There was a crooked man
As I lay dying, my mind went back to my life. Not my life just the life of the Crooked Man but also the life of Rumplestiltskin. Even before I was called Rumplestiltskin there was my given name and life of Durin Diedrick. The neighbors would talk about Durin Diedrick, the boy from a wealthy family and the boy who died before his time. Way before his time…No matter what was done in between those lives I was still Durin deep down in my soul and nothing that I did or said could possibly change that. Durin was the name given to me by my father and like names happen to do, it defined my personality completely.
I was born October 23 of 1775. It was cold in Germany that day and my father told me that wind that day made a haunting sound as it raced through the bare trees. The first born of the many children my father would soon come to sire, I was known as his favorite. I was the one that would become the heir to the family fortune and the sit as the head of the family when I became a man. This would not be my fate.
After a short period of time on this earth, merely a wink for Father Time, I fell weak with a disease that would soon come to be known as Polio. This unknown disease was tearing up my strong, young, vital body and replacing it with that of a weak child, barely able to feed itself. I barely had the strength to lift my head from my pillow. I had no reflexes and was unable to move for the longest period of time. With no books in the house accept for the ones that my tutor had given me on writing, I was reduced to counting the infinite threads in my white canopy bed sheets…one….two...three…I counted onward.
As I lay there in my bed news had come to me that my father had named a new heir, one that would live through the year unlike me. With hair the color of gold and eyes the deep blue of the sky after the sun has gone to sleep this boy would be my rival. A little boy by the name of Fyodor Diedrick was to take my place as favorite. As a year came and went I began to hate the boy who would crawl into my room looking for his Sein Bruder. I despised the thing that would be in my room trying his best to get my attention, to get my love, my acceptance. None of these would he get from me if I could help it.
At the ripe age of fifteen my condition got even worse than it had ever been. My limbs hung limp as the noodles that my nurse would try to feed me. I was in severe pain and would often twitch in a way that would scare the people around me. Soon not even the thing that my father had named Fyodor would come near me. I thought as I lay in the same position I had been in for weeks "now I can rest". Little did I know that that is what fate had planned for me. Slowly it became increasingly hard to breath due to my weakness. As I lied in bed tossing in my death throes my eyes rolled over to the window that overlooked the garden, the very window from which I had read in everyday while I was healthy. There was my father playing with the little thing that he had brought into the house.
"Fyodor you are the greatest gift that the lord has ever given me!" stated my father
"What about bruder Durin?" My father's son asked curiously looking up at my father.
"Who?" asked my father as he had already forgotten about me.
I closed my eyes on this scene. Nothing could make may life worse than it already was. No one would know I was gone for a full day.
With my death came a new life. The life of the person called Rumplestiltskin. I found out that if I stole children I could expand on my time here on this wretched earth. It was not until I encountered the miller's daughter that I was defeated.
Thrown into the land of fairy tales I began my manipulations. I was stronger than ever and I had found out that my father's son Fyodor had spawned a line of snot nosed brats that were just like him. I vowed to make him pay through these children. Slowly I picked them off by making them betray their siblings. I made them the rulers of this land. The old Queen and first of my victims, Aadi Perdu, was from Paris France and was the daughter of a peasant father. When the father begot an heir, things of course changed for the girl as she was no longer an only child but the one left forgotten in the dust, just as I had before her. After that was Jonathan. Jonathan hated his adopted sister and sold her to me just as I had received Aadi's brother. It did not seem to matter what child I received as long as they were betrayed by their family. I gained power over the land and the children were now adults who just wanted to pass away. I would not let them for many years.
Until David came I had no problems. David was the 5th descendant from Fyodor and had his personality. He would be the last I realized. Breaking this boy would complete my revenge. I was the ruler, the boss, the head honcho. I was in charge. But I would not be able to manipulate this fairy tale, the fairy tale in which I was the main character in. The revenge that I sought clouded my judgment. Stories of my demise and life would spread throughout this world and others. Whether it is through Durin Diedrick the first documented case of Polio, Rumplestiltskin the gambler of children, or the Crooked Man the man who died because of revenge, children and adults would know my name. They would fear my story or simply be fascinated by it. Stories would be written and I would live on through the very books that I thought I controlled.
This story in particular is one of the ones that I reside in. Can you not feel my eyes upon you reader? I am watching the world as a story. As David proved, books are very powerful items to be in possession of and as long as people read I cannot die. I am finally immortal.