A/N: before anyone accuses me of stealing this idea. This story was written and posted to dA and Pinterest back in August, before the other one was posted here. With the exception of it being fanfiction, this story is original, and my own idea. That being said, you should go check out Greta, another Lunar Chronicles retelling of Hansel and Gretel, because it's pretty cool :D
I have a series of fairytale retellings set in the Lunar Chronicles world set up. I wrote this back a while ago for the Pinterest contest, the cover art is mine. Since writing this, I've been working on the other ones simultaneously, which is why I have yet to finish any. (Go to chapter three and scroll to the bottom if you're interested in seeing a description of the upcoming fairytale retellings I have set!)
Each of these stories is told from different perspectives, usually the heroine's. Jun is rather cynical and dry, hence the narrative.
EDIT: I also fixed a chronology/dating error, thanks to the person who alerted me to it!
Anyway, hope you enjoy!
"Name?" the android droned. Its black sensor flashed before I could reply and answered the question for me.
"Lín Jenzhu
Age: 14
Sex: Female
Born December 12th of the 112th year T.E.
Race: Half-Asian
Daughter to Lín Damian: Woodsman, and Lín Song: Deceased
Sister to Lín Shangdi
Residence: Shílín, China
Current marital status-"
"Yes, yes, I know who I am." I spat, becoming agitated just listening to the thing "speak".
"This is all correct?"
I nodded in confirmation. "I'd prefer to be called Jun, though."
It blinked a few times, its computer whirring inside it, and gestured for me to follow it behind the counter. Behind me, Shang was getting a similar interrogation by the floating android's partner. I winked at him and he stuck his tongue out at me, typical Shang style.
I rolled my eyes and ducked into the kitchen where the android was hovering. "This is where we bake the pastries. For the sake of simplicity, we keep all baking on this side of the kitchen, and candy-making on the other. Understand?"
"Yeah, sure. Pastries on one side, candy on the other."
"Correct." the bot stated blandly and continued through the kitchen. Yawning, I took a good look around the room and wished I'd gone to sleep earlier the night before. My father made Shang and me listen to Mei whine all night long about our manners. We told her that we'd work harder to be polite in the hopes she'd shut up, but it didn't help and she continued to complain about every mistake we'd ever made.
I hated Mei. I hated her the moment father introduced her to us. She was vile and mean and called me sugar, despite the fact I'd told her time and time again to stop. Shang, not to be out-done by me, despised her even more. He called her "The Witch" behind her back and made faces when he thought she wasn't looking. In his defense, it was incredibly funny.
Despite my contempt for Mei, she had a point. Shang and I weren't the most well-behaved children. Our father tried to convince us that she was only trying to help out with our interviews. "She's gone out of her way to get you this job, she doesn't want you two to ruin a great opportunity on your first day," he'd explained.
At that point, I'd been too sleepy to care and nodded in agreement. "Stars above, dad, I get it, we both get it." and with that it was over.
Shang and the other android filed into the kitchen behind us. He got the same speech, word-for-word, as I did, crinkling his nose and ignoring the robot. I think he was thinking the same one thought as me: we'd never smelt something this good before in our lives. Even the scent of our father's homemade mooncake couldn't compare to the mouth-watering aromas wafting in and out the kitchen.
"Are you listening?" the black android suddenly snapped at me. I jolted back to reality and realized I'd been day-dreaming about all the delectable goodies that were in store for me at Breadcrumbs.
Breadcrumbs- who on earth would name their shop Breadcrumbs? In fact, who on Luna, who in the entire galaxy would name their shop Breadcrumbs? It lacked any charm whatsoever. Even the market stores named after the owners had more creative names. Shang had joked that they'd only named the shop Breadcrumbs because they were picking from the breadcrumbs left behind by the big chain-store companies, but no doubt his opinion had changed like mine once we'd stepped into the shop. It was massive, two whole stories, and more like a restaurant than a bakery. There were three large counters displaying hundreds of heavenly-looking candies, sweets, cakes, and treats. There were candied apples, gourmet lollipops, rich chocolate figures, soft almond biscuits, scrumptious blueberry tarts, every sweet you could imagine and more. I wanted to be a three-year old kid with their face plastered against the glass of the counter, gazing with gluttonous thirst at the food. There were plenty of children doing just that, drool hanging out the corners of their mouths as their parents tried to drag them away. One child had started a tantrum because his mother wouldn't buy him one of the strawberry cupcakes. Apparently he had an allergy to strawberries, but that didn't seem to be changing his mind.
It occurred to me I'd spaced out again. If the android in front of me had a face, I'm sure it would have been glaring, "Are you done slobbering all over the food, now?" he demanded, almost sarcastically.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, can I start now?" I wondered impatiently.
Shang popped up behind me with his own annoying ball of wires. "Can we? Can we? I'm so freaking booored," he drew the word out as if that would somehow emphasize his point.
The floating white android behind him made a tutting sound and zipped off in the opposite direction. We turned to the other bot begging with our eyes. it must have been programmed with some sort of merciful personality because before we knew it, both Shang and I had a job working at Breadcrumbs Pastry and Treat Emporium. We would switch between working the register with Khan, the black android, and baking the food in the back with the larger worker androids. Na Rin, the white manager droid that had been instructing Shang handed us our uniforms programmed our ID chips to register on the store's interface.
It went like that for a few weeks. We'd wake up as early as five in the morning and head to Breadcrumbs, work a fifteen-hour day, go straight home, to bed without any dinner. After all our work, we were too tired for a meal.
Once we'd started, we barely ever saw dad. He was always either working in the woods or out with Mei.
Mei was another story, we saw her all the time. She came to visit her family working at Breadcrumbs on a regular basis, but I think it was just a weak excuse to spy on us. Whenever she wasn't nagging us at work, though, she was at our house, chastising us for coming home late, treating her with disrespect, or any other silly reason she could think up. It was exhausting and Shang and I grew into the habit of sneaking in through our bedroom window so we wouldn't have to encounter her.
Shang and I both had different reasons for working at Breadcrumbs, but we shared one main goal: help earn money for the family. I'd had a job working a booth in the village, but apparently, I was too "cynical" and didn't work well with the customers. My employment had only lasted two weeks. Shang had little ways of picking up money here and there. He often tried to perform in the city streets, but that usually just got him into trouble.
But even though helping my family stay afloat was important to me, I had one driving motivation that kept me working at Breadcrumbs: I wanted a gown.
It was the first year my dad promised I could go to the annual peace festival ball. He'd even bought me a train ticket to New Beijing in advance. I'd read many of the blog posts about previous balls of years past on all the gossip websites before, but I'd never been to one. The only problem I seemed to be facing was my lack of proper dress.
No one would be let in looking like a raggedy hoodlum, I needed a gown, and I'd had my sights set on the exact one for a year. It was from Cho's Seamstress shop in the marketplace. She made the most stunning dresses, and her crown jewel was the high-collared, red satin gem that stood on display in the shop's window. It was over 1,500 univs, far too much for anyone in Shílín. It's a poor town, full of miners and woodsmen, like my father, who work out in what's left of the forests. The only people who could afford a ball gown like Cho's lived on the other side of town, where Breadcrumbs was, and none of the privileged rich snobs would even dare to sully their feet by stepping in our marketplace. Thus, the dress had been untouched, sitting in the display window for more than a year, collecting dust. Before working at Breadcrumbs, I'd managed to save up a couple hundred univs, but other than that, I'd have to earn the rest from what little I could save of my Breadcrumbs wages, and most of that went to keeping the house in order, and food on the table.
After a few weeks of working at breadcrumbs, father announced that Mei would be moving in with us officially. As if she hadn't already with all the redecorating she'd been doing around our house. Shang groaned, "But dad, she doesn't even have a job, we can barely afford to feed the three of us and now she's going to move in, too?!"
Dad scowled, "We are very lucky to have Mei, she comes from a wealthy family and she loves all of us very much. You should stop whining and be thankful she thought I was cute." He turned to Mei and grinned. She muffled a giggle and pecked him on the cheek.
I wanted to barf, I hadn't seen my dad act like a googly-eyed teenager since mom was alive. Shang stood beside me, grimacing. "You've got to be kidding me!" he wailed, once we'd returned to our room. "Stars above, she's horrible! She's so rude to him, always patronizing us and putting us down. Why doesn't he see how bad she is?"
I collapsed on my bed. "He's a guy. All he sees is her pretty face and giant boobs. Besides, he's probably just happy he can find a girl who will want him. I love dad and everything, but he's always so depressed and mopey."
"Yeah, I guess," Shang mumbled, "Still, I wish he could've found a nice woman with money, rather than a stupid, mean one with money."
Our lives continued in a similar fashion. Only now, Mei was worse than ever. She even made our father get rid of all our pictures of mom. "You think I want to see her, here? She's all over the house, Damian! Do you want me to feel worthless? Like I'm your mistress?" She'd screeched.
As if her logic was somehow flawless, our dad agreed and succumbed to her will. He became her dog, doing anything she'd ask.
I thought everyone might be a little cheerier once I'd earned the 1,500 univs I needed for the dress, but the second I brought it home, Mei looked at it with disgust and pinched the delicate satin bodice with two sharp black talons. "Who said you could buy this? We all know you couldn't possibly afford a dress, even this trash! Did you steal from me? Hm?" she snarled. "Is that how you bought this piece of garbage?" She ripped it from my hands in anger and I never saw it again.
I tried to tell father, but she got to him first, blabbering about my ungratefulness, my robbery. I was so close to losing it, even Shang was furious.
But then everything changed.
Shang and I were kidnapped.
