Storytelling for Week 2: The Last Melon

This story begins in the land of the Ice Age, where Dodo birds once roamed, and Saber-tooth tigers wandered. One flock of Dodo birds lived in the area of Dreece, while the other flock lived in the land of Ploy. The Dodo birds were going extinct, and these were the only two flocks left on earth. In order to live, the Dodo birds ate the Green Melon; a rare fruit that could only be found in the frozen land in between the two flocks. As the years went by, the fruit became more and more scarce, until one day, the Dodo birds figured out that there was only one melon left. They all loved the melon, needed the melon, and had to have the melon. The chiefs of the two flocks came together one day, and made a pact saying that the flock of Dreece could have the melon since it was closer to their property, and no bird from Ploy was to come and try to steal it. 

 

One day, however, a bird from Ploy came and stole the melon in the middle of the night, and caused a great war to happen between the two flocks. The whole flock of Dreece came together to try and take back the melon that was rightly theirs. One bird in their flock, Adilles, was half Bald Eagle and could fly and do things the other Dodo birds could not do; he was the key to taking over Ploy and reclaiming their precious melon. Unfortunately, the chief of Dreece was a jealous, selfish and mean bird who had insulted Adilles' Bald Eagle origin, so Adilles refused to help the Dreece flock. After a little convincing by his best friend, Drocaltus , Adilles decided he would help Dreece fight Ploy and take back the melon. 

Adilles sent his friend Drocaltus to aid in the battle until Adilles decided to show up. When Drocaltus went to Ploy to fight, something was stirred up inside of him, and he tried to take over Ploy even though Adilles had specifically told him not to. The payment for this was death. Drocaltus was killed by a bird named Wector, who was a mighty fighter and the brother of the bird who stole the melon. 

When a Dodo bird dies, the whole flock comes together, sings a beautiful song, and then makes a pair of large wings for the dead bird (since we all know Dodo birds can't fly) in order to help it fly away to heaven. The Dodo birds could not do this however, since they did not have the poor body of Drocaltus! So the war raged over which flock would have the flightless bird's body. Dreece won the battle, and gave Drocaltus a proper Dodo funeral. 

Adilles was still angered over the death of his friend, so he decided to go after Wector and fight him. Adilles was quite the intimidating bird, which his large wings, distinctive white patch of hair upon his head... When other birds saw him, they would tremble in fear. Wector reacted similarly, except Wector was so nerve-wrecked when Adilles approached him, that he simply had a heart attack and died! This was not all that surprised to the other Dodo birds, since they all knew regular Dodos had very weak hearts anyways. 

Adilles would then move on to conquer Ploy and take back the last melon. 

A shot from the movie Ice Age where the
Dodo birds are protecting their melon
Source: Animated Views

Author's Note: This story was based off Homer's Iliad retold by Alfred J. Church (1907). The story is originally about Achilles, a demigod who lived in Greece, and was called to help take back the fair Helen who had fallen in love with a prince of Troy. I changed the characters to Dodo birds to the story, mainly because when I was thinking of ideas the scene from Ice Age popped into my head, when all the Dodo birds are going after the last melon. So I combined the two ideas and the result was this story. In the original story, there were many interferences from Greek gods, but I left those out of my version to make it a little simpler. The storyline as a whole is generally the same.