Palaver Poppycock + Prattle 05

Poppyland – Back to the Grazing Unicorns and Meeting His Royal Nonsense

As she got close enough to almost touch the delightful equines, she heard the faintest trumpets or horns playing, off in the distance.  Maybe from over the hill that was rising up behind the herd.

It was a fanfare, she thought.  First just one, then several, playing a few more notes, until finally it sounded like something similar to the Rimsky Korsakov March of the Nobles.  Only it also had a dancing, prancing faster kind of two beat going on too, like the dance from the opera where Orpheus went to the underworld that Jacques Offenbach wrote and they later turned into a ballet called Gaite Parisian.  Her mom had a CD with Arthur Fiedler conducting that can-can, which was the music most people knew.  Only this now was just a hint of that kind of dancing music, not the full blown production.

At least, not until the parade leader crested the hill and flew up to the unicorn herd.  At first, Symona thought the gleaming white stallion was just leaping up, but then she realized that he was not going up and down at all.  The brilliant solid white creature had a horn, true, but he also had huge swan like wings, a dozen feet long each at the very least.  Spread wide, the mighty equine was flapping them almost idly to keep himself aloft as he flicked his tail merrily behind his rider.

And what a rider he was!  The man seated on the great stallion's back looked hugely impressive.  Symona had never seen a man so tall and elegant.  He looked like an overgrown china doll, his skin was so pale; it was actually white.  At least his cheeks were white, and his forehead and nose and chin and pretty much all of his face.  But not his eyes.  Those looked like they belonged on a colorful peacock, they were many different shades of blue and green, and sparkling wildly as if they were totally covered in rainbow glitter.

He sat quite erect in his seat, like an emperor surveying his demesnes or something.  But rather than a simple coronet or crown, he had what looked like a crested roman centurion helmet, with ostrich or maybe peacock or some other large bird's feathers the same scintillating colors as the poppies in the fields that rose several feet above him.  Symona was frankly amazed that he could keep his towering helmet on, flying along on the back of a winged unicorn that looked like he was rearing up in the air, his ankle feathering flaring out to make his hooves seem even more massive.

The flying unicorn began back winging, his resplendent plumage sculling the air beneath him as he set down on the field in the middle of the unicorn herd who had oh so conveniently fanned out to clear a landing space in their midst.  Tiny whirlpools or eddies whirled around in little circles beneath his wing tips as he set first one, then the other of his back hooves down on the grass, pawing at the air in a fine rampant pose.  After a brief moment, he tilted forward, setting his front hooves firmly down on the ground as well.  His rider seemed wholly unaffected by the position shift, but remained seated regally on his back, his ruby red lips slightly pursed.

The regal rider then swung one leg over his mount's broad shoulders, sitting for a brief moment side saddle before sliding easily down to the ground.  As his boot clad feet hit the ground, Symona realized they were not merely rider boots, they were some kind of pump platform boots that easily added half a foot or more to the wearer's already towering height.  Gleaming white, they looked like some kind of vinyl or maybe patent leather buffed to a glossy shine and had criss crossing ribbons of glittering sapphire rhinestones running up to a few inches below his knees where the boots ended with slightly overturned cuffs of gilded padding that looked like it might be velvet or something else soft.  Striped cream on ever so light gray hose filled the gap between his boot tops and his knicker bottoms.

Also a pristine, dazzlingly bright white, his pants really were knee britches that looked like they fastened at the knees with actual silver ribbon that tied in neat little bow ties on the outside of either leg.  

As her eyes traveled up his body, taking in the whole spectacle of the man, Symona found herself saying almost without thinking, "I should bow to him, he looks like an emperor."

"Well, you should."  The bewigged dandy glanced off over his left shoulder in the distance, as if waiting for more praise he obviously felt he deserved.  Symona blinked, then blushed furiously.

Oh no, had he actually heard her?  Symona was aghast.  She had been thinking he looked like some kind of emperor bride all in dazzling white with that massive headdress and glittering sprays of white and silver all over his knee britches and jacket and vest and everything else that made up his pristine ensemble.  

As she stared down at his boots, the man suddenly seemed to have a capricious change of mood, removing his massive headdress and handing it over to a convenient servant who had almost magically appeared at his elbow to take it, then leaned forward.  Turning his toes slightly inward, he rested his hands on his knees as he leaned down to say in a sotto voce half whisper, his lips twitching into a disarming smile, "It's all quite alright, pudding.  You can't help but be enamored of my awesome presence.  I understand."

Pudding?  Did he just call me pudding?  Symona looked up, speechless, into eyes framed by the most lavish and elongated lashes she had ever seen.  They were painted a dark purplish black, and were at least an inch and a half or so long.  Both upper and lower lashes were heavy, like an Egyptian painting or something, and then the whole eye socket was colored, not just his lids, with the peacock hues that sparkled as they caught and reflected the sunlight in their glittery hues.  He even had what looked like rhinestones at the corners, both inside near the base of his nose and out at the outer edges, too.

"Who are you?" she stammered, wishing she could think of a better question to ask.

The fancy dandy guy took a half step backwards, raising one hand to his chest as he flung his other, his right hand, out to his side and back.  His lips parted as he gasped in a quick intake of air, then rolled his eyes skyward for just a moment before letting his breath back out with a musical "ooh" that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a small bird's cry, like a dove or pheasant or something cooing.  "Wherever do you come from, my dear, that you have never heard of His Royal Nonsense, Prince Poppycock?  Surely you are not from anywhere within the borders of this, my kingdom."

Symona really had no idea what to say.  She tried to answer that she was from Clarksville, Indiana, but was a camper at the summer National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, but all that would come out of her mouth was a stammering "uhm, uh, uhm.  I, uhn."  She was locking up, she knew it.  Oh, this was so horribly and totally mortifying!

Prince Poppycock looked Symona down and back up, taking in her corduroy knee britches and blue polo shirt, nodding and smiling just a trifle as he noted the case dangling from her hand, wholly forgotten.  He then reached down to chuck one finger under her chin, tilting her head slightly up.  He smiled a charming, thoroughly disarming smile.  "Oh, darling, you're a tootle fluter?  Do play us a tune."

All the unicorns nearby started bobbing and nodding their heads in an excited fashion.  "Did you hear?  Our beloved Prince wishes a performance!"

"The girl is a piper!"

"Can she really tootle the flute?"

"She looks like a little princess, doesn't she?"

A princess?  The unicorn that said that was a massive brown and white hulking gypsy fellow who had a lock of his mane coming forward over his left eye at a rakish angle.  His hooves were completely hidden by the white and silver feathering hair that spread out down his fetlocks to the ground.

"What did His Royal Nonsense say?" a youngish sounding tenor shouted from the rear of the group.

"He asked the girl to play us a tune!" another someone Symona could not see answered.

And yet another, a chestnut mare with streaks of sparkling green color in her mane and tail turned her head to add, "she has an instrument case in her hand, I think it is for a flute, it looks a little too small to be a clarinet, and is entirely too thin to be a trumpet or cornet."

Symona blinked in surprise on hearing all the equines suddenly erupt into speech.  The only horse like creatures she had ever heard talk before were just make believe.  My Little Pony horses, for instance.  And that was all made up videos, not like this at all.  Here, these great beasts were very real, she could feel the breeze of the chestnut mare's breath on her shoulder, and the immense presence of her nearness.  They were all towering over her; the unicorns, the flying pegasus unicorn stallion, the incomparable Prince Poppycock.  She felt tiny, but not scared.

There was no threat, just oddness in the surrounding country and equines and apparently several humans all around and in front of her.  And he had asked to hear her play.  "Did you want to hear any particular song or piece?"

"Oh, anything will be absolutely marvelous, I am sure, hon," the glitter covered dandy said.  "Something trés modéré or perhaps with un petit piu mouvementé.  Perhaps something that floats gently through the air like the flutter-bys in the poppy fields at dawn when the sun first rises?"

Symona nodded, thinking she knew the perfect piece.  She stooped down, laying Melody's case down on the ground, and unlocked the clasp.  Carefully, she lifted out the pieces of her flute, quickly marrying foot joint to main body, then tamping the head joint into place.  Quietly blowing into the mouthpiece, she listened for a moment, then adjusted Melody, pulling the head joint out a bit to make the pitch a smidge lower.  Once she was satisfied it was right in tune.

There was a piece by a French composer, Claude Debussy, called Syrinx that she thought would be perfect.  It was something you could kind of play with the tempo, and play it however you felt that day.  Especially with the way it kept turning around the same low notes over and over in the middle.  Raising the flute one more time to her lips, she started the Ta… da, da, daaa rhythm, dropping step by step down the first few measures before going back up to the high b-flat for the first long held note.

Then she finally drew in a quick breath and did the twisting descent another time.  It reminded Symona of a long coiled ribbon drifting down, one end loose, from a high flagpole, or the way a downy feather would dip and weave as it floated back down to the ground if you blew it up in the air.  Symona closed here eyes as she played, visualizing the sheet music on a stand in front of her, the pages laying out crisp and clean and perfectly in focus.  Memorizing music had never been much of a challenge for her as long as she could close her eyes and remember what the sheet music looked like.

Next came the quiet piano triplets, turning and leaping all over the staff.  Once she reached the high C flat above the clef she felt things click into place, and relaxed into the note, letting the clean, clear tone ring out across the fields before nudging the line up the scale a couple more steps.  Then in the next phrase, she did the descending line from the first measure all over again, only an octave lower, then began to repeat that line, only started with the variations that took the melody all up and down the scale.

She had to concentrate on her breathing, because there were not a lot of good places to take in a good deep breath.  You had to mostly just grab in a big lung full in a quick gasp, then continue the melody with as little actual break as possible.  She could hear Ms. Carol in the back of her mind reminding her to keep the line going, to be smooth as silk.  "Draw out the melody," she would say.  "You are the master weaver.  Spin the silk, let it float in the listener's ears, make it smooth and creamy."

Finally, she got to the last notes, and then let the final tone linger as long as she could keep breathing, without it getting too strained, and held her flute absolutely still for a couple more breaths once she got to the end.  Everyone around her seemed unwilling to break the silence, until His Royal Nonsense started to clap, his fingers lightly brushing together, almost without sound.  In no time, his entire entourage joined in with their applause.

"Brava!  That was absolutely divine!" the painted dandy gushed.  "Oh, mon petit cher jeune joueur de cannelure, that was marvelous.  You simply must come home with me!"

Well, why not?  This whole place was unreal.  "Alright, uh, your grace?  Your highness?"  Symona was not sure what title you were supposed to use for a prince.

Once again the chestnut mare dropped her nose down near Symona's ear and said in a soft, sotto voce half whisper, "His Royal Nonsense or His Royal Highness are the usual titles one uses when referring to Prince Poppycock, my dear."  Symona just nodded slowly.

"Stevie, love, do get this young jeune a ride?"  Prince Poppycock smiled ever so ingratiatingly toward the lean young man who had helped him to dismount a moment earlier.  He nodded as he took a half bow, then turned to Symona.

Doffing his non-existent cap to the young lady, the lean young man asked, "do you prefer traditional saddle or side saddle, miss?"

"Uhm, I have only ever ridden the little ponies they bring to county fairs in the spring.  I don't know if those have either kind of that kind of saddle.  The guy that had the ponies said something about how everything was western?"  Symona loved the idea of being able to ride, but it had just never been something that had come up.  Any summer camps for the last half dozen years had been either just day camps with the usual swimming and outdoors junk, or music related stuff like this year at Interlochen National Music Camp.

The lean young man nodded, smiling, and said, "not a problem, dear.  We'll just get you set up here on Charlena, she is very gentle with novice riders."  He smiled encouragingly to Symona as he offered her his hand.

But Symona had to put her flute up first, so she smiled, but crouched down and quickly disassembled and then swabbed out her flute, Melody.  Putting the pieces back in her case, she then said "thank you."

Stevie seemed to have no problem waiting for her to finish, he just stood there calmly with his hands folded together and resting loosely clasped near his waist.  He stood not quite straight upright, his feet about as far apart as his shoulders, and looked like he could stand that way for hours without getting tired.  He was not quite smiling, but looked pleasant enough while he waited, ever so patiently.  "Ready now, miss?"

"Can you call me Symona, or Mona?  Miss is kind of too formal.   Makes me feel like I should be wearing something much fancier than this."  Symona gestured toward her blouse and knicker knee pants, smiling slightly.

The lean young man smiled, then said, "as you wish, Symona.  Are you ready to mount up now?"

Nodding, Symona walked over next to the chestnut mare.  Stevie bent down slightly, cupping his hands together, and told her, "Now, Symona.  Grab the front of that saddle there, lightly, then just put your foot, your left foot, in my hands here and I will boost you up."  Symona tried to figure out what on the front of the saddle there was for her to grab, lightly or otherwise; there was no horn like she would have expected, just a slight raised ridge.

"Now, swing your right leg up and over.  There you go," he said, encouragingly, as Symona tried to do as he instructed, and after a brief, awkward moment, got herself up on the big mare's broad back.  It took her a little shifting to settle into the seat while the valet fellow did something to the straps on the stirrups to either side, cinching them tighter as he adjusted them short enough for her feet to slip in.

Symona waited for the young man to hand her the reins or something, but then realized that the unicorn was not wearing any kind of bridle at all, let alone something with a bit in it.  Come on, Symona, think, she told herself.  This is a unicorn, not a horse.  She knows how to talk for crying out loud!  Why would she consent to wearing a bit and bridle like a dumb animal?  Symona was very glad they could not see her thoughts, but it still made her blush furiously as she sat way up here, so many feet above the ground, wondering what was going to happen next.

And how were they going to fly anyway?  The mare was a unicorn, but not one with wings.  Symona was very puzzled.

"All right, Symona, are you ready?" the young valet asked her.  Symona just nodded, even though she was not at all sure she was ready.  And she still had no idea what to expect.

"If you are nervous, darling young one, you may lean forward and wrap your arms around my neck or grip my mane, just try not to pull too hard if you do that, alright?" the chestnut mare said, startling Symona as she tilted her head back to regard her with one huge, cocoa brown eye.  "I promise I will not let you fall, alright?"

"Uh, yes ma'am" was all Symona could bring herself to say in answer.

"Please, dear.  Call me Charlena.  Ma'am is kind of too formal.   Makes me feel like I should be wearing ribbons and streamers in my mane or something."  The chestnut mare then nickered a bit under her breath, and Symona realized she was chuckling.

"Yes ma'… Charlena.  Alright."

The Prince had already risen into the air, mounted on his magnificent white stallion with the massive swan wings sprouting from its broad shoulders.  The Prince apparently tucked his boots in just under where the wings came out, because Symona could not see anything beneath his knees.

As the lead stallion flapped his wings during his ascent, he also pawed the air with his hooves.  And every time it looked as if his hooves touched down they were pressing into some kind of clear membrane that started to leak all sorts of colors.  It really did look like someone was squirting colors into a pool of water.  Each hoof coming down would start a pool of orange, or yellow or green and even a bright royal blue that would start spreading out as if it were a powder or something suspended in liquid, slowly dissolving in it until it spread out in a long band of color.

Then his wing tips would sort of splash into the invisible pool and add streaks of red on the left, and purple on the right.  The stallion was, Symona realized, actually creating a rainbow road in the sky, and it was not just a visual effect!  Once the colors became more solid, unicorns were starting to trot along it as if it were a solid path on the ground!  He was making a rainbow in the sky where his hooves and wingtips fell and others were trotting along behind him on the magically appearing path.  It was totally unbelievable!

And then Charlena took up the rainbow path herself, and Symona felt a rush of fear give way to one of absolute delight as they rose up in the sky, her fingers digging into the sparkly green and tan of her unicorn's mane, the fresh wind blowing ever so lightly in her face.  She was, in fact, flying!

Well, trotting along a rainbow should count as flying, shouldn't it?  It definitely felt springier than when Charlena was trotting on the solid ground in the field.  This was more like… like being in a balloon jump house, only not quite that springy.  But her hooves were definitely sinking down a little into something that was kind of spongy.  Like she was walking on the top of a bean bag chair or something.  Symona dared to look down for a brief moment, trying to see if she could see the mare's hooves, but all she could see was the rippling ribbons of color beneath them, and then, as if she were looking through a Jello mold or something, the ground, kind of wavy and out of focus, through the streaming colors.

Symona felt very dizzy, and gripped Charlena's mane tight in her hands as she struggled to get back into her seat more firmly.  "Calm down, my dear Symona," the matronly mare called over her shoulder.  "I promised I would not let you fall, and I am not one to break my promises.  I will not let you slip and fall.  Enjoy yourself, dear!"

Oh, no.  Where was her Melody?  Symona realized suddenly that she was not holding her flute's hard case.  She jerked upright in her seat, then felt something tap at the small of her back.  She tried to look around to see what it was, but found herself losing her balance again, so she stopped that really quick.  Instead, she reached with one hand (her right hand) around to the small of her back, trying to get a feel for what it was that was tapping at the small of her back when she leaned back.  As her fingers came across the bumpy, hard surface of the case, then traced along the edge to one of the buckle fasteners, she realized it was the missing case.  But how was it staying there?

Ah, that valet guy, Stevie, must have tied it on to the back of this saddle or something, she realized.  How was it she had missed that completely until now?  It was because she was too overwhelmed at the idea of riding an honest to goodness unicorn, she answered herself.  Silly Mona, a talking, sparkle and glitter covered horse with a horn jutting out of its forehead offers to take you on a ride through the air on a rainbow bridge that a flying pristine white unicorn with swan wings casts like magic as he leads the way comes along and suddenly nothing else matters?  It was a good thing that that His Royal Nonsense, Prince Poppycock had such loyal servants that took care of the mundane details like that or you would probably lose your own head she told herself.