Mirror, Mirror on the Wall......
"Mirror, Mirror, on the wall. Who is the most powerful of them all? Tell me what I want to hear, and you shall be rewarded handsomely, my dear."
To which the little mirror replied:
"From my lips, thou shall not hear, anything remotely like an answer!"
The evil witch, on hearing her words, quivered in rage like a bean curd.
"If you do not let me know the answer, beware of the consequences you shall suffer!"
"The hell with you! I will never succumb to an ugly one such as you!" The little mirror shouted back in defiance.
"You shall regret what you have said! Mark my words, you are better off dead!" The evil witch started to summon a curse upon the little mirror, who was actually a little laurel spirit sealed into the mirror as punishment for breaking a major law of the fairies.
"I am worse off than dead already! Do what you will! I do not care!" The laurel fairy replied, tired of the rhyming game they had been keeping up. (Actually, it's the author who's tired of the game, not her, but what the heck.)
"And you will remember that I have warned you about this!" The evil witch pointed a trembling finger at her, trying hard to control her anger, for if she did not, she would be unable to successfully summon a curse.
"Father of Evil,
Hark my words!
Bestow upon this fairy,
An eternal curse!
She shall always stay on Earth,
Never be bonded with her love!
And she shall forever be in love
With the doll prince who's as cursed as her!"
The evil witch sure knew how to use her curses. For that was the most vicious of curses that could ever befall on anyone.
You see, the fairy was already in love with the doll prince, way before he had turned into a doll. Let's not forget that there was already a double dose of bad luck on the Prince, who was to stay as a doll until he finds a girl who can love him as he is. In addition, the witch cast another spell over him, so that if the object of his affections approaches him, he will immediately feel repelled against her!
And the little laurel fairy could never stop loving this doll prince, even if she could.
As if she could, even without this spell. She was already deep in the trap. She could not stop thinking of him, day and night. And yet, he never knew of her existence...... Except, maybe, as an interesting, talking mirror, But that's all. Even if she pines for him every minute, every second, he still tells her about how he wants to find his perfect lover, how he will love that one and only lady in his life, blah blah blah blah blah, unknowing about what it does to her.
So in a sense, she really didn't care what happens to her anyway.
Back to the cursing witch. As soon as she stopped her chanting, a dense, dark, gloomy cloud appeared over the laurel fairy's head, emitting a strange, red light, while sapping all of her energy away. The laurel fairy looked down in horror to find the red light penetrating her body, then expanding from the inside, as if trying to break her apart. Her soul felt like it was being torn apart, into millions of tiny pieces. The tiny pieces were scattered all over the air, very much like dust and light particles floating about, except that each of them contained a little of her memories, her feelings, and everything that makes her so. As they drifted away in the wind, what was left of the laurel fairy’s body was just that, an empty shell.
" And you shall remain in this state for various reincarnations, until you meet the doll prince. Then you will know what you have been waiting for all your lives, and suffer for it!!" The witch screamed and cackled at her own brilliance, and at the thought of seeing the two of them suffer.
"Indeed, revenge is sweet. Even if I am only halfway through it. I can hardly imagine the overdose of sweetness I will get when the time comes to reap my final fruits of revenge! HAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!! I shall await eagerly!!!!" And she thus disappeared into the air, leaving the empty shell of the laurel fairy.
However, it was not as empty as the evil witched had thought. For a trickle of transparent liquid flowed down her left eye. It appeared as if the trickle had a life of its own, and did not belong to the open, but unseeing eye.
"That was a beautiful story, Mama. But what has it got to do with us?" A bewildered Ling Yue asked her mother, while puzzling over the coincidence that this story had a cursed doll prince as well.
Ling Yue's Mother looked at her silently for a moment. She was undecided if she should really divulge the truth to her innocent daughter. How badly she wanted to keep her daughter from being hurt! They say ignorance is bliss, and she is willing to believe that, just to be on the safe side! But from the way things are looking, it is already too late, much too late...
"Mama?" Ling Yue saw the pained expression on her mother's face, and wondered if she was the cause of it all. (Silly girl, of course she was.)
"I want you to look at this picture" Ling Yue's mother pushed the family heirloom towards her. From what her mother told her, the family heirloom was actually an ancient book created waaay way back, to the extent that no one could measure the year. It recorded the origins of Ling Yue's Mother's family and was passed down from generation to generation. She said that the chain was never broken, and could never be broken. Why, she didn't know. Maybe there was a guardian angel over it, to ensure that it was being passed down without fail.
Ling Yue glanced at her doubtfully, unsure of the reason that her mother was so grave when all she wanted to do was let her see the family heirloom.
She peered at the book, trying to find out what troubled her mother so much.
"Mama!" She squeaked, her jaw dropping until it creaked. "T...this this is the laurel fairy? Are you sure? But how is that possible? Why is her picture being recorded at all? I thought there were no books at that time? B...but how can this be?"
"Believe me, Xiao Yue, it would do me no good to fool you. This book is as authentic as it possibly could be."
"B...but isn't it supposed to be a fairy tale of some sorts? How can it possibly be true? It's too bizarre to for words!"
"Listen to me, Xiao Yue...... LISTEN TO ME!! You have to accept the facts. You do not have anymore time! If you dwindle this life away, you will never get another chance again! You might never get to see the Prince, forever!"
"I do not get you, Mama! Are you saying that I am the laurel fairy? Even if we look very much alike, but still... And what has this got to do with the Prince?"
"Alright, if it is so hard to believe, read this. It says here 'Thy soul shall fill the empty shell when the mark of laurel appears on thy collar.'"
Instinctively, Ling Yue pulls out the collar of her shirt the see if there was any laurel mark there.
"Silly girl! It was referring to a birthmark! Don't you remember, you have a birthmark on your collarbone?" Ling Yue's Mother produced a handheld mirror out of nowhere, and reflected it against Ling Yue's collarbone.
Indeed, there was a birthmark in the shape of the laurel leaf there.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, it was still a great shock to Ling Yue. Of course it was. It wasn't every other day that she gets to know that her origins go back to fairyland.
"A...and you k...knew this all along, Mama?" She looked up from the mirror quiveringly to gaze upon her Mother's patient eyes, and was rewarded with a firm nod.
"A...and is that why you wanted me to throw away the doll, and the book?"
"That's right, dear"
"A...and you never mentioned it once before in all my twenty years of existence, now you're bombarding me with all the truth?"
Ling Yue's mother hung her head in shame, muttering a small yes to her question. She had expected Ling Yue to be agitated, even to blame her for it, but she still felt the tug on her conscience acutely.
The sickeningly filial Ling Yue saw the effect of her words on her mother, and suddenly realized how cruel she was being.
"Oh, Mama, I am so sorry. I only thought about my own feelings, and gave not a care for yours. I know that you did it all for my own good. B...but, it's just that I am a weak and cowardly girl. This is all too quick, and all too hard for me to accept!"
"Oh, my baby! Of course you're not weak! You are the best daughter I could ever hope to have! This would be hard on anyone! Don't be too harsh on yourself, my Xiao Yue!"
"Mama!"
"Xiao Yue!"
"Oh Mama!"
"My poor little Xiao Yue!"
And so they carried on calling each other in typical Qiong Yao (read: mushy) fashion.
They had finally exhausted themselves after calling each other consecutively for three hours.
"So...Mama" Ling Yue panted, her voice hoarse and scratchy after the many hours of torture she had subjected it to. "What should I do now that I know the truth?"
"I don't actually know how to break the evil witch's spell, if that's what you're asking."
"Oh no! How am I to know what to do if even you are unaware?" Ling Yue wailed, convinced that her life would be doomed forever.
"I'm sorry that I can't help you. For I am only your follower, technically speaking."
"What do you mean, my follower?" Ling Yue was temporarily distracted from her wailing by that interesting nugget of information.
"Well, apparently, the laurel fairy's follower was so devoted to her that she vowed to follow her wherever she went. And when the witch placed the curse on the laurel fairy, the follower became either her mother or sister with each reincarnation, trying each time to help the fairy break the curse. And that is the sole reason why that family heirloom of ours exists. I created it to aid our journey towards freedom and took it with me wherever we went. It has almost become a part of my body, you could say."
"Does that mean that you retain all the memory from your previous lives?" Ling Yue stared wide-eyed at her mother, fascinated by the knowledge.
"Yes, but only when the fairy was born. This means that I only knew about all this twenty years ago, when I first held you in my arms. I could still remember wondering at the loveliness of my newborn baby, when suddenly a strange, warm, glowing light seemed to beam down from the heavens and fill me with this knowledge. And from then on, my life has changed tremendously."
Ling Yue’s Mother’s eyes had a soft glow in them upon recalling Ling Yue’s birth.
"But did Father know about it?"
Ling Yue's Mother stopped her trip down memory's lane abruptly, an uneasy expression on her face.
"You have no father, Xiao Yue. Biologically or otherwise. The thing is, till this day I still do not know how I have become impregnated with you. The only thing I can remember that remotely relates to this is a strange dream some nights before your birth." She said in a confused tone.
"What strange dream?" Ling Yue enquired anxiously.
"Well, I could remember dreaming about a small particle of unknown composition floating up to me, then whispering in a silvery voice that it would become part of me very soon. Then it dove straight into my belly without any warning. Following that, millions of similar particles started to dive straight into my belly, as if following the first one. After a week, I started having labour pains."
"A week? That's incredible! Does that mean that I am made of those particles? What a kinky idea!"
"For starters, you aren't any other kind of human being. You're the laurel fairy, remember?"
Ling Yue was silent for a while, looking at her mother earnestly.
"What's wrong?" Her mother asked, ruffling her hair with her fingers.
"Thank you." Ling Yue said in a most heartfelt way.
Her mother was left speechless, touched beyond words.
But her silence was soon broken, for she suddenly let out a stifled sob.
"What's wrong, Mama? Are you ill?" Frantically, Ling Yue felt her mother's forehead to detect any signs of fever she might be suffering.
The latter just shook her head, unable to explain her sudden burst of emotion.
After having calmed down for a while, she looked at Ling Yue with shining eyes.
"I'm sorry, Xiao Yue. I actually tried to stop you from being with the prince... All because I was so afraid of losing you! My selfishness and narrow-mindedness might have caused you to lose this only chance, to regain what you once had!"
"Oh Mama! You have done too much for me! Do not blame yourself! I know how much you love me; it is only natural for you to fear for that to happen! I understand perfectly, Mama!!" Ling Yue clung onto her mother, trying to dispel any uneasy feelings she might have been harbouring.
"Xiao Yue!"
"Mama!"
"My dearest Xiao Yue!"
"My one and only Mama!!"
And thus, they resumed to another one of their nauseatingly mushy sessions of calling each other's names continuously. And for a good many hours too, disrupting the peace of the reader and author's mind.
Qiong Yao: A famous Taiwanese writer, well known for writing Chinese love stories that are long-winded and full of disgustingly mushy stuff. But they are so popular that many of them are made into movies and television serials. Chances are, if you ask just any Chinese person around, he or she would recognize her name. Such is the extent of her popularity. Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with her novels. For one thing, I have little patience with the many repeats (like the one shown above, repeating terms of endearment or names over and over again). On the other, they are frighteningly addictive. Horrors! Someone please help me! And so I have enlisted the help of the doll prince, by writing some of this stuff myself. As they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Wahaha!!
Pathway to Anti-Fairytale Land
The Cursed Living Doll Intro
Chapter 2 - Why Oh Why does MaMa object to my Prince?!!!
Chapter 4 - (Under Construction) Coming Soon
The Yisheigai Intro
The Storyteller's Tent
