Mordrid Usurpateur (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
momemordrid) wrote2010-08-11 06:11 pm
momemordrid) wrote2010-08-11 06:11 pm
Entry tags:
Stiltskein and the Miller's Daughter, part 1
“What’s the matter with you?” asked a thin, nasally voice.
Dulcie looked around. Between her tears she noticed a brick was missing from an interior wall. She assumed the voice belonged to a fellow prisoner. She sniffed plaintively. “The duke thinks I can spin straw into gold because of some story my father told.”
“What? Who would—oh wait, we’re talking about the duke,” her unseen companion corrected himself disparagingly.
“And if I don’t spin all the straw in this cell into gold by morning, he’ll kill me!” she continued, almost in hysterics. “I can’t do that! I can’t spin at all!”
“You can’t spin?” the voice echoed. “Even I can spin! How can you not be able to spin?”
“You can spin? You spin it then!” she exclaimed a little too eagerly, still clearly very upset. She began clawing at the bricks, and managed to get one partly out of the wall before the voice spoke again.
“Even I can’t spin straw into gold, no one can.”
She remembered that was part of this whole spinning-deal too, and threw herself back into the straw with a wail.
“…For free,” the voice continued. “Let’s make a deal.”
Dulcie calmed down as she thought about this. “A deal?” she asked hesitantly.
“You need magical spinning; I need to get out of here. After he lets you go, you let me out.”
“What if he doesn’t let me go?”
“Then we’re both in a lot of trouble.”
Dulcie considered the proposal. “That seems reasonable,” she decided. Now that there was a plan, she felt much calmer. She wondered how her companion could turn straw into gold though. The other person must be some kind of wizard. Or maybe it was something all expert spinners could do; it wasn’t like she knew a lot about spinning. She got up and settled down next to the loose bricks to continue enlarging the hole. After a few minutes of working, she realized something. “Hey, you need to help with this too.”
“Me?” The other prisoner seemed genuinely taken aback.
“Yes, you. Do you want in here or not? This is going to be a lot of work if you don’t help from you side at all.”
“Me? Do manual labor?” The other prisoner continued to be incredulous.
“Spinning is manual labor! You just offered to do that!”
The voice sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, that’s a hobby. It’s not the same at all.”
Dulcie stopped working on the bricks. “Look, it’ll take me all day if I’m working by myself, and you won’t have enough time to spin.”
“Yes, spinning, precisely. I need to save my strength for the taxing matter of spinning.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I might not be able to spin, but I’ve seen other people do it. It’s not that hard.”
“But have you ever seen anyone spin straw into gold?”
“All I know is that I’m not going to be doing all the work here,” Dulcie said with finality.
“But I’ll be doing all the spinning!”
“You won’t be doing any spinning if you don’t help move these bricks.” Dulcie was not budging on this.
“But the duke won’t kill me if no spinning gets done. He will kill you,” the voice tried to reason. “Really, I’m doing you a tremendous favor.”
“It won’t kill you to help with these bricks, either.”
The other prisoner gave a put-upon sigh. “Fine, I’ll help, you stupid girl.”
As Dulcie started to tug at the bricks, she felt long bony fingers intertwine with hers and push from the other side of the wall. They felt clawed. They looked blueish. They didn’t look completely human. She hoped she hadn’t just agreed to free a demon or something. Whatever her strange companion was, it wasn’t pushing on the bricks very hard. “What, are you afraid you’ll break a nail?” she asked in mock concern.
“Yes,” the creature replied testily, and she decided not to press the issue. At least it was helping somewhat.
After an hour, they’d created a hole that the creature claimed was big enough for it to get through. Dulcie was skeptical. The hole didn’t look very big. On the other hand, the creature was apparently inhuman, so maybe it could fit through a hole that size. Sure enough, something wriggled through. When it straightened up she shrieked.
It stood six foot tall but was very thin and bony, except it had some sort of chest lump—did that mean it was a female? She was wearing pants, though. Oh well. She was blue. That at least Dulcie had expected. Her hands, now that Dulcie could see them better, looked like long-legged spiders. The creature had a long nose that looked like a pointed faucet, a long pointed chin, and barely any cheekbones. She had strangely lumpy black hair. Her teeth reminded Dulcie of those of the fish at home in the millpond. The worst part by far however was the creature’s eyes. They were angled, oblong and bulging. The part that should have been white was yellow, and they were glowing in the dark of the dungeon. All in all a highly unpleasant looking person!
The creature brushed herself off indignantly. “Well! I can hardly be expected to look my best when I’m been locked up for a week, but there’s no reason to be rude about it!”
“It’s just—you’re so…”
“Striking? Handsome?”
“You’re something,” Dulcie replied, disturbed at the choice of words offered. “You’re not a demon, are you?”
“Goodness, no! You poor, sheltered child, I’m a goblin! ‘Rumpled’ Stiltskein Yardeyar, at your humble service,” the goblin replied, giving a sweeping bow.
“Oh.” That really didn’t answer her question. She’d heard stories about goblins, none of them at all pleasant. “‘Rumpled’?” she asked hesitatingly.
“You try sleeping in hedgerows and looking your best,” Stiltskein grumbled under her breath while she examined the spinning wheel. “Tch, this thing is in terrible shape.” She spun the wheel a couple times. “Ah well, work with what you’ve got, I suppose. Humans,” she grumbled again, adding quickly, “excepting present company, of course.”
“Of course,” Dulcie repeated. She was not very comfortable with the strange, blue goblin-thing. She wondered what they ate with those sharp teeth. She hoped they didn’t just take bites out of things whenever they felt like it. She shuddered. Of course, that ridiculously long nose would get in the way.
“Makes me look aristocratic, doesn’t it?” Stiltskein asked suddenly.
“What?” Dulcie asked, startled.
“My nose. You were staring at it.” She sat on the small stool by the wheel, bending her long legs. She worked the wheel’s paddle experimentally. “Hand me some of that straw, will you?”
Dulcie gave her a small handful of straw, and watched in fascination as the straw quickly turned first to lumpy yellowish thread, and then thinned and turned golden. It wound itself onto the bobbin as Stiltskein worked the wheel. She fidgeted with the thread a little, stuck her spidery fingers into a pouch at her waist, and then asked for more straw. Soon they settled into a system, and worked in silence for what seemed an hour. The silence, except for the creak and whirl of the wheel, began to grate on Dulcie’s nerves. “Are there male goblins?”
The wheel immediately stopped. “I’m a male goblin,” Stiltskein answered evenly.
“Oh.”
“I’m very masculine!” she, no, he continued unnecessarily, in a somewhat squeaky tone of voice.
Dulcie gave a small nervous giggle which Stiltskein interpreted completely wrong, and the goblin got up and strode away from the wheel indignantly. “No, come back! I’m sorry! I don’t know anything about goblins!” she insisted.
“If I was a goblyness, you’d know! Goblynesses are crazy! One bit me just for trying to sell her husband a… well, trying to sell her husband something completely legitimate!”
Dulcie grimaced in sympathy. Getting bitten by teeth like that could not have been pleasant. Unfortunately, this news renewed her worries about what goblins ate. She tried not to think about it. “I’m just a sheltered village girl, remember? I didn’t mean anything by it.” She searched for an excuse. “I just thought you were a girl because you know how to spin.”
“Excuse me?!” he exclaimed.
Dulcie was getting impatient. “Don’t be like that. We have a deal, remember?”
“Yes, I suppose we do,” Stiltskein admitted begrudgingly. “One that’s in my interest to keep, unfortunately.” He slowly wandered back to the wheel and made a big show of his reluctance.
“Oh, for the love of…” She shoved some straw at him, and they eventually got back to work, even if Stiltskein kept pausing to glare at her every few minutes at first. He stopped glaring after the first hour and Dulcie stopped wishing they could talk after the second. Stiltskein’s fingers had started to bleed a little and Dulcie had splinters of straw in hers by the fourth hour. When they were finally done, neither of them wanted to do anything again.
“Oh, sweet Gobnait!” Stiltskein sighed as he stretched very tall.
Dulcie flopped prone from her kneeling position onto the floor. She eyed the filled bobbins accusatorily. They couldn’t so another night of this. She hoped the duke let her go after this. She wondered how she would sneak back in to let Stiltskein out. She couldn’t go back on her word, after all, not after he bled on her behalf like that. He wasn’t half bad, she thought, as long as she didn’t look at him. Come to think of it, where had he gotten all those bobbins from, anyway? He couldn’t have been keeping them all in that pouch on his belt, surely. Maybe he really was a wizard. A goblin wizard. But then why couldn’t he magic himself out of the dungeon? She yawned.
“This is the same color as your hair,” Stiltskein said, breaking her reverie. He was holding one of the bobbins.
“What?”
“I bet I could weave strands of this into your hair, and no one would notice.” He cut a length off with his teeth.
“What? No. That’s… hm.” It wasn’t as if the duke knew exactly how much gold straw could be spun into. She didn’t want Stiltskein’s fingers teaching her hair, but on the other hand, did the duke really need all the gold? Dulcie looked at the bobbins, and then back at him. Slowly, a wicked grin spread across her features.
~
to be continued
(c)Mome Mordrid
Dulcie looked around. Between her tears she noticed a brick was missing from an interior wall. She assumed the voice belonged to a fellow prisoner. She sniffed plaintively. “The duke thinks I can spin straw into gold because of some story my father told.”
“What? Who would—oh wait, we’re talking about the duke,” her unseen companion corrected himself disparagingly.
“And if I don’t spin all the straw in this cell into gold by morning, he’ll kill me!” she continued, almost in hysterics. “I can’t do that! I can’t spin at all!”
“You can’t spin?” the voice echoed. “Even I can spin! How can you not be able to spin?”
“You can spin? You spin it then!” she exclaimed a little too eagerly, still clearly very upset. She began clawing at the bricks, and managed to get one partly out of the wall before the voice spoke again.
“Even I can’t spin straw into gold, no one can.”
She remembered that was part of this whole spinning-deal too, and threw herself back into the straw with a wail.
“…For free,” the voice continued. “Let’s make a deal.”
Dulcie calmed down as she thought about this. “A deal?” she asked hesitantly.
“You need magical spinning; I need to get out of here. After he lets you go, you let me out.”
“What if he doesn’t let me go?”
“Then we’re both in a lot of trouble.”
Dulcie considered the proposal. “That seems reasonable,” she decided. Now that there was a plan, she felt much calmer. She wondered how her companion could turn straw into gold though. The other person must be some kind of wizard. Or maybe it was something all expert spinners could do; it wasn’t like she knew a lot about spinning. She got up and settled down next to the loose bricks to continue enlarging the hole. After a few minutes of working, she realized something. “Hey, you need to help with this too.”
“Me?” The other prisoner seemed genuinely taken aback.
“Yes, you. Do you want in here or not? This is going to be a lot of work if you don’t help from you side at all.”
“Me? Do manual labor?” The other prisoner continued to be incredulous.
“Spinning is manual labor! You just offered to do that!”
The voice sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, that’s a hobby. It’s not the same at all.”
Dulcie stopped working on the bricks. “Look, it’ll take me all day if I’m working by myself, and you won’t have enough time to spin.”
“Yes, spinning, precisely. I need to save my strength for the taxing matter of spinning.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I might not be able to spin, but I’ve seen other people do it. It’s not that hard.”
“But have you ever seen anyone spin straw into gold?”
“All I know is that I’m not going to be doing all the work here,” Dulcie said with finality.
“But I’ll be doing all the spinning!”
“You won’t be doing any spinning if you don’t help move these bricks.” Dulcie was not budging on this.
“But the duke won’t kill me if no spinning gets done. He will kill you,” the voice tried to reason. “Really, I’m doing you a tremendous favor.”
“It won’t kill you to help with these bricks, either.”
The other prisoner gave a put-upon sigh. “Fine, I’ll help, you stupid girl.”
As Dulcie started to tug at the bricks, she felt long bony fingers intertwine with hers and push from the other side of the wall. They felt clawed. They looked blueish. They didn’t look completely human. She hoped she hadn’t just agreed to free a demon or something. Whatever her strange companion was, it wasn’t pushing on the bricks very hard. “What, are you afraid you’ll break a nail?” she asked in mock concern.
“Yes,” the creature replied testily, and she decided not to press the issue. At least it was helping somewhat.
After an hour, they’d created a hole that the creature claimed was big enough for it to get through. Dulcie was skeptical. The hole didn’t look very big. On the other hand, the creature was apparently inhuman, so maybe it could fit through a hole that size. Sure enough, something wriggled through. When it straightened up she shrieked.
It stood six foot tall but was very thin and bony, except it had some sort of chest lump—did that mean it was a female? She was wearing pants, though. Oh well. She was blue. That at least Dulcie had expected. Her hands, now that Dulcie could see them better, looked like long-legged spiders. The creature had a long nose that looked like a pointed faucet, a long pointed chin, and barely any cheekbones. She had strangely lumpy black hair. Her teeth reminded Dulcie of those of the fish at home in the millpond. The worst part by far however was the creature’s eyes. They were angled, oblong and bulging. The part that should have been white was yellow, and they were glowing in the dark of the dungeon. All in all a highly unpleasant looking person!
The creature brushed herself off indignantly. “Well! I can hardly be expected to look my best when I’m been locked up for a week, but there’s no reason to be rude about it!”
“It’s just—you’re so…”
“Striking? Handsome?”
“You’re something,” Dulcie replied, disturbed at the choice of words offered. “You’re not a demon, are you?”
“Goodness, no! You poor, sheltered child, I’m a goblin! ‘Rumpled’ Stiltskein Yardeyar, at your humble service,” the goblin replied, giving a sweeping bow.
“Oh.” That really didn’t answer her question. She’d heard stories about goblins, none of them at all pleasant. “‘Rumpled’?” she asked hesitatingly.
“You try sleeping in hedgerows and looking your best,” Stiltskein grumbled under her breath while she examined the spinning wheel. “Tch, this thing is in terrible shape.” She spun the wheel a couple times. “Ah well, work with what you’ve got, I suppose. Humans,” she grumbled again, adding quickly, “excepting present company, of course.”
“Of course,” Dulcie repeated. She was not very comfortable with the strange, blue goblin-thing. She wondered what they ate with those sharp teeth. She hoped they didn’t just take bites out of things whenever they felt like it. She shuddered. Of course, that ridiculously long nose would get in the way.
“Makes me look aristocratic, doesn’t it?” Stiltskein asked suddenly.
“What?” Dulcie asked, startled.
“My nose. You were staring at it.” She sat on the small stool by the wheel, bending her long legs. She worked the wheel’s paddle experimentally. “Hand me some of that straw, will you?”
Dulcie gave her a small handful of straw, and watched in fascination as the straw quickly turned first to lumpy yellowish thread, and then thinned and turned golden. It wound itself onto the bobbin as Stiltskein worked the wheel. She fidgeted with the thread a little, stuck her spidery fingers into a pouch at her waist, and then asked for more straw. Soon they settled into a system, and worked in silence for what seemed an hour. The silence, except for the creak and whirl of the wheel, began to grate on Dulcie’s nerves. “Are there male goblins?”
The wheel immediately stopped. “I’m a male goblin,” Stiltskein answered evenly.
“Oh.”
“I’m very masculine!” she, no, he continued unnecessarily, in a somewhat squeaky tone of voice.
Dulcie gave a small nervous giggle which Stiltskein interpreted completely wrong, and the goblin got up and strode away from the wheel indignantly. “No, come back! I’m sorry! I don’t know anything about goblins!” she insisted.
“If I was a goblyness, you’d know! Goblynesses are crazy! One bit me just for trying to sell her husband a… well, trying to sell her husband something completely legitimate!”
Dulcie grimaced in sympathy. Getting bitten by teeth like that could not have been pleasant. Unfortunately, this news renewed her worries about what goblins ate. She tried not to think about it. “I’m just a sheltered village girl, remember? I didn’t mean anything by it.” She searched for an excuse. “I just thought you were a girl because you know how to spin.”
“Excuse me?!” he exclaimed.
Dulcie was getting impatient. “Don’t be like that. We have a deal, remember?”
“Yes, I suppose we do,” Stiltskein admitted begrudgingly. “One that’s in my interest to keep, unfortunately.” He slowly wandered back to the wheel and made a big show of his reluctance.
“Oh, for the love of…” She shoved some straw at him, and they eventually got back to work, even if Stiltskein kept pausing to glare at her every few minutes at first. He stopped glaring after the first hour and Dulcie stopped wishing they could talk after the second. Stiltskein’s fingers had started to bleed a little and Dulcie had splinters of straw in hers by the fourth hour. When they were finally done, neither of them wanted to do anything again.
“Oh, sweet Gobnait!” Stiltskein sighed as he stretched very tall.
Dulcie flopped prone from her kneeling position onto the floor. She eyed the filled bobbins accusatorily. They couldn’t so another night of this. She hoped the duke let her go after this. She wondered how she would sneak back in to let Stiltskein out. She couldn’t go back on her word, after all, not after he bled on her behalf like that. He wasn’t half bad, she thought, as long as she didn’t look at him. Come to think of it, where had he gotten all those bobbins from, anyway? He couldn’t have been keeping them all in that pouch on his belt, surely. Maybe he really was a wizard. A goblin wizard. But then why couldn’t he magic himself out of the dungeon? She yawned.
“This is the same color as your hair,” Stiltskein said, breaking her reverie. He was holding one of the bobbins.
“What?”
“I bet I could weave strands of this into your hair, and no one would notice.” He cut a length off with his teeth.
“What? No. That’s… hm.” It wasn’t as if the duke knew exactly how much gold straw could be spun into. She didn’t want Stiltskein’s fingers teaching her hair, but on the other hand, did the duke really need all the gold? Dulcie looked at the bobbins, and then back at him. Slowly, a wicked grin spread across her features.
~
to be continued
(c)Mome Mordrid
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