RIGMAROLE VI

Mikros faltered, as if struck by lightning. He could not believe it! The Wizard’s son? His mind started whirling, spinning as he considered the implications of this. The end of his quest, a quest that had lasted a score and four years, the end of all this misery as he would be as tall again, the end of all the teasing and jeering and bullying by the others in his town.

“It seems fitting. You need my father to save your village, I need yours to reclaim my life,” Boomed Mikros’s voice with amusement, his chuckle sounding like a volcano, “this adventure is getting interesting. We’ll meet your father first, get me to my height. Then my father will be indebted to you, and will gladly give you the rainbows you need to save your village.” In the distance on the cliff Half Pint had a large smile on his face as well, as he saw the coincidental irony in the situation. In their moment however, neither of them noticed Twerp edging further away from them, a small tear flowing down his face.

Mikros walked back up to the cliff, picked up the two creatures, and they set off again.

“Which direction to your father’s lair, Halfling?” Half Pint pointed in the direction of the setting sun, and the three of them set off. Mikros had put the both of them in his pocket, and they peered over the edge as the landscape approached and faded away just as quick under the giant’s feet.

Just then Twerp looked at Half Pint and said, “You’ve always lived in the village. How come you never lived with your father?”

“It’s a long story. Never mind.” Half Pint replied.

“Speak Halfling, we have a long way to go I’m sure, and there is plenty of time.”

“Well, the name I am known by is not my real name. I acquired it after I spent six months in a bar, drowning my sorrows in mead, until there was only half a pint of mead left in the town. Why I was drinking is of little consequence to this story, but I was extremely upset indeed, and the source of all my sorrow could be traced to a certain fair maiden in the town, a leaking pipe in the town castle, a badly implement recipe for stew, and a set of spells my father cast. I decided at the end of those six months to leave my town and never return. I travelled across the land to a place where the people would have heard of neither my father nor me, and eventually I settled in your village, Twerp.”

“So you hate your father?” asked Twerp, wide eyed.

“I’m not sure, I doubt you can call it hatred after all these years. It’s more like a cold condescension now.”

“And you Mikros? You don’t hate your father too, do you?” But Mikros didn’t reply, not for quite some time. And then finally, Twerp and Half Pint heard him say something, in a voice soft and gentle, almost like one of theirs and not a giant’s.

“No, I do not hate my father. It is the other way round, he hated me. He is the king of our town, the regent of all the giants, the regulator of the rainbows. His father before him was an equally great man, strong, tall, and wise. I was to succeed my father as king, but when I was born, short, weak and incapable of doing all those things giants are supposed to, the elders in the village said that our dynasty was doomed to end with my father death. He tolerated me until I was old enough, and then banished me saying that I was not to return until I was a worthy contender for his throne. And I have been out of my town ever since, hunting for the Wizard of Ounce, hoping that he will give me the secret to growth and wisdom, so I may claim what is mine. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to please my father, nothing in this world, if only he would look at me.”

A tear rolled down Mikros’s cheek, it fell near where Twerp and Half Pint were hanging on, nearly drowning them. But they swam back up and hung on once more to the edge of Mikros’s pocket.

“That leaves only you, Twerp.” Said Half Pint. “Tell us about your father.”

“My father? I never knew him. He is not spoken of in our family. We have tried to erase his name and his memories from our minds.” Twerp said, in a mild, almost lost way, as if he didn’t quite believe what he was saying, and was saying out more out of habit that conviction.


To Be Continued...

HOLDING THE SILENCE

As the orchestra struck up the chords of Mendelsohn, the doors at the back of the church opened, and he saw her. Resplendent in her white dress, a veil of net before her eyes, her arm entwined with her father’s, walking slowly, gingerly almost, down the aisle. He was sure he had never seen her look as beautiful ever before. She looked like Venus descended from heaven to him, nothing less, something poetic in its inspiration.

She looked at no one, nothing, but stared at the red carpet and the rose petals strewn in her path, few paces in front of where she was walking. He hoped she would look in front - at him - but she didn’t. She walked all the way up the aisle, let go of her father with a soft kiss on the cheek, climbed up three steps and took her place in front of the alter. The people who had gathered there took their seats.

As the priest started reciting, blessing the occasion, he looked deeply at her, and thought to himself. Did she know how much he loved her? Would she ever know? Would he ever be able to tell her? Would he ever be able to capture in words what he heart wanted to say to her? She still looked down, at the floor, and he caught himself smiling. Shy, that was typically her. The priest went on with his recitations, the audience watched in awestruck wonder at the couple before them, she kept looking down, and he kept looking at her.

Finally, the priest looked to the gathered people, and said “If anyone has any objection with this union, rise and speak now, or forever hold your silence.”

He was about to stand, when he saw her look up, at the man she was marrying. She smiled, a smile of joy, of contentment, of sublime happiness which made her face glow, of love gushing forth from every iota of her being. And the man before her smiled back at her, a smile that spoke of strength and caring, of a warm love that emanated from a heart already melted.

And he found himself back on his seat, not because he had sat down, but because his knees no longer held. He faintly heard a voice say ‘… pronounce you man and wife’, he barely registered the applause and cheers around him, and did not feel the people stepping on his feet as they filed out around him when the ceremonies ended.

It was a long time before he blinked, when an old man with a broom sweeping the floor around him nudged, and with a heavy Southern accent, said “Weddins ovah. Why you still stickin round?”

He looked at him for a moment, and then smiled from behind teary eyes. “I think I lost my way there for a moment.” And with that he put on his hat, and walked out into the streaming sunlight.