Eternity
(Based on "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen)
Retold by
Nana
(A Kagome x Inu Yasha fairy tale, told in seven stories)
Story 1
The Broken Mirror
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Author's Notes: "The Snow Queen" is one of Hans Christian Andersen's well-known fairy tales that I happened to come across a week ago, and some of the story's details had such startling parallelisms with that of Inu Yasha that I felt it was worth giving it a shot and turning it into another fractured fairy tale.^^
This time, though, I decided to try my hand at an Inu/Kag story--a pairing that I have long neglected. I hope this little fairy tale twist will make up for my lapse. The story will also involve other characters as it goes along, among them my favorite pairing of all time MiroSan, so I hope there will be something for everyone. I hope you all enjoy! Reviews are very welcome.
Disclaimer: The characters of Inu Yasha belong to Rumiko Takahashi, and story concept of "The Snow Queen" to H.C. Andersen, as translated by Erik Christian Haugaard.
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All right, we will start this story as all fairy tales must…
Once upon a time, there was a powerful demon--the most evil demon of all--and he was called Naraku.
Naraku apparently was no ordinary monster. He had succeeded where all others of his kind had failed; he had aspired to become the ultimate pest that God and all His good creatures could ever withstand. He had in him not just malice, but the power to make this malice manifest in the most cruel and unusual ways.
Proof of his evil genius lay in his inventions. On the day our story started, he was feeling particularly pleased with himself. He had just finished his most creative contraption ever--a mirror that had the strange, awful power to distort anything good that was reflected on its surface. All good and wondrous things would appear horrid before this orb of polished glass; and all things evil and worthless would take on a most attractive, important appearance.
It had, among its features, the power to wreak confusion and panic, for how would one feel if one were to take a glimpse of oneself in this magical mirror and find--not the usual image one sees--but a distorted, diseased being riddled with loathing? It was a hateful mirror, filled with the capacity to corrupt the soul.
Needless to say, Naraku thought he had outdone himself this time.
"It is a most amusing mirror," he proclaimed as he beheld his distorted visage from the glass. Through the mirror, Naraku would appear as an exceptionally handsome youth, though the smile on his reflection's lips was enough to show the owner's true nature. Perhaps what delighted him most about this mirror was that if a good or kind thought ever passed through the mind of the beholder, a most horrible grin would appear on the reflected face in the glass.
But what were inventions for, if one were to be selfish enough to keep it only to oneself? Of course, the mirror was designed for grand plans, and Naraku was intent on using it to fulfill his wishes. There would be an entire Heaven to conquer, but first, a little bit of fun. After all, it wasn't every day that one could make people see what humanity--and all the world, for that matter--really looked like below the surface.
And so the demon decided to take his treasure out for a test drive. Naraku and his minions ran all over the world with the mirror, until there was not a single being spared from being reflected and distorted in it.
The game was fun while it lasted, but the prank soon lost its novelty.
At last, they decided it was high time to pay Heaven and God a visit. All together, they carried the massive looking glass high up, up into the sky. As they got nearer their destination, the mirror began to laugh. The laughter grew as they got higher--until it became violent, so violent that all the youkai could hardly hold onto the mirror as it shook in their hands.
Finally, they could hold onto it no longer. The mirror slipped from their grasp and fell. Halfway through the sky, it broke apart into millions and millions of small pieces.
It was here that trouble really started.
If Naraku were to know that this was only the beginning of his mirror's infamous career. For although he had not succeeded in conquering Heaven that day, he could not have thought of a better way to disseminate trouble the way the mirror had done for him.
The pieces flew with the winds and spread to cover the entire world; some of the splinters were so small they were really nothing but specks in the air, as light as sand grains. Small as they would seem, though, each splinter carried within it the evil power of the full mirror. When a sliver entered the eye, it would stay there, thus cursing that person to forever see the world as a distorted, hateful place.
And should a fragment enter the heart…ah, what would a shard of the broken mirror do to kill off love?
Thus, our story begins as the broken shards were still flying through the air. Pretty soon, we shall hear more about them.
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More Author's Notes: Does the mirror remind us of the shikon no tama, or what?^____________^ Anyways, this will be the full extent of Naraku's involvement in the entire story. Chapter 2 will be more interesting (and longer), I promise.
Cherry Mecha: In your review of chapter 1 of The Riddle, you asked after Kagome. Unfortunately, I could not insert more IY/K scenes in that story after the first chapter. This fairy tale is intended to start where The Riddle left off, this time with Kagome and Inu Yasha as the main characters.^^