Phosie

It is a well known legend that once the Ravens leave the Tower of London, Britain will fall.

In the years before this event, the UK almost fell apart under its own steam when, after hundreds of years of bickering and threatening to do it, Scotland finally cut its last tie with the President, Andrew Thyssyl, signed the dotted line of the Treaty of Hadrian’s Wall. Riots then arose in Cardiff and Belfast and it seemed that the whole of the UK would crumble away, for diplomats then predicted that rebellions in Torquay, Cowes and Skegness, among other places, would be imminent if a similar independence treaty was signed in Wales and Northern Ireland. So, quite frankly, for about ten weeks in the history of the UK, it looked as if the country would become nothing. That was until it leaked through the heavily guarded borders between Scotland and England, thanks to a small Norweigan fishing boat among other things, that the President of the Scottish National Party-led government had closed parliament, crowned himself King Macbeth II and had then had begun a Holocaust-style massacre of anyone whose parents or grandparents were not Scottish nationals. Anyone who was not a ‘pure’ Scot was arrested and sent to camps under the Treaty of LOCH NESS – the Lothian Order to Confine Heavily the Not Even Slightly Scottish – where they were secretly enslaved or exterminated. When the army of the United States of the World liberated the country, an olive branch inscribed with ‘I told you so’ was handed to the Scots by the British and an enquiry ensued, revealing that the Scottish people had wanted a democratic government and that Thyssyl had passed all of his laws without the Scots knowing. They sheepishly took the olive branch the rest of the UK had offered and ceremoniously burned the Treaty of Hadrian’s Wall. After that, everyone suddenly realised that the Union was a gem and there was no more talk of disintegrating the Union, and the UK became whole again properly for the first time since the end of the twentieth century.

People back in the old days assumed that by the time the year 3000 began to loom, the whole world – or that of it which hadn’t been engulfed by water by global warming - would have become gigantic mega-city, with layers of steel monorails and miles-tall skyscrapers dominating the skyline. However they were wrong on both counts. To begin with, global warming seemed to be an anomaly – a hiccough in the history of the geography of the world – and, although the train lines had replaced by monorails, the world had, basically, remained the same looks-wise, with the exception of America. The one thing geographers got right was the prediction of Yellowstone National Park and the San Andreas Fault. They had been too real, and the world’s culture and economy had been suffering for over two hundred years of manic depression since, and the atmosphere of the world had suffered also. Sadness still loomed. Back to the skyscrapers, the world’s architectural developments seemed to peak sometime during the twenty fifth century and the levelled. It was the people who had really changed the most. The arrogant, snobbish and xenophobic reputation that the British population had wielded for so long had fizzled into memory, and now only the best historians knew of the pomp that had encircled the plucky little island once upon a time. Xenophobia was another word for hypocrisy now, as, walking down the streets of London, most people you would see would be so mixed up when it came to genes that no one in their right mind could call themselves ‘pure’ anything.

For a hundred years it seemed that nothing could go wrong in Britain until, suddenly, the entire population of ravens in the Tower suddenly took flight, disappearing from the international GPS system completely, leaving nothing but five small, white-with-grey-speckled eggs. These eggs became venerated, and tourists from all over the world visited the Tower to feed them and the best vets from around the world flew in to keep the eggs and their chicks in good health. It was only a legend that once the last Tower of London raven died the UK would fall, but legends do hold an element of truth and the Keepers did not want to risk Britain’s downfall, and so clipped the birds’ wings, despite the protests from animal rights activists. By the year 2980 they had become five beautiful adult ravens, their slick black feathers shining in the sun and their beady, secretive eyes taking in everything, strutted through around the grounds of the Tower.


(Disclaimer: I don't mean any offense to Scottish people. I am in fact a Scot myself and think they are nice people. )

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Adamboy

I think it's very interesting and would love to know what's going to happen.

But don't you think "old wives tales" will have been forgotten by 2980?

It reads like a text book which i prefer because you know facts then

Phosie

I promise you there is plot somewhere

Last time someone said that about one of my stories (on another forum) she meant it in a bad way...

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Adamboy

It's a matter of a opinion i guess. I really like it and think it very capturing.
I do have concerns that maybe the year is too far in the future that the myth would still stand, and that the uk would still be a country as such.

Rob

You pack an awful lot in there, Phosie. It's quite funny in places. It does need a character in there somewhere though. It is one big narrative summary at the moment, and I think conveying this through a central character would be more engaging for the reader.

As a story, it seems as though the ravens are going to be key to what's going on, and given that, I do wonder how much of that historical summary you need here in the opening and how much you can work into the story elsewhere. A lot might depend on how you see this story working out, though. If it's to be belly-laugh funny maybe you can get away with that a little. But give us a character sooner rather than later.

Cheers,
Rob

Phosie

I'd better give you the next bit then

All this history is all very well for the people who make it, but for people a century later who had to study this history alongside the politics, it seemed to be the root of all boredom. It amazed people how much of a curriculum ten or so weeks of history can fill. By the time the thirty-first century was yawning wide, ready to snap up the latter end of the last millennium, the bitterness towards the Scottish had well and truly fizzled out, but the whole saga had become a key part of the curriculum and the raven saga was filling the headlines. One girl who had to put up with these boredoms went by the name of Armella, and she certainly did not see the fuss about the ravens.
“They do not want to leave it to chance, but they obviously do not know history.” She would argue. “For one thing there is nothing to prove that ravens have lived in the Tower for two thousand years. They have no proof that we will fall without them. They chatter and strut about as if they owned the country, but they do not guard us or save us from harm.”
“But we have no proof that Britain will not fall once they leave or die out!” would be the reply. “Britain is a safe haven and has been since the Tower was built: we don’t want to risk it. You forget that just before the Tower was built we had just fallen to the French: the last successful invasion on our shores. Before that we were being conquered by the Romans and Vikings every couple of centuries. Who says that won’t happen again if the ravens go?”
At this point Armella would grow angry. “They’re just birds! It’s just a building! There is no science or proof behind what you say! Not even any history!”. Then she would mutter something about proving her theory one day, and the unfortunate person she was talking to would probably start telling her the story of Doubting Thomas, thus her ever-popular nickname ‘Doubting Armella’. But she didn’t mind: she knew what she believe and, over time, what started off as a teenager’s theory became her obsession.

As she grew older, in her free time, Armella would spend hours in a library or, more often, in the Tower’s grounds studying ravens and British history in general. On these occasions she would sit on a bench and watch them, or ask the keepers questions.

Oh, and, judging by your comments, I think I'd better take out the half-page long history of Google as well

I'm getting worried about the year too, I guess. I think I was just worried about all the maths I'd have to do otherwise

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Phosie

It was on one of those visits to the Tower when she was approached by three people. The first wore a red coat decorated with gold trimming and on his head perched a hat as black as the ravens themselves, and his face was white and withered as if he were the first man to lay bricks onto the site of the Tower behind him. On either side, a man and a woman guided him as he hobbled down the path, but they were dressed in more thirtieth century attire. The woman had long, auburn hair that hung loose around her pale face. She was trying to look pleasant, but her red eyebrows naturally knitted into a scowl and her mouth screwed up into a circle, making her look like more of a cynic than someone important. On the other side walked a more cheerful man with a shock of thinning brown hair on his scalp and glistening white teeth which never hid seeing as whenever Armella saw him he was smiling like the Cheshire cat she had read about. Despite having to help the older man, they were all walking with confidence and deliberately towards her, but when the younger man spotted her, they stopped and started talking, making Armella annoyed and curious and, for the first time since the Tower’s opening time, she closed her exercise book – her seventh since the project began – and arose. She brushed her clothes with small, browned hands and hitched her bag onto her shoulder, held her book to her chest and then started walking. The three adults spotted her rising and the younger man beckoned her forwards, the older man holding his arms out as if to embrace her, but Armella steered clear. She was not the embracing kind. She, instead, acquiesced the younger man’s request and walked over to them, not giving a smile or raising a hand up in greeting. Doubting Armella had no reason to do either of those.
“I’m sorry if I’m in your way,” she began once she was in a range appropriate for conversation. In the thirtieth century, it had become normal to speak in shortened forms even in formal situations, “or if I’m putting the visitors off. I promise you my research will not take much longer.”
“No!” The older man breathed. “You must not go. You must come with us and listen to what we have to say.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Just to the Tower. Nowhere special.” The old man grinned, his dentures glistening. “This is the thirtieth century: we haven’t discovered time travel yet!”
Armella took this to be a joke and so, in reply, smiled faintly and let out air through her nostrils as if humoured.
The woman said sternly. “We must be going!”
“What’s wrong?” Armella asked as they started walking. “What do you want with me?”
The younger man sighed. “We have a problem, Armella.”
“How do you know my name?”
The man chuckled. “Almost everyone who knows about the legend of the Tower and the ravens knows about Doubting Armella.”
The woman reached in front of the old man to hit the younger man on the arm. “If you say things like that she won’t help. At least let us introduce ourselves and get to know each other more before we start making assumptions based on rumours.” She turned to Armella. “My name is Leiagh. I know you know my face.”
“We’ve spoken once before I think.” Armella pointed out. “We never introduced ourselves though.”
“Back then you were only a student who doubted the legend of the ravens: your studies were of no significance. Now, however, your research and subsequent knowledge of the birds means the world to us.”
“With all due respect, Leiagh, your colleague here is right: I’m Doubting Armella. I do not care for these birds. I am of no use to you.”
Leiagh looked sadly at her. “That is where you are wrong.”

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