Forbidden Love: A Fetch Flash Fiction Haibun

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

Princess Ondina walked along Rsevfha Beach as the larger of Zecor’s twin suns followed its small companion below the horizon. Three of the planet’s seven moons had risen, but they were outshone by the presence of the little man who stood at the monarch’s side.

“Serab, I am selfish,” the Princess confessed. “I am sorry my brother took you prisoner but pleased that he made you my bodyguard. His joke backfired on him. I never felt like this before. You are the best friend I could imagine and more.”

impossible dream

small, strong hands and stalwart heart

my forbidden love

~cie~

notes

This Flash Fiction Haibun features the Princess Ondina, reluctant captive monarch of the fascist regime of East Zecor and her bodyguard and secret love, Serab, a common thief captured by Ondina's cruel brother King Qweh and presented to Ondina as a jest. The joke backfired when Ondina not only accepted Serab as her bodyguard but fell in love with him.

The image I chose to illustrate this piece is nearly perfect except for the size of the people shown in the silhouette. Ondina was six feet tall and Serab stood around five foot four.

The people of Zecor have an elflike appearance. Qweh and Ondina are half-siblings. As Ketil Nagel explains to his friends in Team Netherworld's first published novella, Ketil and Yitzy's Adventures in the Xura Dream House, the dark-complexioned Qweh's mother was of the Wxzca line and the fair Ondina's mother was from the Welryv line. The pair's father is from the Welryv line.

The ruling race of Zecor, regardless of subtype, is tall. King Qweh was seven foot seven while Ondina was six feet tall. Serab, on the other hand, was an Ahprizite hybrid. The Ahprizites were a small, elflike race. At five foot four, Serab would have been very tall for an Ahprizite.

For the sort who would quibble that a Haibun can only be non-fiction:

1. I don't care.

2. Not according to Poetry Soup.

3. See 1.

If you enjoyed this little WIP excerpt and liked reading the background of the people of Zecor, please consider picking up a copy of Team Netherworld's Fetching first novella.

I hope to be back to sharing excerpts from Ketil and Yitzy's adventure next week. I am continuing to make headway on The Ballad of Gerry Clifford despite personal setbacks.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 30: A Fetch Story Poem: The End

Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

When the end came to her world

She left her body behind

Everything she knew was gone

She walked through poison atmosphere

Watching the city burn

She looked up to the sky

At the small sun gone nova

Having glutted itself on the energies

Of its larger companion

The planet flooded with gamma rays

Could no longer sustain life

She grieved her useless efforts

Wishing she could snuff herself out

Like one of the candles that she burned

In the vain hope of countering

The misguided sorcery

That brought about the end

The end of life

The end of hope

The end of everything

~Cie Channeling Princess Ondina~

Note:

The final prompt in the November PAD Chapbook Challenge was "The End." I was inspired to write a poem for Team Netherworld's long-running WIP, Fetch. 

Princess Ondina was the reluctant captive regent of the tyrannical monarchy of West Zecor. Misusing powerful magic learned from his mystical adviser Yadira, the daughter and High Priestess of Nyarlathotep, Ondina's megalomaniac psychopath brother King Qweh triggered a reaction in the planetary system's smaller sun, Zetar Beta, causing it to begin devouring its larger companion. This ill-advised action brought about the doom of Zecor (Zetar 6). Princess Ondina is the previous incarnation of Fetch's female protagonist, Pepper Baiij. 

The reincarnation sequence of the Fetch story was born because I had long wanted to write a backstory for the third season original Star Trek episode The Lights of Zetar. This episode tends to be pretty much universally panned, and it certainly has its flaws, i.e. if Captain Kirk had referred to a grown-ass woman in her 30s as "the girl" one more time, I swore I was going to jump through the screen and make him wear his 'nads for earrings, but I was fascinated and, frankly, terrified by the malevolent light colony. It provided me many years of nightmares. To this day, even as desensitized as I am to most so-called horror (which generally consists of gore and jump-scares), I still cannot watch this episode in the dark.

Fun Trivia: The Lights of Zetar was co-written by the late Shari Lewis of Lamb Chop fame and her husband Jeremy Tarcher. Lovable Miss Shari definitely had a dark side to her imagination!

November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 19: Another Antonymic Bomb: Loved and Despised

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Admirable - Awful

Beautiful - Boorish

Compassionate - Cruel

Darling - Deplorable

Enlightened - Egocentric

Fantastic - Foul

Genuine - Gruesome

Heavenly - Hellish

Innocent - Irredeemable

Just - Jealous

Keen - Kinky

Lovable - Loathsome

Marvelous - Malevolent

Noble - Nasty

Obliging - Oligarch

Pure - Pretentious

Quaint - Quarrelsome

Resourceful - Ruthless

Sagacious - Sadistic

Tender - Terrible

Unaffected - Unjust

Valiant - Vile

Warm - Wicked

Xenial - Xenophobic

Yielding - Yellowblooded

Zany - Zealot

Princess Ondina

Notes:

Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge prompt asked for a protagonist or antagonist poem, or one that incorporates both. I was inspired to do a character study through the eyes of Princess Ondina, a long-ago incarnation of Pepper Baiij.

Princess Ondina was the reluctant captive regent of West Zecor on the doomed world of Zetar 6. She was held in the thrall of her brutal half-brother, King Qweh. One night, Qweh slew Ondina's bodyguard in a drunken rage. The next day, he brought the princess a diminutive thief whom he'd captured as a replacement bodyguard, thinking himself terribly witty. Ondina, however, stated that the little man would make a fine bodyguard and asked Qweh to leave her laboratory. 

Ondina and the thief, whose name was Serab, established an immediate rapport that quickly turned to love. There was little time for amorous moments, however. The world's binary suns were engaged in a battle with one another that would soon turn deadly, and there was no way that the cruel and jealous King Qweh was about to allow his oppressed sister to find joy with a common thief.

In this character study, Ondina compares the attributes of her beloved and her brother.

Zecor or Zetar 6 is the planet from which the malevolent Lights of Zetar of the original Star Trek series originated. I always wanted to write a backstory for this episode and, nearly 40 years later, I finally pulled the trigger on the project. 

The Lights of Zetar are the creation of the late Jeremy Tarcher and the late Shari Lewis. 

All the characters mentioned in this post are the creations of Team Netherworld.

Fetch is the flagship story in Team Netherworld's Yadira Chronicles.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 20: Fetch: Once in a Moment

Princess Ondina receives an omen

Once in a moment

Which extended for hours 

The minutes became days

'Neath stars more beautiful than flowers

The clock ticked a timeless rhythm

In the hourglass there was a glow

Foretelling an event in the future

Something which my heart needed to know

The events of my past were awful

The present gives no relief

The hourglass foretold to me

Of one who would steal my heart like a thief

Not a thief with malicious intent

A thief with a delicate touch

Of all the moments in this life's chronology

This one means so very much

The night was filled with terror

My heart filled with hope and fear

For you would bring me my greatest treasure

Though all would end in tears

Princess Ondina Rvaga

Regent, Western Zecor

Note:

Yes, it's another story-poem from the world of Fetch.

People aren't too keen for these poems. I think I've gotten one comment on them in the time since Fetch sprang into being close to four years ago. 

Nonetheless, I will keep writing them. They keep the story alive although I've not been able to work on it directly for quite some time.

To paraquote Dr. Frank N. Furter, "I didn't make it for you!"

So, there's that.

OctPoWriMo 2018: Day 6: Heart Full of Doubt

Ruby Eye

Creator Unknown

Content Warning:

Dark and depressive subject matter. 

If you would prefer to avoid such, click the back arrow to return from whence you came.

Was any of it worth the fight?

Not a thing was put to right

No battle has been won

Forever on the run

Love clearly does not conquer all

There is no victory in sight

Blind struggles in eternal night

We will never see the sun

Love clearly doesn't conquer all

Together only in our plight

Without a spark of hope or light

When all is said and done

Nothing has been won

Love clearly doesn't conquer all

Princess Ondina for Serab the Thief

following his death at the hands of her megalomaniac brother, King Qweh

From the original WIP, Fetch

Created by The Real Cie, Gem Moondreamer, and Rose LeMort

Lovingly crafted by Team Netherworld since late 2014

The Dead World

Perennial tears descend in gems

From the eyes of those who remember when

They weep: from off their delicate stems

Where leaves will never grow again

Eternal dews come down in drops

In a flood which seems will never stop

They wave: from out their fragrant tops

Poison rain destroys good crops

And weep above a nameless grave!

In this world where nothing can be saved

Over the lilies there that wave

On the seashore, near the cave

In myriad types of the human eye

None of them notice when I cry

Over the violets there that lie

My breath escapes in a hopeless sigh

Uneasily from morn till even

I search in vain to find a reason

That rustle through the unquiet Heaven

Naught is revealed in study or sweven

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven

In vain another day I've striven

Around the misty Hebrides!

A voice moans mournful through the trees

That palpitate like the chill seas

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees

The moans cause the blood in my veins to freeze

Over the magic solitude

A feeling of terror doth intrude

Nothing save the airs that brood

Can be envisioned or construed

Nothing there is motionless

An invisible hand my cheek does caress

The sad valley's restlessness

Brings to my soul a deep distress

Now each visitor shall confess

Now each mind will begin to regress

The red sunlight lazily lay

Over the kingdom far away

In the midst of which all day

The devout bow their heads to pray

To keep watch above the flowers

To drive away the terror of the hours

Nightly, from their azure towers

Whilst death rains from the sky in showers

Trusting to the mild-eyed stars

To take them somewhere very far

They had gone unto the wars

Knowing not what they were fighting for

Where the people did not dwell

The world made a living hell

Once it smiled a silent dell

O'er the land rang the sound of a funeral bell

By Cie and Gem and Gerry and Pepper

With apologies and thanks to Edgar Allan Poe

Serab's Senryu: The Ghosts of What Was

Zetar's End Version 13

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

Sometimes I sense ghosts

From a world long dead and gone

I weep for what was

~Serab~

Cie's notes:

Serab is a past incarnation of the musician Gerry Clifford, the main male protagonist in Team Netherworld's eternal WIP, Fetch. Serab was a resident of Zetar 6 (Zecor), a world with a binary star system where the smaller sun began pulling energy off the larger sun, setting off a nova which destroyed the inner planets and rendered the sixth planet incapable of sustaining life.

Serab in spirit form viewed the nova just before being relocated to a place which his beloved Princess Ondina, a powerful sorceress, referred to as "the Realm of the Yellow Sun." 

In her grief and guilt over Serab's murder by her brutal and jealous megalomaniac brother King Qweh, Ondina believed it necessary that she and Serab should never again cross paths. Serab's longing for Ondina eventually overrode her spell, and, near the end of his lifetime as Gerry Clifford, he found her again. She had reincarnated as Pepper Baiij, a medium living with major mental illness whose life had never gone quite right.

As Gerry and Pepper became reacquainted and their love rekindled, memories of their past incarnations on Zecor were awakened, and an old and dangerous foe re-emerged in the form of Yadira Root, a powerful high priestess of Nyarlathotep, whose plans for Gerry were most unsavory.

TL:DR

We majorly deviated from the prompt given today.

NaPoWriMo 2017: Day 17: N is for Nocturne

Copyright: shamain / 123RF Stock Photo

I want to sing you to sleep

When you wake

You will be far away from this place

And all the pain you have known

Remember who you are

Remember your kindness and your principles

Know that someone always loves you

More than anything

Please forget me

And the sorrows you've been through

In this terrible world

My heart will always be true

Only to you

Forget me, my love

For I can only bring you sorrow

And you have known more than enough of that

Sleep now

Wake again in the world of the Yellow Sun

Princess Ondina

for her Serab

Notes:

Princess Ondina and Serab are two of the primary characters from Team Netherworld's WIP novel, Fetch. The story can be found at peppersfetch.blogspot.com

Cross-posted to:

poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com

peppersfetch.blogspot.com

strandsofeternity.blogspot.com

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 28: Sea Shells

Copyright: sila5775 / 123RF Stock Photo

Serab:
We walked on the seashore lives ago

You were the most wonderful thing I knew

You sent me away, you say to save me
At that moment, I lost not only life
But all the hope that you had given me
To know that I would not see you again
Was worse than the most terrifying death
At times I wished that we had never met

Ondina:
I lost my world and worse, I lost my love
But you knew not what could be done to you
I love you more than the stars in the sky
More than all the seashells on every shore
I love you and miss you eternally

Form:
Blank verse/free form sonnet
http://thepoetsgarret.com/2016Challenge/form09.html

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 27: Favorite Scent

Copyright: wklzzz / 123RF Stock Photo

My favorite scent is that of your hair

Lying behind you when you are sleeping

In forbidden embrace, holding you close

The princess and the commoner in love

You, lovelier than all the world's treasure

What beauty could you ever see in me?

Ugly little thief, the scourge of Zecor

Yet you treat me like the most precious thing

Ondina, I will never leave your side

I will protect you even with my life

I have nothing to give you but my love

My devotion to you is eternal

I treasure stolen moments in your arms

Breathing in the scent of your hair and skin

One day we will escape this awful place

One day we will be free to love at last

Serab for the Princess Ondina

Form:

Blank Verse

http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/form.html#bla

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 19: Trees

Copyright: sepavo / 123RF Stock Photo

The morning when we walked beneath

The arch of trees in the royal glade

I knew we would be leaving our world behind

I ignored the feeling of doom rising in my soul

I turned my dark premonition to Aubade

Because I wanted for our future to be one of joy

On that day, I lost everything

My hopes for our tomorrow

My dreams for our new beginning

I lost my world

I lost you

Perhaps that is why in my current lifetime

The coming of morning 

Always makes me melancholy

I wish I could always sleep and never wake

I wish I could dream forever of you

But then the damned yellow sun

Comes through the window and forces me to remember

What was and what can never be again

Pepper, channeling Ondina's past life memories

Form:

Aubade (sort of)

http://thepoetsgarret.com/autonomous.html#aubade

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 17: Savory Love

Copyright: danifoto / 123RF Stock Photo

 One fool has fallen for another

He is piquantly pleasant to her mind

She thinks he is so very kind

And so she takes him for a lover

Anyone with sense would find him unappealing

But she believes he sets her spirit free

She finds him morally exemplary

His ugliness she cannot see

Because she is floating on the ceiling

Has she yet tasted his kiss

Does she find it pleasing to her lips

Has she felt his hands upon her hips

She carries out her duties with a skip

A woman with sense would surely give him a miss

King Qweh

Regent, West Zecor

Regarding his sister, the Princess Ondina

and her bodyguard, Serab

Form:

American Sonnet

http://thepoetsgarret.com/2016Challenge/form20.html

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 14: Shameful

Copyright: darkbird / 123RF Stock Photo

Shameful

King Qweh

Regent of West Zecor

Rapist of many women

Including your younger sister

Your victims feel the shame

But it is you whose acts

Are shameful beyond

All imagining

Author: Xegran, Adviser to His Majesty

Form:

Free verse, shape poem, dramatic verse

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 13: Lament for Zecor

Copyright: fyletto / 123RF Stock Photo

Lament for Zecor

Zecor, my home world

Beautiful you were

Your pristine waters flowing

Like the hopes in my young heart

Beneath the gentle glow of the twin suns

The reign of an evil so extreme

Corrupted everything 

Hatred took its toll

The small sun began to feed off of the larger

A malevolent haze glowed constantly in your once beautiful skies

Lost forever were you, Zecor

And lost with you was I

Unfortunate Princess Ondina

I always thought that I would never find love

Then one day love came quickly

And was as quickly taken from me

I died with you, Zecor

On the day the larger sun went nova

But my heart died at the moment

That I sent my love away

Far across the galaxy

The ghosts of Zecor still roam

Damned, restless spirits, attempting to invade

Destroying the unfortunate minds of their victims

In attempt to fulfill the insane quest of a madman

Spurred on by the vain hope of pleasing

The crone who serves the malignant master

In whose veins flows blood as cold as death

The joke will be on you when you discover

You were nothing but his pawns

I was drawn many miles from Zecor

Across time and space by a need so extreme

My love could be alone no longer 

My broken heart could not resist his call

Fear not, Serab, your Ondina will never allow

You to be enslaved by the one who made the king a jester

All the riches in this world can't save you

Any more than Zecor could have been saved

The love in my heart will be your salvation

Your Ondina will not be taken from you again

 Zecor is dead

But our love remains forever

For Serab

From Ondina

Form: Epic/Narrative, Personification

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 6: The Dramatic Monologue of King Qweh of West Zecor

Copyright: selena087 / 123RF Stock Photo

The Dramatic Monologue of King Qweh of West Zecor

Ondina, does my intuition deceive me?

Can it be that you are finding tantalizing

That ridiculous mockery of a man

That abomination brought to you in jest

In his presence, you seem flighty

Behaving in a manner not at all befitting

A princess of West Zecor

I assure you that misery is in store for both you and he

If you continue behaving as a lovestruck maid

We should have been wed, my sister

Once you dreamed of bringing glory to Zecor at my side

You would have been my virtuous virgin bride

You chose the voice of misguided conscience over ruling our world together

Do not believe for a moment that my heart is broken

I believe not for a moment in such folly as true love

Your idealism will be your downfall, Sister

If you think you have found true love 

With a lowly thief dragged from the gutters

He is less to me than excrement

I would not hesitate to send him to his grave

With me, you could have had everything

I care not for such foolishness as love

But you dishonored me, foolish Sister

And now my only goal is to destroy

Everything dear to you

Ondina, before this is over, you will beg me for mercy

You will swiftly discover that there is no mercy to be had

King Qweh to the Princess Ondina

Form: Dramatic Monologue

OctPoWriMo 2016: Day 1: Timeless

Copyright: pitris / 123RF Stock Photo

Timeless

Always

Belonging together

Calling out to you across time

Dreaming of you

Every single night

Following you across my dreams

Grieving for you

Hating this separation

Intoxicated with your love

Jaded life lived in this world

Longing to be in your arms for eternity

Mixed up, muddled

Near to despair

 Once upon a time we were together

Perfect for a moment

Quickly everything was erased

Retreating to another world

Spirits separated, saddened

Trying to find one another again

Unsung song

Vain despair

Wishing for reunion

Xenotransplants in new strange world

Yellow sun warms your face

Zecor is a distant memory

To: Gerry/Serab

From: Pepper/Ondina

Form: ABC 

Misunderstood

All the young girls in Zecor

Say that they would adore

The way their lives would transform

If only they could adorn

Themselves like Princess Ondina

Picture-perfect Ondina

It's such a shame, the girls say

That Ondina turned away

The advances of her half brother

They say that he would be such a fine lover

Compelling and mysterious Qweh

Mighty and powerful Qweh

Ondina sits alone in the wood

Feeling lonely and misunderstood

Her brother is a brute whom she fears

She'd like to swim away on a river of tears

None know the truth of Ondina

Sorrowful, frightened Ondina

A young nymph in lovely finery

Is what the envious girls of West Zecor see

A defiant bitch who denied him a heir

Is what Prince Qweh sees in his sister fair

None see the true Princess Ondina

Every day is a fight for Ondina

A frightened girl who sees no good end

A sweet lost soul without a friend

Misunderstood by those whom she wishes to free

She has nowhere to go even if she could flee

People only see the glory of Ondina

They know not the fear of Ondina

CIE

Note:

I couldn't brain today, so I wasn't able to work in the prompts from withrealtoads.blogspot.com or napowrimo.net although I was inspired by them.