Scarecrow Stories: Grasping Desire Part II

Continued from Scarecrow Stories: Grasping Desire Part I
A few days later...
“Where’s Fletcher?” The Queen of Desire almost seemed worried. She hadn’t seen the man in a few days, and she felt like she should apologize. Maybe it was because they shared pain from the same Fae, but it truly bothered her how she had treated him and wanted to learn his story. After all, he already knew her’s.
“He’s up in his room, your Highness. We wanted to see him too!” A little voice meekly addressed her.
“Now why would you want that, little ones?” She smiled; children had a way of making her do that. They always had the one thing she was denied: true youth. She envied them for escaping Arcadia at such young ages.
“We wanted to hear the rest of the story about you!” another child from the group responded. A third hushed the second, worrying the Queen would be upset.
“Ah, weeeelllll, I suppose I could fill in for him, if you wouldn’t mind.” Rose struck her signature playful pose, hands on hips and leaning on one leg.
The children were excited, an audience and a story from the Queen herself! She could sense their anticipation. She didn’t have Fletcher’s patience, she couldn’t dream of keeping them waiting.
“I must warn you though, this is a story with the happiest of endings!”
“Please, Miss Rose, go on,” said Oleander the Wisest.
“The Gardener wasn’t the only one like her there. There was the King of the Harvesters and his subjects. I don’t blame the Harvesters for the tortures they brought upon us; it wasn’t by choice they hurt us. Besides, all of the Garden knew it was far better to be one of us than one of them. Their tortures turned them into nightmares, scarecrows to ward off any intruders who came near us. The Gardener and the Harvester King-”
“King Dempsey ruled in Arcadia too?” one of the children interjected. Again they were hushed by one of their peers.
“No child, of course not. The King of the Harvesters was cruel and heartless, obsessed with his namesake guardsmen. Dempsey would never allow something like The Gardener to harm his subjects the way she did.”
“The Gardener and the Harvester King argued constantly, yet neither would do anything to stop the other from filling whatever cruel Desire they wished to act on. He seemed almost trapped, bound to the Gardener and terrified of being separated for any long period of time, and yet they still couldn’t stand each other. When The Gardener would melt out the eyes of each new Harvester so their ugly bodies would be incapable of looking upon the beauty of her Garden, The King of the Harvesters might wince every-so-often, but he would not raise a hand. None of the Harvesters were allowed to have their own name, they all were stripped of their identity and would all respond only to The Gardener and their King. They were even dressed to look identical to each other, all scarecrows crucified at the borders of the Garden when they slept, let down only to patrol. One of the Harvesters, or possibly several as there was no way to tell, would whisper to me stories and songs of this world to me when he or they came by, to remind me of where I came from. Then the most wonderful thing happened.-”
“What was it, your Majesty?” A third hush was sounded, this time by a child in the back.
“You’ll see.”
“What was it?” said Oleander, perching up on his orangutang-like arms. His eyes had widened, and young Rose’s did too. She didn’t think he could get any more intimidating, even though she knew he hadn’t intended to.
“It came for me. The Harvester with golden eyes. The King of the Harvesters said it was his time to make a move against The Gardener and her eternally Spring Garden, so he had made new eyes for one of his Harvesters. He had meant the Harvester to be a weapon against her, but the scarecrow took his scythe and ran. All of us in The Garden thought he had actually made it out, it felt like years before he showed up again. I honestly don’t know why he would’ve come back, but he did. The Golden-Eyed Harvester appeared and cut me down and told me to run from Faerie, and that he’d be right behind me. We got separated in the Thorns. I just hope he’s safe! Stranger or not, a savior is a savior.”
“You mean he looked like that?” One of the children pointed into the open doors of the courtroom. Rose had to get up and look around the corner to see what he was pointing at, and it was a portrait of the King of Ashes. Rose had spent many an afternoon staring at the same portrait, wondering the same thing.
“Yes, a little bit like that.”
To be continued on Scarecrow Stories: Grasping Desire Part III 
Category:Fiction