Legend of Aravon

This story takes place many years ago, in the small, unknown land of Aravon. It was a small island unknown to anyone but the people who lived there and those of the neighbouring island of Trimor. It was also the most spectacular place that you could ever imagine. The was no bluer sky and no sun as yellow and bright and no other stars in the worlds sky that shone like diamonds as much as the stars that were seen in the night sky over Aravon.

Every last bit of Aravon was beautiful and almost majestic as even the cold, wet, miserable, days had something special about them in the way that they seemed beautiful. When the rain fell it was almost like small pearls falling from the sky; and when the wind blew through the trees it was like a musical instrument being played.

At the time of this story, a king, who was said to be one of the most handsome men on the island, and probably the world, ruled Aravon. King Birendra was his name; he was about 6 ft tall with shoulders as broad as the valley. He had long black hair that was as smooth as velvet and as wavy as the sea, and blue eyes that twinkled like the stars and were as big as the golden chalice, which he drank out of. He was also the cleverest human on the island as well as being the most charming, considerate, caring man there too. He also had a twin brother Carious, who’s every characteristic was the total opposite to his brothers. He was short, fat and could have been as handsome as Birendra, but his cold heartedness and sour feeling reflected in his appearance.

It is said that the reason for this difference in personalities comes from when they were young children. According to rumours around the palace in which they all lived, their mother and father had chosen Birendra as the heir to the throne because he was said to be the child who looked more noble at the time of birth. They were told this as young children, of five years of age, and from that moment Carious slowly turned into a bitter, uncaring human.

As they grew older, Carious’ bitterness towards his brother also grew, as by this time, Birendra had become loved by all who knew him and Carious had slowly lost most of his friends. At the age of nineteen Birendra announced that he had become betrothed to the love of his life, and the woman Carious had also longed to make his wife. Her name was Adonia, and as the meaning of her name suggests she was extremely good looking. She was tall, and slim, with short brunette hair, which was as straight as a sewing needle and with eyes as shiny, and as sharp looking as the point of that very same needle. She was the daughter of the king who ruled the neighbouring island, Trimor. Their fathers were great friends and had hoped that their islands could be joined in unity through the marriage of the children.

On the announcement of this wonderful news the two kings planned build a great palace, over the sea, joining the two islands and kingdoms.

The day of the marriage came and went and they loving couple lived in their palace for three years together, until after three years of marriage their beautiful daughter, Aurora, joined them. They named her Aurora because she had filled their lives with brightness, just as the sun fills the world with brightness as it rises above the ocean’s horizon every morning.

Two years previous Birendra’s father died leaving his mother in great distress and leaving the island for good. This left Carious with the opportunity to live in his father’s castle and for once in his life rule it as if it was his own. And this is where he spent the rest of his life as Birendra thought that as long as he was content in living there he would keep his distance from the rest of the island and its people.

Birendra had thought right. Carious remained within the palace grounds day-in day-out, every day year after year. The only people he had to talk to were the servants. Many of the servants were from his fathers reign, and had no wish to speak to, or befriend Carious, as they all hated him for turning them into poor slaves, working for no money, and with only stale bread and warm water as their food.

There was one salve, however, who did befriend Carious. He was known as “the serpent”, because he was long, skinny and had an evil feel about him.

Many years had passed and it was soon to be Princess Aurora’s sixteenth birthday, where she would be told that she was betrothed to a prince. To celebrate this occasion Birendra had arranged a special festival, to which everyone in the kingdom was invited to join. When Carious heard about this celebration he bellowed with anger. “He’s holding a special festival for his daughter, and everyone is invited apart from me!” and with this final word he threw his plate across the room. “I may have an idea sir,” the serpent said slyly, picking up the plate. “What?” Carious asked, half interested.

“What would happen if the princess was not around for her special celebration?” he said with an evil grin on his face.

“You’re not suggesting that we kill her, are you?” replied Carious with a hint of shock in his voice.

“Oh no, not kill her…”

“Well, what then?”

“Let me finish and you’ll find out, my suggestion is to kidnap her, about a week before the celebrations.” This was said with the most evil, sly look on his face. However, this was soon beaten by the look on Carious’ face. “I like that suggestion.” His face suddenly changed. “…But how will anybody be able to get anywhere near the palace, everyone knows that I’m not welcome there.”

“Don’t worry sir, I’ll take care of everything”.

And that was the last we heard of Carious and his evil friend until five days before the celebratory festival. Within the last month the two of them had been working together on a plan to kidnap the princess. It had been decided that Silas, for that was “the serpents” real name, was going to go in disguise and get into the palace of Birendra, and with a magic potion send her into deep sleep to make it easy for him to get her out of the palace.

This plan somehow managed to work and on the eve of the celebrations the princess was smuggled quietly out of her fathers palace.

The following morning Birendra and Adonia awoke to the sound of a flourish of trumpets, but this was abruptly disturbed by the sound of screaming. It was the creams of Martha, Aurora’s lady in waiting. “She’s gone, She’s gone,” she screamed repeatedly, until Adonia grabbed hold of her at the arms and asked what she was screaming about. “It is you’re daughter madam, she is not in her room.” She said bursting into a fountain of tears. “What do you mean ‘she’s gone’?” she said running into her daughter’s bedroom, only to find it true, she had gone. Her husband, followed by a guard, then joined her. His wife fell into his arms weeping sorrowfully.

“Get every person on these palace grounds into the front hall immediately” Birendra yelled at the guard, still holding his wife in his arms as he to started crying.

Within ten minutes of his request the front hall was full of people. “Everybody who was after the closing of gates last night is here, apart from Vincent, the sly looking man who arrived about five days ago; there’s no sign of him anywhere.” The guard told the king in great fear.

This statement started Birendra thinking, and it wasn’t long until he realised who was behind his daughter’s mysterious disappearance. He immediately had an army together, and set off to his brothers’ palace, where unknown to him his brother and Silas were celebrating. Also at this point Aurora was about to wake up from her deep sleep, and it was the sound of her fathers’ army coming at speed towards the palace that did wake her. As she looked around she realised that she was not in her own room and ran over to the window to see what the noise was. As she looked out she realised that she was in her uncle’s palace and it was her father at the front of the huge group of horses that were making their way towards her.

As they came nearer Carious and Silas came running out of the palace to find out what the noise was, where they caught Aurora shouting down at the nearing army. Carious was about to shout up to her to be quite but Silas noticed that it was Birendra who was at he front of the crowd, so they started running towards the valley instead. “You go after them, I’m going to save my daughter” Birendra yelled at the rest of the army. So they all galloped after the two villains and soon caught up with them and dragged them back to the king’s palace courtyard. They were meet by the king who had returned just before them, and had sent Aurora to her mother.

“Arrange for them to be sent to the gallows, they will be hung in the morning, after a night of torture” Birendra said coldly. And after that he turned and slowly walked up to his chambers to be with his wife and daughter. Before the sun had set Birendra had had a change of heart. He had decided that putting his brother to death was not the right thing to do; instead he decided to send the both of them as far as possible away from the island. So early the following morning he went to the gallows to tell his brother that he was being banished from the island for the rest of his life, and later that day they celebrated Aurora’s birthday a day late.