I really like this mythology/fairy tale prompts. This one's kinda based on Donkeyskin because I was flipping through Asami screenshots and was struck by how much she grew up to look like her mom. Although I couldn't think of a good way for Hiroshi Sato to own a donkey that poops gold without REALLY derailing the story, so that part got cut out. It's Donkeyskin without the donkey skin. I love this fairy tale, though! It's not the most popular, so if you don't know it I encourage you to go look it up.
It was hard to lose her mother. The comfort of the servants was but a cold replacement for the love of a parent, yet her father was lost in his own grief and had forgotten his only child. Weeks passed, months, years, and yet he mourned. The sight of the girl brought nothing but pain, for he could see little but the reflection of the mother in the child's face. However, there came a time when his daughter could no longer be called a child, and then his thoughts tended in another direction. The girl had grown into a woman of unsurpassed beauty, and there were moments when he could have almost believed his wife to live again.
The sudden return of affection after so many years startled her, yet she was happy to think that she might know the love of a father again. But the love he showed her was not what a father was meant feel. She was afraid, yet was powerless. Had she tried to run, he would have sent men to bring her back by force, and then she would have been a prisoner in truth. There came a day when she could no longer put him off with half-smiles and polite denials, and he demanded her hand in marriage.
It would be impossible to refuse him, and she went to bed that night and cried as she tried to think of some escape. In the morning she went to him and demanded proof of his love. He gladly agreed. Anything her heart might yearn for would be hers. She asked for a dress that held the beauty of the night sky, one as brilliant as the sun, and one that shone with the silvery light of the moon. She left content that she had asked the impossible and escaped her father's reach.
However, the man was rich. He poured out gold and sought the most skilled dressmakers in the land. He soon lay the three wondrous dresses at his daughter's feet and named the day of their wedding. That night, she despaired. But she refused to surrender herself to her father. She packed the three beautiful dresses and covered herself with ashes from the fire. She stole the delicate silver ring that had been her mother's, took an old cloak that had been cast aside for rags and fled into the darkness.
She walked. She walked until her feet were torn and bleeding, and yet could find no safe haven. She knocked on every door in search of work and shelter, yet was turned away. Finally, when she had nearly given up hope, she found a rich house that was in need of a girl to scrub pots in the kitchen. She worked there, ignoring the scorn of the servants as they mocked the filthy scullery maid. On feast days she would hide in her tiny room, wash her face and hair, and dress herself in one of the wondrous dresses she had brought with her.
One day the lord of that land happened to pass by her room and saw through a crack the shine of the dress that shone with the sun's light. He looked through, and those his eyes were near blinded by its brilliance, he was struck by the beauty of the woman who wore the dress. She thought she saw a mask of white and red, but when she had hidden the dress and smeared her face with ashes again, she found nobody in the hall. She tried to put it from her mind, yet her thoughts went often to the ruler of the land, who all men knew hid his face behind a pale ceramic mask.
The man wished to discover who the woman he had seen was, but was only told that the ugly scullery maid lived in that part of the house. Surely no maid could have owned a dress as magnificent as the one he had seen. Finally, he resolved to ask for a cake made by her hand. His men, his servants were all bewildered by this, but his lieutenant carried the request down to the woman's quarters. She was no less confused than the others, but bowed to the lord's wishes.
She closed herself away from the sight of the other servants to make the lord's cake. She washed her face and hair and although she would not wear one of the dresses, she placed her mother's silver ring on her finger. As she worked, the ring fell from her finger and into the batter. It was not until after she had disguised herself again and presented the cake to the lieutenant that she realized she had lost this last memory of her mother.
When the lord found the ring in the cake, he rejoiced. The finger to wear such a delicate thing could belong to no common servant. He declared that only the woman able to wear the ring would be his wife, and that every lady in the kingdom must come and present themselves to him. Women came from far and wide, yet not one had a finger slender enough to wear the ring. After the noblewomen came the merchants' daughters, and then the servants, yet none was the woman he sought. He began to despair, for there were no more women and he had not found the one he wished for. He asked his lieutenant whether every woman had been presented and found that the scullery maid had never been brought, for surely there was no need to think that she could be the woman who owned the ring.
The lord could not even wait for a servant to bring her, and went to her himself. When he opened the door to her tiny little room, he found her waiting there clad in the dress that glimmered with the delicate light of a thousand stars. He was bewildered by her beauty, for until that moment he had never seen her clearly. She made a graceful curtsy to him, one of equals and not one of a servant to her master. When he took her hand, the ring slid easily onto her finger, and he did not delay a moment in asking for her hand. She did not hesitate to accept, and took his hand to step forward from room and walk down the hall by his side. She was married in the silver dress as subtle as moonlight, and all in the land marveled at the beauty of the woman who had won their lord's love.