TM Loyalty
Jun. 23rd, 2006 12:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
singindemonhqHumans don't sing about loyalty much. Even back in the dark ages they were more likely to sing about duty. They made a big thing of loyalty to their lords and masters, now that I remember - but you didn't hear much about loyalty between husband and wife. Most marriages were arranged by the parents or the Lord of the Manor, back then, but the whole thing about romantic love was starting to come up - mostly from France. Of course, it was mostly for the aristocracy and hangers-on, but things like that can spill over.
One little Missus went on about loyalty a lot.
I don't do regrets. It ain't sensible and it ain't healthy, unless you're trying to avoid making the same mistake twice. If there is something you regret saying, or not saying, then go over it if you must - you might have a way to put things right if the person matters to you. You may find out that it was you that caused the trouble. You can fix that. Maybe. If you get forgiven. You may find that nothing will please or soothe or help with that person - then it's no good brooding or dwelling on it or trying. All you can do is say "Cut" and split the scene.
There's been a few queens where that would have been the best answer.
I still wonder if that's what Drylell thought. I know what he felt. He was a loyal Minion. If I'd thought to tell him guard her and keep her close at any price I guess he'd have done it. I didn't tell him that so - I guess he thought he did what he did for my own good, and maybe he was right.
That time the girl had stolen the talisman. It happens more often than you might think. The mother was middling successful and I'm told that she bought my amulet from a peddlar. (I do not know the rationale behind the way the baits are placed, OK? Be cool with that - I have to be and I'm the one with a right to get pissed off about it. There's supposed to be some plot-line that goes with that. Ask the Powers. Maybe the Lady of the Manor was supposed to take it away from her, or something.)
Anyway, the stupid little slut used it. I guess she was after her idea of a happy ending. The trouble is, she already had plans on who with. He was the son of the miller in the next village but three. He was big and freckled and blessed with the good looks and the morals of his own strong stallion.
That horse gave him a few more advantages, too. It wasn't bloodstock but it sired good farm colts, mostly heavy haulage, without much speed but with a lot of stamina. He used to ride it around the villages showing it off. It got a lot of quiet admiration and later the farmers would take their mares over to the mill when the time came.
He used to take the big beast on through to villages that the average local traveller didn't reach and bring back trade goods and gossip - it was good for the brute's reputation - and that extra range to his travels took him out of the convenient reach of the average angry father. Kids right through that area were being born with the bright blue eyes of Hal Millerson. He usually had the sense to stick to married women but he wasn't rigorous about it, and I guess the priests would have been after him soon enough. He knew that himself. He seemed to have made all his women think they were special to him, but when he sang it was clear he didn't much care who he'd marry, he'd got no plans to limit himself to her and he daydreamed of being a peddler and lying down with them in every country that he knew of. He'd have loved my job!
He hadn't exactly loved my queen, but he'd told her he did. She was convinced that I'd lose interest in her when I knew that she'd "given her hand in betrothal to the man she loved." She was right enough in one way, but it wasn't her hand I was bothered about. She'd got kind of confused about the anatomy, but she'd called me to get out of a potential bad spot and she was pretty sure she was pregnant when she made the summons. She figured I'd be paid off with the baby.
Anyway, she'd imagined me as uninterested in used goods, and I couldn't stand her. We might have been happy enough - we both wanted to be as far apart as possible and that was easy.
She was uneducated, of course, most women were, back then - but The Fair Selene was stupid. She'd got a mind like ... not easy to describe, but like a farm animal that's been fed on one kind of grass and just chewed it over, endlessly. I stayed as far away from her as I could.
That gave her a free hand with Minion Drylell. I eventually found out that she went on about her lost love every waking hour. She talked about loyalty. When we finally debriefed him we had to cancel his immunity, and he sang that she kept saying that she'd die gladly for one more touch of her lover's hand...
One day Drylell snapped and just took her back to her old home.
The first I knew was when I found out she was gone. The rest of the story came with his immunity cancelled and debriefing by the experts. He'd taken her back where she came from and, as it happened, they came through very near "her lost love". She'd specified the mill. There was this big, fat red-faced man watching the grinding and she ran to him, calling out, asking where his son was - which would have been a fool's trick even in her day, but she'd been away for a while. When he gaped at her she laughed and said,
"Don't you know me? I'm Selene!"
He swore and hit out, then sent his own oldest son for the witch-finders.
Time moves differently between the dimensions. Hal the Miller's son had inherited on his father's death, and become Henry Miller; he was a stout old burger, almost 48, not long for this world and knowing it, with his mind on the laws of the church and his future in the life to come. Then The Fair Selene came running out of nowhere, more beautiful than she'd been the day she'd vanished, more than twenty years before... I guess he thought she'd come to take him to Hell, or to Elfland or the like ...
She was smoke on the winds before I found out she was gone.
To cut a long saga short, Drylell was retired on pension before his own career had really got started.
Loyalty's all very well, but a Minion needs a bit of common sense to go with it!
Muse; Sweet the Singing Demon,
Fandom; BTVS
Words 1,176!
One little Missus went on about loyalty a lot.
I don't do regrets. It ain't sensible and it ain't healthy, unless you're trying to avoid making the same mistake twice. If there is something you regret saying, or not saying, then go over it if you must - you might have a way to put things right if the person matters to you. You may find out that it was you that caused the trouble. You can fix that. Maybe. If you get forgiven. You may find that nothing will please or soothe or help with that person - then it's no good brooding or dwelling on it or trying. All you can do is say "Cut" and split the scene.
There's been a few queens where that would have been the best answer.
I still wonder if that's what Drylell thought. I know what he felt. He was a loyal Minion. If I'd thought to tell him guard her and keep her close at any price I guess he'd have done it. I didn't tell him that so - I guess he thought he did what he did for my own good, and maybe he was right.
That time the girl had stolen the talisman. It happens more often than you might think. The mother was middling successful and I'm told that she bought my amulet from a peddlar. (I do not know the rationale behind the way the baits are placed, OK? Be cool with that - I have to be and I'm the one with a right to get pissed off about it. There's supposed to be some plot-line that goes with that. Ask the Powers. Maybe the Lady of the Manor was supposed to take it away from her, or something.)
Anyway, the stupid little slut used it. I guess she was after her idea of a happy ending. The trouble is, she already had plans on who with. He was the son of the miller in the next village but three. He was big and freckled and blessed with the good looks and the morals of his own strong stallion.
That horse gave him a few more advantages, too. It wasn't bloodstock but it sired good farm colts, mostly heavy haulage, without much speed but with a lot of stamina. He used to ride it around the villages showing it off. It got a lot of quiet admiration and later the farmers would take their mares over to the mill when the time came.
He used to take the big beast on through to villages that the average local traveller didn't reach and bring back trade goods and gossip - it was good for the brute's reputation - and that extra range to his travels took him out of the convenient reach of the average angry father. Kids right through that area were being born with the bright blue eyes of Hal Millerson. He usually had the sense to stick to married women but he wasn't rigorous about it, and I guess the priests would have been after him soon enough. He knew that himself. He seemed to have made all his women think they were special to him, but when he sang it was clear he didn't much care who he'd marry, he'd got no plans to limit himself to her and he daydreamed of being a peddler and lying down with them in every country that he knew of. He'd have loved my job!
He hadn't exactly loved my queen, but he'd told her he did. She was convinced that I'd lose interest in her when I knew that she'd "given her hand in betrothal to the man she loved." She was right enough in one way, but it wasn't her hand I was bothered about. She'd got kind of confused about the anatomy, but she'd called me to get out of a potential bad spot and she was pretty sure she was pregnant when she made the summons. She figured I'd be paid off with the baby.
Anyway, she'd imagined me as uninterested in used goods, and I couldn't stand her. We might have been happy enough - we both wanted to be as far apart as possible and that was easy.
She was uneducated, of course, most women were, back then - but The Fair Selene was stupid. She'd got a mind like ... not easy to describe, but like a farm animal that's been fed on one kind of grass and just chewed it over, endlessly. I stayed as far away from her as I could.
That gave her a free hand with Minion Drylell. I eventually found out that she went on about her lost love every waking hour. She talked about loyalty. When we finally debriefed him we had to cancel his immunity, and he sang that she kept saying that she'd die gladly for one more touch of her lover's hand...
One day Drylell snapped and just took her back to her old home.
The first I knew was when I found out she was gone. The rest of the story came with his immunity cancelled and debriefing by the experts. He'd taken her back where she came from and, as it happened, they came through very near "her lost love". She'd specified the mill. There was this big, fat red-faced man watching the grinding and she ran to him, calling out, asking where his son was - which would have been a fool's trick even in her day, but she'd been away for a while. When he gaped at her she laughed and said,
"Don't you know me? I'm Selene!"
He swore and hit out, then sent his own oldest son for the witch-finders.
Time moves differently between the dimensions. Hal the Miller's son had inherited on his father's death, and become Henry Miller; he was a stout old burger, almost 48, not long for this world and knowing it, with his mind on the laws of the church and his future in the life to come. Then The Fair Selene came running out of nowhere, more beautiful than she'd been the day she'd vanished, more than twenty years before... I guess he thought she'd come to take him to Hell, or to Elfland or the like ...
She was smoke on the winds before I found out she was gone.
To cut a long saga short, Drylell was retired on pension before his own career had really got started.
Loyalty's all very well, but a Minion needs a bit of common sense to go with it!
Muse; Sweet the Singing Demon,
Fandom; BTVS
Words 1,176!
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Date: 2006-07-01 07:51 am (UTC)Some might think it's the reverse.
Why'd you link me up with jazz?
Just because I've got pizazz?
Jazz is not the music's sum,
I've been 'round since the first drum...
.......
(( OOC, I'm glad that you like the story. I'm going with the Minions having partial immunity to Sweet's "everybody sing what they feel" magic. The Minions dance almost all the time but they don't sing when they're in Minion costumes even if there's a musical build-up.
It would make sense, both from the comfortable employment viewpoint (would you want your boss knowing what you thought and felt from moment to moment?) and so they don't spill secrets to any listener.
Cancelling his immunity would just mean that he'd have to sing the truth like anyone else (calling in the experts would be so he didn't dance and burn. He wouldn't be able to go back to his job afterward and he probably wouldn't like that.)
Thanks for telling me about the name, I've edited to fix that.))