dancingcurse

The Dancing Curse

Disclaimer: This is slightly based off of Robin McKinley's short story, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but only slightly. Resemblance between the two is slight and her version of the story belongs to her. I did change it, though. Also, I do not own this fairy tale.

It all began with Mother's death. She had been ill for a long time... some sort of wasting disease, so the healer's said, but never with much conviction in their voices. It all began with watching part of Father die. The bad news just accumulated, and we heard his booming laugh less and less often. It all began one night.....

I was in my nightgown, about to blow out the candle and go to sleep... to forget again how sad my life had suddenly become... when there was an earthquake. At least, it seemed like an earthquake: the floor tossed and turned like someone trying to sleep; I could barely stand up straight, but all without the sounds one would expect to hear with an earthquake. And suddenly, the floor stopped tossing. But instead of my bed, there was an enormous cavernous hole that seemed to disappear into unknown depths...
I shrank back from the unknown, but suddenly I heard laughter from that hole... not demonic laughter, no, not yet, but the silvery tinkly laughter that meant my youngest sister, Nathie. Listening harder, I could also hear my other sisters, all ten of them, laughing merrily... and something else, I could not tell what. Still I shrank from the hole, but my curiosity (something that I had not experienced for months, since my mother's death) brought me to the edge. There were five golden stairs leading down to a pier. I stepped down and found myself wearing a beautiful dress, bright and shining, and my delicate dancing shoes. They were a delicate lavender, I remember. The dress exactly matched my shoes, with a precision impossible to find with the dressmaker's of the capital. I continued down, and at the bottom found that along with my 11 sisters, there were 12 men, all dressed in black. They seemed to be a part of the shadows, and I did not like their looks, although they were by far the handsomest men I'd seen in my life. All my sisters were dressed, likewise, in dresses that exactly matched their dancing shoes- pink, baby blue, minty green, pale yellow, bright fuschia, magenta, bright red (that being Nathie), deeper blue, lilac, orange-pink, and a somber greyish purple. This last belonged to my second sister, Camille, the one who was closest to my Mother, although we had all been close to her.
Oh, look! Fiona's finally arrived! Nathie's childish cry of delight seemed to splinter the surrounding darkness and the twelve dark men finally moved. They moved with a grace that was beyond anything I'd ever seen; that and their faces would cause them to be the desire of many a girl, but something about their remoteness repelled me even more. Even my sisters, some of whom, I'll easily admit, are rather silly, looked slightly askance at these visions. They each came up to one of us and took our arms, and then walked us to a pavilion. Behind the pavilion a palace appeared... it was ten times the size of our palace, which was reputed to be the finest on the entire continent! It seemed to be built entirely of spun sugar, except that the sugar was also the color of the deepest shadows, like that of the beautiful men.
As we entered the pavilion, a dazzling music struck up, music that would make men weep, and even go mad. To our ears, however, it was worthless; we had left our hearts and our tears on the surface of the earth... we would never weep here. The men gently brought us all to the dancing floor, and we began to dance. My young man was a few inches taller than me, causing me to have to tilt my head up at the exact angle that was most becoming- looking around, all my sisters had the same height difference. We danced for hours, and yet they passed as minutes, and yet they passed with no pleasure. Finally, the music stopped, and the men escorted us back to the golden stair that led up to our respective rooms. Before we were allowed to leave, however, my young man took me aside.
You are so beautiful, he sighed. He didn't seem to realize that he was also the most beautiful of men. I hope you will be happy here... it will take a while for you to be able to stay here forever... five years at least. Please don't be impatient.
I don't understand.... I was puzzled, and a small sliver was being stabbed into my heart, creating a hole that was easily enlarged.
My eleven brothers and I have chosen the twelve most beautiful sisters to be our wives... in five years we will celebrate our wedding in the dancing pavilion of our palace. We saw your portraits in the waters, and our mother agreed to get you for us. He didn't seem to understand what this meant to us.
But, but.... my youngest is only twelve at present! She is much too young to be betrothed! And what will Father say?
Oh, but you can't tell him anything. It is to be a secret, kept by all twelve of you. I will see you tomorrow. And he turned to leave. Then, suddenly, he turned back. My name is Daniel.
I nodded, and left.
Back up in my room, I saw that my slippers were worn completely through. I hid them under my bed, and changed the lavender dress for my nightgown. The dress I stuffed in the back of my closet. I fell onto my bed, finally into sweet oblivion, as the sun began to peek over the horizon.
I awoke fully rested only a few hours later, upon hearing the shouts of surprise at discovering our beautiful dancing slippers completely worn through.

A/N Please review! I'm not going to continue unless I get some good feedback!