Category Archives: panhistoria

Of Sidelocks and Donkey Tales

The following is a story I wrote some time ago with a friend over at PanHistoria and before that at Ancient Sites. It is a reworking of the Aesop’s Tale, “The Man, The Boy and the Donkey.” I have long since lost track of my friend. I hope he does not mind my posting our collaboration on my blog here.

This is from another story of Sekhmet Meritamen and her adopted son, Meni. In this scene she is telling Meni about being different and the parable of trying to please everyone.
~*~*~*~

BoatIt was past dusk on board the Heart of Ra and Sekhmet Meritamen padded nimbly down the wooden deck steps to her cabin. As Royal Physician to a pregnant Per’aa, Sekhmet’s routine was unpredictable; she hurried from her work and was thinking of what to make herself and young Menenhetet for dinner when a sound reached her. It was the sound of a child’s crying and it drew the Lady Sekhmet with a tug on her heart. The sound came from her own cabin.

Inside, in the middle of the floor, a blanket clutched to his breast, lay Meni. Sekhmet’s heart ached at the sound of his sadness. She rushed to the curled up ball that was Meni. His face was a blustery thundercloud, bursting with tears. His sobs were a tiny thunder in his wan chest and lightning shone in the glisten of his tears. Drooping like a hippo’s tail, his new sidelock trembled from the weeping.

“Are you hurt?” Sekhmet asked, kneeling near him and looking over his tanned limbs with a professional calm that surprised even her. She saw no cuts or bruises, but her hands examined the frail boy out of habit.

Meni simply wept, blubbering and oblivious to the tender ministrations. Yet nothing seemed amiss.

“Please tell me what’s wrong?” Sekhmet almost felt as though she herself might cry as well, for the boy’s sobs were like pluckings on the strings of her heart.

“The .. boys .. and .. girls .. laughed .. at .. my .. hair!” he finally managed, hiccuping between each syllable and blinking a stream of tears out of each brown eye. Many of Per’aa’s entourage had children onboard the Coronation Barge. Apparently Meni had been teased by some of them.

Sekhmet relaxed inwardly, vastly relieved. She pursed her lips sympathetically and thumbed away the spill of tears on the boy’s wet cheeks. She held the boy’s head and tried to still his crying with a kiss upon his troubled brow. He huddled to her bosom and cried all the more. Rocking his sobs away, Sekhmet sighed.

“Meni, you like your new hairstyle, don’t you? Nebet Nefeti worked very hard to make you a handsome little man. She shaved your head, just like you wanted and even managed to salvage this sidelock for you to braid,” Sekhmet stroked the dark tail of hair on the side of Meni’s head.

“Yes nebet,” Meni sobbed. “But the … other kids … laughed at … me!”

“You mustn’t let them get to you like that” Sekhmet soothed,. ” They’ll get used to it and things will be better. I promise.”

Meni’s frown was unrelenting and his eyes were still freshets of tears. As fast as Sekhmet brushed them away, more scooted out to replenish the rivulets of on his cheeks.

“Meni,” Sekhmet said, lifting his chin up to her gaze. “It wouldn’t matter what you did with your hair. Any change would have gained the attention of the other children. If you had kept your ragged locks, or shaved your head as bald as an egg, or put it in braids just like mine, the children would have teased you all the same.”

“But I want … to play with … them!” Meni protested, calming a little but still afflicted with his hiccups.

“I know you do,” Sekhmet soothed. “And tomorrow you will try again. You will be strong for me, won’t you?”

Meni blinked doubtfully.

“Let me tell you a story that might help. It’s one my mother used to tell me when I was a girl. When I was your age I was not very graceful, and very much a tomboy, and the kids at school would tease me too. And no matter what I did it didn’t make them stop. But one day my mother found me like I found you, weeping. She told me this story…

“There once was a man, who lived in the far off reaches of the land. He was a craftsman and widower living with his son and a donkey. One day the man, knowing he would have to go to the great city to trade, carefully prepared his wares, and loaded them on the donkey and set off for town. When the animal was loaded he set his son upon the top of the load on the donkey and started toward the great city.”

“The man and his son and the loaded donkey walked and walked and at last they met upon the road two men coming from the great city. They nodded and smiled and exchanged greetings as they passed and the man with the donkey and son overheard the two other men they had passed whispering between themselves, ‘Did you see that selfish child riding on top of the donkey while his father walked!? That is terrible! What a selfish child!'”

Meni’s face grew fierce and he said, “But nebet! That boy might be lame! Those men aren’t nice!”

“Yes Meni,” Sekhmet nodded, finally seeing the flow of sadness drying in the boy’s eyes.

“The man…not wanting to appear to be a fool, stopped and thought about this and decided that it might be best if he rode and his son led the donkey. The boy agreed.

“‘Oh certainly, father,’ The boy replied. ‘I can lead the donkey and you can ride, I am young and my legs will not grow weary.’ And so they traded places.

“A few leagues down the road, the man and boy and donkey met a man and his wife going the other direction. The two parties nodded and smiled and exchanged greetings as they passed each other on the road, but the man overheard the woman whispering to her husband as they passed, ‘Did you see that*selfish* man riding the donkey while the poor child walked?! I’ve never seen anything so pathetic!'”

“That’s silly!” Meni pointed out. “Those people don’t know the man is nice!”

Sekhmet nodded and continued:

“This troubled the man; and not wanting to appear to be a fool–for fools are often taken advantage of in the marketplace of the great city–pondered the predicament. He came upon the idea that he and his son could both ride the donkey and it would satisfy all of the objections of everyone on the road thus far.

“A few more leagues and the man and his son and the donkey met a nobleman and his fanbearer on the road. They smiled and exchanged greetings and the man heard the fanbearer comment to the nobleman, ‘Master! What a terrible waste of a good animal to make him bear the weight of two people plus his load!'”

Meni just shook his head, tears forgotten, eyes wide, and in deep consternation at such things.

“The man, not wanting to appear to be a fool–for fools are sometimes regarded with suspicion and riducule and taken advantange of in the marketplace of the great city–pondered a moment and decided that neither he nor his son would ride the donkey but would walk alongside. There were a few more miles to go, but this was fine.

“The man and his son and the donkey then met a woman and her son on the road and they exchanged pleasantries with the man and his son and when they had passed the man overheard the woman say to her son, ‘Those fools! Neither rides when they have a fine donkey. Surely he can handle more than that simple load!'”

Exasperated at these silly people, Meni snorted.

“The man could take it no longer! He was tired of being everyone’s fool! He found a thicket of saplings and cut a strong sturdy one and then reached into the sacks for extra rope and lashed the legs of the donkey to the sapling and, struggling, he and his son carried the animal into the gates of the city. With astonishment the man wondered at why everyone was laughing at him for he had done everything that anyone had asked of him and in exasperation had done what he knew to be the last choice that was left.”

Sekhmet saw the glimmer of understanding in Meni’s eyes.

“The moral of the story is: If you try to please everyone, dear Meni, you in the end will end up looking like the fool, for there is no possible way to please everyone at all times.”

Meni looked up into the wise dark eyes of Lady Sekhmet and wondered if there were anything she couldn’t fix. Which led him inevitably to his next words.

“I’m hungry!”

Sekhmet laughed and held out a hand to Meni, “Let’s find something to eat then.”

Meni skipped beside Sekhmet, his sidelock twitching from side to side, looking very much like a switching tail.

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Miles to Go

“And miles to go before I sleep.” — Robert Frost

either of them had done anything that I could condemn them for.

And yet the glances exchanged over dinner, and chess and now on the dance floor of the ballroom left very little to the imagination. From the moment the two had met, the SS Colonel and my youngest daughter, Jocelyn…Joie-Lynn had established a bond. Long glances, deep conversations and shared laughter punctuated their association from the start.

I bid the last guests goodnight. Jean-Pierre Moreau, the Chateau foreman, had left after he had received word his young daughter was running a fever. Begging my forgiveness, he left the gathering, but I suspected it was more than that. I agreed he should be with his daughter and promised that I would send Amarante to see to her or look to the child myself to make sure that it was nothing too serious. Like all good fathers, and certainly since the death of his wife, he was so very much more attentive to the little dark haired cherub with bright blue eyes. In spite of his obvious affection also for Jocelyn, the love of a father was stronger. In those eyes I saw how Sebastien had been with both of our daughters. Nothing could keep him away from either of them if they were sick or hurt. Continue reading

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Obedience Under Duress

Tonight, make a decision and make it fast. No hesitation or indecision allowed!
What’s the situation requiring Instant Action(tm)? What decision do you make? Who else is affected?

“You will provide a written testament of the current status of your project,” he said, waving a writing pad before her.

“And you will take an oath to make regular reports to me on the work done by Herr Chaubert and others of your order working on similar goals. And if you do, you shall be released. I will put you back in your cell to think on this. And I will leave you pencil and paper. Just in case.”

Francoise McKay regarded the masked man looming in front of her. She caught the eyes behind the masque and wondered why he deemed it appropriate to wear one. She could perceive no obvious deformity from this vantage point. Perhaps it was not, she thought, because of vanity. She only stared at him numbly. Captain Mors was obviously running out of patience. What was so pressing, she wondered?

“You have only a short time, Frau McKay,” Captain Mors offered as he placed the pad and pencil before her. “I would not take too much time to decide or to write out what I have asked you for.” Elegantly he then turned toward the door and did not utter another word, nor did he look back at her. Continue reading

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Do you really want to live forever?

Do I have a choice?

But then ‘forever’ for humans it is far different from the Sidhe definition of the same word. I am already centuries old, how many humans can have achieved that? And we do not ‘die’ in the same way that humans might. From my vantage point I have seen the roll of history, the many changes and upheavals. Each generation so-very-certain that the one within which they exist will be the last.

Each one has been wrong.

This time I wonder, however. Never have I seen such destruction for no reason other than the incessant dissatisfaction that only greed can bring. Nature is always been regenerative, even in the face of war, famine and pestilence. Most everyone is walking around poisoned and a disease unto themselves and only we who are one form of Immortal or another can truly see the difference between what it once was, and what it is now. The air is a miasma of smoke and filth, even in places that are called ‘pristine’. The water has less and less life within it so that it no longer nourishes or adeqately sustains. The soil labors constantly with no true rest.It is a wonder to me that anything grows at all anymore.

Do I want to live forever?

What I want is not relevant. The issue is whether or not I will. Fortunately or unfortunately, however, what I am has already decided the answer to that.

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Frater et Soror Alchemia: Rightful Places (Chapter 2)

“…and we must put aside the aside the conventional image of the alchemist as a threadbare, etiolated individual, filthy and stinking from sulphurous smoke and half-poisoned by mercury, and picture a well-dressed, articulate man surrounded by noble men and women in a vaulted chamber of a castle or palace, lecturing deferentially to people who most certainly well understood what he was talking about and who had examined his equipment to obviate any chances of fraud. Demonstrations by members of the Academie des Sciences in the presence of Louis XIV, or by Fellows of the Royal Society of London before Charles II, provide close parallels, the demonstrators being some of the foremost scientists of the day.” – P.G. Maxwell-Stewart, “The Chemical Choir: A History of Alchemy”

veryone judges by appearances, and yet they should not. London, for all its history and culture, is just barely more than a filthy industrial town. The scientists and heralds of new hope in the new age of technology have done nothing to usher in the New Aeon into the backstreet squalor that surrounds their hallowed, columned halls. We, the Magus, have kept close to our Highest Ideals and strove very toward them, and we struggle against the Masters that through their production, and technology and promise of work in their gilded age, offer thinly disguised collars of slavery to those who would but hand over both their minds and souls and settle for a pittance for the privilege to wait upon their lords and masters. Those industrial barrons fear that we can look at their brave new world and see the opposite of the dark moonlight that we do not fear to embrace. Continue reading

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Frater et Soror Alchemia: Ascension (Chapter 1)

OOC: This is out of the usual sphere for this particular muse. I am working on a Steampunk bit over on Pan Historia in the novel, “The High Adventure”. Essentially, it is the Steam Barons vs. the Alchemists who want to destabilize the economy and make things more “even” among the common people by literally turning lead into gold. Faelyn and her friend and confidante, Doctor Augustin Chaubert, who heads up the local chapter of the Order of the Golden Dawn, that serves as a front for the Alchemists, are the “bad guys”. We are hoping, however, that people may be able to empathize at least a little with thier alleged “cause”..

“…and we must put aside the aside the conventional image of the alchemist as a threadbare, etiolated individual, filthy and stinking from sulphurous smoke and half-poisoned by mercury, and picture a well-dressed, articulate man surrounded by noble men and women in a vaulted chamber of a castle or palace, lecturing deferentially to people who most certainly well understood what he was talking about and who had examined his equipment to obviate any chances of fraud. Demonstrations by members of the Academie des Sciences in the presence of Louis XIV, or by Fellows of the Royal Society of London before Charles II, provide close parallels, the demonstrators being some of the foremost scientists of the day.” – P.G. Maxwell-Stewart, “The Chemical Choir: A History of Alchemy”

Upon the dais he had ascended and he had done so magnificently. After the long-awaited passing of, Leiland Worth , Augustin Chaubert was the new blood that the Society of Alchemists had been needing for so long. Continue reading

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