The Banishment of Avery Shaw
(As recounted by Avery himself)
When Deanna was Princess, she was new to working with the rapier community. In Ansteorra, there is usually a very close relationship between the Rapier community and our Queens. Deanna reached out to me to learn more about us, we then spent a month or so having very long discussions about the history of the group, what strange traditions we had, why we had those traditions, and so on (I collect stories). Right before Coronation, we had a 3 hours chat in IM (instant messenger) about things, part way through she asked me if I thought that were any things that could be better. I said that we were in danger of taking ourselves too seriously. That it is amazing that we were starting to be able to have access to period texts on a wider level, that you did not need to travel to some esoteric library and beg to be allowed to maybe get a glimpse at something...the internet had made it a lot easier to get access to all sorts of things, not just rapier manuals, but pics of clothes, of armor, of tools...you name it. However, it also led to the danger of everything becoming ONLY about what you could document. I stated that we also needed to know our history. Is great to be able to quote Giganti or Fabris....but we owe as much to Errol Flynn and Conan as we do to Silver and Castigleone. We need to remember that this is not just an exercise of study, it is fun, dammit! She asked what I would mean by that....and off the cuff, I said "I want to be banished." I quickly clarified that I did not mean an actual "I did something bad and needed to be removed from the group" type thing...I meant in fun....and I wanted a scroll, dammit. She laughed and we moved on in the conversation for another hour or so. I forgot about it. She did not.
Fast forward 6 months. Deanna and Romanius stepping down court. We get through everything, the Herald starts to say "There being no further business in this the final court of...." And Deanna walks over, puts a scroll down on the Herald's book and said "read this". The Herald shrugged, then looked down to see what was in front of her. Her eyes got HUGE....then she shrugged and started in...
"Woe unto you, Avery Shaw, most miserable of men...."
I was banished for the remainder of the reign. All 7 minutes of it. 🙂
Deanna did the scroll herself, it was ready that day. Originally, it was monochrome, she filled in the colors later. In the original, the outfits are accurate, hers, His Majesty's, mine. The colors are a bit different in the finished version.
I have 3 scrolls that I am most proud of. They are all currently in storage, but back in Austin, my two scrolls for being Queen's Champion are on either side...this is the scroll in the middle.
