The Beaver King, A Cautionary Tale of Medieval Dysfunction

The Setting: Masondonia, The Morning After Celebrations.

Last night in Masondonia, we sang close together, knees nearly touching the fire ring, cups warm in our hands. There was no stage—only This Minstrelle, her instrument, and those who chose to listen from the front before the rest decided it was safe to do so. The air was low with smoke and familiarity, caravan banners stirring just enough to remind us we were not home, but not unwelcome either.

The song was “The Minstrelle Who Would Not Apologize.” It was not chosen to provoke, nor to punish, but because it was the only honest song left to sing. It was sung for the years when truth was asked to soften itself so others could remain comfortable. For the moments when silence was mistaken for grace, and politeness demanded more sacrifice than justice ever did.

🎶🐍The Minstrelle Who Would Not Apologize 🐍🎶

She did not whisper.

That was her first crime.

She sang it plain, with teeth intact,

No trembling hands, no softened fact.

She named the men who hid behind

Their mothers’ skirts and holy lines.

They said: You’re cruel.

Not You are wrong.

They said: Why air what we survived by burying?

As if rot earns mercy

By aging quietly.

They accused her not of lies,

But of volume.

Of timing.

Of remembering too well.

They asked her why she couldn’t sing

Of lighter things—

Of harvests, hearths, obedient griefs.

They wanted pretty songs

To paper over mold.

They wanted forgiveness

Without confession,

Peace without repair,

Silence without truth.

They called her bitter—

As if sweetness ever saved anyone.

They said she ruined the table

By pointing out the poison cup,

Not the hand that poured it,

Not the mouths that drank and smiled.

They demanded an apology

For the discomfort of recognition.

She gave them none.

She sang of fathers who failed

And called it sacrifice.

Of mothers who sharpened knives

Then cried innocence.

Of children trained early

To lie with straight faces

And call it loyalty.

She sang until the room hated her,

Which is how she knew it worked.

And when they finally turned away,

Calling her mad, cruel, obsessed—

She laughed.

Because the truth does not need witnesses.

It only needs memory.

And long after Beaverton forgets

Who asked forgiveness first,

They will remember this:

She sang.

It hurt.

She did not say sorry.

The song did not raise its voice. It did not ask forgiveness. It simply held its ground, line by line, and trusted the room to do with it what it would. When the last note faded, no one reached for their cup right away. The fire cracked. A few eyes dropped. That pause—small but unmistakable—was how we knew it had landed.

By morning, Masondonia was already pretending the song had been nothing more than firelight and wine. Cups were rinsed. Fires tamped down. Conversations began with safe questions, as if no one wanted to be the first to admit they had recognized themselves in a verse. But the song had already moved. It traveled in fragments—trimmed here, softened there, repeated carefully so its edge could be blamed on mishearing.

Some said it was unnecessary. Others said it was cruel. A few insisted it had been misunderstood, which was how it was known to be precise.

Only Eldric of the Roadmark offered no opinion at all.

Eldric had once traded with the Beaver Kingdom in good faith. He left with his goods seized, his accounts quietly dissolved, and his name gently fouled—so gently it took years to realize it had happened at all. He had no tribunal, no correction, only the road. Since then, he carried no ledgers, only memory.

He had been seated closest to the Minstrelle the night before, ash on his boots, hands still, listening as someone who already knew the cost of being inconveniently accurate.

When asked later what the song was meant to do, Eldric shrugged and said only,

“It wasn’t meant to fix them. It was meant to stop fixing itself for them.”

After that, the room changed the subject.

And no one tried to correct the song again.