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So remember how I said I wanted to write an isekai novel featuring an "oracle" figure on the run who doesn't actually have the gift of foresight? Well, it's rapidly developed since then into something Bigger™.
Many years ago, when I was still as obssessed with fairytales and folklore retellings as I am now, I dreamed up an Alice in Wonderland retelling that...never really got off the ground. (Sidebar: it just occurred to me that retellings are the root of my love for fanfiction! I can't believe I didn't realize that until literally this moment!) My last blog post on the isekai/portal genre naturally got me thinking about Lewis Carroll's story, which got me thinking about my retelling idea, and BAM! It occurred to me I could merge my old story concept with this new one!
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 Photo by Joanna Nix-Walkup on Unsplash "Take me with you," her reflection whispered, and the girl only shook her head with a finger to her lips, and turned away to smile at the king who'd come to court her, though she was but a peasant. "Take me with you," the girl in the mirror begged again, as the now-princess laid her hand in her soon-to-be husband's, and was led out of her old home. But the princess turned her back on her image, and pretended she did not hear its whisper. Much time passed, and the princess became queen, and she had a child with skin white as snow, and cheeks like blossoming roses, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. And the figure trapped in the glass called to the queen, for the third time. And it said, "Fairest, dearest, now will you take me with you? For you promised to free me if I gave you everything you wanted, and so you have found love, and become queen, and you have borne a daughter as beautiful as you are, and now I am owed my freedom." But the queen did not want to free the being in the mirror, for she knew there would be dire consequences, but neither could the mirror be destroyed, or all the queen had would be undone. So instead, the queen carried it deep into the woods, to be forgotten in a dark place where no one would venture and find it. Only even without the queen to cast an image on the mirror, the being within it had enough power to call out to any who would hear, and the world is not so large that its hidden places long remain so. And so one day, a girl found the mirror, a peasant girl like the queen used to be, and as she beheld the mirror and the image of herself it cast back upon her, she heard a voice whisper, "Do you wish to be the fairest of them all?" Fictober is an event hosted on tumblr where writers respond to a prompt a day for the whole of October.
You can find the prompt list here. “You have no proof that he ever existed. It was just a dream, Phillipa.” But Phillipa had known it to be true, known him to be real. She didn’t need to offer anybody proof. She didn’t even need it to reassure herself; her memories were enough. She trusted herself enough. And at long last--at long last—she’d found her proof, even if it had taken her a hundred and twelve years, terrible magic, and the sacrifice of her mortality to get it. She cut down the last layer of enchanted, thorned ivy with her charmed sword to reveal the door on the other side. A word of command had it swinging open, and then she was through to the castle. And inside, they all slept. Servants and dogs and lords and ladies, in the courtyard and in the halls and along the staircases, untouched by time, preserved as they had been in the moment when the spindle had done its evil work. Phillipa passed them all. She knew where to go. Knew where she'd find him. All she had to to was climb the stairs of the tallest tower and step through the open doorway. And there he lay upon the bed, as beautiful as she remembered him. His hair golden as the sun at dawn. His cheeks flushed as twin roses. And that mouth—sweet and familiar and lax in his sleep. Breathless, exultant, she crossed over to him, sank down upon the bed to hold his limp, warm hand in her own. “Briar,” she whispered though he couldn’t hear her except, perhaps, in his dreams. “I’ve found you. I’ve come back to you.” Leaning forward, she swept a stray curl from his brow, smiled tremulously, though she'd almost forgotten how to after so, so long. “You’ll be free now,” she promised him. “You’ll be mine.” And so saying, she bent forward, pressed her lips to his-- And fell asleep with a gentle sigh, curled against her beloved. Fictober is an event hosted on tumblr where writers respond to a prompt a day for the whole of October.
You can find the prompt list here. |
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