May 2013
I think I wrote this after seeing "The Tempest" at the Globe? I found this on my flashdrive and decided it was worth posting.
Ariel's story just gives me feelings, I guess.
Sometimes Ariel wondered. He did not do it often because he thought he had seen enough in his centuries that there was nothing more for him to know. He slipped through time, between the sunsets and as a gust of wind. Few happenings remained in his memory long after their passing because, well, he was still there for it. If he continued then no need for lingering. But humans... The human witch Sycorax and her deformed spawn Caliban were cruel; she imprisoned Ariel and delighted in his anguished cries for release. And she died. And Caliban, unskilled, laughed gleefully, a toddler devil.
And so when Prospero arrived, with a screaming thing of his own, Ariel grew concerned. But then the conjurer heeded his cries in the night, and at last the tree clove in two by lightning, and what a joyous release! Only to be taken captive again, but the freedom remaining of movement at all overtook the reproach. There was so little a wind spirit – delicate chick of the supernatural – could do to a man with power over the storms. And again Prospero was so kind to him in his demands that Ariel conceded, flying to the man's wishes as asked and in all so grateful to be free of that pine he did his tasks fully and to the letter.
The human actions did consume him, however. He noticed the touches and exchanges of Prospero and his daughter and wondered whether he himself should not be touched. He could not be, he felt. No need to glance off the conjurer or his daughter arose but he wondered. It could consume him. And many nights it did.
Ariel knew of love; he knew the gods to it and avoided their vexations for fear of the madness love inspired. A simple wind spirit, he, and not for gales of passion either. An observer only. And did he observe!
He saw how Prospero's coddling of the bastard Caliban turned to vengeful abuse after Ariel reported the devil's forceful action upon his daughter Miranda. He saw how she cried in her father's grasp, weeping, and clothes asunder. The desperation of the holds they held.
Somehow, Ariel believed he missed something.
"Do you love me, Master? No?" he asked once. When Miranda and the shipwrecked Ferdinand of Naples cooed over each other chaste from the marriage bed. Prospero hesitated, and the feeling of dread descended. Yet then the old man's eyes grew soft and world-weary like the fact were one long forgotten, and he cried of course, of course he did. For all the tasks done, for all the service given, of course. And Ariel wished that he might be touched that he would know. Was love as touch greater than in a word? Would he understand the fall Miranda had taken so joyously if Prospero laid a hand against his face? Would he know?
Should he know?
Somehow, he feared the pain that might come after.
Cos, y'know, Prospero's gonna get off the island and Ariel's just gonna be STUCK THERE, BY HIMSELF. (Then again, he's an air spirit; he could go anywhere he wants at that point.)
Dammit, Colin Morgan, I blame you for making Ariel such a woobie in my mind!
/sigh
Thank you for reading! :)
May 2013
I think I wrote this after seeing "The Tempest" at the Globe. I found it in my flashdrive and I decided it was worth posting.
Ariel's story just gives me feelings, I guess.