August 10, 2010

• And Now For Something Completely Different…

  

  Now that my series on the Catholic Mass is ended and available for any who want to go back and review it, I thought I would offer something a little different. It is a scene from a longer work I have been wanting to write for the last few years, but since God always has other plans, it always takes a backseat. But I do a little here and there, as I am able. It wasn’t until I read a post by freebirdheart that I thought I should do a post on something I see both in the “real world” and on Xanga: women who struggle to see themselves as beautiful. This is something I am very, very passionate about, so I will never hesitate to take the opportunity to remind women of the truth of their beauty! While I have touched upon the subject throughout my blogging history on Xanga (here is a popular example), I wanted to try something a little different. Please enjoy a little story, and I hope that the allegory and all that is well understood by everyone who reads it. To you women of Xanga, especially those with whom I am most in touch, who struggle to accept the raw and resplendent truth of who they are, this little tale is for you. May God, the Perfect Beauty who created you in His image and likeness as beautiful also, bless you all the days of your life.

  “Beauty Unmasked: Part One”

  Princess Larayna stood before a full-length mirror, the ends of her long hair dripping onto the furs that held at bay the chill of the stone floor beneath. Warm air blew in from the balcony window, and firelight from the dying day caressed her skin until all the gooseflesh vanished. Soon her handmaid returned after emptying the bath and, first toweling her off, began to gently comb out Larayna’s renowned locks of gold.

              “Has My Lady chosen a dress for the evening’s festivities?” the servant asked.

              “Yes, she has,” came Larayna’s reply, “being the green velvet with the silver brocade. Her hair shall be worn loose, with a golden circlet upon her crown, and silver slippers.”

              Without missing a stroke of the comb, the girl asked, “She wishes to wear her hair down? Unbraided, without adornment? I do not question My Lady, but only wish to understand her perfectly.”

              “Precisely; you have understood her.”

              As every tangle was expertly undone and each split end bitten off and spit out into the fire, Larayna recalled the curious incident regarding the King’s servant, Grey, and his “gift.”

   

  “Milady,” he had said, using the word not as a statement of fact but as her name, because he did not feel worthy to address her by her true one, “you are concerned with many things that amount, in the end, to nothing except that these worries rob us of the pleasure of your company.”

              How dare he? she had thought, bristling at his judgment of her concerns as amounting to nothing! “I shall consider this,” is what she had said aloud, however.

              “Please find no insult in my words; I am a man of poor learning, but I mean well. I come to you today bearing a gift that has been years in the making. You see, Milady, I once was a craftsman before entering into His Majesty’s service, and I am made to understand that there is a masquerade this eventide and you have not a mask to wear and were preparing to go out and seek one. Is this true?”

              “Yes, it is, though I do not see how such a thing is any concern of a serving man.”

              “I beg Milady to consider this, that she may not weary her feet in traveling about the city.”

              He then held forward a small wooden box tied shut with scarlet ribbon, a sealed note held fast beneath. Without another word the serving man left, and though he was indeed handsome and of her own age, and though normally she enjoyed his company, that meeting stirred within her a sense of being cornered, as though she were being chased and had nowhere left to run. Something within his pure, open honesty terrified her; all this before Larayna had even opened the letter.

   

              The comb came upon a surprise knot and the sudden jerk of it snapped the princess back to the moment at hand. The servant girl apologized profusely before continuing on, and soon Larayna’s hair was finished being combed out and oiled very lightly with balsam. Once another girl had come to assist her into her dress, she dismissed all company and retired to her chamber. While sitting at her reading desk she looked upon the open note from Grey, there sitting open like a squared blossom etched with dark blue lines. It began, as the serving man always did, with “Milady.”

              Something about the way he employed that word was different from everyone else, as though he was not taking from her, but giving. Even her closest servants were always speaking to her as though she were someone else in a different room: What would My Lady like to eat? How is My Lady feeling?

              “She would like fresh-baked bread with cold wine; she is dreadfully alone.” But never did Larayna voice what she herself desired; always this separate Lady elsewhere expressed its whim and won it. Yet when Grey addressed her, he addressed her; he did not know of the Other to whom she felt a slave, bound up in the chains of Expectation to where she could hardly breathe.

              Now, for the seventh time since receiving it, Larayna read his note and felt again the swelling in her heart as each word seemed upon it like a warm rain, and after each had fallen she felt that much more filled as no food or drink could accomplish.

   

  Milady,

              I have for some time observed you from afar, as one does the sun from here upon the lowly earth, yet I notice how cold you have become in these years past. It is as though I see Milady, but do not see her, as though I am turned toward a mirror and see only your reflection cold but just as brilliant. If the sun were similarly, then all the day would be as night, for is not the moon but a reflection of its rays? As the grass would wither and die, so do I wilt a little in your sadness, and I cannot bear it a moment longer. For what I hope will be your joy I have painstakingly crafted a mask for you to wear this night; a mask you were born to wear. This is no jest! I swear to this; no humiliation or lie is intended, though should you be unconvinced I would gladly hang for it. This mask, unlike any other in the realm, will send out from among all present the question, “Who is she?” as any mask is wont to elicit, and though it may lay bare many things it will only serve to deepen the mystery of your true self. I beg Milady, with all that I am, to choose this mask above all others and wear it without fear of ridicule, without shame for what is hidden beneath.

   

  Yours in His Majesty’s service,

   

  Grey Thilvayn

   

              Also for the seventh time Larayna opened the simple little box and gazed upon its emptiness, and the truth of the note’s contents filled her at once with gratitude and terror. Would she accept what was offered her; would she don the truth and bravely endure whatever the Kingdom of Highills might think of her?

              Closing the lid of the empty box, wondering again if she would end up a jester instead of a princess, she walked quickly from her chamber to the hallway that led to the ballroom. A servant girl sitting in a chair and sewing looked up and lost her smile as it fell from her face.

              “Where is My Lady’s mask? Shall I fetch one?”

              “My Lady is wearing a mask!” Larayna replied in frustration, not missing a single stride, balling up her fists as she forced herself to walk farther and farther from her only chance at saving herself from what was like to be the fashion faux pas of the year. Later, when she had answered the incredulous inquiries of exactly three guests she simply ignored the rest, and soon many thought that not only had the princess forgotten her mask but she had become deaf as well.

              A dreadful thing, they muttered gossipaciously to one another, to lose both ones hearing and fashion sense in the same season!

   

  (Yes, my dear readers, I invented a word there! Gossipaciously: to speak in a gossip-like manner. And I don’t ask this often, but feel free to rec the post so that, if you feel it has something worthwhile to say, the message gets out to all who need to hear it!)

   

  • 9:16 pm
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