The Puppet Girl
A young magician came to the royal palace.
A young magician came to the royal palace. He does not change rabbits and birds from a tall hat, nor does he have the ability to cut a large living person into pieces and restore them. This magician only one trick, is to manipulate the puppet girl. Look, it is a beautiful puppet girl, long light gold hair, blue eyes, untouched expression, the most beautiful princess in the palace will be jealous. But she had no freedom, translucent silver threads nailed her every joint, every move was manipulated by the magician. He wants her to smile, she will be frowning; he wants her to cry, she will be like a flood of tears. She can sing, dance, and even perform a wonderful one-man show. As long as the magician fiddles with the silk threads and hooks his fingers, the puppet girl will respectfully obey orders and submit completely. The princes and nobles had never seen such a magical puppet show before, and were so satisfied that they gave the magician many rewards. At the end of each day's performance, the magician would put the treasures into his bag, and also put the puppet girl into a black lacquered wooden box padded with velvet and dried flower petals. The puppet girl lay in the sea of lifeless flowers, quietly, her eyes staring vacantly at her master, her red lips slightly open, as if she had something to say. So the magician said for her: you love me, and I love you. Then he kissed her gently on the lips, then covered the box, leaving her alone in the endless darkness: Good night, my puppet girl. Because this marvelous puppet show was so popular, the magician stayed at the palace day after day, and the puppet maiden, with her countless talents, was able to surprise the distinguished audience every day. Who wouldn't love her? She was so well-behaved and obedient, so moving. Whether it's her graceful body when dancing in the sunlight or her gentle expression when playing the harp in the moonlight, it's all mesmerizing. Almost everyone loved her as a real person. Until one evening, even the future heir of the kingdom, the noble prince could not hold back this love, broke into the magician's room, wanting the magician to sell the puppet girl to himself, from then on to enjoy this amazing beauty alone. The price he offered was the equivalent of the puppet girl's gold. The puppet girl just stood by, silent, while the magician thought about the shiny gold, there were traces of wavering in his eyes. After that the magician said he needed to think about it one more night and respectfully sent His Royal Highness away. He then let the puppet girl lie down into the wooden box, but did not immediately kiss her as he had done in the past. The magician simply sat beside her, staring at her with a complicated look in his eyes, until the sunset sank completely below the horizon and the infinite darkness flowed into the room through the window. The room was not lit, only the light in the puppet girl's turquoise blue eyes shone brightly, shining more brightly than the stars in the night sky. The magician could not help but reach out and tenderly stroke her hair and cheeks, resting his fingers on the corner of her lips, and said to himself with determination: "My dear, I want to offer you to the prince. This also proves that I really love you. As much as I love you as much as I love gold. After that, his lips covered hers, as softly and warmly as in the past countless kisses: Good night, my puppet girl. It was late at night, and the magician was asleep in his bed, when the lid of the black-lacquered wooden box at the other end of the room was opened, and a pale hand came out. The puppet girl stood up stiffly from the wooden box and took the first step with her bare feet. Every joint clicked, and the countless silver threads nailed to her body trailed by her ankles, swaying gently with the puppet girl's increasingly smooth steps, like a dying silver snake saying its last prayer. By the time the puppet girl stood at the magician's bedside, her movements were naturally the same as those of a normal person. She leaned down to gaze at the other's sleeping face, and after a long time, offered a sweet kiss: goodbye, my master. The magician felt himself being dragged in a daze, opened his eyes, he found himself being stuffed into a wooden box full of velvet and dried flower petals, the girl's golden hair dangling in front of him, and the long silver threads nailed to her body. Gold and silver intertwined, like a dream, soft and cold, moving and demonic. The magician was horrified and hurried to grab the silver threads that manipulated the puppet girl, but every time he grabbed one, the silver threads there broke away and fell down. The puppet girl just silently pick up the wooden box of dried flower petals, a handful of a handful to the magician's face. The fragrance of flowers is getting stronger and stronger, and the magician's struggle is getting weaker and weaker. He used his last strength to grab the last silver thread on the puppet girl's body, trying to use it as his lifeline, but desperately saw from the gap between the petals, the girl also grabbed the silver thread and pulled it out of his heart. Powerless to lend the magician sank, buried by the infinite influx of petals, until slowly drowning in the midst of this dry floral fragrance. The young girl quietly watched a petal by the magician's last exhale raised, and slowly fell back to the original, tears welled up in her eyes, full of blond hair in the teardrop before all faded into silver. She reached up and brushed away the dried flower petals that covered the young man's face, watching him sleep calmly with his eyes closed, running her fingers gently through his hair, cheeks, and the corners of his lips. Just as he had done to himself. Then the girl dried her tears and cut a strand of silver hair from her head, one by one, into the other's heart and joints, until the other's body was covered with silver threads, and the right to manipulate each silver thread was in her hands. The young woman flicked one of the silver strands, and the young man opened his eyes, his empty eyes gazing at himself. She moved up, her face almost close to his, her hand pressed against the heartless chest, and murmured: "Do you love me? I love you, always. Then the maiden smiled, holding all the silver threads in her hand, so pleasant, so proud. Then be my puppet for the rest of your life. With your everlasting love for me as a traction.
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Broken Strings 2
The movement was as gentle as plucking the lightest notes on the strings of a lute. What he wanted most was to brush away a snowflake that had fallen in the hair of the princess. This is enough. *** After dawn, the team escorting the princess away from the wedding set off. The people gathered all the way around, so lively that the snow along the way are trampled melted. Everyone is excited to look and point out, that the bride's carriage is more elegant, accompanied by the dowry is more substantial. But no one saw that the princess was sitting alone in the carriage, holding a broken string in her arms. And farther and farther away from her, outside the palace gates, stood a luthier, holding a wooden box in his hands. The wooden box contains a small bundle of hair, black and shiny, even the most beautiful night sky can not compare. *** The young musician could not play any decent songs since then, not only the original aura in the music disappeared without a trace, dull and tedious to fall short, even the simplest tunes are repeatedly wrong, so people simply can not listen. The palace is never short of people eyeing his position, not long after, the qin master was expelled for the crime of dereliction of duty, the former glory is no longer, sadly returned home. The world has lamented that the qin master was young and ambitious, but prematurely ended up in the river, it is regrettable. However, the master did not care about these comments, but just closed his door and learned the art of building a zither alone. After all, even a good luthier is not a luthier, and it is absurd to learn from scratch. But the luthier really learned, how much suffering there should be, perhaps only the calluses on his hands know. Within a few years, the luthier became a world-famous luthier, and his quiet home became lively again, with a constant stream of people coming to buy and learn from him. One of his instruments was even taken into the treasury of the royal palace and sent to the capital of a neighboring country along with other treasures as a congratulatory gift to celebrate the cessation of the war between the two countries and the peace on the border. The next year, at the beginning of winter, a secret envoy came from the neighboring country and asked the luthier for a newly made lute. Without hesitation, he took out the best lute and gave it to the envoy. He told him that the queen of the neighboring country was worried about the friendship between the two countries, and the only way to relieve her homesickness was to play a tune on the lute from her homeland. *** Every few years after that, the secret envoy would come as scheduled, take a good lute from the luthier and give him a small wooden box in return as a thank you gift. The wooden box was opened and the object inside was always the same, a small bunch of hair. The only thing that changed was the color of the hair. From black and shiny, to mixed with silver, to white, to pure white as snow. The qin master has also aged, no longer the flamboyant gentleman, almost no one remembers that he was the world's most famous qin master when he was young. After all, in the past few decades, people only know that his skill in making the zither has become more and more exquisite, but no one has ever heard him play a complete tune. According to his disciples, occasionally on a snowy night, they would hear the sound of the zither coming from the zither master's room, but unfortunately it was always the string that broke before the song was finished. It should not ah. The people were puzzled. The old luthier's instruments were always flawless, and his string-making skills were even better. All kinds of rare materials could be made into the best strings in his hands, so how could they be broken at will? This is perhaps the will of God. Someone mentioned that the zither master was expelled from the palace. Back then, his fate with the zither sound was broken. *** The weather this winter is a bit strange, obviously colder than previous years, the snow that should come is late. The old luthier waited and waited, and waited until the old luthier was ready. The old luthier waited and waited, but in the end, all that came was a message. The Empress Dowager of the neighboring country had passed away. That night, the first snow of the year finally came, flying all over the sky, falling like jade shavings. The aged luthier sat alone in the snow-filled garden, holding a lute in his arms. This was the best and last zither he had ever made in his life. The body of the lyre was ancient and simple, while the strings carried a strange texture, black and shiny, flexible and shining slightly in the snowy night. No one could guess what material it was, but there was no need to guess, for no one else in the world had the ability to make strings of that material. It was a secret that belonged to the luthier alone, and it took him all his life to find out. When a piece of snow fell on the string, the luthier stretched out his hand and plucked his fingertips on the string, moving as gently as if he was gently brushing a snowflake away from a young girl's hair. In an instant, light notes flowed out from the strings, flowing in the clouds and flowing in the water, and the spirit did not diminish at all. The tears dripped from the eyes of the musician, hazy floating in front of the eyes, is still the black-haired girl standing in the snow, eyebrows and eyes are dyed with smiles. The snow never stopped, as if it would never stop again in this life. The musician sat in the snow and continued to play the zither, the sound of the zither with the snowflakes together with the scattering, the sound of mournful. The strings have not changed, the song is finally broken.
By Frankie C Reder4 years ago in Fiction
9:52
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By Leslie L. Stevens Writer | Marfa, Texasa day ago in Fiction
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