Mirror, Mirror ~ by SaralynArati

SaralynArati

0

Story continues on this doll: httpwww.dolldivine.com/Azaleas-Dolls/SaralynArati-2944128

10 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Jade Black Rose is a vain creature. She spends hours arranging her hair and gazing into her mirror. That, however, only reflects the surface. The song Summer Wind plays now is the Queen's own; it is her soul, her life, and what she has done with both of those gifts. And the evil woman simply cannot stand it. By this time the sword has fallen from her slack fingers, her eyes are glazed over with horror, and she is rapidly losing her mind. Inside her head she is shrieking. The Queen falls.

10 years ago

SaralynArati

0

But no! The princess strides into the circle and bows to her opponent as a sign that she is ready to begin. Jade Black Rose forgets her plans of slowly bleeding Summer Wind to death and runs at her, sword held high. Incredibly, the girl dodges, sidesteps, slips away again and again, all the while playing that hateful lyre. And the song... the Queen cannot escape that song. It is harsh, ugly, discordant, and deeply familiar. She cannot help listening to it and it makes her falter and quail.

10 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Then Her Highness, Princess of the Dawn Gate, opens the case. It does not contain knives or throwing stars as the Queen was hypothesizing; what Summer Wind unwraps and draws from its carrying container is a lyre. A lyre! A musical instrument! Her Majesty, Queen Black Rose, is virtually hysterical with rage. Somehow it demeans her sense of victory if the foolish girl doesn't even fight back. Perhaps the young woman will yet redeem herself and manifest a proper sword magically from thin air.

10 years ago

SaralynArati

0

Queen Black Rose, alert on this occasion to the possibility of spies or assassins, has banned the townsfolk from the walls or greensward in front of the southern gate. Rumor will spread anyway, but more slowly, and the sorceress Queen wants no distractions, like crowd noise, to diminish her enjoyment of this duel. Summer Wind's friends and family have all sworn to remain distant enough to be safe, with Blue Turtle Dreaming again a guest in her camp scrying for her brother and Kanu's benefit.

10 years ago

SaralynArati

0

The answer is that the conditions, of course, are not entirely fair to the younger woman. The Summer Gate is bristling with bowmen and cabal Sisters who have orders to maim Summer Wind if she strays outside of the circle, or at the signal of the Queen. Yet the Princess of the Dawn Gate has come alone, not even bringing her horse. She does have a case with her, but it is completely the wrong shape for a sword. Jade Black Rose, inherently suspicious, feels a strange sensation: nervousness.

10 years ago