radegund | Narrative Oyster

We started telling a story yesterday, collaboratively, as we tend to do now. Oisín still insists that he DOESN'T TELL STORIES - instead, he tells me what to tell him, and then I tell him, and then it's me telling the story, see? But yesterday he said we should take turns.

[I'm bolding the bits that were definitely Oisín's idea; everything else was worked out between us. If I make a suggestion, it rarely gets taken on without some modification. The bold bits are the bits I had no input on at all.]

So, there was a castle with a dragon called Zarno living in it. Zarno was very like the dragon in Shrek, except male. A king and queen and prince and princess came to the castle with a whole lot of knights and other courtiers, and they wanted to move in. The dragon didn't want them to. They argued for a while, and then the court set up camp in the valley below the castle, and every day the king and queen and prince and princess went up to see if they could persuade the dragon to change his mind. They couldn't work out why Zarno wouldn't want some company. Zarno was trying to conceal from them the fact that there was an enchanted princess asleep in the highest room of the tallest tower [cf. Shrek], but they began to guess that something of the sort must be the case. They didn't realise that Zarno was under an enchantment too, which prevented him from telling them about the princess or allowing them to find her. [Yesterday's session ended here.]

They decided to try and explore the tallest tower. Afraid that Zarno would just breathe fire at them, they came up with a scheme to trick him: they got some flameproof material and made curtains, and told him that they thought they would look nice in the Great Hall. While the king and queen were with Zarno in the Great Hall, getting him to admire the curtains (which of course obscured the view of the castle courtyard), the prince and princess crossed the courtyard and began to climb up the twirly stairs in the tallest tower. But then they found a wall blocking their way. "Oh, I have an idea!" said the prince, and he took a jackhammer out of his pocket and hammered a hole in the wall. They climbed through the hole and climbed further, but suddenly, their way was blocked again by a section of roof. They climbed over this and continued up. Then they came to a big door, covered in locks. They unbolted all the bolts, and the prince took his jackhammer to the locks until they broke, and then they pulled the door open. They were sure that they were about to enter the highest room and discover the secret. But Zarno had put an enchantment on the door, so that it led them back to the Great Hall instead. [The Proud Maternal Co-author may have gasped in admiration at the BRILLIANCE of this plot twist.]

The prince and princess emerged into the Great Hall through a little door in the corner, which none of them had noticed before. Zarno and the king and queen were still there. "Ah, I see you fell into my trap," said Zarno. Just then, there was a bang outside. A van had crashed into the wall of the Great Hall. Out of the van climbed another dragon, who had come to help them find the secret. It was called Vintage, and it was neither male nor female. "Tell me the secret!" said Vintage. Actually, he was so cross that he didn't say it, he snapped it. "No I will not!" snapped Zarno. The humans climbed on Vintage's back, and it took off into the air and made for the top of the tallest tower. [There followed an involved discussion of what exactly Vintage needed to do in order to evade Zarno's flame. Apparently, dragon fire doesn't follow the principle that it's hotter closer to its source. But we digress.] Vintage got to the top of the tower, but then suddenly, the humans fell off his back and back down to the courtyard! Luckily, they weren't dead. Vintage looked in through the window of the highest room and saw the sleeping princess.

Vintage flew back down to the courtyard, and they all discussed what to do. Vintage knew that the enchantment could only be broken by true love's first kiss, and so they all went off to the nearest city to write the book that Shrek is reading at the beginning and end of Shrek. Today's session of storytelling ended with an inconclusive discussion of whether they handwrote the book, or printed it, or did a bit of both.