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 Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:13 pm
Overhearing Shad's plan, Ronan made a note that under no circumstances would he sleep tonight. Perhaps he should have taken Gryff up on the coffee offer.
He shook Kai's hand and looked around once more, gulping a little at the sudden attention.
He shifted uncomfortably, then launched into his tale.
"Before I start, I should perhaps explain a few things about Selkies. "
He looked to Kai, he'd asked for clarification so here went nothing.
"Selkie children grow up with one major boogieman..."
He glanced sheepishly at Shad.
"forgive the term. Anyway... Selkies grow up fearing one thing above all else. That is, Normies."
He didn't wait for anyone to make any remark, staring into the fire and trying to ignore the eyes on him.
"Selkies don’t much trust anyone, not even other sea monsters, and particularly not land dwellers. But Normies, they fear most of all.
Children are told that all the normies want to do is steal them away from their families, keep them prisoner and never let them see the ocean again. They’re told to keep their distance, if they must go to shore, hide themselves well least the"
He paused for effect, the bitterness obvious in his tone.
" Least the big bad normies come and get them.
With that in mind... this is a tale my mother told me when I was very young. How much truth there is in it, I don't know. But I like to believe it."
He took a deep breath, not sure this really was the best idea after all. Story telling wasn't something he'd ever felt confident in, and he wasn't convinced they'd approve of his tale.
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:23 pm
Rory took the chai offering and settled in to listen. Stories were one of the things mirror witches took quite seriously. Mirrors were the keepers of stories, and reflected them back, true and sure. Stories that were retold over time changed and mutated depending on who told them...Glen's story, for example, had been retold so many times by so many people it was nearly impossible for them to reflect the truth. Each retelling fascinated Rory, though. What was actually spoken told as much about the monster telling the story as it did the story itself.
"Go ahead, Ronan." Rory leaned forward.
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:43 pm
He took another deep breath, nodded jerkily and launched into the tale. Barely pausing for breath.
"Well.. uh.. once upon a time.. that's how you start these things yeah?... Once upon a time... a family of Selkie lived in the Norwegian Fjords.
They were a large extended family, happy playing in the waters far from the shore and the prying eyes of normie holiday makers who spent the summers cluttering up the shore line and swimming in the ocean.
Amongst this family, was a young maiden who never paid much attention to the stories. She found Normies fascinating. She loved to watch their games, watch them attempt to swim. She spent her days sunning herself on the shore in her special hiding place, laughing at the antics of those strange land dwellers.
One day, as she sat sunbathing, a normie man stumbled upon her hiding place.
He looked at her and she at him, but neither felt fear. The maiden was fascinated, she’d never seen a normie up close before and he thought she was beautiful. Apparently...
They sat and they talked for some time, the man explained that he and some friends were camping nearby and invited her to join them.
At first she was hesitant, naturally, but he convinced her she’d be perfectly safe and so she left her hiding place and went with him to his camp.
His friends were as fascinated by her as she was by them, and they asked her many questions. Why had she come to the shore? Where had their friend found her?
She answered their questions quite willingly, never thinking anything of it.
At length, three of the friends left to fetch more wood for the fire."
He hesitated.
"I... I should explain, when a Selkie comes to the shore, they shed their seal skin and hide it away somewhere safe.
Normies have stories similar to the Selkie’s own. In their version, should a Normie find a Selkie’s skin, the selkie is bound to them and must become their dutiful and obedient wife.
To their credit, most tales paint this as a tragedy and in many, the wife finds her skin and returns to the sea where she belongs.
But some normies still hold the belief that should they find this skin, they could win themselves a Selkie bride.
Now, when the three men returned, one of the men held in his arms a bundle. The selkie immediately recognised it as her seal skin.
The man held the bundle aloft and declared that the maiden should now come with him and be his bride. but she didn’t wish to go anywhere with this stranger, and the normie man who had found her stepped in to intervene.
A fight broke out between the men, and the one who found the maiden won.
He took the bundle, and the maiden backed away, terrified as he turned to her.
But he smiled and handed the skin to her, telling her
“Next time, you should find a better place to hide this.” "
Ronan couldn't help but smile at this, shaking his head quickly and launching back into his tale.
"He apologised for everything, told her he had been wrong to bring her here and that she should return to the ocean where she belonged.
She agreed, and fled. Returning to her family and never breathing a word of the incident.
Now. for the remainder of the summer she stayed away from the shore, but she watched from a distance. Every morning the normie man came down to the rocks and gazed out across the water, hoping to catch a glimpse of the maiden, but she kept herself hidden.
When the summer came to an end, he and his friends packed up camp and left. But the maiden couldn’t stop thinking about the man and his kindness.
A year passed, and that following summer the man returned. This time alone.
Every morning, as he had the year before, he stood on the rocks and gazed out across the water. He was unable to get the Selkie out of his mind.
Finally, she worked up the courage to let him see her, but she kept her distance from the shore. They talked for some time, but she wouldn’t come any closer. So the man kicked off his shoes and waded into the waves fully clothed instead."
Clearly this was amusing, perhaps something was lost in translation there.
"As the weeks passed, the two became close and the maiden finally worked up the courage to come to shore. They would sit and talk for hours.
When she’d return home her family would disapprove, would warn her away from the man but she’d ignore them. She knew him better than they, and he was a good man.
As summer drew to a close, the man came to the shore one final time and told the maiden that soon he’d have to leave, but he wanted her to join him.
“I love you” He told her. “I promise you that I will never take you far from the ocean, and I will never stop you returning to your home and your family. But I want you to be by my side. I want to be your husband.”
Charmed by his words, the maiden agreed to marry him but first she told him, she had to say goodbye to her family.
She returned to the waves and he to his camp, where he waited till dark. Still he waited, but she didn’t return. Convinced she had left him for good, that she had changed her mind, he sadly began to pack away his camp and prepare the long and lonely journey home.
As he was about to leave, the selkie appeared. Her family had forbid her from leaving, telling her she was bewitched but she’d ignored them all and against their wishes, she had come to him. They would never understand, but she loved him as he loved her and she would gladly be his wife.
She handed him her sealskin and said to him.
“Together, we should find a better place to hide this.”"
He took another deep breath at last.
"Of course, much like her family, the man’s family couldn’t understand why their son would wish to marry a monster. So the pair eloped, knowing their union would never be accepted by either family but content so long as they had one another.
They gave up everything to be with one another. Severed ties, abandoned the lives they had known but they were in love and they were happy."
He lowered his head, not quite willing to look at the expressions on his companions faces. Anxiously, he concluded:
"That is the story of how my parents met. A few years after they were wed, I was born. And then my grandmother decided to get involved in her daughter's life once more. " He sighed. "She'll only visit when my father is away, she still tries to convince my mother to leave him and return to the sea. Mother has developed a remarkable knack for tuning the old woman out."
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:15 am
"Wow, that's a great story, man." Kai replied reverentially when Ronan finished and lowered his head. "I like that sorta story, you know? Love conquers all. I wish my story was like that! Instead, mine's more like 'common sense might have saved you from having to learn how to balance with a tail growing out of your backside.'"
Kai accepted a Chai from Lin and sat forward on his log so that he could feel the warmth of the fire, and the embers reflected off of his yellow cats-eyes.
"Now, some of you have heard this story before, or at least know what happened. So if it bores you, feel free to nod off." Kai turned and gave Shad a really obvious wink.
"It was a dark and stormy night." Kai began, and then stopped. "No, seriously. It was. I'm not even exaggerating for effect. To make things even MORE cliche, it was a dark and stormy night in TRANSYLVANIA. And, I was bored. You see, I had just moved in with my dad the previous week. Before that, I'd been living in Hawaii with my moms, but I got into one little fight and my mom got scared, and she said 'You're moving with your dad in the middle of the European Union!'"
Kai paused and took a sip. "A lot of great stories start like that, right?"
"So, anyways. Back to the D&S night. My dad was in Transylvania, you see, because he's a Mad Scientist. Mad with a capitol "M," mind you, not like, he's going around angry all the time. It's one of the few fields of monster science that normies have a chance in. I did mention that my dad is a normie, right?"
Kai looked at Rory, who shook his head.
"Oh, sorry. Yeah, my dad's a normie. My mom is a normie. And of course, I'm a normie. That's kind of important to the story. My dad was in Transylvania mainly for studying the effects of the sunlight allergy Vampires have. He's always trying to find cures for things like that...silver allergies in Werewolves, perennially dry skin in sea monsters. He's a Mad Geneticist. Now, to other normies, this seems more like "Holy crow! That guy's trying to find a way to turn monsters into some sort of invulnerable SUPERMONSTERS! GET HIM!" but to monsters, it's more like, "Gnarly, this guy is trying to find a way for me to wear silver jewelry without breaking out in hives all over my body! GET HIM...a nice thank-you basket!" Usually."
Kai turned to Ronan.
"I know where you're coming from with your story about your parents. There are a lot of monsters who don't trust normies, and a lot of normies who don't really dig the idea of another normie helping monsters out. So my dad always has to try extra-hard to convince people that he's just out for the betterment of the world, you know? So, on this dark and stormy night, my dad had been out meeting with a local chapter of the vampires. Luckily, my dad had some pretty powerful peeps on his side; namely Lord Dracula himself! The meeting was going better for him than he'd hoped because of that. Meanwhile, I was by myself in this Transylvanian mansion/lab that my dad was renting at the time. It was laid out pretty similar to the house we have here. Though, that one didn't have a staircase out of order."
Kai pointed back at the mansion, illuminated in the moonlight.
"My dad had set up an area in his lab for me to do some painting. I mean, his lab was COOL. Giant, electrical-glowy things, half-finished experiments making noises and bubbling over, beakers and test tubes everywhere. It was primo inspiration, man, I'm telling you! I loved painting in there.
ESPECIALLY on a dark and stormy night!" Kai held his hands up, making a 'Kra-kow!' sound to simulate thunder.
"So I set up in the lab and decided to open the skylight. Now, I know what you're thinking right now. 'Kai, you idiot, it was STORMING and also a DARK NIGHT, what were you thinking?' Well, I was thinking that if I moved my painting stuff closer to this one alcove my dad had some experiments brewing in, I could avoid the rain and still get a great view of the stormclouds through the open skylight. Not my most brilliant hour."
Kai got quieter, and leaned back from the fire as he launched into the next part of his story.
"So...yeah. I was set up and painting, and....well, what do you think happens when you have a bunch of electrical-glowy equipment under an open skylight in the middle of a thunderstorm? Kapow! I get struck by lightning. Full. On. Struck. I don't really remember what happened, but I must've flown about 10 feet back and landed in all of the genetic chemicals my dad was testing in that alcove. Electricity plus mad science equals...well..."
Kai stood up and swished his tail back and forth.
"Right now, genetically, dad says I'm a third naga, a third gargoyle, and a third were-cat. I woke up in the hospital covered in fur and claws and horns and tail, which is a little surprising when you didn't have those things beforehand. And I gotta admit; I was pretty down about it at first. The normie school in Transylvania didn't want me anymore, and the only other two schools were Belfry Prep, which is all-vampire, and Luna High, which is all-werewolf. I kinda felt like, I didn't belong anywhere, you know? ESPECIALLY after the normies chased me out of the school with torches and pitchforks. They still do that there! My dad took me on a vacation to a resort on Skull Shores to cheer me up, and there I met a ghoul named Draconia. She told me about a school where ALL kinds of monsters can go; Monster High. And, well...that's why we wound up here!"
Kai pointed at each of his bluddies around the fire.
"Where else can you see selkies, hippogryffs, witches, sackmen, sphinxes, all of these different kinds of monsters, just fanging out with each other? I'll tell you; nowhere. I couldn't be happier with how things have turned out."
Finishing his story, Kai leaned back again and grinned.
"So...who nodded off?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:35 am
Nero grinned.
"Bro, I can just picture you getting zapped. Your hair sticking out, you flying out of your shoes!"
Nero raised his mug. He'd heard the story a few times before, first on the MMA (Mixed Monsters Annonymous) board they'd both posted, but sphinxes are natural listeners. It's why they're chosen as guardians, they can stay put and not got bored. It also explained why Nero could get lost on the way to the parking lot.
"But think of it, this is WAY better than something like super speed. We'd never have met and think how boring your life would be without clubbing and bro'ad trips?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:53 am
"True that." Kai agreed. Even the issue he had with indecision was worth it for all of the clawesome experiences he'd had since coming to Monster High. "Hey man, why don't you take next story session?"
Kai looked at Nero, and gave him a look that telepathically said 'As long as it's not about Monte Scarlo, we have a PACT about Monte Scarlo, do NOT mention Monte Scarlo!'
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 7:51 am
"Your dad is really cool." Glen said to Kai directly.
Glen then looked at the other boos.
"I really want to be a Mad Scientist after I graduate. Mister D'eath told me on career day at school that it wouldn't be the right field for me. Kinda upset me, gotta admit that. But when I told Doctor Merha, he boo booed what D'eath said and told me if that was what I wanted to be, then that's what I would be, and he'd help me. Got an after school job in the Merha lab, and he even advised me that I could be the first to combine Mad Science with Magic."
Glen smiled genuinely at Kai.
"Very cool, your pop."
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 3:44 pm
Ronan listened quietly to Kai's story, taking it all in. When the Chimera finished, he nodded.
"You have taken to your new form remarkably well. " he sounded impressed, here he was, half monster by birth, and he struggled to understand these other monsters. Kai just made it look so effortless.
He glanced at Glen, mad science?
"Didn't you blow up the lab last week?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 5:31 pm
Glen took a deep drink of the most hexcellent coffin brew that Gryff concocted. Say what you will but that boo knew how to make a killer cup of coffin!
Glen then looked up and smiled with a light shrug.
"Well, I can't take all the credit."
He patted Rory on the back and put an arm around his cousin's shoulder.
"I happen to have had the help of the best lab partner a prospective Mad Scientist could hope for!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 5:19 am
"Emphasis on the mad obviously." Ronan shook his head, the idea of Glen combining magic and science was frankly terrifying. Imagine the larger, more elaborate and catastrophic explosions!
He repressed a shudder at the idea.
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 10:43 am
Nero nodded and stroked his chin thoughtfully, pursing his lips to come up with something exciting to tell." We-elllllll...." he began, "I know that everyone is dying to hear about one of the aforementioned bro'ad trips..." Glen leaned forward eagerly and somewhere behind Kai a quiet, panicked rattling began." But we've got a theme going on here: origin stories! And I know how clawesome a concept album can be, so far be it for me to the be the one that breaks it. If it was good enough for Gravid Bonie then it's good enough for me." The rattling stopped and Kai's sigh of relief slumped his whole body. Glen folded his arms peevishly.
Nero grinned and sprang to his feet, his hands spread wide." BROS! This story is legen-waitforit.....
...SCARY! I am going to tell you of fallen civilizations, daring chases and sweet sweet music that will make your hearts pound!" Glen leaned forward, suddenly interested again. Nero had everyone's rapt attention, as any good performer should. Even Gryff, lazily leaning back against a log, was looking in Nero's general direction and barely texting at all. Nero took the dramatic pause to spear a few martianmallows onto a stick and thrust them into the fire.
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 10:53 am
"Most of you haven't met my parents, that's a heavy step in a relationship and one that only a bro-for-life like Kai has been privy to as of yet, so you don't know...that they're werewolves, and like Kai's dad, they're SCIENTISTS!"
The bros looked among themselves, murmuring excitedly. Nero held up a claw.
"But they're not mad geneticists, they are totally rational archaeologists except for maybe a few days a month where I swear my dad cackles and howls while he's reassembling Fang Die-nasty vases. And I personally was not build from the lost DNA strands of the pharaohs.
"But! They did find me on the job. They went on a dig in Egypt while exploring the lost tomb of King Moanhutep. My parents are the beast at sniffing out treasures."
Nero pulled his stick from the flames, the end ablaze, and swung it around.
"They braved traps and curses left behind by Moanhutep's queen, Neferu! No relation to Nefera but way hot just the same," he said, winking, "I've seen the murals. She left deadfalls! Swinging blades! Boulders rolling down narrow tunnels! Indecipherable hiroglyphes that if translated could lead to award-winning papers! Most of the other archeologists gave up, thinking no tomb was worth their lives. Grimdeana himself walked away all 'no way,' but my parents were all, 'whatever, Grimdy, this is clawesome.' Finally, after weeks of mapping the great tomb they reached the central burial chamber. There, nestled in the jewel-encrusted bling of the mighty king, they found an egg. Not just any egg, but the most tricked out egg you'd ever see. It was decked out with gold leaf, encrusted with jewels and covered in hieroglyphics."
From around the circle came a few gasps and one or two monsters said, "ooooooooooo."
"Thinking this was the find of their lives, and it so was the best thing that would ever happen to them, they took the egg and went back to France to study it."
"Wait, France?" piped Lin.
"Dude, yeah. France is like almost nothing but werewolves and werecats and they've been going to Egypt for hundreds of years."
"Oh."
"They spent weeks translating what was written on the sides, holding the egg up to this big bright lamp, it was super smokin' hot I've got to say, and NOT in the sexy sense. Just as they were finishing the work, the egg hatched. Luckily for them the hieroglyphs were all care and feeding instructions."
Nero beamed.
"And that's where I came from."
"There's no music in that story," said Gryff, arching one smug eyebrow up.
Nero shrugged and blew out the remains of his martianmallows.
"Yeah, well if I tell the whole story it gets kinda long. When my parents moved back to Scaris I had problems. They took me on digs all the time and I suck at staying still, unusual for a sphinx. So I used to go exploring and get into the catacombs all the time and get lost for days."
"Surprise," Kai muttered, smiling.
"I stumbled into some underground music shows and got way into it. I already took violin lessons but this was like nothing I'd ever heard before, it was uugh-mazing. I started performing but the gendarmerie don't really like you goin' down there so after one too many run ins with the law, maman took a research position in New Salem that Ramses DeNile told her about. They figured I can't get into nearly as much trouble here, except for Mo-"
Kai shot him a look.
"onn-aaaybe sometimes cuz what's life without a little excitment?"
Nero clapped Kai on the shoulder and grinned, taking a bite of his now incinerated martianmallows.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:34 am
"Cool story, bro." Kai told Nero, saying it in such a tone as it didn't sound like an insulting jerk hammering it out in the comments section of a forum on the grimternet. Kai was relieved that their (mis)adventure in Monte Scarlo remained securely locked in the Bro-Vault.
"Hey, how about one of you quiet guys tell us a story? Shad? JD? Rory?" Kai threw another log on the fire, making it blaze up and send sparks channeling up in the hot draft. "Gryff? I know you have stories to tell."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 10:00 am
Rory winced back from the fire and slumped his shoulders.
"Oh, no, really, I don't have any stories about myself to tell." He begged off from Kai's request.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 10:10 am
Rorrim Rory Bludworth Rory winced back from the fire and slumped his shoulders."Oh, no, really, I don't have any stories about myself to tell." He begged off from Kai's request. Glen chirped with a smile, kicking his legs idly over the side of the log he was seated on. "You know, as family I was kinda curious as to how... you know..."Glen pointed at the 'cracks' on Rory's surface. "... that, happened."
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