Hi Ho It’s Writers Club The Ice Queen and the Little Children

Hi hi its the Wednesday post(Last week was canceled duo to the flue. Side note puking your guts out makes the day go by pretty fast!) This post is less of a training exercise and more of a tribute to my love of fairy-tale style openings and it doubles as a piece I can put into my local writers club so two birds with one stone.

 

Come in closer now, closer, closer. Now wait and listen to the terrible story of the Great Witch Erza.

The nights, all those years ago, would have your fingers crumbling as soon as you reached out the door. Shadows played across the snow, vanishing as the flakes caught in your eye. The snow gossiped, nipping at your ears.

Can you hear them children? Rustling along the shutters, sliding through the drafts of your houses? The snow and cold gather along those cracks growing as you all sleep. The flakes build one upon the other till they tower above any man. Then, silent as rustling snow they creep into your room, watching your little chest’s rise and fall with each breath and in a moment. As you take that final warm breath. It’s over. The door of your house is torn open and you vanish with the crying wind.

These shadows, the Frost as we call them, are the servants of Erza. And you’ve heard how they only take the most misbehaving children? Yes, yes we all know that don’t we. And you’re all good children. Of course. Of course.

However.

The Frost doesn’t make out the misdeeds of little children. Only the pattering of your little hearts. It wasn’t just the bad children. No, any child would do.

The chieftain’s daughter taken in her warm mansion. The hunter’s son taken in a shaky cabin. The shepherd’s son taken as he slept with the sheep.

The Frost took all the children they could. They took them to the farthest reaches of winter past towers of ice and into a cavern of sky blue ice. There, past the caverns and howling tunnels, is Erza. She walks the halls of her most opulent temple the flesh searing winds of the north a mellow breeze to her. And there on a slab clear as still water the children’s blood drips onto the cavern floor.

Why do you think she did it then?

No children it wasn’t greed, no not for beauty, she was not jealous either but you’re close now.

It was longing. Men have said it must be envy but no, no, no. The ice queen never hated mankind, she longed for them. To sing with their joyous songs to dance around a blazing fire and be warm. She wished for this with all her being.

So, longing for this warmth, she set out to make that wish as solid as the ice that formed her body.

There was a terrible curse of fate though, the Queen had a frozen heart and her servants shared her curse. They did not see the warmth of sharing soup with your neighbor or how we are one as we dance around the bonfire. She saw none of this, you see, the Queen and her servants were as witty as the norther gale, so, they came to a similarly rigid conclusion.

Blood, red as the hottest fire and when emptied of it they found that humans grew cold. So, loyal as they were to their Queen, the Frost went from village to village finding those with the freshest and hottest blood.

The jovial children who danced in the streets where ripe for the picking. The Frost, as we know, would pick them from their beds and bring them to their Queen.

The children cried and kicked screamed and hollered but the Queen only saw how lively and warm they were.

You see with her frozen heart the Queen only saw how warm and lively they were. Their cries where only odd little shouts and their tears beautiful pearls that fell from their eyes. As the snow speckles the ground she went from child to child running their warmth over herself. The warmth would remain for but a moment before the cold returned and the Queen, mournfully, went back to her work.

After each day’s work the Queen would look over her mountain and as night grew across the land she would see us dancing and leaping with the flames of our fires. Each time she saw our jovial actions her longing would grow and grow. I must be warm she thought, I must, I must be warm. She would return to her work the next day more ambitious than the last. And for many years this was the Queens existence.

So children, be happy that you sing and dance, be happy that blood flows through you. Rejoice in your warmth… now off with you, your parents are waiting shew, shew. Scamper off and don’t let the frost nip you.

Ohh the last part of the story? That’s for another time, dear, off you go story times over. The Orphan Prince is for another day, off you go.

 

Hope you enjoyed the story it was fun to write but honestly this one was more of a feat of editing. Started off with a rough flow of paragraphs and went down adding to each one piece by piece. Also, curious how the narration is received  my general idea was a one way narration where all the question asking was implied by the narrator. Wanted to focus all my energy on the narrator and not use a bit of it on their surroundings. I’d be thrilled to hear what you thought of it. Thanks for reading, Ransom.