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something new to think about

 
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GriffinX
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Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Posts: 785
Location: SLC Utah

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 9:02 am    Post subject: something new to think about Reply with quote

first off i am sorry beyond compare that i have not been to this site in such a long time. to be honest i had forgot'n and that means i had forgot the good friends here but as i came up with something the first thing i thought of was you guys.

so here you go, it is a non furry, sorry. a short storie that i hope you find thought provoking.


The Necessary Evil.


“ I find myself rather excited!!” I say to my self. As I stroll down the hallway to the grand ball room. I had my throne moved so that I could make my image of the first time he saw me as ostentatious as I could make it. All around me I can hear the sounds of a great all-consuming battle, that was sure to razz my fortress to the ground.

“all so exciting, my planning, my scheming, my very purpose … one last moment and it will all be complete.” I push through the doorway just behind the throne, hidden behind the largest tapestry I could find depicting a massacre of epic scale. I picked it and all the other “works of art” that would turn any good mans heart cold with hate, just for this, just for him. The vile depictions portrayed herein, truth be told they turn even my stomach,… rape, plunder, murder, destruction, fire on a city wide scale, all have the distinction of being a portrayal of some thing I have or supposedly have done… I never raped anyone but they have to think I did. He has to think I did, in fact that’s the one I’m counting on to be the one that riles him the most.

I find my self looking around the room going over every detail making sure that my “throne room” has not been defiled in any way from when I was last here. The golden pillars ordained with raged furs and skulls, animal and human, gives it a feel of not only vast riches and power but animalistic savagery. The weapons rack filled to overflowing with every assortment of implements’ of destruction imaginable, some even I have now idea how to use. This is done more for my advisories advantage then my own. I have already vowed that I wont be using anything from any of them.

Then there’s my throne, how I’ve hated that thing, pure and utter despise for the only thing that, in truth, I would call beautiful in the entire fortress and oh how comfy it is. It is like sitting on a cloud. Gorgeously carved white jade, high back style and padded with royal purple crushed velvet. And I absolutely loathe it. THE symbol of my power the “Ice Of Perdition” throne. I have taken to calling it the Road To Perdition myself for in my eyes it personifies the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Clash … crash … shing… the sound from the other side of the great ball rooms doors grows louder the yelling, the anger, oh the utter hate in those few uttered syllables. Chills run down my spine for I to have known the feel of it, the despair in it. Although I have long since out grown and otherwise hardened my heart to it, that dose not necessarily galvanize you against it in others. Truth be told I feel for them, I really do. For I truly know exactly what they feel.

In the distance though the doors I hear a voice, screaming , my name as if it is his sole reason, sole meaning, sole everything … “ lord Heathrow” … “ you coward, face me”… more sounds of brief battle ensue. … “LORD HEATHROW” … ah young Cavindash, youngest of four young boys in his family, mother Cynthia, father Karthright. From a town of less then 200. Nestled far in the Oquirrh# mountains, some would describe it as natures beauty defined in a living spectacle. Absolutely annihilated, wiped off the map, everyone and everything down to the last man woman and child. Except young Cavindash.

I have had a file on Cavin for years tracking his progress though life. Him and about 37 others most of those others have passed on In some rather unfortunate accident or heroic battle “Against the armies of lord Heathrow the horrible” or some such something or other. Real disappointments in my book. And now he leads this raid on my seat of power, I have a pride full feeling burst though me at the knowledge that I have lead this great hero down his path strait to me. He is the most well known hero of the age the top of the top. Every child looks up to him, every woman wants to lay with him, every man wants to “buy that man a drink” in apertation of his deeds and courage.


I hear the battle getting closer down the hall and I hear the battle rage outside but that is miniscule compared to the beating of my heart, the adrenaline flowing, the excitement of it finally being over. I know that I must convey an image to the young man about to burst through my doors. For this will be one of three images that he will remember for the rest of his life images that he himself will have to emulate just like I have had to. My predecessor had to just as his be for him.

I turn and climb in to my throne for what is hopefully the last time. Going over the necessary information in my head that absolutely have to be conveyed before the “ last battle” takes place. Thoughts, concepts, unfair realities. All In the name of the greater scheme of things.

As I sit here awaiting the pinnacle of what is to be an unknown legacy. I see a ghost of my former self pushing though a doorway not to un-unsimilar than that at which I know find my self waiting at. Sword in one hand mase in the other. Oh how naïve I was to believe that that was the end of suffering.

Crash… in billows the doors on their well old hinges the young man Cavindash, blond hair, striking green eyes, high cheek bones a scare under his right eye. Mouth twisted in to a god awful snarl. In truth this man would be quite handsome if he would but smile. As I look upon him I see the child from the town so long ago, crying in the street, a blade from my second lieutenant headed to his head. “ halt “ I said to the man “ halt and obey, lieutenant.” he stops and looks back to me a murderous glare on his face, for me having stopped his fun. I would latter have him killed in the barracks’ for that alone, the men had to be taught what to fear for them to be at all effective. “yes your lordship, whatever you say your lordship…” he would say to me. I told him to go about the rest of the town, and off he went.

“ what is your name child?” I commanded. “ sniff… sniff… its, its, its,… ahh … ahh wahhhh” and I thought right then that this one wouldn’t even come close to making it. I grabbed a blade from my belt and as the kid cried in front of my I grabbed his chin and sliced the wound that would later become the scare on his face. One quick motion, and his eyes flashed open immense pain colored his face. He stopped crying then and I asked in a very intimidating deep voice “ what is your name, child?” now looking up at me with a confusing mix of pain, fear, and defiance. “ Cavindash”

Ah how he has grown the twenty some odd years, years that have put a rather strong but not over endowed, handsome and brave young man in front of me. I believe I feel the same thing my predecessor said he felt. A fathers pride. A man worn by battle and tried in the fires of misconduct and betrayal. And yet no knowledge of what is yet to come. Only blind optimism about what his victory will bring.

“Heathrow… it has been a long time. Do you remember me? I have wondered if the most vile scum that ever walked the earth has any concept of recalling the people he’s left for dead and destitute?” he lifts his sword and points it at me “even if you didn’t it wouldn’t matter, your rein of terror is at an end to night…”

“ yes Cavindash… I quite well remember you the young child of so many years ago, but one sword swing away for oblivion, and I saved you.” I said

“saved me? Saved me!! Do you have any idea how many times I had wished for you to never have “Saved Me.”? the horrible guilt of having been the only one to survive the massacre of boulder’s pass.” he looks away the pain of guilt still plain as day on him. Just now noticing the adornments of the gilded room. Aghast at the finery that desecrates the concept of life hardens his soul to the task at hand. “but no more Heathrow, no more shall the innocent suffer under the jackboot of Heathrow the horrible.”

“Yes. I quite agree. No longer will I be the night terror of the innocent child no more will I be the corruption of the world…” Cavindash stares and the man in the throne as if he has grown a new head in the space of two sentences. This is clearly not at all how he had pictured this conversation playing out. “Cavindash … I feel that … I feel, what I believe to be a fathers pride, and you my son. I know I know.” I hold up my hand to forestall the evident back lash I was about to receive at his aghast astonishment at that most simple of statements. “ you are not my son , indeed in fact I was the one to slay your father but, … but it is indeed me that brought you to this moment.” I reach in to a hidden cubby hole in my throne and pull out a folder full of paper.

“Here in my hand is every bit of your life… from that moment in the mountains to this one right here at the heart of the matter. Everything you have ever gone through , meticulously crafted by my hand…” I throw the file to his feet. It hits with a thud and skids to his feet coming apart and displacing drawings and leader heads the name battles he has taken part in, every friend killed, every betrayal that I had made from scratch to make this work of art before me.

He looks down and in only the first picture he sees one of the worst things to happen to him since the massacre in his home town. The picture of the one he thought he loved, Sylva. The betrayal that was handed to him from that one person was the one act that came the closest to killing him, if from grief if nothing else. She had opened his heart and through deed unseen had climbed in and taken up residence only to burn it to the ground by sorted affaire.

I see the picture that he stares at. “ Ah yes young Sylva she was quite eager to agree to help me with you. She is here in the fortress, somewhere. Would you like to see her? Ah but I digress … yes it is I who has … scripted your life all for this one moment. Every plan I made was executed for one reason. I am the guiding force in this world and I grow weary.”

“You? A guiding force? You are no guiding force, you are a black plague apron which many a man has been laid low and many a person has suffered. You are an evil, an evil that is beyond reproach, an evil-”

“A necessary … evil. Evil yes. But a necessary one.” I interrupt. “ I had fought this concept for many a year before I copulated to this one inescapable truth.”

“ necessary? Evil is never necessary!” he yells

I through my head back and laugh deep and long, nothing maniacal just reminiscent. “ oh how I have longed for a good laugh, young sir I thank you. You have no idea how much you miss it tell you encounter it again. I don’t wish to be rude but you have to understand that what you just said is in fact the exact thing said forty seven years ago in a room not to unsimilar to this one, and I would guess about fifty years before that. Tell me lad have you ever heard the tail of the defeat of Valden the corrupt? At the hands of one, much like you? No … the young hero, Salvont, made his way to the chamber of “The Greatest Evil The World had ever Known.” Valden the corupt had been a blight on the land for some thirty nine years.”

“ what has this to do with me, with us and your immediate down fall? you are trying to delay the inevitable.” Cavindash says. Evidently frustrated with me.

“Ah but this has every thing to do with you for I know for a fact you’ve heard of young Salvont the hero. I know this because I made sure you did. You looked up to the long gone hero and would ask yourself why he wasn’t here to fight? Why weren’t there more men like him, and why couldn’t you be like him? … what you don’t know Cavindash is that you are more like him then you will ever know, and will end up just like him.” I pause the old memories come flooding back. I close my eyes for a mere moment to banish them from where they came.

“You know what came of Salvont? How could you know anything of him? You insult his good name just by speaking it. You-”

“ BOY … I swear you are being dense on purpose…” I take a deep breath. “The then young Salvont, stood in defiance for Valden and lead a successful raid on the evil lord fortress. Wile locked in epic battle for the good of mankind words were uttered that would change the young hero’s life.
Words that spoke of concepts that run the very world we live by. Word that, although where whole heartedly rejected upon the fist time the hero heard them, but none the less stayed with him long after everything was said and done…”

I stand and grab the sword at my hip. “You see young one, this is preordained, a destiny that the world it’s self, if not perpetuated would self destruct. The necessary evil… the … basterd concept that must above all be up held for the good of man kind or all shall fall, everything man has every conceived shall be for not. By mans own hand was the world we know created and shall this concept fail, by man’s own hand shall it fall.” I pull the sword from the scabbard and swing it half heartedly around. The weight of it familiar, but age has made the familiar heavy. I swing the blade and it connects with the young hero’s’.

“young sir. As a young man once my self I feel it is my duty to say that wile yes you will reject the words I am about to say, in time the world will show you the path to save it. In truth that is all I have ever done is save the world. For in truth Heathrow dose not exist, he never was. My name …” I slash and over head strike to his defended sword. He counters back with a mid section swipe. Missing as I jump out of the way by a mere width of my tunic. “is Salvont.” I back off a bit. I set my self for defense and hold.

“ the world of man is simple, if there is some one that they fear then they don’t fear each other. For if they fear each other they will end up unable to trust each other. If they can not trust one another then they cannot work with one another. Fear wile inherently uncomfortable, is ultimately necessary. What better to fear than evil and thus necessary evil. These words, on the surface the concept, flawed, but inherently perfect for man is forever flawed yet inherently perfect. … you Cavindash are me. Will be me. Will rebel against me but inevitably follow me for…” I take a low swing and feint in to a midsection slash that is precisely blocked with his own sword. “ I was in the same spot you are now in. I molded you just as I had been molded, to fit the one place that no one ever thought could exist. The evil that has a heart, don’t ever think that I didn’t hate everything I did. I just see the bigger picture, that of which you are still blind but will soon see. I am Salvont, I am Heathrow, Ian Moone, I am no one.” I swing my sword and he deflects and counters with a stabbing strike. I see it coming and can easily doge or indeed counter myself but I let the sword slide home.

I kneel before my successor “ just as I have done so shall you.” I fall to the floor.

“ I will do nothing of the sort. Your words fall on deaf ears. Evil scum.” the young hero turns and strides out on to the balcony just to the left of the jade throne. “ THE WAR IS WON, THE LORD IS DEAD!” he yells, over the rampart a cheer arises and reverberates down to the valley floor.

I turn over on the floor “as I have done so to shall you…” this the final image I need him to see

The hero looks back and is in amazement that the old evil has such convictions.
_______

Many a year has passed since that fate filled day, many a party night after night of rejoicing upon his death. It scares me now more then ever. I Cavindash had defeated the evil known as Heathrow the horrible.
I was raised upon high shoulders and praised for my deed, even now. Yet I see his words again and again, the truth behind them, I vowed that would never be him. Yet I find myself closer and closer to the “Ice of Perdition”. I find that his words grow true more and more each day. I find that even though I am Cavindash the hero, lately even I am being treated without trust, me untrustworthy?

I wonder if my predecessor had to break his own vows as well?

-------------------------

please all thoughts welcome i would very much like to know what you think...

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to each their own
"a riot is at bottom the language of the unheard." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"you can get more with a kind word and a gun than you could with just a kind word." Al Capone
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Last edited by GriffinX on Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:27 am; edited 1 time in total
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hikaru
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 17, 2013 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's fairly well written. Unfortunately, you mix the two voices at the end without clearly showing that there is a change. Something as simple as a few dashes to break up the paragraphs.

-----

Since the bulk of the text really stands in the past compared to the ending, you might consider using a past tense voice, rather than presenting everything as present. It is very much a narrative, but as it's written, it feels clunky. It's hard to explain.

It is a good short story. Rather cleverly done too.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers!!

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GriffinX
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Location: SLC Utah

PostPosted: Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks for saying so...
i was trying for and odd concept seen from the "villain's" p.o.v. and in truth i would not be surprised if it was flawed in the writing or grammar for one i had no editing done on this you are the first to read it, two i wrote this in about 2 hours wile reading an online comic called zebra girl. and three i was really just trying to get the idea out and tweak it later but then got really happy with it and decided to see what you all thought of it.

well i -dashed- the end... help me out here, i know what i wrote and to me it makes sense and doesn't need anything. but i know i'm not that good so... tell me more.

I know its kind of oddnthe two perspectives but I was trying to go with "The Cycle Continues" motif. Like your hearing the end of one and seeing the start of another. That's what the little bit about the young child was about. Seeing his begging of childhood to hero to necessary evil.

For if there is no evil there can be no good. Right?

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to each their own
"a riot is at bottom the language of the unheard." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"you can get more with a kind word and a gun than you could with just a kind word." Al Capone
http://www.freewebs.com/griffinxango/
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GriffinX
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

geez i was hoping to get more for a response... was it that bland.
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to each their own
"a riot is at bottom the language of the unheard." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"you can get more with a kind word and a gun than you could with just a kind word." Al Capone
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The Silver Coyote
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 5:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some of us aren't on the forum all that often, Griff.

This is a good story concept. You should revisit this, flesh it out some by spending a little more time with each part. As an example, devote more of the reader's time and attention to the Boulder Pass massacre and why it happened. Why was the lieutenant so upset with Lord Heathrow? Why did he select the child Cavandish out of the entire population to pass his legacy to?

How exactly was Sylva used to gain Heathrow's desired ends? Did she really love Cavendish, or was she simply some evil partner in Heathrow's plan? Why is she now in Heathrow's Fortress? Captive or accomplice?

You get the idea ...

And I agree with Hikaru <tips hat towards the imposing ursine> that a better use of tense would make the ending of the story a little more clear. Is evil incarnate the narrator? Is he speaking through Heathrow and Cavandish both, at different moments in the story? Would it make sense for this incarnate yet transitory malevolence to appear at various places in the story as narrator to explain to the reader, in some suitable way, what is happening or has happened, Perhaps as you seemed to do through Heathrow's reflections on past evil lords and the heroes that overthrew them? Perhaps you should spend more time with the fight scene, focusing on the forces behind each of the combatants, which would better explain to the reader why everything is happening. That it's all pre-ordained, and that Heathrow and Cavandish both are pawns to the real evil ... right?

I love the concept. And your delivery, while a little rough, rings true and is captivating. Polish this up and spend some time with it, and you'll have a top-flight story started.

Good luck, and keep us posted! I want to see the finished product!

SC

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GriffinX
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 3:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanx TSC. for giving your view of it.

that tells me that it didn't get across as clearly as i had hoped.

for one i wanted hethrow to be seen as more like an actor playing the part of evil, but not actually evil. the concept is that there has to be a big bad figure for everyone to be afraid of, so that people wont see the little bad things in society. that is the idea of a necessary evil.

and the whole inevitability of the situation repeating itself is what a lot of the little flash backs where for. but i will take in to account some of what you said.

and now for the perspective issue. the perspective was meant to bee seen as a "handing over of the torch" if you will.

the end of hethrows act and the realization of the inevitability of cavindash's act starting.

now TSC i am kinda baffled at the concept you put forth of " the evil incarnate" as if there where a guiding "Evil" spirit. i am having a devil of a time trying to figure out where you came up with that?

(you like my little pun there?Twisted Evil )

but i do get that you want me to extrapolate a little more on some of the little details i put in there.

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to each their own
"a riot is at bottom the language of the unheard." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"you can get more with a kind word and a gun than you could with just a kind word." Al Capone
http://www.freewebs.com/griffinxango/
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The Silver Coyote
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 27, 2013 8:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good one! <winks>

Maybe my mis-takes on the meaning of some of the points in the story are a good indication of where some more clarification / elaboration is required.

I got the whole "handing over of the torch" thing pretty clearly, I guess I just missed the proper necessity for evil's presence.

Do continue! As I said, it's a cool concept and you've taken a really great start at it!

SC

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