DarkChocolate

parent nodes: BoneJackdaw

Dark Chocolate

Once there was a small town on the coast of what is now
the Mediterranean Sea. It has since long fallen to dust, but
it is still remembered by the descendents of those who
once visited it. It was far from tawdry, with many quirks
and delights that could be found amongst its stone alleys
and streets. Something of a labyrinth, with no dead ends,
on the side of a once grassy hill, a warm breeze would
always flow through the houses, which all had balconies
overlooking the town and sea. It was known in its time far
and wide for the quality of life and charming nature of its
inhabitants. But the thing that made it truly famous was its
chocolate festival.

And in this town, shortly before the time of its downfall,
there lived a young man we shall call Jacob. And Jacob
was in love with a confectioner’s daughter. Most young
men of that town were in love with one confectioner’s
daughter or another. And the young women were all in
love with a confectioner’s son or another. But not everyone
who lived there were confectioners. In fact most
people made their trade in fishing. But Jacob was one of
the lucky few to have a confectioner’s daughter love him
back. This, of course, meant that there were all sorts of
horrible rumors spread around town about him. Such is the
power of jealousy. But he let these stories roll off his back,
and they are not really of our concern.

No, what we are concerned with is the results of a contest.
A contest that was held annually at every chocolate
festival, and that would ultimately seal the fate of Jacob
and everyone who lived in that town. It was, of course, a
chocolate contest.

All the confectioners of this town would enter in this contest.
It was not required, oh no, but to fail to enter was
near the kiss of death for a confectioner’s business.
Should a confectioner fail to enter on any given year,
despite all excuses, rumors would spread that he was
losing his touch. Soon after, no one would buy his chocolate
anymore, for fear of eating something unsweet,
something that had been cooked to long, or something
hard enough to break a tooth.

It wasn’t fair, but nothing is fair in business and war. And
to the winner... Well, let us just say that this contest was
the most prestigious event in all of what we now call
Europe. The judges were known by their first names far
and wide, and confectioners from around the globe would
make pilgrimages to compete, to take home some sort of
souvenir that might boost their business back home. And
the wars waged over recipes, the intrigue and the tragedies,
have inspired some of the world’s greatest plays.

And to the winner went immortality of sorts.

And the father of Jacob’s love was losing his touch.

The year that they were engaged to marry, Jacob swore
to help in any way he could his father-in-law-to-be to not
only enter in the contest but to win first place. This would
not only be a fine wedding gift for his fiancee, but it would
ensure that her father and in turn their whole extended
family would have enough to live on for the next three
generations. Otherwise, they’d have to take up fishing.

And Jacob knew what this might entail, the dangers he
might encounter and the things he might be asked to do.
Unlike anyone the town had ever known, like a Samurai
bowing to his Shogun, Jacob took every aspect of the
confectioner’s goal to be his responsibility. It was not
something he was asked to do, but something that he
wished with all his heart and honor to achieve, he did love
his love so much. And for three months, Jacob was the
stuff of legend.

However, despite all his efforts and travails, despite his
quiet and ingenues fleetness of foot, despite his cunning
and knowledge of the town and its industry, it was not
Jacob that found the recipe that would make history. It
was his fiancee. For on one spring evening, when she was
strolling dreamily along the tree lined river, she encountered
a gypsy. Actually, he would have been the ancestor
of the people we would come to call gypsies, and perhaps
not entirely the very aspect what we would call a gypsy.
But there he was, and he obviously had more intentions
than were honorable. And Jacob’s fiancee was flattered
by him.

But she was faithful to Jacob and though she let the gypsy
walk with her, at times bouncing behind her like a puppy or
bounding ahead to pick a flower, she would not blush. He
even sang her three songs, three songs about her, for
which she was eternally thankful. She told him that if she
were not promised to her soul mate, she would be sorely
tempted to run off with the gypsy right there and then. But
she couldn’t. So he smiled and asked if there was anything
he could do, anything at all that would get her to change
her mind.

She said that there wasn’t, but that if there was anything
he could do to make her truly happy, it would be to help
her father win the upcoming chocolate contest.

At this, the gypsy gave her a sly smile and produced a slip
of parchment. But before he let her take it from his fingers,
he looked her square in the eyes and told her that it might
be too powerful. She asked him what he meant and he
told her. Then, with parchment clasped gingerly but safely
in trembling fingers, she watched him trip down the path
never to look back.

When I tell this story, there are some who point at the
gypsy and say, “that must be Bone Jackdaw, the Story
Teller of the Dragon People.” And to them I cannot deny
this, for it very well may have been.

Later that evening, when Jacob was preparing to make his
next round of confectionery espionage, his fiancee
stopped him. Jacob would have hung on any one of her
words, but the excitement evident on her breath alone
held him in mid stride. As would happen when they
watched a sunset together, his heart was beating in time
with hers, and a victorious grin spread across his face
upon seeing that slip of parchment. It was the recipe that
would make her father the most infamous confectioner on
the planet!

But there was something in her look, something that made
Jacob’s voice catch in his throat. And when later they
were sitting at the dining table drinking spiked coffee and
the last syllable of the last word that his fiancee had spoken,
describing what had to be done, echoed meekly off
the kitchen walls, he knew that the price to be paid might
be too high for even the likes of a story book hero. And
yet...

“I’ll do it,” he said, pondering the last of his drink before he
downed it. He deliberately landed the cup on the table, a
gesture of finality. And she reached forward and put her
hand on his wrist and softly said, “no.”

“I will,” he said and looked in the direction of her father’s
shop, “the fate of your family... our family! ...rests in this. It
must be done, if only to avoid disaster.”

“But to win would be disaster!” She cried.

“It’s what I want to do,” he said, looking back at her,
“what I must do. For you, for your future, and the future of
our child.”

She was taken aback. “How did you-” she stammered, and
he just smiled. But it was settled, and they began to plan
in earnest, with low somber voices and tears on cheeks.
Her father liked the plan even less, and refused outright to
partake. He would not cook the recipe nor have his name
associated with it in any way. He became angry when
they suggested that they’d do it without him. And he
slammed his bedroom door and refused to talk to either of
them after that. His reasons were many.

For not only did the recipe call for unheard of ingredients,
some of which were so rare that only a small amount
could be obtained and at high cost, but there was a certain
magic involved. It smelled sinister, and unsettled him
to no end. And should they win, the consequences would
be unbearable. Both Jacob and his fiancee agreed that
suffering those consequences were far better than the
shame and poverty of losing the business should they not
enter. And at this late date they had no other recipes
worthy of entry. If they didn’t go through with this plan,
they would not be able to enter the contest. And if they
won, their creation, which they would not be able to duplicate,
would be consumed in the following ceremony.

The magics involved were indeed powerful, and the result
would be hard to dismiss. Winning would almost be assured.
While the recipe created but a small morsel, barely
enough for a small child to enjoy, the chocolate it created
was of such a high calibre, such amazing properties it held
that it would cast a spell over all who tasted it. It would
temporarily turn whoever ate it into chocolate.
It would only last a matter of hours and then the poor soul
would return to his former self, alive and well and awash
with chocolaty bliss. But the morsal of chocolate would be
barely enough for one judge to taste, and it would do them
no good to turn a judge into chocolate! So there was one
more step to the plan. Jacob would eat the candy, and be
entered into the contest himself.

During the initial tasting, she would break of pieces of his
clothing for the judges to taste. Theoretically, anything that
Jacob wore when he ate the candy would be turned to
chocolate as well. And Jacob would cut a striking figure as
the largest chocolate sculpture ever entered in the contest,
with features more natural and life-like than any
confectioner could possibly craft. Just by entering the
contest, their notoriety would be awesome. But should
they win... Well, it was best not to think of that. And
Jacob’s father-in-law-to-be wouldn’t even hear of the first
part.

On the day of the contest, an enormous crowd collected
around small but sturdy rough wood table laden with the
most amazing sight and watched in awe as Jacob’s fiancee,
tears stinging her eyes and a mysterious expression,
broke pieces of chocolate from Jacob’s finest jacket and
served them to the judges. And as the first judge raised
the fractured piece to his mouth, the town was so silent
that sea gulls a mile away could be heard to cry.
And like a dawning sun, their worst fear came to be as the
last judge uttered his verdict and a cheer like a roar spread
across the towns folk. And what followed was like a massacre,
was indeed a massacre, and none knew the truth
of it but the long gone gypsy, Jacob’s fiancee, and her
angry, reclusive father. And Jacob’s fiancee watched in
utter horror as the entire town consumed every last scrap
of her entry in the contest.

And then the true horror set in.

Perhaps the gypsy had left out this last detail, or perhaps
the magic had been transformed by Jacob’s passion for
his fiancee, or perhaps no one could have predicted what
happened next. But every townsfolk, and that was all but
two, who had eaten a piece of that chocolate that was
once Jacob began to slowly turn into chocolate themselves.
And by the time the sun had reached high noon,
the entire town save Jacob’s fiancee and her father had
become statues of the finest solid chocolate.
With eyes full of bitter tears and a hand shaking like that of
a palsied grandmother, she reached for a small shard of
confection, unrecognizable in its shape, and consumed it
with her numbed lips and tongue.

And the warm breeze ceased to blow, and the high sun
began to melt the chocolate.

Everything from the beginning of the world to the end of it, and all the fiddly messy bits in between.