The following was written on a prompt from slipshod. If you have any suggestions of ones that could fail, first I'd say write it yourself because they are quite fun, but if you want to give it to me then by all means do – I always appreciate new ideas. Though whether I will actually ever finish it inside of a year is a whole other matter, I'm terrible like that.
piratesswriter (2lazy2findyouraccount :D), thanks, man - you don't even want to know how many times I changed my mind about which tense that story was going to be in. (And why would I mention it if you don't even want to know? Good question, good question.)
In the Tradition of Lear
And then he waited. It was the noises that made the absence of speech so much louder, as someone once said; the fire's snap, crackle and pop in its hearth, the quiet weeping of his two eldest daughters, tears rolling like pearls down their pale cheeks, the wind and rain of the still-raging storm battering at the windows like a besieging army.
His youngest daughter, the beauty of the family, from whom the silence emanated most strongly, sat straight in her chair, hands folded in her lap and eyes downcast.
But he knew how to crack her. So he waited.
After a few moments, she raised her eyes to his.
He waited.
She bit her rose-petal lips.
He waited.
And pulled the words out of her mouth: "The beast will surely kill you if you return to him. Is there nothing we can do?"
"There is – no, no," he reconsidered.
"Nothing," he hesitated.
"Nothing that bears mentioning," he prevaricated.
And waited.
"What, father?" she eventually replied.
"No, no, it is nothing. I could not expect you to – no, it is my fate" Beat "for being a loving father."
And still had to wait. He looked at his youngest daughter: beauty of the family, sitting straight in her chair, hands folded in her lap, eyes downcast.
The absence grew louder.
"What, father."
He smiled, but regretfully, contritely. "Nothing, beauty. Only that the beast said 'I will forgive you on one condition - that is, that you will give me one of your daughters' – but of course I said I would do no such thing."
"As you should." She spoke without pause.
He said nothing but not because he was waiting. This was not how it was meant to be. He looked at his youngest daughter: beauty of the family, sitting straight in her chair, hands folded in her lap, eyes bright and blue, and clear and direct.
It was her sister who picked up the missed cue. "What have you done, Beauty? It is all your fault!"
"My fault?" Again without a breath of hesitation, the words striking willfully from her mouth. "How is this my fault? Our father's decisions are his own; he is a grown man and he was free - yes, free, sister, he was - to choose as he would. He might have chosen to stay another night in town, to wait out a storm instead of riding through it. Once caught, he might have chosen to run, to fight, to argue, to ask how a rose could possibly be worth as much as his daughter's life. He could have chosen to sacrifice himself not another. I fail categorically to see how this is my fault."
She looked at her father: the once upon a time provider of the family, sitting off-kilter in his chair, hands clenched over its arm-rests, eyes blind with dumbfoundment. "Sir, you should not have held truck with ideas of female education, nor hired those fancy tutors; for did not Miss Lloyd always tell us: never be malleable, girls."
"This is not how it is meant to be," the unrehearsed truth slipped from between his lips.
She cocked one beautiful eyebrow. "I do not mind your manipulations when the stakes are pennies apiece. But this is the real thing; this is life and death, father. I will take no part in your production. Forgive me but I will not."
The youngest daughter's reasoning in the 'My fault?' paragraph is quite indicative of the week I've had slogging through Continental Philosophy of the 'self' and my love-hate relationship with Satre. This may be something you know or something you don't: a 'Beat' in a script is just that – an almost audible click as the character's thought turns over – for this father's purposes the artificiality of a theatrical performance seemed very apt. And of course, 'beat' has other meanings: flexibility is a choice, malleability is a complex, never be malleable, girls.