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Falcon in the air. Source: Wikimedia Commons. |
The king and his servants go out one morning, venturing into the woods. Guns in hand, the king was ready to catch a good bird. He always loved the sport of hunting. He had a room filled with taxidermy. He was so proud of everything he had hunted and shot down. In reality, most of his servants that went on his hunting trips were really the ones who shot and killed everything. But of course, being the king, credit was due to him.
Continuing down the forest path, the king starts thinking about what he will catch today. Then, he turns around to partake in the conversation his servants are enjoying. But when he turns around to interject his thoughts, the servants stop walking, but they don’t stop talking. They weren’t talking.
The king finds it odd, and asks, “What did you say?”
Servant One replies back that no one was talking. So the king shrugs it off and continues walking. The conversation he heard before starts back up. The voices are talking about how funny the humans look when they walk. The voices then started to make fun of the king’s boots with the rhinestones at the top. Laughter ensued.
The king abruptly turns around to his servants again and raises him voice a bit, “Alright! Who is talking about me and my shoes? It’s not funny.”
Servant Two raises his eyebrows at the king and replies, “No one, sire, is talking nor making fun of your shoes. Are you feeling alright? Should we head back?”
The king is frustrated now. He threatens to send one of the servants back to start the meal for lunch instead of enjoying the hunting trip. The servants all swear they aren’t talking.
The king starts to take a step when a falcon flies in front of his face and screams, “Coward!”
Author's Note:
This story is loosely based off The King, the Falcon, and the Drinking-Cup from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908. In the original story the king does kill the falcon even though it saves him, but in my story, the falcon is still killed, but then the king turns into a falcon and is then hunted just as he was doing. Just like my other stories for this class, I enjoy reading and writing stories that have universal lessons. For this story, I believe my universal lesson is treat others how you would like to be treated. This includes people, places, things, and animals. Although I am a meat-eater I have friends who have chosen to be vegetarians and vegans. I appreciate and respect their decisions. In addition, my mom is also a meat-eater but she never respected hunting animals for sport. I have grown to feel the same way about hunting. I believe anyone is free to hunt, but I believe it is only moral to hunt for food, as the original reason hunting was invented. Lastly, I wrote this story to show how we must treat other people, things, and animals with kindness. We never know what kind of karma is behind us.
Bibliography: The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908.
Continuing down the forest path, the king starts thinking about what he will catch today. Then, he turns around to partake in the conversation his servants are enjoying. But when he turns around to interject his thoughts, the servants stop walking, but they don’t stop talking. They weren’t talking.
The king finds it odd, and asks, “What did you say?”
Servant One replies back that no one was talking. So the king shrugs it off and continues walking. The conversation he heard before starts back up. The voices are talking about how funny the humans look when they walk. The voices then started to make fun of the king’s boots with the rhinestones at the top. Laughter ensued.
The king abruptly turns around to his servants again and raises him voice a bit, “Alright! Who is talking about me and my shoes? It’s not funny.”
Servant Two raises his eyebrows at the king and replies, “No one, sire, is talking nor making fun of your shoes. Are you feeling alright? Should we head back?”
The king is frustrated now. He threatens to send one of the servants back to start the meal for lunch instead of enjoying the hunting trip. The servants all swear they aren’t talking.
The king starts to take a step when a falcon flies in front of his face and screams, “Coward!”
The king jumps back and asks Servant One if he heard the bird talk.
Servant One says, "Your honor, I have not heard anything but us talking since we came out here."
Servant One is extremely worried about the king and insists they go back.
The king says, "No."
He wants to kill the falcon he just saw. So he loads up his rifle and waits. The falcon is sitting at the top of the tree and is now laughing at the king. The king asks the servants again if they can hear the bird.
Servant One says, "Your honor, I have not heard anything but us talking since we came out here."
Servant One is extremely worried about the king and insists they go back.
The king says, "No."
He wants to kill the falcon he just saw. So he loads up his rifle and waits. The falcon is sitting at the top of the tree and is now laughing at the king. The king asks the servants again if they can hear the bird.
They reply saying, "Your honor, we truly don’t hear anything."
The king is so frustrated that he sets his rifle up and takes a shot at the falcon. The falcon stops laughing and falls from the tree, hitting the hard ground. The servants congratulate the king with a pat on the shoulder and a round of applause.
Then as the servants are bagging up the bird, the king starts to hear more laughing. The king ignores it and starts to walk back toward the castle when another falcon immediately swoops down and disorients the king. The king falls on his face, but he is still silent. The king orders his servant to shoot the other falcon. As Servant Two raises his rifle to shoot the bird, he accidentally trips on a branch right as he releases the trigger, and he shoots and kills the king.
All of the servants run away because they are scared. As the servants disappear from the crime scene, the king's limp body lay still. All of a sudden, the body slowly rises into the air and transforms into a falcon— just like the one he shot. The new bird flies around for a second trying to understand just how his wings work. The king realizes he is no longer in his human body. He starts screeching, and the other falcons come around to see what it going on. They start to laugh and talk.
One falcon, which is the wife of the bird the human king had killed, says to the king falcon, "You must figure out a way to live and survive in the woods. You have spent many a year killing our species and our family. You must figure out now how to survive hunters like you were once."
So, he lives the rest of his life as a falcon trying to survive in the wilderness and change the minds of hunters who just hunt for sport as he did.
Then as the servants are bagging up the bird, the king starts to hear more laughing. The king ignores it and starts to walk back toward the castle when another falcon immediately swoops down and disorients the king. The king falls on his face, but he is still silent. The king orders his servant to shoot the other falcon. As Servant Two raises his rifle to shoot the bird, he accidentally trips on a branch right as he releases the trigger, and he shoots and kills the king.
All of the servants run away because they are scared. As the servants disappear from the crime scene, the king's limp body lay still. All of a sudden, the body slowly rises into the air and transforms into a falcon— just like the one he shot. The new bird flies around for a second trying to understand just how his wings work. The king realizes he is no longer in his human body. He starts screeching, and the other falcons come around to see what it going on. They start to laugh and talk.
One falcon, which is the wife of the bird the human king had killed, says to the king falcon, "You must figure out a way to live and survive in the woods. You have spent many a year killing our species and our family. You must figure out now how to survive hunters like you were once."
So, he lives the rest of his life as a falcon trying to survive in the wilderness and change the minds of hunters who just hunt for sport as he did.
Author's Note:
This story is loosely based off The King, the Falcon, and the Drinking-Cup from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908. In the original story the king does kill the falcon even though it saves him, but in my story, the falcon is still killed, but then the king turns into a falcon and is then hunted just as he was doing. Just like my other stories for this class, I enjoy reading and writing stories that have universal lessons. For this story, I believe my universal lesson is treat others how you would like to be treated. This includes people, places, things, and animals. Although I am a meat-eater I have friends who have chosen to be vegetarians and vegans. I appreciate and respect their decisions. In addition, my mom is also a meat-eater but she never respected hunting animals for sport. I have grown to feel the same way about hunting. I believe anyone is free to hunt, but I believe it is only moral to hunt for food, as the original reason hunting was invented. Lastly, I wrote this story to show how we must treat other people, things, and animals with kindness. We never know what kind of karma is behind us.
Bibliography: The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908.
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The structure of your paper is very good, I also enjoyed the humor found within it. I thought the title was very intriguing and was wondering how it was going to tie into the story, and found out towards the end. I absolutely love the idea of the king turning into a bird, and having to re-evaluate the hunting for game as he did. Good job!
ReplyDeleteMia, nice story! After reading your first paragraph it made me think of the first story that I wrote for this class, which made me even more interested in your story. I liked how you subtly brought the king to the realization that it was the animals talking and not his servants. This initially caught me off guard because I thought the story was going to turn out to be a dream/nightmare that the king was having. What really threw me for a loop, though, was when one of the servants tripped and shot the king! That escalated so quickly! Haha.
ReplyDeleteHi, Mia! I have read a couple of your stories before and I was really excited to get to read another one. I really like this story! It is very well thought out and it flows very well. I was really surprised when the servant tripped and accidentally shot the king instead of the bird. I definitely did not see that coming. If anything, I expected the king to get mad at his servants because he thought they were talking about him. I was expecting him to hurt/harm them. I do have a question though, why were the falcons making fun of the king? Is it just because he hunted them in the past? Was this the first time they had done it? I saw a couple of typos that can be easily fixed. For example, you wrote, "him voice a bit" instead of "his voice a bit." I think this happens a lot because our brains moves much faster than our hands. Haha. Just give it a quick re-read and you should be good. Great job!
ReplyDeleteWow, really good story! I love how the king learns his lesson and respects wildlife more although it's too late for him! Those poor servants must have been so frightened though! And I'm wondering what happened to his kingdom? Did he have a son who could inherit? And also, how did the falcons suddenly begin to talk to him? Could they always do it and they just never did until they felt it was time to teach him a lesson? Or did the king suddenly gain that ability? But still great story!
ReplyDelete