Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them.
Fantasy Trope:
Sword & Sandal (A period set in ancient biblical or mythological times…Sword
and Sandal flicks…were especially popular in The Golden Age of Hollywood…Expect
the landscape to resemble sand dunes and/or rural Spain throughout,
making those sandals look more attractive.
Current Event: Ben
Hur (2016) (http://www.stevensaylor.com/StevensBookshopDVDNewMovies.html)
Ota Kte stood on
the high bluffs above the roaring, churning brown of the Great River.
Shappa Hollow Wood
shook her head and flipped her moccasins over the cliff.
“Shappa! Stop
playing!”
“Hardly playing,
Ota. I threw it to check the speed of the river water.”
He scowled at her.
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I don’t appear to
be laughing, consort.”
“I’m not your
consort, you’re mine!” She muttered something crude. “You can’t say that!”
“I am not your
wife. I am your consort. I am here to cement our factions, not produce children
or dynasty.”
“You can’t…”
“I agreed to be
your consort because one of your ‘braves’,” she snickered, “Invaded the…territory
of one of our major agents.”
Ota snorted then
sighed. “Fine. You were saying?”
“I’m testing
current speed and direction,” she turned to stare steadily into the distance. I
just saw the moccasin disappear from my view.” She paused, “My guess is that it
traveled seventy steps in fifteen heartbeats.”
“How do you know
that?”
She looked at him,
shook her head and said, “Have all of your women been as stupid as a bleached
skull?” She stepped around him. “You will need to know the speed of the Great
River at this moment if your canoeists intend to outperform the Ojibwe
canoeists.”
“We will be better
than them by virtue of our…” he paused, then finished lamely, “virtue.”
She sighed and
continued down the path from the bluffs to the horses waiting below. As much as
she loathed her position in this faction of Lakota, she adored the horses that
gave them their advantage over her father’s defiant raiders. Despite their
surrender of her physical body to Ota – by the wisdom of the medicine woman,
One Who Sings To The Stars – Shappa held tight to her spirit. One Who Sings
kept the spirit talisman close by her side with an echo of Shappa’s spirit in
the deepest part of her herb satchels. Only her father and youngest brother
knew of its existence. Her father because his plan was to humiliate Ota the leader;
her brother because no one would think to give such important information to
such a young, unimportant person.
Ota had followed
her, hurrying clumsily down the rocky trail. She wondered again how such an
idiotic man would be made a leader. He called after her, “Consort! Attend me!”
She turned and
held out her hand for him to take. He did, roughly, then pulled her to himself
as if he were one of the pale-skinned creatures on the shore of the Ilhuicaātl Atlántico come recently to
those far lands. Her father had agents spread over the length and breadth of
the earth. A tribe of a cold land toward the rising sun called it all the Land
of the Haudenosaunee. They told of strange behaviors of strange men and women.
She pushed away, saying, “The race will start soon, my consort. You must speak
to them; encourage them that they may bend these Ojibwe people to the path of
your plans.”
His already thin
lips vanished in irritation, but he knew the wisdom of her words as well. He
released her and sullenly clambered onto his horse. By contrast, she floated up
to the strong back of her horse. Smiling, she added an action that would
advance her father’s plan for this silly man, saying, “One of your braves
looked at me the other day…”
Names: ♀ Lakota Sioux; ♂ Lakota Sioux
Image: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/6255CaernarfonCastle_pic1.jpg
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