~ part one ~
Morgan sits at her desk, a quill in hand writing.
"And so it begins again in fire. Our fire. We carry it now from Greece to Rome to undo from within their own soul and story.
"The legends of Rome will never rise but those we take with us. For the women of Sabine we sail or die this night. Tales told or untold, forgotten and careless, or victorious tomorrow.
"About the rumors. I cannot deny them. A new power which rises, the scared whispers passed about of her strange magics and wind dancing armies. Exaggerations of monsters beyond count or calculation. Still I do feel her eyes upon me tonight, as so many have claimed of late.
"The air is cold. Wind sharp and at our back, pushing us harshly. We will go to fight but would fail to flee. She watches, I know. I know if we retreat the monsters will come. From the sea, from the air, and from within. I've told no one.
"I know too that with her cruel wind at our back, we will win. Then someday soon, I will meet our unknown benefactor and I wonder if it will go so well."
____
In her palace, the keeper slams shut her book with a smile.
____
In her quarters, Morgan lightly winces as with a slight sudden pain, then gone.
"Captain LeFey"
She puts down her quill and rises, rolling the page to tie it with a ribbon, then that to the leg of a crow at the window.
~ The Sabine Tale ~
(Hold On - Sam and Dave)
As the crow takes flight it shows they fly over sea followed by a tornado and a riverboat.
____
A woman with light hair wearing a blue and white dress stands on the farmhouse porch in the strong winds. Another woman with dark hair wearing the same dress walks out the front door carrying two tea cups and hands one to the brooding woman, turning to stare and sip alongside her.
The house rides the tornado, quickly passed by a grinning man in goggles riding a bicycle which spins a fan in the back, suspended beneath a hot air balloon. The basket is filled with fireworks, cocktails, and dynamite, with a cigar (blunt) clenched in his teeth.
____
The riverboat parts from the rest, deck dropping canoes as it nears parallel to the shore, near a river inlet, divers following.
Three aft paddle wheels, two on the aft sides, on direct back, with a fourth on the front, a grinder like. A long fore deck allowing the frog, above and behind, the command deck, Jim at the wheel. Third deck has Tom, Becky and 'I'm your Huckleberry' scouting with rifles.
On the fore deck a giant bullfrog nods his head anticipating battle. On his back a grey bearded man does the same, loading .54 caliber wax pack pistols (the biggest ever), his belt lined with loaded spindles.
Inside is the casino, filled with gamblers quietly spending, the people from the tavern in The Rough Storybook, seen to be Twain's characters, period gamblers, older pirates and natives playing cards ignoring all else, the pitcher bearer walking between and filling their drinks.
____
At the river front an old man wearing a diving bell suit pulls a large cannon across from the water, joined by the Hero Twins and their small army as they disembark their canoes.
They pull them ashore, tossing them into the tall grass and crouch into a low march toward the ragged fort, the foundation of Rome.
____________
A warrior stares up at the sun, hard breathing pierced by arrows.
Deep voice - "You've carried our ways long into these dark days after Olympos burning. You've well served and practiced them without politic."
Kneeling warrior - "I wander the field for the side I enter. I make war there until peace. I find another field. It is our way."
Voice - "But will you now perform a task for me specific ? To serve directly ?"
Warrior - "I have always served. I have heard in dreams what I believed your words, and I followed them true."
Voice - "Every step you performed unto death. And so here you are. In time to avenge the burning of Olympos. To build anew. You will oversee this."
Warrior - "To build again from the old ways ..."
Voice - "And so for the building, Hephaestus. Brothers slain. House abandoned. Mercilessly lost. With the name of Vulcan, he awaits you with your delivered army."
Warrior - "To war. To rise."
The warrior now Mars exits the temple to Aries, Vulcan waiting, brooding over the plans for the soldier's armor. As he sees Mars, he stands upright, the table closing and moving behind him.
Formerly Hephaestus, humanoid, wrapped in his gearworks with a folded drafting table attached to his back, walking on it's four legs following his own. It sidesteps swivelling at his waist around to the front, unfolding before him with relevant designs and tools at hand.
He bears this weight somewhat inelegantly, as a broken bodied iron worker, brooding and pulling at it to his command. A tired load he's grown to accept.
The idea is that after Venus left him, he became both depressed and obsessed with his works, choosing almost suicidally to let them engulf him, leaving little of the man. As with the armor he creates, it's never certain how alive or broken the wearer may be, or how unbroken they need to be.
Mars healed and armored anew, looking over a beach head field with tens of thousands, hundreds of ships in the fleet past them, toned in brass as Vulcan's creations. Massive crossbows mount their decks, their hulls decorous.
The soldiers' cheer in chant the name of Mars as he becomes seen to them.
Suits of armor crawl from the hills and trees, down the temple mountainside to the soldiers, springing heavily and painfully to their backs, some falling to knees as they brace themselves, gritting teeth, some chewing leather for the pain.
All covered, they begin their march to the boats, loading and preparing in disconcerting unison.
________________
The Hero Twins ~
Twins - "Tell us the story !"
________
Xquic kneels before the highly adorned statue, her traditionally clothed, him wearing golden armor plates. She looks up shyly ...
Xquic - "I can see up your skirt ..."
____
Xquic - To the 5 year old twins, "Your father was a god and I didn't know him very well ..."
____
She holds out her hands to the totem ...
____
"But he watches over us and he's very proud of you."
____
Before the statue, she smiles and reaches low.
________________
Mars stands next to a well armored merchant atop a hill outside a ragged fort being reinforced by the soldiers for heavy attack. They watch the tornado come and Romulus begins to fret at the sight of the tornado.
Romulus - "How can we fight this ... we are lost. What is this ? How can we protect our women ?"
He looks across to their approach, then the darkening sky with thunder rumbling deep in the approaching storm, a frigid sudden breeze. Vulcan looks up from his plans with a grin.
Mars - Looks at Romulus with disgust, staring, "... you fear to die because you know not how to live." He looks over the filed beneath them, his matched soldiers lined up in force. "! Give thanks this day ! Give thanks to Aries ! For this day ! We fight ! The wind !"
His soldiers roar their readiness.
Mars - Looks back to the coward, "We care not for you, slaver." Back to his soldiers, "Nor the preservation of your quarry." Calling to his soldiers, "We do this for Aries ! We do this for ! WAR !
The soldiers roar in reply.
Mars - "One score best to ride the wind ! Pull the rope from the docks ! We need it all and set me their spindles deep ! Hard crank and lash yourselves down ! It comes ! Twenty best to fly as ! GODS !"
________________
In the Jade Palace ~
Lieu Hanh - Dressed in ceremonial attire, flopping her long sleeves. "I Hate the damn cup !"
The Jade Emperor - In a tone, "It's filled with enlightenment."
Lieu Hanh - "I know what's in it." She turns her back.
Jade Emperor - Holding the gleaming cup out to her, "Daughter please. This is nonsense. Why must you refuse to carry this ?"
Lieu Hanh - "Because it's just a fucking cup !"
Jade Emperor - Straightens and withdrawing the cup. "Leave. Find your wisdom. Find your peace. It is clear you will not find it here. My daughter farewell unto found. I will watch over you."
Lieu Hanh - Storming away, "Stop doing that ! It's really creepy and I'm going to have sex with everyone !"
________________
Vulcan walks behind the soldiers as glide wings of heavy field leather, rough and random. Heavy dock rope is hooked to a ring connecting four chains hanging from their backs like a kite string as they stand, the rest fleeing the beach head.
(Gimme Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group)
Boats shake in the water as the wind picks up from the approaching tornado.
The twenty warrior all begin to rise with Mars into the air, anchored by heavy rope slowly unwound from cranks turned by lashed soldiers, while some who didn't make it away are swept.
The boats rise shortly after, turning heavy crossbows, crews again lashed to their posts. They launch the log sized arrows into the tornado, seeking the top against the wind.
Mars watches the approaching storm through thin eye slits, leather wing flapping hard in the wind as he shakes, trailing the kite's tail. They enter the tornado.
Through the slits they see farm animals and detritus, all flying in the edges of the cyclone. Cows and horses, pigs and chickens, a dodo bird and strange creatures swoop by attacking on their way as he's bumped by a great dragon behind him, the Jabberwock.
Barely seeing it's form sweeping by then devouring one of his soldiers in it's arc around the inside vortex, then moving on to the next, it looks back at Mars coming around again in the cyclone.
Beneath the Jabberwock's flight he sees the Orson in the tornado's eye. Lashed to the deck with Lieu Hanh, Xquic takes a spiraling shot and curses as it blows a hole through his wing.
Mars tangles the Jabberwock's approach in the rope, punching it's face to it's annoyance before it's glide is broken and begins to falter. Mars kicks off above yet higher. He sees the farmhouse topping the edge of the tornado and starts using the approaching debris and animals to kick higher toward it.
He reaches the underside of the house and looks down as the last of his soldiers is taken by the Jabberwock, looking back.
From inside the farmhouse Mars punches through the floor, pounding enough wood through to allow the folding wings. He works through, watching the approaching beast as it arcs again toward him. He breaks floorboards and dragging himself in, onto the floor while the roaring shadow passes beneath the hole.
Around him closed cupboards hold rattling dishes while furniture slides to and fro in the quaking house. He sees Alison Dorothy out the banging screen door and smiles as the rope pulls him suddenly back. Desperately cutting before pulled in, he gets up again, furniture across the room.
Toward the porch again, his path then is blocked by a mastiff walking from the hallway between, growling before a leap. Mars catches Toto and holds off the bite in a struggle before kicking the huge dog over himself through the hole in the floor. With a whine Toto flies into the whirlwind.
Mars gets up and walks toward Alison Dorothy yet again while they drink tea without notice, whispering and pointing with giggles at the field below, tree sized arrows flying by, missing the house, but one chipping a corner.
Mars places a hand on each of their shoulders and their eyes go wide.
The tornado extinguishes, sending animals flying in all directions and bringing the house into a free fall. Mars slams into the porch ceiling, noting the straps holding down Alison Dorothy's feet as he crawls past their tea sipping scowls, tea starting to hover over their cups, and leaps from the roof into a glide out over the ocean.
The house falls fast to the beach while Alison Dorothy continue to sip, stepping off before it strikes the ground with the wind sending them away from the destruction to their feet, catching most the tea back in the cups.
They look at each other turn to the collapsed house with a pointing whisper, giggling as they sip the tea.
______________
