The Orphan of the Sun
Jul. 16th, 2023 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kihouI've been reading Italio Calvino's Italian Folktales as translated by George Martin, and having a great time of it. Seeing a story called "The Daughter of the Sun", I could not help but think of Jasper Irinka and the Chuubo's cast, so here's an adaptation that could serve as an alternate origin story for her.
Once upon a time, but not so very long ago, a king and queen ruled a bleak and silvered land. Feeling age creep upon them, they were joyous to finally become blessed with a son of their own. They called in the astrologers to learn what fate might lie in wait for their child. After divining patterns in the falling stars, the astrologers said the prince was destined to be loved by the Sun before he was twenty and to have a daughter therewith. The king and queen were quite distraught to learn their son would have a child with the Sun who never stays in one place long, shares her favor with noble and poor alike, and can never marry. To ward off such a fate, they had a well dug so deep that not even the Sun herself could shine into the bottom of it. The baby boy was left at the bottom of the well with his caretaker, there to remain until his twentieth birthday, without once seeing the Sun or being glimpsed by her.
The prince lived many long years of gloom and desolation, with only books and his caretaker’s stories to keep him company. One day, after pondering long of the wonders of Creation that had been denied him, he fell asleep and dreamed of a golden palace high in the sky. Everywhere surrounding him was brightness and beauty, brightly-colored birds and golden-boughed trees. But the brightest beauty of all was the woman who he saw seated on the edge of a fountain. He was instantly taken with the warm brown of her skin, the halo of her hair, the way she seemed alive like nothing he’d ever seen. They dallied there in the garden for a time, and she was kind and welcoming as he had never known. In the morning, when he woke, he was saddened to realize that he was still trapped in the dank and decrepit well.
But nine months later, whether due to the ways of angels or the customs of that silvered realm, the prince woke from restless sleep to find a beautiful baby girl, skin as brown as the woman in his dream. His caretaker woke at once to the baby’s cry, and instantly upon seeing the warmth and vitality of the child knew what must have happened. Fearing the anger of the king and queen, he immediately took the infant from the dazed prince, carefully wrapped her in swaddling clothes, and put her down the river in a jeweled basket. Thus it was that shortly thereafter, when the king and queen lifted the prince from the well on his twentieth birthday, they had no idea that their son’s fate had already come to pass and that their granddaughter lay weeping in the reeds far downriver.
Now that evening, as it happened, a teacher came walking along that river on his way home, and heard the baby’s cries. Astonished to find such a basket floating among the reeds, and having never been blessed with a child of his own, he took the girl in, calling her Jasper after the jewels of the basket in which she’d been found.
Now this teacher happened to live across the way from a duchess among the vampires, and this duchess happened to have a daughter of her own, who was known as Natalia. The duchess judged that it might benefit her daughter to have a mortal playmate, and so across the years the two girls were often seen roaming her estates together, Jasper vibrant and rambunctious and Natalia pale and reserved. And eventually, as the years advanced, Natalia became quite enamored with Jasper, and when she attained her majority asked the duchess to be permitted to marry her.
Now the duchess could hardly let her daughter marry a working man’s daughter, and a foundling no less, no matter how beautiful she might be. By various means and mechanisms arranged for the teacher to be placed on temporary assignment in a distant village and, as soon as he was gone, for the constabulary to under some pretext exile Jasper to a hovel in the Walking Fields, under pain of death never to return. Under these circumstances, she hoped Natalia would forget her. She never dreamed that Jasper was the daughter of the Sun and had miraculous ability beyond those of mortal men or even of vampires.
Seeing the matter as resolved, she was inspired to pursue proper suitors for her daughter, and soon betrothed her to the heir of a distant earldom. Natalia was crushed by hopelessness at Jasper’s sudden disappearance, and with her heart thus turned to stone she made no real objection to this arrangement. But, when the wedding approach and missives were being prepared, Natalia did make sure to add Jasper’s name to the list of addressees.
Thus it was that two messengers bearing sugared almonds knocked on the door of Jasper’s hovel. When the door opened, they saw no one there, just an arm that seemed to fly on its own. But a moment later Jasper came down the stairs and the arm returned to her. “I do beg your pardon,” she said, “but I was combing my hair and I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”
“Now let me think, what should I give you to take back as a wedding present.” She led the messengers into the kitchen, opened up the oven, and tossed one of her arms in, which instantly burst into flames. Then she cried out, “Come out, O hope-bugs, your time has come!”, and to the messengers’ great shock a multitude of tiny beetles swarmed out of the cupboards and the cracks in the floor and gathered into a pie tin. Jasper put the pie tin into the blazing oven, telling it “Call me when you’re done!” Then she turned to the messengers, completely nonchalant, and asked, “Well, what’s the good news?”
Bewildered beyond all reason, the messengers could only silently stare, at a loss for words. Then from the oven came the call, “My lady!”
“Excuse me,” said Jasper, and reached into the oven with her bare hands to pull out a perfectly-baked chocolate-raspberry pie all ready to serve. “Take this for the wedding banquet, with my blessing.”
When the messengers returned all wild-eyed, they wasted no time in telling everyone what they’d seen. Scarcely any of the guests believed them, but Natalia smiled a smile of admiration at the tale. Jealous, the young lord that was to be her groom said, “That’s nothing! I used to do that sort of thing all the time back at home!”
“Is that so?” asked his fiancée. “Then why don’t we see you do them here and now?”
“Gladly I would, but…” he began, but it was too late, and Natalia pulled him inexorably into the kitchen.
First he made as if to pull off one of his arms, but it was scarcely detachable, so he had to light the oven in the normal way, getting ash all over his fine clothing as he did so. Then he called out “Come out, O night-beetles!”, but none came, so he had to fill the pie tin with crust and filling instead. And finally, when the pie was done, he reached in with his bare hands, severely burning himself and dropping the pie such that it fell face-down on the kitchen floor.
After such a showing, the young lord could not bear to again face the guests or his future mother-in-law, and he without delay ran off into the Outside and was never seen again.
Natalia, however, feared that any chance of hope or love was now forever lost to her, and fell into a deep illness, neither eating nor laughing. Nothing any of the doctors or necromancers tried had any effect whatsoever, so in desperation the duchess sent for a shrine-sorceress to divine what could be done.
“You must feed her polenta made from corn sown, grown, reaped, and made into meal all within the hour,” she advised.
The duchess was frantic, for no corn like that was known anywhere in the world. But then she remembered Jasper and the wonders the messengers claimed she had done, and sent for her.
“Yes, indeed, I well know that kind of corn.” Quick as a wink she had it sown, grown, reaped, dried, pounded into meal, and boiled, well before the end of the hour.
She insisted on taking the polenta in person to Natalia, who lay in bed with her eyes closed tight. But the polenta was quite bland and undercooked, and as Jasper fed her a spoonful, she spat it right back out, hitting Jasper in the eye.
“How dare you spit polenta into the eye of the daughter of the Sun and the granddaughter of a king!”
“You’re the daughter of the Sun?” asked the duchess, who had followed quite closely behind.
“I am.”
“And a king’s granddaughter?”
“I am.”
“And here we thought you were a foundling! In that case you can marry my daughter!”
“Of course I can!”
Natalia got well that very instant, and whether the duchess’s change of heart was from greed for a powerful alliance or fear of the miraculous sun-maiden, the wedding preparations proceeded on an even more elaborate scale than the canceled one.
And as for what happened when Jasper’s parents each received their sugared almonds and formal invitations?
Well, it's getting late. I'm afraid I’ll have to tell you that story another time.
Once upon a time, but not so very long ago, a king and queen ruled a bleak and silvered land. Feeling age creep upon them, they were joyous to finally become blessed with a son of their own. They called in the astrologers to learn what fate might lie in wait for their child. After divining patterns in the falling stars, the astrologers said the prince was destined to be loved by the Sun before he was twenty and to have a daughter therewith. The king and queen were quite distraught to learn their son would have a child with the Sun who never stays in one place long, shares her favor with noble and poor alike, and can never marry. To ward off such a fate, they had a well dug so deep that not even the Sun herself could shine into the bottom of it. The baby boy was left at the bottom of the well with his caretaker, there to remain until his twentieth birthday, without once seeing the Sun or being glimpsed by her.
The prince lived many long years of gloom and desolation, with only books and his caretaker’s stories to keep him company. One day, after pondering long of the wonders of Creation that had been denied him, he fell asleep and dreamed of a golden palace high in the sky. Everywhere surrounding him was brightness and beauty, brightly-colored birds and golden-boughed trees. But the brightest beauty of all was the woman who he saw seated on the edge of a fountain. He was instantly taken with the warm brown of her skin, the halo of her hair, the way she seemed alive like nothing he’d ever seen. They dallied there in the garden for a time, and she was kind and welcoming as he had never known. In the morning, when he woke, he was saddened to realize that he was still trapped in the dank and decrepit well.
But nine months later, whether due to the ways of angels or the customs of that silvered realm, the prince woke from restless sleep to find a beautiful baby girl, skin as brown as the woman in his dream. His caretaker woke at once to the baby’s cry, and instantly upon seeing the warmth and vitality of the child knew what must have happened. Fearing the anger of the king and queen, he immediately took the infant from the dazed prince, carefully wrapped her in swaddling clothes, and put her down the river in a jeweled basket. Thus it was that shortly thereafter, when the king and queen lifted the prince from the well on his twentieth birthday, they had no idea that their son’s fate had already come to pass and that their granddaughter lay weeping in the reeds far downriver.
Now that evening, as it happened, a teacher came walking along that river on his way home, and heard the baby’s cries. Astonished to find such a basket floating among the reeds, and having never been blessed with a child of his own, he took the girl in, calling her Jasper after the jewels of the basket in which she’d been found.
Now this teacher happened to live across the way from a duchess among the vampires, and this duchess happened to have a daughter of her own, who was known as Natalia. The duchess judged that it might benefit her daughter to have a mortal playmate, and so across the years the two girls were often seen roaming her estates together, Jasper vibrant and rambunctious and Natalia pale and reserved. And eventually, as the years advanced, Natalia became quite enamored with Jasper, and when she attained her majority asked the duchess to be permitted to marry her.
Now the duchess could hardly let her daughter marry a working man’s daughter, and a foundling no less, no matter how beautiful she might be. By various means and mechanisms arranged for the teacher to be placed on temporary assignment in a distant village and, as soon as he was gone, for the constabulary to under some pretext exile Jasper to a hovel in the Walking Fields, under pain of death never to return. Under these circumstances, she hoped Natalia would forget her. She never dreamed that Jasper was the daughter of the Sun and had miraculous ability beyond those of mortal men or even of vampires.
Seeing the matter as resolved, she was inspired to pursue proper suitors for her daughter, and soon betrothed her to the heir of a distant earldom. Natalia was crushed by hopelessness at Jasper’s sudden disappearance, and with her heart thus turned to stone she made no real objection to this arrangement. But, when the wedding approach and missives were being prepared, Natalia did make sure to add Jasper’s name to the list of addressees.
Thus it was that two messengers bearing sugared almonds knocked on the door of Jasper’s hovel. When the door opened, they saw no one there, just an arm that seemed to fly on its own. But a moment later Jasper came down the stairs and the arm returned to her. “I do beg your pardon,” she said, “but I was combing my hair and I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”
“Now let me think, what should I give you to take back as a wedding present.” She led the messengers into the kitchen, opened up the oven, and tossed one of her arms in, which instantly burst into flames. Then she cried out, “Come out, O hope-bugs, your time has come!”, and to the messengers’ great shock a multitude of tiny beetles swarmed out of the cupboards and the cracks in the floor and gathered into a pie tin. Jasper put the pie tin into the blazing oven, telling it “Call me when you’re done!” Then she turned to the messengers, completely nonchalant, and asked, “Well, what’s the good news?”
Bewildered beyond all reason, the messengers could only silently stare, at a loss for words. Then from the oven came the call, “My lady!”
“Excuse me,” said Jasper, and reached into the oven with her bare hands to pull out a perfectly-baked chocolate-raspberry pie all ready to serve. “Take this for the wedding banquet, with my blessing.”
When the messengers returned all wild-eyed, they wasted no time in telling everyone what they’d seen. Scarcely any of the guests believed them, but Natalia smiled a smile of admiration at the tale. Jealous, the young lord that was to be her groom said, “That’s nothing! I used to do that sort of thing all the time back at home!”
“Is that so?” asked his fiancée. “Then why don’t we see you do them here and now?”
“Gladly I would, but…” he began, but it was too late, and Natalia pulled him inexorably into the kitchen.
First he made as if to pull off one of his arms, but it was scarcely detachable, so he had to light the oven in the normal way, getting ash all over his fine clothing as he did so. Then he called out “Come out, O night-beetles!”, but none came, so he had to fill the pie tin with crust and filling instead. And finally, when the pie was done, he reached in with his bare hands, severely burning himself and dropping the pie such that it fell face-down on the kitchen floor.
After such a showing, the young lord could not bear to again face the guests or his future mother-in-law, and he without delay ran off into the Outside and was never seen again.
Natalia, however, feared that any chance of hope or love was now forever lost to her, and fell into a deep illness, neither eating nor laughing. Nothing any of the doctors or necromancers tried had any effect whatsoever, so in desperation the duchess sent for a shrine-sorceress to divine what could be done.
“You must feed her polenta made from corn sown, grown, reaped, and made into meal all within the hour,” she advised.
The duchess was frantic, for no corn like that was known anywhere in the world. But then she remembered Jasper and the wonders the messengers claimed she had done, and sent for her.
“Yes, indeed, I well know that kind of corn.” Quick as a wink she had it sown, grown, reaped, dried, pounded into meal, and boiled, well before the end of the hour.
She insisted on taking the polenta in person to Natalia, who lay in bed with her eyes closed tight. But the polenta was quite bland and undercooked, and as Jasper fed her a spoonful, she spat it right back out, hitting Jasper in the eye.
“How dare you spit polenta into the eye of the daughter of the Sun and the granddaughter of a king!”
“You’re the daughter of the Sun?” asked the duchess, who had followed quite closely behind.
“I am.”
“And a king’s granddaughter?”
“I am.”
“And here we thought you were a foundling! In that case you can marry my daughter!”
“Of course I can!”
Natalia got well that very instant, and whether the duchess’s change of heart was from greed for a powerful alliance or fear of the miraculous sun-maiden, the wedding preparations proceeded on an even more elaborate scale than the canceled one.
And as for what happened when Jasper’s parents each received their sugared almonds and formal invitations?
Well, it's getting late. I'm afraid I’ll have to tell you that story another time.
