It’s the sort of fairy tale where they chop off people’s toes in order to fit into glass slippers.
(I am getting SO MUCH COAL IN MY STOCKING for this bit, I swear.)
That big strand of hair blocking panel 1 was an afterthought. Got a little R-Rated for a moment there.
And that, kids, is why when an all powerful spirit tells you to keep your mouth shut, you KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.
🙂
Or at the very least, don’t tell anyone if an eel god gives you a blessing
I feel like she could easily have said something along the lines of, “I’m just thinking about how happy I am/we are,” and been perfectly fine.
Unfortunately, Dave is too mean to let that happen. I now need to find his address and send him coal. 🙂
This is a fairy tale. Nobody ever does the right thing the first time.
Forget about the Voice of the Jin’Sorai, this guy is the one who will give me nightmares. Just storms into your place and uses green magic to kill whoever is in his way. Yikes.
I dont understand why a powerful spirit would want to keep it a secret. These kinds of conditions don’t make any sense to me and seem stupid.
That’s because they’re powerful spirits and you’re not 😛
I don’t want a bunch of people running around my forest begging for blessings. Keep this between us and we’re good.
*Darla Dimple voice* “I don’t like to advertise my…charitable work…”
…It had to be said.
Wow. There are stories of nobles abusing privilege and then there’s this. Surely at least part of that was against the law at the time? If that kind of behavior was common for “chiefs’ sons” at the time, that would lead to a rather unstable political situation at best.
(Also minor nitpick: if she’s been married for five years, one should think she’s technically not a “maiden” any more, but rather a “matron” even if she didn’t have children yet.)
Actually in ancient times human rulers could get away with worse. Even in the middle ages there were some pretty nasty costums (see Droit du seigneur in Wikipedia).
“Right of first night” is essentially an urban legend. However random “seductions” (nowadays we just call it rape) was quite common. (And Mad Tinkerer, I had thoughts among the same lines myself!)
Eee-yup. Called it.
Is there any story where a prohibition like this is laid down and the characters DON’T break it? I want to read stories like that if any exist.
But this sort of thing shows up in a lot of fairy tales. And I was half expecting her loving husband to be the actual eel spirit, because that’s how it works in most of the tales I’ve read that involve this.
I believe that in stories where the prohibition is not broken, the protagonist is somehow punished for that loyalty to the pact. Like, her mate would have gotten angry at her refusal to answer accused her of infidelity and left her. Or it would turn out marrying the chief’s son would have provided a financial windfall that would have saved her actual love from a devastating personal crisis that occurred down the line. Etc.
If its a happily ever after story its usually told from the view of that persons death bed. To emphasis that a good life can be lived following the orders of the leading gods and they get taken to an pleasant after life. So a tail of acceptance and faith in life and death. That sort of thing.
Of course we don’t hear about the ones where the prohibition was kept. They never told anyone about it.
I read a story about a mysterious stranger that came into a King’s castle, instantly got welcomed as the King’s adviser and through his wisdom made the kingdom a better place until the Princess chased him off. Caused a massive war in the end that almost crippled the nation.
The related thing was that the stranger had the power to turn into a bear but couldn’t tell anyone and instead used his bear powers to also help in protecting the kingdom. In the end, when he was finally found out, he was punished….by the Princess apologizing, and marrying him on his death bed (He was dying from protecting her one last time and getting mortally wounded) and having her children who discovered him calling him father giving him the family he never had before he died.
That is one where revealing your secret turned out quite good.
Not only are you getting coal in your stockings dear sir, but giant albino eels shall spring from your present boxes.
Best Christmas Ever.
Oops sorry, I meant to say you are getting coal gum in your stocking, a hug me Elmo, being added in as a member of the Brothers Grimm, and getting giant albino talking eels springing out of your present boxes.
Uhm, Energy waepons don’t work to well underwater. Just say’n’.
It may be a coherent light, rather than heat or electricity.
Could be sound as well. That travels extremely well in water and can do a lot of damage even when it’s not concentrated.
“Oh no! You do NOT shoot that green cr*p at me!”
-Will Smith
I’m content just to call it magic.
makes me wonder how “electric” eels do it? Biogenerated electricity, right?
Coal in your stocking for writing a scary fairy tale? From the guy who used to employ the Krampus? I don’t think so.
Why do they ALWAYS tell someone?! WHY?!
PLEASE tell me rape isn’t going to be involved, I’ll have to stop reading >>
Nope.
…That’s a bit ambiguous Dave. “Nope”, as in no rape involved, or “nope” you’re not telling?
Didn’t consider that it could be construed the second way. No rape involved in the story.
Let’s be real here. The dude probably raped her even if we don’t see it. Or at the very least in a story like this witha guy who just commit murder with no second thoughts, I highly doubt he would hold back elsewhere.
Bear in mind too that the story being told is, from an in-universe context, a fairy tale/fable and not historical fiction.
I’ll ammend my statement then. If this were real, then he most definitely would have not stopped at just murder and would have also raped her.
I honestly had zero intention of this story going to the area of rape and would rather the discussion not continue.
That and he did just drag her off cave-man style… This story is a bit antiquated… Historical, I mean.
I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING
Coal? Yay, fuel!
So y’know…that carefully-hidden strand of hair and what hanky-panky is hidden behind it kinda got me wondering…um…we already have it established that they lay eggs. So already it’s established that their reproduction in general is definitely not the same as humans. So that has me wondering about their…well, naughty bits…in general. I remember you doing a sketch waaaayyyy back when of the anatomy of our friends from the lake…but I don’t remember if you actually went so far as to draw in the privates or mentioning them at all. But let’s face it…curiosity is rampaging (no, not in a Rule 34 sort of way!!! O.o) in a scientific sense…so…internal? External? And if external, how does one account for, ahem, drag in the water and temperature issues?
(“No really, Mai-Li Sai-ruhs, it’s not you, it’s just that the water is really cold…”)
Mechanically comparable to humans, but occurring with less frequency. The egg develops internally before being laid, so the term of pregnancy is much shorter than a human’s.
And I intentionally skimmed over drawing those bits in the early sketch for prudity reasons. XD
So basically like sharks. Except since they’re humanoid the male only needs one clasper (like humans… well, like the analogous organ in humans) since with that body layout they’d operate frontally instead of laterally (again, like humans).
I don’t awnt to be wierd, but wouldn’t laying an egg that big hurt more then live birth? And, no, eggs cannot increase in size after being laid.
More then birth hurts for humans already, I’d say a soft shelled aquatic egg would be a lot easier to ex-spell then a human baby’s head.
That’s what I thought…breastses are OK but privateses are too R-rated LOL…I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable, just had to know yanno. So far you’ve crafted a very plausible creature and a very plausible storyline; one that could conceivably take place is 20th-21st Century real life, so I figured you’d tackled that aspect of your sarnothi species and just hadn’t divulged it yet…
I am actually wondering how advanced their technology is, I mean we have seen that knife that cut through (what I assume to be) stone like a hot knife through butter, now this energy gauntlet. Just makes me wonder what else they have…
In this economy? All that coal will come in handy. 😀