Izulde
09-02-2005, 12:51 PM
No, the of Agder dynasty is not dead. I just need to figure out which save game is the most recent for it before playing again. :) On the other hand, I got an idea for a new CK dynasty last night, so I'll throw the first post up here. It's a significant departure from of Agder in some respects as you'll see.
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Albert von Tirol was a most miserable man as he sat in a quiet glade of green a short distance away from his home in the County of Tirol.
Though fortunate enough to have been a nobleman, Albert's life had not been a happy one recently. His father, a kind and loving man, died eleven years earlier, when Albert was 25, and in the resulting depression the new Count had been too stricken with sorrow to even entertain thoughts of marriage.
Now thirty-six years old, Albert von Tirol considered himself a man having failed at the even most basic marks of capability in rulership. Though quite bright and a sharp student in his tutored days of youth, the Count never lived up to his potential and was openly scorned by his fellow German nobles, both for his relative lack of military prowess, where he was said to be only mediocre, and for his empty court.
Yes, empty. No one appeared at his door, not a single man or woman. Not even one person of any nationality or religion wanted to be associated with the Count commonly called The Red Sparrow in a sign of mockery of both the nobleman himself and the family's crest, that of a scarlet eagle wearing a golden crown. Yet, much as Albert longed to contest these stains upon his honour and defeat those who derided him so openly, he could simply not see a way to it. The path to restoration of respectability and the golden glow of glory and grandeur seemed eternally closed to him.
Indeed, he feared each and every night that he would die alone in his bed, unloved and unmourned for, his home overrun by looting jackals and asses who would laugh and bray their delight as they took everything that had once belonged to the von Tirol family. No doubt they would sell it off to the highest bidder, concerned only with how much money they might get from such heirlooms, gloomily reflected the Count as his eyes turned up towards the full, gleaming white moon.
Then something happened that shocked Albert and astounded him so that he was forced to take a few stumbling steps back.
For there, emerging from the very moon itself, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen or would ever see until the end of his days.
For a moment, he could not make out the details of her, only the general shape of that slender, yet assuredly feminine body and the blinding shimmer of the silver dress she wore.
Silver, too, was her hair, Albert noticed after his eyes had adjusted. But silver seemed too plain a word. No... it was more as if her hair were made of the very stars themselves, sleek and shining as its mesmerising, silken strands swayed bewitchingly under the light of the moon from whence she appeared to have come.
Her eyes were not silver, but blue, a mystical compelling blue that invited the dazzled nobleman in, welcomed him to gaze into them. It was a welcome that Albert found he could not refuse and so he stared into them, his body awash in a rapture and a peace he hadn't known even once since the death of his father. Caught in the spell of her loveliness, the Count of Tirol could neither speak nor move.
Just then, the woman smiled, her lips supple and soft, equally enticing as the rest of her, as if they were made to do everything that a woman's mouth is supposed to do to a man. The very thought made Albert feel a desire that had been dead and dormant for a decade and more, so that his body shivered with the sensation.
"Albert von Tirol, Count of Tirol." Her voice, clear and lyrical, each word as hypnotizing as a note from Orpheus's own enchanted lyre.
"Yes, I am he", answered Albert, agog at this awe-inspiring apparation.
"You have been in pain for many years now. Too many. I have watched over you in your time of trouble, seen you stumble in the darkened woods of your sorrow, unable to break free of anguish's brambles. You are a kind-hearted man and you shall bear these trials no more. If you are willing to do as I ask, then I will show you the way out of the forest of despair."
The Count of Tirol was amazed at the lovely creature's words and he silently wondered if perhaps he might be dreaming. Lost in his contemplations, he gave no reply.
Another smile, one small and secret, reserved just for him, touched the pale lips of his ethereal visitor before she continued, "I know you think this is a dream, but it is not. Or perhaps it is life that is a dream and that which comes after it is what is truly real." Thoughtfulness made an appearance in her eyes before it faded away, so that her gaze might focus fully on the confused Count once more.
"You do not understand, I see. Very well, I shall be forthright. If you pledge your service and fealty to me, then I will guide you and show you the way to that which you have longed for, but do not think is possible anymore. I tell you that it is, if you only trust in me and swear your eternal loyalty."
Anger flooded through Albert, snapping him out of his reverie as he jumped forward, his face flushed, "What madness do you speak, woman? My liege lord is Otto von Nordheim, the Duke of Bavaria, he in turn vassal to King Heinrich of Germany. And if you be some succubus here to suck away my soul, I tell you now that my spirit is forever in God's keeping and it shall not be otherwise!"
Sadness came to know the woman's face just then, the tragedy of heavy lines, bowed head, and lowered eyes a play that only enhanced her incomparable beauty. When she spoke again, her voice was even softer and sweeter than before, so endearing and enchanting that there are no words sufficient for it.
"The God that you have given your soul to has caused me great pain. His followers rape and kill my followers. I have never sought quarrel with your Yahweh and only wished to peacefully co-exist with him, but he insists on rubbing out every last vestige of my strength until I am no more. Tell me this, Count Albert von Tirol. In your truest heart of hearts, can you look upon me and honestly tell me that you have been able to keep your faith these past eleven years?"
What was this woman before him? wondered Albert to himself. She certainly didn't look like Satan or speak like him, and the Devil takes many disguises. And yet, there was the feeling of serenity he had around her, unlike that he'd experienced in a very long time. For the first time since that coffin had first lowered into the ground with his cherished father's body inside, he began to believe that perhaps his life was not a waste after all.
And too, there was the pointed question she posed. Though the Count did not want to admit it, to her or to himself, he *had* lost his faith in God during these last bleak years. It had been five years since he attended church, and at least three since he last spoke a prayer.
It was the last memory that decided it for him. If this woman were Lucifier in guise and his soul lost, then so be it. Hell's punishments could certainly not be worse than the suffering he had undergone since losing his father. Nodding, Albert looked up to the woman once more, "I accept and pledge myself to you."
She smiled serenely as she slipped away from the ground, soaring back into the sky and her source of origin, "I am pleased, Albert von Tirol. I will tell you now what is to pass. Tomorrow, three brave men will come to your castle and offer their fealty to you. Accept, and you will at long last have a court. Then you must find yourself a bride, so that you may have heirs and continue your line. I will not tell you who to marry, for in this I agree with Yahweh that humans must have free choice."
As she was about to say more, Albert broke in, "But what about you? Who are you? I want to tell the world about you and bring more people to you, so that you may help them as you have helped me!"
By now, the woman was almost to the very moon itself and had begun to recede into it. Hearing his words, she smiled gently, each word of her reply a soothing caress to Albert's ears and soul.
"If the lords you are vassal to knew that you have sworn yourself to me, they would kill you immediately and all would be for naught. Here is what you shall do. For now, you will keep silent about this night and this meeting. In time, all shall become clear, so long as you continue to trust in me."
And then she was gone, leaving a stunned Albert to mull over the very curious and strange events of the evening.
Whatever was to happen in the coming days, for good or for ill, at the very least his life would be cured of dreary monotony, and that, he mused, was worth everything.
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Albert von Tirol was a most miserable man as he sat in a quiet glade of green a short distance away from his home in the County of Tirol.
Though fortunate enough to have been a nobleman, Albert's life had not been a happy one recently. His father, a kind and loving man, died eleven years earlier, when Albert was 25, and in the resulting depression the new Count had been too stricken with sorrow to even entertain thoughts of marriage.
Now thirty-six years old, Albert von Tirol considered himself a man having failed at the even most basic marks of capability in rulership. Though quite bright and a sharp student in his tutored days of youth, the Count never lived up to his potential and was openly scorned by his fellow German nobles, both for his relative lack of military prowess, where he was said to be only mediocre, and for his empty court.
Yes, empty. No one appeared at his door, not a single man or woman. Not even one person of any nationality or religion wanted to be associated with the Count commonly called The Red Sparrow in a sign of mockery of both the nobleman himself and the family's crest, that of a scarlet eagle wearing a golden crown. Yet, much as Albert longed to contest these stains upon his honour and defeat those who derided him so openly, he could simply not see a way to it. The path to restoration of respectability and the golden glow of glory and grandeur seemed eternally closed to him.
Indeed, he feared each and every night that he would die alone in his bed, unloved and unmourned for, his home overrun by looting jackals and asses who would laugh and bray their delight as they took everything that had once belonged to the von Tirol family. No doubt they would sell it off to the highest bidder, concerned only with how much money they might get from such heirlooms, gloomily reflected the Count as his eyes turned up towards the full, gleaming white moon.
Then something happened that shocked Albert and astounded him so that he was forced to take a few stumbling steps back.
For there, emerging from the very moon itself, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen or would ever see until the end of his days.
For a moment, he could not make out the details of her, only the general shape of that slender, yet assuredly feminine body and the blinding shimmer of the silver dress she wore.
Silver, too, was her hair, Albert noticed after his eyes had adjusted. But silver seemed too plain a word. No... it was more as if her hair were made of the very stars themselves, sleek and shining as its mesmerising, silken strands swayed bewitchingly under the light of the moon from whence she appeared to have come.
Her eyes were not silver, but blue, a mystical compelling blue that invited the dazzled nobleman in, welcomed him to gaze into them. It was a welcome that Albert found he could not refuse and so he stared into them, his body awash in a rapture and a peace he hadn't known even once since the death of his father. Caught in the spell of her loveliness, the Count of Tirol could neither speak nor move.
Just then, the woman smiled, her lips supple and soft, equally enticing as the rest of her, as if they were made to do everything that a woman's mouth is supposed to do to a man. The very thought made Albert feel a desire that had been dead and dormant for a decade and more, so that his body shivered with the sensation.
"Albert von Tirol, Count of Tirol." Her voice, clear and lyrical, each word as hypnotizing as a note from Orpheus's own enchanted lyre.
"Yes, I am he", answered Albert, agog at this awe-inspiring apparation.
"You have been in pain for many years now. Too many. I have watched over you in your time of trouble, seen you stumble in the darkened woods of your sorrow, unable to break free of anguish's brambles. You are a kind-hearted man and you shall bear these trials no more. If you are willing to do as I ask, then I will show you the way out of the forest of despair."
The Count of Tirol was amazed at the lovely creature's words and he silently wondered if perhaps he might be dreaming. Lost in his contemplations, he gave no reply.
Another smile, one small and secret, reserved just for him, touched the pale lips of his ethereal visitor before she continued, "I know you think this is a dream, but it is not. Or perhaps it is life that is a dream and that which comes after it is what is truly real." Thoughtfulness made an appearance in her eyes before it faded away, so that her gaze might focus fully on the confused Count once more.
"You do not understand, I see. Very well, I shall be forthright. If you pledge your service and fealty to me, then I will guide you and show you the way to that which you have longed for, but do not think is possible anymore. I tell you that it is, if you only trust in me and swear your eternal loyalty."
Anger flooded through Albert, snapping him out of his reverie as he jumped forward, his face flushed, "What madness do you speak, woman? My liege lord is Otto von Nordheim, the Duke of Bavaria, he in turn vassal to King Heinrich of Germany. And if you be some succubus here to suck away my soul, I tell you now that my spirit is forever in God's keeping and it shall not be otherwise!"
Sadness came to know the woman's face just then, the tragedy of heavy lines, bowed head, and lowered eyes a play that only enhanced her incomparable beauty. When she spoke again, her voice was even softer and sweeter than before, so endearing and enchanting that there are no words sufficient for it.
"The God that you have given your soul to has caused me great pain. His followers rape and kill my followers. I have never sought quarrel with your Yahweh and only wished to peacefully co-exist with him, but he insists on rubbing out every last vestige of my strength until I am no more. Tell me this, Count Albert von Tirol. In your truest heart of hearts, can you look upon me and honestly tell me that you have been able to keep your faith these past eleven years?"
What was this woman before him? wondered Albert to himself. She certainly didn't look like Satan or speak like him, and the Devil takes many disguises. And yet, there was the feeling of serenity he had around her, unlike that he'd experienced in a very long time. For the first time since that coffin had first lowered into the ground with his cherished father's body inside, he began to believe that perhaps his life was not a waste after all.
And too, there was the pointed question she posed. Though the Count did not want to admit it, to her or to himself, he *had* lost his faith in God during these last bleak years. It had been five years since he attended church, and at least three since he last spoke a prayer.
It was the last memory that decided it for him. If this woman were Lucifier in guise and his soul lost, then so be it. Hell's punishments could certainly not be worse than the suffering he had undergone since losing his father. Nodding, Albert looked up to the woman once more, "I accept and pledge myself to you."
She smiled serenely as she slipped away from the ground, soaring back into the sky and her source of origin, "I am pleased, Albert von Tirol. I will tell you now what is to pass. Tomorrow, three brave men will come to your castle and offer their fealty to you. Accept, and you will at long last have a court. Then you must find yourself a bride, so that you may have heirs and continue your line. I will not tell you who to marry, for in this I agree with Yahweh that humans must have free choice."
As she was about to say more, Albert broke in, "But what about you? Who are you? I want to tell the world about you and bring more people to you, so that you may help them as you have helped me!"
By now, the woman was almost to the very moon itself and had begun to recede into it. Hearing his words, she smiled gently, each word of her reply a soothing caress to Albert's ears and soul.
"If the lords you are vassal to knew that you have sworn yourself to me, they would kill you immediately and all would be for naught. Here is what you shall do. For now, you will keep silent about this night and this meeting. In time, all shall become clear, so long as you continue to trust in me."
And then she was gone, leaving a stunned Albert to mull over the very curious and strange events of the evening.
Whatever was to happen in the coming days, for good or for ill, at the very least his life would be cured of dreary monotony, and that, he mused, was worth everything.