SM: Ok. After I posted the craptacular Highwayman Oneshot of mine, despite the fact that I was severly disappointed with it, many of the readers loved it, and for that I thank you. (sniffle). I got a ton of reviews asking for me to continue it or write a sequel. So, after some deliberation, and research, I decided to write it.
When I had written the Highwayman, I had based it off a song that was on a Loreena McKenenitt album. Many of you informed me that the song had actually been based off a poem by Alfred Noyles. I had never actually heard of that before, so I went back and I looked up the poem and read it. The poem basically follows the song, except that two stanzas are missing from the song. I decided to base the sequel on the idea presented by the missing stanzas.
The sequel will take place fifteen years after the "new" Kagome is born and will be written completely in my style. In my opinion, my experiment in imagery failed, so I'm gonna try something else. Besides, I think I was just piggybacking off the greatness of Alfred Noyles poem for my oneshot. It wasn't my intent, but...oh well. I hope you enjoy the sequel, I'll see if I can have the first chapter posted by the end of the month. For now, enjoy the teaser. Oh yeah, the sequel will be titled The Old Inn Door. So...enjoy!
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The Old Inn Door
Stormy-grey eyes scanned over the pages of the old tome. It was a depressing story of love and loss. It made her want to cry. Instead, Kagome set the dusty volume back on the shelf and hopped down from the short ladder. She was in her family's library, researching a report on local myths and legends. As the most famous local legend revolved around the Inn where her family lived, she had been unanimously voted by her own classmates to write a paper on The Highwayman.
She walked back over to the table and stared at the mess of papers she had amassed. They were scattered all over the table, obscuring the surface beneath. She had been trying, futilely, for the past week to see if the old fable had a grain of truth to it. For some reason, her own family had been…less than helpful. Whenever she asked questions about the Highwayman, they would avoid her gaze and mumble an excuse to leave, or try to divert her attention.
Her grandfather, who normally loved to tell any kind of story, had only told her of the Highwayman myth when she was little. As she was growing up, strange things began to happen around her, and he had abruptly stopped telling her the story. Even her own brother acted strangely when she had brought up the subject.
In the foggy depths of her memory, she remembered she had been climbing one of the old trees out in front of the Inn. She had been really young at the time and Souta had told her that if she could climb one, she would know why the trees never sprouted any leaves. Being the inquisitive young girl that she was, she fearlessly scaled the tree, without a thought about the dangers in her head.
The tree had been a lot more fragile that she had though. As she clambered up toward the higher boughs a branch had snapped beneath her weight. Before she could even utter a shriek of fear as she plummeted, she was suddenly cradled by strong arms. Her eyes, pinched shut as she had fallen, cracked open to see her savior. She was able to make out a blur of red, white, and gold. Her cheek had been pressed up against a coat of velvet. Opening her eyes more fully, she tried to make out her savior more clearly.
A shout behind her alerted her to her brother's distress. Souta had come running up to her. Kagome stared blankly at the tree she had just fallen from. She was standing on her own feet in front of it, but couldn't really say how she got there. She remembered Souta's face that day. She had never seen him more pale. He had been frightened, truly scared. Kagome had asked what had happened, but he muttered something she couldn't understand. He scooped her up, and all but ran into the house with her.
He had been severely scolded that day by his mother. Her grandfather merely stared at her thoughtfully before trying to prescribe her some age old remedies, that she was sure would not work, for her scrapes.
Since that day, her family had danced around the topic of the fable, and it hadn't really been mentioned to her since then. The story faded to the back of her memories, so now, ironically, she had become one of the least well-informed people about the fable in town.
Kagome sighed, her eyes roaming over the papers once more. A leaflet caught her attention. She fished it out from the piles and read it, eyes widening. It was a poem of the story, but it seemed more complete than any other rendition of it that she had read. It also contained a stanza that seemed to be missing from every other story.
On the night the Highwayman had visited his love, a stable boy had been there. He watched the scene between the lovers mutely and dumbly, listening to their every word. He had then sold out their unknowing trust by informing the armies of the Highwayman's presence there. Kagome realized that the stable boy had been the cause of their death, and she briefly wondered why. A moment of clarity struck then, the stable boy had been jealous! He had been in love with the landlord's daughter!
Grinning to herself over this revelation, she raced home, the papers clutched in her hand tightly. She had a paper to write, and she knew exactly what she was going to type up!
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SM: And there you have it. The TEASER! Or preview, whatever you want to call it. I hope you get the basic idea since I know that this was kind of obscure.
Oh, and one last thing. I'm pushing back all my updates for my other stories until next week or so since I lost like half of this week. I won't have any internet after Thursday since I have to go to do a family thing. So...more waiting, heh heh heh. I thank you for your patience.