Lady Death's Diary: Chapter 22.5

From the Personal Correspondence of Lady Vitrula Rhys

Dear Tru,

Apologies for the delay between this letter and my last. Work has kept me busy of late—I could regale you with my adventures in paperwork but I expect you’d find the details as tedious as I do. Instead, I’ve decided to share another of Anterdon’s fables since you enjoyed the last one so much. Theo finds my hobby of collecting such stories to be childish (a judgement he feels it necessary to constantly vocalize) but I admit that I value your opinion on such matters over that of a convicted Destroyer of Books. Perhaps I will do as you suggested and eventually collect these tales in a single volume for publication, although I wonder if they might be too morbid to achieve popularity in Verdan. The Anterdonians have a macabre sense of humor which, though we both find wickedly amusing, may not hold much appeal outside its borders.

My translation of this latest yarn will no doubt pale in comparison to the rendition given by the bard from whom I heard it, but I hope you will enjoy it nevertheless:

There once was born two brothers who, due to an unfortunate turn of fate, had but one body to share between them. Each controlled a single arm and a single leg as well as their own heads, and a lone heart kept both alive. Though they each had a name given to them at birth, everyone in their village knew them as “Brother Left” and “Brother Right.” It so happened that Brother Left became smitten with a girl from their village. Each time he saw her, his shared heart raced in excitement. This caused Brother Right to realize his twin’s affection, and he grieved for he knew that Brother Left and the girl could never be together so long as the brothers shared a body. Eventually, he proposed a solution.

“Brother,” he said. “Cut off my head so that you will have two arms and two legs and our heart will belong to you alone. Only then can you be with the one you desire.”

Brother Left, of course, refused. “I could no more hurt you than I could hurt myself,” he swore. “I will forget the girl and we will never speak of this again.”

The two brothers agreed to pretend their conversation had never happened. However, Brother Left’s feelings for the girl lingered. The girl never noticed—she was unable to look beyond his shared body and see the longing in his eyes. Time passed, and the girl married another. Brother Left grew bitter. If only Brother Right didn’t exist, he thought, I would have been her husband.

His anger festered within his half of their heart. Years passed, and the girl’s husband died. Brother Left rejoiced. Now was his chance. Thus, one night, as Brother Right slept, Brother Left seized his sword and with a single slash, hacked off his brother’s head. At once, he controlled both arms and both legs. The next day, he visited the widow and proposed that they be wed. The girl did not recognize him with only the one head and gladly accepted his offer.

However, after their marriage, Brother Left soon realized that the girl was not at all what he had imagined. She scolded him constantly, until all the hair fell from his head and he turned into a wrinkled old man before his fortieth year. He wept, realizing that he had sacrificed his own brother in order to live a life of misery. Filled with despair, he once again reached for his sword. This time, however, the head he cut off was his own.

As I’ve mentioned, Anterdonian fables always seem to end horrifically rather than happily. When I first heard this story from a minstrel preforming at a tavern, I asked him if any greater meaning or message could be gleaned from such a perverse tale. The old man cackled, and every native patron in the room echoed his laugh. It was the barkeep who finally answered my question.

“Brothers before lovers,” he said, still laughing. “Never value a woman above your comrades.”

Theo found this punchline as uproariously funny as the rest of the establishment. I, however, ponder if perhaps the fable’s original author had a different intent in mind. It seems a cautionary tale: to never give up something you love in order to gain something you simply desire. I know our debates usually focus on texts of a more academic nature, but I’m curious to hear whether your interpretation differs from mine.

Eagerly anticipating to your reply,

Xander