Week 4 story: Leo the Disappointed Lion
It's a typical love story that starts out with a beautiful princess, Maria and a palace worker, Leo falling into forbidden love. After months of sneaking around the palace, secret meetings in the garden, and notes left in random crevices, the 2 lovebirds decided to tell Maria's father, the King.
Maria was convinced the King would love Leo and welcome him like the son he never had.
"Please Leo, trust me! If I tell him I love you, which I do, he won't be angry " Maria begged.
Leo, who is tired of sneaking around with his love, is scared because he doesn't want to lose his valuable job in the palace. But finally, he is convinced that nothing will go wrong and he agrees to tell the King.
Maria and Leo enter the King's throne room, Leo walking a distance back and letting Maria take charge.
"Dad," Maria shakenly says, "I have found the man I want to marry, and I want you to promise me that you'll be happy for me and that you won't yell."
"Well now Maria, why on Earth would I yell if you found a proper prince to take over when I'm gone" The King said.
"Because dad, his name is Leo," she reaches for Leo's hand, "and I love him very much," she pulls Leo so he's standing directly next to her, shaking. The King glares for a moment, seems to consider the idea, and then says "You, you think you're good enough to marry royalty? Let's cut that shaggy hair, get you fitted into proper clothing, and have you sit through an etiquette course, and then see what I think."
Maria takes this as a victory, rushing Leo out of the room and straight to get his haircut. Once Leo's hair has been cut, he is then shown into a fitting room where seamstresses start taking his measurements. He begins to get very overwhelmed, this is not what he is accustomed to and tells Maria he's worried.
"Maria, darling, this seems far too easy. There's no way your father, the King, will ever be okay with a commoner marrying his princess." Maria quickly swats away his concerns, she's blinded by love and hope, and ushers him into his etiquette course. Leo catches on quickly, he just does the opposite of what his instinct tells him to do, and soon the 2 of them are on their way back to the King's throne room.
The King inspects the new person standing in front of him, seems to approve, and then gets a nasty scowl on his face. "You think, that just because you look like a decent man, that you're worthy of marrying my daughter, my princess?" the King spits out. "Just because you cleaned up on the outside doesn't mean anything to me, you are forbidden to marry my daughter, and if I ever see you 2 together again you will lose your job here."
Maria is devastated and in a small voice she says "if you knew along you were going to disapprove, why did you play this little game with us, why have us get our hopes up and then crush them?"
Leo is humiliated and disappointed, he changed who he was for love, and it failed. Leo begins to back out of the room, "I'm sorry sir, for wasting your time with this nonsense, I'll go get changed and back to work." As Leo exits the room, he hears the King say, "Just because you look the part, doesn't mean you'll ever be good enough to marry my daughter."
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| The King's Throne Room. Source: WikiMedia |
authors note:
I enjoyed the theme of The Lion in Love, love can tame the wildest. The lion completely changed his identity, as did Leo, and he still wasn't good enough to marry his maiden. Maria is a hopeful princess and Leo is realistic commoner. Leo follows along with the King's plan, with Maria cheering him on. Love can try to ask you to change who you are, but that doesn't always mean it'll work out.
bibliography: Jacobs 71, The Lion in Love. The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894)
Hi Gabby,
ReplyDeleteMan! I'm so sad that their relationship didn't work out! I totally clicked on this story because of the title. I'm a sucker for love stories, but there wasn't a happy ending! It's realistic for sure, but reality isn't always fun lol. It's interesting to see love story that isn't just a magic-fairytale ending. I feel like that makes it a surprise, unexpected ending.
I thought that you did a great job with the dialog. I could hear people talking, and their words seemed realistic.
The only thing that bothered me was the use of the number "2" in place of the word "to". It seemed a little out of place with the rest of your writing.
I wonder what will happen after this? Does Leo and his girl stay in a secret relationship? Does he leave the palace forever? Maybe the princess can run away with Leo, and leave her disapproving dad behind!
I enjoyed reading your story:)
Hi Gabby, I'm a sucker for happy endings in love stories like these so I was so sad at the end! You got my hopes up too! I really liked that the female of the couple was the royalty and the male was the supposed "unfit" one. This might just be true among the shows that I've seen but I feel that there are so many rags-to-riches story where the girl is dirt poor and ends up with some rich CEO, so this was a refreshing flip of that trope! At the end I was wondering if there was some other reason why the king was so cruel to the pair. Was there some ulterior motive or a past experience that he was acting out of? Because it seems excessive for him to bait them like that if he simply didn't approve. Perhaps he has a personal grudge with the boy (or his own lost love for a commoner...?) I think that's something you could elaborate on if you ever wanted to delve deeper into this story and elaborate on the backgrounds of the characters! Otherwise, I thought it was great!
ReplyDeleteHey! I really enjoyed your story. First off, having a short little introduction was a really nice touch. I like when stories are set up the scene for the story. It really helps to get into the mindset of the particular story. The ending is so sad. I wonder how it worked out for them. Maybe they continued to see each other, but in even more secrete a discrete places. Or maybe the King started guarding his daughter to make sure Leo could not see her anymore. Either way, this would be really sad and add to the tragic end of their relationship. Maybe they could try to go to princess's mother, unless she has passed away. What if the King had some history with this type of marriage and he's genuinely trying to keep his daughter happy when he has seen other similar relationships fail. Overall, I think you did a great job showing how love could blind someone.
ReplyDeleteHi Gabby! I enjoyed reading this story! I really liked how you used quotes as speaking lines to progress the story and really show the emotion that the characters were feeling! I think it helps flesh out the story much more than a simple 'I told him we were in love and he said you weren't good enough' would have. I think your writing makes it really clear how each character was feeling throughout the story! I do wonder why Leo didn't continue to fight for his love, and seems a bit hesitant to fight at all in the first place. It could be really fun to explore what might happen if Leo stood up against the King. Maybe that would show him that he is worthy of his daughter's love after all! It might also be helpful to use the word 'two' instead of the numerical '2'. It just stood out a bit to me. I think you did a wonderful job at telling this story!
ReplyDeleteHello, I am always a sucker for a happily ever after especially if it is not necessarily meant to be and I love to root for an underdog. I love the idea of this rags to riches story because I feel as if this is actually more common than people seem to believe, and love can conquer all. I was just curious as to why the king was so opposed to Leo when he should only want happiness for his daughter? One suggestion I would make is maybe just add a little more background information just to make everything a little clearer as to why everything happened the way it did. Overall, I really enjoyed this story!
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