Week 7 Story: The Queen Bird

 There was once a beautiful, colorful female bird that flew amongst all of the other birds in the rainforest. While most of the birds were simple shades of brown, her feathers displayed a beautiful rainbow of colors. She knew that she was far more beautiful than the rest of the birds, and therefore demanded to be treated as such. She knew that every male bird wanted her and that every female bird wanted to be her. As a result of this, she demanded to be crowned Queen of the sky. Although the other birds thought that she was obnoxious and full of herself, none of them objected. They knew that if any bird should be the queen, it should be her. 

However, soon after she was crowned queen, the other birds became annoyed with her rules. They began to conspire with another on how they could get rid of her, or at least humble her. 

"We could start an uprising," one bird suggested. 

"That will never work! She will simply punish us all!" replied the others. 

"We have to catch her by surprise" another bird chimed in. 

"She always says that she will never marry or have kids. She claims that the domestic life is no life for a queen, and that she could not rule if she were a mother" a quiet bird informed the others. 

"You are right, but what are we supposed to do about that? It is not like we can force her into marriage or motherhood" another bird replied. 

And with that, the birds began to brainstorm. The Queen bird was very cold and definitely would not fall in love with another bird. They knew that they could not simply get a male bird to seduce her, but something had to be done. Finally, they had come up with a plan. 

First, they recruited a male bird to help with their plan. He willingly gave up his sperm to the other birds. Then, one night when the Queen bird was sleeping, the birds snuck into her nest and gave her the sperm. She never even stirred from her sleep! The birds rejoiced later, celebrating in the knowledge that in a few short month, the Queen would have to become a mother. 

However, things took a turn when the Queen was on one of daily strolls. She still had no idea that she was carrying eggs, and therefore did not take any of the necessary precautions. As usual, she flew as high in the sky as she could reach, that way everyone could see her beautiful feathers. She loved to show off. As she flew high and far, something suddenly did not feel right. Just as the Queen was flying high over the river, she felt and saw as something fell out from under her. It was two eggs! The Queen did not understand. It could not be possible. So she then came to the conclusion that the gods must have blessed her with royal children. In the public eye, she grieved the sudden loss of her children. In private, however, she rejoiced that she would not have to become a mother. 

The others birds were terribly disappointed. They had come up with such an elaborate plan and done everything correctly, and yet the Queen still found her way out of it. They were discouraged and believed that they would always have to answer to their insufferable queen. However, ten months later, the creatures of the river passed on a message that eventually reached the birds: there were two bird children that had been born in the river. 

Ten months earlier, when the Queen had dropped her eggs, they had landed so gently in the middle of a school of fish. Seeing these abandoned eggs, one of the mother fish took pity on them and took them as her own. When the two little birds had popped out, she taught them to swim and how to get to the surface for air. She taught them how to catch smaller fish to eat. She loved them as her own. But some of the other fish saw the beautiful colorings on the baby birds and knew that they must belong to the Queen, so they told this story to the birds. Eventually, the Queen got wind of this and rushed to the river. 

"Wow! They are beautiful, just like me!" she exclaimed, beholding the beautiful colors of her children. 

Although she did not originally want children, she realized that it might not be so bad to have an heir to her throne. She took the baby girl bird back with her to the sky and left the boy with the fish, claiming that she forever wanted to the sky to be ruled by women. She refused to give up her title as Queen, but instead hired many birds to take care of her daughter. And with that, the other birds realized they would never get away from the Queen. 

                                                                Pixabay: Colorful Bird

Author's Note: My story is loosely based off of Vyasa and Ganehsa from the Mahabharata. In Vyasa and Ganesha, the King scared the other gods into thinking that he was going to steal their power. They then bribed him with a flying car. One day when he was flying, his semen fell into the river and a female fish swallowed it. After ten months, a fisherman caught the female fish and discovered two children as well. After the fisherman tells the King, he takes the boy with him and leaves the girl to be raised by the fisherman's family. I clearly changed a lot of elements from this story. I made all of the characters fish, and also changed the King to the Queen. While I did completely change the setting and characters, I did keep the general plot outline. I changed the plot to make it suit my characters and my story better, while still keeping the main elements. I chose to base my story off of this one because when I originally read it, I thought that it was so strange and so different. I wanted to recreate a story like this because I think that it really stands out due to its very different premise.