The Queen and the Wolf

THE BEGINNING

Once, there was a young Queen who had struck out on her own, far away from her kingdom.  In her kingdom, she had felt as though she didn’t truly belong.  In the foreign land to which her nation sent her, she felt much more at home, but only when she mingled with the locals and visited the neighbouring lands.

            The young Queen sought a young King and found a Knight.  The Knight was mild-mannered, fun-loving, and all-American.  The Queen could feel her secular, Euro-centric values cringe around him, but she largely enjoyed his company and found herself fall in love with who he was.  Eventually, though, she realized that the Knight was not interested in sharing things with her the way she did with him.  He complained a lot about things that could easily have been fixed, and the Queen felt herself drained of investing time and energy into the relationship.

            One day, the Queen met a sickly wolf cub wearing a mask.  The mask was lopsided and dishevelled, and the Queen’s heart was struck with sympathy upon looking at the poor creature.  With pity for the cub in her heart, the Queen spent time with him, getting to know him and letting him know her.  The longer the Queen spent with the cub, the more he looked like a grown wolf, as if the mask he had worn when she met him had straightened out and become his being.  The Queen was fooled, and the cub’s Glamour caught the Queen under its spell.

            The time came for the Queen to move to another land.  Terrified of losing the cub who had appeared to treat her so well, the Queen held a ceremony to bind herself and the cub together. In so doing, she remained in the foreign land for another year.  It was not an ideal situation, thought the Queen, but she thought she would be happy with her Wolf.

THE CREATION OF A FAMILY

            The day came when the Queen realized she would be having a baby.  By this time, she had begun to notice that the wolf did not behave as a wolf should.  He had no pack, only a mother in a far-away place.  He was unclean, and any task he took on in the home the Queen had chosen for them to share was accomplished without completion and without propriety.  Clothes to be washed shrank in the doing; dishes to be cleaned came out crusted and oily.  The Queen had been depressed from the subconscious realization of the wolf’s inability to function as an adult, but hadn’t wanted to recognize it.  Once pregnant, it was unavoidable, but the Queen had a great deal of fear.

            A baby was a terrifying concept to the Queen, who had thought she would live out her days barren, forever a maiden.  The idea of raising the baby alone so terrified her that she left the foreign land and returned to her kingdom, with plans for the wolf to join her there.  She knew, with the support of her family, a retired King and Queen, she would find the strength and serenity to adjust to such a major change in her life.  And she believed that the sickly wolf would benefit from the same.

            The Queen’s family welcomed her back with love and support, outlining expectations for the Queen’s behaviour during her stay in the family home, in addition to expectations for the wolf upon his arrival.

            The wolf was to find work.  He was to move forward in such a way as to support the Queen and the new-born babe.  He was to keep his money and put it away in order to find a castle for himself and the Queen, in which to raise the precious infant. The wolf did none of these things.

            Instead of looking for work, the wolf slept throughout the day.  Instead of putting any monies aside for a castle for the Queen to whom he had been bound, the wolf spent his money each time he left the family home, waking up too late to engage in breakfast and going out during dinner times.  Even when leaving the house, the wolf was in a state of partial undress.  The old, retired King spoke to the wolf and informed him that he needed to demonstrate modesty and remain clothed in their home.  The wolf refused, and instead walked about the Queen’s family home as though it were rightfully his, his clothing largely missing or in a dishevelled state of disorganization.  Additionally, the wolf decided to stay up every night and remove the new-born baby from the Queen’s care, feeding the babe artificial nutrients behind the Queen’s back and undermining the Queen’s nursing schedule with the infant.  By so doing, the wolf knew that he was sabotaging the bond between the mother Queen and the new-born princess, a deliberate act the wolf perpetrated to gain control over the infant.

THE DECLINE OF HEALTH

            The Black Queen caught the wolf in the lie.  She confronted him about feeding her princess artificial materials and was quite ready to throw the wolf—the sickly cub that he was—out of her family’s home and out of her life and the life of her princess.  But the retired Queen told her that perhaps, just maybe, the wolf truly did act in this way with her best interests at heart, and so the young Queen found her heart softened yet again, and she stayed.  She allowed the wolf cub to stay, and he poisoned her mind against the retired King and Queen, so that they left the family home much too soon.

            Years passed, and chaos abounded.  The Queen engaged with her tiny princess every chance she had, preparing activities for the baby as she grew that would help her learn what she needed to know to grow into a queen of her own. Still, the Queen fell into severe depression as the wolf exercised his covert control methods over her and the baby princess.  With every activity the Queen commenced, the wolf would take the baby away.  He held the infant child away from the Queen, poisoning the princess against her mother.  The Queen tried everything—she encouraged the wolf to find work, but when he did, he didn’t hold the position for any significant amount of time.  The Queen and the wolf each attended school, though the Queen had much difficulty due to the wolf’s behaviour at home.  The Queen made multiple attempts to find work around her, but all failed due to the stresses she faced while dealing with the sickly wolf to which she had bound herself.

            In the beginning of the chaos, the Queen and the wolf took the princess to visit the wolf’s homeland.  So it was that the Queen first laid eyes upon the domain of the wolf’s mother, a wolf who kept her pack close yet was nearly as sick as her son.  The visit was disastrous, and the sickly wolf disowned his mother upon their exit from the land.  As time went on, the Queen encouraged him to forgive, for this was his mother.  The sickly wolf refused.

            “She told me I’m a bad father,” the wolf cried.  “I cannot forgive her. I’m not ready.”  And when the Queen brought guests to the home, the wolf would tell them, “My mother is a two-faced bitch.  I hate her.”  And he would tell them about how she had screamed at him, and at the Queen, during their visit to his homeland.  How she had screamed in front of the new-born princess and thrown the Queen out of the wolves’ den, unprotected and distraught.

THE RECOGNITION

            In the midst of this chaos, the Queen met a Priestess.  The Priestess was powerful and kind, and the Queen felt an immediate warmth within her heart upon meeting the spiritual leader.  But the wolf was not so keen.  The wolf growled at the Priestess and snapped at her, doing everything in his power to keep her away from the baby princess while the wolf continued to hinder the tiny child’s development.  The wolf’s behaviour caused the baby princess to cry for him when he was not near her.  He carried her everywhere, insisting she be on his back when she was able to walk and not once teaching her any of the things a new princess ought to know in order to deal with the world around her.  The Queen hired the Priestess to keep an eye on the princess, to help teach and guide the little girl so that she could have a normal childhood and grow up to be strong, independent, intelligent, and wise.  But what the Priestess witnessed in the house the Queen shared with the sickly wolf so disturbed the Priestess that she could not continue in her position with the small child.  And so, the Queen was at a loss yet again.

            It took longer for the Queen to realize just how sick the wolf truly was.  She did not want to believe she had made such a grave mistake in binding herself to him.  She did not want to believe that the wolf would deliberately sabotage her relationship with the princess, or that he would deliberately infuriate her and do things wrong on purpose.  The Queen and the wolf were set to leave another home prematurely, when the Queen saw the Priestess for what she thought would be the last time.  The Priestess knew something was very wrong and looked the Queen in the eye.

            “The wolf is not grown, my dear, he is merely a cub.  And he is very sick.  Notice how he has found no pack to join while you two have lived in this land.  Notice how little contact he has with his pack in his own land.  These are bad signs for a wolf, for wolves are pack animals.  There is nothing wrong with loving a wolf, but if you do not let this one go, he will corrupt and poison your whole life.  He will poison your relationships and corrupt your mind further than he already has.  You must leave him, and take your princess with you, for he can do no good for her.”  The Priestess was insistent and passionate, holding the Queen’s hands in her powerful palms and fixing her amazing gaze upon the Queen.

            When the Queen returned to the home she and the wolf had shared and were now leaving, she presented him with her thoughts.  She said, “I do not wish to leave this land again,” and even as the words passed her lips they surprised her, for she had once wanted nothing more than to be free of her own kingdom.  Now, she found, she needed to establish her place within it and rule where she fit best.  The wolf had nothing of substance to offer, instead doing everything he could to turn conversation around so that he could use his words to fool the Queen again.  He wished for nothing more than to give her any words that she wanted to hear, just so he could think she felt better and wouldn’t pester him again.  But the Queen knew what to look for, this time, and she noticed the sickly wolf’s desire to say nothing of true substance and answer no questions legitimately.

            She considered the affair the wolf had had, in her own bed, in the home they shared.  She considered the wolf’s mother, telling her prior to his arrival in her land that he had had an affair with someone in his own kingdom.  The Queen sat quietly and looked with sadness at the wolf, seeing his Glamour falling away and yet still wishing she could make him better.  But she now knew that she did not have the antidote for whatever ailed him, and she knew that it was best for herself and her princess to let the sickly wolf go.  This was further confirmed when the wolf said:

            “If you’d be done with me, then be done with me.”

            With sadness, the Queen gazed at the wolf and replied, “I have never said I wished to be done with you… yet this is not the first time you have said such a thing.  You’ve said things like this many times in these years, and I think it is time to explore the option and for us to go our separate ways for some time.”  The Queen was filled with sorrow as she gazed at the sickly wolf, his face emotionless and his body language guarded.  It had always been guarded, she realized.

THE SEPARATION

            The Queen returned to her family home, broken and distraught, with her young princess.  The wolf fled the land, first running to a foreign land to visit distant acquaintances, then speeding back to his homeland, where his pack licked his wounds while he dismissed their unyielding tolerance, support, and coddling of his actions.

            The Queen watched as the sickly wolf’s mother defended his egregious behaviour.  The mother wolf accused the Queen of lies she had never told.  The mother wolf accused the Queen of slandering her sickly cub, and she made veiled threats against the Queen from the safety of her homeland and the surety she found in having her cub back in her den.  The Queen learned much in her observations.

            Among the lessons, the Queen found her power, the power she had vested into the sickly wolf and now could take back for herself.  She learned how to deal with the pain of her mistakes and move forward, and forward she moved.  She was finally able to create a bond with her wonderful princess, and she even found school for the little girl as she, the Queen, resumed her own education with much greater focus and determination.

            So it was that the Queen grew into her power and became the Black Queen.  With the support of the Priestess and the retired King and Queen, the Black Queen moved to sever the tie she had created with the sickly wolf.  There were doubts, and the Black Queen thought she should take it as far as she could and remove all right the wolf could have had to seeing the princess.  But she knew that it would not stand, not for lack of justice but for lack of evidence, and so the Black Queen ultimately came to settle upon simply ensuring that she would always have her Princess in sight and care.  The princess had a right to know the wolf, and so the Black Queen would do nothing to hinder that, despite her own knowledge and reservations concerning the sickly cub.  She persevered, trudging through the judicial system, juggling the case with her classes and caring for the little princess.  All of this was in the face of veiled threats made by the sickly wolf and his mother, the two of them overestimating their abilities against a Queen with an army.

THE WAR

            The Black Queen took the sickly wolf to trial.  The wolf made every attempt to beguile the Queen, flashing his Glamour to the best of his ability, but the Queen was far above such trickery, now.  She had seen the signs, she had recognized the sickness within the wolf.  She now knew that no wolf who walked alone was a healthy one, and she knew what she needed to do to ensure her princess’s safety and well-being.

            The wolf’s trickery nearly worked when the Black Queen attended a pre-trial conference.  The mediator, who existed only to determine whether an agreement could be reached between the wolf and the Queen, warned the Black Queen that the Judge could rule more favourably for the wolf than desired.  Worry set in the heart of the Queen and she returned to her home, the home she established with her princess, and she prepared for battle.  The wolf had dared her to bring her army, and the Black Queen was happy to oblige.

            So, the Black Queen assembled her army, an army she wasn’t quite sure she had.  She called upon the powerful Priestess, the retired Queen, and the Duchess, the Harlequin, the harlot, and the bard.  She had six people at her side when the Black Queen walked into the Judge’s domain to face the wolf, and when she laid eyes upon him, she realized how truly sickly he was.

            The wolf sat alone with poor posture.  As the Black Queen strode into the room, he informed the Judge’s assistant that he had no one with him, no witnesses to support his claims or requests.  The Black Queen felt her heart swell with relief while her eyes widened in surprise at just how truly alone this wolf was.  Despite his pack in his homeland, none had shown with him to help him fight this battle.

THE FINAL BATTLE

            After some time, the wolf and the Black Queen were finally before the Judge.  No one was present in the room but the Queen, the wolf, the Judge, and the Judge’s assistants.  The Black Queen’s army waited outside, prepared to fight for her.  The sickly wolf sat alone, as he had.  The Judge first directed her questions at the Black Queen—the process was not quite what the Queen had prepared for, but that did not mean she was unprepared. And so, her response to the Judge was as follows:

            “This case is about the custody and care of the young princess.  She has lived with me since the wolf and I parted ways and she is thriving.  The princess is a wonderful, sweet little girl who is speaking much more clearly now and attends preschool full time.  She sees the retired King and Queen twice a week, as needed for my school schedule, and we really have a good support system here.”  The Black Queen spoke with her head high, her words clear and concise and well prepared for this fight.  She would ensure with every fibre in her being that the princess remained safe and maintained her developmental momentum.  She would fight against the uprooting of the princess from the life she had built.

            But the Black Queen never had to raise a sword.  Not a single soldier was called to the stand for the Queen.  The Judge directed her questions to the sickly wolf, who fumbled and fell short.

            The wolf stumbled over his words, stuttering over his requests and alleged demands.  He presented paperwork to the Judge that requested the princess be uprooted from the life to which she had become accustomed.  The papers suggested limiting the Black Queen to two weeks out of a year in which to see the princess, and further papers claimed the Queen owed the wolf monies for bills that had been paid without her knowledge. The Judge looked the wolf in his face.

            “It seems to me you’re being vindictive in these requests.”  The Judge asked the Black Queen about the debts presented by the wolf, and while she had been unprepared for such allegations, she responded clearly and without hesitation that those bills were solely the wolf’s responsibility due to the circumstances under which they were paid.  The Judge agreed.

            “The princess will remain with the Black Queen.  You, wolf, will return to this land three times each year to visit the princess.  These visitations will be during the daytime only, and they will be supervised.  The Black Queen will approve of the visitation location, provide for transportation of the princess, and determine who supervises the visitations.”  And with a swish of her black robe, the Judge was gone, and it was so ordered.

THE VICTORY

            With relief filling her being, the Black Queen accompanied the sickly wolf to the clerks who finalized the paperwork, her entourage trailing along.  She could feel the wolf’s self-pity, his indignation at the justice carried out.  The Black Queen could feel that the wolf felt as though he were surrounded, ganged up on, and she couldn’t help but wonder why this poor, pathetic creature would dare challenge the Black Queen to bring her army only to face it alone.  She realized, without weight on her heart this time, that the wolf did not realize the extent of his sickness.  This wolf thought it normal to walk alone, without his pack.  And the Black Queen thought of how, in an earlier age, she would have pitied the wolf.  But now, she thought only of how foolish he was to have issued a challenge he couldn’t have hoped to prevail over.

            The wolf left the courthouse prematurely, the final paperwork yet to be printed.  He flew back to his homeland, to the sickly pack that did not properly care for him, licking his wounds all the way and whining of injustice.  The Black Queen sat alone and graciously accepted the finalized papers, still warm and smelling of toner from the press.  And so the Black Queen made her exit from the Judge’s domain and from the courthouse, and shared her victory with all who had arrived to support her for the battle that was won without a weapon.