quickly snatches Sweetcherries application story from his cluttered desktop, winking to her as he sets about reading through it. The applicant raises a brow as the lizard stops his attentive reading mid-way through the application in order to take out a sheet of paper and start scribbling notes, and puts her hands on her hips as Wyvern spends a good twenty minutes jotting things down in this manner. Once he's finished in his scribblings, the overgrown lizard continues in his reading, and nods happily when he's reached the conclusion. Tearing off the initial paragraph of the story and stuffing it into his pocket for future personal use, the lizard leers at Sweetcherrie for a moment before hissing:

 

"Well, that was a very good story. Now, shall we go over the copyright details for the marketing campaign?"

 

"Copyright details?" Sweetcherrie raises a brow in confusion. "Marketing campaign?"

 

"Absolutely" hisses Wyvern gleefully, pulling out his notes with one claw and pointing at a line mid-way through the story with the other. "You mention yourself how well Trey would work as a stuffed animal for kids, so I went and wrote up a little outline for the release of Almost Dragonic Brand Trey Cuddly Dolls.™ Ready to proceed?"

 

Sweetcherrie's eyes widen in confusion. "I-"

 

"The way I see it, since Trey is a quafter and all, the doll will have four animal shapes to play with." Wyvern grins evilly, slowly rubbing his claws together. "It will start off as a Koala with a pig's snout and tail, colorful butterfly wings, and a furry body of stripes reminscent of a zebra."

 

"But" starts Sweetcherrie. "That was a-"

 

"Then, after he's been hugged a few times, he'll change into his second form by losing his butterfly wings." The greedy lizard lets out an evil cackle. "For his third form, he'll lose the pig tail and snout after getting cuddled more. And for the fourth and final form, he'll miraculously transform into a pile of feather doll stuffing!"

 

Sweetcherrie stares at the lizard in disgust, suddenly feeling a pang of sympathy for the doll-deprived children of the world and raising a finger to speak.

 

"But that's not all" interrupts Wyvern again, his tail fidgeting in excitement. "Almost Dragonic Brand Trey Cuddle Dolls™ will also have several phrases that they can speak when you tug on their ears... they'll be perfectly irresistable! After all, who can turn down adorable quotes like 'What are you looking at?,' 'Don’t you know anything, you silly little girl?,' and 'I don’t care where you come from, but I like you.'?"

 

Sweetcherrie stares at Wyvern again, this time in disbelief.

 

"Anyway, if you could just sign here..." Wyvern takes out a scribbled sheet labeled 'Almost Dragonic Makeshift Contract' and turns to hand it to the applicant, only to suddenly get hit in the face by a fresh fruit cake tossed at him by Melba. Cursing to himself as he drops his paperwork, he submits to defeat and promptly stamps Sweetcherrie's application story ACCEPTED.

 

;-)

 

OOC: On a more serious note: an ACCEPTED application story, Sweetcherrie, welcome to the Mighty Pen! I found "Rhiannon Meets Trey" a wonderfully imaginative and ambitious piece, in the vein of both Mary de France and Lewis Carroll. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more of your works here at the Pen, and also really appreciate the comments that you've been writing for the works of others. Once again, welcome!

[Sweetcherrie]

Sweetcherrie wanders out of the Recruiter’s Office, a bit dazed of what had just happened, the copy of her application form still in her hand.

“I wonder what I got myself into this time” she mumbles, “I mean, really, lizards? And fruit cakes flying around?”

 

She looks down at the form; the big red letters of the stamp dance excitedly on the paper.

 

“Maybe it’s not all that bad,” she thinks and frowns her forehead in big wrinkles “I mean he was exited about my story, a bit too excited maybe. The way he was talking of making my lovely Trey into, what was it again? Ah yes "Almost Dragonic Brand Trey Cuddle Dolls™. I should go back and tell him that Trey is not Dragonic at all” she backtracks her steps until the office door.

 

Raising her hand to knock, another thought flies into her head “maybe he likes to have little elven for diner? He certainly didn’t look as if he was fond of fruit cake”

“Ah well, that’s just a chance I will have to take”

 

But just as she courageously raises her hand again, the door flies open and the lizard walks through it.

 

Sweetcherrie almost gets knocked of her feet and staggers a few steps backward.

 

“Yes, what might it be now?” he asks with his evil grin “By the way good story”

Wyvern’s face crumples up into what looks like something of a smile.

 

“It’s a real smile,” Sweetcherrie thinks to herself and decides that she has made the right choice to join, and that she will learn to love each and every one of them, even this weird lizard with his overexcited business ideas.

 

“Ahem yes” Sweetcherrie stumbles over her word as they try to get out of her mouth “I guess, I would like to, erm, say thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome. Now would that be all? I’m busy.”

 

Sweetcherrie nods and the lizard strides on.

 

“Ok, now I will have to prove that I’m worthy of the membership” Sweetcherrie says to herself.

 

She looks at the form still in her hand. ‘Accepted’ the word has a nice ring to it.

 

As reality oozes in, Sweetcherries starts to dance of joy.

 

And as she danced down the streets, people could hear her sing.