[RWBY] RWBY Shorts

[Sliverhero]

La Strega del Bosco e il Cavaliere Ritornato

(The Witch of the Forest and the Knight Who Came Home)

A legendary tragic play in three acts, attributed to the pre-Kingdom playwright known only as "The Pale Scribe." First performed centuries before the Huntsman Academies, the work blends myth, theology, and forbidden history.


Act I: The Knight Who Crossed Death

The curtain rises upon a primeval forest, ancient and untouched, its towering black trees surrounding a solitary spire of stone. Here dwells Salema, the Witch of the Wood, feared, immortal, and abandoned by gods and men alike. Her opening aria mourns eternity without meaning, life without end, and love stolen by fate.

From beyond the forest comes a miracle: Ozpinus, the Golden Knight. once slain in service to mankind, returns from death itself. Sent back by higher powers to guide the world toward harmony, he bears divine light upon his armor and sorrow within his soul.

Their reunion is tender and restrained, laden with disbelief. Salema, hardened by centuries of isolation, dares to hope again. Ozpinus confesses that he defied the gods' command not to return to her, choosing love over obedience. Against the will of heaven, they reunite.

The act concludes with their vow: to abandon the world's cruelty, to build a life hidden from gods and kings alike. The forest blooms unnaturally as the witch's curse momentarily lifts, and the chorus warns that love born in defiance invites divine consequence.

Act II: The Children of Light and Shadow

Time passes. The forest clearing becomes a humble home filled with warmth and laughter. Salema and Ozpinus now have four daughters, radiant and unnatural children born of magic and resurrection. Each exhibits powers unseen among mortals, bending reality with instinctive ease. Salema embraces this truth, teaching her children to wield their gifts freely and without shame. She envisions a future where her family will never kneel to gods who abandoned them.

Ozpinus, however, grows increasingly troubled. In solemn soliloquies, he reflects on his divine charge: to shepherd humanity, not to elevate his own blood above it. He fears that the world will not tolerate such power and that the gods will not forgive such defiance.

Tension fractures the household. Ozpinus secretly resolves to limit the children's power and to hide them from the world, while Salema rejects restraint outright. Their arguments crescendo into tragedy when divine judgment looms unseen, Grimm shadows encroaching at the forest's edge. The act ends in dread: husband and wife divided, love poisoned by destiny, and the chorus lamenting that even paradise cannot survive when built upon disobedience.

Act III: Ashes Beneath the Trees

The final act opens amid chaos. The forest writhes, Grimm circle, and fear grips the children. A confrontation erupts between Salema and Ozpinus, not of hatred, but of irreconcilable belief. He pleads for caution, repentance, and obedience to the gods' will. She demands defiance, survival, and vengeance against the heavens.

In the confusion and terror, catastrophe strikes. The children perish, their deaths never shown directly, only implied through shattered light, falling petals, and the parents' screams. Whether by Grimm, divine punishment, or the consequences of their parents' choices remains deliberately ambiguous.

Ozpinus collapses in horror, recognizing that his attempt to serve both gods and family has destroyed them all. Salema, broken beyond grief, rises transformed, her sorrow crystallizing into wrath. She denounces the gods, mankind, and Ozpinus himself for bringing fate's cruelty to her door.

Ozpinus begs forgiveness, offering to remain, to atone, to rebuild. Salema rejects him utterly. Declaring eternal war upon the gods and the world they govern, she casts him out of the forest forever.

The final image is stark:
Ozpinus departs, condemned to endless reincarnation and lonely duty. Salema remains, immortal once more, now a Queen of Grimm and vengeance.


The chorus closes the play:

"Thus was love reborn and slain,
Thus were gods defied and proven cruel,
And thus the world inherited a war
Older than history itself."

Epilogue

In later centuries, the play is often censored, rewritten, or dismissed as allegory. The mention of magic is always theorised to be a primitive form of explaining and understanding what aura and semblance are in those times. The reborn and immortal aspects of the two main character must have been put in place to give the play unnecessary drama that it doesnt need. Headmasters refuse to comment on the play origins. Yet the final line is always preserved:

"Beware the knight who comes home, for he never returns alone."

Finis.

 

[AndrewJTalon]

Synopsis: The Tragicall Historie of Camelot or King Arthur

Written by the great playwright Billius Schakkenspell, this is a romantic historical tragicomedy in five acts, set in the past of Albion, whose eternal capital remains the gleaming castle of Camelot — a bastion of chivalry and ancient magic perched upon misty cliffs and surrounded by enchanted forests filled with Grimm and other dangers.

Principal Characters (with their Shakespearean correspondences)

• King Arthur Pendragon — The noble but grieving monarch of Albion (Cymbeline)
• Queen Morgause — Arthur's ambitious and treacherous second wife, a sorceress of subtle poisons (the Queen)
• Prince Mordred — Morgause's arrogant and brutish son by her former marriage, covetous of power (Cloten)
• Princess Guinevere — Arthur's virtuous and courageous daughter by his first queen, named for her (Imogen/Innogen)
• Sir Lancelot du Lac — A valiant knight of humble origins, raised at court and secretly wed to Guinevere (Posthumus Leonatus)
• Sir Agravain — A cunning continental knight from Gallia, sly and boastful (Iachimo)
• Sir Bedivere — Lancelot's loyal companion and servant (Pisanio)
• Sir Belinus — A banished lord, living as a hermit in the wilds of Albion (Belarius)
• Sir Gawain and Sir Gaheris — Belinus's adopted "sons," brave young warriors unaware of their true birth (Guiderius and Arviragus — in truth, Arthur's long-lost sons, kidnapped in infancy)
• Merlin — The enigmatic prophet and advisor, appearing in visions (Jupiter/the Soothsayer)

Act I: Courtly Intrigue at Camelot
In the grand hall of Camelot, King Arthur mourns the disappearance twenty years prior of his two infant sons, taken in the night. Influenced by his cunning second wife, Queen Morgause, he seeks to secure his line by wedding his beloved daughter Guinevere to her son, the vainglorious Prince Mordred.

Yet Guinevere has secretly married Sir Lancelot du Lac, a peerless knight of mysterious low birth raised at Arthur's court. Furious at this defiance, Arthur banishes Lancelot to the continent. Before departing, the lovers exchange tokens: Guinevere gives Lancelot a sacred bracelet woven with her hair, and he bestows upon her a ring bearing the Pendragon crest.

Queen Morgause, plotting to elevate Mordred, feigns support for the lovers while secretly brewing poisons and schemes.

Act II: The Wager and Deception
Exiled in Gallia, Lancelot boasts of Guinevere's unmatched fidelity among the knights there. Sir Agravain, a smooth-tongued Gallian, wagers a fortune against Lancelot's ring that he can seduce the princess. Lancelot accepts, staking his honor.

Agravain travels to Camelot bearing gifts and flattery. Failing to woo Guinevere openly, he hides in a great chest delivered to her chamber (under pretense of safeguarding treasures). By night, he emerges, memorizes the secrets of her room — including a mark upon her breast — and steals the bracelet from her arm as she sleeps.

Returning to Gallia, Agravain presents the "proofs" to Lancelot, convincing him of Guinevere's betrayal. Maddened with jealousy, Lancelot orders his servant Bedivere to slay her upon her arrival in the wilds.

Act III: Flight and the Wilds
Guinevere, warned by Bedivere of the order, disguises herself as a young page named Fidelio and flees Camelot to seek Lancelot. Prince Mordred, enraged at her rejection, pursues her clad in Lancelot's armor.

Lost in Albion's ancient forests, Guinevere encounters a cave dwelling where the exiled lord Belinus lives with his two valiant "sons," Gawain and Gaheris. Touched by their noble bearing, she joins them as Fidelio. Unbeknownst to all, Gawain and Gaheris are Arthur's kidnapped heirs, raised in rustic honor.

Mordred confronts the brothers; in the ensuing duel, Gawain beheads the prince. Guinevere, taking a potion from Morgause's physician (believing it a restorative), falls into a death-like sleep.

Act IV: War and Vision
Gallia's King Josef Arc in Lutetia demands renewed tribute from Albion, refused by the King's nationalist fervor. Gallian legions, led by Caius Lucius, invade. Lancelot, repentant yet despairing, returns disguised to fight for Albion but is imprisoned, as he is seen as a spy.

In prison, Lancelot dreams a vision: the ghosts of his ancestors beseech Merlin, the then deceased wizard and advisor to Arthur, who descends in thunderous glory, promising that the lion's whelps shall reunite with the Pendragon and bring peace.

Act V: Reconciliation and Revelation
In a fierce battle near Camelot's walls, Arthur is captured — but rescued by Belinus, Gawain, Gaheris, and the disguised Lancelot who escaped from his prison to save his King. Albion triumphs.

Captured Gallians are brought before Arthur. In a cascade of revelations: Guinevere awakens and is reunited with Lancelot; Agravain confesses his deceit; Queen Morgause's poisons and plots are exposed (she commits suicide, unrepentant); Belinus reveals the true identity of Gawain and Gaheris as Arthur's sons.

Mordred's headless body confirms his fate. Merlin interprets the prophecy fulfilled. Arthur pardons all, restores tribute to Lutetia in a gesture of wise peace, and blesses the unions of Guinevere and Lancelot, welcoming his lost sons home.

The play ends in Camelot's great hall with feasting, forgiveness, and the promise of a renewed golden age — though shadows of future strife linger unspoken.

Notes:

This play, one of Billius Schakkenspell's later works, is difficult to categorize. It is technically a history but alters the events so dramatically from what was commonly believed at the time to have been the true events of Arthur I's reign as the first true King of Albion it hardly qualifies, even compared to liberties taken with plays such as Lūteus Imperator. It has comedic elements but these are also accompanied by significant drama and tragedy. It's slightly rushed third act is also a rarity for the great playwright, though as it was a commission from Lord Ozymandias of Furth-on-River who insisted on being present at every step of the play, it is understandable. It was one of Schakkenspell's most ambitious undertakings, though this would pale next to his later play (also commissioned by Lord Ozymandias) entitled The Witch and the Knight, based upon a play by an ancient Quitalan playwright known only as "The Pale Scribe".

OOC Notes:

Well you gotta have a Shakespeare equivalent if you have a British Empire equivalent, right? So here's a take on Shakespeare's Cymbeline, featuring many of Arturia (and subsequently Jaune's) ancestors. And yes, the names were so legendary people still kept getting named them and ending up in somewhat similar positions, though they often had much happier endings.